In English Volume 14 #1

IN ENGLISH Occasional Newsletter of the Whittier College Department of English Language and Literature Volume 14, #1, November 2013 Charles S. Adams, Editor

On-Line Presence Some of you may be aware that the Whittier College English Department has a Facebook page. Erstwhile English major, now Librarian and information guru, Mike Garabedian and Professor Andrea Rehn and have been managing it, and they ask that those of you who are into such things “like” it. And we think there is a lot to like. https://www.facebook.com/WhittierCollegeEnglishDepartment As part of our new outreach to alums and friends we created a small, possibly temporary site managed by our colleagues in the alumni/advancement offices. It has a number of bits of amusement not found elsewhere: http://poetsforpoets.wordpress.com/ And our regular college-based site is: http://www.whittier.edu/Academics/EnglishLanguageAndLiterature/ This Newsletter will be up on that site and will be updated as more information comes in and your editor gets around to it.

English Department Writing Awards (This Means Money and Everlasting Glory) Every year we offer a set of prizes for the best work submitted by students in the areas of poetry, fiction, and scholarly writing. Be sure to stay tuned for the announcements asking for submissions for next year’s awards—the deadlines will be fairly early in Spring Semester. You cannot win if you do not enter. All Whittier students are eligible to enter.

The submission dates are always in early spring semester. The prizes are cash (well, checks actually). You could win more than some of your professors have made on their books and articles!

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Faculty News Wendy Furman-Adams: “I just returned last week from the biennial Conference on John Milton in Murfreesboro, Tennessee (October 17-20): a wonderful conference (in a so-so location) where about 150 Miltonists--junior and senior, well-known and not-sowell-known--gather over three days to share their work. I've attended and presented at every one since 1993, so this was my tenth time. Yale's John Rogers gave a marvelous keynote address on Milton and Newton; and four sessions, beckoning almost equally, went on over Friday and Saturday, leaving me with dozens of new insights. I was especially excited to deliver my own paper, since it's a short version of the big one (46 pages) I've just sent off to the Newberry seminar, and experienced more than usual relief when it was well-received.

Last spring I mentioned an invitation to make two major presentations this coming November: one at Purdue University (where our own recent alumna Reme Bohlin is working on her Ph.D. with a focus on Milton) and one at Chicago's Newberry Library, where the Milton Seminar--an elite group of Miltonists from the mid-west and northeast-meets twice a year to read and discuss someone's work. On Saturday, November 9, it's my work they're going to be discussing. I've never even attended a seminar and never dreamed of being invited like this, so I'm more than a little anxious. I have talked with people who have participated, though, they've given me helpful advice.

Last week I sent the thirty or so attendees the fruit of several months of work: a long essay on an artist named Robert Medley (1905-1991), who illustrated Milton's Samson Agonistes with twenty-four Matisse-like abstractions. Fortunately, he was a very literary and conscious artist (friend and briefly the lover of W.H. Auden, colleague of T.S. Eliot and Benjamin Britten, close associate of the Bloomsbury Group), who also wrote a very thoughtful autobiography. But interpreting works without the slightest figurative component has been a new and daunting challenge nonetheless. Brown torn paper to the left; green, blue, and yellow torn paper to the right? Surely that's Samson and Delilah, right? I'm hoping they all agree! The participants read in advance, grill the guest for two hours, then take the guest out to lunch for more, er, discussion. People tell me this is going to be fun. In any case I am overwhelmed with the honor.

One thing I'm really excited about is that Reme (along with a busload of other Purdue students), Mary Helen Truglia (now at Indiana), and Shannon Jaime (now at Rochester) are all planning to attend the seminar. Then our three wonderful grads will stick around to have dinner with me that evening in Chicago. I wish we could all be there!

Two days earlier, Thursday, November 7, I'll be speaking at Purdue--a more conventional one-hour, illustrated lecture called "Imagining Eden: Artists Reading the Biblical and Miltonic Paradise." The audience will be faculty and graduate students from English, Religious Studies, and History, and there will be a chance to see Reme in her new habitat.

That sounds like unmixed fun--and again, I'll be thinking of you all.�

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Jonathan Burton: “I made a New Year’s resolution last December to forge bonds with people outside of our academic community that would enrich my life as a teacher, scholar and Angeleno. I have since reached out to high school teachers and theater groups in the area. As a result, I have put in place a program (debuting this winter) where Whittier College students will serve as tutors for students studying Shakespeare at Whittier High School, and I have spoken as part of the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Festival in Griffith Park. I also gave a keynote on Renaissance “Reinventions of Race” at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America around the same time that a piece of mine on “Western Encounters with Sex and Bodies in non-European Cultures” was published in The Routledge History of Sex and the Body 1500 to the Present.

Away from books and classrooms, I spend a lot of time with my family trying out the endless buffet of Los Angeles cuisines. We especially love the South Indian food in Artesia and Korean tacos from the Kogi truck. We also try to get to the beach whenever possible – sometimes with boogie boards, sometimes with Dozer, and occasionally by bicycling along the San Gabriel River Trail.

Tony Barnstone: “I have been reworking my dissertation on William Carlos Williams and have just had an article, ‘Ivory Towers and War Machines: William Carlos Williams and the Humanities Under Fire,’ taken at the William Carlos Williams Review. My article, ‘The Three Paradoxes of Literary Translation: On Translating Chinese Poetry for Form,’ will be published in Translating China for the Western Reader: Reflective, Critical and Practical Essays, edited by Gu Ming (University of Syracuse Press). My selected poems will come out in spring of 2014 in Spanish translation by Mariano Zaro with a Mexican publisher, titled Buda en llamas (Buddha in Flames), and my new book of poems will appear around the same time with Sheep Meadow Press, titled Beast in the Apartment. I am very happy to report that my proposal to Everyman Press to split my big anthology of monster poems into two books has been accepted, and so my Dead and Undead Poems will appear in fall, 2014, and my Human and Inhuman Monster Poems will appear in fall, 2015, both co-edited with Michelle Mitchell-Foust. I continue to give readings and lectures at various universities and conferences, and just recently was awarded first place in the CZP/Rannu Fund Prize in Speculative Poetry, a prize devoted to science fiction poetry, for my ‘Captain Fantastic’ series of sonnets in which I worked from Christopher Columbus¹s log to put his first voyage to the Americas into outer space.

I have also been helping Whittier students find their way into print, where possible.

Poems by Krystal Valladares and Carsen West will appear iny two monster poem anthologies with Everyman Press, and Terrileigh Shepherd will have a prose piece about ethnic conflict in Africa published in a special issue of the literary magazine Prairie Schooner, edited by poet Brian Turner.”

Andrea Rehn: “This has been an exciting semester! I recently learned that I received a research fellowship for my sabbatical next semester. In spring 2014, I will be living and studying at Chawton House, Jane Austen’s final home, and the place from which she published all her novels. Chawton is now a research library devoted to the study of 18th century women writers. A few scholars a year get to live in the (hopefully somewhat

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redecorated) stables while studying the library’s collections. In preparation for the trip, I have been revising an article on digital pedagogy and Jane Austen, due to appear early next spring in the journal Persuasions. Oh, and I am once again chairing a panel at the annual meeting of Victorianists—this year it will be here in Pasadena! If you’re in Pasadena next weekend, watch out. English professors from around the country will be thick on the streets.

But wait, that’s not all: In early October, I learned that the Mellon Foundation had awarded Whittier College a huge grant to extend and develop our digital pedgogies. As the director of the project, I have been working hard to get things started. Very soon, you will be hearing about opportunities for students to learn digital skills and to become involved in research and teaching collaborations with various faculty across campus. We are also developing a new high tech learning space, which will be located in Wardman Library, where students can work collaboratively on new media projects. The grant will also fund a series of events on campus over the next few years, including visits by leaders in the field of digital humanities. Interested in 3-D printing? In digital modeling? In learning more about data mining? Watch this space for news of upcoming events.”

Kate Durbin: In February, my second full-length book of poetry, E! Entertainment, will be published from Wonder Press. E! is a book of transcriptions of reality TV shows from Kim Kardashian's wedding to the housewives shows to an entire episode of MTV's The Hills. Unlike a lot of conceptual poetry, it is a book that is meant to be read. Right now I am planning performances of E! with Spencer Pratt from MTV's The Hills.

Next spring, Abra will appear in the world. Last year my collaborator Amaranth Borsuk and I received a grant from The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago to create an interactive poetry book for the iPad as well as an artist's book that correlates with the iPad edition. Abra is an exploration of the potentials of the book in the 21st century. She is also a post-human hybrid prophet. In addition to the iPad and artist's book versions of Abra, 1913 Press will publish a trade paperback edition of the book.

Michelle Chihara: “I recently published an essay about Game of Thrones at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and am working on another humorous essay for Trop.mag. I have also been speaking with some of my creative students about helping me with a video project that I¹m working on to go with some of my short stories ‹ I¹m keeping it partly under wraps, but let me know if you have the itch to help make a very short movie!

November is a busy month for me: I’ll be speaking about mixed race marriages and personal identity at the Mixed Race Families in the West conference at the Huntington on Nov 16th. And then I¹m excited to present my research about reality television and finance at the Film & History conference, whose theme this year is the representation of money on-screen, on Nov 23rd. I¹m also excited to bring a number of great writers to Whittier College this year. My creative nonfiction class has already heard from Jessica Garrison from the Los Angeles Times and we¹ll be hosting travel and environmental writer David Page later this month.

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Here at Whittier, I¹m organizing creative panels in poetry and creative writing for the SCCUR conference, which will take place on campus on November 23rd. I was also thrilled to be invited by the Business department to teach a one-time seminar in Qualitative Research Methods.

And a heads-up for Fall 2014: Prof. Fatos Radoniqi and I have secured a Mellon grant to develop a paired class in literature and business about financial crises!! This should be a topical and exciting pair.”

Scot Creley: “My poetry collection Digging a Hole to The Moon has been accepted by Spout Hill Press and is slated for publication in January, 2014.

The San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival is coming to Pomona, California on February 15th. It's an arts and literature festival that promotes literacy and artistic expression in the communities in and around the San Gabriel Valley. Last year feature more than a hundred writers including prominent names like Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, Eloise Klein Healy, Suzanne Lummis, Tony Barnstone, B.H. Fairchild, Aimee Bender, Gerald Locklin, Christopher Buckley, and many others.

It's free, open to the public, and will take place in the Arts Colony of Pomona near the Fox Theatre & Glass House. Come see the dozens of art galleries and amazing writers.

February 15th, 2014 12:00PM – 10:00PM SGVLitFest.com 200 W. Second St. Pomona, CA 91766” dAvid pAddy: For this round I will remain mysterious. I have begun working on some projects and have sent or am about to send out things that look a conference proposal and a book proposal. That is all for now.

Charles S. Adams: I am inspired by dAvid pAddy. Sort of. I am still thinking about baseball literature, autobiographical writing, and a few other things, but spending most of my time outside of work obligations on various family matters. I suspect I will be doing something at the annual Popular Association meeting in the spring.

Sigma Tau Delta Congratulations to all of you who qualified/will qualify this year to be members of the Whittier (Jessamyn West) chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national honorary society in English! Well done! (Note: you’re not really a member until you get initiated. And the national folks say you are not really in until you have paid a membership! See Professor Furman-Adams, Professor Rehn, or Angela Olivas in the department office if you have questions.)

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Alumni and Study Abroad News We get notes, phone calls, bricks through windows. From some of you. We see people, when they remember to stop by. Sometimes we hunt them down, when we know where to look. We are not printing any notes this time, however, as we have found that Google does include this letter, and some folks seem not to want to be found. If you want to send us information about yourself that you would like others to hear, please send it, but tell us specifically that you do not mind our printing it.

What Have We Been Reading Lately?

Jonathan Burton: “So much of what we do as professors depends upon candor and clarity. Since the summer is a time to indulge in things we can’t enjoy during the academic year, I took an interest this past June and July in books with untrustworthy narrators: charlatans, obfuscators, and scoundrels. In part, this came from a desire to revisit the pleasures of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, a book I wrote about in these pages last year. So I turned this summer to Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending, Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier, Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. All of these are recommended, but it was Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides that most moved and troubled me. Eugenides is also the author of Middlesex, a book I’d place on my top 50 novels of all time. I also joined a group of faculty members (Adams, Eastman, Garabedian, Furman-Adams, Kozek and pAddy) in reading together James Joyce’s Ulysses. Most of us hadn’t read Ulysses since graduate school and the pleasures of returning to Joyce were outweighed only by the pleasures of reading in the company of so many smart and funny colleagues. I also read Chimamanda Adichie’s wonderful Americanah, a book I’ll include in my new course on Transcultural Literature. You can get some indication of the novel’s very smart ruminations on race in American culture simply in reading the title of the main character’s blog, “Raceteenth or Various Observations about American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black.” Finally, my favorite read of the past few months has been Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” whose narrator must come to terms with the fact that her sister was taken away from her at the age of five – when her psychologist parents determined it was no longer safe to raise their daughter side-by-side with a chimpanzee.

Not only laugh-out-loud funny, the book offers wonderful insights on academic culture, animal rights and what it means to be human.”

Michelle Chihara: “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to make the distinction between what is ‘reading for pleasure’ and what is work. The line bleeds. Right now I¹m enjoying, John Lanchester¹s Capital, but I may teach it next year. I¹m also reading the lovely The Ice Museum, on a recommendation from dAvid Paddy, but this too, in some ways, is work! I just started Ron Carlson’s new novel, Return to Oakpine pure pleasure, except that Ron will hopefully visit Whittier soon, and I’d like to finish the novel before then! I’ve really been enjoying The Los Angeles Review of Books, online and in print,

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lately. Work? Pleasure? Who knows? I still read Poetry magazine. Because I don¹t teach contemporary American poetry, that, at least, counts as ‘useless.’”

Charles S. Adams: I find that I have started some things but not necessarily finished them (I had to skim some parts of Ulysses to keep up with the reading group others have mentioned). But I did get through a new reading of Don DeLillo’s Underworld as I have a piece I wrote about it a while back that needs some work (Jose Orozco says he does not think much of it; I think it may be a great book—but it is not easy). I made myself a promise to keep up with the various weeklies I think are important, but they arrive relentlessly. TLS, The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and The New Yorker all fall under this category. Then there are the monthlies. So, I spend most of my time reading about literature rather than reading the books themselves. What does this mean? Then there is always the baseball stuff. That just keeps coming as well. So, he unfinished stuff: 1421: The year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Juno Diaz, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, and The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees (the last two from the erstwhile Mary Helen Truglia). As my students know, Moby-Dick and Leaves of Grass, all of African-American Literature, and all the books and essays about Los Angeles that I can get to intrude on this narrative. See Michelle Chihara’s note above.

Andrea Rehn: “I am very lucky that I get to read what fascinates me. At this moment, most of the fiction I’m reading is for classes (Jane Austen and Postcolonial Novel.) The books I’m reading for myself have to do with my growing interest in digital humanities.

So on my desk are Kathleeen Fitzpatrick’s Planned Obsolescence, Stephen Ramsay’s brilliant Reading Machines, and Jerome McGann’s Radiant Textuality. These are books that challenge the very foundations of the study of literature: what is a book and how is digital media transforming it? How can we use computer programs to “read” books for us, in order to answer new kinds of questions? What happens to the “human” in the “humanities” if computers do our reading? How are non-linear, non-narrative digital textualities transforming the ways that we read, and that we think, and that we make sense out of our world? These books are offering me new ways to examine familiar texts as well as challenging the boundaries of what a “text” might be. Mind blowing and exciting—I recommend them to everyone.” dAvid pAddy: “As always, my reading has been all over the map. My ongoing fetishism for the NYRB Classics series got me to pick up the Belgian-Australian Chinese scholar Simon Leys’s collected essays The Hall of Uselessness, which I’ve just started. The NYRB has also recently reissued some of the best novels of Kingsley Amis, which encouraged me to read Girl, 20, one of his most nastily funny books. And, finally, from the same press, I devoured Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude (see the last In English to see me go all ooey and gooey for Hamilton—he still stands as one my favorite “discovered” authors in recent years). Currently reading Thomas Pynchon’s latest, Bleeding Edge, which I’m savoring at snail pace for maximum enjoyment. Over the summer I started getting caught up with William Gibson (he of Neuromancer fame) and his recent post-future set of novels, including Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and Zero History, as well as his collection of essays Distrust That Particular Flavor.

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Visionary insight in laser-crisp prose. Also loved Zadie Smith’s latest, NW, and it’s great to see her follow her experimentalist heart. Dalkey Archive has dug up some lost bits of my ever-favorite Flann O’Brien. Read through a collection of his short fiction, and I’ll soon hit a volume of his work for stage and TV. Over the summer, I was in Montreal and trekked up to the best-named graphic novel store (and press): Drawn and Quarterly.

Picked up some lovely stuff there, including a book in Penguin’s series in which British writers riff on the experience of one line of the Underground. John O’Farrell’s A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line is hilarious and spot on in its economic analysis. Critical theory-wise, I’ve been reading tons of Franco Moretti, and am currently reading The Bourgeois. Also finished McKenzie Wark’s The Spectacle of Disintegration, a study of where the Situationist Internationalist’s work went after the 1960s. It’s also a parable about how our economic times are essentially about the ruling class shutting down shop and collecting the last bash of cash. Good times.

As usual, I’ve been immersed in a number of books on music (my escapism?). This has included a number of titles in the 33 1/3 series of single titles on single albums. Recently I’ve gone through books on Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Van Dyke Parks’s Song Cycle, Bowie’s Low, and Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. Truly loved Pete Townshend’s autobiography Who I Am and I’m nearly finished with the massive Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal. My throat is sore from reading the whole thing in a death growl.”

Tony Barnstone: “My reading has taken a back seat to research and life changes recently. Mainly, I am reading books about pregnancy, birth and how to take care of toddlers, these days. I expect to be reading a lot of children’s books in the near future.

However, for the present I am happy to report that the two Walking Dead Omnibus collections are a spectacular read, and different from the TV series in fascinating ways.”

Wendy Furman-Adams: “As I look at the amount of pleasure reading I managed last year, I'm a little discouraged, since my new list is so much shorter. I do know why that is, however. I spent the summer doing an unusual amount of scholarly reading and writing. Fortunately, as my colleague Jonathan Burton has noted, the line between pleasure reading and professional reading is pretty fine when you love what you do for a living.

In addition to reading a whole lot about Milton (and about fifty hours worth of fascinating NEH proposals), I did re-read all of Joyce's Ulysses this past summer--not for a class (which is how I managed last time) but with a small group of Whittier colleagues, including Charlie Eastman and Mike Garabedian (who together cooked up this wild idea); dAve paddy, Charles Adams, Jonathan Burton, and Mark Kozek, along with Charlie's wife Anna. We met in homes, we met in a pub, we talked about Joyce and about everything else besides. It was great (high) fun. And, having taught Dubliners and Portrait a number of times since my first foray into Ulysses, I found it a bit more accessible (although far from easy!) this time--holding on for dear life to Stuart Gilbert's somewhat dull but essential commentary and dAve pAddy's somewhat reluctant but invaluable instruction.

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Other than that, I caught up a bit on the New Yorker and the New York Times Book Review, and dreamed of leisure time ahead. Far ahead, I'd imagine, at the rate I'm going now--although I already have taught (and therefore re-read) The Odyssey, King Lear, and To the Lighthouse to my new English 110 class this fall. When you "work" that way, who can complain about not finding time to read good books?”

Scot Creley: “What I've read in the past couple months: Fiction & Poetry Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. Invisible Cities Italo Calvino. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman. I, Fatty, Painkillers, Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl. When the Nines Roll By, The 25th Hour, City of Thieves by David Benioff. Frankenstein the 1818 & 1836 editions. Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories.

Even So: New and Selected Poems by Gary Young. Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees ed. by James Reidel.

Graphic Novels The Nightly News, Red Mass for Mars, Transhuman, and East of West By Jonathan Hickman. Saga by Brian K. Vaughn. Powers by Brian Michael Bendis.

Theory Monster Theory ed by Jeffrey James Cohen. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Supergods by Grant Morrison.

The Curtain Milan Kundera.

On Writing by Stephen King.”

Charlie Eastman: “I really enjoyed our summer Ulysses reading group, particularly so thanks to dAve pAddy’s guidance through the murkier bits. In fact, for the rest of the summer I resolved to read only books recommended by dAve: David Markson’s This is Not A Novel and Reader’s Block, and Terry Eagleton’s From Across the Pond and The Gatekeeper. As with most of my resolutions, however, I faltered, wandering eventually into The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai and The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. Finally, because life is not all brilliant novels and memoirs (dammit) I re-read Joe Harris’ Rewriting: How to do Things with Texts and read Mary Kennedy’s Theorizing Composition. I look forward to beginning Ian Buruma’s history of postwar Europe, Year Zero.”

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College Writing Program News Charlie Eastman, Director What we’ve been up to: 1) We welcomed familiar faces Katy Simonian and Mallory Reeves to our corps of writing faculty. They join vets Claire Koehler, Daniel Holland, Celestine Candida, Kate Durbin, and Mark Olague; 2) We have begun to offer “drop-in” writing support 4 nights a week in library space graciously provided by Laurel Crump; 3) We had our external reviewer, Pat Donahue of Lafayette College, on campus (and thanks again to Wendy and Andrea for taking time out to meet with her).

We were a little anxious heading into her visit, because that’s how we always are, but it was, simply, a wonderful learning experience. I wish we could have her back every other year; 4) The usual fall activities: offering 28 sections of INTD 100, 24 sections of Writing Intensive classes, 2 sections of our writing lab, all supported by 60 wonderful writing peer mentors. Did someone say “collaborative enterprise?”

English Department Courses Fall 2013, January and Spring 2014 (All still subject to some change) Below is supplemental information from most of the faculty about the departmental courses scheduled for January and Spring 2014. It is in the nature of our subjects that a course description in the catalog rarely says exactly what any given offering will cover.

There are always big choices faculty members have to make, and these change over time.

The details are, again, always subject to change, but we hope this will help. As we acquire more information and make changes, we will adjust the on-line versions of this document. Please see or e-mail the instructors, the department office, or our department chair, Tony Barnstone, for answers to questions these descriptions might raise. We note as well that some instructors may be teaching courses in the Interdisciplinary (INTD) category or are based in other departments, and their descriptions may not all appear here.

Students should consult the Whittier College Catalog concerning prerequisites for all courses. In particular, many courses require ENGL 110 or 120 or their equivalent for enrollment.

ENGL 110 note (only offered in Fall): This new course is designed for first-semester, first-year students with a strong background and continuing interest in the study and writing of literature. While it counts toward the requirements of the English major (as an alternative to ENGL 120), it does not fulfill the COM 2 (writing intensive) requirement as ENGL 120 does. But do not despair—we have worked to designate many of our other courses to fulfill this requirement, which should be reflected in the schedule of courses.

ENGL 120 note: Ten sections of “Why Read?” will be available in the Spring. Each instructor will organize the course according to his/her own themes and theories. All of them count for the COM 2 Lib Ed requirement and will enable a student to then take 10

upper-level English courses. Where there is no extended description, the instructor is still thinking about it. It is always possible that if a particular section does not draw enough students in preregistration it could be cancelled. If this happens, students should see their advisors, the registrar’s office, or any member of the English Department and we will do our best to find an open spot in another section.

January 2014 ENGL 290: Japanese Ghost Stories (Mary Yukari Waters) This course introduces students to the basics of Japanese ghost lore. We will read stories, watch films, and discuss them in terms of psychology and culture. This course also has a creative writing component: each student will write an original ghost story or scary story (it doesn’t need to be Japanese), which will be shared with the class.

ENGL 390: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Scott Creley) Science Fiction and Fantasy are expressions of the most human aspects of our collective being: our dreams for the future and our dreams of other worlds. This course will hone the abilities of writers wishing to step through those doors to other worlds and write Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

We'll studying the works of great writers like George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, and many others.

During this study, students will craft and polish a work of short fiction, then workshop it with their peers as well as guest writers from the sci-fi and fantasy fields. This class will improve the style of any fiction writer, and provide a primer for new writers wishing to write fiction. The goal is to learn several writing exercises and ultimately produce a piece of science fiction or fantasy writing for publication.

Spring 2014 See note above for a discussion of the ins and outs of 120 registration.

ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 1 (Scott Creley) “Life During Wartime” “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt” – Kurt Vonnegut This class will explore why we read by studying texts that expose the surprising tenderness with which we humans behave during even our darkest hours. The texts selected for this semester are all stories people at war who are struggling to survive and craft meaning during the most difficult eras of recent human history. The texts we'll study include Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, and David Benioff's City of Thieves.

These novels give vast, sweeping events in American history a ground-level, personal perspective. They help the reader become involved in the moral struggles that define human beings and create meaningful lives. The assignments for this class will focus on the big ethical questions and philosophical ideas embedded in the texts. These well-loved 11

novels will make this class a fun but intellectually stimulating endeavor, and even those who don't think of themselves as “readers” will find a new love for literature in these novels.

ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 2 (Scott Creley) See above, Section 1.

ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 3 (Kate Durbin) “Exquisite Terror: Fairy Tales and Horror Stories” Many historical folk and fairy tales can be read as precursors to today¹s modern horror narratives, stories that have something important to teach us about cultural fears, needs, taboos, and desires. While contemporary fairy tales are often lighthearted, and centered on contrived happy endings, in this course, we will study the scariest and most morally ambiguous of the fairy tales, from the terrifying torture chamber of Bluebeard to the cannibalistic witch of Hansel Gretel. We will look at these tales as windows into past cultural traumas. We will also trace the fairy tales traumatic legacy into modern horror novels from contemporaries of the horror genre such as Stephen King, Natsuo Kirino, Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice, and others. In doing so, we will gain valuable insight into our current cultural condition.

ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 4 (Kate Durbin) See above, Section 3 ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 5 (Katy Simonian) ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 6 (Katy Simonian) ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 7 (Victor Kaufold) ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 8 (Victor Kaufold) ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 9 (Charles S. Adams) As of this writing I am still thinking about my theme. I have been pondering writers who are interested in the various versions of being some sort of “outsider.” In particular, this can mean consideration of a writer like Emily Dickinson, whose work seems to be about forms of solitude (I stress seems), or it can mean Steinbeck’s Joad family, who are forcibly exiled from their home within the U.S., or a good number of stories about immigrants to the U.S. from elsewhere, or Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, who write about being an exile in one’s own home and about exile in the form of racism, or even Mole in The Wind in the Willows, who seems simply never to be at home and does not miss it much.

ENGL 120: Why Read? Section 10 (Jonathan Burton) If you ask me why I read, you may find that my response differs considerably from yours. If you ask one of my colleagues why he or she reads, you’re likely to hear a third distinct and compelling answer. If you ask someone in Baghdad . . . well, you get the point. This section of “Why Read?” will not prescribe a reason for reading so much as it will explore the range of answers people might offer to the question. Our method will be to explore a few

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common tropes and story types as they travel across multiple traditions, weaving in and out of other geographies, languages and cultures. How do fundamental literary devices or narratives take on new and different meanings? Why should we bother to read them again, and how do we read them anew? One pathway we will trace will feature sections of The Arabian Nights, short fiction by Edgar Allen Poe, John Barth and A.S. Byatt, as well as Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Naghuib Mahfouz’s Arabian Nights and Days. Hang on to your magic carpet; there’s no telling where we might go next!

ENGL 203: Writing Poetry (Tony Barnstone) This will be an introduction to poetry writing, focusing on form and technique. Workshops, outside readings, visits by established poets. The format of the class is the workshop, in which students critique each others' work. The class is fun, but work-heavy--a kind of creative writing boot camp--and thus not for students looking for an easy ride. We will explore American and international poetry and poetics, seeking to expand our range of modes and techniques.

Students will be introduced to a wide variety of poetic forms, esthetic approaches, and creative techniques to help them develop their own potentialities and personal styles.

Prerequisite: 120 and instructor permission.

ENGL 221: Major British and American Writers From 1660 (Charles S. Adams) This course continues the survey of literature begun in ENG 220. One of the big differences from the previous course is that in addition to looking at the development of British literary history we will also consider the trajectory of American literary history.

The course will in fact begin with some of the foundations of American literature.

Moving back and forth between British and American literature, we will examine Romanticism, the Victorian Age, Realism, Modernism, and conclude with some directions taken in contemporary literature. As we investigate the intellectual ideas and aesthetic premises that guide each era, we will also address such issues as the rise and fall of the British Empire, the building of the American nation, the historical importance of revolution and industrialization, and the roles of race, class, and gender. As we consider shifting notions of aesthetics, we will also consistently ask: What is the relationship between national identity and literature? We will read a wide range of poems, stories, essays, and excerpts, and we will read several full length works.

ENGL 270: Transcultural Literature (Jonathan Burton) Under what heading would you place a book by a Nigerian woman who lives in the United States and writes about Africans who live in America, Britain and Nigeria? Is this American literature? British Literature? African Literature? Is her protagonist an African American, an AmericanAfrican, or something else entirely? Our conventional categories simply do not do justice to transcultural complexities of contemporary literature. Designed in response to student interest in works by non-Anglo-American authors, this class examines literature in an increasingly interconnected world where geographic and national boundaries have become inadequate to categorize literary works. Topics will include globalization, mobility, cosmopolitanism and flexible citizenship in the works of award-winning contemporary authors including Salman Rushdie, Jumpa Lahiri, Orhan Pamuk, and Chimamanda Adichie. This course fulfills the CUL 6 (Crosscultural) requirement of the LIBED program.

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ENGL 302: Advanced Fiction Writing (Michelle Chihara) This course is an advanced creative writing workshop. We will focus primarily on reading and critiquing each other’s work. We will also read a wide range of short stories and excerpts of other work, in order to expose ourselves to an array of idiosyncratic voices, creative approaches and techniques. The class assumes a serious commitment to writing fiction, and some experience with both the workshop format and the short story genre. I hope to approach the workshop as a working writers’ group, where we assume a love of language and a drive to write in our peers, and focus on pushing each other to discover the strongest expression of our individual voices.

ENGL 303: Advanced Poetry Writing (Tony Barnstone) This class is an advanced workshop for those who have learned the basics of poetry writing. You are expected to enter the class with a strong understanding of what makes for a powerful free verse poem, how to craft the amazing image, how to take a poem through rhetorical and conceptual "turns," how to create exciting line breaks that create interesting tensions with the sentence rhythm, and of course how to revise a poem to make it better and better. In this class, you will learn the essentials of metrics, from accentual meter to syllabics to accentual-syllabic meter, and you will write in those meters, often in fixed forms, such as the haiku, the pantoum, the sestina, the quatrain, the villanelle, the sonnet, terza rima, blank verse, and such other meters as Chinese regulated verse and the Persian ghazal.

ENGL 305: Screenwriting (Sean Morris) You know you’ve always wanted to write your own movie, and here’s your chance! This course will give you the tools you need to write for the silver screen—including plot structure, character development, scene building, dialogue, and screenplay format. Our methods and assignments will include short writing exercises, outlining, discussions, workshops, readings, and a weekly film lab (time and day to be fixed when the course begins). For your major project, you will submit a detailed outline for a feature-length film, and a complete first act (30 pages in screenplay format). Readings will include Robert McKee’s Story, Denny Martin Flinn’s How Not To Write a Screenplay, Syd Field’s, Screenplay, a few professional scripts like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sense and Sensibility, and The Illusionist, and your fellow students’ drafts.

ENGL 310: Linguistics (Sean Morris) ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll invented half the words in “Jabberwocky” himself, yet you still know how to say, correctly, “That mimsy rath loves to see a gimbling tove,” even if you don’t know what you mean. How is this possible? And how can we understand people who say, “This man is a tiger,” or “That course is a bear”? While we’re at it, where do different languages come from in the first place? And why is it so hard to learn a new one when you didn’t have any trouble learning the first? Does someone who speaks another

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language think differently? And what’s with English spelling? How come “knight” and “bite” rhyme, but “police” and “ice” don’t? Want to know? Tune in to English 310 and find out! This course is paired with Damien Martin's "Mathematics of Language," INTD 290. Students do not have to be in the pair to take the class.

ENGL 320: Literature of Medieval Europe (Wendy Furman-Adams) On the one hand, the period of European history running from about 500 to 1500 is one of incredible diversity--not to mention upheaval and violence. On the other hand, medieval architects, philosophers, painters, and writers managed by about 1300 to bring the entire cosmos into a hard-won but comprehensive system of thought--a system in which every creature (from spinning seraph to comical devil; from martyr-mystic to Chaucer's corrupt pardoner; from lord to retainer; from knight to churl; from unicorn to dragon; from Dante's beloved Beatrice to the Wife of Bath) and every artistic and literary form (from Romanesque to Gothic; from epic to romance; from sacred hymn to fabliau) had its clear function and necessary place.

The literature we read will trace the gradual development, then partial loss, of this synthesis, as we move (1) from early Christian lyrics to the Old English and early French epic (Beowulf and Roland), while focusing on the first classic of medieval philosophy (also a work of literature): Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy; (2) to the courtly elegance of the Troubadours and Gottfried von Strassburg, as well as to the Gothic synthesis of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321); (3) to the new trends reflected at the end of the period by Petrarch, Boccaccio and Chaucer (1340-1400). The middle and later stages in this development, in which we encounter the rise of "courtly love," also present an opportunity to explore the ways in which gender was constructed by medieval poets, both men and women. Prerequisite: English 120. English 220 or 222 recommended. This course is paired with Philosophy 312; co-registration required.

ENGL 324: Chaucer (Sean Morris) You'll get all your favorite Canterbury Tales in this class—the Miller, the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Nun's Priest—and many, many more. Who knew life was so much fun in 1398? But wait! If you order now, you’ll also get Troilus and Criseyde and a dream vision or two. Add your own pilgrim to the gang, learn to read Middle English, battle for the Canterbury dolls, and find out why Chaucer is to blame for all the Valentine’s Day hullabaloo. (Yes, he really is.) Need I say more? Be there, or be “wood”! (It rhymes with “load.”) All readings will be in Middle English—but don't worry! I’ll show you how.

ENGL 326: Topics in Shakespeare (Jonathan Burton) In this class we will spend an entire semester studying Hamlets -- but not just Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane. We will also get to know black Hamlets, female Hamlets, burlesque Hamlets, children’s Hamlets, Freudian Hamlets, Arab and Chinese Hamlets. Students will approach Shakespeare’s play—along with its literary and filmic offspring—with an array of critical tools, including textual criticism, character criticism, historicist theory, psychoanalytic theory, and theories of revision and adaptation. Finally, students will create, stage and analyze their own southern California Hamlets.

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ENGL 330: British Literature 1640-1789 (Wendy Furman-Adams) Compared to some courses, the period covered in this course is not a long one: just under 150 years.

Yet the period is a fascinating one because it leads directly to our own civilization (or the one just ending)--from the Renaissance to the "modern world." The later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been called many things: the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, the "Age of Exuberance" (by my late great former teacher Donald Greene), and, perhaps most aptly of all, the Age of Revolution.

Our period literally began with one revolution (the English Puritan Revolution) and ended with another (the French Revolution). But the period was revolutionary in every way imaginable. Politically--during this age of Locke, Rousseau, and the American founding fathers--the Divine Right of Kings gave way to the radical idea (so obvious, at least in hindsight, to Americans!) of the "social compact." Socially, the middle class (i.e. most of us) came into being as an active social force--giving rise, with their new mobility, to reform movements such as temperance and the abolition of slavery.

Economically, an agrarian society gave way to unprecedented urbanization and to the rise of capitalism, with all its new opportunities and dangers. Educationally, opportunity both expanded and changed--giving rise to a "reading public" that for the first time included people of all classes, and women as well as men.

Religiously, the relative unity and stability of the middle ages continued to fragment, giving rise to a relatively secular society, in which "the pursuit of happiness" came to mean not the search for ultimate reality (God), but personal happiness on this earth, in our lifetimes. Philosophically, the emphasis on authority that had been the hallmark of learning over more than a millennium gave way to a new empiricism--a new and urgent interest in discovering the foundations of knowledge itself, not so much in "reason" as in "experience."

And in literature--under the stress of these revolutionary changes--writers used classical forms (like epic, ode, epistle, and satire) to express revolutionary new subjects and ideas.

Women gained an unprecedented power as both readers and writers (a power not to be matched until the twentieth century). And the age gave rise, as well, to whole new genres--most importantly the newspaper, the magazine, the traveler's tale, and the novel (the name of which means, simply, new!). Pre-requisite: English 120. English 220 strongly recommended.

ENGL 331: Rise of the Novel (dAvid pAddy) In this course we will look at the development of the novel as a form in the British Isles, especially as it came into shape in the eighteenth century. The approach to the course will be as historical as it is aesthetic.

So, in addition to seeing how the rough and tumble beast of a thing called the novel twists and turns through epistolary, picaresque, satirical and even anti-novelistic patterns, we will look to the broader historical conditions to try to make some sense of why these things called novels would be rising at all. Readings will consist of the following: Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tobias Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker.

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ENGL 354: Contemporary British Literature (dAvid pAddy) Imagine instead a“British history in which alteration, mutation and flux, rather than continuity and bedrock solidity, are the norm.”—Simon Schama Since World War Two, Britain has undergone numerous changes that have called into question what it means to be British. Recovering from the war through an extended period of austerity, Britain also witnessed the rapid loss of many of its primary colonies.

As the future of the British Empire was challenged, so was the future of Britain itself.

Economic decline, and a necessity to join the European Union, coincided with increasing demands for independence from Scotland and Wales, as well as a major influx of immigrants from Britain’s former colonies. In this course we will examine how contemporary British literature reflects, constructs, and responds to questions of Britain’s national identity in a post-imperial age. Readings have yet to be finalized but could very well include works by such writers as: Patrick Hamilton, Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Angela Carter, J. G. Ballard, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Niall Griffiths and Zadie Smith.

ENGL 361: American Romanticism (Charles S. Adams) American romanticism actually has its own name, “Transcendentalism.” Not all of the American writers who are classified as “romantics” would subscribe to this philosophy, but I am willing to say that even if they were extremely suspicious, they were still stuck with responding to the power of the movement’s ideas thus they too are “romantics,” at least for our purposes in this class. This is the movement that claims to make American writing really American, and it launches the 19th Century explosion of all sorts of new ideas and literary forms in this country. So, for example, we have Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman laying down some new ground rules, and Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson thinking hard about why they are not necessarily comfortable with either the new ideas or forms, or are using them to go in directions the transcendentalists had not contemplated (actually, what fascinated Poe was the idea of no rules at all—at least moral ones—and what that might let you consider). But all are caught up in a powerful groundswell of idealism and intellectual ferment of the times, a great deal of which is brought about by social, economic, and political change. That idealism is both political and philosophical and produces some of the greatest American literary work. The course is not supposed to survey everything, and will not. But we will try to get at crucial historical questions in this critical American literary period. Those interested in any of the forms of American literary modernism later on will find here materials they will need to know.

ENGL 390: Border/Home: Identity, Culture and Class in Chicano Literature (Michelle Chihara) Here in Los Angeles county, we live very close to the Mexican border, in a state that will soon be majority Latino/a. In this class, we will use Chicano/a literature as a means of exploring the role of borders, both political and imaginary, in art and culture. We will ask: What role do the arts play in the very real political struggles surrounding the border?

In this course, students will gain an appreciation and understanding of the growing body

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of critically acclaimed and trailblazing Chicano literature, and an awareness of the significance of Chicano cultural production to the field of American literature. We will approach the literature from an interdisciplinary perspective and will examine assigned texts within their larger historical, social, and political contexts.

Within contemporary U.S. culture, most young people know what it means to struggle with one’s individual identity within a fractious, multicultural landscape. In this course, we will assume that the questions asked within critical race studies about the nature of identity, authenticity, culture and belonging are relevant and pressing for people of all races.

The class will include a trip to the Mexican border to speak with activists and artists working there.

ENGL 400: Critical Procedures (dAvid pAddy) Reading a novel, poem or play may seem a fairly basic skill to you by now. But how do you go about making an interpretation of a literary text? What kind of questions should you be asking? How do you find meaning? How do you know if your interpretation has any validity?

Throughout this course we will encounter an array of critical essays by literary theorists who have raised difficult questions and offered compelling ideas about how to approach a literary text. Reading literary theory can feel like reading philosophy, sociology, psychology, or something from a number of other fields, and it is indeed a multidisciplinary means of thinking about what we do when we read, talk and write about literature. In this way, literary theory informs the practical work of literary criticism.

Many of these theories are difficult if not mind-boggling, but they can help you become a more thoughtful reader, careful critic, and, perhaps, sophisticated teacher of literature. In addition to reading primary documents of major literary theory, we will also discuss practical aspects of research and argumentation. The writing of the Paper in the Major and delivery of the senior presentation for this course will enable you to put some of the theories into practice. By practicing such theories in your own writing and responding to what other critics have said can help you learn what literary scholars do and may help show you what it means to be part of that wider community of literary scholars.

Our main text will be David Lodge and Nigel Wood’s Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Be ready for a difficult class, but one, as a senior capstone course, that should dramatically influence how you think about literature.

ENGL 410: Senior Seminar (Wendy Furman-Adams): Writing Renaissance Women. The title of this course is ambiguous--even slightly "punny"--in that it refers to two things at once. Most obviously, this will be a course about women writers working in England between about 1550 and 1700. But a number of important male writers from Petrarch to Milton will be represented as well because they are central to the story of writing women in the Renaissance.

Why? They are central because of the way literature both reflects and, in turn, influences--even re-invents--life. Due in part to social factors, in part to the power of their vision, male poets like Petrarch and Sidney, Spenser and Milton indelibly shaped

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the way men have imagined and represented women (at least until the last generation or so), as well as the way countless female readers have imagined and represented themselves. Thus, even when writing for others of their own sex, early modern women had to write in response to male voices, male pens, male images of female identity.

Less free than men to develop an identity from "scratch," these women engaged in the writing process under the jealous eye of a patriarchal society which saw them, essentially, as passive members. Even as they wrote, then (and many did write), they were also "being written"--by male writers, and yet more profoundly by the social conventions that shaped both male and female roles.

Thus in this course we will pay a lot of attention to the context of the literature we read: the social conditions under which it was produced. But we also will read a number of texts by women and men--in order to see the extent to which Renaissance writers, male and female, were "written" by the context in which they wrote; and to see, conversely, the extent to which they managed to "re-write" themselves and one another. We will see men and women engaged in an uneasy dialogue (sometimes a verbal war!), as different writers reveal a different mix of freedom and constraint, originality and conventionality, patriarchal bias and impulse toward gender equality. While we're at it, we'll also read some pretty great poetry and prose--some of which has been published only over the past decade, after four hundred years of invisibility and exclusion from the "canon."

Instructor permission required.

ENGL 420: Preceptorships (Various Faculty) This course is for advanced students who will act as assistants to faculty in some of the courses above. See individual faculty members concerning what might be involved.

Instructor permission required.

Why Did You Get This?

The purpose of this newsletter is to keep students, faculty, and friends informed about the wide variety of activities the Whittier College English Department is engaged in. If there are events of a literary nature that could use a bit of publicity through this vehicle, send information about them to the English Department office. We cannot guarantee when or if they will appear, but it never hurts to try! If you get this and do not want it, or if you did not get it but see a copy and want future issues, please let our Department Secretary, Angela Olivas (x4253 or see e-mail list below), in the department office know.

Ways to Help While we all live for art alone, other things do matter. There are lots of ways to help us, and we welcome conversations with anyone who wants one. We are all interested in collaborations with alums in various ways, just as a starting point. But money is always useful too. We have two funds that support English Department activities in particular— one for Student Prizes in Literature and the other called Poets for Poets. The first supports writing prize contests all students at Whittier can enter. We have been giving 19

prizes for fiction, poetry, and prose. Most of the winning work has been published in our Literary Review, edited by our students. The Poets for Poets fund will support general activities of interest and importance to the department (we need it to grow a bit more to start using it in the best ways possible). If you are interested in making even very small gifts, “it is all good.” Just tell the office of Advancement (on line or in person) what you want to do.

The Whittier College Department of English Language and Literature and Affiliates Charles S. Adams: cadams@whittier.edu Professor (American Literature, American Studies, Autobiography, Romanticism, Popular Culture, Literary Theory) Tony Barnstone: tbarnstone@whittier.edu Albert Upton Professor of English Language and Literature (Creative Writing--Poetry, Modern and Postmodern American Literature, Asian Literature, Translation) Jonathan Burton: jburton@whittier.edu Assistant Professor (Shakespeare, Early Modern Studies, Music Writing, Comparative Literature) Wendy Furman-Adams: wfurman@whittier.edu Professor (Milton, Early Modern Literature, 18th Century Literature, Women’s Studies, Literature and Visual Culture, The Bible, Classics) Sean Morris: (Department Chair): smorris@whittier.edu Associate Professor (Linguistics and English Language, Medieval Literature, Creative Writing, Fun) dAvid pAddy: dpaddy@whittier.edu Professor (20th Century British, Modernism, Postmodernism, Welsh and other Celtic Literatures, Literary Theory, Creative Writing) Andrea Rehn: arehn@whittier.edu Associate Professor (19th Century British, Postcolonial Studies, Women’s Studies, Travel, Literary Theory) Mellon Fellow (Through 2014-15): Michelle Chihara: mchihara@whittier.edu Adjunct and Visiting Faculty for 2013-2014: Scott Creley: screley@whittier.edu Kate Durbin: kdurbin@whittier.edu Victor Kaufold: vkaufold@whittier.edu Katy Simonian: ksimonia@whittier.edu Mary Yukari Waters: mwaters@whittier.edu Director, College Writing Programs:

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Charlie Eastman ceastman@whittier.edu English/History/Writing Program Departments Secretary: Angela Olivas: afreelan@whittier.edu

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