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Spring 2024 Course Offerings

We have a great lineup for spring 2024!

ENG 641: Rhetorics of Silence and Listening
Online Mondays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Melissa Goldthwaite
CRN: 11813 – Area II

In Rhetorics of Silence and Listening, we will examine—through reading, writing, discussion, listening, and contemplative practices—the complex rhetorical relationships among silence, speech, and writing. We will focus on the multiple ways people both deliver and receive silence in intentional (and sometimes unintentional) ways and consider the rhetorical and even bodily effects of these silences. We will consider a range of practices involving silence and listening: the potentially destructive practices of silencing oneself or others, the potentially empowering effects of choosing to be silent for a particular purpose, and the calming and potentially healing effects of contemplative silences (including the ways in which such silences can help individuals listen more carefully to themselves, to others, and even to texts). We will seek to understand the potential of rhetorical listening across differences for communication, critical thinking, action, and compassion.


 ENG 620: Special Topics in Literature & Culture (The Essay, In Hard Times)
Online Tuesdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Jenny Spinner
CRN: 11811 – Area I

 

 

In this course, we will explore personal essays written about the COVID-19 pandemic and protests against racial injustice that erupted around the U.S. in 2020. While our focus will primarily be American essayists, we will also examine writings by authors outside the U.S., including the work of Murong Xuecun. Additionally, we will dive into the past to read personal essays written during other global health crises, including the bubonic plague epidemic in the 1500s, the 1918 flu pandemic, and the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s. As we will discover, one of the challenges faced by essayists writing in public hard times is how to position their personal experiences amid a public calamity. Writers of color face additional challenges as they navigate the complexities, and pressures, of representational narratives. We will tackle these challenges in our own writing, producing personal writing about (and in) hard times. Course material will include The Best American Essays 2021, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, and a variety of other essays and podcasts. Assignments will include weekly discussion posts on readings, in-class creative responses to prompts, a historical reference entry and accompanying SlideShare presentation, a personal essay, and a collaborative class interview project on the Class of 2024, the graduating college seniors who missed their high school graduation and spent the first (and sometimes second) years of their college experiences enduring significant covid protocols.


 ENG 681: Writers at Work
Online Wednesdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Professor Tenaya Darlington
CRN: 11814 – Area III

 

 

This course is designed to set your professional life as a writer in motion. Over the course of 15 weeks, you’ll meet a series of working writers from around Philadelphia who will visit our class. During these visits, you’ll have the opportunity to network with professional writers and learn about possible career paths, from public relations to publishing. Each writer’s visit will tie into a different writing assignment so that you can begin building a portfolio of professional work (likely assignments will include: a press release, a review, a book proposal, an edited manuscript, plus a professional resume and bio.) At the end, you’ll develop an online portfolio that you can use as a calling card.


 ENG 560: Rhetoric Then & Now
Online Thursdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Cristina Hanganu-Bresch
CRN: 10592 – Core Class

 

Consideration of the history of rhetoric, from the Sophists to the present day, with particular concern both for the ethical considerations involved in persuasive uses of language and for the stylistic choices in developing written work.


 

Graduate Student Writing Session – October 28

Just Write!

A Graduate Student Writing Session

Join us at the Writing Center,

Hawk Hill, Merion Hall 162: October 28, 2023, 11 am – 1 pm

or

University City, J.W. England Library 212: November 18, 2023, 11 am – 1 pm

Purpose?

The writing sessions are designed to provide you with structured writing time. During each writing session, you’ll have the opportunity to set a writing goal and commit to focused working time. You’ll work independently for two hours, taking coffee/snack breaks in between.

Who should attend?

These sessions are open to any graduate student, and you’re welcome to bring any assignment or project you need to finish.

Will help be available?

If you have any questions, staff from the Writing Center will be available to help you during the session.

Feel free to attend both sessions if you find them beneficial.  Let us know which session you plan to attend.  Please reply by October 23rd if you plan to attend the October 28th session.

The Avenue – Submission Deadline Extended to October 31st

The Avenue has extended its call for submissions for publication. There’s still time for you to share your creative work with your peers in the Writing Studies community!


The  SJU Writing Studies literary magazine, The Avenue, has extended our call for submissions for the Fall 2023 issue! Submissions due by Halloween, October 31st 2023.

We want this issue to reflect the breadth, depth, and strength of  current students and recent alumni of the SJU Writing Studies Program.

Think pieces that wowed your classmates; pieces that elicited praise from your professor; and pieces that exhibit your writing at its best!

We invite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, prose, etc.; submission limit is 2000 words/8 pages of double-spaced work. Excerpts from longer pieces are welcome. We also welcome images/photographs of artwork.

Submissions should be in size 12 font, double-spaced; please submit your polished piece as a word document attachment and email to theavenue@sju.edudo not include any identifying information in your piece, as submissions will be reviewed anonymously.

Submit your creative pieces via email to theavenue@sju.edu no later than Halloween, October 31st

Questions or concerns? Please reach out to theavenue@sju.edu.

We’re looking forward to reading your piece!

– Thom Nailor, Mickey Schuster, Christina Tsakiris

The Avenue Editorial Board