Undergraduate Courses, Fall 2002
Times and locations of class meetings are subject to change. Consult the UF Schedule of Courses for official class times and locations and an explanation of the class period abbreviations.
Lower Division (1000–2000) Special Content Courses
Note: Only course descriptions are listed below. For a comprehensive summary of course numbers, sections, times and locations, titles, and instructors, see the following web page:
AML 2410
Issues in American Literature
Mack Evans
Course description unavailable at this time.
AML 2410
The Transition to the Postmodern: American Literature from Post-WW II to 1984
Derek Merrill
This course will identify the various forms, aesthetics, and subjects in high modernism that anticipated the dominant traits of postmodern literature. While focusing on poetics to study the subtle transition between these two literary styles, we will also read the texts as reflecting, critiquing, and complicating the historical period in which they were written. In addition, because this course considers how changes in American culture from the 1950s to the 1980s affected everyday life and one’s experience of it, we will read the texts in relation to the ideas of the Situationist International, a group of artists theorizing new ways of living within an increasingly fragmented social and spatial landscape.
We will read texts by the following authors: David Harvey, Fredric Jameson, Brian McHale, Situationist International, William Burroughs, Don DeLillo, Ralph Ellison, William Gibson, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon
AML 2410
Confessing the Self in Post-War American Literature
Glenn Freeman
This course will utilize American Literature from a span roughly covering 1950-2000 to explore images of American selfhood. Is there such a thing as an essential self? How do we imagine, define and/or construct identity? Can the self be represented through language? How do we define borders between individual and society? Do such borders exist? Behind all our readings will be the underlying question: why do we write about the self? We will explore three main groups of writers: the Beats, the Confessional Poets, and contemporary memoirists. The class will work within a variety of critical approaches including Historical, Psychoanalytic, Biographical and Gender criticism in order to give us a variety of perspectives on these questions.
AML 2410
The Transition to the Postmodern: American Literature from Post-WW II to 1984
Derek Merrill
This course will identify the various forms, aesthetics, and subjects in high modernism that anticipated the dominant traits of postmodern literature. While focusing on poetics to study the subtle transition between these two literary styles, we will also read the texts as reflecting, critiquing, and complicating the historical period in which they were written. In addition, because this course considers how changes in American culture from the 1950s to the 1980s affected everyday life and one’s experience of it, we will read the texts in relation to the ideas of the Situationist International, a group of artists theorizing new ways of living within an increasingly fragmented social and spatial landscape.
We will read texts by the following authors: David Harvey, Fredric Jameson, Brian McHale, Situationist International, William Burroughs, Don DeLillo, Ralph Ellison, William Gibson, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon
AML 2410
Writing About Fear in American Gothic Tales
Maisha Wester
Course description unavailable at this time.
ENC 1145
Writing about Caribbean Literature
David Hart
We will read and write about Caribbean poetry, fiction, a play, and critical essays. We will explore some major issues in the Caribbean that are brought up by these texts: issues such as (post)colonial identity, culture, education, exile, rootlessness, history, and comparisons to other cultures. All of these issues, and more, are open for discussion (and definition).
This course satisfies the Gordon Rule requirement of 6000 words of written work which will receive feedback and a grade; therefore, a significant part of this class will be dedicated to teaching writing as a response to fiction and critical essays. A student will meet the Gordon Rule only if all assigned work is completed.
ENC 1145
Topics for Composition
Staff
Course description unavailable at this time.
ENC 1145
Writing About the Law in Literature
Bernie O’Donnell
This course will stress the importance of persuasive/argumentative writing within the template of the law in literature by considering the guilt or innocence of fictive characters. An effective writer is an effective communicator and is therefore better prepared to succeed in the professional world, especially in the legal milieu. Consequently, this course does not so much stress the earning of a letter grade as it does the empowering of students to write persuasively. Eventually, you will forget the grade you will have earned for this class, but with continual practice, you will not forget the skills you will acquire from this course and will use them on a daily basis. This course aims to assist you in improving your argumentative writing skills in all facets: i.e., recognizing your audience, identifying and developing an appropriate voice, creating a well-structured argument, organizing your thoughts into a coherent and persuasive presentation, and improving basic grammatical and rhetorical skills. Such an endeavor will require you to write and revise numerous papers, interact with peers by critically reading and responding to rough drafts, and maintaining an open mind and positive attitude.
Required Materials:
- Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, by Stephen Crane
- The Wild Duck, by Henrick Ibsen
- Miss Julie, by August Strindberg
- Dirty Work, by Larry Brown
ENC 1145
Writing About the Female Body and Sexuality
Sharmain Van Blommestein
Writing About the Female Body and Sexuality explores how contemporary and ancient scholars created models for writing about the female body and sexuality. Through investigating how language is related to the female body and sexuality, students will analyze arguments that foreground the workings of the discursivity of the female body, identifying interpretive and rhetorical strategies that make them effective. In sequenced writing assignments, students will then practice these schemes and should develop original arguments about the workings of this specific corporeal and sexed language that not only emanate from the texts used in class but through their own ideas. Students will explore the methods in which language can, not only transform the body into a site of inscription, but allow the body to exhume meaning – the body becomes a text and, to use Elizabeth Grosz’s term, becomes a “cultural product” For example, through language and the written word, how does the female body “talk” and generate meaning and, in general, how do bodies “talk”? How do bodies, and the female body specifically, give one insight into the social norms of a particular era? Therefore, it is critical to ask the questions: Are women physically and functionally limited/not limited through these prescriptive descriptions, and do their bodies have room for creativity within these coded dimensions? Does the female body “talk” differently to that of a male body in text and why? Are women’s and also men’s bodies stereotypically constructed? What part does religion play/not play in this limited construction? An attempt to write the female body and sexuality requires one to go beyond limited dimensions and would require a rhetoric that includes the “unlimited” discursivity of female bodies. This class will try to work towards such a rhetoric through the process of writing.
This class fits into different areas of interests: those interested in Feminist and Gender studies, Body Theory, and also Medieval and Early Modern Studies, since we will be reading text from those periods.
ENC 1145
Writing About Television and Women: History, Representation, and Feminism
Rosa Soto
Course description unavailable at this time.
ENC 1145
Writing About Writing
Sarah Mallonee
Course description unavailable at this time.
ENC 1145
Writing About Computer Video Games
Lydia Blätter
The purpose of this course will be to introduce students to the history of videogames as well as current trends in game theory in such a way that students will begin to orient their own gaming and participate in larger critical discussions. Questions to be addressed include: What does it mean to read a game as a text? How are quest narratives read differently than traditional narratives? How are gamers also situated as authors? How do games create an altered sense of subjectivity? How are representations of race and gender incorporated/omitted from games?
ENC 1145
Writing About Gay and Lesbian Literature
Nishant Shahani
Course description unavailable at this time.
ENC 1145
Writing About Football
Kevin McCarthy
ENC 1145 – Writing About Football – fulfills 3 hours of the General Education requirement in English Composition; has two required texts (The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL by Tim Green and Fightin’ Gators: A History Of University of Florida Football); has six assigned essays (each having 1,000 words because this is a Gordon Rule course) in such types as the Argumentative Essay (Should high schoolers be allowed/encouraged to jump to the NFL? Should there be a cap on rookie salaries in the NFL?), the Comparative-Contrastive Essay (on two different football teams or positions or leagues or on the difference between football and another sport), the Descriptive Essay (on one player or team or league), and a Critique Essay about some aspect of football; and presupposes no previous knowledge of football. In addition to the six essays (each worth 10% of the final grade), there will be five tests (for a total of 30% of the final grade), and required attendance and participation (for a total of 10% of the final grade).
LIN 2670
English Grammar
Kevin McCarthy
LIN 2670 – English Grammar – is a practical course in the basics of English grammar, including vocabulary, syntax, semantics, spelling, and pronunciation. No previous knowledge of English grammar is presumed. Because this will be an intensive course, students must come to class prepared to participate in every session. The course has seven tests, each worth 14 points and cumulative, with two additional points on the final test, for a total of 100 points. The tests are administered on Thursdays in class, beginning on September 5th. There are no make-up tests. If students miss a particular test, the following one is doubled in value. The final test, which is cumulative (as are all the tests), is mandatory. The text is a grammar packet available at a local bookstore.