Class Schedule - Spring 2023
Close reading and analysis of poetry and other literary texts. Introduction to argumentative strategies for writing about poetry. Addresses prosody, poetic language (diction, metaphor, image, tone), and major verse forms (the sonnet, elegy, ode, ballad, dramatic monologue, free verse). Students also study poems from a range of literary periods and movements to learn how formal qualities change and develop over time and are relevant to everyday life.
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 the study of science fiction, the genre that has both contributed to scientific knowledge and attempted to make sense of the changes that have taken place in the world since the Enlightenment, the onset of industrialization, and the acceleration of technology. Texts are taken from a variety of literary and pop culture sources: pulps and magazines, novels and films, comics and TV shows.
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.
Readings in English and continental literary masterpieces with attention to significant cultural influences. Same as CWL 255. 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.
Covers literature written during the tumultuous modern period in British history from the Industrial Revolution, through Victorian imperial expansion, to the twentieth-century social convulsions of global war and de-colonization. The term “modern” designates the period of Britain’s rise from regional European power to global dominance, including mass migration to Britain after WWII and the continuing influence of global anglophone culture. British writers responded to these historical transformations with radical innovations in poetic style, epic social novels, and literary acts of resistance to imperial power. Writers covered in this survey course may include Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Derek Walcott, Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, and Kazuo Ishiguro. 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.
Studies poetry in English during the first half of the twentieth century, including Modernist experimentalism and its aftermath. Class time focuses on close readings of poems by major figures such as W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H.D., Hart Crane, Claude McKay, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden, and Langston Hughes. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
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.
Nineteenth-century fiction gave us some of the most iconic images in American culture--the scarlet letter, the white whale--and some of the most captivating works about American life and society. This course will explore how fictional texts articulated the problems of nineteenth-century democracy, including the crises over slavery leading to the Civil War, and the rise of large-scale capitalism and urban modernity later in the century. We will look at such literary movements as sentimentalism, sensationalism, realism, and naturalism, among others. Writers studied might include Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and many others. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
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.
Historical and critical study of African American literature in its social and cultural context between 1915 and 1980. Same as AFRO 260 and CWL 260. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Introductory study of variety of topics in literature and culture, including those that bridge traditional historical periods, focus on themes or movements, and cross disciplinary boundaries. May be repeated up to 6 hours, if topics vary. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.
Introduction to the study of the dominant genres or types U.S. cinema. Examines the elements that constitute genres (such as visual and narrative patterns), the formation and reshaping of genres by filmmakers and the entertainment industry, the social and cultural factors that influence the genre cycles and subgenres, and the landmark works of each genre. The course treats several genres in historical perspective or focus on a single genre. May be repeated in separate terms up to 6 hours if topics vary.
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, including (but not limited to) critical race studies, ecocriticism, 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. For majors only.
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.
Same as AAS 357, AIS 357, GWS 357, and LLS 357. See LLS 357.
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.
A selection of Chaucer's major works read in Middle English. Instructors will usually emphasize either the Canterbury Tales or Troilus and Criseyde and the dream visions, but alternate combinations of texts are possible. Students will also be introduced to Chaucer's fourteenth-century context. Same as MDVL 411. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Inspired by waves of radical thought and experimental writing that swept across Europe around 1800, Romanticism came late to America and stayed longer than it did across the Atlantic. This class examines the period known as "American Romanticism" (1820-1865), which saw the rise of a rich national literature even as the nation itself teetered on the edge of collapse, tested by economic panics, westward expansion, brawling electoral politics, and fierce debates over the future of slavery. Writers appearing in this course might include Washington Irving, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Jacobs, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Fanny Fern, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
American literature in the age of Modernism includes some of the most influential and provocative writing in the nation's history. American writers responded to a series of upheavals including changing gender and race relations, World War I, the "Roaring Twenties," and the Great Depression by pursuing both boundary-breaking themes and revolutionary experiments in form. Readings will include a generous selection from such writers as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Anita Loos, William Faulkner, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Dashiell Hammett, D'Arcy McNickle, Carson McCullers, and many others. 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.
Advanced seminar on any of a variety of topics in literature and culture, including those that bridge traditional historical periods, focus on themes or movements, and cross disciplinary boundaries. 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. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Advanced topics seminar exploring the intersection of literary study and other scholarly disciplines. The disciplines students study vary each term, but past courses have examined connections between literature and psychology, forensic science, environmental studies, and the law. 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. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
From the developing field of "ecocriticism" to new historical examinations of canonical writers such as Thomson, Thoreau, or the "nature poets", to the new field of Science Studies, this advanced seminar examines a range of specialized topics related to literature and the environment. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated in separate semesters for graduate credit if topics vary; for undergraduates to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours if topics vary with permission of the English advising office. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
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.