Graduate Course Descriptions

Summer/Fall 2024

LITERATURE

All LITERATURE classes are open to students in any English program on a first-come, first-served basis. Register on CatsWeb. Waitlists for Literature courses are managed on CatsWeb. You may add your name to the waitlist if the class is full. If a space opens in a course, the first person on the list will be notified and has 24 hours to register for the course. For details, see the Registrar’s Waitlist information. Contact malit@txstate.edu with questions.

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

Only MFA students may enroll in courses offered by the MASTER OF FINE ARTS (MFA) program. MFA students must request MFA courses via an online form, which will be emailed to them by 03/07 Additionally, the following descriptions do not include sections of ENG 5315 (Workshop). These descriptions will be provided to MFA students via email. Contact Stan Rivkin (mfinearts@txstate.edu) with questions.

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION

All courses are open to MARC students, on a first-come, first-served basis. Register on CatsWeb as soon as registration opens to secure your spot. Contact graduate assistant Clarice Blanco (marc@txstate.edu) with questions about MARC courses. Contact Dr. Eric Leake (eleake@txstate.edu) with advising/degree audit questions. Instructions for non-MARC students: Contact Dr. Flore Chevaillier (fc@txstate.edu) to be added to course wait lists. To allow new MARC students to enroll in courses, non-MARC students will be informed of the possibility to take MARC courses at least a month prior to classes starting in the Fall. Note: MARC courses wait lists are not managed on CatsWeb—they are managed by the MARC Program Director and Dr. Flore Chevaillier.

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

All courses are open to MATC students, on a first-come, first-served basis. Register on CatsWeb as soon as registration opens to secure your spot. Contact Dr. Chris Dayley (c_d470@txstate.edu) with advising/degree audit questions. Instructions for non-MATC students: Contact Dr. Flore Chevaillier (fc@txstate.edu) to be authorized to add an MATC course. To allow new MATC students to enroll in courses, non-MATC students will be informed of the possibility to take MATC courses a month prior to classes starting in the Fall. Note: MATC courses wait lists are not managed on CatsWeb—they are managed by the MATC Program director and Dr. Flore Chevaillier.

If you are not sure about the method of delivery (online, online asynchronous, face-to-face), contact the instructor for the course to confirm.

Registration begins on Monday March 28th.

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  • ENG 5301.001: Literary Scholarship - M 6:30-9:20pm, FH 257

    CRN#: 10300

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Simon Lee

    Description/Goals: This seminar familiarizes participants with the practices and principles of graduate-level work in English. We'll review the origins of the discipline while talking about the directions it’s headed. We'll analyze forms and genres of scholarly writing while considering the kinds of venues well-suited for literary analysis. We'll survey formative schools of critical theory while test-driving cutting-edge methodologies. And we’ll "talk shop"—meaning, we'll discuss the various tools, apps, devices, resources, and methods favored by folks in the field. Assuming that there’ll be a range of interests and needs among participants, it’s safe to assume that content will remain somewhat iterative and perennially TBD. That said, the seminar should act as a kind of Swiss Army Knife for graduate study in English in the present day.

    Books: Also very much TBD, but somewhat likely to include texts like: Hayot, Eric. The Elements of Academic Style. Columbia UP, 2014; Parker, Robert. How to Interpret Literature. Oxford UP, 2019; Semenza, Gregory. Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave, 2005.

    Evaluation: Facilitation / Written Projects / Participation / Zeal

    Office: FH222

    Office Phone: 512-245-8231 (I wouldn’t place much faith in this)

    Email: simonlee@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5302.001: Temporalities - T 6:30-9:20pm, FH 130

    CRN#: 14413

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Kathleen McClancy

    Description/Goals: Time travel. Alternate histories. Parallel universes. Despite relativity theory, time remains stubbornly vectorized—except, of course, in fiction. In books, films, comics, and video games, we can escape the tyranny of the fourth dimension. This class will consider the attraction of non-linear narrative’s creation and detangling of temporality. At the same time, we will investigate how different media create, modify, or undo time itself.

    Books: Various critical readings. Primary texts may or may not include: Dick, The Man in the High Castle; Wells, The Time Machine; Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five; and Butler, Kindred; the films Rashomon (1950), The Terminator (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Groundhog Day (1993) Memento (2000), Donnie Darko (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Dunkirk (2017), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019); the comics X-Men: Days of Future Past, Watchmen, and Paper Girls; and episodes of Star Trek and Rick and Morty.

    Evaluation: Papers.

    Office: M24.

    Phone: 512-245-3777

    Email: kmcclancy@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5311.001: Foundations in Technical Communication - Online

    CRN#: 10301

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Christopher Dayley

    Course Description/Goals: Foundations in technical communication is a graduate level course meant to give students a broad understanding of the field of technical communication as both an academic and a professional discipline. In this course students will:

    • Study the history of technical and professional communication
    • Learn practical technical communication skills and how to apply them
    • Learn academic and professional research methods
    • Apply basic theoretical concepts related to technical and professional communication

    As an asynchronous online course, students will participate in online discussions and will be assigned group work that must be done remotely.

    For more information contact Dr. Christopher Dayley at c_d470@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5312.001: Editing the Professional Publication--Porter House Review - Online

    CRN#: 10302

    Program: MFA

    Instructor: Amanda Scott

    Course Description: This course will provide a combination of theoretical background and practical, hands-on experience in the field of literary magazine editing and publishing. As an editorial staff, students will work together to produce Porter House Review, Texas State University’s graduate literary journal. Duties involved in the production of the journal include soliciting and evaluating submissions, contributing original content, editing and proofreading, research, budget management, web design, public relations, and more.

    During the course of the semester, students will:

    • Learn about key aspects of contemporary literary magazine publishing—its history, production, the editorial process, and more.
    • Produce Porter House Review, fulfilling the following duties: reading, tracking, and responding professionally to submissions of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and contributing original content, including interviews, reviews, and blog content.
    • Develop professional skills in literary and digital publishing, and prepare for possible employment in publishing or arts administration.
    • Contribute to the overall achievement of the course mission and goals through self-directed research and development projects.

    Books: TBD

    Evaluation:

    • Participation & Attendance (10%)
    • Evaluation of Submissions (15%)
    • Contribution of Original Content (20%)
    • Weekly Topics & Discussion (15%)
    • Editorial Apprenticeship/Special Projects (20%)
    • End-of-Semester Project (20%)

    Office: LAMP 309H

    Phone: (512) 245-6220

    E-Mail: aes126@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5312.002: Editing the Professional Publication - TR 3:30-4:50pm, Online

    CRN#: 10303

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: William Jensen

    Description: This course provides students the opportunity to write, select, and edit material for publication. Students will work as part of an editorial team on all stages of the publication process. They will learn how to write and revise book reviews of publishable quality. They will correspond with authors, evaluate submissions, and learn the daily operations of two print journals: Texas Books in Review, which monitors the literary production of books from or about Texas, and Southwestern American Literature, which showcases contemporary writing and scholarship concerning the Greater Southwest. This course also offers practical experience working with desktop publishing software (Adobe InDesign/Photoshop).

    Goals: Students will read and vote on submissions to Southwestern American Literature, line edit selected works, and write one book review. With hands on experience, the students will gain a deeper understanding of what is required to work for a publication.

    Books: No books are required, but reading assignments will be handed out in class or posted on CANVAS.

    Format: Primarily discussion, with brief various projects.

    Evaluation: This is a pass/fail course

    Email: wj13@txstate.edu

    Office: Brazos 220

  • ENG 5313.002: Ethics in Technical Communication - Online

    CRN#: 18991

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Miriam F. Williams

    Description: Students will be introduced to theories and philosophies of ethics from various disciplines. Students will use case studies in technical communication to negotiate these theories and solve ethical dilemmas and conflicts.

    Goal: To provide students with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas in technical communication.

    Readings: No textbook required. Students will read peer-reviewed journal articles, which are available online via the Texas State Library databases. Students will also read discussions of ethical dilemmas in online trade publications, news articles, and social media threads and posts.

    Meeting Dates/Times: Course Taught Completely Online & Asynchronous (i.e., no meeting times or date of the week)

    Evaluation:

    Case Study Responses: 20%

    Readings Responses: 20%

    Short Paper Investigating Ethics and Social Media: 20%

    Short Paper Investigating Ethics in Science & Medicine: 20%

    Short Paper Investigating Ethics in Technology & Design: 20%

    Contact: mfw@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5314.001: Visual Rhetoric - Online

    CRN#: 15549

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Pinfan Zhu

    Description/Goals: This is an asynchronous online class. It teaches how rhetoric is applied in creating and interpreting visuals and images. The world today is full of visual images. Mass media such as television, cinemas, films, magazines, advertisements, internet, billboards, advertisement, books, videocassettes, etc., are all inalienable from visuals. In technical communication, use of visuals is even more important. Few technical documents or presentations could be considered as effective without the help of visual elements. Naturally, it is important that we learn to use visuals effectively. The goals of English 5313, Visual Rhetoric, are to develop students' visual intelligence and train their visual literacy so that they are able to properly interpret, critically analyze, and effectively use visuals both in technical communication and other fields. Specifically, students will learn principles of visual perceptions such as Gestalt theories, the use of rhetorical theories, semiotic theory to interpret, analyze, and create visuals. They will also understand the rhetoric of images and design, as well as visual rhetoric of argumentation and visual rhetoric of cultures. Topics cover the study of document layouts, typographic applications, and the interpretation and analysis of images. On the whole, the course will be interesting and practical. I hope you will enjoy yourself immensely by taking this course.

    Books: Charles Kostelnick Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators,2nd ed.

    Carolyn Handa. Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. A Critical Source Book. 2004. Online readings.

    Evaluation: Reading Responses 15%; Exercises from chapters 15%; Forum Responses 10%; Two short analytical papers 20%; Graphic and image projects 15%; Quizzes 10%; Document Design Project 15%

    Phone: (512) 245 -3013

    Office: Room 018, Flowers

    Email: pz10@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5314.501: Research Communication (Summer 2022: 5/31-7/1) - Online

    CRN#: 51890

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Aimee Roundtree

    Description/Goals: This online course examines the ways in which scholarly information is produced, disseminated, and evaluated. Challenges, trends, and opportunities will be examined, including open access, peer review, responsible authorship and publication, and various models for the dissemination. The course covers best practices in research ethics, writing and editing, methods reporting, and practical genres such as book reviews and proposals. The course will guide students through the process of writing and publishing research, presenting research at conferences, promoting research, and writing proposals for research funding. Students will receive feedback and will be expected to provide constructive feedback to others in the course. The course will help students complete their research-specific communication tasks. The course also includes service-learning opportunities with research-related units at Texas State University. Students can work to complete a journal article, book review, conference paper, proposal, etc.

    They can make progress on their dissertation, prospectus, or other personal projects. They can help advance and promote research at Texas State University.

    Assignments:

    • Article
    • Research Proposal or Report
    • Presentation
    • Peer Review
    • Reading Responses
    • Book Review (optional)

    Readings:

    • A guide to argumentative research writing and thinking (2017)
    • Composing Research, Communicating Results: Writing the Communication Research Paper (2018)
    • Creating winning grant proposals: a step-by-step guide (2019)
    • Scholarly communication: what everyone needs to know (2018)
    • Other readings as assigned

     

    Office: FH 313

    Phone: 512.245.2317

    Email: akr@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5316.001: Cultural Rhetorics - M 6:30-9:20pm, FH G04

    Note: This course fulfills degree requirements for the MATC and the MARC programs, but MATC students need to be authorized to register. Please email Flore Chevaillier for an authorization (fc@txstate.edu).

    CRN#: 15550

    Program: Rhetoric and Composition

    Instructor: Dr. Octavio Pimentel

    Description: Rhetoric is commonly described as the creation and analysis of an act of communication and thought to persuade others. Classical rhetoric is usually thought of as the art of persuasion, and most often is studied in terms of speech or writing. Jay Dolmage sees rhetoric as the strategic study of the circulation of power through communication. Ralph Cintron writes, “For Aristotle, teckhne, ‘art’ or ‘craft,’ was associated with a ‘reasoned habit of mind in making something.’” Similarly, Malea Powell argues that we must move from a narrow definition of rhetoric to include “things” and their makings,” which I take to mean, “anything that sends a message.” In this class, our particular focus on cultural rhetorics means exploring the intersections of rhetorics, and cultures. We will read about and examine the relationships of rhetoric to race, ethnicity, cultures, gender, class, and so on to understand rhetoric’s relationship to these constructions and how they intersect and relate to one another.

    Required Text:

    Alexander, Michelle. “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - 10th Anniversary Edition.” New Press, 2020. ISBN-13: 978-1620971932

    Enoch, Jessica and Nelsen, Karen. “Feminist Circulations: Rhetorical Explorations across Space and Time.” Parlor Press, 2021. ASIN: B097KKCC45

    Flores, Lisa A. “Deportable and Disposable: Public Rhetoric and the Making of the ‘Illegal’ Immigrant” (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation). State College, Penn State University, 2021. ISBN-13: 978-0271087894

    Gilyard, Keith and Banks Adam J. “On African-American Rhetoric.”  Routledge, 2018. ISBN-13: 978-1138090446

    Format: Primarily discussion, with some background lectures and presentations by students and instructor. Because of the seminar format, well-informed and thoughtful discussion is expected of all participants.

    Evaluation: Midterm Paper 30%; Final Paper 40%; Multimedia Presentation 20%; Class Presentations 10%

    Office Phone: 512.245.3723 

    For More Information: Octavio.Pimentel@txstate.edu

    Fall Office Hours: Flowers 215, Monday 3-5pm and by appointment

     

  • ENG 5317.001: Writing Center Studies - T 6:00-8:50pm, FH G06B

    CRN#: 14415

    Program: Rhetoric and Composition

    Instructor: Dr. Rebecca Jackson

    Description: Writing center work is understood primarily as a set of practices—that is, as the actual work we do when we sit down with writers (or engage with them online) in the writing center setting. Equally important, however, is the understanding that writing center practices arise from and are shaped by theories and research in a number of disciplines, including writing center studies, composition, rhetoric, and psychology. This relationship is reciprocal. Theory and research refine and shape writing center practices; writing center practices refine and shape theory and research. In fact, much recent work in writing center studies challenges firmly- entrenched ideas about writing centers and urges us to think and move and research beyond the boundaries the discipline has established for itself.

    We will begin the course with theory, research, and practice that has defined writing centers to date. We will spend most of our time, however, examining work in the field that challenges our field’s dominant narratives and maps a reinvigorated approach to theory, theorizing, research, and practice (scholarship on writing center work as “emotional labor,” for example, critical readings of the writing center community’s focus on one-to-one tutoring, and calls for anti-racist foundations and practices).

    Required Texts may include the following:

    • Caswell, Nicole, Jackie Grutsch McKinney, and Rebecca Jackson. The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors. Utah State UP, 2016.
    • Eodice, Michelle, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth Boquet. The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice. Logan Utah State UP, 2007. Print.
    • Greenfield, Laura. Radical Writing Center Practice. Utah State UP, 2019.
    • Grimm, Nancy Maloney. Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1999. Print.
    • Hall, Mark. Around the Texts of Writing Center Work: An Inquiry Based Approach to Tutor Education. Logan: Utah State UP, 2017.
    • McKinney, Jackie Grutsch. Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers. Logan: Utah State UP, 2013. Print.
    • McKinney, Jackie Grutsch. Strategies for Writing Center Research. Forthcoming from Parlor Press. Print.
    • Rafoth, Ben. Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers. Logan: Utah State UP, 2015. Print.
    • Rousculp, Tiffany. Rhetoric of Respect. NCTE, 2014,
    • Articles on CANVAS

    Course Goals: By semester’s end, students should be able to

    • Map key conversations in writing center theory, practice, and research as these have played out over the last 25 years or so
    • Discuss issues and practices central to writing center administration
    • Understand and advance approaches to administrative issues and challenges that recognize the local contexts within which particular writing centers exist
    • Contribute to writing center conversations of particular interest to you

    Format: Small and large group discussion; student-led discussion facilitation; brief lecture

    Evaluation: Discussion facilitation, reading responses, writing center profile, tutor/administrator observations, seminar paper

    For more information, please contact Dr. Jackson at rj10@txstate.edu.

  • ENG 5317.002: Empathy and Writing - R 6:00-9:20pm, FH 257

    CRN#: 18990

    Program: Rhetoric and Composition

    Instructor: Dr. Eric Leake

    Description: In this course we will examine the relationships between writing and empathy. Empathy works to connect and persuade people, often through texts. It is supposed to foster more compassionate and socially aware citizens. At the same, empathy is subject to critique for its many biases and limitations. We will begin by considering empathy as a psychological and philosophical concept and as a means of understanding, identifying, and feeling with others. We then will examine discussions and uses of empathy in a variety of genres for how it affects readers and writers. Areas of consideration include, but are not limited to, the work of narrative empathy in fiction, rhetorical empathy as a means of persuasion, practices of critical empathy, cultural differences in theories of empathy, and the pedagogical uses of empathy. This course is designed to appeal to students in all areas of English studies, as empathy is a critical concept for writers, readers, and teachers alike.

    Goals: Students will demonstrate familiarity with key concepts of empathy in psychology, philosophy, and writing studies. They will analyze empathic moves in a variety of texts. They will be able to account for the possibilities and limitations of empathy as a pedagogical method and goal. Finally, students will design and complete a graduate-level final paper or creative project based on their interests in empathy and writing.

    Books (tentative):

    Blankenship, Lisa. Changing the Subject: A Theory of Rhetorical Empathy. Utah State UP, 2019. Hoffman, Martin. Empathy and Moral Development. Cambridge UP, 2000.

    Jamison, Leslie. The Empathy Exams. Graywolf Press, 2014.

    Format: Weekly reading responses, class discussions, and writing groups.

    Evaluation: Reading responses, personal essay, empathy analysis, and final project.

    Email: eleake@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5321.001: Queer & Feminist Literature: Intimate Encounters - F 12:30-3:20pm, FH G04

    CRN#: 14414

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Ruben Zeneca

    Description/Goals: This seminar gestures towards the intimate encounter between contemporary queer and feminist literature. We will delve into the lives of queers, feminists, and killjoys who question the fantasy of the “good life”; subjects whose lives do not follow straight or linear temporalities. We will read articles and excerpts from theoretical companions that consist of Audre Lorde, José Esteban Muñoz, Sara Ahmed, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Lauren Berlant, Saidiya Hartman, amongst many (because the more the merrier). These theorists will ask us to linger with forbidden or unspoken desires, fantasies, and queer intimacies, taking note of how queerness and feminism can emerge through the very textuality of the text. Thus, we will become intimate with form and how it informs our reading experience. To partake in this intimate encounter between queer and feminist literature, the seminar will ask for reading practices that do not expect the expected (those paranoid readings that limit our fields of perception). As Sedgwick gestures, we will allow ideas and readings to “sit freely in the palm of our open hand.” Consider this course description as an invitation into queer and feminists wor(l)ds.

    Books: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Fiebre Tropical by Julián Delgado Lopera, Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman, The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara, Mosquita y Mari directed by Aurora Guerrero (film), and High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez.

    Evaluation: Discussion leading, Theory in the Flesh Paper, and Final Project (creative or seminar paper)

    Office: Flowers Hall 249

    Phone: (512) 245-7697

    Email: rzecena@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5324.001: Development of Fantasy - W 6:30-9:20pm, FH G04

    CRN#: 18989

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Teya Rosenberg

    Description/Goals: Fantasy as an element within literature has existed since the earliest stories: folktales, legend, myths. Fantasy as a distinct genre is a more recent development, generally thought of developing in tandem with the rise of the novel during the nineteenth century and as a reaction to the rise of realism as a privileged form. It has many variations and sub-genres, including high fantasy, time slip, magical realism, portal fantasy, weird fiction, and so on. This course examines the development of the fantasy genre, exploring historical contexts, cultural concerns, and literary conventions of a selection of famous and not-so-well- known fantasy texts. There will be a mix of primary texts (novels and short stories) and secondary texts: articles, chapters, and excerpts about the history and theory of fantasy.

    Primary Texts: Authors under consideration include: Lord Dunsany; Diana Wynne Jones; Stephen King; H.P. Lovecraft; George MacDonald; E. Nesbit; Nnedi Okorafor; Terry Pratchett; Shaun Tan; J.R.R Tolkien; Horace Walpole; H.G. Wells; etc.

    Secondary texts: writings by George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Brian Attebery, Kathryn Hume, Farah Mendlesohn, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and others.

    Format: Mostly discussion and student presentations accompanied by lecture on background and history.

    Evaluation: One presentation: introduce, focus, and lead class discussion on a topic or literary work (15%); short paper (6-8 pages) based on seminar (15%); lead discussion of one critical article (15%); research paper (15-20 pages; 25%) plus a proposal and annotated bibliography (10%); weekly reading responses (20%).

    For more information See Dr. Rosenberg in FH 358

    E-mail: tr11@txstate.edu

    Telephone: 245-7685

    Fall Office Hours: M 1:00-3:00 or by appointment

     

  • ENG 5331.001: T.S. Eliot - T 6:30-9:20pm, FH 376

    CRN#: 13928

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. John Blair

    Description/Goals: T.S. Eliot, the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the giants of modern literature, and though his legacy is sometimes colored by his social and political views, his influence and importance in the literary canon is undeniable. This seminar will entail a comprehensive exploration of Eliot’s poetry, plays, and critical work as well as discussion of the extensive scholarly responses to his work.

    Books: All of the primary texts for this class are available online.

    Evaluation: Grades will be based on participation (50%) and a final critical/analytical essay (50%)

    Office: FH 216

    Phone: 512 246 3722

    Email: jblair@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5332.001: Moby-Dick in Its World - M 6:30-9:20pm, FH G04

    CRN#: 18988

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Robert T. Tally Jr.

    Description: In a June 29, 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville—in the final throes of writing his most ambitious work—made a tantalizing offer:

    Shall I send you a fin of the Whale by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked – though the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this. This is the book’s motto (the secret one), – Ego non baptiso te in nomine – but make out the rest yourself.

    Melville dedicated his diabolical book to Hawthorne, “in token of my admiration for his genius,” thus registering Melville’s own aspirations for a work that would far exceed his five earlier books in aesthetic power, among other things. If modern Shakespeares could already be emerging in the contemporary United States, as he’d put it in an 1850 essay, then Melville was putting his own name in for consideration. 

    A novel “about the whole world” (as Edward Said once put it), Moby-Dick invites us to explore its “outrageous comprehensiveness” – “the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs” – while also meditating on the minutest details, which themselves lend richness and wonder to the wide world. With Moby-Dick, the adventure of an Ishmael, or Ahab, Starbuck, Queequeg, and the others, intertwines with the poetic and philosophical mapping of a global system in which the lineaments of our own world can be discerned as well. As the great Trinidadian critic C.L.R. James asserted: “The miracle of Herman Melville is this: that a hundred years ago in two novels, Moby-Dick and Pierre, and two or three stories, he painted a picture of the world in which we live, which is to this day unsurpassed.”

    Goals: (1) To read and analyze Moby-Dick; (2) to become acquainted with research in Melville studies and, by extension, U.S. and world literature more generally; (3) to understand the novel’s the literary, social, and historical background; and (4) to explore the lasting significance of Moby-Dick today.

    Required Books: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale [ISBN: 9780142437247] and Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories [9780143107606]; C.L.R. James, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In [9781584650942]; Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael (Martino 2015 [9781614279075]; plus other readings to be determined.

    Evaluation: Based on overall contributions, but roughly distributed as follows: brief in-class presentations (35%), two short papers (40%), participation (5%), and final (20%).

    Office: Flowers M09

    For More Information: Email Professor Tally at robert.tally@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5333.001: Technical Video - Online

    CRN#: 12628

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Scott Mogull

    Description/Goals: In this course, students will learn to create professional-quality digital videos as technical communicators. Students should expect to plan and write short, but well- developed, video scripts. Specifically, this course will cover the following phases of video writing and production: (1) planning informative and instructional videos, (2) scriptwriting and storyboarding, (3) directing/acting and filming, and (4) video editing and distribution (focusing on sharing the video on the Web).

    This course will cover the following phases of video writing and production:

    • Conceptualizing effective instructional/informative videos (or “technical videos”)
    • Scriptwriting technical videos
    • Storyboarding technical videos
    • Video directing (and filming)
    • Video editing and relevant special effects to enhance communication
    • Video distribution (specifically posting the video on YouTube)

    Books: Readings from the technical communication literature (available through Canvas/Alkek Library). No textbook is planned at this time. Please check the Bookstore before Fall semester for any updates to the textbook.

    Additional technology requirements:

    • Video recording equipment for videos (smartphone cameras are permitted and used by most students). You may also checkout equipment from the Alkek One You Star Studio.
    • Basic video-editing software: Any software, such as iMovie for the Mac or MovieMaker for the PC, or access/learn more advanced video editing through Alkek One.
    • YouTube/Google Account (for posting of videos): https://studio.youtube.com
    • One additional video production software or technology (self-selected to be covered and presented as a video tutorial to the other students in the class)

    Note about technology: Students in this course are not required (or expected) to have any experience with video filming, digital editing software, or the online posting of video. However, as a technology course, students will be required to learn and use software and equipment to complete the assignments. Depending on your software availability and skill, students may use built-in sofware such as iMovie or MovieMaker or they may use advanced video-editing and get advanced assistance with video projects through Alkek One.

    Evaluation:

    Class Discussions and Quizzes

    25%

    Technology Presentation (5-8 min. technology tutorial)

    15%

    Practice Video (2-3 min. unscripted video practicing new technology)

    10%

    Technical Video (3-5 min. scripted video, includes concept, storyboard,

     

    script, and video)

    50%

    Office: FH 131

    Phone: (512) 408-3365

    Email: mogull@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5345.001: Southwestern Studies I: Defining the Region - TR 2:00-3:20pm, FH 224

    CRN#: 10306

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: William Jensen

    Course Description: This course is the first in a two-course sequence leading to a minor in Southwestern Studies, designed to examine the richness and diversity of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The course offers a multicultural focus by studying the region’s people, institutions, history, and physical and cultural ecology. An intercultural and interdisciplinary approach increases awareness of and sensitivity to the diversity of ethnic and cultural traditions in the area. Students will discover what distinguishes the Southwest from other regions of the United States, as well as its similarities, physically and culturally. The images, myths, themes, and perceptions of the region will be examined in light of historical and literary texts.

    Books: The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (available free online), Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 by David Montejano (University of Texas Press, 1987), and Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage International 1992).

    Evaluation: One major paper, one midterm, and a final exam. Graduate students must also give a formal fifteen-minute presentation.

    Email: wj13@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5353.001: Chaucer's ABC's - R 6:00-8:50pm, FH 302

    CRN#: 18987

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Leah Schwebel

    Description/Goals: This class will introduce you to Chaucer’s ABC’s—what I call his “All But the Canterbury Tales” poetry. Beginning with his juvenilia, those works most inflected by his encounter with the French poets, we will enter what many critics have called Chaucer’s Italian period, reading the House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, and the Parliament of Fowls. The latter part of the semester will be spent on two major works: Troilus and Criseyde and the oft- maligned Legend of Good Women. This course will give you an opportunity, then, to read those works by Chaucer that are, with the possible exception of the Troilus, less canonical than the Tales.

    Evaluation: Students will lead discussion once over the semester, compose three discussion posts pertaining to the course material, and write a final research paper on a topic of their choosing.

    For more information, contact Dr. Leah Schwebel at las235@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5353.501: Dante's Divine Comedy (Summer 2022: 5/31-7/1) - TR 5:00-9:20pm, Online

    CRN#: 50809

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Leah Schwebel

    Description: In this summer seminar, we will explore one of the greatest works of Western literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy, along with some of the more foundational readings of this work. Special attention will be given to Dante’s classical and contemporary sources, and to the historical, political, and literary context of the figures that populate Dante’s poetic world.

    Evaluation: Students will lead discussion once over the semester, compose three discussion posts pertaining to the course material, and write a final research paper on a topic of their choosing.

    Office: FH 365

    Phone: 512.245.3629

    Email: las235@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5354.001: Elizabethan Romance - W 6:30-9:20pm, FH 376

    CRN#: 16646

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Daniel Lochman

    Description/Goals: A study of canonical and non-canonical prose romances published in England during the Elizabethan period, with a focus on the last three decades of the 16th century. Drawing on ancient Greek and chivalric traditions, early modern romances flourished alongside and frequently merged with other genres to create works that experimented, sometimes radically, with narrative technique and style. Works by writers such as George Gascoigne, Margaret Tyler, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, and Philip Sidney invite us to re-think categories of genre as well as the aims and expectations of Elizabethan prose fiction, and they even anticipate the liberated playfulness of postmodern fiction. Elizabethan romances emerged together with a poetics that emphasized literature as (literally) moving readers to virtue through cognitive strategies we might call enactive and psychophysiological.

    Goals: To read closely and to learn, think, and write about Elizabethan romances as innovations in prose fiction, as artifacts of early modern culture, as examples of an emerging poetics as well as early modern craftsmanship and artistry, and as texts with enduring life and energy.

    Books: Geoerge Gascoigne, Adventures of Master F. J. (1573); Margaret Tyler (translator), The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (1578); Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy (1595) and The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593); Robert Greene, Pandosto: The Triumph of Time (1588); and Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (1590).

    Evaluation:    In-class presentation

    10%

    Close reading paper (1750 words)

    25%

    Annotated Bibliography

    15%

    Documented paper (2500-3000 words)

    35%

    Final Examination

    15%

    Office: FH 218

    Phone: 512-245-3478 or 512-245-2163 (main office)

    Email: dl02@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5359.001: The Early Novel - R 6:30-9:20pm, FH 253

    CRN#: 15551

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. James Reeves

    Description/Goals: In the first half of the twentieth century, critics like Georg Lukács and Ian Watt defined the novel in opposition to more traditional forms like epic and romance. For Watt, especially, the defining feature of the early novel was its thoroughgoing “realism.” In his influential account, the novel reflected and informed the nascent middle-class values of its earliest readers. Later critics built upon this assumption, providing their own unique assessments of what the early novel was and what it accomplished historically. For some, the early novel contributed to the dialectical process of secularization (Michael McKeon); for others, it “cannibalized” older generic forms, significantly altering—and superseding—them in the process (Terry Eagleton); still others point out the significant role it played in the development of modern nationalisms (Benedict Anderson); it has even been credited with the creation of the category of “fiction” itself (Catherine Gallagher). Despite their differences, however, these accounts all agree on one thing: the novel is the modern generic form par excellence.

    Crucially, this narrative of the novel’s (and thus “modernity's”) rise has not gone uncontested. For instance, one prominent critic has denounced such an understanding of literary history as a form of cultural chauvinism (Srinivas Aravamudan); to privilege the tradition of the western realist novel is to downplay equally important literary forms like the oriental tale, romances, didactic novels, and amatory fiction (Ros Ballaster). The novel’s “rise” is the result of historical contingency and cultural and political imperialism, not its essential superiority to other literary forms. These salient critiques raise a series of intriguing questions: What makes novels novel? How are novels distinct from other genres? What historical and cultural work do novels accomplish? What would a literary history of the novel look like if it privileged neither realism nor, paradoxically, the novel itself? What does our understanding of form and history tell us about our own political, cultural investments? In this course, we’ll provide tentative answers to these questions by focusing on a key moment in the novel’s rise: the early 18th century. Reading early novels alongside 18th-century spiritual autobiographies, oriental tales, romances, and so forth, we will gain a better understanding of the novel form, the period from which it emerged, and the many literary genres and forms that informed its controversial “rise.”

    Books: TBD, but will include authors such as John Bunyan, Antoine Galland, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Margaret Cavendish, Henry Fielding, and more, as well modern critics working in both 18th-century studies and the novel.

    Evaluation: One short (250-word) presentation in week 2; two fifteen-minute presentations/guided discussions; one seminar paper (12–15 pages)

    Office: FH 212

    Email: jreeves@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5371.001: Global Modernisms - T 6:00-8:50pm, FH 225

    CRN#: 15552

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Julie McCormick Weng

    Description/Goals: This course will study Global Modernisms, a series of transnational creative movements that took place (approximately) in the first half of the twentieth century. This period was marked world wars, anticolonial struggle, feminist movements, and more.

    Through our study of poetry, drama, and prose, we will trace modernism’s response to contemporaneous geopolitics, its preoccupation with the interior life of the human subject, and its formal experimentation, which was at the heart of the movement. We will consider what threads hold these diverse modernisms together. Are they linked by time period, literary style, humanistic philosophy, intercultural exchange, etc.?

    We will conclude our course with contemporary readings that ask us to consider the possibility of a late modernism that is still practiced by living writers today. As we read these authors, we will ask: is it possible for contemporary writers to be modernists?

    Books: TBA

    Evaluation: Essays, Presentations, Creative Final Project Option

    Email: julie.weng@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5383.001: History of Rhetorical Theory - W 6:30-9:20pm, FH 253

    Note: This course fulfills degree requirements for the MATC and the MARC programs. Students in both programs can add the course when registration opens.

    CRN#: 13929

    Program: Technical Communication

    Instructor: Dr. Deborah Balzhiser

    Description/Goals: This course examines the development and evolution of rhetorical theory from the classical era to the twentieth century. The course provides a broad view of rhetorical theory, an historical perspective that encompasses how rhetoric has been defined and practiced, how its definitions and practices have been challenged and changed, and how it affects the fields of rhetoric and composition and technical communication. Primarily we will read canonical texts but you are invited to bring in counter or additional perspectives each week.

    Rhetoric resides at the core of our understanding of writing and writing pedagogy; civic, professional, and institutional discourse; power, politics, participation, and voice. Rhetoric can even constitute, rather than merely reflect, reality. Studying rhetorical history, we come to understand the impact this history has on contemporary notions of writing, writing instruction, language, literacy, textual production, agency, power, and culture.

    The course revolves around the following central questions:

    What is rhetoric? What does rhetoric DO? What does it mean to answer the question “What is rhetoric?” How have aims, definitions, and uses of rhetoric changed and evolved? What do changes in aims, definitions, and uses of rhetoric suggest about the relationship between language and knowledge? What presence does rhetoric occupy in the study, teaching, and practice of composition and technical communication? Of what value is the study of rhetoric as both a discipline and a tool? Who is included in traditional history of rhetoric? Who has been excluded? How might traditional rhetorics and history of rhetorics be rewritten? How does rhetoric relate to truth? To knowledge? To ethics?

    This course focuses on primary texts but values secondary works. While this is a survey, one seminar does not provide anywhere near a complete picture of rhetorical theory in history or even within one historical movement. A “coverage model” is unrealistic. You will tour some important issues that you can revisit, if you so choose, at another time. You may bring in secondary works to challenge what we cover or explore more deeply. We will be doing a lot of reading and some of it may challenge you in ways that you are not used to texts challenging you.

    Books:

    •  
      • Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg (Eds.) The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. Current edition. Boston: Bedford, 2020.
      • Lucaites, John Louis, Celeste Michelle Condit, and Sally Caudill’s (Eds.) Contemporary Rhetorical Theory. Current edition. New York: Guilford, 2016.
      • Supplemental readings
      • Your work

    Evaluation: Weekly reading responses 20%; short texts 30%; peer discussion 20%; seminar text 30%

    Office: ASBN 101A

    Email: dbalzhiser@txstate.edu

     

  • ENG 5395.001: Writing for Television - W 6:30-9:20pm, FH G06B

    CRN#: 10309

    Program: MFA

    Instructor: Doug Dorst

    Course Description: This course is an intensive introduction to the craft and practice of writing for television. We’ll read and discuss many scripts, paying close attention to form, story structure, characterization, dialogue, setting, effective dramatization, and other elements. A significant portion of the class will be devoted to a writers’-room simulation in which, over the course of the semester, we will “break,” write, and workshop a short season of a serial drama. This course is open to all MFA students.

    For more details, contact Doug Dorst at dougdorst@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5395.002: The Alphabet of the Sacred: Poetics & Spirituality - M 6:30-9:20pm, Online

    CRN#: 12270

    Program: MFA

    Instructor: Cyrus Cassells

    Description: Using five major poetic sequences as focal points and an international array of individual poems, this course is designed to explore the diverse strategies poets have utilized to convey dimensions of the sacred beyond traditional notions of spirituality. If poetry is often viewed as the genre most capable of allowing us direct access to spiritual and emotional truths, and the poet as the cultural mediator between the human and the divine, how have poets risen to the challenge of bearing witness to life beyond the everyday? If, as the Irish writer Sean O’Faolain has asserted “all good writing in the end is the writer’s argument with God,” then how has that argument been expressed in verse?

    Goals: To give students a solid grasp of the tools inventive poets have wielded to negotiate the gap between language, which is inherently dualistic in nature, and spirituality, which often urges us beyond the self and duality toward oneness.

    Required Books: Carolyn Forche’s Blue Hour, T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets, Ellen Hinsey’s The White Fire of Time, Jane Hirshfield’s Women in Praise of the Sacred, Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Machu Picchu, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Selected Poems, The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry

    Evaluation: Take-home Midterm; joint presentations; end of semester paper

    Email: cc37@txstate.edu

  • ENG 5395.003: U.S. 3rd World Feminist Writing - W 6:30-9:20pm, FH 257

    CRN#: 15554

    Program: Literature

    Instructor: Dr. Sara Ramirez

    Description: This course will critically examine U.S. Third World feminist writers’ attempts to describe, explain, and critique social, political, and economic institutions that affect women of color in the United States in particular.

    We will build community and work collaboratively to answer the following questions:

    • How do we define “U.S. Third World,” “feminist,” “theory,” and “praxis”?
    • What are the sociopolitical and economic issues that are pertinent in the lives of Black people, Indigenous people, people of color in the United States today?
    • How is our own work (dissertations, theses, area exams, personal projects) situated in relationship to these theories?
    • How and to what extent are such feminist theories and praxis useful for the masses?

    In asking these questions, we will engage close readings of creative and theoretical texts in order to:

    • Establish an understanding of U.S. Third World feminist thought and praxis
    • Historicize the sociopolitical and economic issues facing various Chicana/x communities today
    • Situate Chicana cultural productions in appropriate biographical, historical, and political contexts
    • Sharpen critical reading and writing skills by asking questions and making connections between themes and issues within and across texts
    • Develop non-violent communication (oral and written) skills to engage careful and critical discussions of issues related to gender, sexuality, color, race, class, and citizenship

    Books: TBD; may include texts by Gloria Anzaldúa, the Combahee River Collective, Octavia Butler, Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston Audre Lorde, and Cherríe Moraga

    Evaluation: Constructive participation (15%), weekly papers (25%), presentation and discussion facilitation (25%), final paper proposal (10%), final paper (25%).

    Email: sramirez@txstate.edu

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