English 105 Section Descriptions for Spring 2002

These section descriptions are being made available to help students pick an English 105 section whose research topics they might like. Students should realize, however, that due to staffing changes or instructors' needs, actual syllabi may be somewhat different in January 2002. A list of all freshman composition sections with instructor, day and time, is located at the bottom of this page. We're still working on this page as of 10/30--we'll be posting course descriptions as soon as instructors forward them to us!

English 105-02 MWF 9:30 Jennifer Bess: " Identity & Attachment" In this section, we'll examine the relationship between identity and attachment, beginning with love stories by Gloria Naylor, James Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence. After we've approached fictional characters as case studies of varied types of attachment and looked at the effects of relationships on identity, we'll approach love from a psychological perspective. We'll end the semester with Plato's Symposium, THE book of love.

English 105.003 and 105.008. MWF 10:30 & 1:30 Lee Gould The theme of the course is "The Outsider". Some of the greatest art and most revolutionary ideas have been produced by "outsiders." And, at some time in our lives, we all become "outsiders. Sometimes we choose outsider status because of our ideas or preferences but at other times that status is, unhappily, forced upon us. We'll look at the difficulties as well as the benefits, the hardships and the possibilities that being out of the mainstream offer. To explore this topic, we'll read three texts: two short story collections, Tim O'Brien's The Things We Carried and Edwidge Danticat's, Krik?Krak? and one novel, May Sarton's As We Are Now. The course requires two essays of 5-7 pages, one longer research effort of 9-12 pages and several informal one-page exploratory writings.

English 105.04 MWF 11:30 Fred White I'll again be focusing on film noir as a subject area for students to research. I encourage students to do research papers on themes that run through the films from the Forties to the Nineties, like the changing nature of the "film fatale," or the changing treatments of the hero, or the city.

English 105.05 MWF 11:30 Elizabeth Leik: To know yourself, you need to know your surroundings. Now that you have chosen to spend the next four years at Goucher and in the Baltimore area, learn more about where you are. This course will deal with literary and historical figures in the Baltimore area: those who stopped here for a time (Frederick Douglass, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Edgar Allan Poe, Gertrude Stein among others) and those who were born here or ended up making Baltimore their home (Russell Baker, Sarah Haardt, H. L. Mencken, Adrienne Rich, Leon Uris among others). Contemporary topics will also be welcomed. From speakers and readings, research and visits to the Maryland Historical Society and local libraries, you will find a topic based on a historical or literary figure in the Baltimore area.

English 105.06 MWF 12:30 Laura Orem, Literature, and Pop Culture in America: Class in America has always been a touchy subject. We have been taught to view ourselves as a society where class boundaries are non-existent, or at least fluid and easily set aside. But is this really the case? In this course, we will address the following questions: What do we mean by class? Is it our economic status, or is it something more? How do we view classes, others and our own? Why do we find class so difficult to discuss? How does our class affect our perspectives on culture and influence our creation of it? We will be looking at a broad spectrum of literature, music, movies, and other aspects of popular culture in America as we explore these questions.

To shape our dreams, we have used the West. Its early violence and vastness offered both energy and space with which to satisfy our palate; and in the 20th century, our Western identity--ever more grotesque and glorious--further magnified our national sense of self. Myths were born. In this English 105 class, we shall explore the shaping and the consequences of these myths through such works as Shane, Riders of the Purple Sage, Louis L'Amour's Mojave Crossing, and shorter works by writers such as Rick Bass and Sam Shephard.

English 105.09, MWF 1:30 Prof. Sarah Pogell The Creation of Cool: Youth Culture in the Twenty-first Century--The spectacle of forms youth rebellion and everyday negotiation take in today's society serves as the focus of this section of 105, a class that views the production of young adults' identity as a complex mediation and appropriation of traditional and popular cultures. The music, fashion, media--even hairstyles--associated with youth culture and its various subcultures will be considered as revealing the ways in which the younger generation both represents itself and resists what can be called conflicting social norms. The commodification of "hip" in consumerist society, which encourages youth to "shop" not only for clothes, makeup, and CD's but also for unwieldy abstractions, such as values and morals, will be key to our investigations of the various ways in which young people confront difficult issues of sex and gender roles, religious affiliation, racial tensions, and more. To draw for subject matter on the popular social and cultural trends of youth is not to ignore the formal conventions and requirements of academic writing, however. The members of the class will therefore approach topics as scholars wishing to extend their understanding of youth culture, initially familiarizing themselves with the terms, contexts, and methods cultural critics use, and then analyzing the actual "articles" of the younger generation. Subtopics of special interest to students--youth gangs, raves, and comic books, for instance--will serve as the basis for research and papers.

English 105.011 TTh 10:00 Prof. Penny Cordish This course will focus on artifacts of cultural memory. Specifically, we will focus on how contemporary American culture attempts, though literature, museums and popular culture, to remember and memorialize the past. The particular past in question involves instances of historical trauma, such as slavery, the Holocaust, perhaps Sept. 11th.

English 105.14 Tu, Th 1:30 – 2:45 pm. Barbara Roswell Like all sections of English 105, this course focuses on the critical reading of complex texts and the development of each student’s unique academic voice, proficiency in independent research, and confidence with the conventions of academic writing. The course incorporates a required service component and takes as its theme the question, “So How Did I Get Here?” In addition to reading both fiction and nonfiction that addresses this question, students choose community sites connected to their individual interests, reflect on their experiences working in those community settings, and develop research projects that are responsive to the needs and questions identified through work in these settings. Creating a literary magazine with children at an after-school center, producing a play with the families of people living with AIDS, investigating how an assisted living center can address depression among the elderly, and analyzing the successes of programs that address homophobia in urban schools are just a sampling of typical student projects.

English 105.15, W 6:30-9:00 Nancy Leaderman Theme: Jane Austen on the Page and Screen [This section theme may change to that of section .05 depending on staffing changes beyond our control. Students signing up for this one should be warned about the possibility of that change.] Though Jane Austen lived and wrote 200 years ago, her novels have continued to move and entertain readers through the last two centuries, and more recently, her works have inspired numerous films. How can we account for Austen's continuing appeal? What shaped her and the fictional worlds she created? And how have others interpreted, appropriated, and responded to her vision? Through careful reading and viewing of primary and secondary sources, we will explore Austen's world and continuing influence.