Advisement Newsletter

Department of English
SUNY Geneseo spring 2010

*** Preregistration on Knightweb for Fall 2010 Courses March 30 April 16 ***

Join us for Food and Advice on March 24

In addition to regular academic advisement appointments this spring, the English Department will hold a faculty-student
mixer with pre-registration help for the fall semester.

Please join us in the Harding Lounge (Welles 111) at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 24, for lunch, talk, and answers to
your questions about English courses. Students may speak directly to faculty about their interests and scheduled courses.

Food and refreshments (thanks to the English Club) are free; the talk depends on you. Hope you can make it!

Preparing for your advisement appointment

First-year students (including first-year transfer students) as When you arrive for your appointment, bring along your
well as students working themselves out of academic difficulty registration materials as well as a plan for courses youd
are required to see their academic advisors; otherwise you will like to take in the fall. While academic advisors will happily
be unable to pre-register for classes. Since faculty must meet suggest courses to fit your needs, your own interests
with you to review your schedule, please do not make last- should drive your schedule. Please recognize as well that
minute contact on the date you are scheduled to pre-register. you wont have time during a fifteen-minute appointment
to work out class times or day preference. Also, you
Academic advising isnt just for first-year students, however. Allshould make sure that you dont have time conflicts or
students can benefit from sitting down for fifteen minutes with more than two finals on a single day. (The finals calendar
a faculty member to make sure you are fulfilling your is posted at the Deans website.)
requirements as well as making progress toward your degree.
Faculty advisors might not have all the answers, but we know Make an appointment by stopping by your advisors office,
where to go toON LINEanswers.
find those MASTER SCHEDULE: The sending MasteranSchedule
email, or calling
will your at The department
advisor.
be up
secretary does not make appointments for individual
masterschedule.geneseo.edu on March 8. Check
faculty for updates.
members.

Please note the set of course descriptions at the end of

this newsletter. You can learn the nature of slot-course
offerings, and also gain some ideas about selected texts,
classroom and grading policies, and so forth.
 Courses of Interest to English Majors

ENGL 170 The Practice Of Criticism (Doggett, Paku, Schacht, Woidat)

American Literature ENGL 235 American Literature (Cooper, Rutkowski); ENGL 237
Voices and Perspectives: African-American Migration Narrative (McCoy2 sections); ENGL
237 Voices and Perspectives: Visibility and Invisibility in American Literature (Rutkowski);
ENGL 239 American Visions: Hip Hop Culture & Contemporary American Literature (Gentry);
ENGL 239 American Visions: Underground Cinema (Okada); ENGL 332 Early American
Department of English
Literature (Woidat); ENGL 333 Modern American Literature (Gillin); ENGL 339 American
SUNY Geneseo
Ways: Ecocriticism (Cooper); ENGL 343* Women & Literature: Transgender in Literature
Welles Hall 226
(Rutkowski); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Henry James (Gillin); ENGL 390 Broadway, Times
Phone: Square, & American Theater (Greenfield)
585 245-5273 Pre-1700 British ENGL 212 British Literature I (Drake, Paku); ENGL 311 British
Renaissance: Graphic Poetry (Walker)
E-Mail:
Michele Feeley Post-1700 British ENGL 213 British Literature II (Harrison); ENGL 314 British
feeleym@geneseo.edu Romanticism (Stelzig/Dahl); ENGL 317 Contemporary British Literature (Doggett); ENGL 324
British Novel: The Thirties (Harrison); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jane Austen (Easton); ENGL
394 Senior Seminar: Modern Autobiography (Stelzig)
Major Figures ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jane Austen (Easton); ENGL 358 Major Authors:
Henry James (Gillin); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jamaica Kincaid (Lima)
Richard Finkelstein
Department Chair Cultural Intersections ENGL 142 Literary Forms: Caribbean Short Stories (Lima); ENGL
finkelst@geneseo.edu 237 Voices and Perspectives: African-American Migration Narrative (McCoy2 sections);
ENGL 237: Voices and Perspectives: Visibility and Invisibility in American Literature
(Rutkowski); ENGL 239 American Visions: Hip Hop Culture & Contemporary American
Literature (Gentry); ENGL 239 American Visions: Underground Cinema (Okada); ENGL 242
M/Literature of the African Diaspora (Lima); ENGL 343* Women & Literature: Transgender
in Literature (Rutkowski); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jane Austen (Easton); ENGL 358 Major
Authors: Jamaica Kincaid (Lima)

Were on the Web! Shakespeare ENGL 354 Shakespeare I (Herzman)

Writing/Language Courses ENGL 200 (Beltz-Hosek, Metzger); ENGL 201 (Gentry, Hall,
www.geneseo.edu/english
Perri, Woidat); ENGL 301/303 Poetry Writing I/II (Faurot); ENGL 302/304 Fiction Writing I/II
Check out the course (Hall); ENGL 305/307 Creative Non-Fiction I/II (Gentry); ENGL 361 History of the English
descriptions!! Language (Drake)
Film ENGL 285 F/Introduction to Film Studies (Okada); ENGL 239 American Visions:
Underground Cinema (Okada)
Genre Courses (for Writing Track): ENGL 142 Literary Forms: Caribbean Short Stories
(Lima); ENGL 142 Literary Forms: Modern Memoirs (Stelzig): ENGL 142 Literary Forms:
Science Fiction (Metzger) ENGL 311 British Renaissance: Graphic Poetry (Walker); ENGL 324
British Novel: The Thirties (Harrison); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jane Austen (Easton); ENGL
358 Major Authors: Jamaica Kincaid (Lima); ENGL 390 Broadway, Times Square, & American
Theater (Greenfield); ENGL 394 Senior Seminar: Modern Autobiography (Stelzig)
Contemporary Courses (for Writing Track): ENGL 142 Literary Forms: YouTubeU:
Reading Your World (Walker); ENGL 317 Contemporary British Literature (Doggett); ENGL
358 Major Authors: Jamaica Kincaid (Lima)
World Literature Courses (for Writing Track) ENGL 142 Literary Forms: The Short
Story in the Caribbean (Lima); ENGL 348 European Literature: The Novel 1770-1920
(Asher); ENGL 358 Major Authors: Jamaica Kincaid (Lima)

* Note: students may take ENGL 343 (like 142, 237, 337 and 339) a second time
under a new subtitle
Concentrators:
Please note that you often have more flexibility in
your course selection than some editions of the
catalogue indicate. Current options include:
Three hours from among ENGL 200, 201,
306, or 361
Three hours from among ENGL 212, 222,
232, 310, 311, 312, 350, 353.
Three hours from among ENGL 213, 218,
233, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 324.
Three hours from among ENGL 235, 237,
239, 330, 331, 332, 333, 338, 339.
Three hours from among ENGL 237, 241,
242, 267/M, 318, 343, 345, 360.
Please note that ENGL 358 can count in
various categories depending on the offering.
Please check with your faculty advisor or with
English Advisement Newsletters for
information.
PERMISSION FOR 300-level WRITING
Students should remember that these classes are
highly selective. In order to get permission for
ENGL 301/303, 302/304, 305/307 you need to
have completed ENGL 201.
Writing samples for Creative Nonfiction I and II,
Poetry Writing I and II and Fiction I and II are
due by 4 p.m. on Friday March 26. Interested
students should submit five to ten pages of their
best work in the genre for which they are
applying. (Fiction workshops focus on realistic
literary fiction.) Cover sheets are available
outside the English department office. These
need to be filled out and attached to the writing
sample.
The class lists will be posted by April 1st .
Selected students will be able to register through
Knightweb.

Have you ever wondered exactly which courses you still needed to complete your degree at Geneseo?
Have you ever wondered about which general education requirements you still need to complete? Did you
ever think about changing your major and how that might affect your graduation date? The answers to
these questions and many more are available on-line using the program called WebCAPP which is
available through Knightweb.

WebCAPP generates unofficial degree audit reports that provide you with the ability to monitor carefully
your progress in meeting the degree requirements at Geneseo. With WebCAPP, you are able to check
your progress:
a) in General Education;
b) in your major;
c) in your concentration or minor(s).

In addition, a What-If option allows you to check your coursework against the requirements of any
other program SUNY-Geneseo offers. This is especially useful as you consider possible changes of
major/program or if you wish to add a minor or change a concentration.

It is important to recognize that WebCAPP generates only unofficial degree audit reports. If you have
questions about WebCAPP records, consult your advisor. The formal pre-graduation check continues to
be the official record of degree progress.

Important note on Pre-Grad Checks

Some students are contacted each semester for pre-graduation checks. When invited, you
schedule an appointment with Ed Gillin in Welles 232B to go over your pre-grad forms. Please
note that you dont initiate this process, which is triggered by the Records Office based on the
number of credit hours earned toward graduation; Professor Gillin will contact you when he
receives your documents from that office. Before or after this one-time, official process,
you may continue to consult your regular advisor for information about your status in meeting
graduation requirements during any point in your academic career.

Beginning this semester, the Administration is placing a registration hold on students who
have not completed their pre-grad check.
 Law School advisement:

If you are interested in going to law school, please see Dr Drake in Welles 217A. Dr Drake is
the College Pre-Law Advisor. He can tell you about pre-law at Geneseo, which is an
advisement system rather than a specific set of courses (pre-law is not the same thing as the
Legal Studies Minor). He can also help you navigate the application process, including
preparing for the LSAT, looking for the right law school, and putting together personal
statements and recommendation letters.

Unlike medical schools, law schools do not require specific courses on your transcript. You'll
want to have the best GPA you can have, of course, but the courses you choose should
emphasize skills that you will need for studying law and practicing as a lawyer: writing,
reading (critically and in huge quantities), critical analysis and logic, and public
speaking (including debate). English, by the way, is an excellent preparation for law school
because you develop many of these skills--reading closely, using evidence, creating arguments
in essay form, documenting sources, and speaking in various kinds of formal and informal
situations.

Email: drake@geneseo.edu

More information available online at: www.geneseo.edu/prelaw

Looking for summer classes?

The English Department offers a number of courses during the summer. We anticipate the following
offerings:

ENGL 142 Literary Forms: Short Fiction (McAlpine)

ENGL 142 Literary Forms/INTD 210 Topics in Film: Horror Films (McAlpine)
ENGL 200 College Writing II (McAlpine)
ENGL 201 Creative Writing (Perri)
ENGL 205 Business and Professional Writing (McAlpine)
ENGL 213 British Literature II [online] (Long)
 Study in Europe

There are still some spots available for this Study Abroad opportunity: "The Artist in the Third
Reich" which will take place on location this summer in Prague, Berlin and Amsterdam (July 9th
to July 31st).

The trip involves one exciting and illuminating week in each city, taking in myriad sites related
to the Holocaust and World War II. We will consider the difficult choices people like you and I,
whether Jewish or not, had to make in their lives and careers when Hitler came to power. Do
you make a film for the Nazis because it will further your career even if glorifies them? Do you
continue to act on the German stage, when the plays are censored and your Jewish colleagues
are taken away? Do you escape Germany when the opportunity arises, even if it means your
career will suffer? Do you play in Hitler's Jewish orchestra because it's a way to survive, even
though you're being used for propaganda purposes? What did the arts have to do with Hitler's
master plan? How can something as beautiful as the arts be used as an instrument of torture?
These questions and many more like them will be addressed in the course.

This course may be applied to majors in the Arts, History, English, International Relations, and
Political Science for credit, as well as counting as an elective. You do not have to have
previous experience in the arts, and there will be latitude when it comes to your particular
research topic (why, for example, did more doctors join the Nazi Party than any other
profession?).

This course is only offered in even years, so the next chance to take it will not be until 2012.
Don't miss out on this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

For information write to Dr. Anne-Marie Reynolds (reynolds@geneseo.edu) or Rachel Hall

(hall@geneseo.edu)

Ive stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back
Where its rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

--from A Song in the Front Yard,

by Gwendolyn Brooks
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT-SLOT COURSE DESCRIPTIONS-FALL 2010

12511 ENGL 142 01 Literary Forms: English 142: YouTube U: Reading Your World
YouTube has both expanded and problematized our reading of the news, our political activities, our access to entertainment, our
procrastination habits. In this course we will examine news, politics, and social activism on YouTube. You will set up web pages as
your own texts, using both existing vids from YouTube and those you produce. No prior techie expertise required, but you need to be
interested and willing to learn and you MUST have a laptop.

12512 ENGL 142 02 Literary Forms: The Short Story in the Caribbean
"The Short Story in the Caribbean" explores both commonalities and differences identified in short narratives by anglophone,
francophone, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean writers, features which underscore the Pan-Caribbean scope of the writers' defining
experiences. Our reading of these stories will attempt to differentiate the degrees of separation from the norms of the "mothercountry"
that these authors have actually achieved. In order to avoid encapsulating all stories within the master narratives of imperialism and
nationalism, we will remain attentive to the historical specificity of each Caribbean nation represented on our syllabus.

12513 ENGL 142 03 Literary Forms: Modern Memoirs

Modern autobiography, which emerged as an important literary genre in the later eighteenth century with such major figures as Jean-
Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin, both narrates and interprets an authors life. The memoirs (mostly from the twentieth
century) that we will study show their authors struggles with difficult personal and/or historical circumstances and pose existential
and ethical questions that challenge us to reflect on our own lives.

13426 ENGL 237 01 Voices and Perspectives: African-American Migration Narrative

14166 ENGL 237 02 Voices and Perspectives: African-American Migration Narrative
Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of migration as a trope in some key texts by Americans of African descent; craft a
final project that will critically interrogate their family's relationship to African American migration narratives; explore critical
questions linking narrative, cartography, geography, property, and race.

16432 ENGL 237 03 Voices and Perspectives: Visibility and Invisibility in American Lit
This course will examine images, metaphors, and strategies of visibility and invisibility in literature written by African-American,
Asian-American, and Anglo-American writers (and a couple of films). Our culture deeply influences how -- and whom -- we see, as
well as how we feel about being seen by anyone defined as "other" by virtue of, say, their race, gender, sexuality, or unconventional
beliefs/practices (such as drug use). All of these texts are obsessed with seeing and being seen, and the characters within the novels
(and perhaps the authors themselves) sometimes demand attention and other times wish to pass unnoticed.

15955 ENGL 239 01 American Visions: Underground Cinema

This course explores an important current in American cinema, experimental and avant-garde film. We will study key films by
filmmakers such as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneeman, and Andy Warhol, which defined the notion of
the underground from the 1920s to contemporary times. Through these texts and their historical contexts, we will think and write
critically about the nature of cinematic form and innovation.

16563 ENGL 239 03 American Visions: Hip Hop Culture and Contemporary Am. Lit
In this course, we will read contemporary literature by some of the hip hop generations most celebrated writers and discuss the ways
that hip hop culture is presented within these texts. Our focus is identity. How does the hip hop generation define itself, its aesthetic,
and its most urgent purpose? How do forces and voices outside the self influence these definitions? How have the definitions
changed/remained constant throughout the years? We will examine the multiple faces (some blatantly oppositional and contradictory)
found within hip hop culture and the ways they are manifested in contemporary literatures form, content, and characters.

12545 ENGL 311 01 British Renaissance: Graphic Poetry

Ekpharasis has come to mean writing about art. (The original usage was to denote description so detailed and precise that the object
became real for the reader.) We will be looking at Renaissance poetry inspired by art -- by painting, sculpture, tapestries, maps, and
architecture. We will also flip the paradigm a bit and look at some art inspired by literature. While we will read widely, the four big
texts will be John Donne's lyrics, Shakespeare's Ovidian narratives, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and Milton's Paradise Lost. We
will be looking at a lot of art, and having your laptop in class will be necessary most of the time.

12548 ENGL 324 01 British Novel: The Thirties

In this class, we will read a selection of British novels published during the 1930s, a decade marked deeply by the effects of both a
world-wide economic collapse and the political destabilization that eventually leads to the outbreak of the Second World War. Some
critics argue that the decade marks the beginning literary modernism's "second generation," while others suggest that the socio-
political crises overwhelmed any "purely aesthetic" concerns. We will attempt to understand these and other generalities concerning
the Thirties, as our readings will present a cross-section of novelistic styles and approaches by authors including Evelyn Waugh,
Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Stevie Smith, George Orwell, Phyllis Bottome, and others.
16559 ENGL 339 01 American Way: Ecocriticism
Environmental criticism takes as its starting point the connections between human culture and the physical world, although many such
relationships are invisible to us, if not willfully effaced. Hopefully, this courses theoretical readings will enable you to become a
more perceptive critic and writer along this convoluted interface; we also will ruminate upon selected literary texts & environments as
case studies. Plan on doing some non-traditional research & writing.

15013 ENGL 343 01 Women & Lit: Transgender in Literature

This class will range widely across time, genres and the Atlantic ocean to consider different kinds of gender performances. We'll
probably start with Shakespeare's *Twelfth Night*, move through some accounts of eighteenth-century transvestism, examine a
recently discovered novel by 19th c American writer Julia Ward Howe called *the Hermaphrodite*; and we'll spend a good deal of
time in the twentieth century as well, with Woolf's *Orlando,* Jeanette Winterson's *Written on the Body* and several memoirs of
transgendered writers like *Stone Butch Blues* and *Whipping Girl*.

13436 ENGL 348 01 European Lit: The Novel 1770-1920

The course will cover a series of representative European novels from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. The works will
be situated in their cultural context as we trace the evolution of the novel over roughly 150 years.

12554 ENGL 358 01 Major Authors: Jane Austen

Star of the silver screen? Not quite. Friend of zombies and sea monsters? Not really. But recent film-makers and writers of parody
and popular fiction have helped sustain among readers an admiration for Jane Austen's novels nearly two hundred years after they
were written. Do the movie-makers "get it"? is Jane Austen about more than romance and happy endings? This course begins with
the assertion that Jane Austen's writing is much more: it is comic social satire, it reflects a pivotal moment in modern economic
history, and it bridges the early efforts of English novelists with the Romanticism and Realism of the nineteenth century. Students in
ENGL 358: Major AuthorsJane Austen will read a portion of a novel by Samuel Richardson that Austen admired (we'll try to figure
out why she liked it) and the six major Austen novels (Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park,
Emma, & Persuasion), in addition to works of juvenilia, a short epistolary work, and the chapters she wrote for her incomplete novel,
Sanditon. Students should expect a large reading requirement, one evening of English Country Dance (no experience required), a
couple of papers, a final exam, and lots of discussion.

12555 ENGL 358 02 Major Authors: Henry James Gillin, Edward

Henry James is considered on of the finest writers in the English-language tradition. His work particularly examined the manners and
morals of American and European society as the nineteenth century transitioned into the twentieth. In this section of ENGL 358 the
achievement of James will be explored through a reading of several of his novels and some shorter fiction and nonfiction writing. The
class will also examine several films which have been based on major works of Henry James.

13437 ENGL 358 03 Major Authors: Jamaica Kincaid Lima, Maria

"The Short Story in the Caribbean" explores both commonalities and differences identified in short narratives by anglophone,
francophone, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean writers, features which underscore the Pan-Caribbean scope of the writers' defining
experiences. Our reading of these stories will attempt to differentiate the degrees of separation from the norms of the "mothercountry"
that these authors have actually achieved. In order to avoid encapsulating all stories within the master narratives of imperialism and
nationalism, we will remain attentive to the historical specificity of each Caribbean nation represented on our syllabus.

13438 ENGL 390 01 Studies in Literature: Broadway, New York, and the Evolution of American Theater and Drama
The course will function on an American Studies seminar model. The course will explore various topics and sub themes emanating
from the evolution of modern New York City and professional theater from the mid-19th century to the present. Topics likely to
include: Geographical and cultural history of New York (immigration and African-American and Latino/a migration); 19th Century
American Popular culture and theater (vaudeville, burlesque, ministrelsy); Late 19th- early 20th Century European roots of American
Theater (operetta, English "imports" and touring companies; The era of Tin Pan Alley: the evolution of the show song, and early
American musicals; The Americanization of the American Musical (1920 - 1970s); the Rise of the American Playwright. Diversity
Issues (gender, race, and sexuality) and the professional American theater; among others. Class sessions will be heavily dependent on
student presentations (individually and in groups) with focused written responses. Class requirements will de-emphasize quizzes and
exams and emphasize written commentary and oral presentation/discussion. Students can expect to do a minimum of four or five
writing assignments (including one "conference length" research paper) one or two lead presentations/essay and two or more
respondent or small research presentations.

15864 ENGL 394 01 Senior Seminar: Modern Autobiography

Modern autobiography, which emerged as an important literary genre in the later eighteenth century, has in our time become a global
publishing phenomenon with the current memoir and creative non-fiction craze. We will focus on works from both ends of this
temporal spectrum, with students assuming responsibility for discussing the reading(s) at our weekly seminar sessions. There will be
periodic short writing assignments, as well as a culminating (research or autobiographical) project.