- 2020–2021 Courses:
- Browse by Course Number
- Browse by Term
Fall 2020
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ENGL 100: How We Read: The History and Science of Reading
In recent years, a 500-year-old technology for reading (the printed book) has been challenged by a very new one (the LCD displays in our phones and tablets). At the same time, advances in cognitive neuroscience have deepened our understanding of reading as a mental process. This makes it a good moment to consider how we read now and how we read in the past. We will examine a variety of reading practices, including reading aloud and silent reading, as well as the emotional impact of reading. The course will emphasize the foundational skill of academic reading–“close” reading–but also consider “distant” and “surface” reading. In addition to relevant scholarship, we will read poetry and novels as we reflect on our own habits as readers.
6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · George Shuffelton -
ENGL 100: Imagining a Self
This course examines how first-person narrators present, define, defend, and construct the self. We will read an assortment of autobiographical and fictional works, focusing on the critical issues that the first-person speaker “I” raises. In particular, we will consider the risks and rewards of narrative self-exposure, the relationship between autobiography and the novel, and the apparent intimacy between first-person narrators and their readers. Authors will include James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Jacobs, Sylvia Plath, and Dave Eggers. 6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 100: Milton, Shelley, Pullman
We will read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials as responses to and radical revisions of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Constance Walker -
ENGL 100: Rhetoric: Art of Persuasion
Rhetoric’s all around us: in political manifestos and legal pleadings; in professions of love and advertisements for dog food. We use it whenever we urge someone to believe what we say or do what we want. But how well do we understand the foundations and protocols of this art that teaches us “to see the available means of persuasion?” In this class we’ll study the origins and theory of rhetoric (via Aristotle), examine exemplary instances (from Pericles to Trump), and consider the charges (via Plato) that it’s all lies and trickery, while learning how to compose persuasive academic papers and presentations.
6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 100: Spirit of Place
We will consider a range of texts (in fiction poetry, drama, nonfiction) that explore the intangible and multifaceted nature of “place” in literary works. We will attempt to determine what influence place has on human perception and behavior and study the variety of ways in which writers have attempted to evoke a “spirit of place.” Authors read will include Shakespeare, Hardy, Frost, Erdrich and Heaney. 6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 100: Writing About America and Globalization
Focusing on rhetorical choices and writing strategies, we will seek to read critically, formulate questions, and write persuasively about contemporary issues in the U.S. in a globalized world. Varied readings – journalistic and scholarly – as well as our own experiences, will inform discussion of the impact of globalization on particular issues, such as economic and social justice, national sovereignty, sustainability, and human rights in the context of economic interdependence and instant communication across the globe; topics this year will include gender, winners and losers, COVID-19, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Students will refine persuasive skills through research, writing, and revising several major essays, through peer review and feedback from the professor.
6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Elizabeth McKinsey -
ENGL 116: The Art of Drama
An exploration of drama approached as literature and in performance. New digital resources enable us to take world-class productions from the National Theatre and elsewhere as our texts. Drawing examples both globally and across time, we will consider plays and recent productions in their historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop critical vocabularies, debate interpretations, and hone their interpretive and rhetorical skills in writing reviews and essays. Additional time required for viewing performances.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Pierre Hecker, Peter Balaam -
ENGL 118: Introduction to Poetry
We will look at the whole kingdom of poetry, exploring how poets use form, tone, sound, imagery, rhythm, and subject matter to create what Wallace Stevens called the “supreme fiction.” Examples will be drawn from around the world, from Sappho to spoken word. Participation in discussion is mandatory; essay assignments will ask you to provide close readings of particular works; a couple of assignments will focus on the writing of poems so as to give you a full understanding of this ancient and living art. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Constance Walker -
ENGL 135: Imperial Adventures
Indiana Jones has a pedigree. In this class we will encounter some of his ancestors in stories, novels and comic books from the early decades of the twentieth century. The wilds of Afghanistan, the African forest, a prehistoric world in Patagonia, the opium dens of mysterious exotic London–these will be but some of our stops as we examine the structure and ideology and lasting legacy of the imperial adventure tale. Authors we will read include Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Fall 2020 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 144: Shakespeare I
A chronological survey of the whole of Shakespeare’s career, covering all genres and periods, this course explores the nature of Shakespeare’s genius and the scope of his art. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between literature and stagecraft (“page to stage”). By tackling the complexities of prosody, of textual transmission, and of Shakespeare’s highly figurative and metaphorical language, the course will help you further develop your ability to think critically about literature. Note: Declared or prospective English majors should register for English 244. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Fall 2020 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 160: Creative Writing
You will work in several genres and forms, among them: traditional and experimental poetry, prose fiction, and creative nonfiction. In your writing you will explore the relationship between the self, the imagination, the word, and the world. In this practitioner’s guide to the creative writing process, we will examine writings from past and current authors, and your writings will be critiqued in a workshop setting and revised throughout the term.
6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Gregory Hewett, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Christopher Martin -
ENGL 212: Nineteenth-Century American Literature
A survey of the major forms and voices of nineteenth-century American literature during the Romantic and Realist periods, with attention to historical and intellectual contexts including ideas about race, class, gender, and the nature of democracy. Topics covered will include the literary writings of Transcendentalism, abolition, and the rise of literary “realism” after the Civil War as an artistic response to urbanization and industrialism. Writers to be read include Irving, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Fuller, Jacobs, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, James, and Chopin.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Elizabeth McKinsey -
ENGL 217: A Novel Education
Samuel Johnson declared novels to be “written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life.” This course will explore what kinds of education the novel offered its readers during a time when fiction was considered a source of valuable lessons and a vehicle for corruption. We will read a selection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels, considering how they engage with contemporary educational theories, notions of male and female conduct, and concerns about the didactic and imaginative possibilities of fiction. Authors include Richardson, Lennox, Austen, Edgeworth, and Dickens. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 218: The Gothic Spirit
The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the rise of the Gothic, a genre populated by brooding hero-villains, vulnerable virgins, mad monks, ghosts, and monsters. In this course, we will examine the conventions and concerns of the Gothic, addressing its preoccupation with terror, sex, and the supernatural. As we situate this genre within its literary and historical context, we will consider its relationship to realism and Romanticism, and we will explore how it reflects the political and cultural anxieties of the age. Authors include Walpole, Radcliffe, Lewis, Austen, M. Shelley, and E. Bronte.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 222: The Art of Jane Austen
All of Jane Austen’s fiction will be read; the works she did not complete or choose to publish during her lifetime will be studied in an attempt to understand the art of her mature comic masterpieces, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Constance Walker -
ENGL 230: Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
We will explore developments in African American literature since the 1950s with a focus on literary expression in the Civil Rights Era; on the Black Arts Movement; on the new wave of feminist/womanist writing; and on the experimental and futuristic fictions of the twenty-first century. Authors to be read include Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Charles Johnson, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Suzan-Lori Parks, Kevin Young, and Tracy Smith.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Fall 2020 · Kofi Owusu -
ENGL 241: Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump
The last few years have placed Latinx communities under siege and in the spotlight. The demands of the census and new policies around immigration mean that who counts as Latinx and why it matters has public visibility and meaning. Simultaneously, the last few years have seen an incredible growth of new literary voices and genres in the world of Latinx letters. From fictional and creative nonfiction accounts of detention camps, border crossings, and asylum court proceedings to lyrical wanderings in bilingualism to demands for greater attention to Afrolatinidad and the particular experiences of Black Latinxs–Latinx voices are rising. We will engage with current literary discussions in print, on twitter, and in literary journals as we chart the shifting, developing terrain of Latinx literatures.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Fall 2020 · Adriana Estill -
ENGL 244: Shakespeare I
A chronological survey of the whole of Shakespeare’s career, covering all genres and periods, this course explores the nature of Shakespeare’s genius and the scope of his art. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between literature and stagecraft (“page to stage”). By tackling the complexities of prosody, of textual transmission, and of Shakespeare’s highly figurative and metaphorical language, the course will help you further develop your ability to think critically about literature. Note: non-majors should register for English 144. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 247: The American West
Wallace Stegner once described the West as “the geography of hope” in the American imagination. Despite various dystopian urban pressures, the region still conjures up images of wide vistas and sunburned optimism. We will explore this paradox by examining both popular mythic conceptions of the West (primarily in film) and more searching literary treatments of the same area. We will explore how writers such as Twain, Cather, Stegner and Cormac McCarthy have dealt with the geographical diversity and multi-ethnic history of the West. Weekly film showings will include The Searchers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven, and Lone Star. Extra Time Required, evening screenings. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 250: Indian Fiction 1880-1980
In this course we will follow the various paths that the novel in India has taken since the late nineteenth century. Reading both works composed in English and some in translation we will probe in particular the ways in which questions of language and national/cultural identity are constructed and critiqued in the Indian novel. We will read some of the most celebrated Indian writers of the last 100 odd years as well as some who are not as well-known as they should be. The course will also introduce you to some fundamental concepts in postcolonial studies.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Fall 2020 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 270: Short Story Workshop
An introduction to the writing of the short story (prior familiarity with the genre of the short story is expected of class members). Each student will write and have discussed in class three stories (from 1,500 to 6,000 words in length) and give constructive suggestions, including written critiques, for revising the stories written by other members of the class. Attention will be paid to all the elements of fiction: characterization, point of view, conflict, setting, dialogue, etc. Prerequisites: One prior 6-credit English course 6 credits; S/CR/NC; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021 · Gregory Smith -
ENGL 295: Critical Methods
Required of students majoring in English, this course explores practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism. Not open to first year students. Prerequisites: One English Foundations course and one prior 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam, Susan Jaret McKinstry -
ENGL 323: Romanticism and Reform
Mass protests, police brutality, reactionary politicians, imprisoned journalists, widespread unemployment, and disease were all features of the Romantic era in Britain as well as our own time. We will explore how its writers brilliantly advocate for empathy, liberty, and social justice in the midst of violence and upheaval. Readings will include works by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley, and their contemporaries.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Constance Walker -
ENGL 350: The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated our understandings of the locations, forms and indeed the language of the contemporary English novel. This course will examine these questions and the theoretical and interpretive frames in which these writers have often been placed, and probe their place in the global marketplace (and awards stage). We will read a number of major novelists of the postcolonial era from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and the diaspora as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 352: Toni Morrison: Novelist
Morrison exposes the limitations of the language of fiction, but refuses to be constrained by them. Her quirky, inimitable, and invariably memorable characters are fully committed to the protocols of the narratives that define them. She is fearless in her choice of subject matter and boundless in her thematic range. And the novelistic site becomes a stage for Morrison’s virtuoso performances. It is to her well-crafted novels that we turn our attention in this course. Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course or instructor permission 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Fall 2020 · Kofi Owusu -
ENGL 395: Narrative
Roland Barthes claims that “narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself.” Yet metahistorian Hayden White wonders, “Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?” To study narrative is to confront art’s distinctive interplay of fiction and nonfiction, invention and truth. We will read contemporary narrative theory by critics from several disciplines and apply their theories to textual and visual narratives such as literary texts, graphic novels, films, images, television shows, advertisements, and music videos. Students will collaborate on a digital storytelling project.
Prerequisites: English 295 and one 300 level English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020 · Susan Jaret McKinstry
Winter 2021
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ENGL 109: The Craft of Academic Writing
This course is designed to demystify the practice of academic writing and to introduce students to the skills they’ll need to write effectively in a variety of academic disciplines and contexts. Students will learn how to respond to other authors’ claims, frame clear arguments of their own, structure essays to develop a clear logical flow, integrate outside sources into their writing, and improve their writing through revision. All sections will include a variety of readings, multiple writing assignments, and substantial feedback from the course instructor.
6 credits; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam, Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 112: Introduction to the Novel
This course explores the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from a strange, sensational experiment in the eighteenth century to a dominant literary genre today. Among the questions that we will consider: What is a novel? What makes it such a popular form of entertainment? How does the novel participate in ongoing conversations about family, sex, class, race, and nation? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate literary form? Authors include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, and Jackie Kay.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 118: Introduction to Poetry
We will look at the whole kingdom of poetry, exploring how poets use form, tone, sound, imagery, rhythm, and subject matter to create what Wallace Stevens called the “supreme fiction.” Examples will be drawn from around the world, from Sappho to spoken word. Participation in discussion is mandatory; essay assignments will ask you to provide close readings of particular works; a couple of assignments will focus on the writing of poems so as to give you a full understanding of this ancient and living art. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Constance Walker -
ENGL 160: Creative Writing
You will work in several genres and forms, among them: traditional and experimental poetry, prose fiction, and creative nonfiction. In your writing you will explore the relationship between the self, the imagination, the word, and the world. In this practitioner’s guide to the creative writing process, we will examine writings from past and current authors, and your writings will be critiqued in a workshop setting and revised throughout the term.
6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Gregory Hewett, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Christopher Martin -
ENGL 203: Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature
When medieval writers imagined worlds beyond their own, what did they see? This course will examine depictions of the afterlife, the East, and magical realms of the imagination. We will read romances, saints’ lives, and a masterpiece of pseudo-travel literature that influenced both Shakespeare and Columbus, alongside contemporary theories of postcolonialism, gender and race. We will visit the lands of the dead and the undead, and compare gruesome punishments and heavenly rewards. We will encounter dog-headed men, Amazons, cannibals, armies devoured by hippopotami, and roasted geese that fly onto waiting dinner tables. Be prepared. Readings in Middle English and in modern translations.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · George Shuffelton -
ENGL 214: Revenge Tragedy
Madness, murder, conspiracy, poison, incest, rape, ghosts, and lots of blood: the fashion for revenge tragedy in Elizabethan and Jacobean England led to the creation of some of the most brilliant, violent, funny, and deeply strange plays in the history of the language. Authors may include Cary, Chapman, Ford, Marston, Middleton, Kyd, Tourneur, and Webster. 3 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 215: Modern American Literature
A survey of some of the central movements and texts in American literature, from World War I to the present. Topics covered will include modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat generation and postmodernism.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 219: Global Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s plays have been reimagined and repurposed all over the world, performed on seven continents, and translated into over 100 languages. The course explores how issues of globalization, nationalism, translation (both cultural and linguistic), and (de)colonization inform our understanding of these wonderfully varied adaptations and appropriations. We will examine the social, political, and aesthetic implications of a range of international stage, film, and literary versions as we consider how other cultures respond to the hegemonic original. No prior experience with Shakespeare is necessary.
3 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 220: Arts of Oral Presentation
Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 credits; S/CR/NC; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement; offered Winter 2021, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 220: Arts of Oral Presentation
Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 credits; S/CR/NC; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement; offered Winter 2021, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 221: “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale
From its famous opening line to its apocalyptic close, Melville’s lofty and profane romance of the whaling-industry is gripped by the myths and marked by the traumas of race. Exploring its black-and-white thematics and racialized characters in nineteenth- as well as twenty-first-century social and political contexts, this course takes Melville’s stupendous book as an anatomy of “whiteness” as a racial construct in U.S. cultural history.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam -
ENGL 235: Asian American Literature
This course is an introduction to major works and authors of fiction, drama, and poetry from about 1900 to the present. We will trace the development of Asian American literary traditions while exploring the rich diversity of recent voices in the field. Authors to be read include Carlos Bulosan, Sui Sin Far, Philip Kan Gotanda, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Milton Murayama, Chang-rae Lee, Li-young Lee, and John Okada. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Nancy Cho -
ENGL 249: Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
What can and should be the role of literature in times of bitter political conflict? Caught in partisan strife, Irish writers have grappled personally and painfully with the question. We will read works by Joyce, Yeats, and Heaney, among others, and watch films (Bloody Sunday, Hunger) that confront the deep and ongoing divisions in Irish political life.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Constance Walker -
ENGL 252: Caribbean Fiction
This course will examine Anglophone fiction in the Caribbean from the late colonial period through our contemporary moment. We will examine major developments in form and language as well as the writing of identity, personal and (trans)national. We will read works by canonical writers such as V.S Naipaul, George Lamming and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as by lesser known contemporary writers.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 253: Canadian Fiction
This course will serve as an introduction to Canadian fiction in English of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will read a number of major novelists and short story writers, as well as newer voices. Our attempt will be to trace the major trajectories along which Canadian literature has developed in the period and explore the faultlines that complicate the question of a national literature.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 258: Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage
This course examines work by U.S. playwrights of color from the 1950s to the present, focusing on questions of race, performance, and self-representation. We will consider opportunities and limitations of the commercial theater, Off-Off Broadway, ethnic theaters, and non-traditional performance spaces. Playwrights may include Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Luis Valdez, Cherrie Moraga, August Wilson, David Henry Hwang, Philip Gotanda, Maria Irene Fornes, Anna Deavere Smith, and Chay Yew. We will watch selected film adaptations and attend a live performance when possible.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Nancy Cho -
ENGL 266: Research Writing
This writing-rich course will address techniques for designing an extended research project and using that research to write in a variety of genres. Students will begin the term by designing an overall research topic in an area of their interests (not necessarily limited to literary studies or the humanities). Over the course of the term, students will research this topic independently while the class examines how different audiences and purposes determine the ways that writers use evidence, organize information, and convey their ideas. Writing assignments throughout the term will draw on students’ research and may include project proposals, literature reviews, blog posts, op-ed pieces, and posters.
6 credits; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · George Cusack -
ENGL 270: Short Story Workshop
An introduction to the writing of the short story (prior familiarity with the genre of the short story is expected of class members). Each student will write and have discussed in class three stories (from 1,500 to 6,000 words in length) and give constructive suggestions, including written critiques, for revising the stories written by other members of the class. Attention will be paid to all the elements of fiction: characterization, point of view, conflict, setting, dialogue, etc. Prerequisites: One prior 6-credit English course 6 credits; S/CR/NC; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021 · Gregory Smith -
ENGL 271: Poetry Workshop
This course offers newer poets ways of developing poetic craft and vision. Through intensive writing and revision of poetry, supplemented by reading and discussion of poetry, each member of the group will create a portfolio of poems. Prerequisites: One prior 6 credit English course 6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Gregory Hewett -
ENGL 278: London Program: Shakespeare’s England
This course concentrates on the relationship between the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the world in which they lived, and the vitality of performance. Particular attention will be paid to Tudor and Stuart historical sites as students explore England through the lens of Renaissance literature and the literature through the lens of Renaissance England.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 -
ENGL 282: London Program: London Theater
Students will attend productions of both classic and contemporary plays in London and Stratford-on-Avon and do related reading. Class discussions will focus on dramatic genres and themes, dramaturgy, acting styles, and design. Guest speakers may include actors, critics, and directors. Students will take backstage tours, keep a theater journal, and work on theater criticism and reviews.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 -
ENGL 288: California Program: The Literature of California
An intensive study of writing and film that explores California both as a place (or rather, a mosaic of places) and as a continuing metaphor–whether of promise or disintegration–for the rest of the country. Authors read will include John Muir, Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, Robinson Jeffers, John Steinbeck, and Joan Didion. Films will include: Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, The Grapes of Wrath, Zoot Suit, and Blade Runner.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Winter 2021 -
ENGL 310: Shakespeare II
Continuing the work begun in Shakespeare I, this course delves deeper into the Shakespeare canon. More difficult and obscure plays are studied alongside some of the more famous ones. While focusing principally on the plays themselves as works of art, the course also explores their social, intellectual, and theatrical contexts, as well as the variety of critical response they have engendered. Prerequisites: One English Foundations course and English 144 or 244 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 319: The Rise of the Novel
A study of the origin and development of the English novel throughout the long eighteenth century. We will situate the early novel within its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to its concern with courtship and marriage, writing and reading, the real and the fantastic. We will also consider eighteenth-century debates about the social function of novels and the dangers of reading fiction. Authors include Behn, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Walpole, and Austen. Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 328: Victorian Poetry
Living in an era of rapid progress and profound doubt, Victorian poets are prolific, challenging, inventive, and insistent that poetry address contemporary questions of social inequity, science, gender, nation, self, race, and knowledge itself. Readings will include works by Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, Dante Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and others, as well as cultural images and documents.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021 · Susan Jaret McKinstry -
ENGL 359: World Literature in the Twenty-First Century
Our focus will be on contemporary writers who tend to localize the global and/or globalize the local in their decidedly textured fiction and nonfiction published since 2001. Selected writers include Zinzi Clemmons, Ta-Nehisi Coates, J.M. Coetzee, Junot Diaz, Esi Edugyan, Nuruddin Farah, Yaa Gyasi, Dinaw Mengestu, Chigozie Obioma, and Zadie Smith.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course or instructor permission 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Winter 2021 · Kofi Owusu -
ENGL 400: Integrative Exercise
Senior English majors may fulfill the integrative exercise by completing one of the four options: the Colloquium Option (a group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works); the Research Essay Option (an extended essay on a topic of the student’s own devising); the Creative Option (creation of a work of literary art); or the Project Option (creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project). The Research Essay Option is open to students who have completed a senior seminar in the major by the end of fall term senior year. The Creative Option is open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of fall term senior year. 6 credits; S/NC; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021
Spring 2021
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ENGL 109: The Craft of Academic Writing
This course is designed to demystify the practice of academic writing and to introduce students to the skills they’ll need to write effectively in a variety of academic disciplines and contexts. Students will learn how to respond to other authors’ claims, frame clear arguments of their own, structure essays to develop a clear logical flow, integrate outside sources into their writing, and improve their writing through revision. All sections will include a variety of readings, multiple writing assignments, and substantial feedback from the course instructor.
6 credits; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam, Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 112: Introduction to the Novel
This course explores the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from a strange, sensational experiment in the eighteenth century to a dominant literary genre today. Among the questions that we will consider: What is a novel? What makes it such a popular form of entertainment? How does the novel participate in ongoing conversations about family, sex, class, race, and nation? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate literary form? Authors include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, and Jackie Kay.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 115: The Art of Storytelling
Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying that “unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential.” This course focuses attention primarily on the short story as an enduring form. We will read short stories drawn from different literary traditions and from various parts of the world. Stories to be read include those by Aksenov, Atwood, Beckett, Borges, Camus, Cheever, Cisneros, Farah, Fuentes, Gordimer, Ishiguro, Kundera, Mahfouz, Marquez, Moravia, Nabokov, Narayan, Pritchett, Rushdie, Trevor, Welty, and Xue. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Kofi Owusu -
ENGL 116: The Art of Drama
An exploration of drama approached as literature and in performance. New digital resources enable us to take world-class productions from the National Theatre and elsewhere as our texts. Drawing examples both globally and across time, we will consider plays and recent productions in their historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop critical vocabularies, debate interpretations, and hone their interpretive and rhetorical skills in writing reviews and essays. Additional time required for viewing performances.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Pierre Hecker, Peter Balaam -
ENGL 160: Creative Writing
You will work in several genres and forms, among them: traditional and experimental poetry, prose fiction, and creative nonfiction. In your writing you will explore the relationship between the self, the imagination, the word, and the world. In this practitioner’s guide to the creative writing process, we will examine writings from past and current authors, and your writings will be critiqued in a workshop setting and revised throughout the term.
6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Gregory Hewett, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Christopher Martin -
ENGL 187: Murder
From the ancient Greeks to the Bible to the modern serial killer novel, murder has always been a preeminent topic of intellectual and artistic investigation. Covering a range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, drama, and film, this transhistorical survey will explore why homicide has been the subject of such fierce attention from so many great minds. Works may include: the Bible, Shakespeare, De Quincey, Poe, Thompson, Capote, Tey, McGinniss, Auster, French, Malcolm, Wilder, and Morris, as well as critical, legal, and other materials. Warning: not for the faint-hearted. (May not be retaken as ENGL 395.)
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Pierre Hecker -
ENGL 207: Princes. Poets. Power
Can you serve power without sacrificing your principles or risking your life? We examine the classic explorations of the problem–Machiavelli’s Prince, Castiglione’s Courtier, and More’s Utopia–and investigate the place of poets and poetry at court of Henry VIII, tracing the birth of the English sonnet, and the role of poetry in the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn.
3 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 208: The Faerie Queene
Spenser’s romance epic: an Arthurian quest-cycle, celebrating the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, and England’s imperial destiny. Readers encounter knights, ladies, and lady-knights; enchanted groves and magic castles; dragons and sorcerers; and are put through a series of moral tests and hermeneutic challenges.
3 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 220: Arts of Oral Presentation
Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 credits; S/CR/NC; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement; offered Winter 2021, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 220: Arts of Oral Presentation
Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 credits; S/CR/NC; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement; offered Winter 2021, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor, Michael Kowalewski -
ENGL 221: “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale
From its famous opening line to its apocalyptic close, Melville’s lofty and profane romance of the whaling-industry is gripped by the myths and marked by the traumas of race. Exploring its black-and-white thematics and racialized characters in nineteenth- as well as twenty-first-century social and political contexts, this course takes Melville’s stupendous book as an anatomy of “whiteness” as a racial construct in U.S. cultural history.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam -
ENGL 222: The Art of Jane Austen
All of Jane Austen’s fiction will be read; the works she did not complete or choose to publish during her lifetime will be studied in an attempt to understand the art of her mature comic masterpieces, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Constance Walker -
ENGL 223: American Transcendentalism
Attempts to discern the nineteenth-century Zeitgeist come down, Emerson says, to a “practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?” This interdisciplinary course will investigate the works of the American Transcendentalist movement in its restless discontent with the conventional, its eclectic search for better ways of thinking and living. We will engage major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman alongside documents of the scientific, religious, and political changes that shaped their era and provoked their responses.
6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam -
ENGL 234: Literature of the American South
Masterpieces of the “Southern Renaissance” of the early and mid-twentieth century, in the context of American regionalism and particularly the culture of the South, the legacy of slavery and race relations, social and gender roles, and the modernist movement in literature. Authors will include Allen Tate, Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, William Percy, and others. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Spring 2021 · Elizabeth McKinsey -
ENGL 238: African Literature in English
This is a course on texts drawn from English-speaking Africa since the 1950’s. Authors to be read include Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Benjamin Kwakye, and Wole Soyinka. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, International Studies; offered Spring 2021 · Kofi Owusu -
ENGL 245: Bollywood Nation
This course will serve as an introduction to Bollywood or popular Hindi cinema from India. We will trace the history of this cinema and analyze its formal components. We will watch and discuss some of the most celebrated and popular films of the last 60 years with particular emphasis on urban thrillers and social dramas. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Spring 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 251: Contemporary Indian Fiction
Contemporary Indian writers, based either in India or abroad, have become significant figures in the global literary landscape. This can be traced to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children in 1981. We will begin with that novel and read some of the other notable works of fiction of the following decades. The class will provide both a thorough grounding in the contemporary Indian literary scene as well as an introduction to some concepts in post-colonial studies. 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Spring 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 265: News Stories
This journalism course explores the process of moving from event to news story. Students will study and write different forms of journalism (including news, reviews, features, interviews, investigative pieces, and images), critique one another’s writing, and revise their pieces for a final portfolio of professional work.
6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Susan Jaret McKinstry -
ENGL 266: Research Writing
This writing-rich course will address techniques for designing an extended research project and using that research to write in a variety of genres. Students will begin the term by designing an overall research topic in an area of their interests (not necessarily limited to literary studies or the humanities). Over the course of the term, students will research this topic independently while the class examines how different audiences and purposes determine the ways that writers use evidence, organize information, and convey their ideas. Writing assignments throughout the term will draw on students’ research and may include project proposals, literature reviews, blog posts, op-ed pieces, and posters.
6 credits; Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021 · George Cusack -
ENGL 285: Textual Technologies from Parchment to Pixel
As readers, we rarely consider the technologies, practices, and transactions that deliver us our texts. This course introduces students to the material study of writing, manuscripts, books, printing, and digital media. It attends to the processes of copying, revision, editing, and circulation; familiarizes students with the disciplines of descriptive bibliography, paleography, and textual criticism; and introduces the principles of editing, in both print and electronic media. It offers hands-on practice in most of these areas.
6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · George Shuffelton, Austin Mason -
ENGL 295: Critical Methods
Required of students majoring in English, this course explores practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism. Not open to first year students. Prerequisites: One English Foundations course and one prior 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Peter Balaam, Susan Jaret McKinstry -
ENGL 329: The City in American Literature
How do American authors “write the city”? The city as both material reality and metaphor has fueled the imagination of diverse novelists, poets, and playwrights, through tales of fallen women and con men, immigrant dreams, and visions of apocalypse. After studying the realistic tradition of urban fiction at the turn of the twentieth century, we will turn to modern and contemporary re-imaginings of the city, with a focus on Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Selected films, photographs, and historical sources will supplement our investigations of how writers face the challenge of representing urban worlds.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course, or instructor permission 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Nancy Cho -
ENGL 350: The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated our understandings of the locations, forms and indeed the language of the contemporary English novel. This course will examine these questions and the theoretical and interpretive frames in which these writers have often been placed, and probe their place in the global marketplace (and awards stage). We will read a number of major novelists of the postcolonial era from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and the diaspora as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism.
Prerequisites: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Fall 2020, Spring 2021 · Arnab Chakladar -
ENGL 370: Advanced Fiction Workshop
An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write three to four short stories or novel chapters which will be read and critiqued by the class.
Prerequisites: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246 6 credits; S/CR/NC; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Gregory Smith -
ENGL 371: Advanced Poetry Workshop
For students with some experience in writing poetry, this workshop further develops craft and vision. Readings and exercises will be used to expand the poet’s individual range, and to explore the power of poetic language. Over the ten weeks, each poet will write and revise a significant portfolio.
Prerequisites: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246 6 credits; Arts Practice, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Gregory Hewett -
ENGL 395: Seductive Fictions
Stories of virtue in distress and innocence ruined preoccupied English novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This course will focus on the English seduction novel, considering the following questions: What was the allure of the seduction plot? What does it reveal about sexual relations, gender, power, and class during this period? How does the seduction plot address and provoke concerns about novel-reading itself during a time when the genre was considered both an instrument of education and an agent of moral corruption? Authors include: Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Susanna Rowson, and Bram Stoker.
Prerequisites: English 295 and one 300 level English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Jessica Leiman -
ENGL 395: T. S. Eliot and the Metaphysical Poet
We will examine the impact of Donne and his followers on T. S. Eliot and the founding documents of modernism (especially The Waste Land); assess Eliot’s role in canonizing the metaphysical poets; and try to account for the literary and philosophical qualities which led Eliot to champion their work. Prerequisites: English 295 and one 300 level English course 6 credits; Literary/Artistic Analysis, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2021 · Timothy Raylor -
ENGL 400: Integrative Exercise
Senior English majors may fulfill the integrative exercise by completing one of the four options: the Colloquium Option (a group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works); the Research Essay Option (an extended essay on a topic of the student’s own devising); the Creative Option (creation of a work of literary art); or the Project Option (creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project). The Research Essay Option is open to students who have completed a senior seminar in the major by the end of fall term senior year. The Creative Option is open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of fall term senior year. 6 credits; S/NC; offered Winter 2021, Spring 2021