Graduate Course Offerings

This course will delve into the intersections of race and gender in the context of cognitive, emotional, and physical disability in American literature. As Rosemary Garland Thomson has argued in her book Extraordinary Bodies, in United States history, disability has often itself signaled certain things about both race and gender; we will test Thomson's assertions as well as those of other theorists (such as Lennard Davis, Tobin Siebers, and Joshua Lukin) as we examine writing that foregrounds disability in various ways. Readings will include Frederick Douglass, Zelda Fitzgerald, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Eulalie Spence, Maryse Condé, Eli Clare, and Jeremy Love.

In this course we will explore theoretical readings that address sexuality and gender and that are loosely defined as "Queer Theory," with a focus on major and seminal works in the area. Because any theory is only useful to the extent that it helps us to explain, predict, and change reality, we will evaluate these tools by also reading several extremely contemporary texts written by or for the queer community. These supplemental texts will allow us to test, confirm, modify, or reject the various theoretical readings in an effort to develop an understanding of how systems of sex/sexuality/gender function in our world today. Please be forewarned: readings in this course are particularly dense and some readings will contain explicit erotic material. If you have any objections to explicit sexual material please speak with me about accommodations immediately.

This course follows the development of English pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax from their ancient Germanic beginnings to their most recent and popular forms. Students will be asked to master a considerable amount of linguistic and historical detail in support of a few key concepts: the distinction between synthetic and analytic languages, the relation between oral and written usage, the impact of political and economic history on the history of language. Considerable emphasis will be placed on the use of philological reference works as a basis for classroom discussion.

This course will provide a combination of theoretical background and practical, hands-on experience in the field of literary editing and publishing. Graduate and undergraduate students will work together to produce Coastlines, the undergraduate literary journal of Florida Atlantic University. Graduate students will work together to produce Swamp Ape Review, FAU’s new, national literary magazine. Duties involved in the production of both of these journals include soliciting and evaluating submissions, editing, proofreading, marketing, publicity, research, fundraising, web design, public relations, and more.

Studies in Composition Methodology & Theory will focus on the intersections of theory and practice, specifically pedagogical practices, within the field. As writers, scholars, and teachers of composition, we will examine major pedagogical theories of composition and will analyze the ways in which the elements of a rhetorical situation—writer, audience, context, and text/language—are treated according to each. We will consider the ways in which competing theories of composition inform pedagogical practices, such as modes of instruction (lecture/discussion, demonstration, peer, group), selection and use of heuristics and other instructional materials, and methods of response and assessment.

Special topics in American literature.

Major themes and theoretical statements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Research and methodology; problems of textuality and critical assumptions; history of ideas.