Review of Hewes Library Database Subscriptions
By Johnathan Skidmore

Oxford Reference Guide

http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/GLOBAL.html?authstatuscode=200

This is a very well organized database from the Oxford University Press.  Much like the Oxford English Dictionary online, this website is very easily navigated.  On the main page, all of the features are clearly printed and categorized for quick access.  This should earn big points with those who, like me, constantly visit the same database repeatedly throughout the process of researching one work.  The main features of the Oxford Reference Guide are an English dictionary and thesaurus, a collection of quotations, bilingual dictionaries for five different languages, and a search engine that browses over one hundred of the reference books published by Oxford University Press.  Much like many of the more popular databases Monmouth College subscribes to, such as JSTOR and EBSCOhost, the Oxford Reference Guide allows the user to define the subject of his or her query, making the search engine produce narrow and precise results nearly every time.  This database covers a fairly broad area of study and the subjects covered range greatly from English to the sciences and almost all subjects in between.  I deem this search engine to be an excellent source for research that specially deals mainly with language use, as well as some cursory research in the scientific fields.  It is definitely a database that deserves the Oxford University Press’ name.

The Nineteenth Century in Print:
the Making of America in Books and Periodicals

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/ncphome.html

This database is not as organized as the first but has a much deeper cut of information.  When compared to the number of books that the Oxford Reference Guide searches, just a little over a hundred, The Nineteenth Century in Print: the Making of America in Books and Periodicals is the obvious winner for the amount of information available.  The website boasts that there are over 1,500 books and 23 periodicals that are available in this database managed by The Library of Congress.  The search engine is a click off the main page and lacks a feature to limit the resources that are searched, but this is a much larger database, which makes up for this lack of precision.  This database would best serve someone looking for information on a less specific topic only within the nineteenth century.  Overall, I feel that this is a satisfactory database to use, especially if you are dealing with a broad event from the nineteenth century.  If I were to point out one fault, it would be the fact that The Nineteenth Century in Print: the Making of America in Books and Periodicals lacks the ability to limit your searches.  Due to the magnitude of the database, search results can sometimes be far too long to sort through.

Click below to

Visit the Cultural Events Calendar
By Megan Carlson

English Courses Offered for the Spring 2005 Semester
By Jamie Jasmer

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
Practice in the writing and critical analysis of imaginative literary forms, especially poetry and fiction.  Mary Bruce will be instructing this class.

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 will be Mary Bruce.

English 301: Advanced Composition
This course is an opportunity for students to examine and practice literary non-fiction.  By attending carefully to the literary devices employed by authors when they write "true" stories, students gain not only an appreciation for the craft of one of the most broadly-practiced contemporary art forms, but also give themselves a store of techniques which they can apply to their own memoirs, autobiographical essays, historical pieces, and interviews.  The course examines both types and techniques of literary non-fiction even as it asks students to write examples of the genre.  Available to junior and senior majors and by consent of the instructor (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, Geothe's 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
As a literary period, Modernism marked a radical break with the Victorian style and mores which preceded it.  In this course we will be concentrating on one of the two literary genres which brought Modernism both fame and ridicule in the early part of the twentieth-century, poetry.  (The other dominant Modernist literary genre was fiction.)  We will examine works from both sides of the Atlantic in order to get a sense of what American and European Modernisms might have shared and what might have made them distinct.  We will examine poetry by Eliot, Pound, Hughes, HD, MacDiarmid, and WC Williams, amongst others.  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 the folowing: “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 year's theme is still TBA.   This course is being taught by Craig Watson.

Information about Registration

• Students who were enrolled at Monmouth College last year and those who have returned to Monmouth College after a semester or more hiatus will be able to access the registration system beginning at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3, to make necessary changes to their spring schedules.
• Course selection for first semester students will begin on Monday, November 8, at 5 p.m.  New students will be divided into four groups with staggered start times (5:00, 6:30, 8:00, and 9:30 p.m.) for registration.  (See the Registrar’s page for details: http://reg.monm.edu:9040/cgi-bin/student/frame.cgi )

Monmouth College campus in the fall!

Jamie Jasmer
jjasmer@monm.edu

Megan Carlson
macarlson@monm.edu

Johnathan Skidmore
jskidmor@monm.edu