English 189H: English 189H:
sbehrend@unlinfo.unl.edu
By passing this course, you will fulfill ACE Learning Outcome 5: “Use knowledge, historical perspectives, analysis, interpretation, critical evaluation, and the standards of evidence appropriate to the humanities to address problems and issues.” Your work will be evaluated by the instructor according to the specifications described in the syllabus and information sheets for this course. At the end of the term, you may be asked to provide samples of your work for ACE assessment as well.
This discussion-oriented seminar offers you the opportunity to explore how artists in one medium adopt, adapt, and otherwise employ both subject matter and artistic techniques from one artistic medium in works produced in another medium. Our “target” art will be literature, and we will consider how writers and visual, spatial, and aural artists approach similar subjects and themes in their respective artistic media. We’ll also consider how writers use formal structures and compositional techniques from the visual arts and from music in literary works like visual poems or works based on musical structures. We will also consider connections between works in poetry and prose that reflect on paintings, sculpture, and music. And we will look too at book illustrations (perhaps in children’s books) and at adaptations for the theatre and for film of literary works. We will also read a little in aesthetics, to get some sense of the what people have thought (and written) both in the past and recently about relations among the arts. Because the UNL Opera Theatre will present an adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, in November, we will devote some of our activities to the original texts and some of the adaptations of both Our Town and Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic, Frankenstein.
• Dedicated reading, in advance of each session, of all the assigned reading for that session, as indicated on the syllabus. Be prepared to discuss the readings, both in small groups (on occasion) and in the large committee-of-the-whole that is our class. Your work in the classroom, including especially your contributions to our discussions, will account for 10% of your course grade. This may not seem like much, but in practice it often works out to be the determining factor between a grade of A or B, or between a B and a C.
• A Midterm Examination, which you will write out of class, on an assigned topic. We will determine the due date for this exam by consensus. This will account for 25% of your course grade.
• A group project relating to Frankenstein, Our Town, and the subject of multi-media adaptation. Your group will present your findings in class in late October or early November. The group project will account for 15% of your course grade.
• A Major Course Project. This research-based project is fully described on a separate page. Each of you will discuss your project with the group during the final weeks of the semester. The actual “write-up” of the project, in the form of a formal paper, will be due in class on 1 December, so that I can return it to you at our final formal class meeting on 10 December. This Course Project will account for 50% of your course grade.
The Department of English expects students registered for English classes to attend all scheduled class meetings and to have a reasonable excuse for any absence. Instructors are expected to lower the grades of students who miss classes without reasonable excuses and to penalize any work turned in late because of such absences. Students who miss more than twenty percent of the scheduled class meetings of any course will ordinarily fail the course for that reason alone, except that (1) if absences occur before the Withdrawal Passing period ends, the student may receive a “W” grade, and (2) if the absences are excused by the instructor or by an approved UNL policy and a large majority of them occur after the work of the course has been substantially completed, the student may receive an Incomplete (“I”) grade. In both of these cases, it is assumed that the student meets the eligibility requirement stated in the Schedule of Classes.
Please feel free to chat with me at any time about anything having to do with this course, or with your program of studies generally. I will be happy to help in any way I can, within reason. I will maintain my announced office hours; if something prevents me from doing so, I will post a note of explanation at my office. If my formal office hours do not work for you, we can usually make an appointment at some mutually convenient time, since I am on campus a good deal every week.
Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the instructor for a confidential discussion of their individual needs for academic accommodation. It is the policy of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln to provide flexible and individualized accommodation to students with documented disabilities that may affect their ability to fully participate in course activities or to meet course requirements. To receive accommodation services, students must be registered with the services for students with Disabilities (SSD) office, 132 Canfield Administration, 472-3787 voice or TTY.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Writing Center can provide you with meaningful support as you write for this class, for other classes, or for non-academic purposes including creative writing, cover letters and resumes, applications for graduate school, and a wide range of other forms and genres. Knowledgeable peer consultants are available to talk with you as you plan, draft and revise your writing. Please check the Writing Center website (www.unl.edu/writing), or stop by the main center in 115 Andrews Hall, for locations, hours, and information about scheduling 25- or 50-minute consultations.