UGRD > engl
English Courses
engl 101 Composition I +
Description:
Composition I is an introductory course on writing theory and practice that helps undergraduate students develop critical, flexible strategies for writing and reading across various contexts, communities, and disciplines. Through the study of theories of writing, students in Composition I gain knowledge of core key concepts, including audience, purpose, and genre, which help them understand writing as a rhetorical meaning-making activity that responds to situations and generates new perspectives. Through cycles of writing, feedback, revision, and reflection, students advance their ability to develop informed, critical perspectives and articulate claims in dialogue with complex texts. Students gain rhetorical awareness by composing texts that account for audience expectations for language and genre and reflecting on their own writing and learning. The flexible, adaptable writing knowledge and practices developed in Composition I are designed to facilitate students' self-reflective writing in other contexts. More Info
Offered in:engl 102 Composition II +
Description:
Composition II is an introductory course on writing theory and practice that reinforces and extends the foundational knowledge and practices introduced in Composition I. While students in Composition I focus primarily on writing to make meaning, students in Composition II learn how writing produces knowledge. Students come to understand writing as a knowledge-producing activity through carefully sequenced and scaffolded assignments that encourage them to develop, sustain, and reflect on their own academic inquiry and research processes. Assignments ask students to develop original research questions, locate and evaluate primary and secondary sources, select evidence from multiple complex texts, synthesize evidence-based arguments that use sources to address their inquiry, and reflect on their own learning and development. In conjunction with Composition I, students in Composition II continue to develop the ability to generate and articulate their own claims in dialogue with texts and to develop rhetorical awareness and knowledge of academic discourse conventions. The flexible, adaptable writing knowledge and practices developed across Composition I and Composition II are designed to facilitate students' ability to write self-reflectively in other contexts, which includes intermediate seminars, upperlevel courses, and the Writing Proficiency Requirement. More Info
Offered in:engl 105 Reading the University +
Description:
What is a university and what is its purpose? Many assume that the university is designed to train people for jobs and improve their earning potential, but are these its main objectives? What do universities require courses that seem to bear no direct relevance on the career path of many students? And what value do the humanities have in a university curriculum? This course introduces students to university education through critical reading and active engagement with the humanities. As a complement to the 'writing intensive' course within the general education curriculum, this 'reading intensive' course aims to help students establish a balance between their career and civic goals for their university learning. Students will therefore read the university within the specific context of UMass Boston to reveal the economic, political and social issues the university is facing. The university will be unpacked to expose its structure, its curricula, and its role in society, all in an effort to empower students to take charge of their education and make it meaningful for them before and beyond graduation. This is a hands-on, interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 110 Reading Like a Writer +
Description:
Students will learn to understand, use, and refine the techniques used by creative writers. Through weekly readings and discussion, students will become acquainted with how individual works of literature produce their effects, focusing not so much on what a piece means, but how meaning is made. Classic and contemporary examples of the genres of poetry and fiction will be studies with the goal of understanding the ways writers imagine elements of language, structure, and process to create a fully developed work. Class work will include in-class writing, examinations, creative-writing assignments, and attendance at one poetry or fiction reading during the semester with the goal of producing a final portfolio of creative work. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 111E Language, Writing, and Cultural Exchange +
Description:
Language, Writing, and Cultural Exchange| English 111E is designed for students who were educated outside of U.S. school systems or have completed partial K-12 schooling in the United States and who are learning English as an additional language. In this course, multilingual students build a foundation of university academic writing, language learning, and culture-oriented literacies to successfully integrate in their new community. ENGL 103E offers a balanced developmental approach that highlights the synergies among language proficiency, writing knowledge, and intercultural competency. The course focuses on study topics like meanings of culture, relationships between language and culture, identity, politics, language and power, economic behavior, adaptation to new environments, etc. In working with these topics, students reflect upon challenges arising from ethnocentrism and develop reflective awareness about the value of ethnorelativism. In addition to two major writing projects, students complete periodic reflective journals and/or video blogs through which they further explore course topics and campus resources, engage in the writing process, and practice oral presentation skills. More Info
Offered in:engl 121 Poetry Matters: Connecting Poetry and Patients +
Description:
How can poetry matter to patients young and old suffering from disorienting diseases? Students find out in this double-section course combining a first section that focuses on literature reflecting the philosophy of care with a beginner-level poetry workshop in which students will write their own poems of care. The aural quality of poetry matters to those needing comfort and class visits from poets enhance our learning about how poetry can help heal. Site visits to 1-2 care facilities during class time reveal how to put critical and creative reading and writing into action during hands-on personal interaction with young patients. Students who are community-minded, or feel strongly about reaching out to those in need, will find in the course ways that literature 'and poetry in particular' has a strong pull for those experiencing tough medical challenges. This is a hands-on, interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 123 Adaptations: Literature, Film, and Beyond +
Description:
This course is open to anyone interested in how stories get told in different ways. It is an introduction to thinking about literary forms in relation to narratives, so that we can learn to see the craft necessary for authors to transform a well-known poem into a novel, or a play into another play, or a novel into a film. We will also learn some of the basic elements of Adaptation Studies to learn how scholars think about adaptations and how they revivify narrative, returning readers to older literary texts in new ways. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 124 Science Fiction: Cross-Cultural Perspectives +
Description:
Science Fiction has been one of the most popular genres of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, extending from a niche literary market into film, television, comics and even music. Given its cultural pervasiveness, in many ways, science fiction has become the key touchstone for popular culture. In this course, we will chart the development of science fiction as a distinct popular cultural form, paying particular attention to its defining characteristics. As such, we'll study a wide range of themes and issues central to science fiction literature: early narratives that champion a scientific sense of wonder and possibility alongside others that articulate fears of technological destruction; the development of the ''first-contact'' narrative that imagines meetings between humans and aliens both positively and negatively; the alternating hopes and fears that characterize utopias and dystopias; the dreams of an elsewhere captured in intergalactic space operas; imaginative conceptions of temporality in time travel and alternative history narratives; and the development of cyberpunk and its focus on the integration of humans with cybernetic technology and the development of artificial intelligence. Alongside the exploration of science fiction as a recognizable set of familiar narratives, we'll also study how these narratives relate to their own historical and cultural moments, expressing particular hopes and fears, anxieties and desires. Readings will mainly be short stories that we'll supplement with some critical essays about the history and aesthetics of science fiction. More Info
Offered in:engl 126 Young Adult Literature +
Description:
Young adult fiction is a booming segment of the book publishing industry. This course investigates why, in our increasingly sophisticated storytelling culture, we turn to novels that are supposedly aimed at a ''younger'' audience. What attracts readers of all ages to young adult literature? We will examine how these novels use well-known plot structures and literary devices to create compellingly artistic stories. We will also examine how young adult literature tackles difficult topics, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, in stories that mange to be both accessible and deeply thought provoking in their portrayals of diversity. Although this class features young adult literature, it has a heavy reading load and a fast-paced reading schedule. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 130 Vikings!: The Literature of Scandinavia, Medieval and Postmodern +
Description:
In this class we will take a critical look at popular portrayals of Vikings in film, television, literature, and comics by familiarizing ourselves with actual medieval texts about Vikings and the Viking Age. We will read (in English translations) from the famous Icelandic Sagas of Vikings as well as from poetry that memorializes warrior-kings and tells of dragon slayings. But we will also consider writings about the Vikings from cultures that fell victim to their raids and invasions, including the great Old English poem Beowulf. We will thus be able to critically compare contemporary uses and portrayals of the Vikings with the medieval sources, and will even trace some of the sources for the narratives of Tolkien's famous Lord of the Rings. Our study of Viking Literatures will be also rooted in their various historical contexts, which will give us a more complex understanding of a society and its very rich literary and artistic traditions than many popular portrayals. These literatures will offer us fascinating insights into the society of the Vikings and their Anglo-Saxon victims, including elements of religion, gender and sexuality, economy, technologies of violence, and government. We will have to take on some very difficult questions about how and why texts both then and now represent violence as we equip ourselves to better understand Viking Literatures, but there will also be much to surprise and to delight in these rich cultural forms. More Info
Offered in:engl 135 Love and Death in American Literature +
Description:
This course asks essential question about American literature: What does it mean to be American? How do we tell stories about who we are? Have those stories remained the same or have we changed? How do we define ourselves over time? Students in ''Love and Death in American Literature'' will encounter the classic and contemporary narratives that define American literature and culture. From Benjamin Franklin to Junot Diaz, students will read across genres, historical periods, and perspectives. Themes might include the mythology of the American Dream, particularly the American emphasis on individualism, and the place of the U.S. in global context. In addition to attending lectures, students will write brief weekly reflections and participate in discussion sections. More Info
Offered in:engl 179GL Sexuality in Nature and Culture +
Description:
This course explores texts and film in order to expand, complicate, and challenge the way students think about diverse sexualities and genders. The course will ask where ideas about sexuality and gender come from, and question whether those ideas are rooted in nature or culture. Students will examine theories and concepts addressing cultural norms, systems of power, and the performance of the self. Students will become familiar with methods of analysis from a range of disciplines, including literature, women's studies,, cultural studies, biology, psychology, philosophy and law. As the class investigates sexuality and gender, students will engage in self-evaluation, examine methods of reasoning, and ask questions about cultural values and inheritances. More Info
Offered in:engl 181G Literature and the Visual Arts +
Description:
This is a course about the artistic aspects of literature. Students consider the nature of art-what it is, what it does, why it matters. The course analyzes a variety of works drawn from three genres-the short story, poetry, and drama. Topics include censorship, public funding for the arts, and contemporary critical theory. More Info
Offered in:engl 182G 'Race' and 'Ethnicity' in 20th Century U.S. Literature +
Description:
Students read 20th century literature by writers from diverse cultural backgrounds to (a) explore authors' views of community insiders and outsiders, and (b) investigate representations of ''race'' and ''ethnicity'' as depicted in this literature. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 183G Literature and Society +
Description:
Introduction to the ways in which literary works represent a particular aspect of society, such as work, education, aging, or war. Close analytical reading of literary works with special attention to a writer's social milieu and choices of form (including figurative language and representations of speech), and how readers in varying social contexts have read and used the work. More Info
Offered in:engl 185G Literature and Film +
Description:
An introductory examination of the relationship between moving pictures and the written word. Students will study how filmmakers and writers construct narrative, and how stories have been adapted across media. Other topics may include the following: the different ways that literature and film have dealt with the problem of realism, the use of iconic and symbolic modes, and the political implications of film. More Info
Offered in:engl 186G Exploring Thompson Island: On the Ground and in the Archives +
Description:
Visible from UMass Boston's campus, Thompson Island is an extraordinary environment in which to explore a specific place and how it has evolved over time. Through readings, discussions, and boat trips guided by experts in relevant disciplines, this course explores ways of seeing, investigating and ''knowing.'' Using a creative approach to history, the course engages with original documents and secondary sources to help answer the question: Why is Thompson Island worthy of our attention? The course reconstructs the Island's historic and educational uses from the political, social, cultural, and scientific artifacts of the past, and hones the skills of making meaning from them as well as of developing good practices of environmental and archival stewardship. More Info
Offered in:engl 187G Schooled: Rethinking Education +
Description:
Education is an institution at odds with itself: it's valued but never fully funded. Our goal is to prepare students for the future, but our teaching is rooted in the past. We want students to become independent, but we expect them to follow rigid rules. With all these contradictions it's no surprise that education doesn't 'work' for every student. This class will problematize education by examining our own experiences, looking at literary representations of school and learning, and putting both of them in conversation with what theorists and experts have to say. We will ask whether what we read can lead to a deeper understanding of our own experiences and our culture by examining themes such as gender, race and racism, socioeconomic and poverty, literacy and language and power structures. Working with critical concepts and terminology will enable us to reach a better understanding of how the writing we read works and will help us tell own stories more effectively. In the end you will use your understanding and your experience as a means to developing a potential solution to one of the problems of education. More Info
Offered in:engl 188G Literature, Medicine, and Culture +
Description:
A consideration of the humanistic aspects (''the human factor'') in medicine. Readings will include works from the perspective of both patients and medical professionals in order to focus on those areas of medicine that challenge our ideas about what we think we want from medical research and practice in the twenty-first century. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 189G War in Literature +
Description:
A study of the ways in which literary works have dealt with the problem of representing the terrors of war. Attention will be paid to the ethical and aesthetic issues particular to the depiction of war in variety of media, such as novels, short stories, poetry, a graphic novel, film, and journalism. More Info
Offered in:engl 200 Introduction to Literary Studies +
Description:
This course introduces students to the practice of literary studies, with a particular emphasis on the skills involved in close reading and analytical writing. Through an exploration of fiction, drama, and poetry, students will develop the capacity to consider texts in their historical and cultural contexts as well as to apply a range of critical frameworks. Ultimately, this course will equip students with a set of tools for interpretation and techniques for writing effectively about literature that will serve them throughout the English major. More Info
Offered in:engl 201 Five British Authors +
Description:
This course engages deeply with a small number of British texts spanning more than five centuries. Serving as an introduction to humanistic and literary studies, the course considers how these texts, written in both prose and verse, reflect, shape, and/or critique the dominant values of their ages. The course takes up such questions as what is literature and what makes it British? How do these texts engage with the history, dialects (early, modern, and contemporary), and fluidity of the English language? How do these works register and respond to the rise and decline of the British empire? How does the changing multiracial and multiethnic composition of Britain impact its literature over time? In order to address these questions and others, the course offers instruction in analytical reading and writing. More Info
Offered in:engl 202 Six American Authors +
Description:
This course introduces students to major concerns and genres in American literature through reading, discussing, and writing about a variety of significant texts. The course considers questions such as: How do American debates, including those about race, empire, gender, sexuality, individualism, and freedom shape major narratives? How have literary texts mirrored and intervened in the histories and cultures that shape the present and possible futures? And what unique insights does literature provide into those same histories and cultures? This course satisfies the US Diversity requirement, and as such, all sections will foreground marginalized perspectives and interrogate how literature both challenges and upholds oppressive social structures. More Info
Offered in:engl 203 Writing Craft/Context/Design +
Description:
This course introduces students to rhetorical, literary, and critical approaches to studying and producing writing as they play out across a range of contexts--in print and digital media, in the workplace, in journalistic and artistic venues, and in academic settings. The course will also pay attention to the role of editing and publishing in text production. Framing writing in terms of genre, purpose, audience, and compositional practice, the course will introduce students to aspects of writing that span different situations: collaborative writing, visual and verbal design, and research practices. Other topics include learning about the range of career opportunities in English studies and primary and secondary research methods. More Info
Offered in:engl 204 Professional Writing +
Description:
No matter what career they choose after graduation, successful professionals need to understand the dynamics of workplace writing. This course is designed to introduce students to rhetorical approach to workplace writing and support them along their chosen career path. This course will take a humanities approach to workplace writing, attending to the way language shapes the production and reception of workplace writing and its circulation. In this course, students will analyze common documents and the ways in which these documents create particular worlds for users. Students will compose workplace documents with specific attention to the needs of audiences and institutions. Time will also be spent paying attention to document design and usability. Finally, students will explore the ethics of workplace writing paying specific attention to how it uplifts or oppresses historically oppressed communities. Students will produce writing suitable for the writing proficiency requirement portfolio. More Info
Offered in:engl 205 One Book in the World +
Description:
This course will introduce students to one major literary text over the course of an entire semester. This immersive reading experience will teach students to read slowly and closely. The central text will also serve as a point of departure for a range of explorations and inquires, revealing how literary studies can help us read the present. This course will involve at least one off-campus excursion and will include interdisciplinary materials. This is a hands-on, Interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 209 Writing on Local Issues, Arts, and Culture +
Description:
This immersive writing and publishing course will take you into the center of Boston's arts and culture scene, providing you with the tools and the platform you need to develop and establish your own voice and views. From the MFA to the Massachusetts State House, from the Institute of Contemporary Art to the Boston Public Library, students will each create their own blog and publish writing that uses research and analysis to consider the history of a Boston institution and/or review an event, exhibit, culture moment, or performance. This course includes a lot of FREE field trips and independent excursions; class will meet just once a week, to facilitate this. A major assignment in this course may be included in a Writing Requirement portfolio. This is a hands-on, interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:engl 210 Introduction to Creative Writing +
Description:
This course provides an introduction to the arts through the medium of creative writing. The course focuses on writing stories and poems, as well as reading fiction and poetry. Additional genres of writing may be introduced. Student writing is submitted weekly and discussed in class. Students are encouraged to explore issues of literary form, style, and voice, developing creativity and experiencing the importance of artistic expression. More Info
Offered in:engl 211 Creative Writing: Poetry +
Description:
This course provides an introduction to the writing of poetry for students who may or may not have had prior experience. Students read poetry as a basis for learning to write it, and class discussion focuses both on assigned readings and on student work. Student writing is submitted weekly and is strengthened through in-class workshops, revision exercises, and portfolio compilations. Individual conferences with the instructor are required. Students are encouraged to explore issues of poetic form and content, developing knowledge about poetry while developing creative, analytical, and artistic skills. More Info
Offered in:engl 212 Creative Writing: Fiction +
Description:
This course provides an introduction to the writing of fiction for students who may or may not have had prior experience. Students read fiction as a basis for learning to write it, and class discussion focuses both on assigned readings and on student work. Student writing is submitted weekly and is strengthened through in-class workshops, revision exercises, and portfolio compilations. Individual conferences with the instructor are required. Students are encouraged to explore prose fiction's form and content, developing knowledge about fiction while developing creative, analytical, and artistic skills. More Info
Offered in:engl 216 Reading and Writing Journalism +
Description:
This introductory course provides students with a foundation in the art of journalism with an emphasis on critical reading and writing. Throughout the semester, students read classic and contemporary works by prize-winning journalists and produce and analytical responses that consider these works with respect to critical debates in the field--questions of objectivity, representation, reporting methods, and the public interest. Using these writers as models, the course covers principles of style, structure, audience, and genre, as well as the legal and ethical frameworks that govern the journalistic profession. Through guided writing assignments, students are invited to try their hand at a range of journalistic genres, such as news reporting, profiles, and editorials. More Info
Offered in:engl 221L Introduction to Asian American Writing +
Description:
A study of prose works by American writers of East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian descent. In discussing texts and current issues in the field of Asian American literary studies, students consider the ways in which discourse determines identity and the responsibilities of writers-to themselves as artists and to their communities, whether defined by race or gender. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 223L Latino/Latina/Latinx Literature +
Description:
This course will offer a survey of Latino/a/x literary voices drawn from the Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, and other Latin American migrations to the U.S. In addition to encountering a range of genres, students in this course will explore concepts, such as the bilingual self; the barrio vs. the borderland; immigrant autobiography; and the construction of ethnic American literature itself. More Info
Offered in:engl 225 Graphic Novels +
Description:
This course offers an introduction to the study of image and text through an analysis of selected graphic novels. The course investigates a fascinating range of relationships between images and words, as well as the roles these relationships play in our language and in our ways of thinking about story-telling, truth, memory, identity, and power. More Info
Offered in:engl 236 Reading, Writing, and Archives: Literary Boston +
Description:
Whose story gets told? How is that story told and remembered? Whose story doesn't get told, or gets hidden? The answers to these questions for students of literature, rhetoric, and language are found in archives, living treasures of human experience. This course is an exploration of archives generally and Boston archives in particular, as it creates an opportunity for students to read and interpret letters, diaries, journals, books, short stories, publications, and other original literary material in order to discover the specific literary, cultural, geographic, and social moments in which they were created. The course will feature field trips, workshops, and instructional research sessions in order to engage with material like the Hemingway Papers at JFK Library and Archive, meet literary women preserved within the Schlesinger Library at Harvard's digital repository, learn about community archives for LGBTQ Boston, and examine multiple local collections from the University Archives and Special Collections on UMass Boston's campus. This course teaches basic methods for students to begin to construct and reconstruct stories, and to start out further work where the individual's interests in literature, writing, theory, and/or language may take them. The course is aligned with the aims of the Humanities General Education requirement which asks students to develop an informed appreciation of human culture and an exploration of the human condition, and is a hands-on, Interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:engl 242 Grammar for Every Writer +
Description:
Good writing is impossible without grammar. From art history to zoology, from politics to publishing, every discipline and profession relics on the invisible rules of grammar. This course is for writers and readers of every type, whether you feel like you missed learning about grammar and now want to know what it is all about, or whether you arc an advanced student of English language and writing. We will learn about grammatical rules and norms, but we will also learn about how grammar develops, changes and performs rhetorical functions in relation to region, gender, socioeconomic and political forces, and ethnicity. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 245 Global Voices +
Description:
This course provides a critical introduction to literature written in what has become arguable the globe's primary language of commerce, government, law, and education. The course examines fiction writers, playwrights, and poets from locations outside England and North America who have claimed the English language as their own and used it with energy and creative verve. Readings will survey works in English from Africa, Asia, and Australia, among other places, with attention o their heterogeneity and complexity. Key topics include identity, nationalism, gender, feminisms, memory, conflict, exile, nostalgia, postcoloniality, and citizenship. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 248 Utopia/Dystopia Across Culture +
Description:
Visions of Utopia represent the desire for a better, more just society. They engage the free-play of the political imagination as a form of wish-fulfillment and social daydreaming in order to extrapolate better worlds from the less than perfect present worlds of specific societies. As the negative reflection of utopian desire, dystopias similarly interrogate their societies, magnifying and exacerbating troubling political and social injustices. In this course, we will first trace the development of utopian/dystopian thought and its historical origins in literature and philosophy. From here, we will examine contemporary manifestations of utopia/dystopia in diverse societies in a variety of different mediums (including film, music, graphic novels and literature, as well as religious writings, legal and political documents, and philosophical works). We'll focus on interpreting these utopian and dystopian texts as particular instantiations of cultural work in different societies in response to specific historical and political conditions. In keeping with this cross-cultural approach, the course will engage with a range of modern utopian/dystopian texts from at least four broad perspectives: African, American, European, and Afrofuturist-diasporic. These perspectives will allow us to analyze how utopian and dystopian works are always positioned at the border between defining a particular culture at a particular moment in time (how the writers of the text perceive their culture, its faults, its possibilities) and cultural change (the utopia or dystopia that this culture may transform or harden into given these traits). That is, despite a pretense towards universalism, utopias and dystopias are always about particular wish fulfillments rooted in localized, existing socio-cultural-political conditions. They are always raced, classed, and gendered, revealing issues of cultural conflict within their given local cultural determinations. Given these conditions, students will lea More Info
Offered in:engl 257L Queer Literature and History in the 20th Century US +
Description:
This course introduces historical approaches to studying queer literature of the 20th century United States. The course highlights the historical work of queer literature through in-depth textual analysis and by studying related historical archives. Units include the Harlem Renaissance, gay literature of the 1960s and 70s, and lesbian pulp. Each unit in the course selects specific archives to pair with literary texts. In addition, students will do independent work on a literary text and archive of their choosing. Through both the required readings and the independent projects, students will engage directly and systematically with the study of creative production and human expression. This is a hands-on interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 258L 21st Century World Cinema +
Description:
This course introduces students to the concept of world cinema and explores films made outside of the English speaking and western-European film traditions. Although the course spends some time tracing the historical development of world cinema, it focuses primarily on contemporary films and how world cinema operates in today's global film markets. Students will engage in a comparative analysis of the technological, aesthetic, economic, and geopolitical function of the major film industries beyond Hollywood and of smaller national cinema traditions. Students will explore how the commercial practices of industries like Bollywood, Nollywood, and Japanese anime shape the kinds of films they make and the ways they think about entertainment and ''good cinema.'' Students will also examine how smaller, art cinema traditions in countries like Iran, Denmark, and Romania express ideas about national culture and heritage and how they represent diverse places, peoples, and histories to the rest of the world. Finally, students will study the ideas of transnational cinema and global film cultures, exploring the effects of migration and immigration, the emergence of transnational film cultures and audiences, and the internationalism of global Hollywood.ENGL 258L and CINE 258L are the same course. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 262G The Art of Literature +
Description:
This course explores and imagines the world of literature-the imagination as it finds creative expression in language. Why do we call some writing ''literature''? What makes us label something ''art''? Through fiction, poetry, and drama, participants learn about literary devices and terminology and develop an appreciation for the writer's craft. Capabilities addressed: Critical reading, critical thinking, clear writing. More Info
Offered in:engl 268 Outbreak! On Reading Narratives of Infectious Disease +
Description:
English 268 is designed to draw students from across all majors to the humanities by focusing on an issue that impacts everyone: infectious diseases, and the stories that are told about them. The material in the course comes from many sources: archival documents, the science of epidemiology, accounts in creative non-fiction, and works of imaginative literature. The class will visit historical sites and perform their own archival research in the Massachusetts state archives. This is a hands-on, interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 270GL Writing and the Environment +
Description:
This interdisciplinary course will connect humanistic and scientific approaches to examining the way we live with the natural world. It investigates ecological perspectives on the relationship between human beings and nature that reflect both traditional cultures and Western industrial modernity. Students will be invited to understand the value of site-based work, to consider the campus's connections to its surroundings, and to grasp the patterns of culture characteristic of coastal zones and port cities. The course will demonstrate that both humanistic and scientific approaches are necessary to solve real-world problems. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 272G The Art of Poetry +
Description:
''If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off I know that it's poetry'' (Emily Dickinson). Participants in this course read poetry, discuss poetry, write about poetry, and possibly write poetry in this introduction to the art and craft of poetry. Discussions cover such topics as slant rhyme, syllabics, synesthesia, free verse, the Elizabethan sonnet. Capabilities addressed: Critical reading, critical thinking, clear writing, oral presentation. More Info
Offered in:engl 273G The Art of Fiction +
Description:
Introduction to themes and forms of fiction. Close analytical reading of stories and novels with special attention to an artist's historical and cultural milieu, and to an artist's choices of form (including thematic repetition and variation, narrative point of view, setting, characterization, plot and action, imagery, figurative language, and representations of speech). Emphasis on writing critical and interpretive papers. More Info
Offered in:engl 274G The Art of Drama +
Description:
Introduction to themes in drama. Close analytical reading of plays with special attention to context. Focus on character development, figurative language, setting, imagery and action. More Info
Offered in:engl 284 Language, Literacy and Community +
Description:
This course is designed to be taken in conjunction with ENGL 285. It provides theoretical and practical foundations for teaching second language adult literacy. Course work considers participants' own language/literacy acquisition processes and practice as tutors. The course focuses on learner-centered approaches to teaching adult ESL/literacy. More Info
Offered in:engl 285 Tutor Training: ESL +
Description:
This course emphasizes the theoretical and practical issues in the teaching of ESL, thus providing tutors with a framework with which to view their own teaching and observation experiences. Readings and discussions address materials development, instructional techniques, and textbook evaluation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 292L Cinema, Sex, and Censorship +
Description:
This course introduces students to the history of sex in American cinema by tracing the history of the representation of sex and sexuality from early cinema and the vaudeville tradition to contemporary engagements with queerness, non-normative desires, and artificial intelligence. Students will examine key moments in film history related to sex and censorship, including the scandals of pre-code Hollywood, the rise of the Hays Codes, the development of underground and the exploitation cinemas, and the emergence of the Motion Picture Rating System, as well a range of issues related to sexuality and desire, including same-sex desire, repression, sexual violence, the AIDS crisis, and sex and technology. Students will watch both mainstream, commercial films and smaller, independent art films, as well as B-movies and low budget films, to examine how sex and sexuality have been represented and censored across the broad spectrum of American cinema. More Info
Offered in:engl 293L Literature and Human Rights +
Description:
This course focuses on literary expressions and representations of the desire for and the crises of human rights. The various literary genres (poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, and essay) evoke the yearning of peoples to be awarded the right to live in safety and with dignity so that they pursue meaningful lives, and these literary genres record the abuses of the basic rights of people as they seek to lead lives of purpose. This course will examine the ways in which the techniques of literature (e.g., narrative, description, point of view, voice, image) compel readers' attention and bring us nearer to turn to human rights abuses and peoples' capacities to survive and surmount these conditions. More Info
Offered in:engl 300 Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop +
Description:
A creative writing workshop for students who have some experience in the writing of poetry, fiction, or drama. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. More Info
Offered in:engl 301 Advanced Poetry Workshop +
Description:
An advanced poetry workshop in which students practice and improve the poetic skills they have already begun to develop. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. More Info
Offered in:engl 302 Advanced Fiction Workshop +
Description:
An advanced fiction workshop in which students practice and improve the writing skills they have already begun to develop. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conference with the instructor are required More Info
Offered in:engl 303 Advanced Special Topics in Creative Writing +
Description:
This course offers students the opportunity to pursue specialized work in creative writing at the advanced level; these topics vary from semester to semester. Possible offerings include courses on novel writing, hybrid courses requiring creative and critical writing, courses on experimental poetry writing, or courses on travel writing. More Info
Offered in:engl 304 Creative Writing for Children's Literature +
Description:
This course introduces students to learning the craft of writing children's and Young Adult (YA) literature. Topics covered will include writing picturebooks, middle-grade fiction, and Young Adult literature, as well as learning to navigate the children's/YA lit publishing industry. Additionally, students will study literature for children and young adults as a basis for learning to write it. Through these readings, students will examine how critical analysis informs and enriches creative writing. Developing their writing, students will generate new material through frequent writing exercises and in-class workshops. By the end of the semester, all students will produce either a full picture book manuscript or the first 20-30 pages of a YA or middle grade manuscript. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 306 Advanced Nonfiction Writing +
Description:
For serious writers in various nonfictional modes, such as description, narration, expository or informative writing, and written argument. While there is some emphasis on the philosophy of composition, everything read and discussed has a practical as well as a theoretical function. Sections of this course taught by different instructors vary in emphasis from the composing process to techniques of the new journalism, to technical writing, writing for prelaw students, techniques of research for the long paper and report. But all are conducted in small classes or workshops, all are concerned with informative or argumentative writing for advanced students, and all require the permission of the instructor for enrollment. More Info
Offered in:engl 307 Journalism and Media Writing +
Description:
This course prepares advanced students to explore careers in writing and reporting for print and online media. Students consider contemporary journalistic texts by professional reporters, columnists, and bloggers and develop their own writing for a range of publication platforms and audiences. The course covers the fundamentals of journalistic craft, from methods for story development--including interviewing, observation, and web-based research--to style, ethics, and genre conventions. Throughout the semester, students draft and revise a series of independent writing and reporting projects on real-world people and events, ranging from news articles and magazine features to blogs and reviews. Students learn strategies for pitching stories to editors and preparing their writing for local, campus, or online publication. Different sections of this course may focus on specialized branches or genres of journalism, such as community journalism or arts journalism. This course welcomes both emerging and experienced writers, regardless of previous journalism experience. More Info
Offered in:engl 308 Professional Editing +
Description:
An intensive workshop in developing effective prose style for various kinds of writing, including reports, essays, and theses. Instruction covers advanced grammar, usage, editing, and proofreading, with special attention to problems of expression and style arising from complex ideas and argumentative logic. In conjunction with ENGL 307, this course provides a strong preparation for editors and writers in all settings. More Info
Offered in:engl 309 Multimedia Authoring +
Description:
In this hybrid digital workshop and studio course, students learn principles of media production, storytelling, and design across a range of audio-visual and web-based platforms. Through focused readings and discussions on documentary, design, and digital aesthetics, students examine creative works by professional artists and media producers and participate in regular critiques of students-made work. Classes include hands-on instruction in image-, audio-, and video-editing techniques and web design basics in a project-based, collaborative learning environment. Throughout the semester, students propose, edit, author, and design a series of original multimedia projects and produce a professional portfolio website of their creative work. More Info
Offered in:engl 311L How to Write Like a Film Critic +
Description:
This course explores both the history and the practice of film criticism, from popular genres like the movie review and ''top ten'' list, to more in-depth, analytical pieces and video essays. Students will explore how digital culture and the rise of online commentary, prosumer technologies, and aggregator sites have transformed the style, status, and function of film criticism. The bulk of the course, however, will be dedicated to writing, workshopping and revising film criticism as students produce their own portfolio of work across a range of genres. In combining history and practice, this course focuses on film criticism as part of a larger conversation about art, media, and journalism and helps students develop their own skills as film critics writing for a range of different audiences. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 312 Digital Culture and Composition +
Description:
This course centers on the changing relationships among digital texts and different domains of life - including personal, work, education, and public spheres. Course readings and discussions focus on two central questions: first, how do digital texts change the way we read, analyze, interpret, and compose? Second, what are the implications of these changes? To address these questions, students study the historical aspects of and theoretical approaches to the study of digital culture, focusing on the connections between reading, writing, writing, and technology. Additionally, coursework requires students to develop their ability to compose digital texts while thinking critically about those texts. Students will consider how textuality is related to changes in media, and what those changes mean for personal, professional, and community life. More Info
Offered in:engl 316L Cult Cinema +
Description:
This course explores the history of cult film in America and its relationship to the mainstream industry and other fringe cinemas. The course focuses particularly on the way that cult cinema challenges our ideas of quality, taste, and acceptability. At the same time, it explores questions related to cult audiences, exhibition spaces (drive-ins, art house theaters, midnight movies) fandom and cinephilia, and cult film nostalgia. More Info
Offered in:engl 317L American Independent Cinema +
Description:
This course examines the history of independent filmmaking in America, from its origins in the independent production companies of the studio era through to contemporary independent movements, including New American Cinema, Black Independent Cinema, New Queer Cinema, the Sundance Kids, and Mumblecore. this course also explores issues related to production and distribution, including the role of film festivals, the development of digital technology, and fan cultures. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 320 Memoir and Autobiography +
Description:
A study of various kinds of American autobiography-such as spiritual autobiography and freedom narratives-from colonial to modern times, with attention to European forerunners from Augustine to Rousseau. Texts vary by semester, selected from such authors as Edwards, Franklin, Thoreau, Douglass, Jacobs, Moody, Washington, and Henry Adams, and more recent works by Hellman, Wright, Malcolm X, and Kingston. More Info
Offered in:engl 324 Short Story +
Description:
A study of the short story, chiefly as a genre of this century. The course traces its development from nineteenth century origins, concentrating its reading on such American and Irish writers as Welty, O'Connor, Cheever, Lavin, Joyce, Hemingway, Montague, and considering as well the statements made by short story writers on the poetics of short fiction. More Info
Offered in:engl 326 Stage and Page: Drama Before 1642 +
Description:
A study of English drama before and during Shakespeare's career emphasizing the development of comedy and tragedy as form and idea, this course provides a setting for the study of Shakespeare. Readings include selected episodes from the mystery cycles, a morality play, and works by such playwrights as Marlowe, Kyd, Tourneur, Webster, Greene, Dekker, Jonson, Beaumont, as well as a comedy and a tragedy of Shakespeare. More Info
Offered in:engl 327 Stage and Page: Drama, 1660-1900 +
Description:
A study of drama in English since the reopening of the theaters at the Restoration of 1660. The development of comedy of manners from Wycherly and Congreve through Sheridan to Wilde and Shaw, and of tragedy from the early eighteenth century through the romantic era, through Ibsen and his followers, to the early twentieth century. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 328 Stage and Page: Drama, 1900-Today +
Description:
A study of 20th century American and British drama, including works in translation by influential playwrights abroad. Attention to themes, forms, styles, staging, and performance. Works by such authors as Ibsen, O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Brecht, Beckett, Genet, Hansberry, August Wilson, Kushner, and Hwang. More Info
Offered in:engl 331 Satire +
Description:
This course examines the genre of satire, considering both its form and function in art and popular culture from Ancient Greece to the contemporary. Students study the characteristics that distinguish satire from other forms of comedy, including its ability to ridicule, critique, offend and challenge the status quo. The course will also investigate the ways in which satire in performance differs from satirical literature. Students will read and experience satire in a variety of forms, including plays, political cartoons, essays, standup comedy, films, television shows, short stories, and novels. More Info
Offered in:engl 332 Comedy +
Description:
Comic literature from different cultures and periods, ancient through modern, illustrates the recurrence of different comic modes: satire, irony, romantic comedy, comedy of manners, and comedy of the absurd. Essays about theories of comedy aid students in evaluating the literature and forming their own ideas about the nature of comedy. More Info
Offered in:engl 333 Tragedy +
Description:
The course explores both the changing and the enduring aspects of tragedy by examining tragedic works of different ages, from ancient Greece to modern times. Readings may include such works as Oedipus, Thyestes, Dr. Faustus, Macbeth, The White Devil, King Lear, Samson Agonistes, Desire Under the Elms, Death of a Salesman, and Glengarry Glen Ross examined alongside theories about the definition of tragedy, the nature of tragic action, the tragic hero, the tragic times, for example. Students are encouraged to evaluate concepts of tragedy based on class readings, formulating their own ideas about this important form of drama. More Info
Offered in:engl 334 Science Fiction +
Description:
This course focuses on particular moments and issues in the development of science fiction across the 20th and 21st centuries. It primarily focuses on how science fiction, as a distinct cultural genre, offers a unique critical analysis and exploration of the technological changes that shape society. Because science fiction has become an increasingly popular genre throughout the world, the course will typically take a global perspective. While the emphasis is on literature, it may also include film, television, graphic novels, music, and/or comics. Issues and movements covered may include: climate change; artificial intelligence and virtual reality; postcolonial and anti-imperial science fiction from the global south; the New Wave's relationship to 1960s countercultural movements; first contact narratives; cyborgs and other human-machine interfaces; and science fictional explorations of race, class, gender, and sex relationships. More Info
Offered in:engl 335 Children's Literature +
Description:
The study of literature for children, including criticism and the history of the development of literary materials written specifically for children. The works studied-by such authors as Lewis, Grahame, Wilder, and Milne-are explored in the context of the historical and cultural settings in which they were produced, and the texts are analyzed both as works of art and as instruments of cultural and didactic impact. More Info
Offered in:engl 337 Short Novel +
Description:
Readings in 20th-century short novels by authors such as Tolstoy, Joyce, Conrad, James, Wharton, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Roth, Wright, Hurston, Achebe, C Johnson, and Oates. Exploration of how the language of analysis and interpretation affects the ways we relate to texts. Attention to differences among genres: short story, the novella or short novel, and novel. More Info
Offered in:engl 340 Literature and Visual Media +
Description:
A comparison of two kinds of imaginative experience, with particular emphasis on the connection between the visual and verbal, the effects of formula and format, the standardization which results from technological methods of production and distribution to mass audiences. How are our lives different because of the pervasiveness of these new cultural habits? More Info
Offered in:engl 341L Gender and Film: Multidisciplinary Perspectives +
Description:
This course is designed to encourage multidisciplinary analysis of gender, cultural representations, and film in the 20th and early 21st century. Among the topics that students will explore are: ethnographic film and gendered practices in ethnographic filmmaking; how ideologies of gender, ''race,'' and class are constructed, disseminated, and normalized through film (documentary as well as ''popular'' film); Indigenous women and filmmaking in North America; femininities, masculinities, and power in the ''horror film'' genre; human rights film and filmmaking as activism. Students will view films made in diverse locations and reflecting multiple historical, political, and cultural perspectives and will explore the intellectual, political and social significance of film in their own lives. More Info
Offered in:engl 343 Literature, Culture and Environment +
Description:
A study of how late nineteenth- and twentieth-century, predominantly American, literature has dealt with the physical environment, concentrating on examples of narrative and nonfictional prose, as well as poetry. Special attention will be devoted to such topics as the relation between environmental experience and literary representation of the environment; the impact of cultural and ideological forces on such representation; the interrelation of the history of the physical environment and the history of literature and the arts; and the changing definitions of ''nature'' and ''wilderness'' as well as the values attached to these ideas. More Info
Offered in:engl 345 Literature of the American South +
Description:
A study of the literary renaissance of the American South from 1920 to the present in works by such authors as Faulkner, Hurston, Wright, Warren, Ransom, Tate, Welty, Porter, Styron, O'Connor, Kenan, A. Walker, M. Walker, and S. Brown. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 349 Topics in Latina/o/x Literature +
Description:
While Latinxs are people of Latin American descent who live in the United States, the term encapsulates a broad range of racial, cultural, and political backgrounds. Latinxs have played a central role in the United States since its inception. Both colonized subjects and representatives from the other (Latin) America, Latinxs have deeply influenced the history, politics, and culture of the United States. This course examines a number of themes that emerge in Latinx Literature such as revolution, dictatorships, violence, immigration, and futurity. To gain purchase on these ideas, several critical essays are also paired with the texts to ensure both a theoretical and historical grounding in Latinx literature. A few questions this course asks are: what is the Latinx literature? What is its relationship to Latin America? How do Latinx authors deploy genre? How do these genres subsequently engage with history? More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 350L Asian-American Literary Voices +
Description:
An advanced study of poetry, fiction, drama, and autobiography by Asian American writers to explore the complex interplay between constructions of ethnic identity and literary expression. Students engage with the highly diverse face of contemporary Asian America, probing its literature for emerging themes like diaspora, transnationalism, and sexuality and analyzing their impact on the U.S. literary landscape. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 351 Early African-American Literature +
Description:
A study of the roles of early (1773-1903) African-American literature played in shaping American literary and cultural history. Through an examination of such writers as Wheatley, Equiano, Douglass, Jacobs, and Chesnutt, this course introduces students to foundational themes of African-American literature, from the black Atlantic and the trope of the ''talking book'' through the ''tragic mulatto'' and double consciousness. More Info
Offered in:engl 352L Harlem Renaissance +
Description:
This course focuses on major texts of the Harlem Renaissance within contexts of modernism, history, and the development of an African American literary tradition. The course will examine how literature creates and represents real and ''imagined'' communities and will explore the diverse and often contradictory roles that literature plays in shaping, resisting, and reinforcing cultural discourses. More Info
Offered in:engl 354 Race in American Literature +
Description:
This course reads exemplary U.S. novels and poems that spotlight and conceal the racial realities of our culture, drawing particular attention to the way our national ideas about race originate in the history of slavery and genocide. the course focuses on the ways in which attitudes about race in U.S. literature inform discourses of criminality, of femininity, of science, of primitivism, of passing, and of servitude, to name a few. Authors may include William Wells Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Rollin Ridge, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Mark Twain, James Weldon Johnson, George Schuyler, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, and others. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 357 African-American Women Writers +
Description:
The course considers content, form and modes of expression in prose, poetry and criticism by black women writers from the eighteenth century to the present. Readings include slave narratives, colonial and abolitionist writings, works from the Harlem Renaissance and by contemporary writers such as Bambara, Sanchez, Walker, and Brooks. More Info
Offered in:engl 365 The British Novel and the Nineteenth Century +
Description:
A study of social, technological, and cultural changes in nineteenth-century Britain as reflected in the large-scale novel of social life that reached its peak of popularity as a literary form in several modes including historical fiction, romance, and realism. Novels by such authors as Scott, Austen, the Bronte, Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Hardy, Meredith, and Conrad. More Info
Offered in:engl 366 Women and Men in Nineteenth-Century Literature +
Description:
A study of men and women and their relationships in nineteenth century literature, mainly British and American, with special emphasis on the issues of masculine and feminine sexual identity and sexual stereotypes, and the social position of men and women as these are treated in popular culture and in serious literary works. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 369 Post-1945 American Fiction +
Description:
A study of significant works of American fiction written since 1950. These works, in form and substance, reflect America's debate between those who see ''good in the old ways'' and those who try to ''make it new.'' Emphasis upon the variety of fictional voices and identities in works by authors such as Banks, Carver, Ellison, Morrison, and Updike. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 370 Reading Sexualities: Queer Theory +
Description:
This course brings the analysis of sexual difference to the center of cultural critique, revealing the web of sexual ideology that underlies texts and everyday life. Through the close reading of literary works and classic texts of queer theory, the course deconstructs the identity categories that usually shape this conversation, including not only 'gay' and 'lesbian,' but also 'heterosexual,' 'man,' and 'woman.' This course offers a survey of queer criticism from foundational works in the field to exciting new directions that help us to identify queer forms of time, emotion, and literary expression. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 371 The Coming-of-Age Novel +
Description:
This course will introduce students to the coming-of-age novel, also called the ''novel of formation'' or the ''bildungsroman.'' The course will consider ''coming of age'' as a cultural construct that relies on ideologies of gender, race, and sexuality and engages with the projects of nationalism and capitalism. Students will learn to identify the narrative conventions upon which this form depends, and they will encounter a range of theoretical texts that offer perspectives on maturity, individualism, and genre. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 372L American Women Writers and American Culture +
Description:
This course examines the significant contribution that women writers have made to the creation and development of an American national literature and culture. Points of emphasis include studying representative writers from different historical periods; examining the structures, forms, themes, concerns, and cultural contexts of individual works; and examining the relation of women's writing to American culture. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 375 Literature of the American Civil War +
Description:
Despite Walt Whitman's declaration that ''the real war will never get in the books,'' Americans have produced a rich and still hotly contested archive of depictions of the Civil War. Course readings include novels, poetry, and political tracts, with selections on nursing, mourning, and funerary practices; photography and journalism; and women's experience on the northern ''homefront.'' We will begin with the explosive 1850s, when guerrilla violence broke out in the streets of Boston, the halls of Congress, and on the Kansas prairie, examining in particular how Black-led activist movements won the eventual victory of abolition. We will learn how the South ''won the peace'' during Reconstruction and after, including the development of modern policing and prisons. We will look to our own moment with analyses of Hollywood film and the ongoing interpretive battles waged across the nation over Civil War-era monuments. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 376 Literature and the Political Imagination +
Description:
The course studies ways authors use imaginative literature to respond to political situations and to voice moral and political beliefs. It probes such themes as war and conquest, wealth, race, sex, but its main emphasis is on language and organization and this emphasis requires close analysis of style and structure. Authors may include Dickens, Forster, and Conrad, Dos Passos, Hansberry, Baraka, and Malraux, Brecht, and Silone. More Info
Offered in:engl 377 Literature of the Americas +
Description:
This course aims to provide students with an understanding the relationship between U.S. and Latin American literature. The course focus varies each semester, and may survey nineteenth-century nationalism in their parallel development; literary modernism between the two world wars; and/or the post-World War II period, with the creation of Latin American ''boom'' literatures in the 1950s and the 1960s. The point of the course is not simply to compare and contrast each of these literatures in order to mark the similarities between them, but rather to determine why these literary traditions should be examined together in the first place. Critical approaches developed in the course will highlight questions of interpretation, literary history, and translation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 379 Special Topics in English and American Literature I +
Description:
Various courses in literature and related fields are offered experimentally, once or twice, under this heading. Topics are announced each semester during pre-registration. Recent topics have included Gothic Literature, The Harlem Renaissance, and memory and World War II. More Info
Offered in:engl 380 Special Topics in English and American Literature II +
Description:
Various courses in literature and related fields are offered experimentally, once or twice, under this heading. Topics are announced each semester during pre-registration. Recent topics have included Gothic Literature, The Harlem Renaissance, and memory and World War II. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 382 William Shakespeare's Early Works +
Description:
Shakespeare''s comedies, history plays, and early tragedies largely from the first half of Shakespeare''s career. The course emphasizes critical interpretations of individual plays but it attempts as well to review Shakespeare''s dramatic art in general, theater history and conventions, theory of comedy and theory of tragedy, the language of verse drama, and the development of the history play. More Info
Offered in:engl 383 William Shakespeare's Later Works +
Description:
Shakespeare''s problem plays, major tragedies and late romances. The course emphasizes critical interpretations of individual plays, and it assumes that students will have had some experience of Shakespearean plays, such as those in ENGL 382. But this course may be elected without such experience. More Info
Offered in:engl 385 John Milton +
Description:
Reading and discussion of John Milton''s English poetry and some of his prose: early lyrics; the tragedy Samson Agonistes; the epics Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Attention to modern debates about structure and style and to the relation between Milton''s politics and his poetry. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 395 Comparative Reading of Two Authors +
Description:
This course offers a comparative study of two British or two American writers who worked within a shared national tradition, and whose writings reveal social and thematic affinities or present interesting problems of contrast. Students in the course engage in the meaningful juxtaposition of the two authors, exploring how such comparisons can lead to a more complex understanding of each. Unlike English 394, which compares writers from different nations, this version of the course does not offer transnational credit. The authors studied vary from year to year. Examples of possible paired writers include Shakespeare and Jonson, Burney and Austen, Hawthorne and Melville, Dickens and Gaskell, or Wharton and Morrison. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 396 Jane Austen +
Description:
This course examines Jane Austen's major works with regard to content and context. In trying to understand the enduring popularity of Austen's major novels, we will discuss questions of adaptation and nostalgia, style and social class. In reading Austen's major novels, students will be encourages to understand philosophical issues (most notably aesthetics and the theory of the mind), and historical aspects of Regency period culture (the marriage market, inheritance practices, Britain's view of France, the slave trade, and novel reading). Attention will also be paid to other important female writers of her time in the attempt to understand Austen's posthumous elevation to literary stardom. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 397 Queer Romanticism +
Description:
This course examines how Romanticism's emphases on revolution, art, and the individual allowed for a freer literary exploration of the question of desire, and of queer desire largely constructed (that is, along a gender continuum rather than only hetero male, hetero female, gay or lesbian). More Info
Offered in:engl 401 The Medieval Period +
Description:
Lyrics, romances, mystery plays, allegories of English literature in the period before the sixteenth century. Old and Middle English writers, including Chaucer, Langland, and the Pearl Poet; stories of King Arthur and his knights. More Info
Offered in:engl 402 The Renaissance in England +
Description:
Major work of the English Renaissance (early sixteenth through early seventeenth centuries), in poetry and prose. Authors such as Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, and Milton. Reading in Renaissance criticism. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 406 The Victorian Age +
Description:
A study of social, technological, spiritual, and cultural changes in Victorian England (1830s to 1880s) as reflected in tensions-between community and individualism, tradition and progress, belief and doubt, utility and feeling-in works by such writers as Carlyle, Mill, Browning, Barrett Browning, Macaulay, Dickens, Tennyson, Arnold, Ruskin, and Pater. Consideration is given to music and visual arts. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 408 American Romanticism +
Description:
A study of literature as a reflection of social and cultural changes occurring from the 1830s through the 1860s. Attention to both the most famous traditional ''romantics'' (Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman) and to the important ''minority'' writers whose works, published in the same period, helped to change the tradition (Fuller, Douglass, Truth, Stowe, Jacobs, and others). More Info
Offered in:engl 409 American Realism +
Description:
A study of the tradition of realism in American writing, from the age of Whitman to 1925. Primary focus on the post-Civil War period, the Gilded Age, when realistic and naturalistic works replaced the romance as the dominant American mode of literary expression. Whitman, Twain, James, Howells, Crane, Chesnutt, Dreiser, Jewett, Wharton, and others sought to reflect a transformed America, as fact and symbol, in their works. These and other writers helped to confirm and create a new American reality. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 410 The Modern Period +
Description:
A study of the phenomenon of ''modernism'' in, roughly, the first half of the twentieth century in Britain and America. Reading and discussion of such writers as Yeats, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Eliot, Hemingway, Pound, and Faulkner. More Info
Offered in:engl 411 Postcolonial Literary Studies +
Description:
This course introduces student to the diversity of literary, philosophic, and political topics addressed by postcolonialism. Drawing on a wide range of texts, we will pursue the following avenues of inquiry: What do we mean by the term ''Empire''? How has the reach of Empire been historically constructed, critiqued in fiction, and/or sustained through narrative: What forms of identity are available to individuals who have been displaced, either through personal choice or random (and often tragic) circumstance? And, finally, how ''post'' is postcolonialism? To answer these and related questions, this course will further explore the different experiences of colonization, decolonization, and postcolonial culture and politics during the twentieth century in South Africa, Nigeria, Jamaica, India, Australia, and Northern Ireland. Taking a transdisciplinary approach, we will conduct inquiries into the nature of sociopolitical and cultural conditions that characterize current or former colonies, the diverse registers in which these conditions are discursively articulated, and the modes, spaces, and politics of their (re)production, circulation, and consumption. Some themes this course will address include the psychology of colonization and settlement; violence and decolonization; constructions of the ''Other'' by imperial center; hybrid cultural formations wrought by the impacts between colonizer and colonized. Taking the above statement by Ghosh as instructive, this course will also seek to interrogate the idea that culture is a coherent or self-contained whole; thus, the final portion of this class will address themes of travel, immigration, and concepts of the diaspora, homeland, and exile by attending to the ''new'' cosmopolitanism. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 412 Contemporary British Fiction and Film +
Description:
This course will take a wide-ranging view of contemporary British fiction and film by reading novels and watching films about Great Britain (i.e., England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) produced between 1980 and the present moment. We will study the dynamic internationalism of English writing and filmmaking; we will investigate the highly politicized regionalism apparent in novels and films from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Finally, we will contextualize our in-class discussions of the novels and films with select essays about contemporary politics in Great Britain and, more broadly, contemporary theories about film and narrative theory. More Info
Offered in:engl 415 Irish Literature +
Description:
A close study of Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce and other writers of the modern Irish renaissance. The backgrounds of Irish history and literature relative to the above writers are also studied. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 437 Reading the Gothic: Transatlantic Terrors +
Description:
This course explores how Gothic stories were invented and developed by the transatlantic imagination in the mid 18th century, and surveys their subsequent development through the 20th century. We will address such questions as why readers would be attracted to obviously ''unreal'' stories and how these stories test the imagination's ability to make extreme fictions feel ''real.'' We will trace the influence of Gothic on other areas of the literary arts, on other artistic fields such as architecture and painting, and even on social developments such as how women were viewed and how other foreign cultures were interpreted. Authors may include Walpole, Brockden Brown, Shelley, Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Dickens, Stoker, Oates, King. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 438 Reading the Graphic: Texts and Images +
Description:
Some scholars argue that our culture has become increasingly visual in recent years, and many worry that our ability to understand the complex power of images sometimes lags behind our ability to analyze and use words. This course aims to refine our ability to talk about visual representation, analyzing not only how words and images work together in what we read and see, but also how they collude in photographic essays, graphic novels, and illustrated stories. Classic examples of these genres will be surveyed in the effort to investigate the fascinating relationships between images and words, as well as the roles this relationship plays in our language and our ways of thinking about truth, story-telling, memory, identity, and power. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 440 History of the English Language +
Description:
Where did English come from? How have historical events influenced change in the language? Should change today be resisted or accepted? Who or what determines what is ''correct''? Participants learn how to analyze and transcribe speech sounds, use traditional grammar to understand grammatical change, and work with specialized dictionaries that help in analyzing short texts from various periods of English. More Info
Offered in:engl 442 Global Englishes and Language Diversity +
Description:
Why is English the most widely used language in the world? How are language users all over the world creating and using multiple Englishes? In the current period of linguistic diversity, who wins and who loses? In this course, students will learn about the global history of English, read and write about theories of language diversity, explore the social causes and effects of language diversity and language change, and reflect on their position as users of English today. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 448 Perspectives on Literacy +
Description:
A study of the theories of literacy, in its relation to human thinking and to social uses and contexts; and of the practice of literacy, in the teaching, learning, and use of literate behaviors in contemporary American society. The course links the active investigation of literacy issues with related readings, and draws implications for the teaching of reading and writing and for the study of literature. More Info
Offered in:engl 450 Teaching Literature +
Description:
Designed for students who are considering English teaching as a career, this seminar is an investigation of why and how we teach literature in the secondary school settings. We will read literary texts from a teacher's perspective, analyze educational research, develop lesson plans, and respond critically to each other's work. To clarify and reassess the goals of literature pedagogy, we will attempt to strike a balance between developing practical tools for potential classroom use and examining theories about teaching and learning. We will address teaching literary genres, teaching canonical and non-canonical texts (ranging from those of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare to Marjane Satrapi and Zora Neale Hurston), teaching poetic and narrative form, and teaching with unexpected materials. In the spirit of collaboration, this course will draw on our collective interests and educational experiences to identify useful resources and strategies that will assist 21st century-students in their responses to print, visual, and digital texts. More Info
Offered in:engl 451 Teaching Writing +
Description:
Designed for students considering English teaching, this seminar examines writing instruction in middle and secondary school contexts. In this course, we'll explore the relationship between theory and practice by articulation, evaluation, revision, and expanding our own theories of writing and writing instruction, and thinking and how those theories impact the choices we make in the classroom. This class presents the teaching of writing as a mode of ongoing inquiry, observation, and (re)design; in other words, you are not just a teacher, but a teacher-researcher. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 452 Teaching English With Digital Technology +
Description:
This course addresses the ways that new technologies are changing the teaching of English at the middle and secondary school levels. We will examine the history of writing technologies and consider the ways that scribal proficiency, the printing press, and computer coding have revolutionized our conceptions of writing and the very nature of literacy itself. We will then immerse ourselves in the digital world, contribution to social networks, blogs, and wikis, and evaluation when and how they should be used in our teaching of language, literature, and writing. We will give careful consideration to the philosophical and ethical concerns that accompany these dynamic and collaborative environments. However, the bulk of the course will be dedicated to developing effective strategies for helping our students read, interpret, and produce alphabetic, hyper-, and multi-modal texts. The ultimate goal is the participants will create digital teaching portfolios that reflect their pedagogical beliefs and revitalize their instruction. There questions will be threaded throughout the term: How do Web 2.0 technologies and their multiple modes of representation affect how our students might approach reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing? How can we, as English teachers, prepare our students to engage both actively and critically in a rapidly changing communicative environment while maintaining our traditional curricular focus on literature, language, reading, and writing? How can we most effectively use the technological resources available to us to foster students' leafing and literacy within 21st century classrooms? More Info
Offered in:engl 454 English Internship +
Description:
This is a course for English majors with approved internships that connect to skills learned in the English Department. The course/internship will provide experience working in a professional setting/context and will offer students the potential to reflect on potential career paths. Students meet periodically with a faculty internship director to discuss the progress of the internship. Course requirements typically include a journal or end-of-term portfolio, as well as a reflection essay and evaluation of the internship. For full information about requirements, see the English Department Undergraduate Office. Because potential faculty internship directors made commitments early, students are encouraged to apply during advanced registration. This course awards 3 credits for approximately 10 hours/week of work with the internship (or 150 hours over the course of the semester), in addition to the required portfolio and reflection piece. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 455 Independent Study I +
Description:
A course of study designed by the student in conjunction with a supervising instructor in a specialized subject, one ordinarily not available in the standard course offerings. More Info
Offered in:engl 456 Independent Study II +
Description:
A course of study designed by the student in conjunction with a supervising instructor in a specialized subject, one ordinarily not available in the standard course offerings. More Info
Offered in:engl 457 Undergraduate Colloquium: Career Development for English Majors +
Description:
Through a series of workshops and sequence of assignments, this course helps English majors explore careers in English and prepare materials for a successful job search. Two areas of career development will be emphasized; identifying vocations that capitalize on student skills and abilities; and enhancing self-presentation to prospective employers through work on cover letters, resumes, interviewing and networking skills. In addition, students refine their writing and communication skills in ways intended to benefit them after graduation. More Info
Offered in:engl 458 Undergraduate Colloquium: Literature in Public Spaces +
Description:
This one-credit course encourages students to examine the social life of literature in today's culture. Students explore literature as it is presented in public settings and critique that experience by writing reviews. The course presents students with a series of guest lectures, reading, film and dramatic presentations, workshops, and organized discussions. More Info
Offered in:engl 459 Writing Center Pedagogy, Theory, and Research +
Description:
This course serves as an introduction to the work of writing centers and to writing center and composition pedagogies and theories. By reading and discussing writing center and writing studies scholarship, students will learn to engage in flexible practices to successfully work with writers from various backgrounds and identities at all academic stages. Students in this course will compose written projects and may have the option of working directly with writers in the Writing Center. More Info
Offered in:engl 464 Advanced Studies in Language and Literary Theory +
Description:
This course offers students interested in language or literary theory an opportunity to do advanced work in subjects which vary from semester to semester. Possible subjects include: theories of discourse, varieties of present day English, the linguistic structures of poetry, and advanced stylistics. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 465 Advanced Studies in Literature and Society +
Description:
This capstone course offers advanced study in topics that focus on the relationship between literature and society; these topics vary from semester to semester. Possible subjects include the exploration of literature's representation of social structures such as class, periods defined by specific social events such as war, social institutions such as work or home, or cultural understandings of social behavior and beliefs. A major research project and its presentation to the class are required. More Info
Offered in:engl 466 Advanced Special Topics +
Description:
A capstone course offering intensive study of a topic at the intersection of different approaches to or disciplinary perspectives on literature. Topics may include relationships between literature and (1) other arts; (2) cultural, social, or economic history; or (3) the development of fields such as law, medicine, or science. A major research project and its presentation are required. More Info
Offered in:engl 470L New England Literature and Culture +
Description:
A study of the New England literary tradition from about 1850 to the near present. How have writers and critics contested their differing versions of native grounds and reinvented the New England idea in their works? Consideration of such topics as Native American culture, Puritanism and Transcendentalism, slavery and Abolitionism, immigration and ethnicity, nationalism and regionalism, industrialization, and popular culture. More Info
Offered in:engl 471L The City in American Literature and Culture +
Description:
A study of physical, social, and cultural aspects of the American city, as reflected and constructed in architecture, the arts (literature, film, music, visual arts), and theory. The course focuses on four historical periods: the mid-19th century, the turn of thecentury, the mid-20th century, and the present; and includes a capstone research project. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 475 Professional and News Media Writing Capstone Internship +
Description:
A tutorial course for Professional and New Media Writing students with approved internships involving substantial writing in professional settings. Students meet every other week with a faculty internship director to discuss writing they have produced at the internship. The writing is accompanied by a breakdown of the steps involved in researching and composing it, the time spent, the extent of the intern's contribution, and an analysis of what was learned in the process. Course requirements typically include a journal, readings, and end-o-term portfolio, and a summer essay, and may include an oral presentation to a class or student group. For application forms and full information about requirements, see the director of Professional and New Media Writing. Because potential faculty internship directors make commitments early, students are encouraged to apply during advanced registration. The course awards three hours of credit for a minimum of 25 pages of formal on-the-job writing and ten hours of work per week on site. More Info
Offered in:engl 477 Professional and New Media Writing Internship II +
Description:
A tutorial course for students with approved internships involving substantial writing in professional settings. Students meet every other week with a faculty internship director to discuss writing they have produced a the internship. The writing is accompanied by a breakdown of the steps involved in researching and composing it, the time spent, the extent of the intern's contribution, and an analysis of what was learned in the process. Course requirements typically include a journal, readings, and end-of-term portfolio, and a summary essay, and may include an oral presentation to a class or student group. For application forms and full information about requirements, see the director of internships. Because potential faculty internship directors make commitments early, students are encouraged to apply during advanced registration. More Info
Offered in:engl 489 Terrorism and the Novel +
Description:
Our primary aim in this course is to examine the diversity of ways in which terrorism has been represented in narrative fiction. Topics include: Victorian anarchism, the ''Troubles'' in Northern Ireland, international responses to 9/11, the collisions between postmodernism and terrorism. This course requires extensive reading in political, historical, and theoretical materials. We will use these materials to pose more general literary questions: How have modern writers engaged questions of political violence? What forms of communication does terrorism authorize and foreclose? More Info
Offered in:- TBA
engl 496 Creative Writing Honors Seminar +
Description:
A creative writing workshop for student writers of poetry, fiction, or drama who have been accepted into the Honors Program in English and Creative Writing. A one-semester course (in the fall), to be followed by one semester of independent work with an advisor. More Info
Offered in:engl 497 Creative Writing Honors Thesis +
Description:
Independent study in creative writing for student writers of poetry, fiction, or drama who have been accepted into the Honors Program in English and Creative Writing and who have completed English 496 with a grade of B or better. More Info
Offered in:engl 498 English Honors Seminar +
Description:
The course consists of an introduction to research methods, a survey of critical methods (with the end of helping the honors student choose an approach for the writing of the thesis), and the reading of all primary and some secondary materials preparatory to writing the thesis. More Info
Offered in:engl 499 English Honors Thesis +
Description:
A continuation of ENGL 498, in which the honors student works individually with a faculty advisor on the writing of the honors thesis. The student receives a grade for each semester of work but honors in English will be awarded only to those students who have written a thesis of high distinction (as judged by the Honors Committee). More Info
Offered in: