Thoughtful viewing of diverse films (in required weekly screenings), along with ample discussion and critical reading and writing, to gain understanding of cinematic expression and of film's capacity to entertain and to exert artistic and social influence. Same as MACS 104.
Introduction to critical analysis of prose fiction. Explores a wide range of short and long fiction across historical periods; examines narrative strategies such as plot, character, and point of view. Special emphasis placed on good literary critical writing. Course is similar to ENGL 103 except for the additional writing component. Credit is not given for both ENGL 109 and ENGL 103. Prerequisite: Completion of campus Composition I general education requirement.
Acquaints students with the rich diversity of British prose, poetry, and drama. As a basic introduction to English literature, the course explores a series of literary texts, often thematically related, which appeal to modern readers and at the same time provide interesting insights into the cultural attitudes and values of the periods which produced them.
American literature speaks in distinctive dialects that pre-date the arrival of European explorers in the Renaissance, range across centuries and continents, and intermingle a rich variety of racial, ethnic, and gendered perspectives. Genres examined in this course might include lyric poems, dystopian novels, horror stories, seduction narratives, slave narratives, political speeches, or postmodern plays. Writers studied might include Walt Whitman, Columbus, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Junot Díaz, Harriet Beecher Stowe, David Foster Wallace, Martin Luther King, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Introduction to the rich traditions of fantasy writing in world literature. While the commercial category of fantasy post-Tolkien will often be the focal point, individual instructors may choose to focus on alternate definitions of the genre: literatures of the fantastic, the uncanny, and the weird; fantasy before the Enlightenment and the advent of realism; fantasy for young adult or child readers; and so on. Same as CWL 119.
Introduction to graphic narratives---comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, and so on---from a diverse panoply of cultural, formal, and historical traditions.
Explores the use of medievalism in contemporary popular culture. Instructors may draw from film, television, music, fiction, graphic novels, gaming, and other sources, and they approach the material from a variety of cultural, historical, and aesthetic traditions. The goal of the course will be to understand how the medieval periods of world cultures have been reinvented in modern times, and how modernity has been constructed in relation and in opposition to the medieval imaginary. Same as MDVL 122.
Topics course that varies each semester and by section. The topics offered each semester will be listed in the Class Schedule. Approved for letter and S/U grading. May be repeated.
Introduction to the study of literature in the twenty-first century. This course will expand your sense of what literature is and where it happens, including discussion of old and new literary forms (from novels, poems, and plays to comic books, video games, and films). Along the way, students will explore some of the literary and cultural opportunities (such as author readings, scholarly talks, and performances) available to them on a large public university campus, with two goals in mind: to develop your critical interpretive skills and to acquaint you with the discipline of literary studies as it is being practiced all around us today, both inside and outside the conventional classroom.
Introduction to the diverse literatures and cultures of the global Middle Ages (approximately 500-1500 CE). Students will read works by medieval authors in Modern English translation, with particular attention to placing works in their historical and material contexts. Same as CWL 253 and MDVL 201. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Study in Anglophone and global texts from the period 1600 to 1800, with attention to cultural and historical contexts. Same as CWL 257. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
An introduction to the literature, philosophy, fine arts, and social criticism of the Romantic era, with attention to broader cultural and historical issues. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
This course surveys more than a thousand years of British literature from the early Middle Ages through the Renaissance and well into the eighteenth century. But what does "British literature" really mean, especially in the context of an island archipelago populated by multiple nations (England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) and repeatedly subjected to foreign rule (either by violent invasion or dynastic succession)? The range of texts we thus characterize as "early British literature" is staggering, and part of our goal in this course will simply be to appreciate the sheer volume and breadth of written work created in Britain and Ireland between the sixth and eighteenth centuries. We will do this through a necessarily selective sampling of historical periods, languages, and genres. Our authors will range from the famous (e.g., Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton) to the lesser-known (e.g., Marie de France, Lady Mary Wroth, and Eliza Haywood) to the unknown (e.g., the anonymous Beowulf-poet). Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement and ENGL 200.
Study of literature, philosophy, visual and performing arts, social criticism, and popular sciences of the Anglo-American modernist period (approximately 1900-1950), with attention to broad cultural issues. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Representative readings of Shakespeare's drama and poetry in the context of his age, with emphasis on major plays; selections vary from section to section. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Explores the mutual influences of science and literature in some key literary and non-literary texts. Covers scientific texts, literary works, and cultural theory to explore how and why scientific knowledge is intimately linked to literature.
Same as CWL 221, JS 220, REL 220, and YDSH 220. See YDSH 220.
Historical and critical study of the short story (American and European) from the early nineteenth century to the present. Same as CWL 267. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Critical study of selected American novels from the twentieth century. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Introduction to the role technological invention has played in history of print media and how literary aesthetics are changing with the advent of new media, such as software, video games, and graphic novels. We will consider material formats, genres, and modes of production along with the cultural, political, and societal implications of different forms and formats. May be repeated in separate terms up to 6 hours.
This large-scale survey course offers students background in a wide range of genres, authors, and texts, focusing on "early American literature," which ranges from pre-Columbian indigenous narratives to nineteenth century novels, poems, and plays. The material studied ranges across multiple centuries and continents, and includes a wide variety of racial, ethnic, and gendered perspectives. Writers may include Christopher Columbus, Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, William Apess, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Jacobs, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement and ENGL 200.
An introduction to the study of early African American literary and cultural production, ranging from the earliest writings by African descended people in British North America in the eighteenth century to the end of World War I. At each turn, we will situate texts in their cultural and historical contexts, attending not only to the specificity of a particular text's moment, but also to the forces of contingency and tradition at play in the construction of literary, cultural, and political communities. Throughout our discussions we will think about both the "African-ness" and "American-ness" of African American literature as collective and imaginative processes. Early African Americans wrote for a variety of reasons—philosophical, political, pleasurable, instrumental—and protesting slavery and racism was just one (albeit an important one) among many of those reasons. We will read letters, poems, sermons, songs, constitutions and bylaws for religious and civic organizations, stories, and texts that defy easy categorization. Writers may include Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Maria Stewart, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Frances E.W. Harper, William Wells Brown, W.E.B. Du Bois, Pauline Hopkins, Charles Chesnutt, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Alice Dunbar Nelson, and Ida B. Wells. Same as AFRO 259 and CWL 259. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Explores key issues in America cinema during the second half of the twentieth century, connecting central problems of film studies (e.g., authorship, genre, narratology, style, gender analysis, and the spectacle of violence) to moments of major transition in the American film industry (e.g., the Red Scare and the end of the Production Code in the 1950s; the emergence of the New Hollywood and the breakdown of the studio system in the 1960s; and the rise of the mega-blockbuster in the 1970s). Same as MACS 273. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Study of British and American women authors. Same as GWS 280. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 hours if topics vary. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Examination of selected postcolonial literature, theory, and film as texts that "write back" to dominant European representations of power, identity, gender and the Other. Postcolonial writers, critics and filmmakers studied may include Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Ousmane Sembene, Chinua Achebe, Michelle Cliff, Mahesweta Devi, Buchi Emecheta, Derek Walcott and Marlene Nourbese-Philip. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Introduction to Asian American literary studies and culture through the reading of major works of literature selected from but not limited to the following American ethnic subgroups: Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, and Vietnamese. Same as AAS 286. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Study of selected topics. Approved for both letter and S/U grading. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Students may register in more than one section per term. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Introduction to the critical frameworks and methods that have had the greatest impact on the field of literary studies. Students will read, discuss, and write about numerous theoretical approaches, which might include (but are not limited to) critical race studies, environmental theory, feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and structuralism. No previous background with theory is required. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor. Restricted to English majors.
Explores topics on representations of non-heteronormative sexuality in canonical and recovered historical texts and in contemporary literature, on literature by LGBT authors, and on theories of sexuality that pertain to systems of textual and cultural meaning. May be repeated in separate terms to a maximum of 6 hours, if topics vary.
Explores slavery in the Americas through its representation in literature over time. Using a variety of disciplinary approaches, we will look at the enslaved, the enslavers, and the middle merchants who facilitated the slave trade, and will examine the experience of slavery and the economic, political, religious, and scientific justifications used to maintain it. We will also examine the African cultural traditions from which the slaves emerged and the aspects of it that lent to creation of the new U.S. culture.
Writing-intensive, variable-topic course designed to improve English majors' ability to produce clear, well-organized, analytically sound and persuasively argued essays relevant to English studies. Introduces students to research techniques through the examination of critical texts appropriate to the course topic. Credit is not given for ENGL 300 and ENGL 350. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor. For majors only.
Extended investigation of major subjects and issues in cinema and other media; topics vary and typically include studies of author/directors, genres, historical movements, critical approaches, and themes. Same as MACS 373. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 hours if topics vary. Prerequisite: One college-level course in film studies or literature.
Advanced-level work in the field of Writing Studies. Building upon a traditional disciplinary understanding of writing as rhetoric, this course invites students to call upon sociological, anthropological, and/or ideological approaches to the study of writing in order to understand the myriad ways that writing makes meaning(s). See Class Schedule for topics. May be repeated in separate terms to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Advanced study of selected topics. Approved for both letter and S/U grading. May be repeated in the same or separate terms to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Study of selected topics. Restricted to English and English education majors with a 3.33 average who are working towards the degree with distinction in English or in English education. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite: Enroll in undergraduate advising office.
An open-topic, discussion-oriented seminar aimed at majors who have shown high skill and intensive interest in the area of English studies. May be repeated up to 6 hours in the same term to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: A 3.33 grade point average or consent of the English Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. Restricted to English majors.
An introduction to English linguistics with emphasis on the phonetic, syntactic, and semantic structures of English; language variation, standardization, and change; language legislation and linguistic rights; English as a world language; and the study of language in American schools. Same as BTW 402. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours.
Introduction to the form of English spoken and written prior to about AD 1100. Exploring concepts of cultural, historical, and linguistic change, students will learn to read Old English texts in the original. Readings include examples from the prose tradition (e.g., Bede's story of the poet Cædmon and Ælfric's Lives of Saints) as well as poetic texts (e.g., The Dream of the Rood and The Wanderer). Same as MDVL 407. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours.
3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Intensive study of the work of one or two major authors. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours if topics vary. May be repeated for graduate credit if topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Advanced topics seminar exploring literary expressions of minority experience in America. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours if topics vary; Graduate students may repeat if topics vary. Graduate students may repeat as topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Introduces students to the challenges of "turning data into narrative." With a focus on students' professional development as writers, this course emphasizes the research and rhetorical skills required to communicate current scientific research in earth and environmental science through non-fiction narrative forms--the investigative essay, long-form journalism, personal memoir, and op-ed--aimed at a general audience. Same as ESE 477. 3 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit.
Study of the history and theory of written composition. This course explores basic rhetorical principles, various theoretical perspectives in the field of composition/rhetoric, and helps students form practical approaches to the guidance of, response to, and structuring of student writing. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.