Career & Tools

The English Department is looking to fill two 50% TA positions for Spring 2020. Read on for more info and apply ASAP!

By Graduate Division Staff
Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 - 10:00am


The UCSB English Department has two 50% Teaching Assistant position openings for Spring 2020. See below for the two course descriptions. If interested, please submit your CV to Katherine Carlman, GPA for English.

1) Introduction to Literary Study, ENGL 10

Quarter: Spring 2020, Instructor: Gilmore, Timothy
Day(s): MWF. Time: 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM

Acquaints students with purposes and tools of literary interpretation. Introduces techniques and vocabulary of analytic discussion and critical writing. Some emphasis on poetry with attention also to drama, essay, and the novel.

2) Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature, ENGL 50

Quarter: Spring 2020; Instructor: Rana, Swati
Day(s): TR; Time: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

When José Martí referred to "Nuestra América" in his famous 1891 essay of that title, he did not have the United States in mind. This writer, theorist, and fighter sought to imagine an independent Latin America, free from Spanish colonialism and the threat of U.S. expansion. This course begins with Martí's view of America from the other side. Its title is itself a translation that begs the question of whose "America" we inhabit, claim, and define. We will approach the task of surveying U.S. minority literature with this insight in mind. Our focus will be on writers who have a self-reflexive approach to the United States and to America more broadly-writers who craft a distinctly American voice or are invested in local and regional fictions, writers who expose the hypocrisies of the American dream and interrogate the boundaries of Americanness, writers who forge transnational, cosmopolitan, or even explicitly un-American affiliations. What story of American origins do these writers create? What vision of the nation and its subjects is produced in their writings? In what ways does their work reshape the geopolitical map of the United States? Readings will likely include the following: Nella Larsen's "Passing", John Okada's "No-No Boy", Sandra Cisneros's "The House on Mango Street", Jamaica Kincaid's "Lucy", Chang-rae Lee's "Native Speaker", and a course reader.