|
|
|
|
Dr.
Brooks Appelbaum:
Temporary Professor Candidate
by Johnathan Skidmore
At the
time that this article is being written, Dr. Brooks Appelbaum is
being considered for a temporary position on Monmouth College's
English Department. As many of you know, Professor Rob Hale is
going to be on sabbatical during the fall semester and Mark
Willhardt will be away during the spring. The English
department has been interviewing many applicants in order to
fill these positions. Dr. Appelbaum was born in Kansas and
received her doctorate at Cornell. Her focus is on Victorian
literature and theatre. Students were urged to attend a meeting
in order to hear Dr. Appelbaum discuss a class she will be
teaching next semester if chosen as the replacement.
Dr.
Appelbaum began her discussion by briefly outlining the
historical context of her course. The Victorian era marked a
period where women were becoming increasingly involved in the
intellectual sphere of society. During this period, the novel
was becoming increasingly popular, causing societal anxiety
about who was writing novels and what standards they were
following. Novels were cheaper and readily available due to
libraries and easier printing methods. As a result, scholars
attempted to qualify what constituted “high art” and what
comprised something that would be considered “low art.”
Appelbaum’s course will be focusing on the works of the Bronte
sisters. In a societal conversation regarding high art that was
dominated primarily by male voices, the Bronte sisters
consciously added their voice to the debate when very few other
women did. The course will examine this through reading their
literature, diaries, and the prefaces that the sisters wrote for
different editions of each other’s books. Novels that will be
read in the course will include Wuthering Heights and
Jane Eyre. The students will discuss the literary,
critical, and historical context through the works of the Bronte
sisters with focus on their juvenilia and original prefaces.
This
looks to be an interesting class. If it is available next
year, I strongly recommend that you take it. Besides,
it'll be a chance to see a new face in the classroom for once.
***Please note: If Applebaum
is hired, she will also teach Advanced Composition in the spring |
|
|
The Importance of
Journals
on the Trip to Gautier, Mississippi
by Megan Carlson
On March 4th,
20 students, faculty, and staff woke up at four in the morning
to embark on a journey to Gautier, Mississippi. None of us knew
exactly what we were getting ourselves into. Because of this,
we had made committees before we left. This included
entertainment, T-shirt design, and the ever important food
committee. I decided to join the journal/reflection committee,
thinking it would help my writing aspirations. At first, the
journals seemed like something fun to remind you of what you saw
or did. These journals did contain that, but they also became
something else. Everyone got a journal the first day at camp.
The journal committee was somewhat skeptical if anyone would
actually use them, and if this was somewhat cheesy. We were
strongly mistaken. The group would carry their journals around
everywhere. When there was free time, two or three people would
be writing away. This was surprising to me because I did not
think that it would really be that important to people. The
damage and destruction that we saw from Hurricane Katrina forced
us to write about everything we saw. At night we would get
together and just talk about what we were doing and the people
that we met. Responses varied with the questions that the
reflection committee asked. Some people were angered by the
fact that these towns are still destroyed literally and
emotionally. Some people were ecstatic that the communities had
not given up and were kind-hearted generous people. One person
even said that this week had sparked something inside her and
she felt the need to write down everything. These are just a
couple of examples, but this trip had to have journals because
it helped to connect us as a group. Most of us had hardly known
each other before this, and now there is a mutual understanding
of what we all went through. We know that what we saw and did
will stay stuck in our minds, and it will be impossible to
forget the magnitude of this trip. There is something very
powerful about writing, and I think that we all realized this on
our trip to Mississippi.
If you
would like more information, you can contact me at
macarlson@monm.edu
There
is also more planning for another trip in May. If anyone is
interested, contact Ashley Nuzzo.
|
|
English Course
Schedule for Academic Year 2006-2007
Fall 2006
English 110:
Composition and Literature
Taught by various members of the English faculty, this course is
a study of basic rhetorical strategies and their application in
thesis-based essays, as well as an analysis of literature
emphasizing the symbolic and expressive uses of language.
Students are introduced to the imaginative modes of literature
and demonstrate their understanding of those uses through
discussion and written work. (Four Credits)
English 108: Introduction to
Literature
This course, taught by Professor Mark Willhardt, is a general
literature course for non-majors, English 180 seeks to encourage
life-long reading through appreciation of literary language and
form. The course will emphasize examination and comparison of
literary genres, structure and form in fiction and poetry, and
New Critical analysis (point of view, plot, setting,
characterization, diction, imagery, metaphor and symbol, theme,
etc.) In addition, the course will place a particular topic or
sub-genre in the context of pertinent historical and cultural
settings, while examining categorical assumptions about
"popular" and "serious" literary treatments.
The subject of the course this year is going to be "Detective
Fiction." (Three Credits)
English 220: British Survey I
Beginning with the canonical alliterative epic Beowulf and
continuing through the works of Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth
century, students in this course, taught by Professor Belschner,
survey roughly ten centuries of British literature. The goals in
this course are twofold (at least): to provide a chronology of
(mostly) canonical British literature and to develop a sense of
literary historicity as well as to think deeply about literature
rooted in cultures simultaneously comparable to and disparate
from our own.
English 224: American Survey I
This course, taught by Professor Watson, 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. (Three Credits)
English 226: Advanced Print Media
and Workshop
This course, taught by Tom Withenbury, is an advanced study in
print media, covering the more complex elements of journalism.
(Two Credits)
English 314: History of the English Language
HotEL, taught by Professor Willhardt, is designed to give you a
view of the internal and external causes which shaped English
over the past 1500+ years. The students will study the
linguistic bases for English, starting with a primer in
phonetics, and then study the development of English as a
language. (Three Credits)
English 343:
Twentieth Century British Literature
Taught by Professor Willhardt, this course will be a sampling of
the works of many major 20th-century British Literature.
The specific works have not been decided as of yet, but last
year's version of this course, entitled "Angry Young Men," found
the students reading Graham Greene and Anthony Burgess as well
as several selections of the post-WWII punk movement. (Three
Credits)
English 347: Modern
America Drama
This course, taught by Professor Watson, has not been taught in
around five years. In the past this course has included
plays by Eugene O'Neill, Clifford Odets, William Saroyan, Arthur
Miller, Tennessee Williams Lorraine Hansberry, Edward Albee,
Beth Henley, Amiri Baraka, etc. Students keep a director's
notebook, work with others on a video production of a scene from
a play, see several films, write papers and exams. (Three
Credits)
English 350: Special
Topics in Literature
This is the "Special Topics in Literature" course that is going
to be taught by the temporary Assistant Professor. The
professor has not yet been named, but for a possible course
subject, view the first article on this page about Professor
Appelbaum. (Three Credits)
English 430: Methods of Teaching
English
A study, lead by Professor Kevin Roberts, of the basic
approaches to the teaching of poetry, fiction, and drama and
their application in the classroom. Attention is given to the
teaching of composition, the marking of themes, and the
preparing and grading of examinations. May not be counted toward
a major in English. (Three Credits)
Spring
2007
English 201:
Grammar
A course, taught by Professor Kevin Roberts, that gives
students practice in fundamental English grammar. Emphasizes
basic skills, not theory. (Three Credits)
English 221:
British Survey II
A historical survey, taught by Professor Hale, emphasizing
literary and cultural developments in English literature
from the Romantic through the Modern periods. (Three
credits.)
English 225:
American Survey II
Taught by Professor Craig Watson, this 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. 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. (Three
Credits)
English 240:
Russian Literature in the 19th Century
This course is taught by Professor Suda and is an
introductory survey of 19th-century Russian literature in
translation. Emphasis is on outstanding works of the period
in their cultural and historical contexts. Includes works by
such writers as Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev,
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. (Three credits.)
English 299:
Writing Fellows
Taught by Professor Steve Price, this course is an
introduction to the tutoring process, as well as basic
pedagogical and developmental strategies for teaching
writing. Course requirements will include readings in
composition/tutoring theory and practice as well as tutoring
in the Mellinger Teaching and Learning Center. (Two Credits)
English 310: Advanced Creative
Writing
This course, taught by Professor Mary Bruce, is one in which
Students write intensively in fiction or poetry,
individually selecting their subject matter throughout the
course. Students sharpen their critical skills by evaluating
one another’s work and by investigating contemporary writing
and publishing. (Three Credits)
English 350 section
1: The Works of John Milton
"He who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, but he who
destroys a good book kills reason itself" John Milton,
Areopagitica. This course shall be taught by Professor
Belschner. Students will immerse themselves in the
major works of John Milton including his masterpiece,
Paradise Lost; his shorter poems on death, virginity,
and circumcision; and the interesting bits from his
non-fiction on freedom of speech, on divorce, "The Tenure of
Kings and Magistrates," and others. The focus of this course
will be soaring, sublime prose; intricate poetic structures;
and the seductive power of the devil. (Three Credits)
English 350 section 2: Romantic Literature
In this iterationof Romantic
Literature, taught by Professor Hale, students will examine some
canonical Romantic works by writers such as William Blake,
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron,
Percy Shelley, and John Keats and look at them against works
written during the Romantic period that don’t necessarily
fit with Romanticism—an 18th-century gothic novel
(probably by Radcliffe), a Jane Austen novel, and a Mary
Shelley novel. (Three Credits)
English 361: Shakespeare 1
Shakespeare's greatest masterpieces--the work of the latter
end of his career--are the focus of this course, including
Hamlet and The Tempest. Ponder sex, death, and the new world
as taught by Professor Belschner. The students will examine
the conditions of Shakespeare's stage, the main genre
distinctions and Shakespeare's genre innovations, and some
film versions of his works. Most importantly, we will
examine the questions about our very humanity that
Shakespeare raises in these works: what are our flaws? How
can we face old age and death bravely? What do we do about
our own very human limitations? Shakespeare's powerful use
of language also receives focused attention. (Three Credits)
English 400: Senior Seminar
Taught by Professor Hale, the topic of the Senior Seminar
for next year is Revolutionary Books, and we will use this
topic as a loose way to organize and draw connections
between the texts. The students will look at different
connotations of the label and consider different ways a work
might be considered revolutionary, whether from a
technical/formal, Marxist, political-historical, feminist,
or cultural perspective. The primary texts have not yet
been chosen, but the last time Professor Hale taught the
course the class read Wordsworth and Coleridge’s
Lyrical Ballads,
Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass, Woolf’s
Mrs. Dalloway,
Hughes’s Fine Clothes to
the Jew, Plath’s
Ariel, and
Fowles’s The French
Lieutenant’s Woman. Professor Hale would like to
note that he welcomes suggestions or votes for the books
seniors would like to read. (Three Credits)
|
-
The
Lloyd C. and Dorothy Arthur Prize in Expository Writing
was established in 1996 to honor the memory of Lloyd C.
Arthur (1918-1996), a member of the Monmouth College
Class of 1939 and a former Monmouth postmaster who was
active in the Presbyterian Church and several community
organizations. It is presented annually to a Monmouth
College student for excellence in expository or
argumentative prose in class work.
-
The Eva Cleland Book Award
was first presented in 1978 to honor Professor Eva Hanna
Cleland (1895-1991), a native of Canada who taught
English at Monmouth College from 1923 until her
retirement in 1966, and who is credited with modernizing
the department by introducing the study of creative
writing along with modern poetry and prose. The award is
presented annually to an English major for outstanding
work in English literature.
-
The Rosanna Webster Graham Prize in Creative Writing
was established in
1987 to honor the memory of Rosanna Webster Graham
(1906-1985), a 1928 Monmouth College graduate with a
lifelong interest in the creative arts. A founding
member of the college’s Crimson Masque dramatic society,
she later became an accomplished artist and short story
writer. The prize is awarded each year for the best
example of student creative writing, in the form of a
one-act play, short story or poetry.
-
The Adele Kennedy Book Award
was first awarded in 1979 to honor Professor Adele
Kennedy (1907-1987), who retired from the English
Department in 1977 after 31 years of service. Known
affectionately as “Mom” to her students, she touched
hundreds of lives with her creative teaching style,
bringing the written word to life. The award is
presented annually to an English major for outstanding
work in American literature.
-
The Philip J. Wheeler Memorial Prize in Literature
was established in 1997 in memory of Philip J. Wheeler
(1926-1997). A 1950 Monmouth College graduate with a
degree in business administration, he was a former
Monmouth bookstore owner, a supporter of the Warren
County Library and an avid reader. It is awarded
annually to an English major with a strong interest in
literature.
If
you have any questions about this awards please contact
Department Chair, Dr. Craig Watson at xt. 2101.
- The tutoring hours at
the Mellinger Learning Center have changed. There are updated
schedules posted around campus and there is also an updated
version available on this website. Please note that
certain hours have changed and a new Japanese tutoring session
has also been added. To find this information quickly,
please click here.
|
|
|
The Printing Press needs
for you, that's right, you, to submit your work. We are
well aware of the fact that there are some serious writers out
there. If you, or someone you know, writes short stories
or poetry, let us know. For next issue, there will be a
contest in order to help bring some of you out of your shells.
The students whose work we choose shall be exalted in the
Printing Press and the author will be immortalized through the
written word. Did I mention that there was a prize?
The authors we choose to
be placed in the Printing Press will win one black and white
autographed photograph of their favorite English professor,
frame included. Who wouldn't want to have a signed picture
of their mentor and inspiration placed on your desk.
The winner will get to
choose either Professor Craig Watson, Professor Kevin Roberts,
Professor Rob Hale, Professor Mark Willhardt, Professor Marlo
Belschner, Professor Mary Bruce, and as a special bonus
Communication across the Curriculum Professor Steven Price.
Be the first one on your block to own one of these tasteful
portraits, collect all seven!
This is a serious contest.
Please, submit any questions to one of the Printing Press staff
members and good luck!
|
|
What Period of History Produced Your Favorite Literature
and Why Would You Consider it to be Your Favorite?
I'm a fan of early-mid
20th century literature, particularly the "Lost Generation"
stuff by Fitzgerald and Hemingway. The work of this period
is moody and often anticlimactic and much of it goes against
literary tradition. As someone who marches to the beat of a
different drummer, I find that aspect intriguing. Plus,
there's lots of sex and violence in literature of this
period, which I thoroughly enjoy.
-Brandon Athey
The Victorian Era
produced a lot of colorful literature that I will always
remember reading in college and hope to continue reading
on my own (thanks to Rob Hale for teaching me about
Victorian culture). I plan to read “Goblin Market” to
my children when teaching them not to talk to
strangers. I also really enjoy American literature at
all its stages of history, probably because of Craig
Watson.
-Talitha Nelson
I honestly like the revolutionary
ideas presented in the "Angry Young Men" period of
British writing, that being the writing of the last 100
years. It presented books like Brighton Rock and
A Clockwork Orange that were just incredible,
while at the same time chronicling the feelings that the
Brits had for and against the war, the punk rock
movement, and patriotism.
- Chadd Kaiser
|
|
Cultural Events
Calendar
The Cultural Events
Calendar is a monthly update on the special
activities going on at Monmouth College and
other campuses such as Western, Knox, and
Augustana. |
|
|
|
|
|
Writing Labs |
Monday - Thursday 3:00-5:00 pm |
| |
Sunday - Thursday 7:00-10:00 pm |
| |
|
| Math |
Monday - Thursday 3:00 - 5:00 pm |
| |
Sunday -
Thursday 7:00 - 9:00 pm |
| |
|
| Spanish |
Monday and Thursday
7:00 - 8:00 pm |
| |
Tuesday and Wednesday 7:00 -
9:00 pm |
| |
|
| French |
Tuesday and Thursday 7:00 - 9:00 pm |
| |
|
| German |
Tuesday and
Thursday 6:00 -
7:00 pm |
| |
|
| Japanese |
Monday
3:00 - 5:00 pm |
| |
Thursday
4:00 - 5:00 pm |
| |
|
| Communication |
By appointment Only
(3rd Floor of Wallace Hall) |
|
|
Photograph courtesy of Jamie Jasmer
|
|
A good old
fashioned game of dodge ball during Greek Week in the
quad.
|
|
