Tentative Course Descriptions (subject to additions, deletions and revisions at a later date.)
* Check Registrar’s listing for course times
For courses listed as “300/400,” undergraduates should list only the “300” number on their registration forms; graduate students should list only the “400” number.
ENGL 146
Tools, Not Rules
English Grammar for Writers
MW 3:20 to 4:35 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
MW 12:45 to 2:00 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 180
Writing Tutorial (1 credit)
TBA 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
You Must Change Your Life: The Literature of Transformation
MWF 10:35 to 11:25 Hunter
We often describe a book as “life-changing,” but what is it about literature that calls us to change our lives? How is literature about living life at all, much less changing it? What makes us receptive to the truth and beauty that literature contains–and to the power literature has to move us? This course will introduce you to ways of reading literature by exploring various scenes of transformation (social, political, personal, ethical, ecological, temporal, historical) in multiple genres of literature (poetry, drama, the short story, the novel).
ENGL 203-100
Introduction to Creative Writing
TTh 11:30 to 12:45 Schaer
This introductory course features close readings of contemporary fiction and poetry and discussions of writing from a writer’s perspective, focusing on elements of craft including imagery, voice, characters, story, and structure. In weekly writing exercises, students will have the opportunity to apply techniques learned from assigned readings. Later in the term there will be workshops of student work.
ENGL 203-101
Introduction to Creative Writing
TTh 2:30 to 3:45 Schaer
This introductory course features close readings of contemporary fiction and poetry and discussions of writing from a writer’s perspective, focusing on elements of craft including imagery, voice, characters, story, and structure. In weekly writing exercises, students will have the opportunity to apply techniques learned from assigned readings. Later in the term there will be workshops of student work.
ENGL 214
Introduction to Poetry Writing
TTh 10:00 to 11:15 Schaer
This introductory course features close readings of contemporary poetry and discussions of writing from a writer’s perspective, focusing on elements of craft including imagery, voice, music, story, and form. In weekly writing exercises, students will have the opportunity to apply techniques learned from assigned readings. Later in the term there will be workshops of student work.
ENGL 217A
Business and Professional Writing
MW 3:20 to 4:35 Lyons-McFarland
An introduction to professional communication practices and theory. Focuses on communicating efficiently, understanding audience and purpose, and customizing approaches in a variety of workplace styles. Includes preparing for writing at work, design strategies for documents, and ethical communication. Prereq: ENGL 150 or passing letter grade in a 100 level first year seminar in FSCC, FSNA, FSSO, FSSY, FSTS, or FSCS.
ENGL 217B
Writing for the Health Professions
MW 12:45 to 2:00 p.m. Verdi
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 257A
The Novel
MW 12:45 to 2:00 p.m. Nuttall
This class is intended to introduce you to the novel as a literary form. We shall look at a number of novels written in English ranging from the late eighteenth century to the twentieth. Throughout the class we shall discuss and address key questions regarding the novel: What has been the cultural significance of the novel over time and what is its continuing relevance? What are some of the varying stylistic features of the novel and how have they changed over time? In what ways do novels participate in and inform intellectual and aesthetic culture? In this class you shall learn the basics of literary analysis and research as well as become acquainted with literary terms and techniques. Throughout the class particular attention shall be paid to evolving stylistic innovations in the novel and how these impact the novel’s ability to represent the world.
In particular, we shall be looking at the innovation of techniques such as literary realism, free indirect style, and stream of consciousness techniques. What we read shall range from regency era England, to mid-Victorian realist fiction, to early twentieth century modernist authors. Work will consist of one short paper of around 2000 words and a final 3000 word research paper.
ENGL 257B
Poetry
TTh 11:30 to 12:45 Ericson
This course is designed to give students a foundational knowledge of poetry in English. Is poetry an attempt to create beauty? To create social change? Is a poem a place for people to explore their anxieties about religion? Is it a place to look at complex, intellectualized ideas? Or is it a place to simply be entertained? This section of 257B is unique: it offers students a chance to follow carefully curated individual “tracks” through the history of poetry based on these five possible functions of a poem. In their surveys, students will focus on the ways in which poetry communicates knowledge, identifying and explaining that knowledge through attention to line, rhythm, sound, voice, figurative language, and imagery. The final portion of this course will give students an opportunity to look closely at a chosen era in the history of poetry before choosing a final paper topic. The two ways in which students will approach selections of poetry in the semester give them access to an enormous variety of poets and thinkers, turning the great weakness of survey courses—their need to quickly cover a lot of material—into a strength.
ENGL 286
Literature, Gender, and Sexuality
MW 5:30 to 6:45 Jewell
This course focuses on how writers engage with the complex, ever-evolving subjects of gender and sexuality in their works. We will read works by novelists, short story writers, playwrights, and poets, focusing on gender’s multiple intersections with sexual identity, race, social class, and abilities. Throughout the course, we will keep in mind the following questions: What techniques do writers use to engage with the issues of gender identity and sexuality in their works? How do writers protest against — or participate in — the reproduction of gender ideologies? How might literary works provide unique spaces of resistance for reimagining gender roles and identities? How is literary authorship itself gendered and how might authors employ innovative strategies to write beyond binary roles? Students will complete weekly or bi-weekly critical responses, write a midterm essay, and complete multimedia final projects.
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.
ENGL 302
English Literature since 1800
MWF 9:00 to 9:50 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. We will also think about other ways to tell the story of “British literature” since 1800.
Requirements include short quizzes, several short papers, a presentation, and maintenance of a commonplace book. No exams.
ENGL 303/303C
Intermediate Fiction Writing
M 3:20 to 5:50 Umrigar
This class aims to build on the knowledge and skills you have acquired in your introductory fiction writing classes. We will review the elements of a successful short story, including character development, plot development, voice, point of view etc. You will read and critique contemporary short stories and write your own. Your stories will be workshopped by the entire class. This involves intensive reading. You will submit weekly writing exercises, along with two full-length short stories. Pre-requisite: ENGL 203 or ENGL 213.
*Students taking ENGL 303C will have additional responsibilities, including but not limited to, writing a 8-10 page critical introduction to your stories, where you will “situate” or “contextualize” your capstone project into a specific subgenre or historic period and discuss what strategies you employed in your work. You can engage in a conversation with authors or texts that you have used as models for your own work. Pre-requisite: ENGL 380 and Permission of instructor.
ENGL 304/304C
Intermediate Poetry Writing
TTh 2:30 to 3:45 Turner
This poetry workshop invites students to continue their existing poetic practice in a supportive environment. We’ll discuss student poems, make time for generative writing, and work through several collections of contemporary poetry from a diverse range of authors; students will also be asked to select a book of contemporary poetry to engage with during the quarter. Requirements include active workshop participation and community-mindedness, engaged reading, a final portfolio, and a sense of openness and sensitivity to the world at hand.
ENGL 307/307C
Feature/Magazine Writing
TTh 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. Polverine
Continues developing the concepts and practices of the introductory course, with emphasis on feature writing for magazines (print and online), story structure, fact-checking, reporting techniques and freelancing. A student may not receive credit for both ENGL 307 and ENGL 307C. Offered as ENGL 307and ENGL 307C. Prereq: ENGL 204 or instructor approval.
ENGL 320
Renaissance Literature
Gender and Sexuality
MW 3:20 to 4:35 Vinter
How did people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries understand what it meant to be a man, a woman, or someone outside of these categories? What connections did they draw between their sexual desires or activities and their identities? And what can their writings about sex, love, marriage and gender roles teach us about the concepts of gender and sexuality that we use today?
To explore these questions, this course will examine sixteenth and seventeenth century poetry, prose, and plays by authors including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Margaret Cavendish, alongside selections from modern works of queer theory and gender studies. Along the way, we’ll encounter pictures of rigid patriarchy; strict gender norms; and instances of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. But we’ll also see positive representations of same-sex relationships, nonbinary gender presentations, and feminist utopias. While the bulk of the course reading will be pre-1800 literature, students will have opportunities to do comparative assignments, placing the earlier texts we are studying in relation to contemporary literature and film.
Requirements include regular participation in the classroom and on Canvas, two 5-7 page papers and a 10-12 page final project. Fulfils the pre-1800 distribution requirement for the English major.
ENGL 332
Introduction to the Modernist Novel in Britain
MWF 11:40-12:30 Koenigsberger
This course introduces students to the modernist novel in Britain by exploring some of the literary
movements from which it developed. We will begin our work by reading an inaugural “New Woman” novel,
then move to a novel that looks back upon the fin-de-siécle aestheticism and decadence, before tackling a classic novel of social realism. In the second unit of the course, we will examine a series of modernist manifestos and a famous novel by one of the “Men of 1914.” (We may also undertake an abridged “marathon reading” of James Joyce’s Ulysses late in the semester.) In the last section of the course we will think about the implications of treating modernism as a masculine movement (as in “The Men of 1914”) as we conclude with a novel by one of the so-called “Women of 1928.” Several papers and short writing assignments; no exams.
ENGL 345/345C/445
Topics in LGBTQ Studies
MW 2:15 to 3:30 Bychowski
This course will focus on selected topics in the study of LGBTQ literature, film, theory, and culture. Individual courses may focus on such topics as queer theory, LGBTQ literature, queer cinema, gay and lesbian poetry, LGBTQ graphic novels, the AIDS memoir, AIDS/Gay Drama, and queer rhetoric and protest. Maximum 6 credits. Offered as ENGL 345, ENGL 445 and WGST 345. Counts for CAS Global & Cultural Diversity Requirement. Prereq: ENGL 150 or passing letter grade in a 100 level first year seminar in FSCC, FSNA, FSSO, FSSY, FSTS, or FSCS.
ENGL 365E/365EC
The Immigrant Experience
TTh 1:00 to 2:15 Marling
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 or two films and read a selection (not all) of the following novels:
My Antonia – Cather. Pocho – 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 – Mukherjee. Woman Warrior — Hong Kingston. Joy Luck Club – Tan. The Bread-Givers — Yezierska. Paper Fish — De Rosa. Breath, Eyes, Memory — Danticat.
ENGL 365N/365NC/465N
Topics in African-American Literature
T 2:30 to 5:00 Umrigar
In this class we will grapple with questions about race and racism that bedevil America even today. Using seminal works by African-American writers such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates, we will examine the historical impact of slavery and segregation, as well as contemporary issues such as reparations, cultural appropriation, and Black Lives Matter movement and the ensuing backlash.
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 ask how filmmakers work with this element to produce effects. Most weeks, students will watch a film on their own that the class will discuss in light of the week’s focus. Films will include masterworks of the silent era, foreign films, Hollywood studio-era classics, and more recent cinema.
Undergrads (ENGL 367) take a scheduled quiz, possible occasional unscheduled ones, and a midterm and final exam, and they write two essays (5-6 and 8-10 pages). Grad students (ENGL 467) satisfy the same requirements, but their final essay is an extended research project, in connection with which they submit a partial draft and other related assignments.
Engl 367 has no prerequisites and welcomes first-year students.
ENGL 368
Topics in Film
Detectives in Film and Fiction
TTh 10:00 to 11:15 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, Sjöwall/Wahlöö, Walter Mosely, Vera Caspary, 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 380
Department Seminar
Forms of Life
MW 12:45 to 2:00 Clune
This departmental seminar examines the literary effort to imagine alternatives, transformations, and escapes from human life. We will explore the invention of literary forms as a means of preserving life, proceeding from the traditional concern with the immortality of the literary object, to the more radical prospect of an artwork able to protect experience from the ravages of time. Through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry we will test the possibility of articulating a value outside of and superior to life in a secular literary culture. Writers studied include W.B. Yeats, Hannah Arendt, Willa Cather, Phillip K. Dick. Written work will consist of short weekly response papers, one paper of 3-4 pages, and a final paper of 10-12 pages.
ENGL 386/486
Studies in Literature and Culture
Poison is the Wind
Race, the Environment, and Literature
TTh 4:00 to 5:15 Turner
“Poison is the wind,” sings Marvin Gaye in his 1971 single “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Both studies in environmental racism and the lived experiences of people worldwide point to the fact that communities of color often and increasingly bear the brunt of environmental degradation, pollution, and climate change. In this course, we ask how literature fits into the complexities of this picture, reading poetry, fiction, and essays from authors including Natalie Diaz, Toni Morrison, Natasha Trethewey, and Jesmyn Ward. Requirements include active participation, engaged reading, a class presentation, a final project, and a sense of openness and sensitivity to the world at hand.
ENGL 398
Professional Communication for Engineers
TBD Staff
ENGL 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.
ENGL 518
English Literature 1660-1800
Theater and Antitheater
M 5:30 to 8:00 Vinter
“If you will learn to play the whore-master, the glutton, Drunkard, or incestuous person: if you will learn to become proud, haughty, and arrogant; and, finally if you will learn to condemn God and all his laws, to care neither for heaven nor hell, and to commit all kinds of sin and mischief, you need to go to no other school, for all these good Examples may you see painted before your eyes in interludes and plays.” Stephen Gosson, The Anatomy of Abuses (1583)
Since the time of Plato, critics and philosophers have been both attracted and repulsed by the theater. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, antitheatrical polemicists attacked dramatic illusion as a form of deception, or worried that plays would undermine social order. Drama’s defenders responded by praising the art form’s capacity to (in Hamlet’s words) “hold a mirror up to nature” and illuminate or even reform reality. These arguments had a significant impact on the development of the theater as an institution, on canonical and non-canonical play texts, and on understandings of imitation and performance that hold continued relevance, onstage and off.
In this course, we’ll explore traditions of theatricality and antitheatricality by reading play texts alongside defenses and attacks on drama, as well as selections by philosophers and performance theorists such as Plato, Aristotle, Peggy Phelan, and Rebecca Schneider. Although the bulk of the course will focus on early modern drama by writers including Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Aphra Behn, we’ll also look back to the roots of the early modern English tradition in Greek and Roman drama, and forward to contemporary performance arts including film, Civil War re-enactments, and video games.
Requirements include regular participation, short writing assignments, a class presentation, and a 20-25 page term paper.