Susan S Heinzelman

E 338E  l  British Literature: The Victorian Era through World War II-WB

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S

Unique #:  36120

Semester:  Spring 2021

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  This course surveys British literature from the golden age of realism to the last days of high modernism through novels, short stories, poetry and supplemental cultural materials.  The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed both the height of British global power and the rapid expansion of a literate mass readership.  We will examine how this period grappled with the sweeping transformations shaping modern social life:  industrial capitalism and the growth of the urban metropolis; imperial expansion and colonial resistance; new theories of race, gender, and sexuality; technological development (from steam power to photography to world-scale infrastructure); scientific innovation and secularization; and new forms of mass culture.  As the term progresses, we will ask not only how modernists defined themselves in relation to their Victorian forbears, but also how this prolific period in British literary history laid the groundwork for genres, styles, and modes of critique that persist into our present.

Tentative Reading:  Literary texts may include novels and short stories by George Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, as well as poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, World War I poets, and Stevie Smith.

Requirements & Grading:  Attendance; Consistent, substantial, and active participation (15%); Reading Quizzes and Discussion Forum Participation (15%); 3 short writing assignments (2-3 pages each) (10% each; 30% combined); Final Research Portfolio (40%).

E 379R  l  Feminism, Law, and Literature-WB

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S

Unique #:  36275

Semester:  Spring 2021

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  This course will examine the relationship between law and literature as cultural expressions of race, gender and sexuality in contemporary American society through an intersectional feminist lens.  We will examine several critical legal cases from the last 100 years, as well as fictional and poetic articulations of the demands for social justice from women, LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color.  The texts selected for this course will illustrate how law can both settle long-standing issues of inequality and simultaneously generate new policies and constraints that require further debate.

We will examine the relationship between legal texts (judicial opinions and legislative acts) and cultural productions (novels and short stories) in order to investigate how race, gender and sexual difference are produced and managed in 20^th- and 21^st-century America.

Texts include:  Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Cristina Garcia Dreaming in Cuban; Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856); Plessy v. Ferguson (1896); Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Loving v. Virginia (1967); Bowers v. Harwick (1986) Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

Readings on intersectional feminism and related theoretical issues will be posted on Canvas during the semester.

Requirements & Grading:  Short Papers: 3 short response papers (2-3 typed pages each) on one of the assigned readings is required during the course of the semester.  You will post your response to the class.  Two of the three papers must be revised after discussion with me. 35%.

Independent Research: Students will undertake an independent investigation and presentation of one of the three concepts (race, gender, sexuality) discussed in the class.  The paper must be at least 7-10 typed pages and contain precise references to both legal and literary texts.  You are encouraged to go outside the course materials in presenting your research.  You are required to meet with me during the first week after Spring Break to have your research topic approved. 45%.

Class Participation: You are expected to do all the reading, to attend each class, and to participate actively in all discussions.  More than three absences, including excused absences, will result in the lowering of your final mark by one letter grade.  Coming to class more than ten minutes late and flagrant inattention during class will be marked as absences. 20%.

E 343J  l  Literature and Social Justice: HONORS

[previously offered as E360S.1]

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S

Unique #: 34945

Semester:  Fall 2020

Cross-lists:  LAH 350

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  What do “humanitarianism” and “human rights” have to do with the humanities?  In what ways can literature contribute to a consideration of these pressing questions in the early 21^st century?  In a globalizing culture, our interest will be both international and domestic, looking at ways in which personal stories contribute to political histories.  In focusing on topics of “social justice,” we will consider such questions as environmental justice, women’s rights, children, immigration and refugees.

Texts (subject to change):  Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians; Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric; Herrera: Signs Preceding the End of the World; plus+ additional sources and resources, electronic and otherwise.

Requirements & Grading:  The class will be conducted as much as possible as a seminar and discussion and attendance will be emphasized.  In addition to readings and occasional quizzes (as/if required), writing assignments will include weekly reaction responses, paper proposal and final paper (which will count for 75% of the final grade).

Attendance and participation = 15% of the final grade.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.

Intensive study of selected topics in women's and gender studies.

Intensive study of selected topics in women's and gender studies.

This course is designed to prepare graduate students in gender studies and the qualitative social sciences to conduct a research project for their master’s theses or similar projects. We will explore a range of research methods and traditions as well as the epistemological assumptions underlying them. We will consider what it means to conduct “feminist” research, as well as the perils and promise of the more participatory research traditions. Some of the research methods we will explore include interviewing, survey research, case studies, textual analysis, and participant observation.

E 316N  l  World Literature

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S

Unique #:  34615

Semester:  Spring 2015

Cross-lists:  C L 315

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Flags:  Global Cultures

Prerequisites: One of the following: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A.

Description: This course will offer a window on contemporary world literature through fiction. We will be reading texts from New Zealand, Turkey, Australia, India, the United States and the United Kingdom. Authors will include Orhan Pamuk, Sara Suleri, Louise Erdrich and Zadie Smith.

Requirements & Grading: Attendance is required; you may miss three classes without an excuse. After your third absence you must provide a written excuse. If you fail to do so, I will lower your grade by 10% for each class missed. Please see me at the beginning of the semester if you have some special circumstances that will prevent you from being in compliance with this policy.

I prefer to hold discussion classes rather than lectures; to this end, please come to class with the reading for the day prepared. It should not fall to the same few students each day to sustain discussion. If we cannot hold productive discussions because too few students are prepared, I will resort to pop quizzes.

Final Examination: 35%; Quizzes (5-Objective questions and interpretative commentary): 50%; Midterm essay, 3-4 pages: 15%.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S            Areas:  -- / B

Unique #:  34594            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A; and a passing score on the reading section of the Texas Higher Education Assessment (THEA) test.

Description: It is clearly impossible to study, in one five-week course, the literature of a nation produced over approximately twelve hundred years. Even if we were to have the luxury of the reading time afforded by a long semester, we would still only scratch the surface of Britain’s literary culture. Moreover, we only be addressing the “literary” culture—and thus ignore the many other forms that culture takes---economic, social, political. Furthermore, when we speak of “British” culture, we are invoking not one but many varieties of national identity – from the Celts and the Gaels to the English (Saxon and Norman)—and the transformations that those groups have undergone over time.

Rather than attempt to locate major literary movements and their authors over the centuries, I have chosen to focus on five authors and to use their work to illuminate the historical and cultural complexities to which they responded. Those five authors are: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Bronte, and Yeats.

Requirements & Grading: Attendance is required; you may miss three classes without an excuse. After your third absence you must provide a written excuse. If you fail to do so, I will lower your grade by 10% for each class missed. Please see me at the beginning of the semester if you have some special circumstances that will prevent you from being in compliance with this policy.

I prefer to hold discussion classes rather than lectures; to this end, please come to class with the reading for the day prepared. It should not fall to the same few students each day to sustain discussion. If we cannot hold productive discussions because too few students are prepared, I will resort to pop quizzes. I will be handing out extra readings during the semester; any handouts will be left outside my office door after the class. Do not call or email me asking where you can pick up handouts.

Final Examination: 35%; Quizzes (5-Objective questions and interpretative commentary): 50%; Midterm essay, 3-4 pages: 15%.

Instructor:  Heinzelman, S            Areas:  V / G

Unique #:  35615            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  WGS 345            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:

“Torture has been widely viewed in the past in terms of pain and suffering inflicted on a person – usually assumed to be male – in the custody of the state. However, this narrow understanding excludes many forms of severe pain and suffering deliberately inflicted on women and girls. . . and denies [them] protection from the many egregious forms of severe pain and suffering deliberately inflicted . . . in an assertion of power and control by the state or with its acquiescence.”

-- Amnesty International October 2011, Gender and Torture Conference report

This course examines the various ways in which torture has been defined in the late 20th and 21st centuries with a special focus on issues related to violence against women. The course will assess national and international responses to those acts conventionally regarded as torture, as well as to the many ways in which forms of violence against women—such as rape, domestic violence, and the denial of reproductive rights—take on the characteristics of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. We will ask what happens to state accountability and the state’s responsibility both to prevent harm and to provide remedies to victims when the definition of torture is expanded to include forms of harm that are disproportionally endured by women.

We will examine legal documents, national and international reports, philosophical essays, drama, film, and fiction to reach tentative conclusions about the crisis of state power in relation to the widespread use of torture against women.

Texts: Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Octavia Butler, the “torture memos” (Bush Administration); The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (A film by Lisa F. Jackson).

Requirements & Grading: In-class (group) presentation: 30%; Brief response papers: 40%; Final research paper: 30%.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Introduction to the feminist theories and methods used in various disciplines; the ways these theories can inform interdisciplinary perspectives in the student's own field of study. Offered in the spring semester only. Women's and Gender Studies 391 and Women's Studies 391 may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, Women's and Gender Studies 390, and consent of the graduate adviser.

This course is designed to prepare graduate students in gender studies and the qualitative social sciences to conduct a research project for their master’s theses or similar projects. We will explore a range of research methods and traditions as well as the epistemological assumptions underlying them. We will consider what it means to conduct “feminist” research, as well as the perils and promise of the more participatory research traditions. Some of the research methods we will explore include interviewing, survey research, case studies, textual analysis, and participant observation.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Please check back for updates.

Please check back for updates.

Restricted to students in the WGS MA Program.  This course introduces students to feminist theory as it intersects with race, nation, and sexuality. Since this is an introductory course, we will not explore feminist theory in all its incarnations. Rather than charting the historical development of a single body of knowledge called feminism, the class will read contemporary work by women that deals with questions of representation, reproduction, labor, transnationalism, and colonialism. Each week we will unpack one primary text with the intent of understanding the circumstances of its production, its significance, and how it can help us think about our own work.

Please check back for updates.

Introduction to the interdisciplinary women's and gender studies graduate program.     

Please check back for updates.

Restricted to students in the WGS MA Program.  This course introduces students to feminist theory as it intersects with race, nation, and sexuality. Since this is an introductory course, we will not explore feminist theory in all its incarnations. Rather than charting the historical development of a single body of knowledge called feminism, the class will read contemporary work by women that deals with questions of representation, reproduction, labor, transnationalism, and colonialism. Each week we will unpack one primary text with the intent of understanding the circumstances of its production, its significance, and how it can help us think about our own work.

Varies by topic/section.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.