January Classes 2021
ENGL 203
Introduction to Creative Writing
MTWThF 7:00 to 9:20 p.m. Dawkins
This class is an intensive introduction to the fundamental skills necessary for writing poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and even drama / screenwriting. It is also an opportunity to develop the habits that will support a life-long, daily practice in creative writing. Over the semester, you will write and revise three poems and two brief nonfiction and/or flash fiction pieces. This work will be supported by regular craft exercises, including practice writing short prose sketches and lines of (gasp!) iambic pentameter. Good writing (of any kind) always starts with good reading, so we will also be reading poems, essays, and short fiction throughout the semester, looking for techniques to “steal” whenever possible. And, since the best of poetry and writing is that which sticks in our memory, stays in our body, and lives with us until the moment when we most need it, we will each memorize and recite one poem.
ENGL 310/410
History of the English Language
MTWThF 7:00 to 9:20 p.m. Emmons
“If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.” – Doug Larson
This course will explore the linguistic, cultural, and political forces that have made the English language what it is today (and that will continue to shape it in the centuries to come). While we often take for granted “standard” pronunciations (e.g., ask not *aks), humble nouns and pronouns (e.g., hound, girl, she, you), and contemporary “rules” of English grammar (e.g., never split an infinitive, hopefully cannot modify a sentence), these features have complicated and important stories to tell us about the development of the English language. This course will investigate these (and other) stories as it traces the general sound, word, and grammatical changes the language has undergone in its transitions from Old to Middle to Early Modern to Modern English.
The course goals are:
- To understand language as systematic and constantly changing at every level: from sounds (phonology) to the structure of words (morphology), from sentence patterns (syntax) to meanings (semantics);
- To observe and appreciate the social, cultural, and political influences on language development (and on speakers);
- To examine dialects as systematic, though often socially unequal, forms of language;
- To enjoy the English language – past, present, and future!
ENGL 368/468
Topics in Film
Watching Movies
MTWThF 1:00 t0 3:20 p.m. Spadoni
What happens when we watch a film? This course examines different ways this process has been understood—from theories of spectatorship that ask how films “position” an idealized viewer; to historical studies that examine how particular films have been received by specific audiences; to films that seem self-consciously to be commenting on the act of film viewing. We’ll examine these approaches while we screen and discuss films in conjunction with class readings.
The undergraduate section of this course has no prerequisites, including Introduction to Film, and welcomes first year students. Grad students are advised to contact the instructor before registering.
Spring Semester 2021
ENGL 146
Tools, Not Rules: English Grammar for Writers
TBD Demeter
This course provides an introduction to English grammar for academic writers. It focuses on the study of language in use, including parts of speech, sentence grammar, paragraph structure, and text cohesion. Students will learn to see grammar as a tool that can be used to produce a wide range of rhetorical effects in their own and others’ writing. In addition, students will learn how to search a corpus (a large collection of authentic language) to increase their skills in observing the grammar of English in context. This course is specifically designed for multilingual students, but native speakers of English may take the course with approval from the instructor.
ENGL 147
Writing across Disciplines
TTh 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. Demeter
In this course, students will develop their genre knowledge and metacognitive skills to prepare for the advanced writing, reading, and research tasks required in upper-level writing and disciplinary courses across the university. Through individual and group inquiry, students will analyze and discuss the conventions of academic genres to understand the textual and linguistic features and disciplinary expectations of each form of writing. Then, students will apply these generic conventions through the production and revision of writing within each genre. Throughout the semester, students will engage in workshops and discussions that foster skills in the areas of seminar participation, collaboration, rhetorical awareness, and critical thinking. This course is specifically designed for non-native speakers of English, but native speakers may take the course with the approval of the instructor.
ENGL 150-800
Expository Writing
MWF 9:30—10:20 Staff
English 150 is a three-credit course designed to help students build on basic academic writing skills by further developing the sophistication of their claims, the strategies of argumentation, and the practices of research and source integration. Students will develop strategies for developing compelling and sophisticated claims, reading texts critically, and effectively communicating their views in writing. Students will learn techniques for research, source evaluation, and the development of sophisticated claims through the process of a drafting and revising a substantial researched essay. Topics, readings, and writing assignments vary across individual course sections.
ENGL 150-801
Expository Writing
MWF 9:30—10:20 Staff
English 150 is a three-credit course designed to help students build on basic academic writing skills by further developing the sophistication of their claims, the strategies of argumentation, and the practices of research and source integration. Students will develop strategies for developing compelling and sophisticated claims, reading texts critically, and effectively communicating their views in writing. Students will learn techniques for research, source evaluation, and the development of sophisticated claims through the process of a drafting and revising a substantial researched essay. Topics, readings, and writing assignments vary across individual course sections.
ENGL 180
Writing Tutorial (1 credit)
TBD Schaffer
English 180 is a one-credit writing tutorial class designed to develop students’ expository writing skills through weekly scheduled conferences with a Writing Resource Center Instructor. Goals are to produce clear, well-organized, and mechanically acceptable prose, and to demonstrate learned writing skills throughout the term. Course content is highly individualized based on both the instructor’s initial assessment of the student’s writing and the student’s particular concerns. All students must produce a minimum of 12 pages of finished writing for each credit for which they are enrolled, and complete other assignments as designed by the instructor to assist in meeting course goals.
ENGL 200
Literature in English
MW 4:50 to 6:05 Ring
This course introduces students to the reading of literature in the English language. Through close attention to the practice of reading, students are invited to consider some of the characteristic forms and functions imaginative literature has taken, together with some of the changes that have taken place in what and how readers read.
How does literature enable us to see in new ways? To hear in new ways? To think in new ways? We will consider the ways in which literature can open up new modes of perception and thought in us, particularly through use of literary devices. The word “device” can be traced to the Old French devis, meaning “something invented or fitted to a particular use or purpose” and more generally “intent, desire, plan, or design” (etymonline). A literary device refers to how a form of words is intended to produce a particular effect in the context of a literary work (OED). Literary devices will serve as our entry point for ultimately understanding and appreciating four major literary genres—short fiction, poetry, the novel, and drama. Some devices we will examine include theme, tone, symbolism, imagery, diction, point of view, and structure. As you learn how to identify and talk about these features, you will also learn how to formulate critical interpretations of how a literary work catalyzes new modes of perception and thought. No previous experience in literary study is necessary for this course.
ENGL 203-800
Introduction to Creative Writing
MW 12:45 to 2:00 Staff
A course exploring basic issues and techniques of writing narrative prose and verse through exercises, analysis, and experiment. For students who wish to try their abilities across a spectrum of genres.
ENGL 217B
Writing for the Health Professions
TTh 11:30-12:45 Staff
This course offers practice and training in the professional and technical writing skills common to health professions (e.g., medicine, nursing, dentistry). Attention will be paid to the writing processes of drafting, revising, and editing. Typical assignments include: letters, resumes, personal essays, professional communication genres (e.g., email, reports, patient charts, and histories), and scholarly genres (e.g., abstracts, articles, and reviews). Prereq: ENGL 150 or passing letter grade in a 100 level first year seminar in FSCC, FSNA, FSSO, FSSY, FSTS, or FSCS.
ENGL 301/401
Linguistic Analysis
TTh 10:00 to 11:15 Schaffer
This course offers introductory analysis of modern English from various theoretical perspectives (e.g., structural, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and cognitive linguistic). In particular, the course provides an introduction to theoretical concepts and methods of linguistics, such as morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and dialects, as well as writing systems and the nature and form of grammar. It is designed for any student with interest in language or its use; no prior linguistic background is assumed. This course provides humanities and social science students with training in the description and explanation of important technical aspects of language. This course also provides students of communication disorders with a basic foundation in language science, crucial information to understanding language acquisition. Graduate students who are interested in language studies can enroll in ENGL 401 for an opportunity to explore language and linguistic theory beyond the requirements of ENGL 301 with additional readings and a longer seminar paper or project.
English 302
English Literature Since 1800
MWF 9:30 to 10:20 Koenigsberger
This course follows the development of British Literature from 1800 to the present, paying particular attention to choices and contexts for the representation of literary production during these centuries. We will read selections of poetry and prose from this period and explore conversations that have developed around these pieces and their contexts. We will also think about other ways to tell the story of “British literature” since 1800. Class sessions will alternate among small-group meetings, synchronous plenary meetings, and asynchronous forms of engagement. Students wishing to meet in-person in small groups should select the “Blended” section; those seeking remote group meetings should select the “Remote Synchronous” section.
ENGL 304/304C
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
TTh 2:30 to 3:45 Lucas
The official purpose of this course is to develop your understanding of poetry through rigorous reading, writing, and critique. The unofficial—but much more important—purpose of this course is to develop your understanding of yourself and of the world through the rigorous study and writing of poetry. More specifically, this course continues the work of English 214 in the practices of close reading, the drafting of poems, and the writing workshop. We will refine our craft in the poems we write and workshop each week, through our readings in poetry and critical prose, and through two critical essays of our own.
ENGL 323/423
Milton
TTh 10:00 to 11:15 Vinter
John Milton (1608-1674) was one of the most fascinating and influential writers of the seventeenth century. Although today he is a mainstay of the traditional literary canon, in his time he was seen as a rebel and an iconoclast. He rejected established institutions like monarchy and held distinctively unorthodox opinions about marriage, politics and religion. And to communicate his ideas, he pushed literary language in new unexpected directions that continue to inspire readers and writers today. This course will survey his writings and also consider his literary afterlife. We’ll read a cross-section of his poetry (including all of his epic Paradise Lost) and a selection of his prose. Additionally, we’ll explore the impact he had on later poets and science fiction writers from Phillis Wheatley and Mary Shelley to Philip Pullman.
Requirements for 323 include active participation, two 1500-2000 word papers and a 2500-3500 word final projects. This class fulfills the pre-1800 distribution requirement for the English major.
Requirements for 423 include active participation, leading one class section. short writing assignments, and a 20-25 page research paper.
ENGL 325/325C
Shakespeare
Comedies/Romances
TTh 11:30 to 12:45 Vinter
In this course we’ll read a selection of Shakespeare’s comedies and romances. These texts span the entirety of Shakespeare’s career, and in part we’ll be using them to understand the development of his drama and his shifting place within the renaissance theater and wider social sphere. What made Shakespeare so successful in his own time? What differences emerge as we move from early comedies such as The Taming of the Shrew to middle period problem plays such as Measure for Measure and late romances such as The Winter’s Tale? How do the plays respond to changing artistic fashions and performance conventions, as well as to different social, political and economic conditions? In particular, how is Shakespeare reflecting, commenting on or contesting common renaissance understandings of drama and language, gender roles and sexual identities, ethnic and religious differences, and trade and financial speculation? But we’ll also be thinking about what it means to be reading and watching Shakespeare today, in part by looking at more recent reception and adaptations of some of his plays. What explains the continued attraction of Shakespeare? What is gained and what is lost when we treat him as our contemporary?
Requirements for 325 include active participation, two 5-7 page papers and a final project. This class fulfills the pre-1800 distribution requirement for the English major.
Students registering for ENGL 325C—the Capstone version of this class—will be required to develop and complete a Capstone research project in the wider field of study covered by the course. This Capstone project will have an approximate length of 25pp. and will also include a public presentation of the project. This Capstone research project will fulfill the formal writing requirements for 325. All other reading, class participation, and final exam requirements will be identical for 325 and 325C. Completion of the major’s pre-1800 requirement is a prerequisite for 325.
ENGL 330/330C
Victorian Literature/19th-Century British Literature Capstone
MW 12:45 to 2:00 Vrettos
This course will examine a wide array of British literature written during the nineteenth century. In particular, we will focus on how Victorian writers represented the workings of the human mind and traced the development of subjectivity in a number of different genres. Our readings will include novels such as Jane Austen’s Persuasion; Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native, Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We will also make brief forays into Victorian poetry, including work by Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and Christina Rossetti, and non-fiction prose by Walter Pater, Herbert Spencer, William James, and Charles Darwin. Requirements for the course include attendance and active participation in class discussions (which will likely take place remotely in the Spring 2021 semester), substantive discussions in weekly Canvas posts on the readings, the equivalent of three 5-6 pp. papers, and a take-home final exam. Students taking this course for their SAGES Capstone will be required to write an approximately 25 pp. research paper in place of the shorter papers, attend some separate meetings to discuss their progress on the Capstone project, present their research in a public forum, participate in class discussions and weekly Canvas posts on the readings, and complete the take-home exam. This course is intended as an introduction to nineteenth-century literature and is appropriate for both majors and non-majors. Prerequisite: either ENGL 150 or a SAGES First Seminar. Additional prerequisites for the Capstone (ENGL 330C): ENGL 380 and a declared major in English.
ENGL 360/460
Studies in American Literature
Disruption in the Family, the Nation, the Soul: the Plays of Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and Suzan-Lori Parks
TTh 4:00 to 5:15 Orlock
The seminar will explore selected works of contemporary American dramatists Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005), August Wilson (1945 – 2005), and Suzan-Lori Parks (1963 – ). Although each dramatist comes from a different generation than the others, their plays pull into focus the complex impact of income inequality and race upon individuals, families, and views of the American Dream.
In addition, we’ll discuss methods – both intellectual and emotional – for exploring how the worlds and words of these three Pulitzer Prize –winning playwrights help us consider – and guide us to apply – a personal sense of order and value to the social, political, and economic conflicts that surround us.
Excerpts from video productions of the plays will supplement seminar texts and discussion.
ENGL 365E/465E
Immigrant Experience
TTh 10:00 to 11:15 Marling
Give me your tired, your poor// your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” wrote Emma Lazarus in 1883. The idea of the U.S. as a golden land of opportunity is both old and enduringly renewed. The conflict between the idea and the reality, whether in the barrio of the Southwest or the slums of New York, has provided some of the best American fiction of the last century. Together we will explore the common themes and contrasting legacies of this experience.
No special background is needed to take this course, which meets the Diversity Requirement. It is suitable for foreign students with reasonable preparation in writing papers in English, for undergraduate and graduate students in English, for engineering students and interested auditors.
Requirements include faithful attendance, regular participation, 1 oral report, 2 short papers, and a longer final paper. We will view one film and a selection (not all) of the following novels:
My Antonia – Willa Cather. Pocho – Jose Antonio Villarreal. Bless Me Ultima – Anaya. The House on Mango Street – Cisneros. Hunger of Memory – Rodriquez. Lost in Translation – Hoffman. Call it Sleep – Roth. Angela’s Ashes – McCourt. Jasmine – Bharati Mukherjee. Woman Warrior — Hong Kingston. Joy Luck Club –Amy Tan. The Bread-Givers — Anzia Yezierska. Paper Fish — De Rosa. Breath, Eyes, Memory — Danticat.
ENGL 367/467
Introduction to Film
TTh 2:30 to 3:45 Spadoni
An introduction to the art of film. Each week we’ll take an element of film form (editing, cinematography, sound, and so on) and examine how filmmakers work with this element to produce effects. Most weeks we’ll also screen a whole film and discuss it in light of the week’s focus. Films screened will include masterworks of the silent era, foreign films, Hollywood studio-era classics, and more recent cinema. Undergrads (ENGL 367) take a scheduled quiz, midterm, and final exam, and write two essays (5-6 and 8-10 pages). Grad students (ENGL 467) satisfy the same requirements as undergrads, except their final essay is an extended research project, in connection with which they submit a proposal, outline, partial draft, and other related assignments.
This course has no prerequisites. First year students are welcome in this class.
ENGL 368/368C/468
Topics in Film
Detectives in Film and Fiction
TTh 1:00 to 2:15 Marling
A survey of the rich tradition of international detective fiction adapted to film. After establishing a base in the literary tradition established by Edgar Allan Poe, we will read Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Chester Himes, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Sjöwall/Wahlöö, Walter Mosely, Sara Paretsky, and Jonathan Nolan). Then we will view the classic films based on their works. Some of the possibilities are:
The Fall of the House of Usher; The Sign of Four; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Murder on the Orient Express; The Maltese Falcon; Double Indemnity; The Postman Always Rings Twice; Murder, My Lovely; Chinatown; Roshomon; Murder, She Said; Cotton Comes to Harlem; and Memento.
Requirements: beyond attendance and participation, three short papers on works, genres, and techniques, and one long analysis (10 pages). Please note: you must buy physical books and bring them to class on appropriate days. Students are responsible for viewing all required films on their own.
ENGL 369
Children’s Picture Books
MWF 9:30 to 10:20 Byrne
In this course, we will explore the complexity of American children’s picture books. We will learn about the history of the genre, studying classics including Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach, Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, and Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon. We will use visual rhetoric theory in order to analyze the relationship between word and image. We will also study how children’s picture books respond to and participate in social movements, examining how the genre continues to evolve with recent books like Jacqueline Woodson and E.B. Lewis’s The Other Side, Matt de la Pena and Christian Robinson’s Last Stop on Market Street, and Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson’s The Undefeated. Ultimately, we will think critically about what these books reveal about our underlying assumptions about childhood, children, and our world. Requirements include active class participation, discussion board responses, two 5-7 page papers, and a final project. Prerequisite: FSEM (or equivalent).
ENGL 373/473
Topics in Poetry
Language Poetry
M 7:00 to 9:30 Jewell
The Language School is a group of contemporary poets influenced by experimental modernist aesthetics and postmodern theory. It has since expanded to include a diverse group of well-published poets – working within and outside of the university – who are unified by their emphasis on the political nature of language and the necessity of maintaining a highly experimental aesthetic. In this course, we will read about Language Poetry’s historical formations, its controversial presence among more established American poetry schools, and its continuing influence on twenty-first century poetry movements. We will read early L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E manifestos, multi-authored poems, experimental essays, text-sound poetry, and serial works by authors such as Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Susan Howe, Harryette Mullen, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Rae Armantout, and others who consider themselves “Language-oriented.” Our study of these poets will involve an examination of American poetry institutions, including the role of the poet-critic in academe; anthologizing practices; prize and contest systems; and small-press production.
A background in literary theory is not required, but an interest will be helpful.
ENGL 380
Department Seminar
Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates on Race in America
TTh 1:00 to 2:15 Mobley
This course is designed to offer readers of Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates an opportunity to explore the intergenerational dialogue about race in America that is inspired by their non-fiction writing. Using a metadiscursive analysis, the course will focus on how their essays, and in the case of Toni Morrison, selected works of fiction, are in dialogue with one another and with notions of race that are part of America’s conversations about its history, identity and democracy. Discussions will focus on Morrison’s last book of essays, The Source of Self-Regard, Baldwin’s evocative book, The Fire Next Time, and Coates’ landmark article, “The Case for Reparations,” among other statements about racial justice that each made in their writing, lectures, and speeches. The course will count toward credits in the interdisciplinary academic minor in African and African American Studies. Course requirements include weekly one-page response papers, one class presentation, one short paper (5-7 pages) and one long paper (10-12 pages). The long paper for graduate students will be 18-20 pages in length.
ENGL 398
Professional Communication for Engineers
TBD Staff
English 398 introduces principles and strategies for effective communication in both academic and workplace engineering settings. Through analysis of case studies and of academic and professional genres, this course develops the oral and written communication skills that characterize successful engineers. Students will prepare professional documents that focus specifically on communicating academic and technical knowledge to diverse audiences. Because such documents are always situated within professional, social, and rhetorical contexts, this course also requires students to explain and justify their communicative choices in order to become adept in navigating the rhetorical environments they will encounter as professional engineers. As a SAGES Departmental Seminar, English 398 also prepares students for the writing they will do in Capstone projects.
Note: ENGL 398 complements ENGR 398, a 1-credit co-requisite lecture course, which introduces major practical, theoretical, and ethical issues that shape the environment for communication among professional engineers. For details of the ENGR 398 objectives, work commitments, grade breakdown, and assignments, please see the separate syllabus for that course.
Additional Note: ENGL 398 is a departmental seminar, and as such, the workload and time commitment outside of class time will be demanding. Be prepared and plan ahead. Beginning assignments early, particularly near the end of the semester as things get busier, will allow you to finish on time and submit your best work. This course asks you to develop your writing skills while also honing your professional skills, including time management, organization, and punctuality. By the end of English 398, students should be able to:
- Produce written texts in a variety of professional genres – texts that communicate effectively and adhere to professional ethical standards.
- Deliver clear and professional oral presentations on a range of engineering topics.
- Reflect on and justify the rhetorical choices involved in planning, writing, revising, and presenting academic and professional engineering documents.
- Summarize the research writing of an academic engineer for a non-technical audience.
- Demonstrate the ability to work as part of a research team, coordinating workflow and collaboratively presenting outcomes.
- Synthesize the academic research and professional best practices related to an engineering project in the student’s field.
- Produce and refine an array of personal professional documents.
- Demonstrate the capacity for life-long learning through sustained reflection, revision, and research.
ENGL 406
Advanced Creative Writing
Fiction
M 2:15 to 4:45 Umrigar
This is a reading-and-writing-intensive course for graduate students who write fiction and wish to continue developing their writing skills. It follows a seminar-workshop model, with discussions of works by contemporary writers, weekly writing assignments, and longer creative pieces that will be workshopped in class. Students will be required to submit a final portfolio comprising their longer fictional stories along with a critical introduction to their work. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or Permission of instructor
ENGL 504
Creative Writing Theory and Practice
Th 2:15 to 4:45 Grimm
This course is designed to prepare MA and PhD candidates in English to teach ENGL 203 (Introduction to Creative Writing). It is a required course for any graduate student intending to do the practicum in creative writing. The course will operate as a hybrid seminar/workshop. Students will examine and discuss traditional creative writing and teaching practices while producing their own works of creative writing for exchange and critique. Recommended preparation: completion of a creative writing workshop at the undergraduate or graduate level.
ENGL 517
American Literature Seminar:
Nineteenth Century American Literature
T 4:25 to 6:55 Clune
We will explore this period through intensive analysis of key writers, including Poe, Melville, Dickinson, and Douglass. Written work will consist of several short response papers, and two longer papers.
ENGL 519
British Literature 1800-1900:
The Embodied Mind: Victorian Literature and Psychology
W 4:25 to 6:55 Vrettos
This course studies the development of “psychological realism” — the dominant genre of British fiction during the Victorian era– and its relationship to nineteenth-century (mostly pre-Freudian) psychology. The focus of the course is predominantly historical; that is, rather than applying 20th- and 21st-century psychological models to 19th-century fiction, we will study how Victorian novelists understood the mind, and how they were influenced by, and in turn helped to influence, contemporary debates in the field of psychology. Over the course of the semester we will encounter the appearance in literature of such issues and theories as: phrenology and physiognomy; mesmerism and hypnotism; monomania, moral insanity, and hysteria; crowded minds, divided minds, wandering minds, emerging theories of multiple personality, shock and trauma; theories of character development, personality, eccentricity, habit, free will, and the self; theories of sympathy, affect, and emotion; theories of memory, nostalgia, the unconscious, and paranormal experiences (such as ancestral memory, emotional memory, telepathy, déjà vu, spiritualism, psychometry, and other psychic phenomena); and, finally, theories of attention, reverie, consciousness and the unconscious (including the emergence of the term “stream of consciousness”). Although we will take brief forays into genres such as Victorian gothic and sensation fiction (which were influenced by developments in the field of abnormal psychology and research into the paranormal), most of our attention will focus on the development of psychological realism in novels by Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James. We will also read selections from Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Alexander Bain, Henry Maudsley, George Henry Lewes (George Eliot’s partner), and William James (Henry James’s brother), as well as selections from popular advice manuals such as Samuel Smiles’ Self Help and Sarah Ellis’s The Women of England, and recent works of literary criticism, history, and theory. Requirements for the course include attendance and active participation in seminar discussions (which will probably be conducted remotely in the Spring 2021 semester), weekly discussion posts on Canvas, one short paper circulated to the class, and one research paper submitted in two forms—as a 10pp. conference paper presented to the class toward the end of the semester, and as a 20pp. seminar paper due during finals week.