English

This course is designed to provide an upper-level focus on rhetorical strategies. It will introduce students to classical rhetoric and apply principles of rhetorical analysis to a variety of nonfictional texts, including argumentative essays, rhetorical studies, literary criticism, magazine and newspaper articles, internet sources, speeches, legal writing, leadership discourse and digital discourse. Students will practice scrutinizing linguistic choices while enhancing their own writing through a variety of modes and types. We will start with classical rhetoric and move towards a discussion of rhetoric in the digital age, thinking about how rhetoric has shifted in the 21st century. This course will include Digital Humanities components, and will count towards the writing and digital humanities concentrations, or as a 300-level elective for literature and secondary education concentrations. It also qualifies for the Women’s and Gender Studies minor. This course is open to non-majors and is useful for anyone who is interested in thinking critically about how to communicate effectively.

Course Learning Objectives and Goals

1. Learn about classical modes of argument, and apply those modes to contemporary writing.
2. Understand the basic progression of rhetorical thought from classical rhetoric through contemporary rhetorical theory.
3. Apply the writing process of prewriting, determining purpose/audience, drafting, revising and editing.
4. Apply principles of rhetorical analysis to a variety of texts, including argumentative essays, rhetorical studies, literary criticism, magazine and newspaper articles, legal writing and leadership discourse.
5. Evaluate the quality of one’s own and one’s peer’s writing in terms of focus, content, organization, style and mechanics/conventions.
6. Use standard MLA documentation conventions in the preparation of writing projects.
7. Apply technology to the writing process.
8. Write competently according to these criteria:
   1. Content: originality, careful thought, clearly defined central idea or thesis, substantial and concrete support of the central idea.
   2. Organization: clearly ordered plan of development, consistent development of central idea and unified and coherent paragraphs.
   3. Expression: appropriate, clear and accurate choice of language, as well as complete, clear and varied sentence structure.
   4. Mechanics: consistent and correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage.
   5. Documentation Formats: correct MLA citation and documentation format.
9. Identify and explain principles of rhetorical analysis.

Though we could say that all writers write against some aspect of mainstream thought, the Gothic style is more direct, harsh and heavy-handed. Highlighting the conflict between rational and irrational forces in our lives, the Gothic is about subversion. Whether it’s the Swans singing their ballad Goddamn the Sun or Mark Danielewski’s complete breakdown of fictional structure and language itself in House Of Leaves, the Gothic emphasizes the fragility of our taxonomies and paradigms.

This course will explore why these texts encourage breakdown - to criticize? to entertain? to shock? to encourage social justice? Gothic scholars and Gothicism’s scope are legion. We will investigate how and why violence permeates Gothic texts. Beginning with the Gothic novel’s origins in mid-eighteenth-century England, we will move to contemporary violent fiction to study how structure and content relate in these texts.

Tentatives Texts

• The Castle of Otranto
• The Italian
• The Monk
• Wieland
• Northanger Abbey
• Little Women
• Geek Love
• Blindness (trans. from Portuguese)
• Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves

Assignments Include

• Presentation & paper, weekly
• Response papers
• Research essay, midterm/final

This course offers an in-depth analysis of English drama from its earliest manifestations within local tenth-century churches through its pervasive presence as part of seventeenth-century London’s growing metropolis. We will focus in particular on the complex relationships between early English modes of dramatic representation (such as religious ritual, allegory, festival pageantry, comedy and satire) and the theatrical spaces within and on which these modes were staged (such as churches, fields, medieval towns and cities, scaffolds, London and, of course, theaters).

Some of the general questions we will be asking throughout the semester will include:

• In what ways do the physical features of a performance space (whether it’s a theater or a field) impact theatricality and performance?
• How are content (plot) and form (dramatic representation) interrelated with the physical context of a performance (an enclosed theater, a church altar, a city street)?
• What happens when actors perform the roles of God and Jesus, and does the fact that they do so in front of drunken crowds during a holiday festival change the situation?
• How might costumes and props be considered part of a play?
• What happens when men dress as women to perform female roles?
• What happens when everyday citizens become actors?

As we address these and many other questions about space, drama, and performance, we will draw heavily on our own spatial environs, namely the campus of Wilkes University. In addition to reading plays and discussing them in class, we will perform them (individual scenes and entire plays) throughout campus: in and around Kirby and Weckesser Halls, on the steps of Farley Library, on the banks of the Susquehanna, on the campus mall, in and around Dorothy Darte Center, and in classrooms. Along with these performance elements, the course will devote extensive attention to the economic, social, religious and political contexts of the period and for the history of drama and the stage. We will consider also the historical and editorial processes by which plays written and performed in a medieval town 800 years ago - or in London’s burgeoning metropolis 400 years ago - make it to the printed pages of our textbooks.

Students need not have any theatrical training or experience to excel in this course. Students from both theatrical and non-theatrical backgrounds are encouraged to enroll.