Spring Semester 2003

English 104-09

McIver 140

3:30-4:45

I. Information concerning instructor:

Name: Michael Dodd, Ph.D. candidate, TA in English department, UNCG.

Office: Petty Science Building, basement, O1J. Hours: TR 1:00-3:00 and by appointment.

Email me for: scheduling individual conferences, questions about course requirements and content, to make comments and suggestions about the course, etc.

II. Course description and goals:

English 104 is an introduction to a few of the major literary genres. "Genre" refers to the kind of literature in question. The genres that we'll examine this semester include narrative, epic poetry, and drama. I've drawn examples of each of these genres from ancient literature, specifically from the cultures of the Hebrews, the Romans, and the Greeks. These cultures and their literature are foundational in that, for centuries, we have continued to recycle their kind of material. Therefore, our primary aim will be to ask what has made this literature so useful, so recyclable. To do so, we'll ask:

1) What sort of problems these ancient peoples expected their literature to solve.

2) How may we use this literature to shed light upon our own concerns, as so many have done before us?

III. Required texts:

Robert Alter. Genesis: Translation and Commentary. New York: Norton, 1996.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Rolfe Humphries. Bloomington, IN: Indiana, UP, 1955.

Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrannus. Trans. and Ed. Luci Berkowitz and Theodore F. Brunner. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1970.

IV. Course requirements:

In general, to come to class prepared, having carefully completed each assignment in order to be ready to contribute intelligently to whatever is required for each class meeting. More specifically, as you take into consideration the two aims listed above, I'd like for you to compose for each reading assignment at least a pair of questions and be ready to share your questions with the class when the instructor calls upon you. Your pair of inquiries may be phrased in the form of question or comment and may express your sympathy, anger, pleasure, dismay, humor, confusion, enchantment, intrigue, and so forth with the text. Only, raise your questions as specifically and as intelligently as possible.

There will be four exams:

A pre-midterm, a mid-term, a post-midterm, and a non-cumulative final, each of which will count 25%. However, the instructor will consider informed class participation as a means of your earning additional credit that may improve your final average.

V. Policies and procedures:

a) The instructor will generally lecture for 20-25 minutes and then devote 10-15 minutes to your questions; then, we'll repeat the cycle.

b) No more than 4 absences will be excused, with the exception only of a genuine emergency. Only in the cause of a genuine emergency will there be any makeup opportunities.

c) On the fifth absence, you may be dropped. Keep an accurate account of your absences. Apart from the aforesaid emergency, there is no need for you to inform me of the reason for your absence.

d) More than very few occasions of lateness will be taken as an intentional class disturbance. In that case, we'll talk over whether you should continue in the course.