Spring Course Descriptions

SPRING 2023 UPPER-LEVEL LITERATURE AND WRITING COURSES

ENG 312 | Topics in Advanced Composition: Ancient Rhetoric in the Information Age | Dr. Luke Redington

The Western rhetorical tradition sprang from a simple premise: A culture in which people can vote is a culture in which people need to know how to argue well. In this iteration of Topics in Advanced Composition, we will extract key concepts from the early days of the Western rhetorical tradition and examine them in light of today’s cultural power dynamics. Operating at the intersection of theory and practice, this course will explore the utility of ancient concepts like kairos, polis, and citizenship in an age of global conflict and commerce. Students in this course will gain new insights into the history of rhetoric and new tools for effective communication in an age when messages move at the speed of light. This course fulfills a Writing and Rhetoric requirement and counts towards the Professional Writing Concentration.

ENG 318 | Creative Writing: Nonfiction | Prof. Lori Ambacher

This course gives students the opportunity to delve into the study and practice of the powerful, beautiful genre known as creative nonfiction. Students in this course will be asked to explore five different types of nonfiction assignments, from memoir to reflection to hybrid/graphic nonfiction. A diverse menu of readings will help build students’ awareness of the variety and choice that is open to them when they choose to create a piece of nonfiction. We will also be discussing the ethics of nonfiction and what it means to tell the truth even when we don’t possess photographic memories. This will be an interactive class, in which we seek to write, read, edit, analyze, and ponder our own work and the work of others as we embark on the journey of creating authentic nonfiction. This course fulfills a Writing and Rhetoric requirement and counts towards either the Creative or Professional Writing Concentration.

ENG 319 | Public Story: Writing for Broadcast & Podcast | Prof. Mark Stevick

Narratives told—human voice to ear—have a particular power and increasing popularity. It has always been so: before streaming there was radio, and before radio there was Homer. This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, Radiolab, Invisibilia, and Third Coast Audio Festival are a few of many well-known, well-loved contemporary broadcasts whose métier is the human voice served by great writing and inventive audio production. In this course we will study and practice writing for this type of public performance—creating stories for delivery by the human voice to the human ear. Sometimes this will involve one speaker, sometimes many; sometimes the story will be recorded and broadcast, other times it will be told live. We will think about writing (how do we structure a good story?), reporting (where do we find stories, and how do we gather material?), and the technology of storytelling (in the realm of audio media), and we will ask some philosophical questions about narrative, its uses and misuses, and its adaptability to different media. We will also learn the rudiments of audio recording and producing for audiences both broad and narrow, from radio to podcasting. Our premiere vehicles will be the prose essay and the audio mini-documentary, but we will investigate other, more experimental forms of audio storytelling, too. This course fulfills a Writing and Rhetoric requirement and counts towards either the Creative or Professional Writing Concentration.

ENG 346 | American Modernism: Community and Marginalization | Dr. Andrea Frankwitz

If any literary period might be considered rebellious, it certainly would be American Modernism. During the early part of the twentieth century, the face of the world was changing with the advent of the two World Wars. Many Americans were disoriented as the country was experiencing the turbulence of urbanization, industrialization, the Stock Market Crash, and the Great Depression. In this time of uncertainty, America and its artists were questioning the stability of church, family, and government, which had previously provided guidance and meaning for their lives. Though some still vehemently adhered to traditions, many American artists broke away from conventions. Typified by Ezra Pound’s declaration “Make it New!,” this period saw tremendous artistic growth with stylistic innovations and experimental modes. From a distrust of society’s institutions came a new focus on the individual. What happens, though, when the individual turns introspective to find answers to some of life’s pressing questions? In this course, we will examine this query and also explore the place of the individual within or outside the walls of society through works such as Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples, plays by the likes of Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, and poetry from bards such as Elizabeth Bishop, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Hilda Doolittle, Langston Hughes, and others. This course fulfills the American Literature after 1800 requirement.

ENG 371 | Chesterton, Lewis, and (Anti)Modernism | Dr. Chad Stutz

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) and C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) were two of the most popular and prolific writers of the first half of the twentieth century. Characterized by their witty styles and penetrating insights, both authors ranged widely across numerous genres—apologetics, fiction, literary criticism, history, biography and autobiography, and cultural analysis—as they sought to confront, intelligently and creatively, the challenges to orthodox Christianity posed by the modern world. This course will examine several of Chesterton and Lewis’s representative works in various genres as we seek to understand the similarities and differences between these two authors and their distinctive responses to the cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual developments of their time. We will also consider the enduring popularity of these writers today and what they may still have to offer Christians in the twenty-first century. Likely works will include Chesterton’s Autobiography, The Ball and the Cross, Orthodoxy, The Return of Don Quixote, Tremendous Trifles, and What’s Wrong with the World, and Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, Mere Christianity, Perelandra, Surprised by Joy, Till We Have Faces, and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. This course fulfills the British Literature after 1800 requirement.

ENG 419 | Advanced Creative Writing | Prof. Mark Stevick

This seminar is required for students undertaking a Creative Writing Concentration in the English major. It involves personal direction and group critique of students’ substantial individual writing projects in any genre or blending of genres. Seniors (or juniors graduating early) may submit proposals for projects during the first week of course registration in the fall. Most applicants will have taken at least one creative writing course in the department, though the seminar is also open to students who have interest and experience in creative writing but have not taken a creative writing course at Gordon. Proposals are considered along with the student's overall performance in creative writing and major courses. Admission to the course cannot be guaranteed. The successful applicant will produce a manuscript that will comprise the most substantial part of a creative writing portfolio. Please contact Professor Stevick to discuss applying. This course fulfills the Senior Capstone requirement and also counts towards the Creative Writing Concentration.

ENG 491 | Senior Seminar: How We Talk About God | Dr. Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger

How do finite human beings—limited and embodied as we are—talk about a spiritual, infinite, and eternal God? This question is fundamental to our theology and our philosophy, but also to our individual experiences as Christians, because our language about God shapes our understanding of God. This seminar will examine mystical texts from across the Christian tradition, pairing one male and one female author from three different historical periods—the Middle Ages, the early modern period, and the twentieth century. In addition to considering how each author uses language, we will also be thinking about how gender might shape experiences of and language for God. Authors will include Meister Eckhart, Hadewijch of Brabant, Julian of Norwich, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Simon Weil, and Thomas Merton. This course fulfills either the Senior Capstone requirement or, with special permission from the instructor, the Representational Ethics requirement.

SPRING 2023 CORE LITERATURE COURSES

ENG 140 A: Cast-Offs and Castaways: Fictional Tales of Survival | Dr. Chad Stutz (2 credits)

From Robinson Crusoe to The Martian, castaway narratives and other tales of survival have long captured readers’ imaginations. In addition to feeding our desire for adventure, such stories raise important questions about human nature, good and evil, our relationship to the natural world, and our confrontations with the “other.” Through an examination of fictional narratives of cast-offs and castaways from around the globe, this course will explore the evolution of the survival fiction genre, its differing perspectives on human motivation and achievement, and its historical role in both perpetuating and challenging various political and cultural ideologies. We will also consider how these stories of survival reflect and respond to their authors’ distinctive cultural contexts.

ENG 140 B: Nobel Literature | Dr. Andrea Frankwitz (4 credits)

First awarded in 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature represents the acme of literary artistry, and, in the words of Alfred Nobel, is given to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.”  Considering not a particular text but a writer’s oeuvre (a writer’s work regarded collectively), the awarding committee, the Swedish Academy, bestows this honor for the tremendous contributions which the writer has made to the world of literature and which also have “conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”  In this course, we will study texts by authors from several different countries and continents, with the aim of developing both an appreciation for their respective texts and represented cultures and also an understanding of how literature can enable us to transcend our own borders.  Course texts will include the genres of poetry, drama, short fiction, and the novel. 

ENG 141 A & B: Western Literature | Prof. Alex Miller (4 credits)

This course, subtitled “The Order of Myths,” explores Western Literature from a particular angle: the development, reuse, and reinterpretation of Greek mythology by western and non-western writers over the centuries. Though our readings progress in loosely historical order, this is not a "history of literature" course. Instead, it is organized according to a theme: plagiarism. Beginning with Homer, the development of literature in the West has involved creative retellings of certain myths. Shaped and contorted by the assumptions and contexts of each author and generation, myths are the spine of western literature. They constitute a common narrative currency that unites western literature’s many tribes, languages, and epochs, and even forms a point of entry for non-westerners to begin interacting with western ideas. By studying the appearance and reappearance of these myths over time, you will develop a sense of the images, characters, and themes that have haunted all exchanges in the history of western culture. But, if you are paying attention, you will also notice how individual authors’ personalities have been just as important as the myths themselves: it is not just the tales that matter, but the telling and the teller. Western Literature is the product of a unique mixture of corporate and individual influences, of myths (for which we can never locate an original author) and interpreters (the well-known authors who, again and again, have made those myths memorable and relevant). By paying attention to the way western myths have been ordered and reordered over time, my hope is that you will learn to appreciate the unique collisions of style and substance that characterize the western heritage.

For a complete list of the literature and creative writing course offerings this semester, see the spring course schedule.