Spring '21 Course Descriptions - undergraduate & Progressive m.A. courses - USC Dornsife
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Spring '21
Course Descriptions dornsife.usc.edu/engl
/DornsifeEnglish
undergraduate & Progressive m.A. courses @usc_english
@usc_english
Welcome
Welcome | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
Welcome to the Department of English. For the If you are in Thematic Option, follow the advising
Spring 2021 semester, we offer a rich selection of information from both the Department of English
introductory and upper-division coursework in and your TO advisers. Clearance for registration in
English and American literature and culture, and CORE classes will be handled by the TO office.
creative writing workshops. Please feel free to speak
with any faculty in the English department, with
one of our undergraduate program coordinators,
* Please note that instruction modality is subject
to change based on university policy, and the Major programs
or with Professor Lawrence D. Green, our Director online schedule of classes will have the most up-
of Undergraduate Studies, to help you select the to-date information.
B.A. English (Literature)
courses that are right for you. B.A. English (Creative Writing)
B.A. Narrative Studies
All Department of English courses are “R” (open
registration) courses, except for the following “D”
courses, which require departmental clearance:
ENGL 302, 303, 304, 305, 408, 490, 491, 492, 495, and
496. Departmental clearance is not required for “R”
Minor programs
course registration prior to the beginning of the English
semester, but is required for “D” course registration. Narrative Structure
On the first day of classes all classes will be closed—
admission is granted only by the instructor’s Early Modern Studies
signature and the department stamp (available in
THH 404).
Be sure to check the class numbers (e.g., 32734R) Progressive
and class hours against the official Spring 2021
Schedule of Classes at classes.usc.edu. degree program
Bring a copy of your STARS report with you for
M.A. Literary Editing and
advisement. You cannot be advised without your Publishing
STARS report.
Online registration for the Spring 2021 semester
will begin Monday, October 26th, 2020. To check
for your registration date and time, log on to OASIS
via MyUSC and then click on “Permit to Register.” How does a manuscript become a book? What role
Registration times are assigned by the number
do editors play? Why are some books adapted into
of units completed. Students can and should be
advised prior to their registration appointment films?
times. Students should also check for any holds Explore these questions in the 2-unit ENGL -499 Special
on their account that will prevent them from
registering at their registration appointment time.
Topics course, "The Literary Landscape" taught by
Professsor Mullins. See Description on page 31. 2
Contents
Contents | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
Descriptions
General Education courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Foundation seminars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Creative writing workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Upper-division seminars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Maymester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Senior seminars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Progressive M.A. courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Registration resources
Courses that satisfy major and minor requirements . . . . 40
Courses that require departmental clearance . . . . . . . . . 42
Contact information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
“The Bard of Avon”
Explore a selection of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets as
they figure in digital media in ENGL-430 “Shakespeare”
3
with Professor Bruce Smith. See description on page 28.
Image: Illustration from front matter of printing of The
Merchant of Venice, American Book Company (1898)
General Education
General Education | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-174G ENGL-230G
Reading the Heart: Emotional Shakespeare and His Times
Intelligence and the “Shakespeare and the Stage”
James, Heather
Humanities mw | 10-11:50a.m. section: 32627
Gustafson, Thomas
Shakespeare sums up an entire era
mw | 10-11:50a.m. section: 32613 of Renaissance poetry and drama
both in England and beyond it, and
The university upholds itself as a consider the place of emotional his art animates a wide range of
place devoted to the study of critical intelligence in such fields as medi- artistic, cultural, political, and eco-
thinking, and college curriculums cine and business and how concepts nomic enterprises in the centuries
always give a pre-eminent place to such as empathy and our responses after his life, continuing to today.
courses on the history of Western to anger can help us study moments This course attends the ideas of the
thought. But where in our education of crisis in politics and international theatrical or performative self in
do we study and develop emotional relations from the Peloponnesian Shakespeare’s day and to the models
intelligence? Can emotional intel- War through the American Revo- of social change — both now and
ligence even be taught? What if the lution and Civil War and 9/11. At in Shakespeare’s own day — that
university offered a course where the heart of the course will be an his innovative theater suggests. We
we had the chance to study not just attempt to study how and where will study a range of Shakespeare’s
the head but the heart, not critical we learn forms of intelligence not dramatic genres, including history,
thinking but emotional intelligence, measured by a SAT test but signifi- comedy, and tragedy. We will also
and where love of knowledge was cant for your life including what one consider the ways in which writers
combined with knowledge about author calls such “essential human and artists habitually ask questions
love? English 174 will be such a competencies” as “self-awareness, about their own society, where it has
course: It will draw upon literature self-control, and empathy, and the come from, and the possible futures
ranging from the writings of Epi- arts of listening, resolving conflict, which may succeed it.
curus and Montaigne to stories by and cooperation.”
James Baldwin and Sandra Cisne-
ros and films such as “Groundhog
Day” to study such emotions as love,
jealousy, anger, fear, hate, compas-
sion, joy and happiness. It will also 4
General Education | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-270G
Studying Narrative
Sanford Russell, Bea
tth | 12:30-1:50p.m. section: 32650
People say that they “get lost” in
a good story—as if a story were a
maze, a wilderness, an unknown
country. The metaphor of being lost
describes how narratives transport
us elsewhere: one minute we are sit-
ting down with a novel or starting a
movie, and the next we are suddenly
penned up in a storm-exposed farm-
house on a Yorkshire moor in 1802,
or trying to fight off an army of ice
zombies in Westeros. But just how
does this magic work? In this class
we put together a basic guidebook for
finding our way through narratives,
analyzing major narrative features
and techniques, and becoming
familiar with some of the key theo-
retical approaches to narrative study.
Ranging across short stories, novels,
narrative poems, essays, films, and
musical albums, we will consider
topics including: the fundamental
building blocks of narrative (includ-
ing narration, characterization,
and plot); ethical questions about
writing and reading stories; and
recent experiments in narrative such
as Beyoncé’s genre-bending visual Lemonade
album, Lemonade. Analyze Beyoncé’s use of narrative in her
Grammy Award-winning visual album
Lemonade in ENGL-270 “Studying Narrative”
with Professor Bea Sanford Russell.
Photo: Promotional photo by Tidal (2016)
5
General Education | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-280G
Introduction to Narrative
Medicine
Wright, Erika
tth | 9:30-10:50a.m. section: 32652
These areas of inquiry will demon-
“[W]e lead our lives as stories, and you are planning a career in health- strate what interdisciplinary training
our identity is constructed both care or not, the skills you develop looks like—what each discipline
by the stories we tell ourselves and in this course will serve you well, gains from this relationship. Medi-
others about ourselves.” --Shlomith as we will examine a range of texts: cine learns from literary studies how
Rimmon-Kenan clinical case studies, novels, films, metaphors contribute to complex-
short stories, poetry, and memoirs ity, how repetitions compete with
“Close reading is not just a way of that provide us with a deeper under- silences, and how point of view and
reading but a way of listening. It can standing of the relationship between tone shape our reading expectations.
help us not just to read what is on narrative and identity, self and other, Literary scholars learn from med-
the page, but to hear what a person literature and the wider world. Each icine what’s at stake in telling and
really said. Close reading can train us week we will coordinate a literary listening to stories, our responsibility
to hear other people.” --Jane Gallop, concept with a related medical/ to a given text, and the real-world
“The Ethics of Close Reading” How health theme or issue: social and political ramifications of
a story gets told is as important as the work we do in the humanities.
what gets told, and the ability to · our focus on plot will challenge
“read” the stories of another is a the ways that diagnostic certainty, Text in this course have included
foundational skill in the field of Nar- treatment, and cure can shape our Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook
rative Medicine. Close reading, which narrative expectations; His Wife for a Hat, Jhumpa Lahiri’s
is a technique developed by literary Interpreter of Maladies, Mark Had-
scholars, teaches readers to pay · our understanding of literary don’s Curious Incident of the Dog in
attention not just to a story’s con- narrators and character development the Nighttime, Pat Barker’s Regen-
tent and themes but also to its form will inform our view of the power eration, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let
and structure. This type of reading dynamics of the doctor-patient Me Go.
is valuable across all disciplines, relationship;
fields, and contexts (personal and
professional), but is central to this · our emphasis on time and
introductory course, which focuses metaphor will teach us about the
on the relationship between literary role that memory and imagination
studies and medical practice and the can play in defining and sustaining a
meaningful life.
value of narrative competence for
anyone touched by illness. Whether 6
General Education | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-297G ENGL-299G
Introduction to the Genre of Introduction to the Genre of
Nonfiction Poetry
Freeman, Christopher Freeman, Christopher
tth | 3:30-4:50p.m. section: 32656 tth | 12:30-1:50p.m. section: 32670
Nonfiction is writing that’s nonfiction writing is and what it What can we learn from poetry as we
true. Well, sort of. It takes many does; your job, is to be fully engaged learn about it? That will be the moti-
forms—essays, reviews, histories, with our material; to read our mate- vating question of this course. The
biographies, memoirs, philosophy, rial, to think about it, and to come to English poet William Blake wrote
scientific and sociological studies. lecture prepared to discuss it, to read of “the Bard, who Present, Past, &
But of course, it is also crafted. In it out loud, and to try to interpret it. Future sees”—our work will take us
this course, we will work through to poets of the past and the present,
many genres, many forms of nonfic- In your discussion sections, your poets whose work continues to speak
tion writing; we will study the craft instructors will elaborate on lecture to us across centuries. In this course,
and the process, starting with the material, but at the same time, they we have the privilege and pleasure
end product, the published work. will pursue their own passions about of savoring poetry, contemplating
When you read for this class, read as writing by working with you on work it, discovering it anew, and finding
a reader and as a writer. Craft, style, by a few of their favorite authors. The its wisdom. May Sarton once said “a
form, and content will all figure into idea is that you’ll get introduction poem, when it is finished, is always
our work. and intermediate take on nonfiction a little ahead of where I am.” How
in lecture and an advanced immer- can that be, that the finished poem is
We will do all we can to make this sion in section. “ahead” of the poet? We will address
class a conversation about nonfic- ourselves to that phenomenon
tion writing—how it works, how its We will use an anthology of essays as because Sarton is right. We will use
forms have changed, how research is well as two or three full length con- an anthology in lecture for the first
involved, how to read it, how to write temporary works of nonfiction. ten weeks or so; after that, we will
it and write about it. In lecture, we all be reading the same two single
will cover important writers, move- volumes of poetry. In discussion sec-
ments, forms, theories, and larger tion, you’ll work on one or two books
questions about the medium and of poetry for the first ten weeks,
the messages. How do texts connect and your writing will be essays and
to their historical moment? To the poems (yes, you can do some creative
past? The future? Whose voices are writing!) based on the readings from
included? Whose are absent? My job
is to get you more interested in what
lecture and section.
7
Foundation Seminars
Foundation Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-261G ENGL-261G
English Literature to 1800 English Literature to 1800
Rollo, David “The Monstrous Other in Medieval and Early Modern
tth | 9:30-10:50a.m. section: 32635 Literature”
Tomaini, Thea
Through the close analysis of literary
works written in English before 1800, tth | 11-12:20p.m. section: 32636
the course will address: the implica-
tions of authorship at various times English 261 follows the development look at important source texts and
in English and Irish history, with a of English poetry and drama during backgrounds that influenced these
particular emphasis on the theme the centuries between the First Mil- authors and their major works. There
and practice of political lennium and the English Civil War. will be three papers, all 8-10 pages in
Specifically, this course will focus on length.
exclusion; the development of liter-
the Monstrous Other in these works
acy and its initially restrictive force;
of literature. Students will learn the
the rise of empire and the attendant
basics of Monster Theory, and will
questions of dynastic legitimacy,
then discuss how the various types of
religious determinism, gender
monstrosity reflect the major social,
empowerment and colonial expan-
political, and religious issues of the
sion; urban foppery. Texts studied
premodern era. There will be ghosts,
will include: selections from the
faeries, witches, dragons, hybrid
Book of Margery Kempe and Chau-
creatures, and demons; but we will
cer’s Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare’s
also discuss how monster theory
Macbeth; lyric poetry by Donne,
of the medieval and early modern
Marvell, and Aemelia Lanyer; Mil-
periods describes persecutory and
ton’s Paradise Lost; Congreve’s The
prejudicial attitudes of race, class,
Way of the World; Aphra Behn’s The
and gender/sexuality, and targets
Rover and Oroonoko; Defoe’s Rob-
women, immigrants, the disabled,
inson Crusoe; and Swift’s Gulliver’s
Christian sectarians, and non-Chris-
Travels. Students will write three
tians. Major authors and works of
papers, take a final exam, attend class
poetry and drama will include Chau-
and participate in discussion.
cer’s Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s
The Faerie Queene, Marlowe’s Dr.
Faustus, Shakespeare’s Richard III,
and Milton’s Paradise Lost, among
other texts. Course texts include the
Norton Anthology of English Litera-
ture, plus handouts TBA. We will also
8
Foundation Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-261G ENGL-262G
English Literature to 1800 English Literature since 1800
Rollo, David Sanford Russell, Bea
tth | 2-3:20p.m. section: 32637 tth | 11-12:20p.m. section: 32642
Through the close analysis of literary “All that is solid melts into air.” This
works written in English before 1800, is how Marx described the experi-
the course will address: the implica- ence of modernity as it exploded
tions of authorship at various times religious certainties, ate away at cen-
in English and Irish history, with a turies’-old social formations, poured
particular emphasis on the theme humans from rural areas into cities
and practice of political and across the globe, and above
all, turned everything into money,
exclusion; the development of liter- money, money.
acy and its initially restrictive force;
the rise of empire and the attendant This class follows modernity’s
questions of dynastic legitimacy, melting as it shapes British liter-
religious determinism, gender ature since 1800. We will sketch a
empowerment and colonial expan- big-picture sense of literary history
sion; urban foppery. Texts studied from Romanticism to Victorianism
will include: selections from the and Modernism to the 21st century.
Book of Margery Kempe and Chau- And engaging closely with writers
cer’s Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare’s including William Blake, William
Macbeth; lyric poetry by Donne, Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Oscar
Marvell, and Aemelia Lanyer; Mil- Wilde, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot,
ton’s Paradise Lost; Congreve’s The and Mohsin Hamid, we will try out
Way of the World; Aphra Behn’s The a series of tentative answers to the
Rover and Oroonoko; Defoe’s Rob- question, “how did we get here?”
inson Crusoe; and Swift’s Gulliver’s That is, how did we get to the global,
Travels. Students will write three hyperconnected, capital-bloated
papers, take a final exam, attend class
and participate in discussion.
world we live in today?
9Foundation Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
Photo by Patrick Tomasso at Unsplash.
ENGL-262G ENGL-262G
English Literature since 1800 English Literature since 1800
Berg, Rick Levine, Ben
tth | 9:30-10:50a.m. section: 32640 mwf | 11-11:50a.m. section: 32641
English 262 is a survey of British Intensive reading of major writers,
Literature. It is an introduction. It 1800–1950.
promises to build on and extend the
nodding acquaintance that most
readers have with English writers
of the past, (e.g., Jane Austen might
be familiar to you, but have you
met Elizabeth Bowen, etc., etc.). As
an introductory course, English
262 is wedded to breadth of study
not depth. The course intends to
move from the Romantics to the
Post-Moderns, introducing students
to a variety of texts and authors,
periods and genres, and the many
questions writers and texts raise
about literature and its place in the
world. We will even look at some of
the answers. The course’s goals are
many; for instance, there is the sheer
pleasure of the texts; secondly there
is the desire to prepare a foundation
for further studies in literature and
art; and finally, there is the simple
celebration of literature’s challenge
to doxa and all the uninformed
opinions that rule and regulate our
everyday.
10Foundation Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-263G ENGL-263G
American Literature American Literature
Ingram, Kerry Kemp, Anthony
mwf | 12-12:50p.m. section: 32647 mwf | 11-11:50a.m. section: 32646
ENGL-263 covers selected works of The collective myths and ideologies Modernists and Postmodernists, all
American writers from the Colonial of most cultures precede historical united by a restless desire to find
period to the present day, with an self-consciousness; that of Amer- some meaning beyond the obvious,
emphasis on major representa- ica, by contrast, arises in the very some transcendence that will trans-
tive writers. In this course, we will recent past, and comes into being figure and explain the enigma of the
interpret the aesthetic and thematic simultaneously with European self and of the unfinished errand,
aspects of these works, relate the modernity. As such, it provides an America.
works to their historical and literary extreme and simplified exemplar
contexts, and understand relevant of all of the movements and con- The goals of the course are that stu-
criticism. What notions of self and flicts of the modern. The course dents should understand the works
identity do we find when studying will introduce the student to the studied, and their relations to the
the diverse range of American texts major themes and issues of Ameri- societal, intellectual, and aesthetic
that explore ideas on religion, gov- can literature and culture from the movements of the period covered by
ernment, philosophy, and narrative seventeenth century to the present. the course: Puritanism, Calvinism,
genre? Where do you find the “truth” We will concentrate particularly theocracy, Enlightenment, Roman-
articulated in a shared American on attempts to find a new basis for ticism, Transcendentalism, slavery,
literature? community, divorced from the Old Abolition, Decadence, Modernism,
World (the continent of Europe and Postmodernism.
the continent of the past), and the
dissatisfaction with and opposition
to that community that comes with
modern subjectivity. The journey
will take us from raw Puritan colo-
nies to the repressive sophistication
of Henry James’ and Kate Chopin’s
nineteenth-century salons–worlds
of etiquette and porcelain in which
nothing can be said–to the trans-
gressive experiments of Decadents, 11Foundation Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-263G
American Literature
Handley, William
tth | 11-12:20p.m. section: 32645
This introduction to American liter-
ature will address some of the major
themes of human experience and
culture over the last four centuries
on the American continent. These
include the idea of the individual in
relation to the social world; the con-
struction of race, class, gender, and
religion in relation to democracy;
and the myth and reality of the U.S.
West. In exploring these topics, we
will examine the artistic and social
meanings of literary genres such as
autobiography, drama, essay, novel,
short story, and poetry. Additionally,
we will aim to develop literary crit-
ical skills, to improve our capacities
as readers, thinkers, and writers. By
understanding and analyzing such
elements in interpretation as con-
text, audience, figural language, and
narrative structure, we will explore
how literature represents and cri-
tiques racial hierarchies and gender
difference and related limitations on
individual freedom in U.S. culture
and ideology -- how, in the largest
sense, texts shape Americans’ under-
standings of themselves, their pasts,
and their futures.
Photo by Max van den Oetelaar at Unsplash.
12Creative Writing Workshops
Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-105X ENGL-302
Creative Writing for Non- Writing Narrative
Majors Ingram, Kerry
f | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32680
Lord, M.G.
m | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32600 Which is most important to you:
memory or the imagination; history
or creativity? In our time together,
ENGL 105 is an introduction to the you’ll write your truth. English 302
art and craft of creative writing. We is a narrative workshop providing an
will address three genres: fiction, introduction to the techniques and
creative nonfiction, and the nar- practices of narrative prose. We will
rative component of the graphic focus on writing narrative in two
novel. During the semester, we will primary genres: fiction and literary
closely read the work of established non-fiction. Of course, even those
writers and generate creative pieces two distinctions are often blurred.
of our own. These activities will be In every case, our job is to continue
supplemented by weekly assigned to seek your insights with a precise
readings, weekly written responses to diction, in context. Subsequently, we
these assigned readings, and written will also spend some time looking
feedback for your colleagues on both at prose poetry, if only to get a sense
their exercises and the creative pieces of how all the genres are mutually
that they submit to workshop. The related forms of expression. Upon
course is designed to introduce the completion of this course, stu-
basic elements of writing. At the end dents should be able to identify the
of the semester, students will submit mechanics and principles of their
a portfolio of work that will include preferred narrative forms.
revised versions of a short story and
a nonfiction piece.
13Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-303 ENGL-303
Introduction to Fiction Introduction to Fiction
Writing Writing
Bender, Aimee Senna, Danzy
t | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32684 m | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32686
For this course, we will work our In this creative writing workshop,
way through the elements of fiction, students will be introduced to the
reading short stories and doing writ- fundamentals of writing fiction,
ing exercises related to each facet of including point of view, setting,
story writing. During the second half dialogue, plot, characterization, etc.
of the course, students will bring Students will be required to do short
in a short story, and we will begin flash fiction exercises in and out
the process of “workshopping”— of class, and complete several full-
defining the term, talking about length stories and present them to
constructive criticism, considering the workshop for discussion. While
how best to talk about someone else’s the focus of the class will be on pro-
story together. There will be weekly ducing and presenting your own
readings and writing assignments, stories, we will also read short fiction
and a creative midterm. by published authors — including
Alice Munro, ZZ Packer, Jhumpa
Lahiri, James Alan McPherson and
Denis Johnson.
14
Photo by Janko Ferlič on UnsplashCreative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-303 ENGL-304
Introduction to Fiction Introduction to Poetry Writing
Writing Journey, Anna
th | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32689
Segal, Susan
w | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32685 Workshops have two important intervention of the muse, over which
functions: they are a way for you to no one has control. As Randall Jar-
get, and learn how to give, significant rell said, however, if you want to be
How do you take the vision of the criticism. Additionally, all writers struck by lightning, you have to be
perfect story that you carry around are readers. Their reading challenges there when the rain falls. So you
in your head and get it onto the their writing. In this reading and plunge in, write with risk, revise
page? This course addresses that writing intensive beginning poetry with energy, and you keep on getting
conundrum, as well as the “how do workshop, you’ll write a variety better if you keep at it.
they do it?” question that plagues of poems, such as a portrait of a
us when we read wonderful work. family member, an elegy, a dramatic
We will be studying and practicing monologue, and a poem that con-
literary fiction—that is, charac- temporizes a fairy tale or fable. You’ll
ter-centered stories that do not fit read copiously from an anthology,
easily into genres and that do not a craft manual, and four single col-
adhere to formulaic plot tropes. lections of contemporary poetry
By studying a combination of stu- as well as post weekly responses
dent-generated stories and published (two well-developed paragraphs
works, we will examine and learn to or longer) to the required texts on
integrate the elements of fiction into Blackboard. In my experience, talent
our own work. We will also wrestle and intelligence are naturally quite
with the eternal question of how to important in making a strong writer,
show rather than tell what we want but what may be even more import-
to say. ant elements are desire, imagination,
hard work, and plain old stubborn-
ness. You have to want it to get it.
And then there’s luck, the whimsical
15Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-304 ENGL-305
Introduction to Poetry Writing Introduction to Nonfiction
Bendall, Molly
w | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32688
Writing
“The Impersonal Art of the Personal Essay – and Vice-
In this course we will read and study Versa”
a wide range of contemporary poetry
in order to become acquainted with Dyer, Geoff
many styles, trends, forms, and other
elements of poetry. Students will
m | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32692
write poems exploring some partic-
ular strategies. The class is run as a Both a workshop and a survey of the
workshop so lively and constructive history of the essay, this course will
participation is necessary with atten- use a number of classic examples to
tion to analytical and critical skills. help guide us through the pitfalls
Hopefully, each person will discover and possibilities of the form. How to
ways to perfect and revise his or her avoid crossing the line from the per-
own work. There will always be lots sonal to the willfully self-indulgent?
of room for misbehaving in poems We know that you are interesting to
and other adventurous pursuits. you but how to make that ‘you’ inter-
Several poems and written critiques esting to everyone else? Conversely,
are required. Poets include Alberto how to imbue essays with the stamp
Rios, Mary Ruefle, Harryette Mullen, of personal testimony without the
Michelle Rosado, Evie Shockley, support of a participating authorial
Natalie Diaz, W. Todd Kaneko, and personality? To help us navigate
others. 6 poems, written critiques, this potentially slippery terrain we
class participation required. will enlist the support of work by
William Hazlitt, George Orwell, Joan
Didion, James Baldwin, Nicholson
Baker, Annie Dillard, Jia Tolentino
and others.
16Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-310 ENGL-403
Editing for Writers Nonfiction Writing
“Yes, There is Life After an English Degree: Treuer, David
Editing for Writers” w | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32727
Segal, Susan
Lifemay very well be “one thing after
t | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32697 another” and text “one word after
another” but of the two only texts are
scripted—life is for better or worse a
When working on a piece of writ-
series of accidents. Creative non-fic-
ing, if you’ve ever selected one word
tion is a vast genre and a tricky
over another, rephrased a question,
practice. Ranging from scholarly
erased a phrase or added a comma,
essays to travel writing and personal
you’ve done what professional edi-
reflection creative non-fiction takes
tors do. The goal of this course is to
the elements of the “truth” (stated
harness the skills you already have
fact, event, conflict, narrative arc,
to quantify and qualify the job of an
the plot of “life,” the evolution of a
editor in order to improve your own
thought or thoughts, the quote, the
writing and help you become a better
word, the utterance) and recombines
analyst of what makes an effective
them—sometimes carefully and with
piece of writing. Anyone who is curi-
premeditation and other times in
ous about editing as a profession
ignorance and “from the gut”—into
and/or anyone who is truly invested
written narrative. These “true” nar-
in what they are writing will benefit
ratives are meant to move, educate,
from this hands-on approach. This
convince, sway, and transport us. This
course is designed for writers in all
workshop will focus on your work
genres—fiction, poetry, journalism,
in the genre with the goal of helping
expository, etc.
you make and perfect at least two
new nonfiction pieces.
Prerequisite(s): ENGL-303 or
ENGL-305
17Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-405 ENGL-406
Fiction Writing Poetry Writing
Everett, Percival “Special Section on Song and Ballad”
t | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32729 St. John, David
t | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32731
This is an intermediate workshop in
fiction. The course assumes a basic
understanding of the language of This poetry writing workshop will
fiction writing. During the workshop consider the song and ballad in the
we will discuss student manuscripts history of English poetry and Amer-
and outside readings. Also, there will ican folk music. We will look at the
be a push toward more experimental influence of poetic songs and the
work. The class will asked to chal- tradition of ballad in both England
lenge and perhaps corrupt perceived and America. Some basic elements of
notions of form and presentation. prosody will be discussed. Students
will also be asked to write poems
Prerequisite(s): ENGL-303 or that reflect the traditions of song and
ENGL-305 ballad and which could, perhaps,
be made into songs. Prerequisite:
English 304.
Prerequisite(s): ENGL-304
Photo by Taylor Ann Wright at Unsplash.
18Creative Writing Workshops | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-406 ENGL-408
Poetry Writing Advanced Poetry Writing
Bendall, Molly “Towards a Semi-Finished Manuscript”
m | 2-4:20p.m. section: 32733 McCabe, Susan
t | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32734
In this poetry workshop we will
focus on poetic sequences. We
will read poems that are grouped This class is open to students who These will also inspire 7 to 10 poems
together because they share a have completed both 304 and 406, for the final “manuscript” of inter-
common theme, strategy, form, or the introduction and intermediate locking poems. I ask that you submit
voice. We’ll ponder what happens as workshops. a draft of a new poem every other
the poems progress and accumulate. week, and a revised version the fol-
Here you will have the opportunity lowing. Depending on the size of the
What tensions develop stylistically
to refine a “chapbook” style selection class will determine if every student
and inside the language when ele-
of poems you will have drafted, and will be “up” each workshop for scru-
ments keep recurring and evolving?
redrafted, and redrafted for the class. tiny, or every other week.
How do poems talk back to one
I want this class to be a gracious
another? Students will work on their
and generative space where creative Along with the writing of poems, I
own sequences over the course of the
thinking and feeling thrives. We will ask that you respond to each of your
semester. We will be reading poems
no doubt be addressing both per- peers’ submissions. We will have a
by Jessica Goodfellow, Joy Priest, Ilya
sonal as well as social and cultural weekly reading of an assigned poem.
Kaminsky, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and
worldviews through the lens of the You will be required to participate in
many others. 7-10 Poems, written
turbulence of events that have been every class meeting, be conscientious
critiques, much reading, and class
staged over the last couple of years; I in your attendance and prepared
participation required.
will want you to dig deep to find your attention. I also require you keep a
Prerequisite(s): ENGL-304 voice, your style as it has matured commonplace notebook of materials
through empathy or adversity, fear or that you are working with to “seed”
beauty. your poems as they hone-in on a
particular theme, or “obsession,” and
I ask that you come with a central use this notebook also for dreams
motif, obsession, or thematic or or ideas for poems to be written,
formal principle to approach your or phrases to be used. Try to use
genesis as a poet within the frame- everything, writing free and formal
work of the last few years, with writing; dare being experimental in
tendrils reaching backwards and for- one poem, and narrative in another.
ward. You will read a diverse number I will provide prompts for either
of poems written in the 20th and poems to be turned in, or poems to
21st centuries. write at your own leisure.
Photo by Pixabay obtained on Pexels.com
Prerequisite(s): ENGL-406 19Upper-Division Seminars
Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-341 ENGL-343M
Women in English Literature Images of Women in
before 1800 Contemporary Culture
Rollo, David Kessler, Sarah
tth | 11-12:20p.m. section: 32701 mwf | 1-1:50p.m. section: 32702
The course will be devoted to women The #MeToo movement has pro- from TV shows such as Sex and the
as writing subjects and objects of voked widespread reassessments of City, Insecure, and Pose; to films such
writing between the twelfth and the popular representations of women. as Hustlers and Portrait of a Lady on
eighteenth centuries. There will be What seemed like progressive or Fire; to pop songs by Beyoncé and
a particular emphasis on: medieval empowering images of femininity Taylor Swift; to makeup tutorials
misogyny and its continued exis- or female-ness a mere ten years ago on YouTube; to the novels of Elena
tence – in varied guises – in later may today appear cringe-worthy. Ferrante and their recent televisual
periods; the rise of the novel in the How and why has this cultural shift adaptations.
late seventeenth and eighteenth taken place? And how might this
centuries and the participation of transformation help us to rethink *This course satisfies the university’s
women therein; women playwrights traditional understandings of gender diversity requirement.
from the Restoration onward; liter- as a binary opposition between
ary transvestitism. “male” and “female”? In this course
we will not merely explore how var-
ious media depict women; we will
examine, using the tools of feminist,
literary, and political theory, how
these media construct and regulate
the category of “woman” in the first
place. Our approach will be intersec-
tional, since gender does not exist in
isolation from other identity cate-
gories such as race, class, ethnicity,
sexuality, and nationality. Critical
readings will include essays by Laura
Mulvey, bell hooks, Sarah Banet-
Weiser, Andrea Long Chu, and others.
Contemporary media texts will range 20Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-344MG ENGL-350G
Sexual/Textual Diversity Literature of California
“The Queer Caribbean” “Los Angeles as Narrative”
Collins, Corrine Ulin, David
mwf | 10-10:50a.m. section: 32704 tth | 12:30-1:50p.m. section: 32705
Caribbean literature expresses Jamaica Kincaid, Dionne Brand, What is Los Angeles? This is a key including Carey McWilliams, Joan
the racial, cultural, and linguistic Shani Mootoo, Thomas Glave and question when it comes to a city that Didion, Chester Himes, Octavia
complexity of the region in its nego- Maryse Condé. both exhilarates and confounds. Butler, Reyner Banham, Mike Davis,
tiation of overlapping diasporas, Commonly derided as a landscape Wanda Coleman, and Raymond
cultural hybridity, and histories without history, Los Angeles is (as Chandler, to encounter the city as
of colonization, enslavement, and all cities are) part of a trajectory it was and as it has become. This
indentured servitude. This class where past and future coalesce into means we will read with a double
examines the historical conditions the present. How can we make sense vision, looking at the material both
that have produced categories of of a place so defined by cliché? One with respect to what it meant in
normative gender and sexuality in way is to examine what these visions its own time and what it has to tell
the Caribbean, and the ways classism say about the city as it exists today. us now. In addition, we will apply
and colorism have inculcated and In this class, we will look at more a historiographer’s perspective to
perpetuated gender- and sexuali- than a century of writing about Los discuss the texts that have survived
ty-based violence. We will study the Angeles, uncovering the role of lit- and those that haven’t, and what
ways twentieth and twenty-first erature in the way the city considers this means in regard to the city’s
century writers present sexual- itself. Going back to the late 1800s, legibility. Students will be expected
ity as both a way of being and an these texts look at both the myth and to think critically about the material,
ever-unfolding processes of doing, the reality of Southern California, a and to participate in lively in-class
and pay special attention to cultur- landscape so misunderstood that it conversation about the work. Stu-
ally specific grammars of desire that is often hard to see. The enormous dents will also be expected to write
exist with Caribbean frameworks of village, Lotusland, the voluptuous three analytical papers: two 5-page
queerness. Through examining these allure of Hollywood, the sun- papers during the semester and one
writers’ imaginative exploration shine-noir dialectic – all have been 10-page final project that engage not
of queer Caribbean subjectivities, popular ways of thinking about the only with the assigned readings but
past and present, we will explore city, but what do they tell us about also with the larger questions raised
literature and the erotic as a tools the place in which we live? Writing by the literature about the city and
of anticolonial resistance, pleasure, is a vehicle both for the construc- the stories that it tells.
and care. Our readings include texts tion and the undermining of such
written in, and translated to, English, mythologies, a medium in which
Patwa, and Creole by Michelle Cliff, we can invent or reflect the world.
Audre Lorde, Nicole Dennis-Benn,
Reinaldo Arenas, Claude McKay,
To explore these issues we will read
many of the city’s signature authors,
21Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-351 ENGL-352G
Periods and Genres in Bookpacking
American Literature “Bookpacking LA”
Chater, Andrew
“Wastelands and Apocalypse in Modern and
w | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32707
Contemporary American Poetry”
Bendall, Molly This 4-unit class is an exercise in The class is lead by Andrew Chater,
‘bookpacking,’ an innovative form a BBC historian and filmmaker who
mwf | 11-11:50a.m. section: 32706 of literary adventure in which novels leads a variety of ‘Bookpacking’
serve as portals through which to classes at USC - see www.bookpack-
Civilizations facing ruin from post- Ann Roripaugh, Notes on the End explore regional history and culture. ers.com for more information.
war destruction, environmental of the World by Meghan Privitello, We offer ‘bookpacking’ in a variety
collapse, societal upheaval, and other and Death by Sex Machine by Franny of forms at USC. In this particular Please note, this class is usually
catastrophic events are conditions Choi, and poems by Shoda Shinoe, class, we’re bookpacking Los Angeles taught as an immersive experience,
we have seen in film, novels, visual Brian Barker, Vi Khi Nao, Matthea - exploring the myriad cultures of incorporating ‘off campus’ elements.
art, and graphic novels. Modern and Harvey, and others. 3 Papers, short USC’s home city through some great For Spring Semester 2021, we are
contemporary poetry have also been responses, creative assignments, and L.A. novels. scheduling this class as a hybrid
compelled to depict these devasta- much participation. class, meaning that *if circumstances
tions. In this class we will discuss Over the course of Semester we’ll permit* we will build in some phys-
particular poetry texts, analyzing read a range of classic and contem- ical off-campus experiences in the
how a poetic consciousness navi- porary L.A. fiction, and we’ll make latter weeks of the semester. The
gates these particular worlds--both a virtual ‘road trip’ across the city, class is scheduled for a late afternoon
real and imagined ones--and how exploring the locations where the Wednesday slot (4.30 to 6.50pm); if
strategies and formal constructs novels are set - from Hollywood we head off campus, we may return
contribute to a poem’s vision. We to South L.A., from Downtown to later than 6.50pm. Please be open to
will also look at texts that envision the Hills, from Boyle Heights to the this possibility, should you enroll for
dystopic realms. We’ll read The beaches. We’ll take a metaphorical the class. Literal ‘bookpacking’ in its
Waste Land by T. S. Eliot and other walk in the footsteps of fictional physical form is part of the joy of this
modernist poems, contemporary characters, and reflect on the inter- experience!
collections of poems including: Cold section between literary landscapes
and the contemporary cultures of The class is accredited for General
Pastoral by Rebecca Dunham, Tsu-
L.A.. Education - all majors welcome.
nami vs. The Fukushima 50 by Lee
22Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-355G ENGL-361G
Anglo-American Law and Contemporary Prose
Literature “Crime and Punishment”
Segal, Susan
“Tyranny, Service, and Slavery in Shakespeare and his
mw | 4:30-5:50p.m. section: 32711
Contemporaries”
Lemon, Rebecca In this course we will look at works
in the genre of True Crime: non-
tth | 12:30-1:50p.m. section: 32709 fiction narratives that use the
techniques of fiction to tell the story
This course investigates the legal of the long history of these categories of an act of criminality. The genre
and political concepts of “tyranny,” in Western legal thought. Readings has become increasingly popular
“service,” and “slavery” in the works will likely include: Shakespeare, over the last couple of decades, par-
of Shakespeare and his contempo- Othello, Merchant of Venice, The ticularly in America, and we will
raries. From Richard III to Macbeth, Tempest, Richard III, The Comedy of explore the possible origins of our
and from Shylock and Othello to Errors, and Macbeth; and selections fascination with crimes of ever-in-
Caliban, Shakespeare exposes the from Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty; creasing magnitude and horror. Is
workings of the tyrant and inter- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince; this fascination a result of our wish
rogates the bondage of service and James VI and I, Political Writings; to escape the less lurid, if nonethe-
slavery. His portraits pose questions David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bond- less horrible transgressions of our
of agency and law: when can political age; Mary Nyquist, Arbitrary Rule: everyday life and our larger culture,
subjects rise against a tyrant? How Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of or is it perhaps a reflection of what
do slaves and servants rise against Life and Death. Writing require- Professor Thomas Doeherty calls “a
tyrannical masters? Shakespeare’s ments include two essays (6-8 pages) culture-wide loss of faith in psycho-
answers resonate with vociferous or one longer paper (15-20 pages) logical or sociological explanations
debates on resistance and tyran- and a few short responses to our for criminal deviance and a return
nicide in the political writings by course units. to the old Puritan explanation for
his contemporaries: we will read human evil”? By reading a broad
selections from the works of French range of true crime narratives, we
jurist Jean Bodin, English monarch will examine how a culture’s chang-
King James I, and Italian political ing relationship to “real life” crime
theorist Niccolò Machiavelli next to narratives can help us understand
Shakespeare’s plays with an eye to the complex role criminality plays in
investigating how early modern writ- defining a culture. Students should
ers imagined the categories of tyrant, be prepared for a fascinating but
slave, and servant; and how their substantial reading load.
writings deepen our understanding
23Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-362G ENGL-364
Contemporary Poetry The Modern Novel
Journey, Anna Kemp, Anthony
tth | 2-3:20p.m. section: 32712 mwf | 1-1:50p.m. section: 32714
Grotesquerie abounds in our liter- responding—both creatively and When does the “modern” novel words of Joyce’s protagonist in “The
ature. What specific characteristics, critically—to four volumes of poetry begin? One answer might be that Dead,” the world was entering “a
however, qualify as “grotesque,” or published during the twenty-first the first modern, psychological thoughttormented age.” We will trace
is the aesthetic category subject to or late twentieth centuries. The novel is Madame de La Fayette’s La this crisis of humanity from the fin
Justice Potter Stewart’s murky defi- coursework consists of two-para- Princesse de Cleves of 1678. For the de siècle, with its sense of exhaustion
nition of obscenity: “I know it when graph reading responses posted to purpose of this course, I’m going and foreboding, into the calamitous
I see it”? Perhaps most problematic Blackboard each week, three to four to the define the modern sensibil- twentieth century, the cruelest in all
of all, due to the grotesque’s con- poems (minimum length: 20 lines ity as beginning in the nineteenth of history. Throughout this period of
trastive structure, the term asks that each; maximum length: 2 pages), and century with the three intertwined unprecedented dislocations, writers
we accept a false binary: that we go two analytical papers (4-6 pages and artistic movements of Modernism, sought new subjects, new feelings,
about separating the “normal” from 8-10 pages, respectively). Decadence and Symbolism. Writers new formal experiments, with which
the “abnormal.” This binary logic and visual artists became convinced to interpret and challenge their unfa-
often reinforces the biases of dom- that humanity was entering an expe- miliar and vertiginous new world.
inant institutions—the patriarchal, rience of self and culture that was These novels are all adventures into
the colonial, the heteronormative, qualitatively different from what it strangeness, efforts to break with
the bourgeois. The sanctioning of had been throughout the historical conventional worlds that are no
so-called “normalcy” thus comes at past, and was perhaps entering a longer tenable, to break through into
the expense or exclusion of others post-humanity or inhumanity. The some alternative intensity, knowl-
who are deemed “abnormal” or human, as we were accustomed to edge, love, redemption.
positioned as inferior. How, then, thinking of it, was over, replaced by
may readers, writers, and thinkers an unknown something else. Paul
approach the grotesque without Verlaine wrote of the principal orig-
naively using it as a tool of oppres- inator of Modernism, Decadence
sion or condescension that reinforces and Symbolism, “the profound
the normativity of some dominant originality of Charles Baudelaire is
cultural order? In this reading and to represent powerfully and essen-
writing intensive seminar, we will tially modern man . . . modern man,
explore the diverse ways in which made what he is by the refinements
contemporary poets employ grotes- of excessive civilization, modern
querie as a powerful creative force. man with his sharpened and vibrant
We will examine aspects of grotes- senses, his painfully subtle mind, his
querie in recent American literature
through reading, discussing, and
brain saturated with tobacco, and his
blood poisoned by alcohol.” In the 24Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-371G ENGL-374M
Literary Genres and Film Literature, Nationality and
Mullins, Brighde
mw | 4:30-5:50p.m. section: 32715
Otherness
“Black British Literature”
In the early days of cinema LGBTQ Russo, Judith Butler, B. Ruby Rich Collins, Corrine
characters were figures of derision or and Edie Kosofsky Sedgwick. Stu-
they were not included at all— they dents will respond to their readings mwf | 1-1:50p.m. section: 32719
simply did not appear. Their depic- and viewings through creative exer-
tion (or lack thereof) was enforced cises, short response papers and one The Black British community is by authors such as Zadie Smith and
by the Hays Code, a stringent cen- longer paper. diasporic and transnational, encom- Andrea Levy, in addition to the lim-
sorship of the content of Hollywood passing a wide-range of cultures ited circulation of texts by Joan Riley
film from 1934 to 1968. Much has from across the globe. Particularly, and Una Marson. Other readings
changed, and this course will focus many of the cultures that make up include poetry, novels, and short
on selected LGBTQ films and the this community are descendants stories by Caryl Phillips, John Agard,
agents of change behind the scenes, and immigrants from the people Bernadine Evaristo, Jackie Kay,
including the writers, the directors, and places that were former colonies Diriye Osman, George Lamming,
and the producers. Works under con- of the British Empire. While Black Grace Nichols, and Helen Oyeyemi.
sideration may include Carol (from Britain is typically defined through
Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price the mid-century era of migration—
of Salt); Call Me By Your Name (from the post-World War II Windrush
André Aciman’s novel), and Pariah generation—black British literature
(written and directed by Dee Rees). is enmeshed in both contemporary
We will read the original literary black British experience and the
texts within their cultural and his- legacies of transatlantic slavery and
torical contexts. We will apply what colonization. This class examines the
we’ve learned about these texts to shifting definitions of “Black” and
our viewing of the films, taking mul- “British” that have emerged over the
tiple aspects of the production into twentieth and twenty-first centu-
consideration, primarily the nar- ries. We will consider the ways this
rative elements via the screenplay, literature disrupts ethnic absolutist
but also the design elements (sound, notions of British identity, engages
score, costumes, location); directorial colonial history and violence, and
vision, and the actors’ portrayals. We foregrounds issues of race, ethnicity,
will also read essays, and film theory
and history, including work by Vito
gender, sexuality, and class. We will
examine the global appeal of works
25Upper-Division Seminars | Spring 2021 Course Descriptions
ENGL-381 ENGL-392
Narrative Forms in Literature Visual and Popular Culture
and Film Kessler, Sarah
mw | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32725
“Blackness and the Poetics of Cinema”
Jackson, Zakiyyah Not all of popular culture is domi- or confused. Our reading list will
nated by the visual—and not all of include theoretical works by Kim-
t | 4:30-6:50p.m. section: 32723 visual culture is what one might berlé Crenshaw, Lauren Berlant,
consider “popular.” Through multi- Stuart Hall, and Pierre Bourdieu, as
What happens when a film is crafted sensory engagements with a broad well as critical essays by Jia Tolen-
with the language of poetry in mind? range of media, this course will take tino, Roxane Gay, Rachel Kaadzi
How does knowledge of poetry a historical and theoretical approach Ghansah, and others. As for our
shape formal experimentation in to the contradictions of U.S. popular media list, expect TV, TikTok, and
film? In what ways has the history culture. Attending to film, television, everything in between.
of film already been conversant with music, and social media, as well as to
poetry? Why might black filmmak- feminist, queer, and antiracist modes
ers, in particular, look to poetry as of cultural production, we will inves-
a guide for filmic representation? Is tigate overlapping and competing
there something about blackness, methods of cultural analysis. We will
about processes of racialization that also craft our own analyses of pop-
elicit knowledge of poetry and poetic ular media and cultural practices to
knowledge? arrive at an understanding of how
we not only shape, but are shaped by,
This course investigates poetic effects “pop culture.” As we interrogate the
in recent experimental and narra- popular, we will consider alternatives
tive film. It investigates similarities to dominant cultural paradigms
between the language of cinema and such as countercultures and subcul-
that of poetry. We will examine the tures. Central to our discussion will
filmmaking of poets and non-poetic be the economic, institutional, polit-
writers and consider how certain ical, and social power structures that
films at the registers of content and assert themselves through popular
style evoke poetry. representations and discourses, thus
the course will focus on the inex-
tricability of issues of race, gender,
sexuality, class, nationality, and
ability from the pop cultural objects
we love to love and hate—as well
as those that leave us ambivalent
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