Books & Authors : Graduate English Course on Palahniuk, Spring 2015

Dear Literature Enthusiasts,

I'm writing to announce that I will be offering an online graduate-level English seminar called "Chuck Palahniuk in Context" in the spring 2015 semester. In the course, we will read Chuck Palahniuk's work in relation to literary criticism and other writers' works. Graduate courses on single authors are rare, and this is one of the first offered that is focused on Palahniuk's literature.

English 6300 (Section 25051) will be offered in spring semester 2015 and enrollment is limited. The course is offered through the University of Houston-Victoria, where I'm an Assistant Professor of English. I'm the author of several interviews with Palahniuk, as well as the editor of Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk (2009).

Of Chuck's works, everyone will read Fight Club, Diary, Rant, Stranger than Fiction. We will also watch the Fight Club film adaptation (for which I have recorded a downloadable professor's commentary), as well as the first issue of the Fight Club 2 graphic novel when it gets released in April. Each student will also be individually responsible for reading two more Palahniuk books, selected in discussion with the professor to aid the themes of their research paper. The Palahniuk readings will be supplemented with criticism, literary history, related authors' works, and my notes and lectures. Students will participate in the course through discussion boards and will complete a graduate research paper on an aspect of Palahniuk's literature.

The online nature of this seminar means that you can take the course from anywhere in the world, and you do not have to pursue a graduate degree at UHV. These are graduate course hours at fully-accredited campus of the University of Houston, so they can potentially transfer to anyone's home institution. If you have an undergraduate degree (BA, BS, etc), you can register with UHV as a "Temporary Graduate Student" who can take up to 12 graduate hours at UHV without declaring a degree program. To apply, follow the link and find the heading marked "Temporary Graduate" about 2/3 of the way down the page. You'll need to use the application form and provide a transcript (just like any grad school), but the process will be quick and relatively painless because you're not applying to a specific program. You can use UHV's Tuition and Fees calculator to figure out how much it would cost for you to take the course.

Thanks again for your interest in studying Palahniuk's work with the level of scholarly attention it deserves. I look forward to talking with you soon.

Jeff Sartain