For More Information, Contact:
Sylvia Pamboukian, Ph.D.
Interim Department Head, English
English Department
pamboukian@rmu.edu
412-397-6450 Phone
412-397-6469 Fax
Wheatley Center 234
Moon Campus
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Julia
Newcome
ELIT
1070 Children’s Literature
The
Book Thief
The Book Thief, by by Markus Zusak, is a story which
illuminates an era: World War II.
According to its narrator (Death himself),it is a “small story . . .
about a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist
fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.”
Death is a compassionate, likable narrator who shows us that human
kindness and love can prevail even in the most horrendously destructive of
times. We see, along with 9-yr-old
Liesel Meminger, the power of words.
Diane
Todd-Bucci
ELIT 2030 African American Literature and
Experience
The
Color Purple
In ELIT 2030, African American Literature and
Experience, students learn that reading need not be painful! The
reading list, which begins with the classic slave narrative and ends with the
contemporary novel, Nappily Ever After, includes Alice Walker’s
neo-slave narrative, The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
Not only do we read celebrated literature, but we also “listen” to the story
that the literature tells about the history of the Black experience in the
United States.
M.C.
Kiliany
ELIT
1040 Reading Literature: Coming of Age
The
Giver
ELIT1040 Reading of Literature: Coming of Age revolves around those adolescent days when we struggle with
who we are, what we believe, and who we can become. This novel captivatingly
conveys that difficult struggle with self-image, morality, choice, and
potential in a “perfect world.” Will
Jonas choose perfection or emotion?
Edward
Karshner
ELIT
1060 Reading Literature: Myths
The
Buried Book:
The
Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh
Mysterious tablets are found in the
Iraqi desert. Translated by a young archaeologist, the texts speak of a world-
wide deluge. Except, this tale predates the Old Testament by a thousand years.
The young archaeologist dies mysteriously on his way to Syria, his work
confiscated by the British Museum. The plot follows rival archaeologist and
British secret agents racing through lost history and cover-ups to the palace
of Saddam Hussein. Is this the latest Dan Brown novel? No. This is the very
real story of the discovery of The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Connie
Ruzich
ELIT
3130 British Literature from 1789
The
Uncommon Reader Reading: is it a common
activity? Here’s what others have said:
“We read to know we are not alone.” (C.S. Lewis)“A home without books is a body without soul.” (Cicero)“Every man [and woman!]who knows how to read has it in his power to
magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life
full, significant and interesting” (Aldous Huxley)“What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors
have finished with us” (Thomas Carlyle)
In ELIT
3130, not only do we read British literature, but students have the
opportunity of participating in a book club in which the group selects its own
extra-curricular text to enjoy and discuss.
The Uncommon
Reader is one of the choices available to book clubs, a starting
place to begin the journey “after the professors have finished with us.”
John Lawson
ENGL 3020 Creative Writing
Naked Lunch
Arguably the first postmodern novel,
Naked Lunch
uses writing techniques that challenge students' ideas about the role of the
author – techniques that can help students generate their own hard-hitting and
original fiction, poetry, and drama. I use excerpts from William Burroughs's
novel Naked
Lunch in ENGL3020 Creative Writing.
Sylvia Pamboukian
ELIT 4800 Seminar in English Literature
Dracula
Keen to impress his employer, young
Jonathan Harker embarks on his first job abroad only to find himself working
for a strange Romanian count…who may be planning to feed Jonathan to his
beautiful, horrifying coven of vampires and then wipe out London. This classic
of Victorian Gothic fiction popularized the vampire, but it is more than a
monster story. Dracula
offers readers a window into Victorian culture’s hopes and anxieties as it
confronted now-familiar aspects of modern life: illegal immigration, pandemic
disease, serial killers, international statecraft, and crime.
Julianne
Michalenko
COSK
2221 Intercultural Communication
The
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
“He looked at her in the darkness,
at this woman who was everything to him— mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding,
good things to eat, pumpkins, chicken, the smell of sweet cattle breath, the
white sky across the endless, endless bush and the giraffe that cried, giving
its tears for women to daub on their baskets…” (p. 234). Who could be better
suited to investigate the mysteries of domestic life? In Intercultural Communication, you
may meet characters like Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s first lady detective, as
she confronts cultural boundaries to help her countrymen find answers to life’s
nagging problems. Critics have called The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency “charming” and
“life affirming.” Precious’s story is a study in intercultural
communication that will leave you smiling.
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