Spring 2022 Course Descriptions - Villanova University

Spring 2022 Course Descriptions

ENG 8560   Revolutionary Decade: 1790s
           Dr. Evan Radcliffe

ENG 9730   Writing Indigeneity & Indigenous
           Writing
           Dr. Kimberly Takahata

ENG 9731   Chinua Achebe & The African Novel
           Dr. Chiji Akoma

      GWS Courses that Count for English

GWS 8000   Critical Perspectives on Gender
           Dr. Lisa Sewell

ENG 8560: Revolutionary Decade: The 1790s
Dr. Evan Radcliffe
CRN
Monday 5:20-7:20 pm

The 1790s was the decade of the French Revolution in Britain as
well as France, with each new moment of turmoil in France—
what an alarmed Alexander Hamilton referred to as “a rapid
succession of dreadful revolutions”—generating its own
vehement response across the Channel. The fall of the Bastille
and the publication of The Declaration of the Rights of Man, the
flight and arrest of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the royal
trials and executions, the outbreak of war between Great Britain
and France, the Terror—each year seemed to witness more of
these “great national events,” as William Wordsworth called
them.

Wordsworth (who, like Mary Wollstonecraft, experienced some
of the Revolution first-hand) and other British writers addressed
these events and their possible implications in varied ways, often

through developing their own original approaches and
forms. Indeed, many of their works—William Blake’s
illuminated books and hybrid satire, Wollstonecraft’s feminist
writings (her two Vindications and her unfinished novel Maria),
William Godwin’s combination of political philosophy and
fiction (Political Justice and Caleb Williams), Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads and related poems—
were themselves highly innovative or even revolutionary. To
keep the shifting world to which these writers responded in focus,
we will move through the decade largely year by year, taking note
of each historical moment and exploring particular issues and
forms as we examine individual texts. Along with Blake,
Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, we will
also read parts of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution
in France, Elizabeth Inchbald’s novel A Simple Story and Mary
Hays’ novel Emma Courtney, and writings by John Thelwall.

Among our topics will be representations of masculinity and
femininity, together with how different social and political
visions involve questions of gender; class and social hierarchy;
the portrayals and uses of passion and emotion, from romantic
desire to versions of sympathy and guilt; the relations between
private and public morality; imprisonment, both mental and
physical; the purposes to which “nature” or representations of
the natural world are put; and genre and style, especially the roles
of narrative and narrative perspectives, in relation to politics. I
will contact members of the class before the term begins to get
input about some of our policies, such as what sorts of
presentations and other in-term written work the class will
involve.

*This course will fulfill the pre-1800 British/Irish literature
requirement

ENG 9730: Writing Indigeneity & Indigenous Writing
Dr. Kimberly Takahata
CRN
Wednesday 5:20-7:20 pm

This course examines how literature of the Anglophone colonies
sought to clarify what it means to be Indigenous, especially in
relationship to colonization. Troubling the divide between
Indigenous stories and colonial writing, we will explore the
bounds of authorship and textual legibility. Reading reports,
natural histories, speeches, autobiographies, and poems, we will
pay attention to two primary threads: one, how settlers used
writing to codify the category of indigeneity as a tool of colonial
power; and two, how Indigenous persons’ acts of sovereignty
continue to mark colonial texts or use writing to refuse limited
definitions of indigeneity. As a result, this class will also explore
the progression of natural history and scientific racism as well as
citizenship and belonging. Our secondary readings will
introduce students to the field of Indigenous Studies and
address on-going debates about methodological approaches to
colonial texts of the long eighteenth-century Atlantic World.
Possible readings include colonial texts by Thomas Harriot,
Mary Rowlandson, William Young, and Richard Ligon, as well
as writings by Indigenous authors like Mittark, Oweneco,
Samson Occom, William Apess, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, and
formal petitions and meeting records.

*This course would fulfill the pre-1800 American literature
requirement (requirement currently suspended)

ENG 9731: Chinua Achebe & The African Novel
Dr. Chiji Akoma
CRN
Wednesday 7:30-9:30 pm

This course will explore the writings of Chinua Achebe, one of
the prominent and provocative writers to emerge from Africa in
the twentieth century. Beginning with his bestselling first
novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe paints complex and
provocative portraits of African societies as they wrestle with
internal contradictions and the impositions wrought by the
colonial encounter with Europe. More significantly, literary
scholars regard Achebe as perhaps the most influential voice in
the emergence of the African novel. Although he primarily
wrote in English, Achebe’s novels are important in the ways
they expand the boundaries of English by “domesticating” the
language to carry the idioms of speech and socio-political
realities of Africa. His novels reveal the formation of an African
written narrative aesthetic that draws its strength both from the
oral performance tradition and a pragmatic association with the
Western novel.

In addition to his novels and short stories, Achebe wrote and
spoke extensively on the African novel, making him a
formidable voice in the formulation of contemporary African
literary criticism and theory that inform the African novel. His
collections of essays on African literature and society are
insightful in their simplicity and profundity.

The course will thus approach Achebe as both theorist and
novelist, placing his works in the context of African modernity,
literature, and postcolonial studies. We will pay attention to
Achebe’s response to the English language, Igbo speech acts,
and storytelling.

GWS 8000: Critical Perspectives on Gender
Dr. Lisa Sewell
CRN
Tuesday 5:20-7:20 pm

Critical Perspectives on Gender

This course surveys ideas about gender from a variety of
perspectives. It will equip you with terminology and analytic
tools that will allow you to better understand how ideas about
gender and sexuality have shaped human perceptions and
possibilities. It will introduce you to some foundational texts of
feminist and gender theory, such as Simone de Beauvoir's The
Second Sex (1953) and Michael Foucault's History of Sexuality,
as well as signal essays by Judith Butler, Kimberlé Crenshaw,
Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldúa. We will also try to think
globally, learning about feminist, queer and trans perspectives
from the middle east, Africa and Asia, and covering some of the
current developments in the field. Our readings will also include
works by writers and scholars who will be visiting Villanova in
the Spring. You should also be aware that feminist and queer

theories often raise sensitive and politically controversial topics;
they challenge many conventional ideas about social
institutions, sexuality, racial identity, class divisions, and so on. I
will strive to foster a safe environment in which we can all talk
calmly and directly about these issues, with open minds, so we
can learn as much as possible from each other.

ENG 8090: Thesis Direction
CRN

Direction of writing of the thesis, focused research on a
narrowly defined question, under supervision of an individual
instructor.

ENG 8092: Field Examination
CRN

A broader exploration of a theme or area of literature than a
thesis. The examination comprises a comprehensive statement
essay and an oral exam component.

ENG 9031: Independent Study
CRN

A special project pursued under the direction of an individual
professor.

ENG 9080: Thesis Continuation
CRN

ENG : Field Exam Continuation
CRN

ENG 9035
Dr. Evan Radcliffe
CRN

Professional Research Option (PRO)

This option for second-year graduate students is a three-credit
independent study in which students identify one or a cluster of
jobs or professions in which an advanced degree in literature is
of benefit. In the course of the semester, students will research
the career options of interest, identifying one or two fields as the
focus of their work. They must generate a research paper that
explores the history and future prospects of the field of interest,
as well as current information about the requirements of the
work, geographical information about centers of activity for the
profession, and desirable employers. This research should
include at least two meetings with professionals who work in the
field. The paper must also analyze how advanced study of
literature serves to enhance the students' desirability in the
profession in question. As part of their final project, students
must develop a cover letter outlining the ways their particular
training makes them suitable to work in this field. Students will
make their research available to other students in the program
by uploading their final project onto a special section of the
Graduate English Program blog. Potential fields of research
include the following:

E-Book Industry                           Teaching

Public relations                          Rare book broker

Advertising                   Web design

College admissions            Journalism

University administration     Testing industry

Arts administration           Tutoring industry

Library science               Technical writing

Entertainment industry work

ENG 9800
CRN

Internship in Teaching English

Second-year graduate students have the option to serve as an
intern for a graduate faculty member in an undergraduate
English course. Interns will attend all class sessions, confer at
least once with each student on their written work, lead two or
three class sessions under the supervision of the faculty
member, and complete a final project that is either (1) a
substantial critical essay concerning the subject matter of the
course or (2) a research project concerning trends and issues
within college-level pedagogy. The aim of the program is to
provide students with teaching and classroom experience.
Students may apply to serve as interns by consulting with a
faculty member who is teaching in an area of interest, and, if the
faculty member is amenable, submitting a one-two page
statement, outlining how this course addresses their larger
intellectual goals, and what they hope to accomplish as an
intern.