One way to introduce this course, which is a new course being taught for the first time this semester, is to critique its name: LGBTQ+ Theories and Literatures. What does that even mean? Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (and more) theories and literatures — frankly, that seems an overwhelming bit Read more…
The idea that students learn best when they write in all of their courses is probably not an idea that is hard to see to you if you’re a typically English Studies graduate student. In fact, by the time you reach graduate school, you have most likely found that you Read more…
No technology changes so much as writing: over the last several thousand years, we have moved from communicating exclusively through spoken word/gesture, to using user-created images to narrate stories or to catalog events/transactions, to a privileged and exclusive class of writers, to a world turned upside down by mass literacy Read more…
What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century? This course explores that question by looking at two major movements in literacy studies (the “Great Divide” and the social turn), and asking how a new generation of literacy scholarship, rooted in digital and global/transnational frameworks, rewrites traditional ideas Read more…
No one escapes education, although the form it takes differs dramatically depending on context. We’ve come to believe that only certain kinds of education matter, and at the university, it’s easy for faculty and students alike to believe that only certain kinds of knowledge, found in certain kinds of books Read more…
Lord Alfred Douglas, sometimes lover of Oscar Wilde and often times terrible poet, managed to make famous in his poem “Two Loves” the unforgettable line about homosexuality that it was the “love that dare not speak its name.” In this course, we will be walking back through the 20th and early Read more…
To study rhetoric is to pay attention to how communication works (or doesn’t). For ancient rhetoricians, that meant studying how individuals spoke, what they said, to whom, and in what broader contexts. While much current rhetorical theory still engages these concepts, over time, the study of rhetoric has expanded significantly, Read more…
Pundits of digital media and the Internet, traditionalist bibilophiles, stand-up comedians, arm-chair philosophers — all have expressed some of our collective cultural anxieties about the Internet and what it stands for. Some worry about the often-spastic, fast-paced movement of image and word that assault us when we go to MySpace; Read more…
Most of us can easily remember a few of our favorite books from childhood. For me, there are the obvious ones: Where the Wild Things Are, Winnie the Pooh, Danny & the Dinosaur, and all those awful Little Golden books, like Pokie Little Puppy. But there’s also this little-known book by Margaret Wise Brown called Read more…
WOST 5000 (Special Topics in Women’s Studies) brings together upper-level-undergraduate and graduate students to discuss advanced topics and texts that address issues of gender and sexuality. For at least 100 years, the English-speaking world has found various representations of gay and lesbian individuals on the stage. From the effete and Read more…