Summer 2020 Undergraduate Flyer I & II
Summer Session 1: June 1 – July 2, 2020
ENG. 1100C: Literature in a Global Context (31192)
ONLINE
Dr. Granville Ganter
Email:ganterg@stjohns.edu
This is a completely online course where we will discuss the literature that emerges from intercultural contact—questions of travel writing; the stories of conflict and contact between the peoples of different continents; immigration and assimilation. It is a project-based class where students pick a major text from the syllabus to study in the first week of class, and then do several research and writing exercises over the course of the next four weeks. Each piece or work will be added together to generate a final project. The course format is designed for a flexible summer work schedule. Readings will likely be Mary Prince’s short slave narrative; Jamaica Kincaid’s novella, Lucy; a few of Chimamanda Adichie’s short stories; and Junot Diaz’s Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (Wao is generally voted by my students as one of the most entertaining novels they’ve ever read!)
ENG. 1040: Writing for Business (31193)
ONLINE
Dr. Kathleen Lubey
Email: lubeyk@stjohns.edu
This online course will familiarize students with the styles and forms for writing in professional settings. We will draft and revise documents traditionally associated with business environments, including resumes, letters, and proposals; and we also will investigate the conventions of communications in the professional world. Why is it useful to consider “business writing” as a genre distinct from expository or creative writing? What special methods and techniques does it require? Assignments will encourage students both to refine their professional writing skills and to consider the particular kinds of knowledge and communication that are required by the technological and global nature of contemporary business practices. Class discussions and assignments will be submitted online; evaluation will be based on the quality of contributions to our collective conversation as well as on the final drafts of all writing assignments.
ENG. 2060: Study of American Literature (30305)
American Literature and the Monstrous
*MAY COUNT FOR DIVISION III*
ONLINE
Dr. Jennifer Travis
Email: travisj@stjohns.edu
This online course will examine how representations of witches, vampires, cannibals, and monsters have shaped American cultural discourse and literary history. Reading texts Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and the contemporary novelist Seth Grahame-Smith, we will ask why monsters play such an important role in our cultural imaginations. What is a monster? How do individuals and societies define themselves in relation to the monstrous? What can monsters tell us about humanity, community, and our deepest fears and values? For questions please email Dr. Travis: travisj@stjohns.edu.
ENG. 4994: Seminar in Themes/Genres (31191)
“Abolition Movements, and What We Want From Them”
*SENIOR SEMINAR*
ONLINE
Dr. Robert Fanuzzi
Email:fanuzzir@stjohns.edu
Abolition, long associated with antislavery movements, is also a contemporary demand to end prisons, the electoral college, ICE. What is the connection its past and present usages? This course examines three versions of the keyword “abolition”: as an eighteenth century British-American symbol of humanitarianism and resistance to the cruelty of the trans-Atlantic slave trade; as a lightning rod of nineteenth century US politics and milestone democratic movement to end slavery; and as a 20th and 21st century reminder of injustices that the abolition of slavery did not end and a shorthand for the anti-racist, anti-sexist world still to come. Major authors include W. E. B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, Angela Davis, Olaudah Equiano, Maria W. Stewart, and Ruth Gilmore.
SUMMER SESSION II
JULY 6, 2020 – AUGUST 6, 2020
ENG. 1100C: Literature in a Global Context (30284)
ONLINE
Professor Stephen Paul Miller
Email: millers@stjohns.edu
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln remarked that an “electric cord in” the Declaration of Independence “links the hearts of” people all over the world, so that German immigrants then have a right to claim” the quality of being American “as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.”
This course contains readings in diverse American and world literatures that examine Lincoln’s premise.
ENG. 1040: Writing for Business (30843)
ONLINE
Dr. Stephen Sicari
Email:sicaris@stjohns.edu
This course will emphasize the particular skills necessary for clear and efficient communication in business environments. Surveying the diverse forms of professional writing, from emails and cover letters to executive summaries and proposals, students will focus on the role clarity, organization, revision, and research in producing strong and purposeful writing. By the conclusion of the course, students will have collected a portfolio of various forms of business communication. This course will be taught fully online, and will require extensive work with texts and with other students’ writing through peer review exercises.
ENG. 2210: Introduction to British Literature (30842)
ONLINE
Dr. Gregory Maertz
Email: maertzg@stjohns.edu
This entertaining online summer course will examine three classic British novels that have recently been made into successful movie and TV adaptations: Jane Austen’s Emma, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In the process of comparing texts and films, the course will fill in gaps and sharpen critical reading and writing skills. With brief weekly essay assignments, a midterm, and a final exam.
ENG. 3710: Intro to Creative Writing (30664)
Writing into the World
*COUNTS FOR WRITING MINOR*
ONLINE
Professor Catina Bacote
Email: bacotec@stjohns.edu
In this online course, you will explore fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. We will approach creative writing as a way to gaze inward and engage with the world around us. To guide our writing, we will read innovative work about subjects as varied as gender identity, climate change, gun violence, and body image. Our readings will help us consider such questions as: How do writers mine the gritty, the sublime, and the comedic to tell their tales? How do writers recreate the past with authenticity? What can a poem do to us? Throughout the course, you will experiment with different styles of creative writing as you generate new work and respond to the writing of your peers.
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