Winter 2025 Class Schedule
**Meeting days and times may be subject to change.**
Click on a course title to view the description.
Course | Title | Instructor | Day/Time | |
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English 200 | Literary Histories: Snakey Women Through the Ages (Historical Breadth Pre 1830) | Vieytez | MW 9:30-10:50 | |
English 200 Literary Histories: Snakey Women Through the Ages (Historical Breadth Pre 1830)Course Description: In 2016, Taylor Swift’s highly publicized feud with Kanye West and the Kardashians peaked with the release of Kanye’s song, “Famous,” which features a derogatory reference to the pop artist. In response to Taylor’s outrage, Kim Kardashian released a recorded phone call between Taylor and Kanye in which she seemed to approve the controversial lyric, and called Taylor a “snake.” This suggestion of Taylor’s deceit spread quickly through public opinion, and #TaylorSwiftisaSnake went viral across social media platforms. What does it mean to call a woman a snake? What does such a comparison seek to express about someone’s intentions, or even their ethics? And what happens when women accused of sn(e)akiness lean into rather than away from the comparison? We will consider these questions in a winding investigation of snakey women through the ages and across a variety of narrative forms. From the bond between Eve and a serpent in the biblical story of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace to the bond between dragon-rider Rhaenyra Targaryen and her dragon (HBO series, “House of the Dragon”), from Melusine, a medieval folkloric figure cursed with the body of a serpent from the waist down, to Medusa, the monstrous snake-haired woman of Greek mythology, this class will examine how premodern and modern representations of serpentine femininity treat issues of gender and power. Texts may include: Excerpts from the Old Testament; Ovid’s Metamorphoses; Melusine; the HBO series “Game of Thrones”; and “House of the Dragon”; as well as selections from medieval illuminated manuscripts and social media. | ||||
English 200 | Literary Histories: American Nightmare: Race Science from the 18th Century to the Present (Historical Breadth Post 1830) | Bergh | MW 2-3:20 | |
English 200 Literary Histories: American Nightmare: Race Science from the 18th Century to the Present (Historical Breadth Post 1830)Course Description: Is the American dream only a white dream, even a fantasy? Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning 2017 horror film Get Out, in which a white liberal family systematically transplants the brains of their aging family members into the bodies of Black people, satirizes the postracial fantasy of colorblindness. White wealth and flourishing (and eternal youth) are based on a horrifying techno-fix: the exploitation and extraction of Black life, the production of a living nightmare. Peele’s film raises unsettling questions about the American conception of race—questions with deep histories—which this class aims to explore: How has race been mobilized as a structure of white supremacist social control? What has racialization meant for those being racialized? Centralizing the work of Black and Indigenous thinkers, our goal will be to interrogate what race has meant in American culture over time. We will read a selection of excerpts and short texts from the 18th and 19th centuries to learn about the development of “race science” as a logic underpinning violently imposed social hierarchies. In tandem with this material, we will analyze Peele’s film and two contemporary novels with historical roots: Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys (2019), the story of a young Black man in a “reform school” in 1960s Florida, and Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars (2024), which traces the experience of two Indigenous boys at the Carlisle Indian School, an institution designed to destroy Native culture. In doing so, we will aim to investigate the question: What are our contemporary inheritances of these histories? | ||||
English 200 | Literary Histories: Songs and Sonnets (Historical Breadth Pre 1830) | Phillips | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 200 Literary Histories: Songs and Sonnets (Historical Breadth Pre 1830)Course Description: Beginning with the sonnet craze in the late sixteenth century and ending with twenty-first-century reinventions and deconstructions of the sonnet, this course will explore questions of literary history by taking up the relationship between poetry and popular culture, investigating the ways in which poets draw on the latest trends in popular and literary culture and in turn the ways in which that culture incorporates and transforms poetry—on the stage, in music, and on the screen. Thinking of literary history as a set of conversations in verse across the centuries, we will consider how poets borrow from and respond to one another, experimenting with traditional forms and familiar themes to make the old new. In order to recognize and interpret this experimentation, we will first study those traditional forms, learning to read and interpret poetry. While we will be reading a range of poems in modern editions, we will be situating them in their social, historical, literary and material contexts, analyzing the ways in which these contexts shape our interpretation. Readings may include poetry by Shakespeare, Agbagi, Donne, Hughes, Sidney, Keats, McKay, Rosetti, Yeats, and Eliot. Teaching Method(s): Discussion. Evaluation Method(s): class attendance and participation required; two papers, short assignments, and discussion board posts. Texts include: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 6th edition, eds. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy (ISBN: 978-0393679021, approximate cost: $80 new, 45-50 used, $25 rental); students may also use The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th edition, (ISBN: 978-0393979206), approximate cost: ~$10 used. Text will be available at: Norris Center Bookstore. | ||||
English 202 | Introduction to Creative Writing | Tucker | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 202 Introduction to Creative WritingCourse Description: This course will introduce students to the major elements and tools of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing. Through exercises and projects, you’ll practice using these tools to produce original, exciting works of literary art. Along the way, you’ll sharpen your ability to track these elements both in published texts and in the work of your classmates, and further develop how you measure aesthetic value. You’ll be encouraged to see yourself as an active member of a community of artists, and to establish a regular discipline as a working writer. Writing and reading will be due in nearly every class, and peer workshop will play an important role in learning to see your work more objectively. Teaching Methods: Discussion. Evaluation Methods: Evaluation of a final portfolio. Texts include: A course reader. | ||||
English 202 | Introduction to Creative Writing | Barcelona | WF 9:30-10:50 | |
English 202 Introduction to Creative WritingCourse Description: This course will introduce students to the major elements and tools of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing. Through exercises and projects, you’ll practice using these tools to produce original, exciting works of literary art. Along the way, you’ll sharpen your ability to track these elements both in published texts and in the work of your classmates, and further develop how you measure aesthetic value. You’ll be encouraged to see yourself as an active member of a community of artists, and to establish a regular discipline as a working writer. Writing and reading will be due in nearly every class, and peer workshop will play an important role in learning to see your work more objectively. Teaching Methods: Discussion. Evaluation Methods: Evaluation of a final portfolio. Texts include: A course reader. | ||||
English 206 | Reading and Writing Poetry | Curdy | TTh 11-12:20 | |
English 206 Reading and Writing Poetry[Prerequisite to English Major in Writing] Course Description: An introduction to the major forms of poetry in English from the dual perspective of the poet-critic. Creative work will be assigned in the form of poems and revisions; analytic writing will be assigned in the form of critiques of other class members’ poems. A scansion exercise will be given early on. All of these exercises, creative and expository, as well as the required readings from the anthology, are designed to help students increase their understanding of poetry rapidly and profoundly; the more wholehearted students’ participation, the more they will learn from the course. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student poems. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ understanding of poetry; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: An anthology, a critical guide, a 206 Reader prepared by the instructor, and the work of other students. Prerequisites:
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English 206 | Reading and Writing Poetry | Okafor | TTh 12:30-1:50 | |
English 206 Reading and Writing Poetry[Prerequisite to English Major in Writing] Course Description: An introduction to the major forms of poetry in English from the dual perspective of the poet-critic. Creative work will be assigned in the form of poems and revisions; analytic writing will be assigned in the form of critiques of other class members’ poems. A scansion exercise will be given early on. All of these exercises, creative and expository, as well as the required readings from the anthology, are designed to help students increase their understanding of poetry rapidly and profoundly; the more wholehearted students’ participation, the more they will learn from the course. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student poems. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ understanding of poetry; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: An anthology, a critical guide, a 206 Reader prepared by the instructor, and the work of other students. Prerequisites:
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English 206 | Reading and Writing Poetry | Curdy | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 206 Reading and Writing Poetry[Prerequisite to English Major in Writing] Course Description: An introduction to the major forms of poetry in English from the dual perspective of the poet-critic. Creative work will be assigned in the form of poems and revisions; analytic writing will be assigned in the form of critiques of other class members’ poems. A scansion exercise will be given early on. All of these exercises, creative and expository, as well as the required readings from the anthology, are designed to help students increase their understanding of poetry rapidly and profoundly; the more wholehearted students’ participation, the more they will learn from the course. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student poems. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ understanding of poetry; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: An anthology, a critical guide, a 206 Reader prepared by the instructor, and the work of other students. Prerequisites:
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English 207 | Reading and Writing Fiction | Sears | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 207 Reading and Writing FictionCourse Description: A reading and writing course in short fiction. Students will read widely in traditional as well as experimental short stories, seeing how writers of different culture and temperament use conventions such as plot, character, and techniques of voice and distance to shape their art. Students will also receive intensive practice in the craft of the short story, writing at least one story, along with revisions, short exercises, and a critical study of at least one work of fiction, concentrating on technique. Teaching Method: Discussion of readings and principles; workshop of student drafts. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ growing understanding of fiction; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: Selected short stories, essays on craft, and the work of the other students. Prerequisites:
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English 207 | Reading and Writing Fiction | Bouldrey | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 207 Reading and Writing FictionCourse Description: A reading and writing course in short fiction. Students will read widely in traditional as well as experimental short stories, seeing how writers of different culture and temperament use conventions such as plot, character, and techniques of voice and distance to shape their art. Students will also receive intensive practice in the craft of the short story, writing at least one story, along with revisions, short exercises, and a critical study of at least one work of fiction, concentrating on technique. Teaching Method: Discussion of readings and principles; workshop of student drafts. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ growing understanding of fiction; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: Selected short stories, essays on craft, and the work of the other students. Prerequisites:
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English 207 | Reading and Writing Fiction | Scanlon | TTh 12:30-1:50 | |
English 207 Reading and Writing FictionCourse Description: A reading and writing course in short fiction. Students will read widely in traditional as well as experimental short stories, seeing how writers of different culture and temperament use conventions such as plot, character, and techniques of voice and distance to shape their art. Students will also receive intensive practice in the craft of the short story, writing at least one story, along with revisions, short exercises, and a critical study of at least one work of fiction, concentrating on technique. Teaching Method: Discussion of readings and principles; workshop of student drafts. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ growing understanding of fiction; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: Selected short stories, essays on craft, and the work of the other students. Prerequisites:
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English 207 | Reading and Writing Fiction | Donohue | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 207 Reading and Writing FictionCourse Description: A reading and writing course in short fiction. Students will read widely in traditional as well as experimental short stories, seeing how writers of different culture and temperament use conventions such as plot, character, and techniques of voice and distance to shape their art. Students will also receive intensive practice in the craft of the short story, writing at least one story, along with revisions, short exercises, and a critical study of at least one work of fiction, concentrating on technique. Teaching Method: Discussion of readings and principles; workshop of student drafts. Evaluation Method: Evidence given in written work and class participation of students’ growing understanding of fiction; improvement will count for a great deal in estimating achievement. Texts include: Selected short stories, essays on craft, and the work of the other students. Prerequisites:
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English 208 | Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction | Webster | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 208 Reading and Writing Creative NonfictionCourse Description: An introduction to some of the many possible voices, styles, and structures of the creative essay. Students will read from the full aesthetic breadth of the essay, including memoir, meditation, lyric essay, and literary journalism. Discussions will address how the essay creates an artistic space distinct from the worlds of poetry and fiction, and how truth and fact function within creative nonfiction. Students will be asked to analyze the readings closely, and to write six short essays based on imitations of the style, structure, syntax, and narrative devices found in the readings. Students can also expect to do some brief writing exercises and at least one revision. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student work. Prerequisites:
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English 208 | Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction | Scanlon | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 208 Reading and Writing Creative NonfictionCourse Description: An introduction to some of the many possible voices, styles, and structures of the creative essay. Students will read from the full aesthetic breadth of the essay, including memoir, meditation, lyric essay, and literary journalism. Discussions will address how the essay creates an artistic space distinct from the worlds of poetry and fiction, and how truth and fact function within creative nonfiction. Students will be asked to analyze the readings closely, and to write six short essays based on imitations of the style, structure, syntax, and narrative devices found in the readings. Students can also expect to do some brief writing exercises and at least one revision. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student work. Prerequisites:
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English 208 | Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction | Bresland | TTh 2-3:20 | |
English 208 Reading and Writing Creative NonfictionCourse Description: An introduction to some of the many possible voices, styles, and structures of the creative essay. Students will read from the full aesthetic breadth of the essay, including memoir, meditation, lyric essay, and literary journalism. Discussions will address how the essay creates an artistic space distinct from the worlds of poetry and fiction, and how truth and fact function within creative nonfiction. Students will be asked to analyze the readings closely, and to write six short essays based on imitations of the style, structure, syntax, and narrative devices found in the readings. Students can also expect to do some brief writing exercises and at least one revision. Teaching Method: Discussion; one-half to two-thirds of the classes will be devoted to discussion of readings and principles, the other classes to discussion of student work. Prerequisites:
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English 213 | Introduction to Fiction (Historical Breadth Post 1830) | Law and Wisecup | MW 11-12:20 | |
English 213 Introduction to Fiction (Historical Breadth Post 1830)Course Description: A human “monster,” stitched together out of disparate body parts. An urban community of Indigenous peoples, all with different experiences and stories. A borderland, bisected by checkpoints and border crossings. This course examines works of fiction that engage with—and embody--questions of pieces, fragments, and wholes in order to question what makes a human, a family, and a community. Along the way, we’ll encounter contested frontiers, stories that are at once simple and tangled, and characters who feel monstrous and yet somehow whole. Teaching Method: Two lectures per week; one required discussion-section per week.
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English 280 | Topics in Multiethnic American Literature: Multiracial Identities (Historical Breadth Post 1830) | Comerford | MW 11-12:20 | |
English 280 Topics in Multiethnic American Literature: Multiracial Identities (Historical Breadth Post 1830)Texts May Include: The Woman of Colour (1808), Sui Sin Far, “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian” (1909), Nella Larsen, Passing (1929), Justin Torres, We the Animals (2018), Kyle Lucia Wu, Win Me Something (2021), Samira Mehta, The Racism of People Who Love You (2024).
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English 283 | Introduction to Literature and the Environment: Green Thought, Green Worlds (Historical Breadth, Pre AND Post 1830) | Shannon | TTh 11-12:20, plus discussion section | |
English 283 Introduction to Literature and the Environment: Green Thought, Green Worlds (Historical Breadth, Pre AND Post 1830)Nature is one of humanity’s most elastic concepts. Sometimes it seems to offer a healing refuge, but sometimes it seems to threaten -- or even contradict -- human survival. Are we part of nature, or do we encounter it? Is human society as natural as the pack or pod, or a defense against “the laws of nature”? Both human and literary history have been defined by the stories we tell about the environment; our common future will be shaped the same way. What new forms of attention might address the destabilized ecologies on which we now know we depend? Tracking environmental writing from the ancient Greeks to the Anthropocene, this course offers a deep dive into the storied concept of “nature” and the rise of ecological thought and environmental literature. Philosophical reflection began by wondering whether something dystopian separates humanity from the rest of the cosmos. Longstanding ideas of a utopian “green world” have offered an escape from the greyness of everyday life and a corrective to the corruptions of the (so-called) “real world.” Meanwhile, industrial and technoscientific attempts to “master” the earth have scorched it instead, extinguishing countless species and toxifying land, water, air, and our bodies too – proving once and for all that we are a continuous part of the world. Classic literary concerns like close observation, perception, point-of-view, justice, ethics, belonging, and the wild or unknown frontier invariably draw on environmental content. And the way we represent the natural world, in turn, can be as consequential as scientific advances in the great project of preserving our planet. Teaching Method: Lecture and discussion, plus required section meetings. Evaluation: Lecture attendance and discussion; attendance and contributions to section; two quizzes, one short paper, and an in-class final exam. Readings: Along with popular images and scholarly essays on nature and the Anthropocene, we’ll read a broad range of literary-environmental texts, including: short passages from origin myths, classical natural history, and pastoral verse; Shakespeare’s As You Like It and King Lear; Romantic poetry; journal selections from the 19th-century naturalists, Dorothy Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau; a novel from a nonhuman perspective (Virginia Woolf’s Flush); 20th-century conservationist and “environmental literature” (Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson’s landmark text in both literary and environmental history, Silent Spring); excerpts from science fiction; contemporary sound studies; the NOVA documentary, Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine; and the film, WALL-E. | ||||
English 285 | Topics in Literature and Culture: Introduction to Literary Theory | Wolff | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 285 Topics in Literature and Culture: Introduction to Literary TheoryCourse Description: This course is about learning how to read closely, that is, how to “do” a deeply informed comparative close reading. Tailored to the time constraints of the quarter, it introduces students to a series of episodes in the recent history of the study of literature and culture: the influential heroes of these episodes are engaged intellectuals who have together helped to inform how we read today. Pairing a handful of shorter primary texts with field-defining theorists and readers of the past and present, students will not only build fluency in the vocabulary of “literary theory,” they will emerge as more worldly, technically savvy, and theoretically sophisticated readers themselves. In this course, we are not interested in theory for its own sake, but in the ways the thing we call “theory” — like literature — is not only shaped by, but helps to shape the world around us. Teaching Method: Brief lectures and engaged discussion. Evaluation Method: Attendance & participation; short writing assignments; one presentation; and a final project. Authors may include: Germaine de Staël, William Hazlitt, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Zora Neale Hurston, Octavio Paz, Franz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, Paolo Freire, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Rey Chow, Barbara Johnson, and Lauren Berlant. All texts for the course will be available on Canvas. | ||||
English 300 | Seminar in Reading & Interpretation: Austen and Other Genres | Thompson | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 300 Seminar in Reading & Interpretation: Austen and Other GenresCourse Description: As a critical methods seminar for English majors and minors, English 300 will enhance your interpretive, analytic, and argumentative skills. To that end, this class explores new ways to read Jane Austen in both her historical context and our contemporary moment. Whether you’re a stranger to Austen or a devoted Janeite, this class will give you surprising insights into her connections to the social, domestic, and aesthetic movements of her time. We will pair three Austen texts with three earlier novels: Pride and Prejudice and Mary Hays’s radical feminist novel The Victim of Prejudice (1799); Emma and Daniel Defoe’s criminal autobiography Moll Flanders (1722); Northanger Abbey and the mass-popular Gothic novel A Sicilian Romance (1790) by Ann Radcliffe. We’ll accompany each pairing with critical texts in contemporary feminism and queer studies; narratology; and genre studies (on the Gothic). The class will conclude by looking at some contemporary TV or film renderings of Austen (e.g., Bridgerton, Clueless, or Pride and Prejudice). Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. Required texts:
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English 300 | Seminar in Reading & Interpretation: “Crazy Rich Asians”: From Type to Stereotype | Xu | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 300 Seminar in Reading & Interpretation: “Crazy Rich Asians”: From Type to StereotypeCourse Description: It is difficult to imagine an Asian figure in American culture without first recalling a stereotype of it: the yellow peril, the model minority, the inscrutable Orient, and, more recently, the crazy rich. This course will think about how we read literature and film by focusing on these figures and how they’re represented. How do we understand the historical transformation of the representation of Asians in American culture past and present? How can focusing on “types” and “stereotypes” assist us in thinking about how we read and interpret literature and film more generally? How do we explain and grapple with the seeming inevitability of types and stereotypes in cultural representations? The main literary texts we will be reading are Maxine Hong Kinston’s classic novel Woman Warrior, Peter Hessler’s nonfiction River Town, and Yiyun Li’s short stories collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. We will also analyze the 2018 romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians, directed by Jon M. Chu. | ||||
English 309 | Advanced Creative Cross-Genre Writing: Spoken Word and the Radiophonic Imagination | Bresland | TTh 11-12:20 | |
English 309 Advanced Creative Cross-Genre Writing: Spoken Word and the Radiophonic ImaginationCourse Description: Students write and produce multiple prose and poetic works, layering spoken word with evocative sonic textures, tones, instrumentation and silence. This course places equal emphasis on literary quality, vocal performance and production value. We act as writers, performers, producers as we listen deeply into contemporary radio practice. We also encourage one another to experiment, to try weird ideas, to take risks. We will investigate what it means to write for the ear (as opposed to the page or screen), and we will learn to connect with the listener. In the process of producing multiple audio works, we will acquire numerous audio production skills. We will write frequently, speak frequently and in varied styles. We will use field mics and studio mics as we harness our unique voices and the voices of others. We will also compute a fair bit as we learn to use audio editing software to produce polished, multilayered soundscapes. By winter’s end, we will be more practiced writers, more accomplished multimedia performers and producers, possess a greater number of technological skills and a greater range of artistic expression. | ||||
English 310 | Studies in Literary Genres: The English Country House and Far Beyond (Pre 1830/Identities, Communities & Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Thompson | TTh 2-3:20 | |
English 310 Studies in Literary Genres: The English Country House and Far Beyond (Pre 1830/Identities, Communities & Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)Course Description: If you’ve watched Saltburn or the Netflix series Bridgerton, you know that the English estate has undergone some cultural revision. No longer the opulent backdrop of period drama, the country house is the site of reckonings with the history of England’s overseas empire, traffic in captive people, and flagrantly unequal distribution of wealth and power. In this class, we will trace the ongoing force of English literary refigurations of landed property initially tied to the largesse and power of the lord of the manor. We’ll first explore the early modern country house poem, where the landed estate serves as a locus of pastoral abundance and naturalized social, architectural, and ecological order. But as we will discover, cracks appear in this vision. Moving forward, we encounter the idealized country house contested from the vantage of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels whose narrators and protagonists include servants, colonial subjects, and witnesses to family decadence financed by slavery. We’ll turn to twentieth-century texts that claim the decaying country house as source of ghostly national nostalgia. Our final unit will engage public revision (in print, monuments, and activism) of the estate as “English Heritage.” We will watch at least one episode of Bridgerton (Season 1, 2020) and the film Saltburn (2023) to assess recent popular re-representations of the landed estate. Evaluation Method: Grades will be based on three short essays and one group presentation. Old major requirements: ICSP, pre-1830. New major requirements: GSE, pre-1830. Texts May Include: Country house poems may include: Aemelia Lanyer, “A Description of Cookham” (1611); Ben Jonson, “To Penshurst” (1616); Thomas Carew, “To Saxham” (1640); Robert Herrick, “A Panegyric to Sir Lewis Pemberton” (1648); Andrew Marvell, “Upon Appleton House” (1651); Abraham Cowley, “On the Queen’s Repairing Somerset House” (1668); John Dryden, “To My Honoured Kinsman, John Driden, of Chesterton in the County of Huntingdon, Esquire” (1699); Anne Finch, “Upon My Lord Winchilsea’s Converting the Mount in His Garden to a Terrace” (c. 1703); Mary Leapor, “Crumble-Hall” (1751); John Agard, “Upon Revisiting Mansfield Park” (2006). Novels and short stories may include: Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall (1762); Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (1800); Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814); Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847); Arthur Canon Doyle, “The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips” (1891); Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938); Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea (1966); Isabel Colgate, The Shooting Party (1980); Kazuo Ishiguro, Remains of the Day (1989). | ||||
English 311 | Studies in Poetry: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (Post 1830) | Froula | MW 9:30-10:50 | |
English 311 Studies in Poetry: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (Post 1830)Course Description: “Make It New”: Ezra Pound borrows this slogan from an ancient Chinese emperor’s bath tub: “As the sun makes it new / Day by day make it new.” But what is "it"? In our seminar we'll explore poetry as an art of words, voice, song, speech, story; of describing, expressing, transforming, translating, and revealing worlds visible and invisible; of hiddenness and discovery, paradox and mystery, epiphany and surprise, the everyday, the extraordinary, and the otherworldly. Reading selected poems and related prose texts on poetics by Baudelaire, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, H. D., Williams, Bishop, Hughes, Brooks, and other poets both earlier and later, we'll see how particular poems emerge in creative dialogue with other poems across historical moments, locales, languages, cultural surrounds, and sensibilities. We'll practice close reading, analytic, and comparative skills to discuss, appreciate, and write about the formal and linguistic virtuosity by which poets create poems-as-worlds that enrich the resources of English poetry: verse lines and forms, sound patterns (meter, rhythm, music, tone), diction, rhetorical tropes, figurative language, personae, voices. We’ll visit our Special Collections Library to learn about print culture and to see first editions of some of the works we'll be studying. We’ll conclude with a Poetry Fest for which everyone will choose and read, recite, or perform a poem for the class. | ||||
English 312 | Studies in Drama: Staging America (Post 1830) | Davis, N. | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 312 Studies in Drama: Staging America (Post 1830)Course Description: This class examines U.S. playwriting as not only an august and expansive tradition but also, for the last 100 years, a crucial medium by which production teams, public audiences, and private readers have co-participated in critical self-reflection on what “America” means to them/us. After a three-week unit devoted to plays and writers that hugely influenced the trajectory of U.S. drama (O’Neill, Bonner, Odets, Miller, Hansberry, Baraka, Kennedy), the bulk of the course privileges artists and texts that sustained but also stretched that legacy from the 1980s onward. These writers (Wilson, Kushner, Parks, Hwang, Baker, et al.) often take America as their explicit subject, in emblematic microcosm or as grand-scale macrocosm, in ways this course will unpack with curiosity and nuance. At the same time, we will sharpen our attention to the structures, semantics, styles, and stagecraft that make these plays such compelling objects of literary analysis as well as cultural-historical contemplation. Teaching Method(s): Seminar-based discussion. Evaluation Method(s): Writing exercises (papers, practice exercises, annotations, etc.), possible group activities or presentations. Texts include:
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English 313 | Studies in Fiction: Desire and Danger in the 19th Century British Novel (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Law | TTh 2-3:20 | |
English 313 Studies in Fiction: Desire and Danger in the 19th Century British Novel (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)Evaluation Method: Early 4-pp. paper (15%); final 6-7 pp. paper (35%); two seminar presentations (15% each), and quality of contribution to seminar discussion (10%). Texts Include: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Penguin 2006, ISBN 9780141441146; Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Broadview, 9781551117515); Bram Stoker, Dracula (Oxford 9780199564095). | ||||
English 323-1 | Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (Pre 1830) | Phillips | TTh 11-12:20 | |
English 323-1 Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (Pre 1830)Course Description: As we follow along the road to Canterbury, we not only hear a compendium of stories-both pious and irreverent-but we also meet a collection of characters whose diversity spans the spectrum of medieval society: a noble knight and a manly monk, a drunken miller and a virtuous priest, a dainty nun and a domineering wife, who compete with one other, trading insults as well as tales. Over the course of the quarter, we will explore the ways in which Chaucer experiments with late medieval literary genres, from chivalric romances to bawdy fabliaux, frustrating and playing upon the expectations of his audience. Against and alongside this literary context, we will consider the dramatic context of the pilgrimage itself, asking questions about how the character of an individual pilgrim, or the interaction between pilgrims, further shapes our perceptions and expectations of the tales: How is a romance different, for example, when it is told by a knight, by a social climber, or by a renegade wife? We will be reading Chaucer's poem in the original Middle English. At the end of the quarter, we will give an in-class performance of one of the tales Teaching Method: Discussion and some lectures. Texts include: The Canterbury Tales, ed. Jill Mann ISBN 978-0140422344 (approximate cost: $25) (The Canterbury Tales, ed. Larry D. Benson or The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson are also acceptable editions). | ||||
English 324 | Studies in Medieval Literature: Queering Medieval Romance (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice) | Newman | MWF 11-11:50 | |
English 324 Studies in Medieval Literature: Queering Medieval Romance (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice)Course Description: Medieval romance famously celebrated “courtly love”—the ennobling passion of an aristocratic man for an upper-class woman. But just as deeply ingrained is the ideal of same-sex love between men. And despite—or perhaps because of—the Church’s misogynist bias, the culture shows a surprising openness to transgender identities. This class will explore two kinds of texts: those in which women identify as men, and those in which heterosexual love disrupts or is disrupted by male affection. In Ovid’s tale of Iphis and Ianthe, two girls (one passing as male) fall in love and marry, while in the life of the transgender saint Marina, a woman who becomes a monk is accused of fathering a child. In Silence, a 13th-century French romance, the “silenced” hero/ine is born female but raised male; as a knight, he is charged with homosexuality after rejecting the queen’s advances. After our study of ambiguous gender identities, we’ll turn to ambiguous desires, reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Amis and Amiloun, and selections from The Romance of the Rose. We’ll end with Chaucer’s “other masterpiece,” the magnificent Troilus and Criseyde. Set in ancient Troy, this romance features the ambiguous, bisexual Pandarus, who seems to be in love with both the hero and the heroine. Amis and Amiloun and Troilus and Criseyde will be read in Middle English, the other texts in translation. Texts May Include:
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English 339 | Studies in Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Environmental Questions (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Shannon | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 339 Studies in Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Environmental Questions (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)The course will explore Shakespeare’s troubled sense that humankind, alone among all creaturely kinds, does not quite “belong” to nature. We’ll assess how his understanding of “Nature” and our relation to it changes over time and how it varies in the distinct ecologies of tragedy and comedy. The critical concept of Shakespearean “green worlds” first arose to describe the retreats into nature (and away from civilized society) that typically occur in the comedies. In Shakespearean comedy, a removal to the green world (getting ourselves “back to Nature”) counteracts one or another social ill, which in turn enables a rebalanced, healthier socio-political life to be restored. But how does this traditional and sometimes pastoral sense of a natural equilibrium hold up in a closer reading of the plays, especially if we consider comedies and tragedies together? Against what, exactly, is the human social order defined and established, and from what threatening “laws of nature” is it supposed to defend us? How does our grasp of more contemporary human impacts on the environment illuminate Shakespeare’s premodern vision of human existence as a calamity of exposure – to both hard weather and our own worst instincts? This inquiry into Shakespeare’s environmental vision will, finally, tell us something about the longer philosophical history of wondering what it means to be human. Teaching Method: lecture and discussion Evaluation Method: sustained and substantive class participation, occasional assignments, and two short papers. Texts may include: Readings will center on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale. The recommended editions are from the affordable Pelican series: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ISBN: 978014312858; As You Like It, ISBN: 9780143130239; King Lear, ISBN: 9780143128557; and The Winter’s Tale, ISBN: 9780143131748. Contextual readings in early modern genres, pastoral poetry, natural history, theology, and political thought will be supplied by the instructor, as will twentieth- and twenty-first-century materials re-examining humanity’s place in – or agency over – Nature. | ||||
English 344 | 18th Century Fiction: Jane Austen and the Culture Wars (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice) | Soni | MW 3:30-4:50 | |
English 344 18th Century Fiction: Jane Austen and the Culture Wars (Pre 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice)Texts include:
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English 365 | Studies in Postcolonial Literature: Postcolonial Noir (Post 1830/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Global Overlay) | Johnson | TTh 9:30-10:50 | |
English 365 Studies in Postcolonial Literature: Postcolonial Noir (Post 1830/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Global Overlay)Teaching Method: Seminar. Evaluation Method(s): 1 short and 1 longer interpretive essays; active participation in class discussion; 1 group research presentation. Possible Texts include: Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four; Didier Daeninckx, Murder in Memoriam; Sonallah Ibrahim, That Smell; Donia Maher/Ganzeer, The Apartment in Bab al-Louk; Adania Shibli, Minor Detail. Texts will be available at: bookshop.org. | ||||
English 366 | Studies in African American Literature: Black Mindfulness Literature (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/US Overlay) | Spigner | TTh 12:30-1:50 | |
English 366 Studies in African American Literature: Black Mindfulness Literature (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/US Overlay)Considering the buzz word “mindfulness,” this undergraduate course explores the extended tradition of spiritual, contemplative, and ancient practices influencing Black letters since the 19th century. Alluding clear and consistent definition, “mindfulness” is an umbrella term that includes contemplative practices, embodiment, transcendentalism, and many other lines of spiritual and secular strategies for survival and more. This course will consider how stillness, concentration, and focus on interiority provide alternative and complementary strategies for Black survival and thriving. We will read works by Johnson and Toomer, Paschal Beverly Randolph, Paule Marshall, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Zora Neale Hurston. Additionally, we will consider the theory and criticism of Howard Thurman, Kevin Quashie, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others along with Buddhist, Vedic, and West African religious texts and studies to consider the many sides of a Black mindfulness literary tradition. We will contemplate the theory and praxis of meditation, transcendence, tantra, Dharma, ritual, and possession. Additionally, we will create and execute our own mindfulness exercises and consider how they may or may not support various politics of Blackness in our current moment. This course will require active and enthusiastic participation by everyone in the class. There will be four response papers/discussion board writing assignments, group presentations, and ongoing experimentation with mindfulness, and a final project that will engage writing as well as other media. Journaling is highly recommended for this course, as well. | ||||
English 368 | Studies in 20th- and 21st-Century Literature: Empire War Worldliness (Post 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Froula | MW 2-3:20 | |
English 368 Studies in 20th- and 21st-Century Literature: Empire War Worldliness (Post 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | ||||
English 374 | Studies in Native American and Indigenous Literatures: Woven Being: Literature and Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice) | Wisecup | MW 2-3:20 | |
English 374 Studies in Native American and Indigenous Literatures: Woven Being: Literature and Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice)Anchored by four visual artists collaborating with the Block—Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe), Kelly Church (Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe), Nora Lloyd (Ojibwe), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)—the course places these artists’ work in conversation with literatures by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Susan Power, Simon Pokagon, and more. Students will gain skills in art historical and literary research practices, exhibition design, archival research, the transcription and interpretation of historical materials, and more. Substantial class time will be spent at the Block engaging with the exhibit and with featured artists. Teaching Method: seminar discussions, hands-on workshops, classes in the Block Museum, conversations with artists and guest speakers. Required Texts
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English 377 | Topics in Latinx Literature: Chicanx and Mexican Feminisms in Art and Literature (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice) | Rodriguez Pliego | TTh 11-12:20 | |
English 377 Topics in Latinx Literature: Chicanx and Mexican Feminisms in Art and Literature (Post 1830/Race & Ethnicity/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice)Teaching Method(s): Discussion-based. Evaluation Method(s): Midterm and final paper, personal essay, attendance and participation. Texts include: Short stories, visual art, poetry and essays from Cherie Moraga, Amparo Dávila, Leonora Carrington, Gloria Anzaldúa, Frida Kahlo, Guadalupe Nettel, and Wendy Trevino. Texts will be available at: | ||||
English 381 | Literature and Medicine: Literature of Plague and Pandemic (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Race & Ethnicity/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures) | Evans | TTh 3:30-4:50 | |
English 381 Literature and Medicine: Literature of Plague and Pandemic (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Race & Ethnicity/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures)Course readings are divided into three units: medieval and early modern Europe, from Boccaccio to Daniel Dafoe; literature of the U.S. AIDS epidemic, including Tony Kushner and Sapphire; and a final unit on contemporary literature, featuring presentiments of and responses to COVID-19 from Ling Ma, Carmen María Machado, and Michael Cunningham. Assignments will include collective annotations on Canvas, podcast episodes (produced in small groups), Canvas Discussions, and a final essay or creative project. *As well as other crises—political, financial, moral, ethical, educational, racial, economic, and so on—but there are only ten weeks in the quarter. **The primary sources for this course were almost all composed in English; those originally composed in another language have been translated so widely as to occupy space in the Anglophone canon despite their origins in another linguistic tradition.Texts:
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English 384 | Studies in Literature and the Environment: Voices of Environmental Justice (Post 1830/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures) | Dimick | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 384 Studies in Literature and the Environment: Voices of Environmental Justice (Post 1830/Transnationalism and Textual Circulation/Postcolonial & Comparative Literatures) | ||||
English 385 | Studies in Literature and Culture: Material Girls: Excess, Gender, and Commercialism in Pop Culture (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Godfrey | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 385 Studies in Literature and Culture: Material Girls: Excess, Gender, and Commercialism in Pop Culture (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)Course Description: As cultural critic Ariana Grande once said, “I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it!” Some hundred years before, Karl Marx warned about consumerism and alienation: “Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.” Taking the iconic makeover scene as its guiding trope, this course considers the preoccupation with gender, sex, and the performance of femininity that lies at the heart of modern consumer culture. How are racial and gender boundaries constructed and enforced through consumerism? Can one truly purchase empowerment? Are there, in fact, some ways in which consumerism offers key avenues for self-fashioning, and the subversion of heteronormative gender performance? While this course begins in 1725 with Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina and a brief survey of antecedents, the majority of texts are literature, film, and pop culture ephemera from the 1990s through today. Texts include Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep, Bong Joon-ho’s best picture winning Parasite, and Greta Gerwig’s latest satire Barbie. Students will engage with Marxism, feminism, gender theory, and sociological thought to construct a modern pop canon of consumption. According to interest, students will also be expected to track a vlogger/influencer of their choice in a pop culture journal. Teaching Methods: Short lectures, seminar discussion, collaborative group exercises. Evaluation Methods: Participation, pop culture journals, final project. Texts Include: Agnes Varda, Cleo from 5-7 (1961), Amy Heckerling, Clueless (1995), Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep (2005), Sakaya Murata, Convenience Store Woman (2016), Bong Joon-ho, Parasite (2019), Lorene Scafaria, Hustlers (2019), Channing Godfrey People, Miss Juneteenth (2020), and Greta Gerwig, Barbie (2023). Texts will be available at: Prep (ISBN 9780812972351) and Convenience Store Woman (ISBN 9780802129628) at Norris, all others on Canvas. | ||||
English 385 | Studies in Literature and Culture: Romantic Comedies Old and New (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Wolff | MW 3:30-4:50 | |
English 385 Studies in Literature and Culture: Romantic Comedies Old and New (Post 1830/Identities, Communities, and Social Practice/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)Course Description: Does the popular genre of the romantic comedy continually renegotiate the social contract? Or do its “happy endings” continually impose the safety of closure on love’s wayward digressions? This course maps the literary and cinematic DNA of the contemporary “rom com,” from William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and the screwball comedies of 1930s Classical Hollywood to the 1990s blockbusters and the Netflix revolution. Along the way we may ask: What do the comedic conventions of Western classical drama, the medieval genre of “romance,” or the political aesthetics of Romanticism have to do with the romantic comedy as it exists today? The anarchic space of the “comedy” genre is often understood to house a subversive potential, using absurdism or satire to scramble power dynamics or to question social norms governing gender, sexuality, race, and family. One standout question for us will be: Does the romantic comedy threaten to tame the comedy genre’s subversive potential? Or does it promise to release its chaotic energies in ever renewed ways? Why do some literary forms and characters seem endlessly adaptable for different social subjects; and how does a screen actor’s “star text” or public image help direct the genre’s history? Students will regularly be asked to watch two movies in a single week. Evaluations are based on participation and preparation; writing several short papers, film analyses, & response posts; presentation on an episode, scene, or clip from a recent TV show that helps us understood the genre and its history; and a final exam. Required Texts (available for purchase & buyback at Bookends & Beginnings):
Note: All films and other readings will be available in “Reserves” on our Canvas site. Course Objectives:
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English 385 | Studies in Literature and Culture: Swindlers, Charlatans and Cheats: Literature of the Scam (Post 1830) | Syvertsen | MW 9:30-10:50 | |
English 385 Studies in Literature and Culture: Swindlers, Charlatans and Cheats: Literature of the Scam (Post 1830)Course Description: Scams. Frauds. Cheats. Conspirators. Con-artists. Stories of fake heiresses, fraudulent corporations, pyramid schemes, and tech industry hucksters have captured audiences and sparked widespread fascination with deception in the modern world. However, the history of scamming and literature about scammers stretches far beyond the present day, with roots in classic works like Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz (as well as the characters of Wicked!), and even F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. What explains this centuries long fascination with "the con"? This course will examine a range of literature, film, and TV shows that explore scams and scammers, tracing the cultural obsession with these stories. We will analyze both historic and contemporary views on scamming, interrogating what these tales reveal about human nature, power, and society. From the traditional cons of the past to the more complex digital and financial frauds of today we'll examine how these scams challenge our notions of trust and authenticity. Ultimately, we’ll question what our ongoing obsession with these figures says about the modern world, and why we seem so drawn to stories of manipulation, illusion, and moral ambiguity. Teaching Method: Discussion-based seminar. Evaluation Method: Mid-term presentation and final essay. Texts include: Herman Melville, The Confidence Man. Frank L. Baum, The Wizard of Oz. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. Texts will be available at: Norris Bookstore. | ||||
English 386 | Studies in Literature and Film: Women on the Verge: Obsession and Melodrama, 1900-1965 (Post 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment) | Stern | MW 11-12:20 | |
English 386 Studies in Literature and Film: Women on the Verge: Obsession and Melodrama, 1900-1965 (Post 1830/Gender, Sexuality & Embodiment)Course Description: Women’s fiction and films of the classical Hollywood era, 1929-1950, feature heroines on the brink of madness, suicide, and death. Melodrama, a dramatic form that flourished in the nineteenth century and featured making virtue and evil visible, structures many of the works in our course. We will explore how and why female artistic production from the beginning of modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the heyday of the “woman’s picture,” 1933-1950 featured women on the brink, rejecting the 19th-century “marriage plot,” for a different set of endings. We will discuss the significance of “the New Woman,” the last throes of the “cult of domesticity” and the work of arguably classic Hollywood’s greatest actress, Bette Davis, whose films took up those historical issues. Mode of evaluation will be two take-home close reading exams (2 pages total) and a final project on a Davis film not on the syllabus. Works may include The Awakening, Ethan Fromme, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Plum Bun, Quicksand, and The Street. Films may include Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, Dark Victory, Now, Voyager, In This Our Life, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? | ||||
English 392 | Situation of Writing | Bouldrey | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 392 Situation of WritingCourse Description: The situation of writing requires that we create literature, as well as the contexts in which literature is shared, appreciated and understood. We are the inheritors, perpetuators and innovators of literary culture, and in this class, we will position our inquiries on the present and future, even as we acknowledge the enduring humanistic values of creative writing. We will begin with a discussion of ideas about shaping the literary traditions of the United States starting with Melville, and moving quickly to those who have led or lead in shaping that tradition by shaping it or walking away from it—Roxane Gay, Adrienne Rich, Richard Baldwin, and others. Then we will build on these ideas practically with a service learning assignment and a creative work that reaches a new public, coordinates new media or engenders community. Our class will be enhanced by the annual Return Engagement series, featuring visits and readings from alumni of Northwestern’s Writing Program. My intention is to have a conversation that will unfold in real-time between us all, and will evolve into a learning experience that is both pragmatically useful and philosophically illuminating. My hope is that this class will help us to become more conscious of our motives and processes as writers; that it will allow us to more lucidly defend creative writing as an art form and a vital contribution to society; and that it will acquaint us with the productions of literary culture, including their changing technological platforms and their relationship to social structures. This course is part of the Hewlett Diversity Initiative, and as part of this program, we will investigate literature and culture through the lens of social inequalities and diversities. | ||||
English 393-2 | Theory and Practice of Poetry | Webster | MW 3:30-4:50 | |
English 393-2 Theory and Practice of PoetryCourse Description: This selective-enrollment, yearlong "Sequence" is designed to make students 64 Return to Calendar increasingly informed readers and self-sustaining apprentices of poetry. The Fall portion of the course begins with summer reading and intensive study in which poets learn to identify operative modes in poetry -- including description, rhetoric, story and song -- and begin connecting contemporary participants with root systems in the tradition. We support our studies with reading exercises and "imitation" assignments, in which students convert close reading into fodder for original writing. Students will write at least four papers and will write, workshop and revise four poems during the Fall term. They also will lead presentations on one chosen poet and one classmate during workshop. In the Winter term, students will continue to read and complete close reading assignments and will stretch their skills as they complete a week of "Daily Poems," thereby drawing on original energy and stamina to bring their work to the next level of accomplishment. Finally, in the Spring term, students will focus entirely on their own work, drafting, revising, workshopping and completing one long poem of at least 120 lines that combines autobiographical material with writing from research. Throughout the year, our close reading assignments hone skills in sensitive and critical thinking; our imitation poems challenge existing habits as they introduce new strategies; our Daily Poems exercise agility and confidence; and our workshops cultivate the openness and humility necessary to serious writing and lifelong learning. Through this intensive and nurturing Sequence, students become careful readers of each others -- work and complete a polished portfolio of original writing. Note: No P/N registration. Attendance at first class mandatory. Admission by application only. | ||||
English 394-2 | Theory and Practice of Fiction | Seliy | MW 3:30-4:50 | |
English 394-2 Theory and Practice of FictionTeaching Method: Lectures, discussion, small- and large-peer workshops. Evaluation Method: This is a portfolio- and participation-based course. Grade based on timely delivery of all assigned work, with equal weight placed on your own stories and revisions and on your peer feedback. Texts Include: TBA Note: No P/N registration. Attendance at first class mandatory. Admission by application only. | ||||
English 395-2 | Theory and Practice of Creative Nonfiction | Hernández | MW 3:30-4:50 | |
English 395-2 Theory and Practice of Creative NonfictionTeaching Method: Discussion. Evaluation Method: Based on creative and critical work; class presentations and participation. Texts Include: Varies each quarter. Texts will be available at Norris Center Bookstore and Quartet Copies. Note: No P/N registration. Attendance at first class mandatory. Admission by application only. | ||||
English 397 | Research Seminar: Cultures of Play | Soni | MW 12:30-1:50 | |
English 397 Research Seminar: Cultures of PlayCourse Description: From video games and board games to game shows and sports, games saturate our culture and shape who we are. Some scholars have even argued that games are replacing novels and film as the dominant form of cultural expression. Others view games as a frivolous and unproductive activity, not worthy of serious study. In this seminar, we will explore some of the fundamental questions about the relationship between games and human culture. Why do people play games? What kinds of meanings, cultural values and political agendas do games encode? Do games function differently than other cultural objects, such as films, novels or works of art? What might it mean to think of all culture and works of art as arising from a “play impulse”? And if this is the case, why do we trivialize game-playing? Is the ubiquity of games in our lives a specifically modern phenomenon? Is the advent of the digital age producing a gamification of everyday life? To investigate these questions, we will read a wide range of critical writing about the importance of play and games in human culture, by philosophers, novelists, literary critics, social scientists, historians and game designers. The class will give you an opportunity to develop a 12-15 page research paper that studies one particular game or aspect of game culture in-depth. In the process, you will learn how to frame a significant research question; articulate a research proposal; navigate scholarly databases and archives; evaluate sources; and, produce an annotated bibliography.
Texts include:
Texts will be available at: Norris University Bookstore | ||||
English 398-2 | Honors Seminar | Grossman | Th 3:30-4:50 | |
English 398-2 Honors SeminarCourse Description: Part of a two-quarter sequence for seniors pursuing honors in the English Literature major, consisting of a seminar in the fall quarter and an independent study with an honors adviser in the winter quarter. Prerequisites: Seniors only. Permission of department required. Attendance at first class mandatory. No P/N registration. | ||||
English 403 | Writers Studies in Literature | Hernández | Th 2-4:50 | |
English 403 Writers Studies in LiteratureCourse Description: TBA | ||||
English 422 | Studies in Medieval Literature: Global Middle Ages | Newman | T 2-4:50 | |
English 422 Studies in Medieval Literature: Global Middle AgesCourse Description: The term “Middle Ages”—the period “in the middle” between classical antiquity and the Renaissance—derives from European history, and it’s problematic even there. But the global turn in medieval studies enables us to go beyond the field’s traditional focus on Europe alone to explore its ties with the rest of the known world. In this course we’ll do that in two ways. Our first unit will deal with romance, gender, and the aesthetics of eroticism. Court ladies feature as foundational romance authors in two island nations, England and Japan, at opposite ends of the Eurasian land mass. After reading the Lais of Marie de France (12th century) and selections from the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (11th century), we’ll complicate our study with two transgender romances: Heldris of Cornwall’s Silence and a Japanese tale translated by Rosette Willig as The Changelings. In our second unit, dealing with travel and ethnography, we’ll consider two Islamic and two European works: The Book of Ibn Fadlan (921-22), The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck (1253-55), The Travels of Ibn Battutah (1325-54), and The Book of John Mandeville (ca. 1356). Critical readings will include literary essays on the French and Japanese texts, as well as excerpts from Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages; Shayne Aaron Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel; and Shirin Khanmohamadi, In Light of Another’s Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages. Texts:
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English 431 | Studies in 16th-Century Literature: Early Modern Horror | Evans | M 2-4:50 | |
English 431 Studies in 16th-Century Literature: Early Modern HorrorCourse Description: This seminar will bring together literary texts from the English Renaissance, ancient and Renaissance theories of spectatorship and catharsis, and academic criticism and theory on contemporary horror fiction and film. Juxtaposing theoretical texts ranging from Aristotle to Carol Clover, we will consider the ways in which early modern narratives and theatrical productions anticipate horror fiction and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. Across three main units—on revenge tragedy, witches, and monsters—we will consider what psychological, cultural, and civic functions are served by the publication and performance of horror. Methodologically, we will consider the validity and value of a diachronic approach that juxtaposes Renaissance and contemporary texts without relying on direct and documentable examples of authorial influence. The following books will be available for purchase at Norris; other assigned reading will be available for download on Canvas. You may substitute alternate editions of texts—including facsimiles available through EEBO or online editions available through NU Library—so long as you’re willing to contend with different sets of explanatory notes, page numbers, and so on.
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English 471 | Studies in American Literature: Women on the Verge | Stern | W 2-4:50 | |
English 471 Studies in American Literature: Women on the VergeCourse Description: Women’s fiction and films of the classical Hollywood era, 1929-1950, feature heroines on the brink of madness, suicide, and death. Melodrama, a dramatic form that flourished in the nineteenth century and featured making virtue and evil visible, structures many of the works in our course. We will explore how and why female artistic production from the beginning of modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the heyday of the “woman’s picture,” 1933-1950 featured women on the brink, rejecting the 19th -century “marriage plot,” for a different set of endings. We will discuss the significance of “the New Woman,” the last throes of the “cult of domesticity” and the work of arguably classic Hollywood’s greatest actress, Bette Davis, whose films took up those historical issues. Mode of Evaluation: Two take-home close reading exams (2 pages total) and a final project on a Davis film not on the syllabus. Works may include The Awakening, Ethan Fromme, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Plum Bun, Quicksand, and The Street. Films may include Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, Dark Victory, Now, Voyager, In This Our Life, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? We will read selected theoretical works from object relations psychoanalysis, feminist film theory, star theory, genre theory, and Lauren Berlant’s The Female Complaint. | ||||
English 471 | Studies in American Literature: Sovereignties across the Americas | Rodriguez Pliego | Th 2-4:50 | |
English 471 Studies in American Literature: Sovereignties across the AmericasCourse Description: The terms “sovereignties” and “Americas” in the title of this course stand at the crossroads of old and new dialogues about their meanings. This course considers Indigenous and Native American notions of sovereignty that imagine nationhood outside of the nation-state framework. It reads these theorizations of sovereignty and nationhood alongside Latin American and Latinx anti-imperial writing. We will consider José Martí’s late nineteenth-century articulation of “Our America” alongside the rise of the Guna word “Abiayala” and its use by Indigenous activists from Latin America, and “Turtle Island” as the name that Native American creation stories give to our continent. Our discussions will trace connections between the storytelling traditions of Native American, Indigenous, and Latinx authors across the hemisphere. We will study the narrative forms that authors take up as they construct or critique nationhood: essays, short stories, novels and poetry. We will also examine how authors break down these forms by taking up communal authorship, orality, visual media, and multilingualism as narrative strategies that provide aesthetic and ideological challenges to canonical articulation of nation-state sovereignties. Teaching Method(s): Discussion-based seminar. Evaluation Method(s): Conference abstract, paper, presentations, and participation in discussions. Texts include: Assigned texts will likely include essays by Emil’ Keme, José Martí, Gerald Vizenor, Shari M. Huhndorf, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, and Walter Mignolo. Primary materials will include works by Leslie Marmon Silko, Luz Jiménez, Tommy Orange, Yuri Herrera, and Natalie Díaz, as well as excerpts from Popol Vuh and Florentine Codex Texts will be available at: All materials will be uploaded to Canvas. | ||||
English 481 | Studies in Literary Theory and Criticism: The Environmental Humanities | Dimick | W 2-4:50 | |
English 481 Studies in Literary Theory and Criticism: The Environmental HumanitiesCourse Description:This graduate seminar explores core concepts, questions, and methodologies within the environmental humanities. Rather than reading literature and literary scholarship in isolation, we will trace their entanglements in environmental history, anthropology, philosophy, geography, and other adjacent disciplines. What, we will ask, are the unique affordances of literary study when confronting environmental questions and challenges? What are the risks and rewards of conducting interdisciplinary environmental research? The syllabus will be tailored to support the particular interests and pursuits of students in the course, but topics may include climate writing, environmental justice literature, environmental racism, global and local scales, militarized and nuclear environments, and queer ecologies. Collectively, the readings will ensure familiarity with classic texts in the environmental humanities and introduce students to the cutting edges of this wide-ranging field. Teaching Method: Discussion-based seminar. Evaluation Method: Conference abstract, paper, presentations, and participation in discussions. Texts include: Assigned texts will likely include scholarship by Lawrence Buell, Ursula Heise, Rob Nixon, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Anna Tsing, and Kyle Powys Whyte. Primary materials will include works by Rachel Carson, Jamaica Kincaid, Imbolo Mbue, Arundhati Roy, Indra Sinha, and Karen Tei Yamashita. | ||||
English 497 | MFA Fiction Workshop | Abani | T 2-4:50 | |
English 497 MFA Fiction WorkshopCourse Description: TBA | ||||
English 571 | Teaching Creative Writing | Seliy | M 10a-12:50p | |
English 571 Teaching Creative WritingCourse Description: TBA |