Spring 2027 Courses
Plan your Spring semester
Explore everything the English Department has to offer — from engaging courses to dedicated faculty ready to support your academic journey. Whether you’re planning your next semester or thinking about where English can take you, we’re here to help you chart your path through the program.
EN 103 – Writing Seminar I
Introduction to expository writing with weekly writing assignments emphasizing skills
in developing ideas, organizing material, and creating thesis statements. Assignments
provide practice in description, definition, comparison and contrast, and argumentation.
Additional focus on grammar, syntax, and usage.
Note: Students and instructor meet in seminar three hours a week; students are also
required to meet regularly with a Writing Center tutor.
EN 103 01 – Writing Seminar I
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40 – 11:00 a.m.
Instructor: Niles, Thad
EN 103 02 – Writing Seminar I
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:10 – 11:30 a.m.
Instructor: Suresh Cukkemane, Archana
EN 103 03 – Writing Seminar I
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Instructor: Niles, Thad
4 credits
EN 105 – Writing Seminar II
This course, like EN 110, fulfills the all-college Foundation Requirement in expository writing. Each section of 105 focusses on a particular theme and helps students develop effective writing skills and practices.
EN 105 01 – The Politics of Pop Culture
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Benzon, Paul
It's easy to dismiss popular culture as a "guilty pleasure," something we turn to
in order to detach from the weight and complexity of the "real world." But even a
glance at major cultural phenomena from recent years makes clear that pop culture
and our reactions to it are anything but simple. On the contrary, pop culture raises
all sorts of far-reaching questions about identity, power, and social dynamics in
the contemporary moment. What does it mean to identify as a fan of a certain musical
artist or genre of film? Can pop cultural texts provide new ways of thinking critically
about race, gender, and other forms of identity, or can they only reinforce dominant
conceptions of these categories? Who owns different forms of culture--music, dance,
slang, dress? Why do so many people love Taylor Swift? Why do so many people hate
Taylor Swift?
In this course, we will explore these and other questions raised by contemporary pop
culture as a way of developing analytical reading and writing skills. Aided by scholarly
and critical readings from fields including sociology, gender studies, critical race
studies, fan studies, and more, we'll explore the complex ways in which questions
of race, gender, sexuality, and class play out across key texts in recent film, music,
celebrity culture, and other media. Through an intensive process of drafting, workshopping,
and revising, we'll write critically and reflectively about our own complex relationships
to the images and sounds we consume every day. Our ultimate goal will be to become
stronger critical readers and writers as well as sharper, more engaged participants
in the culture around us.
4 credits
EN 105 02 – Your Monster Boyfriend
Mondays and Wednesdays, 8:40 – 10:00 a.m.
Instructor: Greeniaus, Elizabeth
You know the story: Boy meets girl. Boy turns out to be a beast, vampire, or some
other sort of dungeon-haver. Girl likes boy anyway. The tale of their romance is a
smash hit, swiftly met by backlash. Commentators protest that the so-called love story
is creepy--even abusive. Everyone lives unhappily ever after.
This writing course uses the ever-popular, ever-controversial girl/monster pairing
as an opportunity to practice the central move in academic writing: taking a new position
in an old conversation. We'll analyze classic literature and pop culture hits such
as the Twilight saga and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, asking: Why do people love some danger in their romance? How do these stories confess
hopes and fears about masculinity? What is masculinity, anyway? When does fictional
monstrosity thicken (or thin) racial borders? Why is the "I can fix him" meme funny?
Students will explore these questions and more in essay assignments that include textual
analysis, the application of a theory, and research into a relevant scandal/craze
of the student's choice. Participants can expect peer workshops and potentially challenging
themes.
4 credits
EN 105 03 – Gossip
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Instructor: Greaves Ozgur, Maggie
Gossip gets a bad reputation. Often dismissed as trivial, malicious, or invasive,
gossip can also create intimacy, challenge authority, circulate knowledge, and alert
others to danger. It can be especially powerful for people excluded from formal sources
of authority. What makes some forms of talk "gossip" while others count as testimony,
news, or information? Who gets called a gossip, and why?
In this expository writing course, we will investigate gossip across different historical
and cultural contexts. We'll consider gossip alongside rumor, scandal, secrecy, and
misinformation, as well as the ways celebrity culture and social media have transformed
how information about other people circulates. Along the way, gossip will raise some
of the fundamental questions of expository writing: What counts as evidence? Who is
a reliable source? How does a story change as it circulates? Writing assignments will
include a definition essay, a rhetorical and source analysis, a longer independent
research project on a gossip-related question, and a "remix" essay that rewrites an
earlier essay in a new genre.
4 credits
EN 105 04 – Work
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9:05 – 10 a.m.
Instructor: McAdams, Ruth
What do you want to be when you grow up? Do your parents want you to think harder about how you will Get A Job after graduation? What even is an internship? In this writing seminar, we will analyze theories and representations of work. We will read and write about debates over what work is, the idea of work-life balance in a post-COVID economy, the resurgence of organized labor, "gig" work, and the death of the full-time job. We will pay particular attention to how constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability intersect with ideas about work and workplaces. Above all, we will write and talk about writing--in essays, short assignments, and peer review sessions--and we will explore how writing can itself be a form of work and a way of understanding what work is.
4 credits
EN 105 05 – Writing Degree Zero
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 11:15 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.
Instructor: Diaby, Bakary
What makes a compelling argument? Or an elegant sentence? What, exactly, makes an essay "expository" in the first place? In this class, we will focus on the forms and techniques needed to write cogently and persuasively. By attending to the formal elements of writing instead of content, we will sharpen our focus on structure and style. Students can expect lessons on language and will read a wide variety of prose on a variety of topics. Along with in-class and take home assignments, students will write two essays and a final research paper with proposal.
4 credits
EN 105 06 – Adulting for Beginners
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Matthews, Thai-Catherine
'Coming of age' stories are everywhere: in fiction and non-fiction, in music and movies, in art and in the news. As a genre, it uniquely manages to be both intensely personal and inarguably universal, which is perhaps why 'coming of age' tales can be found in every form of narrative storytelling. Consequently, this course will explore this genre's impact across literature, film, music, and narrative non-fiction by moving across multiple mediums; exploring works that range from narrative non-fiction to film, music, and one novel of choice. Throughout this course, we will produce two academic papers, one narrative non-fiction essay, one group presentation, and one formal review/critique of a coming-of-age tale depicted in either music or film as we explore why the move from child to adult is so often marked with elements of social critique.
4 credits
EN 105 07 – Food Fights
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 8:00 – 8:55 a.m.
Instructor: Jorgensen, Caitlin
Everyone has a favorite food, and most have at least one food they won't touch. But
food is about more than taste: it references memory, community, language, and culture.
Sometimes that yields nostalgia; sometimes it produces conflict. In this class, we
will examine food writing on a number of topics: What pleasure lies in food memory?
How does food intersect with economics, language, social justice, history, and race?
Who has the right to claim--and to profit from--the food of a particular culture?
In the end, what should we eat--both for our own sake and for the sake of others?
Our writing projects will range from nonfiction narrative to research assignment and
academic argument; our readings will range from memoir to persuasive text. You will
develop your ability to analyze food writing, and you will learn how to enter into
the debate using the tools of rhetoric. These tools include various types of persuasive
appeals (like logos, ethos, and pathos) as well as strategies for invention (coming
up with something to say), arrangement (organizing your thoughts), and style (writing
clear, graceful, persuasive prose). There will be frequent formal and informal writing,
peer review, revision exercises, and small-group workshopping.
4 credits
EN 105 08 – The Art of Persuasion
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:10 – 9:30 a.m.
Instructor: O'Dell, Kaylin
We've all heard the cliche that the pen is mightier than the sword. This saying, where communication trumps combat, establishes language as a powerful force for change. Simple words--in all their mundane glory--can stoke the fires of revolution, topple regimes, and bring sweeping change to society. The ability to communicate persuasively is one of the most-valued skills in our world today. Rhetoric (or the art of persuasion) is thus located at the very center of politics, culture, memory, and literary production. In this course, we will develop and refine our personal writing styles while examining the power of language in our daily lives. Our primary questions will be: How is language revolutionary? How can we wield rhetoric successfully? And how do media and technology affect the way we engage with language and memory? We will study a range of genres from pre-modern to modern day: these include op-eds, essays, poetry, satire, advertisements, music, memes, and more.
4 credits
EN 105 09 – Fantasy and Worldmaking
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40 – 11:00 a.m.
Instructor: O'Dell, Kaylin
Reading fantasy can feel like falling down a rabbit hole--the imagination delights in the excitement, escape, and joy of discovering new worlds. This writing seminar explores the allure of fantasy and its place in our society. We will begin by reading a short selection of medieval texts to understand how early literature informed the fantasy worlds we know and love today. As we move to modern day, we will examine a range of media, including books, video games, visual arts, fanfiction, and big-budget films. Our primary questions will be: Why has fantasy captured both the literary market and the hearts of its fans? How do authors create worlds to think through binaries like good and evil? And how are issues of gender, race, and class explored through crafting fantasy and otherworlds? Writing is central to these questions as we seek to untangle the art of storytelling, or what makes good fantasy so good. Through lively discussion and multi-draft essays, we will practice critical analysis and develop our individual voices as writers and storytellers.
4 credits
EN 105 10 – Outside
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:10 – 11:30 a.m.
Instructor: Sperry, Eileen
EN 105 11 – Outside
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Sperry, Eileen
For many writers, the natural world has long served as a source not just of inspiration but of instruction. Learning to closely observe their local environment has taught many writers the value of detail, connection, and change. In this class, we will read the work of writers such as Amy Nezhukumatatil, Wendell Berry, and Robert Macfarlane to develop our own approach to nature writing. Projects may include environmental description, personal essays, and/or research and advocacy papers. Students should anticipate spending time exploring ߣƵ's local ecology in its many forms.
4 credits
EN 105 12 – Writing as Radical Empathy
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9:05 – 10 a.m.
Instructor: Dunn, Olivia
EN 105 13 – Writing as Radical Empathy
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 10:10 – 11:05 a.m.
Instructor: Dunn, Olivia
Language is far from being a closed, self-contained system, and words are deeply intertwined with our ways of engaging with the world. Language in this sense is more like an interface rather than a firewall, an array of devices that connects us to the things that matter to us," says the scholar Rita Felski. Good writing can give the reader an emotional experience, a chance to interact with another person's mind and heart. But how does it do this? How does language convey emotion? How does a writer make us see what they see, feel what they feel? In this class, we'll look at work from writers and artists who actively work to make us see things their way. We'll explore what boundaries writing can cross, and how writing can create change in the world. We'll pay special attention to how each artist crafts their work; using these same tools, you'll create powerful writing of your own. By the end of the course, after drafting and revision, you'll have a portfolio of polished writing.
4 credits
EN 105 – Writing Seminar II: Honors Sections
This course, like EN 110, fulfills the all-college Foundation Requirement in expository writing. Fulfills Honors Forum Requirement. Each section of 105H focusses on a particular theme and helps highly-motivated students develop effective writing skills and practices. Students must have an EW placement of EN105H to enroll.
EN 105H 01 – Writing on Demand
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Hall, Linda
When the essayist Joan Didion was in her twenties, she wrote editorial copy for Vogue magazine on a wide range of subjects. In her forties, she noted that it is "easy to make light of this kind of 'writing,' [but] I do not make light of it at all: it was at Vogue that I learned a kind of ease with words... a way of regarding words not as mirrors of my own inadequacy but as tools, toys, weapons to be deployed strategically on a page." Inspired by Didion's on-the-job apprenticeship, this course will ask you to undertake the work of a professional copywriter or ghostwriter. What might you be asked to compose? The introduction to the documentary "extras" for a television series. The "Our Story" blurb for the website of a local restaurant. A capsule biography for a mayoral candidate. A C.E.O.'s response to a request from Forbes: "Tell us about the biggest mistake you ever made as a leader." The instructor will furnish you with material; with her guidance, you will shape it into publishable or, as the case may be, presentable prose. Expect frequent short assignments, most of them graded.
4 credits
EN 110 – Writing ߣƵ Literature
This course, like EN 105, fulfills the all-college Foundation Requirement in expository writing. It immerses students in the process of producing finished analytical essays informed by close reading of literary texts. Special attention is given to developing ideas, writing from texts, organizing material, and revising drafts. Additional emphasis is on grammar, style, and formal conventions of writing. Students respond to one another's work in workshops or peer critique sessions.
EN 110 01 – The Literature of Discovery
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40 – 11:00 a.m.
Instructor: Wientzen, Tim
Encounters with the new or the unknown are fundamental to literature. Whether characters are mapping far-off planets, discovering unexpected aspects of their society, or simply coming to see themselves in new ways, the experience of discovery is closely tied to the DNA of most literary forms. In this course, we will examine literary works that explore how characters, poetic speakers, and readers engage in the act of discovery. Through the study the features of three distinctive literary modes--poetry, drama, and fiction--we will build a basic critical lexicon for engaging each, including how to read and interpret work within its historical and philosophical context. As a writing class, this course also stresses the elements of effective rhetoric and the development of argument based on textual evidence and close reading. Texts will include works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Samuel Beckett, Adrienne Rich, James Joyce, and Elizabeth Bishop, among others.
4 credits
EN 110 02 – Un/Natural Literature
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9:05 – 10 a.m.
Instructor: Diaby, Bakary
This course will look at the myriad ways in which "nature" is constructed, represented, and complicated through literature and literary history. What terms like "nature" and "natural" meant differs drastically from the Medieval period (where Natura was situated between the divine and human) to the present (where nature is often thought of in terms of resources or systems). Moreover, how we have figured the natural world influences how we relate (morally or otherwise) to the environment and to each other, necessitating that we look at the entanglements of nature and identity. Over the course of the semester, we will read Medieval texts, early modern drama, Romantic poetry, ecofeminist thought, and contemporary works as well. Students will write two short essays and a final research paper with proposal.
4 credits
EN 110 03 – Writing Harlem: Black Manhattan in the 1920's
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:10 – 11:30 a.m.
Instructor: Stokes, Mason
The 1920s witnessed an explosion of Black artistic expression in upper Manhattan, a period known as the Harlem Renaissance. Focusing on this remarkable literary and cultural moment, this course will introduce students to strategies for writing about literature, with a particular emphasis on close reading and the draft/revision process. We will ask how literature responds to--and shapes--its historical moment and how decisions about literary form and genre create meaning. By studying a range of texts from a single rich cultural moment, students will learn how literary scholars craft questions, build interpretations from textual evidence, and turn those interpretations into clear, persuasive writing.
4 credits
EN 111 01 – Fiction
Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:00 – 5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Parra, Jamie
Why do we care about literary characters? After all, we know that they aren't real
people navigating the same world we inhabit, and yet they seem to demand our attention
and emotional responses as if they were. What's the use of this strange game of make-believe--a
phenomenon that didn't take its modern form until the middle of the eighteenth century?
Motivated by this question and others, this course will introduce students to the
study of literary fiction. We will discuss important literary critical categories
such as plot, character, narrative, and genre and examine some of the major technical
innovations that define the history of fiction. Readings will include novels and short
stories from across the timeline of modern fiction up to the present.
3 credits
EN 111 02 – Fiction
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Instructor: Boyers, Robert
This course is an introduction to fiction in which students are confronted with stories and novels that take on issues and ideas central to the way we think and live our lives. Throughout we will ask questions about how stories are made, about strategies and intentions, failures and successes, legitimate and illegitimate ways to arrive at viable interpretations and conclusions. The readings will include a wide range of short stories by classic and contemporary authors: by Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, Ralph Ellison, Bharati Mukherjee, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Joyce Carol Oates, Chimamanda Adichie and other authors. Students will also read two recent novels of moderate length: The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud and New People by Danzy Senna. In classroom discussions we will pay close attention to all of the relevant factors--point of view, tone, plot, characterization, diction--and debate the degree to which each work we examine does full justice to the complexity of the issues generated. Two papers 1200 words apiece, scheduled mid-term exam and a final exam.
3 credits
EN 113 01 – Poetry
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40 – 11:00 a.m.
Instructor: Greaves Ozgur, Maggie
This is a course about fourteen poems. Rather than race through a broad survey, we
will linger over one poem per week to learn everything we can about how it works.
We will also read widely around each poem to reconstruct its genealogy: What earlier
poems, forms, traditions, ideas, historical events, and cultural contexts does it
carry with it? What later poems and possibilities does it make imaginable? A single
poem might lead us backward to ancient myth or inherited poetic forms, sideways into
science or visual art, and forward into contemporary poetry. Each poem will thus become
a portal into a much larger literary and intellectual history.
Through this intense study of fourteen core poems, you will build a toolkit of terminology
and methods for interpreting poetry while learning to notice how poems make meaning
through sound, form, image, syntax, allusion, and patterns of thought. Your sustained
attention to these poems and their genealogies will train you to read responsibly
and creatively. Assignments will include essays, short poetry experiments, a midterm,
and a final project with an optional creative component.
3 credits
EN 205 – English Seminar
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Black, Barbara
Introduction to the practice of literary studies as a scholarly discipline, with a particular emphasis on skills related to critical reading and research. Readings and discussions will focus on a range of literary texts and genres, as well as theoretical concerns and methodological approaches to the study of literature. Students will ask questions about what it means to synthesize and contribute to a critical conversation on a literary text. This course introduces students to the intellectual and artistic life of the English department beyond the classroom experience. It is a requirement of the English major and of the English and Creative Writing minors, and a prerequisite for courses at the 300 level.
3 credits
PREREQS: EXPOSITORY WRITING REQ (EN 105, 105H or 110) AND A 100- or 200-LEVEL LITERATURE COURSE
EN 226 01 – Stories of Freedom and Constraint: Intro to American Lit.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Parra, Jamie
This course is a survey of American literature from the early colonial period to the eve of the civil war. While becoming acquainted with both major and minor American literary texts, we will consider the following topics: the emergence of "literature" as a discipline; the history of American individualism; the mythology of American exceptionalism; the impact of settler colonial violence; ideology of domesticity; the historical construction of race, gender, and sexuality; the relationship between freedom and enslavement; the legacy of what scholars call the American Renaissance; and more.
COUNTS AS A MIDDLE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
COUNTS TOWARD THE AMERICAN STUDIES MAJOR
3 credits
EN 229 01 – Literary Networks
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Sperry, Eileen; Hogenson, Kirsten
The literary world is built through a dense network of relationships: messy, informal, and overlapping. Authors collaborated with one another, adapted one another's works, and organized their texts through complex social networks that often mirrored their own. In this course, students will dive into the literary world of early modern London, considering how these many connections shaped the texts that emerged. To do so, students will learn the basics of graph theory to help visualize and analyze the contours of these networks. Assignments will include the creation of several network models of increasing complexity and the computation of both local and global parameters to draw inferences from these networks, along with analytical writing to describe and interpret the models. The course will culminate in a final independent research project that combines network analysis with cultural and literary analysis.
This course fulfills ߣƵ's AQR requirements.
Prerequisites: AQR placement or FQR course completion.
COUNTS AS AN EARLY PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
3 credits
EN 229 02 – 20th Century British Fiction
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Instructor: Wientzen, Tim
The twentieth century marked a pivotal era in England's role in the world. At the
start of the century, England was nearing its peak as a world historical power; in
1900, its power reached across every continent, and nearly one in four human beings
on the planet was (at least technically) a British citizen. A hundred years later,
though, it was common to speak of the twentieth century as the "American century."
In the face of collapsing British power, changes to English identity arguably invigorated
and even elevated British literary culture in the global literary scene. In this course,
we track the ways that British fiction reflected changing attitudes about aesthetics,
culture, race, gender, and the nation state across the twentieth century. Through
a historically-oriented engagement with key moments, we will seek to understand how
modernist and postmodern fiction responded to the unraveling of the British imperial
project and the birth of a self-proclaimed multiculture. Texts may include works by
Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Selvon, Salman Rushdie, Muriel Spark, and Hanif
Kureishi.
COUNTS AS A LATE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
3 credits
EN 229 03 – Witches & Wives Beyond the Round Table
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Matthews, Thai-Catherine
Featuring faerie queens and fearless knights, Arthurian literature uses monsters,
magic, and mayhem to tell an important story about society and what it demands from
those willing to abide by the social contract known as 'chivalry.' This is nowhere
more apparent than in the Arthurian canon's conflicting portrayals of its paradoxical
female characters: women who are witches, wives, and--most often--somewhere in between.
Who does it serve to use female characters in this way, and why have those depictions
remained essential to contemporary revisions of these medieval tales? This course
will explore the role of women and the portrayals of female autonomy, leadership,
and sexuality throughout the legends of King Arthur, juxtaposing that medieval material
against more modern interpretations across film and social cos-play. Texts for this
course include: Chaucer's The Wife of Bath, assorted lais from Marie De France, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chretien de Troyes' The Knight of the Cart, and excerpts from The Awntyrs off Arthure, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, and Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Films for this course include The Princess Bride.
COUNTS AS AN EARLY PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
COUNTS TOWARD THE GENDER STUDIES MINOR
3 credits
EN 241 01 – Afrofuturism: Literature and Culture
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Instructor: Benzon, Paul
What can robots, spaceships, and extraterrestrial life forms tell us about the conditions
of Blackness in America? How can these and other science-fictional figures help us
to confront the realities of racism and to imagine new modes of living and being?
In a cultural moment in which we are increasingly attuned to histories of enslavement
and inequality, what is at stake in using literature, art, and culture to imagine
far-flung futures and alternate timelines?
In this course, we will explore these and other questions through the study of Afrofuturist
literature and culture. Taking cultural critic Greg Tate's provocation that "Black
existence and science fiction are one and the same" as our jumping-off point, we will
consider Afrofuturist cultural production across a range of media and genres. Paying
close attention to how speculative, science-fictional, and technological motifs allow
for new formulations of aesthetic and social possibility, we'll study how Afrofuturist
creators reimagine questions of power, identity, embodiment, community, and futurity.
Possible texts for consideration may include literature by W.E.B. DuBois, Samuel Delany,
Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, and N.K. Jemisin; music by Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic,
Drexciya, Afrika Bambaataa, Outkast, and Janelle Monae; art by Rammellzee and Wangechi
Mutu; and films including District 9 and Black Panther. As part of the Bridge Experience's Practice/Application component, students will
work together to curate an online exhibition, in which they will present key Afrofuturist
texts in a range of media and discuss them with a public audience.
COUNTS AS A LATE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
COUNTS AS THE GENERAL EDUCATION BRIDGE COURSE REQUIREMENT
COUNTS TOWARD THE BLACK STUDIES MINOR
COUNTS TOWARD THE MEDIA AND FILM STUDIES MINOR
4 credits
EN 254 01 – Prose Boot Camp
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Hall, Linda
"Can you really teach anyone how to write?" someone at The New York Times once asked Kurt Vonnegut. Writers--especially writers who teach--are accustomed to
that question, and generally have a ready reply. Vonnegut's answer was unusual: "Listen,
there were creative writing teachers long before there were creative writing courses,
and they were called and continue to be called editors." He neglected to mention a
crucial difference between teachers and editors: the latter are responsible for preparing
writing for publication. Teachers can let things go--in fact, they may have been trained
to work with students on one or two weaknesses at a time.
If you are sincerely interested in improving your writing at the level of the sentence,
Prose Boot Camp offers straight talk about problems and how to fix them. You will
undertake the work and be held to the standards of a professional ghostwriter or copywriter.
The instructor will furnish you with material; with her guidance, you will shape it
into publishable or, as the case may be, presentable prose.
4 credits
Introductory Creative Writing Workshops
All introductory workshops count as pre-requisites for upper-level workshops in the same genre and count toward the Creative Writing Minor.
EN 280 01 – Introduction to Nonfiction Writing
Wednesdays and Fridays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Dunn, Olivia
The root of the word "essay" is from the French, essayer, to attempt. As a unit of nonfiction writing, an essay can be so many different things: a straight-forward argument, a personal meditation, a sweeping lyric, a collage, a list, or even a weird little paragraph. In this class, we'll examine how authors shape their experience of reality in unexpected ways and what techniques they use to create meaning. From there, you'll test out those strategies on your own ideas. We'll take the spirit of experimentation into all stages of the writing process: from gathering data and drafting to revision, discussion, and critique. No previous experience necessary, just a willingness to try new things!
4 credits
Prerequisite: EN 111, 113, 119, 211, 213, or 219
Fulfills Artistic Inquiry requirement
EN 281 01 – Introduction to Fiction Writing
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Instructor: M. Mayer
A collaborative exploration of fiction writing and rewriting. No prior experience with fiction writing presumed, only interest and eagerness to experiment. Class sessions will be devoted to analyzing short stories and exploring fiction as an art, craft, and practice. Central to our work will be the workshop, a collaborative discussion and critique of fellow students’ fiction. Outside of class, students will read, write creative exercises, and complete original short stories.
4 credits
Prerequisite: EN 111, 113, 119, 211, 213, or 219
Fulfills Artistic Inquiry requirement
EN 282 01 – Introduction to Poetry Writing
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Instructor: A. Bernard
Weekly workshops, grounded in exercises in form (and subject matter) are designed to help poets find their footing in this art. We explore sonnets, villanelles, ballads, odes, syllabic verse, and the blues—all in an atmosphere of good will and good humor. This is the foundational poetry workshop for both majors and minors.
4 credits
Prerequisite: EN 111, 113, 119, 211, 213, or 219
Fulfills Artistic Inquiry requirement
EN 327 01 – 20th C African American Novels
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Stokes, Mason
In his autobiography, African American writer Richard Wright describes his first real
encounter with books: "I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had
let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out
of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of
looking and seeing. It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read,
but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of
the world different." In this class, we'll read a handful of major African American
novels from the twentieth century--novels that emerged from some of the most difficult
moments of American history. Following Wright's example, we'll approach these works
as "news ways of looking and seeing," novels that will make, for us, "the look of
the world different."
Possible texts include: Nella Larsen, Passing; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Richard Wright, Native Son; Ann Petry, The Street; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon.
Assignments will include four 2-page essays and one longer research paper.
COUNTS AS A LATE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
COUNTS TOWARD THE BLACK STUDIES MINOR
3 credits
EN 352R 01 – Unions: Fictions and Facts
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:10 – 11:30 a.m.
Instructor: McAdams, Ruth
In William Dean Howells's A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), a character hears about an oilfield strike and remarks that it would make
for a great novel. But strangely, trade unions and labor unrest appear only rarely
in nineteenth-century fiction, which seems more interested in individuality than in
collectivity. In this class, we'll interrogate that paradox by juxtaposing the rare,
limited, and often hostile fictional depictions of labor unions in nineteenth-century
British and American literature with actual accounts of labor activism during the
same period. Labor unions emerged in the context of industrialization and rising economic
inequality to advocate for better pay and working conditions. The anti-union rhetoric
that capitalists used then survives surprisingly unchanged today. Accordingly, as
the course juxtaposes fact and fiction, it will also compare past and present in order
to consider the role of nineteenth-century fiction in the development of pro- and
anti-union discourse. Authors may include Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet
Martineau, Upton Sinclair, William Dean Howells, and others.
COUNTS AS A MIDDLE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
4 credits
EN 362R 01 – Shakespeare and Race
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Bozio, Andrew
This course provides an advanced introduction to Shakespeare through the lens of premodern critical race studies (PCRS). PCRS is a scholarly movement that traces how race was constructed before the dawn of modernity; how it intersected with gender, sexuality, class, and ability; and how these constructions and intersections continue to inform the way that race operates today. In this course, we'll use PCRS as a framework for studying Shakespeare's plays and their larger cultural effects--within the early modern period and beyond. Our readings will include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra, as well as essays by leading practitioners of PCRS to help us think more critically and capaciously about Shakespeare's representation of race.
COUNTS AS THE EARLY PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
4 credits
EN 363 01 – Haunted
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Instructor: Black, Barbara
Ghosts fascinate us as present absences; they seem always, potentially, there by our
side. What do they reveal to us? When ghosts show up in a text, they are often a warning,
a commission that some past wrong must be righted. Simply understood, this course
is an exploration of ghost fiction; however, the "spectral" will come to deepen, and
widen, as a heuristic for us. We will study works as varied as Morrison's Beloved, Dickens's A Christmas Carol, David Lowery's A Ghost Story, Freud's The Uncanny, and Maya Lin's "What Is Missing?" As the past that insists on being present, ghosts
will compel us to think about memory, history, nostalgia, space/place, and time. Is
it possible that being haunted captures what it feels like to exist now--in the wake
of so much, from climate degradation to pandemic to racial inequality in a nation
haunted by the ghosts of slavery?
COUNTS AS A MIDDLE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
3 credits
EN 363 02 – Disability and American Literature
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Junkerman, Nick
This course will consider the presence of disability in American literature. We will study how disability has been represented in fiction, paying particular attention to how it has served as a narrative device, a metaphorical resource, and a stand-in for unrelated concepts. We will also study literary nonfiction and the long history of disability representation in American life writing. Our aim in this course is not to create a catalogue of instances of disability representation, nor to frame disability as one of many "themes" in American literature. Rather, we will explore how American literature has depended on and been shaped by the idea and the ideology of "disability," and how writers have enforced and resisted ableist understandings of human intellectual and physical difference.
3 credits
EN 363 03 – The Modernist Imagination
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:40 – 5:00 p.m.
Instructor: Boyers, Robert
There are several competing views of "Modernism." The most radical are associated
with the work of the artist Marcel Duchamp, who contributed to a museum exhibition
a urinal mounted on a pedestal and declared that the attempt to distinguish between
good taste and bad taste was ridiculous. Other modernists argued that artworks--whether
novels or poems or paintings--were not the place for ideas or politics, that art was
to be "pure" and free from the taking of positions and the promotion of opinions.
And yet ideas and politics play a very significant role in many modernist works. Although
leading modernist artists and writers--from Picasso and Matisse to Franz Kafka, T.S.
Eliot and Virginia Woolf-- are now famous and celebrated, modernism was early felt
to be an elite enterprise appreciated only by sophisticates and connoisseurs. In fact,
one of the earliest and most influential views of modernism was that it was supposed
to be "too much" for ordinary readers or viewers, that modernist works were designed
to make people feel uncomfortable or enraged, to drive them from their seats, as at
a performance of early musical works by the modernist composer Igor Stravinsky, where
many audience members booed and fled.
Our course will offer a range of modernist works and test some of the propositions
offered by leading critics and fans of modernism. We'll read five important essays
by Susan Sontag, T.S. Eliot, Clement Greenberg, Lionel Trilling and Woolf, each debating
the meaning of "modernism." Mainly, we'll study great examples of "the modernist imagination,"
including four films, two novels, a few short stories, and even a small number of
poems and paintings. The syllabus will include works by Kafka, Woolf, Thomas Mann,
Wallace Stevens, Georgia O' Keefe, Ingeborg Bachmann, Jamaica Kincaid and Romare Bearden
and by filmmakers Jean-luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Margarethe von Trotta and Federico
Fellini. Required: A mid-term, a scheduled final exam and one paper.
COUNTS AS A LATE PERIOD HISTORY REQUIREMENT
3 credits
EN 371 – Independent Study
Instructor: The Department
Research on literature and special projects in creative writing. Independent study provides an opportunity for any student already well grounded in a special area to pursue a literary or creative writing interest that falls outside the domain of courses regularly offered by the department. The student should carefully define a term’s work which complements their background, initiate the proposal with a study-sponsor, and obtain formal approval from the student’s advisor and the department chair. Application to do such work in any semester should be made and approved prior to registration for that semester or, at the very latest, before the first day of classes for the term.
3 credits
EN 377 01 – The Embodied Writer
Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m; Fridays 1:25-2:20 p.m.
Instructor: Wolff, Melora
"Writing," author Sofia Samatar believes, "will be a body, and a dwelling." What could
this notion mean for each of us? This workshop invites writers of all genres to experience
100% offline creativity, through on-site workshop, IdeaLab work, and field writing.
We explore writing as a physical practice across several historical eras, and in different
locations, as you create poems, stories, essays, letters, reflections and fragments
with an array of non-digital tools and supplies made available to each writer. Activities
likely include experiments with calligraphy, Asemic flow, Concrete Poetry; the physical
challenge of manual typewriting, an embodied act of creativity author William Kentridge
calls "a commitment to decisiveness, to the striking of the keys, an ethics of the
typewriter"; and with the fountain pen, which, alternatively, "pushes the possibility
of uncertain thought." What unknown decisions and uncertainties arise creatively during
our digital detox? We consider text/image collage, design moleskin De Copia and Album
Amicorum (precursors to Facebook and Instagram), and more, interacting throughout
the course with the works of authors who wrote with, and for, an attention to their
physical environment and presence--human, corporeal, expressive. Field trips and guest
artists TBA.
Possible readings: Basho, Issa, Sei Shonagon, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Bruce Chatwin,
William Kentridge, Sophie Calle, Rafaella della Olga, Anais Nin, Carol Mavor, Mary
Oliver, Richard Siken, Emily Dickinson, Roland Allen, Sofia Samatar.
This course is made possible in part by the Kress Family Pedagogy Grant 2027.
Requirements: Attendance; completion of all assignments; discussions; Idea Lab work;
fieldwork; final projects of exhibit, manuscript, or performance (individual or collaborative);
device-free submissions.
Prerequisite: EN 280, 281, or 282
4 credits
EN 377 02 – The Art of Fiction
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Instructor: Herbek, Greg
This course has two components: intensive reading/analysis of literature and fiction
writing/workshop. All student writing will be modeled on the texts we study, which
will be primarily short stories, but may also include a novel and films. Subjects
of focus will be: literary style/voice; narrative structure; historical fiction. This
is a course with a heavy workload for serious readers and committed writers. In-class
participation is important. Weekly short writing exercises and critical response papers;
workshop review of student writing; a final full-length short story.
Prerequisite: EN 280, 281, or 282
4 credits
EN 399 A-D – Professional Internship in English
Instructor: The Department
Professional experience at an advanced level for juniors and seniors with substantial academic and cocurricular experience in the major field. With faculty sponsorship and department approval, students may extend their educational experience into such areas as journalism, publishing, editing, and broadcasting. Work will be supplemented by appropriate academic assignments and jointly supervised by a representative of the employer and a faculty member of the Department.
1-4 credits
Advanced Creative Writing Workshops
Students hoping to enroll in 300 level creative writing workshops need permission of the instructor. To receive permission, students should email the professor in advance of registration.
EN 378 01 – Nonfiction Workshop
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Instructor: Wolff, Melora
A workshop in the writing of literary nonfiction, for writers who have completed nonfiction
workshop EN 280. In this more advanced course, we continue to explore voice, forms,
and styles, and consider in depth the personal, individual ways that our own "not
knowing" can fuel an essay's subject and meaning. Facts provide our solid foundation,
while our individual curiosities, speculations, questions, and memories enrich our
work as essayists and memoirists. How can a practice of purposeful unknowing lead
us to genuine discovery? This course includes a lot of in-class "flash" essay craft,
close-reading, oral presentation, one-to-one discussion of work, and group conversation
as we write through creative lenses personal in meaning to each writer: speculation,
embodiment, influence, intimacy, and urgency. AI restrictions will apply.
Requirements: attendance; discussion; all in class writing; 2 long essays, in drafts;
in-depth writing conferences.
Prerequisite: 280 and permission of the instructor
This course is a prerequisite for the Coda in Nonfiction Writing (EN 381N)
4 credits
EN 380 01 – Fiction Workshop
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Herbek, Greg
An intensive workshop for committed writers. Though there will be informal discussion
of published writing, our primary task will be the critiquing of student work. Attendance,
class participation, and thoughtful written response to student writing are of paramount
importance. Main creative requirement: two short stories of 10-12 pages each, both
of which will be revised after being workshopped.
Prerequisite: 281 and permission of the instructor
This course is a prerequisite for the Coda in Fiction Writing (EN 381F)
4 credits
NOTE: The Senior Coda is satisfied in most cases by a Senior Seminar (EN 375) or Advanced Projects in Writing (EN 381). Students with appropriate preparation and faculty permission may instead choose the senior thesis or project options: EN 376, 389, 390.
EN 375 01 – Senior Seminar in Literary Studies
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:40 – 5:00 p.m.
Instructor: Bozio, Andrew
In this senior seminar, students will first identify a research topic, the subject and method of which will be of their own choosing. They will learn how to research their topic, how to develop an annotated bibliography of relevant sources, and to refine their ideas in dialogue with the sources they have read to craft a compelling introduction to the project. They will then draft and workshops portions of their research project, culminating in a polished capstone of twenty-five to thirty pages. Students will also craft a short reflection paper that situates their research project within the context of their broader intellectual development at ߣƵ.
4 credits
Qualifying work will earn honors
EN 376 01 – Senior Projects
Advisor: The Department
Senior Projects offer students an opportunity to work independently, with the guidance of a faculty supervisor, on a hybrid project that does not fall under the parameters of Senior Seminar (EN 375), Senior Thesis (EN 389, 390), or Advanced Projects in Writing (EN 381). Such hybridity might include a mixing of genres (e.g., a project that combines memoir with a research- based analytical piece or poetry and short fiction) or media (e.g., a project that involves the creation of text as well as music, film, or art); a translation project; an applied learning project; and so on. Students must find a project supervisor in advance of registering for EN 376 in the fall or the spring of their senior year. May be repeated once for credit. All requirements for a regular Independent Study apply. To register, fill out a “Senior Thesis or Senior Project Registration” form, available on the English department’s website.
3 credits
Qualifying work will earn honors
PREREQUISITES: COMPLETION OF THE INTRODUCTORY REQUIREMENT, PERMISSION OF THE DEPARTMENT, AND SENIOR CLASS STANDING.
EN 381F 01 – Advanced Projects in Writing Fiction
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:10 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Mayer, Mark
A Coda workshop for advanced fiction writers on the Creative Writing path. Students will develop, workshop, and revise a capstone manuscript of fiction--a novella or collection of short stories--and support one another through rigorous peer critique. We will also read and study published short fiction and novellas and prepare a writing practice for life after graduation.
4 credits
Qualifying work will earn honors.
PREREQUISITE: ONE SECTION OF EN 380
EN 381P 01 – Advanced Projects in Writing: Poetry and Nonfiction
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20 – 1:40 p.m.
Instructor: Bernard, April
Poets and nonfiction writers who have completed their creative writing workshops are
eligible to take this capstone course, in which they will work on a substantial manuscript
of original creative work. Regular group workshops and individual conferences will
guide the work through the semester.
4 credits
Qualifying work will earn honors.
PREREQUISITE: ONE SECTION OF EN 379
EN 389 01 – Preparation for Senior Thesis
Advisor: The Department
Required of all second-semester junior or first-semester senior English majors who
intend to write a thesis (EN 390). Under the direction of a thesis advisor, the student
reads extensively in primary and secondary sources related to the proposed thesis
topic, develops their research skills, and brings the thesis topic to focus by writing
an outline and series of brief papers which will contribute to the thesis.
3 credits
PREREQUISITES: APPROVAL IN ADVANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT
EN 390 01 – Senior Thesis
Advisor: The Department
Intensive writing and revising of senior thesis under the close guidance of the student’s thesis committee. The thesis provides an opportunity for English Majors to develop sophisticated research and writing skills, read extensively on the topic of special interest, and produce a major critical paper of forty to eighty pages. Not required of the English major, but strongly recommended as a valuable conclusion to the major and as preparation for graduate study. Distinguished work will qualify eligible students for departmental honors. To register, fill out a “Senior Thesis or Senior Project Registration” form, available in the English department and on the English department’s website.
4 credits
Qualifying work will earn honors.
PREREQUISITES: EN 389 AND APPROVAL IN ADVANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT