The course addresses questions such as how religion has influenced the creativity of writers differently in different times and cultures and how writers have responded to religion both in its institutional and spiritual forms. The discussion will pivot on different types of literature from the English Renaissance period through the American Puritanical-Calvinistic era to the present time in both the East and the West. The focus will be on how literature expresses major religious themes such as identity and purpose of humanity, death and immortality, divine will and justice.
Course Catalogue
Course Code: ENG 529A
Course Name:
Literature and Ideas (Religion)
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
Course Code: ENG 529B
Course Name:
Literature and Ideas (Travel)
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
Using journey as a metaphor, this course will focus on literature dealing with travel and examine nationalism, identity, economy and politics.
The objective of this course is to focus on English-language women writers from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Whatever the definition we decide to take for granted, there are two terms in the phrase travel writing which might be re-worded as writing about travel. Carl Thompson in his Travel Writing (2011), suggests, “To travel is to make a journey, a movement through space. Possibly this journey is epic in scale, taking the traveller to the other side of the world or across a continent, or up a mountain.” This course will explore how and why people travel and how all these affect their persons, culture and broader perspective.
Course Code: ENG 529C
Course Name:
Folklore
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
“We do not know to whom a proverb, a tale, a custom, a myth owes its origin. [so we are going to say] it originated among the folk.” –Joseph Jacobs.
The course explores folk narrative and its transmission across time and space. In particular it will focus on the stories involving a character who is known for his magical powers; as a culture hero he can be located at the origin of life. Then again, he is an eternal shapeshifter getting involved in all sorts of pranks. One label assigns to him characterizes him as a trickster who is simultaneously an omniscient creator and an innocent fool. He is a destroyer and a preserver. We will consider this character as a folkloric scapegoat onto which our fears, failures, and unattained ideals are projected.
The course interrogates the trickster figure to further ask: Why do we need to experience the deception of a trickster and his tricks? Do we need a “lie,” the trick” to know the “truth”? Is being tricked essential to our survival? How does this survival motif form an archetype? What is trickster archetype?
Course Code: ENG 529D
Course Name:
Literature and the Environment
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
This course looks at how concepts of nature have been presented in literary texts over time with a view to understanding the contemporary issues of climate change and environmental sustainability. Students will examine major trends that have influenced how writers have been affected by their natural environments and how they have adapted these to their writings.
Course Code: ENG 530
Course Name:
Graphic Novels and Graphic Cultures
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
This course focuses on the graphic novel as a cultural and artistic process. Students will examine popular texts of the graphic novel genre, as well as some emerging classics. A theoretical perspective will inform the reading of the texts. Primary texts may include Watchmen, Maus, Fun Home, and V for Vendetta. A practical aspect to this course may include the creation of a graphic novel or application of the principles of graphic storytelling. Students will learn how graphic storytellers engage with historical and contemporary social issues as part of their trope.
Course Code: ENG 531
Course Name:
History of Ideas
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
This course is intended to familiarize students with philosophical, scientific and critical traditions of the Western world. Students will follow the plotline of Jostein Gaarder’s 1991 novel Sophie’s World as an intellectual map of the history of ideas. This historical exploration of ideas is meant to provide them with a strong foundation for critical analysis of literary, linguistic and cultural texts. More specifically, students will be able to trace the philosophical underpinnings of literary-critical thoughts today.
Course Code: ENG 532
Course Name:
Special Author Study and Literary Project
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
This course will allow students to focus on a particular author for in-depth study. Students will select an author in consultation with the course supervisor and produce a substantial, sustained examination of a work by the chosen author. Faculty supervisors must agree to supervise student work before semester registration. The student work is presented at the end of the semester to the supervisor and an audience comprising other faculty members and students.
Course Code: ENG 533
Course Name:
Language and Culture
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
The course will focus on topics such as identity, social factors of language use, language vitality, language structures and issues of globalization. Each language is a repository of history and knowledge as well as the culture of a group of speakers. Languages and cultures from around the world will be discussed, with a special focus on endangered languages. In addition, this course will cover basic linguistics concepts.
Course Code: ENG 534
Course Name:
Language and Cognition
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
The course aims to develop understanding of the relationship between language and the processes of the brain and mind.
Course Code: ENG 535
Course Name:
Testing and Assessment in English Language Teaching
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:
This course explains key concepts and issues in language testing and provides students with principles and techniques for designing and evaluating language tests and assessment tasks. Functions of language tests, models of language proficiency, and assessment of language skills and components are discussed in this unit. The unit also focuses on other issues such as the reliability and validity of language tests in social contexts. Accordingly, the course is divided into two parts: Part 1, covers topics related to the mandate or purposes of language tests, quality features of language tests, and principles of designing language tests. In Part 2, we focus on assessing communication skills, namely, listening, reading, speaking, and writing.