English 320 Introduction to English Studies
Description/Objectives:
This course offers a broad introduction to English Studies, the umbrella term for a variety of sub-fields that share a concern with the production, interpretation, and cultural work of “texts” (including visual, acoustic, kinetic, multi-medial). With the objective of understanding and appreciating what people in English Studies do–along with how, for whom, and for what they do it–the course will survey a range of theoretical approaches and keywords, and attempt brief applications of them. We will consider ways in which rhetorical, literary, and cultural theories—concerned in particular with aesthetics, ethics, ideology, recognition, relations, and representation—continue to inform discussions of the functions and pleasures of “reading” and writing in an age marked by accelerated globalization, new mediascapes and digital archives, climate crises, racial and ethnic conflict, and indigenous and decolonial movements. The course will stress the importance of location, discourses, and institutions to questions of interpretations, and discuss how people in the field compose, research, create, and present their work.
Laulima/Course Website: The syllabus will be supplemented by weekly assignment sheets. For each week you will be given reading, discussion, and in-class writing questions and prompts. This preparation sheets will be on Laulima: i.e. “320 Week One Reading and Discussion Questions.”
Required Texts: (at UH-Bookstore): William Kennedy, Ironweed (novel); Sia Figiel, Where ‘We’ Once Belonged (novel).
Course Requirements: Two papers (20% each, 3-4 pages each); Midterm Exam (15%); Participation (in-class discussion, group work, regular in-class short writings, oral report) (20%); Final Exam (25%).
Student Learning Outcomes:
–. Familiarity with main currents in English Studies
–. Ability to position arguments and approaches within critical traditions
–. Enhanced ability to present work (oral and written)
–. Sense of the importance of “location” to literary study
ATTENDANCE/POLICIES: Much of the required work for this class will be done in class, including in-class writing done at the start of class. Therefore, attendance is mandatory. More than four unexcused absences may impact your grade, even if you have turned in all of the required written work. More than seven absences, excused or unexcused, will result in an “F” for the course. Except in the case of an emergency, an “excused” absence must be requested in advance. In such a case, we would arrange for a way for the work to be made up.