My Off-Campus Experience

By:  Kat Neilsen

Kat (at left), Rose (Grinnell College), and Christina (Ripon College)

            In ten days I will be handing in my last final, packing my bags, and climbing on board a train bound for Paris, France.  It has been a little over two months since I first stepped onto Italian soil, and my opinion of Florence has changed so many times that I have to think twice about what I want to say.   But, after visiting different parts of Italy this past month, I have definitively decided that I have grown quite fond of Florence.

        So what areas have I visited to make such a decisive statement, you ask?  The first month I was here, I stayed relatively close to Florence.  My reason being, how many opportunities am I going to have to visit Florence for such a long period of time?  While I am here, I might as well see Tuscany in-depth and personal – plus it is cheaper.  Tuscany is very pleasant, and the little towns around it mirror its beauty.  The Tuscan mountains, more like hills compared to the Rocky Mountains I am accustomed to in Colorado, are my favorite feature of this dynamic part of Italy. Sienna, Volterra, San Gimignano and Fiesole are a few of the mountain towns I have visited.  One can not forget Pisa and Viareggio either.  These two towns are located the opposite direction heading towards, and located on, the beautiful Tuscan coast. 

        The middle of February was the beginning of my long distance travel, though compared to others, these were baby steps in Italy.  First I traveled to Rome with ACM, and saw all the major sights in a swift four days.  At the time, I thought Rome was big (which it is), busy (which it is), and dirty (which it is not).  I have changed my mind since. 

Two weekends later I traveled to Naples, which was HUGE (sky scrapers included, a feature never seen by my eyes in Italy), chaotic, and VERY dirty (one walked through trash piles most of the time).   However, Naples had its charms, especially its convenient location near Pompeii, Caserta, and the famous isle of Capri. 

My most recent adventure was to Venice, which, like Florence, has become a favorite of mine, and it did not take eight weeks to figure that out.   The scenery between Bologna and Venice is cultivated and flat, really rather dull, but the city itself is so surrealistic that I can see why it is such a popular resort.  The rumors are true: there are no cars, only canals and boats.  Without cars, the city is quiet, and at night a little creepy because there are not a lot of people out, with the exception of the occasional couple taking a midnight stroll.

In ten days I will be leaving this pastoral and ancient landscape and will be heading towards a completely new reality: London. Let us hope that I will find as much pleasure in exploring its realm as I have in discovering Florence and the different personalities of Italy. 

English Courses Offered for the Fall 2004 Semester

English 210:   Beginning Creative Writing

This class is for novice writers who write and have their material work-shopped by the class. They are required to write either seven poems or forty pages of prose. They also write a research paper on a contemporary author. Grading is on effort and improvement. There are stories to read by famous writers which illustrate certain artistic points.  This course is being taught by Mary Bruce.

English 220:  British Survey I

This course is a historical survey emphasizing literary and cultural developments in English literature from the Old English period through the English Renaissance.  This course is being taught by Marlo Belschner.

English 224:  American Survey I

This course is one of two introductory surveys in American literature emphasizing literary movements and cultural and historical developments in the literature of the United States. Readings will include: Native American creation myths, explorer narratives, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from such writers as Bradstreet, Cotton Mather, Edwards, Franklin, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson.  This course is being taught by Craig Watson.

English 347:  Contemporary American Novel

This course will cover works written after 1945 by some of the following writers: Nathaniel West, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Walker Percy, Ishmael Reed, Ann Beattie, Leslie Marmon Silko, Don DeLillo, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Tony Hillerman, Louise Erdrich, John Barth,  Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger, William Kennedy, Bobbie Ann Mason, Richard Ford, Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, etc., etc.—too much good work and too little time!   We study literature with reference to movements and events in turbulent years of American cultural history.  We also “play” with literary critical approaches that “grew up” in the same precincts. This course is being taught by Craig Watson.

English 350

Section 1:  Chaucer

This course is being taught by Mark Willhardt.

 Section 2:  Victorian Culture

The course will explore a variety of issues relevant to the early and Middle Victorian period including industrialization, science, religion, "the woman question," sexuality, medievalism, politics, and empire by examining a number of literary and cultural "texts" including fiction, poetry, paintings, music, theatre, and magazines.  Authors/artists may include Tennyson, Browning, Eliot, Doyle, Hunt, Kipling, Bronte, Dickens, Rossetti, and Meredith (among others).  This course is being taught by Rob Hale.

 English 362:  Shakespeare II

            Studies in the tragedies and romances.  This course is being taught by Marlo Belschner.

 English 430:  Methods of Teaching English

This course focuses on preparing English/Education majors to teach high school English.  We discuss various methods for successful teaching and we design a couple of practical literature units for the classroom.  This course is being taught by Kevin Roberts.

English Courses Offered for the Spring 2005 Semester

English 200:  Introduction to English Studies

This course is a gateway to the English major. It is designed to introduce majors and minors to the broad range of scholarship and practice within the discipline of English. Included will be emphasis upon close reading and research skills, as well as overviews of the history of the discipline, creative writing, literary criticism and theory, and vocational paths.  This course is being taught by Rob Hale.

English 201:  Grammar

This course deals with basic concepts in grammar (parts of speech, etc.), then moves into more advanced details of diagramming sentences and looking at the origin of grammar study. We will also try to work in some methods for teaching grammar.  This course is being taught by Kevin Roberts.

 English 210: Creative Writing

            See Fall 2004 listing.

English 221:  British Survey II

This course will emphasize major literary movements and historical developments in English literature from the Romantic period through the Modern period. This course is being taught by Rob Hale.

 English 225:  American Survey II

This course is an introductory survey focusing on poetry and fiction written after the Civil War and before American involvement in the Second World War. Included are works from such writers as Jewett, Wharton, Twain, James, Kate Chopin, Crane, Pound, Robinson, Frost, Anderson, Stevens, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner. There will be an emphasis on literary, cultural, and historical movements. The course is a continuation of English 224, but may be taken alone and without regard to sequence.  Course instructor TBA.

 English 301: Advanced Composition

This course is a study of rhetorical strategies and their application to assignments in journalism, scientific writing, and essay writing. It will be open to juniors and seniors or by consent of the instructor.  This course is being taught by Mark Willhardt.     

English 310:  Advanced Creative Writing

This course parallels the creative writing course (English 210) however, the standard is higher. Students are to produce publishable work and submit it. Also the writing demands are greater. Students must write fourteen poems or eighty pages of prose and submit weekly market reports.  This course is being taught by Mary Bruce.

English 350

Section 1:  Literary Representations of Hell

“The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” (Milton Paradise Lost I.253).  Ah, the intellectual pleasures of hell!  Come make “a heaven of hell.” Dante’s The Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost will be the cornerstones of this course with other possible works including classical and religious (western and non-western) texts with images of hell (think Orpheus), Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Faust, Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Sartre’s No Exit.  Emphasis will be on the cultural and political echoes in these works as well as the literary and religious.  This course is being taught by Marlo Belschner.

Section 2:  Transatlantic Lit of the 1890’s

           This course will examine and compare literature of England and America written during the last decade of the nineteenth century.  Authors may include Wilde, Doyle, Hardy, Norris, Jewett, Kipling, Bierce, Field, Symons, Johnson, Stoker (among others).  We will explore the literature in terms of several artistic movements including aestheticism, decadence, naturalism, and regionalism.  This course is being taught by Rob Hale.

 Section 3:  Modernist Poetry

This course is being taught by Mark Willhardt.

            English 400:  Senior Seminar

An intensive study of key literary periods and subjects.  Recent seminars have focused upon: “Literature of the American South,” “New England Women Writers of the Late 19th Century,” “The Gothic Tradition,” “The American Expatriate Experience in Literature” and “Arthurian Literature.” Required of all senior English majors.  This course is being taught by Craig Watson.

• Professor Bruce has been awarded a Global Partners Travel grant to Tanzania to work as Writer-in-residence at the University of Dar es Salaam. This is her fourth Global Partners Grant.
• General sign-up for housing for the 2004-2005 academic year runs from Monday, April 5 to Thursday, April 8.  Sign-up will be in the Glennie Gymnasium each evening from 5-8pm.  Sign-up preference is according to the amount of course credits that you have.  Direct questions to the Office of Student Affairs at 2113.
• Course registration for the 2004-2005 academic year begins on Monday, March 22 at 6pm.  Because the system can only handle a limited number of registrations at one time, registration will be staggered according to credit hours.  To verify the amount of credit hours that you have, log into the Information for Students on the Registrar's page at http://www.monm.edu/academics/registrar.htm.

What has been your favorite English class for the fall 2003-Spring 2004 school year?    

 Faith Bode
fbode@monm.edu

Jamie Jasmer
jjasmer@monm.edu