Coursework
Introduction to Creative Writing
English 1000
Carolina Ebeid
This course taught basic techniques of fiction and poetry. The instructor is a poet currently studying at University of Denver herself for a PhD. The focus of this course with this particular instructor was on poetry. In this class students explored an array of literary forms and experimentation. Over the course of the term students pursued a range of writing techniques and innovative methods, such as writing through subtraction or erasure, writing through collage, or hybridity of genre. Students read a selection of texts that have resulted from such various experiments in method, genre, and form, including: experimental stories, lyric essays, autobiographical pieces that engage the tradition of philosophical fragments, and poems made by erasing older texts, etc.
Introduction to Theories of Writing
Writing 2000
Dr. Kara Taczak
This course introduced a number of theories of writing, providing an overview of complex issues and research into the state and status of writing and writers. It took up such questions as these: What is writing? Where did it come from? How did it develop – and did it do so the same or differently in other cultures? How do writers develop – and what accounts for differences? What are different types of
writing, different situations for writing, different tools and practices – and how do these interconnect? What does it mean to study writing? How have major figures theorized writing, and what tensions emerge among their theories? What are relationships among thought, speech, and writing – and among imagine, film/video, and sound? How do such theories change our notions of what texts are and what texts do? For our final project the class was tasked with reading a "classic" book alongside a book written in the past ten years that the students could compare and contrast with the "classic" and justify the new novel as a "classic" as well. Students were to write to a school board of their choice and also create a poster incorporating their books of choice with a goal of getting high school students excited to read.
Topics in Writing Theory and Research
Writing 2500
Dr. Pauline Reid
This course provided curricular space for various subjects and foci related to theories about writing, histories of writing and its status and development, or research about writing. Examples of topics include multimodality and writing, relationships between visual and verbal rhetoric, the development of specific genres over time, the relationship between academic and civic writing, the history of writing in specific schools or settings, research into the acquisition of writing skills, social policies and practices that affect writing, ethical issues in writing practices, the effects of technologies on writing, and so on. For a final project in groups students were to create an online community of their choice keeping in mind theories of writing we had learned both previous to and in this course. After creating the project each student individually wrote a paper on their project.
Writing Design and Circulation
Writing 3500
Dr. Richard Colby
The main focus of this course was reflective and analytic writing based in writing students had previously done. This made students consider how they write, why they write the way they do, what inspires their writing, which theories of writing inform their writing, etc. The other focus was on creating an e-portfolio to display all of the work students had done in the time studying writing and rhetoric at the University of Denver. As part of the path to creating this portfolio, students did a substantive revision of a previous writing assignment, learned about curation and circulation of writing, and conducted some analyses of their writing and writing process. This was the capstone course for the writing practices minor.
The Bible as Literautre
English 2104
Dr. Alison Schofield
The Bible is one of the most important works in all of Western society. In this course students read the Bible as a masterpiece of literature. Rather than focusing on theological questions about this work as inspired scripture, students instead focused on its rich literary qualities and explored some ways in which these stories have influenced modern society. Reading select passages, students discussed the Bible’s literary genres, forms, symbols and motifs, many of which are important in modern literature; of the latter, students noted biblical images of wilderness, loss of Eden and the Promised Land, hero stories, origin stories, parables, and apocalyptic literature, etc.
American Literature Survey II
English 2752
Dr. Billy Stratton
This course examined the development of major trends in American literature from
the period before WWII into the 21st century. The course texts were chosen to encourage the consideration of how changing conceptions of American identity, social hierarchies,race and ethnicity, as well as the contestation for social power have shaped and re-shaped conceptions of American nationhood, culture and self. Students traced the major periods and artistic movements relevant to American literary production since the 1930's through a selection of poetry, short fiction, prose and novels beginning with a consideration of regionalist writing composed in the wake of the Great Depression before moving on to the emergence of postmodern aesthetics from the late 60's to the present. Additionally, students were to seek to closely examine the ways in which canonical texts function to continually shape these concerns, while examining the significance of works that give voice to the experiences of historically marginalized groups.
Textual Bodies
Advanced Seminar 2422
Dr. Tayana Hardin
“Textual Bodies: Discourse and the Corporeal in American Culture” explored how bodies organize our understanding of ourselves and our place within society. The course began with the premise that bodies are tightly tethered to narrative—that is, that stories shape how bodies acquire meanings, and subsequently inform actions and interactions with others. The course centered discussions of the body and discourse around a range of 20th century texts, including philosophical treatises on gender and performativity, theorizations of black racial subjectivity, and literary investigations of “passing.” The course used these texts to consider how meanings are created, represented, disseminated, contested, or even foreclosed through discursive and embodied means.