English

Clues (Daniel Listoe): In this course students learn how to think critically about clues and evidence: how they’re read, how they’re used; when evidence is accepted, when it isn’t. They will come away better readers, able to understand how they interpret the clues of a text, or how they interrogate the mute elements of an image. FULL

Wild Justice: Revenge, Terror, and the State (Peter Blewett): This seminar examines the relation between the individual and the state, and how injustice, real or imagined, provokes ideas of revenge that involve terror. The seminar's goals include learning how humans use art to explore ideas of social value, such as justice, and to manifest social anxieties, using images of terror. FULL

Writing Your Life: Memoirs (Sandra Brusin): In this class, we will study the genre of memoir writing by reading a selection of memoirs, analyzing what makes them successful, and applying what we learn by writing a memoir about a particular person or event of significance. FULL

Translation Game: Hidden Meanings in Language (Jennifer Mattson): In this course, we will explore hidden and (mis)understood meanings between males and females, between advertisers and consumers, between politicians and voters, between Caucasians and African-Americans, between internationals who speak English as a second language and native speakers, between mainstream speakers of American English and non-mainstream speakers. FULL

Wiki Nation: Producing the Internet (Mary Brehm): In this class, we will ask big questions about “network enabled social tools” and try to answer them. We’ll engage in both traditional classroom activities and hands-on work, producing a class wiki and personal blogs. You don’t need to have experience with the “tools and patterns” that are used to produce the internet – just a willingness to try and to think critically about your experiences. FULL

Going Green: Literature and Film (Kris Terwelp): In this course, we will trace the history of the “Green” movement beginning with texts by Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and several Native American writers and ending with films and texts by Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Al Gore. We will also examine “green” advertising and do some virtual window shopping at a “green” Wal-Mart. FULL

The Beat Writers (Jeffrey Perso): Through their reading, writing and research, seminar participants, will experience the literary and cultural phenomenon which was the Beat writers. FULL

Aspects of Hell (Brian Marks): We’re going to start off by going to the source, way back to pre-Christian accounts of journeys to the underground and gradually make our way up to conceptions of hell in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. FULL

Representations of the American Dream (Liana Odrcic): What *is* the American Dream, anyway? Has it changed over time? Does the definition of the Dream change according to who’s defining it? How is the Dream defined and portrayed in different literary works, film, and non-fiction texts? Does everyone have access to the American Dream, or is its accessibility limited? Is the American Dream a myth? A reality only for some? How so?

Baseball, Reading, and Culture (Mariann Maris): This seminar will focus on baseball from 1947, when Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play major league baseball, to 1965 when the Braves left Milwaukee for Atlanta. The topic of baseball in the 50’s and 60’s in this seminar makes it possible for students to learn more about baseball and, more importantly, to learn more about how to succeed in college. FULL

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee