Department of English

Times and locations of class meetings are subject to change. Consult the UF Schedule of Courses for official class times and locations and an explanation of the class period abbreviations.

Summer 2022

Upper Division (3000–4000) Courses

Note: Course numbers listed in the table are linked to course descriptions below.

Summer A

Course #	Section #	Class #	Time(s)	Room	Course title	Instructor
AML 3041	04GA	10232	MTWRF 3	MAT 0113	American Literature 2: Money and Finance in American Fiction	John Mark Robison
ENG 4139	002S	19459	MTWRF 4/ MW 6-7	TUR 2322/ROL 0115	Television & Electronic Culture	Mandy Moore
ENG 4905	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Independent Study	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4911	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Undergraduate Research (English)	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4940	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Internship	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4970	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Honors Thesis Project	Kenneth Kidd
LIT 3383	004S	19461	MTWRF 5	MAT 0113	Imagined Pasts, Imagined Futures: The Fantastic and the Speculative in 20th-Century Women’s Literature	Maxine Donnelly

Summer B

Course #	Section #	Class #	Time(s)	Room	Course title	Instructor
AML 4685	4S01	19455	MTWRF 2	MAT 0113	Race and Ethnicity in American Literature: The Ethnic Bildungsroman/Writing the Ethnic Self	Deepthi Siriwardena
ENC 3310	451B	16198	MTWRF 3	TUR 2318	Advanced Exposition: Cultural and Community Storytelling	Alex Slotkin
ENG 4905	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Independent Study	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4911	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Undergraduate Research (English)	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4940	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Internship	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4970	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Honors Thesis Project	Kenneth Kidd
ENL 4303	403S	19460	MTWRF 4	TBD	Major Figures in British Literature and Culture: James Joyce’s Ulysses at 100	Ryan Kerr

Summer C

Course #	Section #	Class #	Time(s)	Room	Course title	Instructor
ENG 4905	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Independent Study	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4911	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Undergraduate Research (English)	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4940	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Internship	Kenneth Kidd
ENG 4970	DEP-X	DEP-X	TBD	TBD	Honors Thesis Project	Kenneth Kidd

Course Descriptions

Summer A

AML 3041

American Literature 2: Money and Finance in American Fiction
John Mark Robison

While fiction from any time period may engage with the economics of day to day life, this class proposes that certain moments in history push writers to more thoroughly consider the significance of money and finance for literary representation. We will explore the fiction written in two such moments of American history. The first comes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Naturalist writers used fiction to represent and critique the growing financial sector. The second moment begins in the 1980s, another era of financial expansion, when novelists returned to the conventions of literary realism and the character archetype of the financier. Recent scholarship grants the name Capitalist Realism to this group of text from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. While discussing these two literary movements (Naturalism and Capitalist Realism), we will explore a number of more fundamental questions: What really is money, and how does it shape our interactions with others? What impact does financialization have on everyday life? How is an individual’s relationship to money affected by their experience of oppression on the basis of race or sex? What role does the financier as an archetype play in American literary history? In what ways does our current economic system differ from earlier stages of American history? Literary works covered may include: Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier, Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby, Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, and Jane Smiley’s Good Faith. Critical and theoretical readings may include excerpts from works by David Graeber, Walter Benn Michaels, Alison Shonkwiler, and Leigh Claire La Berge. Course requirements include a final paper and weekly written responses to discussion questions.

ENG 4139

Television & Electronic Culture
Mandy Moore

What does it mean to live in an “electronic culture?” What recurring metaphors and narratives do we use to understand our collective relationship to technology? How does television as a particular medium attempt to depict the complexities of that relationship? The goal of this course is to explore these questions—without necessarily landing on any absolute or universal answers—and give students space to develop their thinking in ways specific to their own career or learning goals.

Our readings will cover a broad range of perspectives on the relationships between technology, culture, and/or TV, including both academic and nonacademic approaches. We will anchor our discussions by using examples of 21st century television shows whose very premises require investigating “electronic culture(s).” Screenings may potentially include episodes of WandaVision, Archive 81, Westworld, Gossip Girl, Black Mirror, Sword Art Online, Stitchers, Dollhouse, and Altered Carbon.

Assignments may include leading class discussion with a partner, keeping a commonplace book, and contributing to the class Instagram account. Students will also propose and develop their own cumulative project, which may take the form of a traditional research paper, a digital humanities project, a video essay or podcast, artwork(s), etc., depending on the student’s own goals and interests.

LIT 3383

Imagined Pasts, Imagined Futures: The Fantastic and the Speculative in 20th-Century Women’s Literature
Maxine Donnelly

The imaginative, the speculative, the ‘what if?’ seems to play an outsize role in the stories English-speaking cultures have told themselves in the last few decades. Whether we’re talking about the lovingly described medievalist fantasy landscapes of media like Lord of the Rings or The Witcher or the wildly speculative future visions of Star Wars or Dune, the here and now doesn’t seem to capture attention as much as what could be or could have been. These media might seem an escape from reality or ‘real’ problems to some. But as fantasy scholar Elizabeth Ebony Thomas puts it, these narratives can also “help us collectively imagine our world anew,” looking beyond what seems impossible to what we want our world to become. If this is the case, then access to the fantastic and speculative is even more essential for people with less power in the world as it is. So it’s not surprising to find women and their texts have often seized the power of these modes of writing for their personal and collective empowerment.

This course focuses on the fantastic and the speculative both as genres (fantasy and science fiction) and as attitudes in a range of writing by and about a range of women. Starting in the early twentieth century, we will address the evolving possibilities women dreamed for themselves through (and sometimes in spite of) literature imagining the future, the past, or the impossible. Throughout the course, we will ask questions like: How does genre both expand and limit possibility for writers? What strategies do our women writers use to imagine possibilities for themselves? And does speculation and imagination lead to change in the ‘real world’? Possible media discussed include written work by Octavia Butler, N.K Jemisin, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Virginia Woolf; audio-visual media such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Janelle Monae’s album Dirty Computer; and supplemental critical secondary sources. Assignments will include short weekly responses and a final creative project.

Summer B

AML 4685

Race and Ethnicity in American Literature: The Ethnic Bildungsroman/Writing the Ethnic Self
Deepthi Siriwardena

The German term “bildungsroman” that refers to a narrative of growth and development, typically narrates an individual’s journey towards self-actualization. A well-known literary form, it dates back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s work, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre in the 18th century (and even earlier by the estimation of some critics). The development of the bildungsroman parallels the development of the nation state as well as that of various social and literary movements, and thus provides grounds to engage with questions relating to identity, rights, and citizenship.

In this course, we will take an in-depth look at the dynamic world of the ethnic bildungsroman. The 20th century saw radical changes in this form as ethnic minorities gained greater access to education and publishing outlets and were able to produce literary works in ways that had not been previously possible. These writers challenged and experimented with the bildungsroman as they sought to adapt this form to represent complex intersections of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. In this course, we will focus on the works of three ethnic minorities – African Americans, Hispanic/Latinx Americans, and Asian Americans. We will engage with questions such as: What is the conventional bildungsroman? What are the socio-cultural contexts of the ethnic bildungsroman? How do the critical strategies and aesthetic choices these writers made, enable them to intervene in issues relating to rights, identity, and belonging? What are the intimacies amongst the works of these writers? As one of the most ubiquitous of literary forms, gaining a thorough understanding of the bildungsroman and its aesthetics, would provide you with an array of viable tools for theorizing, critiquing – and if you are a creative writer – for writing, ethnic literatures.

We will read both literary and theoretical texts. Our theoretical texts may consist of select pieces of works by Franco Moretti, M. M. Bakhtin, W.E.B Dubois, Lisa Lowe, Patricia Chu, Rahul Gairola, Joseph Slaughter, while our literary works may consist of a sample from such works as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Sandra Cisneros House on Mango Street, Justin Torres’ We The Animals, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Chang Rae Lee’s Native Speaker, Bich Minh Nguyen’s Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, Lois Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging and possibly some episodes from the Netflix series Never Have I Ever. The finalized reading list will be made available later.

ENC 3310

Advanced Exposition: Cultural and Community Storytelling
Alex Slotkin

We’re often asked to leave our identity at the classroom door, to leave behind the experiences that make us who we are and to instead draw “knowledge” from dry academic wells without engaging the outside world. At the same time, writing is happening everywhere, ranging from explanatory notes left behind in family cookbooks to instructions for practicing folk dances. What happens when we stop pretending that the writing classroom exists outside our world? How can we honor the stories we tell about ourselves and our communities in our writing? This class will explore these questions and more as we practice writing effective, engaging, and meaningful expositions.

“Exposition” describes any non-fiction writing that explores, illustrates, or “exposes,” typically appearing as colorful observations and descriptions, intriguing narratives, helpful instructions, thoughtful comparisons, and illustrative definitions. This course will give you the opportunity to hone your expository writing skills while also reflecting on and learning from the different communities, histories, and experiences that make you and your peers who you are as scholars, family members, cultural and linguistic inheritors, and so on.

You may expect to read scholarship that engages community and storytelling, such as parts of Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods (2008) and Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018). Based on our readings, class discussions, and your own research, you will put together a community portfolio consisting of a literacy narrative, an instructional zine, descriptive blog posts, a positionality statement, and a collection of short reflections.

ENL 4303

Major Figures in British Culture and Literature: James Joyce’s Ulysses at 100
Ryan Kerr

James Joyce’s 1922 epic novel Ulysses has it all—meditations on love, death, nationhood, food, dreams, music, art, and cats can all be found within its pages. It’s no wonder that the book, which turns one hundred years old this year, has a reputation for being the greatest novel of the twentieth century, considering how beautiful, moving, and hilarious it is. Yet many readers are intimidated by its challenging style(s) and dense prose. In this class, we will read Joyce’s complex masterpiece and reflect on its hidden meanings, which will allow us to understand the novel’s relevance to our own lives. Special attention will be paid to the historic and cultural context of Joyce’s Dublin as well as to Joyce’s own life and how the publication of the novel stirred untold controversy in the literary world. We will examine the novel’s many parallels to Homer’s Odyssey alongside its countless allusions to other texts. We will also learn about the novel’s fascinating (and sometimes bizarre) critical history and the drama of the “Joyce wars” that went on between scholars over the course of the last few decades. Assignments will include three short papers and weekly discussion posts.