ENGL 2011 Sections: Fall 2018

ENGL 2011 (Honors I: Literary Study through Reading and Research) is a four-credit Honors introduction to writing across the curriculum, and it fulfills the freshman English requirement for Honors students. Study of literature—and the development of important critical reading, writing, and information literacy skills—in the university setting is essential preparation for further study in a wide variety of fields.

Students entering in Fall 2017: If you have not satisfied the first-year writing requirement through AP, ECE, or transfer credit for ENGL 1010/1011, you must take ENGL 2011 (instead of 1010 or 1011) in order to earn Sophomore Honors.

There are two themed “pods” of ENGL 2011 for this semester, each of which consists of two sections supervised by an English faculty member.

The Culture of Money

We spend a lot of our time trying to get it, but just what is money? What is its history?  What feelings, ideas, and experiences — other than using it to purchase things — do we associate with money?  We perhaps give quite a bit of thought to the economics of money – how to get it, how to spend it, how to save it, how to invest it, etc. – but we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the culture of money. That’s what we will do in this course.  While students will compose several shorter, exploratory essays, students’ final research papers will investigate and analyze some aspect of money in modern, American culture. Topics to be covered in this course include 1. mythic histories concerning the origin of money; 2. theoretical and historical studies of money; 3. the representation of money in literature and the arts; and, 4. the complex, evolving culture of cryptocurrency. It should be noted that students do not need to have any background in business, finance, or economics to succeed in this course.

Apocalyptica

For some cultural and historical reason, there has been a proliferation of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, film, plastic arts, and music in the past five decades, and in the current moment it is a hugely popular genre. Writers around the world, from Laguna Pueblo lands to Shanxi, have appropriated this genre to explore alternate futures for the planet. Some of it is dismal (dystopian). Some of it is hopeful (utopian). All of it is a prophetic offering to our most creative impulses to change the world for the better before it’s too late or to embrace the “revelation” (which is what an apocalypse is) because the new world order (or galactic in some cases) will be better than the old one.

This course explores all manner of apocalyptica and post-apocalyptica. Students will read, view, and listen to some of the most compelling and popular titles in this genre and develop a research agenda revolving around one of these texts (literary, cinematic, visual, or musical). With the instructor’s consent, the research project may also involve a relevant text or texts not assigned in the course. By mid-semester drafts of the research findings will be due and discussed in class, seminar style.

Developing a viable research prospectus, a solid bibliography, and a final research paper will, in part, determine the grade in the course. Class participation (preparedness, attentiveness, respectfulness, and engagement in class discussions) will also determine it. Step by step, the instructor will guide students through the research process and review multiple drafts of the final paper before it is submitted in lieu of the final exam.

The texts we will study this term are: Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (in translation), and 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. Together in class we will also develop a short filmography and discography for discussion in class.