University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Bulletin

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Course Descriptions

ENGLISH LITERATURE ENGLIT
0055	SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Especially designed for prospective English majors to acquaint them with the major works in English literature from its beginning through the 18th century. Required of all English majors. Prerequisite: ENGCMP 0006.
0056	SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2	03.0 cr.
Traces the development of English literature from the beginning of the romantic period to the present. Required of all English majors. Prerequisite: ENGCMP 0006.
0080	NARRATIVE LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Traces the course of narrative literature from the epic through the novel, with an emphasis on the search for form.
0085	INTRODUCTION TO THE HUMANITIES	03.0 cr.
An interdisciplinary investigation of the basic aspects of the division of humanities with emphasizes on perceptual abilities inherent in careful reading of literature, viewing of art, and listening to music. An open exploration of how these aspects interrelate.
0088	INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Studies invention and interpretation and explores the literary devices writers use to produce texts and readers use to make them make sense. Though texts may change from selection to selection and instructor to instructor, they always stimulate investigation into reading and writing as ways of knowing.
0311	THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION	03.0 cr.
Introduces students to the major dramatic forms and compares the ways playwrights from several centuries use ideas, characters, and theatrical contexts. Considers how social, historical, and dramatic contexts influence interpretations and evaluation or may lead to alternative understandings of a play.
0316	READING POETRY	03.0 cr.
By studying various kinds of poetry from a number of sources, this course introduces students to particular forms of poetry and kinds of poetic language. Since poetry invites very close reading, students explore various techniques for making sense of poems.
0326	SHORT STORY IN CONTEXT	03.0 cr.
Studies short stories that explore a variety of themes. Seeks to define the short story as a specific literary genre and to distinguish it from earlier forms of short narrative literature. Also examines the effects of literary, cultural, and historical traditions on these stories and their reception.
0361	WOMEN AND LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
An exploration of writings by and about women. Through reading of various literary forms--poetry, fiction, autobiography--students will explore the aspirations and realities of women's lives. Students will consider how social issues--class, race, etc.--affect women writers.
0571	AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITIONS	03.0 cr.
This first course in American literature explores the characteristic features of writings from the colonial period to the present. It emphasizes the interaction between literary texts and their social contexts, and examines the emergence of a national literature.
0581	INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE	03.0 cr.
Focuses on a number of Shakespeare's major plays from all phases of his career. Class discussion will consider the historical context of the plays, their characterization, theatrical technique, imagery, language, and themes. Every attempt will be made to see the plays both as poems and as dramatic events.
0598	BIBLE AS LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
This introductory course acquaints students with what is in the Bible and provides background information drawn from various disciplines about the elements and issues that give it its distinctive character. Attention is necessarily given to its religious perspectives, since they govern the nature and point of view of the biblical narratives, but no specific religious view is urged.
1021	HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM	03.0 cr.
Concentrates on the major developments in the history of literary thought and criticism from Plato to modern and post-modern developments. The major documents of literary criticism are studied in relation to the contexts--historical, cultural, and philosophical--that gave rise to these responses.
1032	THE LITERATURE OF THE ABSURD	03.0 cr.
A study of the stylistic innovations and philosophic assumptions of the literature of the absurd. Camus, Sartre, Ionesco, Beckett, Barth, and Vonnegut are among the main writers discussed.
1106	MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
The major works of English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, exclusive of Chaucer, will be read in the original Middle English.
1111	THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND	03.0 cr.
A study of the historical background as well as the important social, political, and literary developments in 16th century England. Authors range from More to Spenser to Marlowe.
1116	CHAUCER	03.0 cr.
Closely examines major works by Chaucer--The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. Students will view Chaucer's work in its historical, social, artistic, and intellectual contexts.
1120	RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Deals with the main literary developments of the period, excluding the novel. Emphasis is on the major figures from Dryden to Goldsmith.
1130	17TH CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
A study of important ideas and forms in 17th century England from Donne through Milton. Emphasis is on Milton's major works.
1133	ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN DRAMA	03.0 cr.
Focuses on Shakespeare's contemporaries--playwrights whose contributions are often overshadowed by Shakespeare's reputation. Their work reflects the energy and artistic diversity of Renaissance England. Playwrights include Marlowe, Jonson, and Webster, among others.
1151	ROMANTIC POETRY	03.0 cr.
Deals almost exclusively with the poetry of the six major romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Some minor poets of the romantic period may also be studied.
1155	18TH CENTURY NOVEL	03.0 cr.
Explores the literary and historical conditions that gave rise to the development of the novel in 18th century England.
1171	THE ROMANTIC PERIOD	03.0 cr.
Studies the work of those major writers--from Blake through Keats--that constitutes British romanticism. It explores the social, intellectual, and aesthetic concerns of this movement and its relationships with its British and European cultural contexts.
1182	VICTORIAN LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Studies the poetry of Tennyson, the Brownings, Clough, Arnold, the Rosettis, Meredith, Morris, Swinburne, Hopkins, and Hardy. Attention will also be given to a sampling of prose of the period.
1211	THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE	03.0 cr.
Surveys the flowering of American literature during the first half of the 19th century. It analyzes the struggle of American writers to develop a new national literature.
1242	20TH CENTURY POETRY	03.0 cr.
The works of such poets as Pound, Frost, Eliot, Williams, Auden, and Dylan Thomas, together with more contemporary poets, such as Rich, Levertor, Snyder, Forche, Lowell, and Snodgrass, are considered.
1246	BLACK LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Focuses on writers from three major periods in black literature: Pre-Civil War (the slave narratives), Harlem Renaissance (when writers such as Langston Hughes were changing the nature of black writing), and the contemporary period. Considers the relationship of social history and literature; the insights these writers furnish about black consciousness, the black self, black perception and the black vision; and the distinctive qualities of black literary and cultural traditions.
1252	20TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Within the 20th century experience, the American novel achieved its major expression and unprecedented international status. By examining the cultural impact of historic events on the development of the novel as well as the willingness by American writers to extend and redefine the possibilities of the novel as a form, this course explores the evolution of the American novel, its coming of age as it worked to record the dark beauty of this most complex century.
1253	CONTEMPORARY POETRY	03.0 cr.
A study of works by poets who have been active since World War II to the present.
1260	AMERICAN POETRY	03.0 cr.
A study of the major American poets, with emphasis on Taylor, Poe, Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Melville, Longfellow, Dickinson, Crane, Robinson, Frost, Eliot, Ginsberg, Rich, Levetor, and Wright.
1273	ROARING 20'S	03.0 cr.
A reading of influential literary texts from the American 1920's. The course explores changing literary techniques in relation to new views of the past, war, youth, class, politics, etc.
1301	19TH CENTURY NOVEL	03.0 cr.
Deals with the rise of the English novel of the 19th century. The authors include Austen, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, the Brontes, George Eliot, Hardy, and Butler.
1312	THE 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN NOVEL	03.0 cr.
A survey of major American novels of the 19th century from James Fenimore Cooper to Theodore Dreiser. Examines the movement of American fiction from romanticism to naturalism.
1320	THE 20TH CENTURY NOVEL	03.0 cr.
A study of the various transformations of the traditional novel in contemporary British and American fiction. Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Hemingway, and Faulkner are among the writers to be studied.
1340	MAJOR AMERICAN NOVELISTS	03.0 cr.
An analysis of selected American novels by such writers as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Wright, Ellison, Morrison, Tyler, and Updike.
1371	MAKERS OF MODERN DRAMA	03.0 cr.
Concentrates intensively and comparatively on plays written by late-19th and early-20th century continental, English, Irish, and American dramatists. Plays selected will reflect major dramatic movements of the period (realism, naturalism, symbolism, expressionism) and will be analyzed not only by theatrical characteristics but also in relation to their dramatic, critical, and cultural contexts.
1381	WORLD LITERATURE IN ENGLISH	03.0 cr.
Examines contemporary literature, primarily in English, written in eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, etc. Emphasizes its depiction of social, political, and moral concerns.
1420	MAJOR AMERICAN DRAMATISTS	03.0 cr.
Traces the history of American drama, but centers on major playwrights of the 20th century such as Eugene O'Neill, Maxwell Anderson, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Edward Albee. It also includes some contemporary off-Broadway plays.
1500	INDEPENDENT STUDY	01.0 to 06.0 cr.
To be arranged in consultation with instructor.
1553	HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE	03.0 cr.
A survey of the linguistic development of English from Anglo-Saxon times to the present. Attention given to basic linguistic structures and discursive practices and to the social and historical conditions under which they change.
1588	UTOPIAN LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
Studies Utopian fiction with an emphasis on 19th century and 20th century works.
1605	COMEDY	03.0 cr.
Studies comedy, both its deep structural patterns and its surface humor. Includes works from many periods (from the Greeks through the 20th century) and genres in an effort to understand the literary and cultural meanings of comedy.
1606	TRAGEDY	03.0 cr.
Explores the properties of tragic literature from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Renaissance and into the 20th century. Addresses issues often raised about tragic heroes and their flaws, about fate and justice, about cathartic and the pathetic. Through a reading of the literature and the criticism, the course seeks to understand tragedy as a literary form and its changes through time and from culture to culture.
1630	THE AMERICAN DREAM	03.0 cr.
An interdisciplinary examination of the American dream of success and the myth of the self-made individual.
1670	MYTH AND RITUAL IN DRAMA	03.0 cr.
Detailed structural analysis of masterpieces of world drama, ancient and modern, with special reference to the ritual origins of drama. An attempt will be made to perceive the ritual substructure underlying the plot (the myth) of the plays read.
1830	FILM AS LITERATURE	03.0 cr.
An in-depth study of film as literature, primarily dealing with objectively observing and evaluating the film experience. In alternating offerings the course may deal with directorial studies, mileu, genres, and literature-into-film studies.
1911-1912	SENIOR SEMINAR	03.0 cr.
Intensive study of a single topic or figure that assumes previous work in related literary historical and critical areas. Each seminar moves toward a final paper that integrates earlier literary study with the specific critical perspective developed in this course.