[Englmajors] NEW ENGL 355 for Autumn: Recent Comic Currents

[Melissa Wensel]

A new section of ENGL 355: Contemporary American Literature has been 
added to the Autumn 2007 schedule.  The course, subtitled "Some Recent 
Comic Currents," will be taught by English Department Distinguished 
Teaching award winner and Richard Hugo House poet in residence Cody 
Walker.  It's hard to call any teacher "universally beloved," but that's 
very close to true in Cody Walker's case.  At the 2006 English 
graduation ceremony, I witnessed student after student come up on stage, 
shake the chair's hand, then go over to give Dr. Walker a big hug. 
Yeah, he's that good.  Course description is below.

Melissa Wensel
English Advising
(206)543-2634
****************************************************************************

ENGL 355 A
SLN:  19561
T TH 12:30 - 2:20

English 355: Contemporary American Literature

Some Recent Comic Currents

To steal a phrase from Walt Whitman, we’ll begin with “a backward glance 
o’er travel’d roads,” taking in Whitman’s own comic verse and the 
fictional flights (and satiric jabs) of Mark Twain.  We’ll then see how 
these traditions are extended in the poetry of Dorothy Parker, Allen 
Ginsberg, John Berryman, and Loren Goodman, and in the fiction of 
Nathanael West, Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme, Lydia Davis, George 
Saunders, Amy Hempel, Aimee Bender, and others.  We’ll also consider 
non-fiction by James Thurber, David Foster Wallace, and Fran Lebowitz. 
The recently departed Vonnegut, who called his books “mosaics of jokes,” 
will be one of our presiding spirits.  W. C. Fields, who said he never 
saw anything funny that wasn’t terrible, will be another.  As the study 
of comedy is a serious pursuit, we’ll call on figures such as Charles 
Baudelaire, Henri Bergson, and Northrop Frye to assist us in our 
thinking.  And we’ll attempt, of course, to keep our wits about us.

Required books:

Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition by Walt Whitman
Publisher: Dover
ISBN: 0486456765

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872860175

Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Publisher: New Directions
ISBN: 0811202151

Selected Poems by John Berryman (Kevin Young, editor)
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1931082693

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dial Press
ISBN: 038533348X

Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker by 
David Remnick and Henry Finder (editors)
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0375761276

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316013323

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
ISBN: 159448242X

Famous Americans by Loren Goodman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300100035