Hello all! For those of you beginning your first year, welcome to Western… and for everyone, welcome to English 1100 and the department! This course is intended to be a “gateway” to the major (we’ll learn some of the vocabulary and skills you’ll need to succeed in future English classes) and an introduction to the fine art of literature. We’ll read examples of lit in three genres: short fiction, drama, and poetry, become acquainted with just a few schools of literary criticism, and write various forms of papers and analyses. So be ready for anything!
We’ll also get well acquainted in this course, as I like to weight my classes heavily toward discussion. You’ll be encouraged to express your (educated) opinions, try out interpretations of texts along with your classmates, and confront your own (and your classmates’) perspectives on the value of literature and art.
Before we even get to know each other, though, I’d like to post a few random facts about me. My name is Ilse Schweitzer and I’m originally from Baltimore, MD. I did my undergrad work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland; I have an MA in Medieval Studies from the University of York in England. I’m currently in my fourth year of the PhD in Lit program here at Western, and my specialty is in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse literatures. So for me to be teaching anything written after the year 1400 is just hilarious… yet most of the time I do manage to make these stories, poems, and plays make sense! I’ve taught several sections of English 1100 at WMU, English 1050, a course on Tolkien and mythology, and, at UMBC, a class on Norse and Celtic mythologies.
I’m also a cat person, I knit, and I enjoy tea. No old lady jokes!!!
I’m very excited to meet all of you and hear your embarrassing confessions about YOUR hobbies.
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