English 854-001
Defining Work in English
Instr: Horner, Bruce
Office: CRT 414; 229-4509
e-mail: bhorner@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: W; 6:30-8:10 pm, CRT 119
Course Description
An examination of histories, theories, and practices of work in English departments, with special attention to articulating relationships between the cultural work identified with English departments and labor practices in and outside the institutional settings for that work. This course should be of interest particularly to those interested in defining the cultural work performed by departments of English and the institutional structuring of that work. Students will be expected to produce weekly written responses to assigned readings and to write a seminar-length paper. Draft seminar papers will collectively constitute one of the readings for the course.
Other readings may include selections from the following:
Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures: Refiguring College English Studies. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996.
Berube, Michael. The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies. New York UP, 1998.
Day Late, Dollar Short: The Next Generation and the New Academy. Ed. Peter C. Herman. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000.
Final Report. Modern Language Association Committee on Professional Employment. New York: Modern Language Association, December 1997.
Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History. U of Chicago P, 1987.
Ohmann, Richard. English in America: A Radical View of the Profession. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.
The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary. Ed. John Trimbur and Richard Bullock. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1991.
Watkins, Evan. Work Time: English Departments and the Circulation of Cultural Value. Stanford UP, 1989.
Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis. Ed. Cary Nelson. U of Minnesota P, 1997.
