English 202: Introduction to Fiction Writing
Ann Putnam
In this course you will write two 5-6 page stories, one Short Short and one Deep Revision, in
addition to keeping a writer’s log and reading lots of short stories. You will have many
opportunities to participate in panels, small group workshops, large group workshops, as well as
many in-class writing sessions. Each day when you come to class you will know exactly what to
expect, but you will also be surprised. So you'll need to be here every day--ready to do things
you've never done before, remember things you've never remembered before, ready to write
about things you didn't know you knew. All you need is a brave and willing heart.
English 202: Introduction to Fiction Writing
Suzanne Warren
When asked for advice on starting a band, Blondie singer Debbie Harry replied, “Learn to play your
instruments, then get sexy.” This class is all about mastering the basics before you can get sexy:
the mechanics of plot, character, point of view, timeline, setting, and tone. We learn them by
reading a lot, including stories by George Saunders, Sandra Cisneros, Aimee Bender, and Sherman
Alexie, and writing a lot: flash fictions, reading reflections, short stories, exercises. Curiously, many
fiction-writing skills are transferable to other parts of our lives, like science classes (observation!)
and relationships (empathy!)
Coursework includes 3-4 short stories, 1-2 flash fictions, a writing notebook, workshops, and
reading, reading, reading.
English 203: Introduction to Creative Writing (Poetry)
Hans Ostrom
This course provides an overview of poetic forms and techniques and extensive reading of poetry
by British, Canadian, and American writers. We will also spend time on ways of identifying and
inventing material for poetry, on offering productive criticism to each other’s work, and on
revising and editing poems. The course is intended for those who are relatively new to poetry, but
its structure and pacing assumes that students will be serious about the art and craft of writing
poetry and the discipline of reading and interpreting poems.
English 210: Introduction to English Studies
John Wesley
This course introduces students to the discipline of English Studies. Our aim is to develop a critical
appreciation of English that is at once distinct from but related to the pleasure we derive from
reading and writing. One way of understanding a particular discipline is through the kinds of
questions it asks, so you may think of this class as an inquiry into what English is trying to do with,
and find out about the written word. Along the way, we will also engage with some questions
about the discipline itself, such as: What is literature and why is it studied? Who or what decides
whether a text is literary or not? How did English become a valid academic discipline, and what
features of its origins continue to inform what we do today? How do we determine genre? What is
the relationship between literature and culture? How have critical approaches to literary texts
changed in the last hundred years or so? In answering these questions, and learning about the
discipline, you will simultaneously develop the skills necessary to read, think, and write critically
about English at the college level. Thus, a variety of reading and writing assignments—including
analytical essays, close readings, and creative writing—are designed to acquaint you with a
sampling of some of the prominent issues, topics, activities and assignments that you will face at
all levels of college English. Similarly, and finally, our reading of literary texts will draw from a
broad range of periods and genres.
English 211: Introduction to Creative Writing
William Kupinse
Designed to engage the interests of beginning creative writers (and intended to be especially
welcoming of non-English majors), ENGL 211 will explore the affinities among multiple genres of
literature through its members' writing of original poetry, short fiction, and drama, with an eye
toward mastering fundamental literary concepts with broad applicability. Each of the three
primary units will be organized according to genre, but will consider “pivot points” as it shifts from
one genre to another. Thus a discussion of the image will moves us from poetry to fiction, while a
focus on dialogue will help us transition from short fiction to drama. Other genres may be
addressed as well.
Assignments in this course will emphasize writing as a process and will include selected reading of
canonical and contemporary poems, short stories, and plays; regular writing exercises, both athome and in-class; midsemester and final self-assessment essays and portfolios; in-class
discussions; and peer reviews, both written and oral. A public reading of participants work will
take place at the end of the term. This course gives Humanistic Approaches (HM) credit within
the university's Core Curriculum.
No prerequisite.
English 221: Survey of British Literature I (Medieval to Renaissance)
Michael Curley
English 221 aims to introduce you to the rich variety and complexity of the early literature of
England, from the Anglo-Saxon period down to the seventeenth century: Beowulf, The Canterbury
Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Utopia, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, King Lear,
Paradise Lost. We shall be concerned with the historical backgrounds and literary traditions of the
works that we read, the aesthetic principles that guide them, and the intersection of the biography
of the author with his/her literary work. We shall also explore the reasons why some of the older
literature has the power to transcend its time and place and to grip the imagination of the twentyfirst-century reader. Of course, we shall have time to read only a small portion of the great
literature written during the period covered in English 221, and we shall be constantly reminded of
how much we have left unread. We shall often note the continuities that link one literary work or
period to another, but also the discontinuities in the literary history of the period under study.
Since English 221 has been designed as one of the introductory courses in the major in English, you
will be asked to read some contemporary critical studies on the chief works of the course. The
collection of critical studies for English 221 will be available in a Course Packet. These studies will
be selected for their accessibility to the non-specialist reader but also for the variety of critical
approaches that they represent. You will be required to read all of these studies for a greater
understanding of the primary texts of English 221A. Additionally, each student will be required to
write a critical evaluation (three pages) of two of the studies in the Course Packet.
English 221 also aims to cultivate your skills in writing the analytical essay. To this end, you will be
asked to compose three critical essays on the primary readings. Finally, you will notice that most of
the poetry assigned in English 221 was intended to be performed or recited, sometimes to musical
accompaniment, rather than read either silently or aloud. Indeed, much early English verse did
not survive precisely because it never was written down. To help us to understand, even to
experience, the oral nature of much of the poetry we study in English 221, students will asked to
memorize and recite twenty consecutive lines of poetry from the scheduled reading.
Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. 1, 7th edition, ed. M.H. Abrams et al. (New
York, 2000).
English 224: American Literature Survey I: Beginnings to 1865 (Race, Place, and the American
National Imaginary)
Alison Tracy Hale
This course introduces you to the literary history of colonial, early-national, and antebellum
America using the interwoven conflicts over land, race, and national identity that animated these
periods. Beginning with exploration narratives, the course includes poetry, political essays,
sermons, fiction, and drama from the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries and features works by
both the big names and lesser-known figures, including Mary Rowlandson, Jonathan Edwards,
Benjamin Franklin, Judith Sargent Murray, Walt Whitman, Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Lydia Maria Child, Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley,
and many others! {This course fulfills the breadth requirement for the major, as well as the
“Literature before 1800” requirement.}
English 267: Literature as Art
Darcy Irvin
In this course, we will explore literature as an aesthetic, paying particular attention to the ways in
which literature often intersects with visual art forms such as painting, drama, sculpture, and
drawing. Together, we’ll ask some basic questions about both literary and visual arts: what is a
work of art and how do we define it? What purpose does art serve? How can we “read” a work of
art or look at a piece of literature? And what roles do writing and reading play in our
understanding of non-textual based art forms? We will be reading and studying a range of texts
including short stories, poems, essays, films, paintings, and photographs. Primary literary texts
may include Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dashiell Hammet’s art theft mystery The
Maltese Falcon, and Alan Moore’s graphic novel The Watchmen.
English 307: Writing and Culture
Mita Mahato
In this course, students will work toward understanding the enigmatic and shifting term “culture”
by examining how a variety of writers, theorists, and artists attempt to express themselves when
producing or interacting with different cultural artifacts. Although our examination will allow us to
appreciate a number of distinct texts, ranging from Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia to the
dense theory of Roland Barthes, we will also become sensitive to the complex and nuanced
overlap between literature, journalism, critical theory, photography, film, and the places in which
we find these texts (bookstores, museums, the classroom, the internet, etc). In approaching
culture through these different mediators and media, our main objective will be to explore the
pitfalls and benefits of integrating particular rhetorics of culture into our own writing. Because
this course requires us to experience culture in a hands-on way, you will be required to attend a
number of activities, including a museum visit and film viewing, on your own time.
English 342: Genre Studies, Fiction (The Rise of the Novel in America)
Alison Tracy Hale
This course investigates the relationship between the emergence and increasing significance of the
novel and the development of the United States from the 18 th century through the mid-19th
century. Many critics have remarked upon the simultaneous historical emergence of the novel
genre and the American nation, and suggest that both responded to an increasing emphasis—
political and aesthetic—on the activities, beliefs, and experiences of the “common” individual. We
will begin by exploring the origins of (and precursors to) the novel in Britain and British America,
study the genre’s defining characteristics and its role in the construction and contestation of U.S.
“national identity,” and investigate at least some of its divergent 19 th century iterations: the
romance or sentimental novel, the political or philosophical novel, the gothic or sensationalist
novel, and the realist novel. Course readings will likely be selected from among the following
possibilities: Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance or The House of Seven Gables; Charles Brockden
Brown, Wieland or Edgar Huntly; Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans or The Prairie; Foster, The
Coquette; Rebecca Rush, Kelroy; Royall Tyler, The Algerine Captive; Melville, Pierre; or, the
Ambiguities; William Wells Brown, Clotel; or the President’s Daughter; Lydia Maria Child, A
Romance of the Republic; E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand; Maria Cummins, The
Lamplighter; Ruth Hall, Fanny Fern. Expect a heavy reading load (these novels are long and dense,
but great fun!), a shorter essay (6 pages), close reading (2 pages), a class presentation on a
critical/secondary work, and a longer seminar essay (12-15 pages, including historical or critical
research).
English 343: Autobiography and the Idea of America
Julie Christoph
“Autobiography is [. . .] an almost predestined American form,” writes literary critic Robert F.
Sayre, echoing others who have noted our nation’s consistent interest in the individual. This
course explores the particularly American form of the autobiography as it has developed over the
past two centuries, examining representations of selves and lives in America, as well as
contemporary theories of identity, self, and subjectivity. Some questions we will explore include
the following: To what extent is autobiography “non-fiction”? To what extent does autobiography
share generic traits with fictional forms like the bildungsroman? How do sub-genres (such as
spiritual autobiography, slave narrative, autoethnography, and memoir) fit within the larger genre
of autobiography? What relationships exist between the generic characteristics of autobiographies
written at specific points in history and the social, political, and aesthetic trends of the period?
Required readings will include short theoretical pieces; snapshots of recent controversial
autobiographies like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces; and full-length autobiographies, including
such texts as Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My
Freedom, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Maxine Hong Kingston’s
Woman Warrior: A Girlhood Among Ghosts, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, and Jeannette Walls’s The
Glass Castle. Along with two traditional analytic papers, students will be writing a short
“autobiographical episode.” The course requires in-class presentations and active participation.
English 346: The History of Rhetorical Theory
Martha Webber
In On Rhetoric, a foundational text in the history of rhetoric, Aristotle defines rhetoric as the
“faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” From its classical
development, rhetorical theory has studied persuasive communication – rhetorical texts like
protest speeches or monuments that demand our attention – by examining not just the messages
that rhetoric communicates, but the contexts where people (rhetors) produce rhetoric and the
rhetorical strategies (the “available means”) they use to create rhetorical messages. Over the
semester we will focus on this idea of “available means” – the material resources, tools, and
spaces – that rhetors access to create meaning. Exploring a “material history” of rhetoric will raise
questions about access: what means are available to whom, when, and for what rhetorical
purposes? How do we identify and analyze rhetoric and are there limits to what material forms it
can take? First, our course will approach the classical period from a global perspective: what
foundational ideas developed about rhetoric at this time? Who were the rhetors and what were
the means and locations common for rhetoric? What theories of rhetoric developed that are
relevant today? After establishing the foundations of rhetorical theory in the classical era, we will
examine rhetorical texts from that period forward that seek to uncover the “available means” for
persuasive, public communication. Texts include an anthology of major readings in rhetorical
theory from the classical period to the present that we will apply to contemporary case studies –
such as the AIDS Memorial Quilt and the use of digital rhetoric in the Arab Spring.
English 351: Becoming Shakespeare
John Wesley
Ben Jonson wrote of his friend, Shakespeare, that he “was not of an age, but for all time,” a
sentiment whose prescience is confirmed by our continuing fascination with the bard and his
works. Yet, in the same poem, Jonson also insisted that Shakespeare was the “Soul of the age!” In
this course, we will read Shakespeare’s plays in light of his “age,” asking whether situating these
works in their Renaissance context can (somewhat paradoxically) help us understand their
extraordinary longevity. What is it about these stories that render them so amenable to retelling in
various cultures and periods? In coming to terms with the textual, theatrical, and cultural
conditions in which Shakespeare matured as a dramatist, we will also examine how it is
Shakespeare becomes something new for each culture that re-imagines his work. Indeed, so as not
to lose sight of these plays as performance texts, we will also consider the relationship between
script and performance, as well as (on occasion) supplement our readings with viewings of film
versions.
English 360: William Blake and His Worlds
George Erving
This course studies the works of William Blake (1757-1827), poet, prophet, painter, engraver,
political radical, religious nonconformist, and canonical exemplar of British Romanticism. Our
readings take us into the social and political worlds that Blake inhabits— a mysterious subculture
of London artisans, and a severely divided British nation at war with France and with itself over the
political ideals advanced by the French Revolution—and into the visionary worlds of his illustrated
poetry where imaginative energy does battle with forces of intellectual oppression.
English 360: Ernest Hemingway
Ann Putnam
On July 21, 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. One hundred years later,
at the Centennial Celebration at the Kennedy Library in Boston, he was compared to Tolstoy and
Shakespeare on the one hand—and one of a number of “great, second-rate” writers on the other.
Though easily acknowledged as a writer who changed the course of American Literature, there is
probably no writer in modern American history who has been more misinterpreted, hated and
loved than Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is a writer who elicits strong feelings from just about
everyone. Everybody knows who “Papa” is—or thinks they do. What we hope to discover this
semester is the only Hemingway that truly matters, and that is the Hemingway we discover on the
page. To that end, we will read many of his greatest short stories, the expatriate novel, The Sun
Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and Sea, and two posthumous works, A Moveable
Feast and The Garden of Eden. The class will use a seminar/discussion format, will include two
short papers, one longer paper, and one review of a critical study or biography, along with a
reading log you’ll keep all semester. There will be no formal exams. You will also have the
opportunity to be a discussion leader, panel member, and participate in a group presentation of
either Green Hills of Africa, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Death in the Afternoon, or Islands in the
Stream.
English 402: Advanced Fiction Writing
Suzanne Warren
In this course, you’ll deepen your ability to write and revise short stories. You already have an
understanding of the basic elements of fiction--plot, character, point of view, timeline, setting, and
tone--and a curiosity about literary fiction in all its dazzling diversity. With that in mind, more of
the responsibility for the success of the class is shifted onto you, the student. We workshop nearweekly and read, write, and revise like demons. Students adopt select literary journals as texts,
and present them to the class in panels. At the same time, the big lessons of Fiction 101 bear
repeating in this class: reading makes writers; participation in workshop benefits the reader as
much as the writer; the art of revision distinguishes awesome writers from OK ones.
Coursework includes drafting and revision of 4-5 short stories, workshops, a writing journal, and
participation in a literary journal panel. Course writers have included Sherman Alexie, Lydia Davis,
Jhumpa Lahiri, and Padgett Powell.
English 403: Advanced Creative Writing (Poetry)
Hans Ostrom
The course is aimed at juniors and seniors who have been writing poems for a while and who have
completed English 203. We will spend time expanding the range of styles, forms, and subjects in
your poetry, and we will study formal prosody as well: how rhythm, meter, rhyme, and structure
have influenced poetry in English over the centuries. You will write and revise many poems, read
and interpret poems in an anthology, and participate productively in work-groups.
English 407: Los Angeles and Durban: Urban Space and Architectures of Fear
Martha Webber
This course will examine Los Angeles, California and Durban, South Africa as spaces where
“architectures of fear” – heavily secured and increasingly privatized locales – divide citizens by
socio-economic and ethnic identities. Theories of public space will guide our inquiry into these
urban areas as we examine critical events and everyday contestations over space including the
forced removal of working-class ethnic groups from “newly desirable” urban areas and the design
of “sleep-proof” bus benches to deter the visibility of homelessness. You will engage with a
variety of texts – public policy, activist manifestoes, literary nonfiction, novels, and visual art – as
you critically discuss, reflect, and write about debates over public space, private development, and
urban segregation. By the end of the course, you will develop a nuanced understanding of these
debates as they emerged in Los Angeles and Durban while cultivating a broader ability to analyze
the rhetorical arguments citizens, governments, and corporations make to invest urban space with
meaning. Readings may include Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain; Davis, City of Quartz; Fraser,
“Rethinking the Public Sphere;” Nadine Gordimer, July’s People; Govender, At the Edge and Other
Cato Manor Stories; Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; Morris and
Browne (eds.), Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest.
English 470: Bollywood Film
Priti Joshi
A couple coyly dancing around trees against a mountainous backdrop; pulsating music and
audacious dance steps; costume changes that will make your head spin; song sequences that make
you simultaneously roll your eyes and wipe away tears; epic wrangles between parents and
children, good and evil – these are just some elements (or stereotypes) of Bollywood films. What
is Bollywood? Why does it have a wider global audience and appeal than Hollywood? Who is
watching Bollywood films and why? ENGL 470, “Bollywood Film,” will make you an A-1 master of
these questions as it introduces you to films from India, primarily those made in the Bombay (now
renamed Mumbai) film industry (hence the moniker “Bollywood”). While our focus will be on
Bollywood films from the 1950s to the present, we will also watch and discuss some of the great
“artists” of Indian cinema (Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal). As we trace the development of Indian
cinema, we will primarily address the ways films articulated the new nation’s dreams and desires,
fears and follies, anxieties and growing pains.
Note: in addition to our class meeting time (TuTh 3:30-4:50pm), you must also commit to attend
the film screenings on Tues from 5:30-8:30pm. The films will be shown in McIntyre 103 and will
mirror an authentic film-going experience. Think of the screenings as time you would spend
reading for class or a lab; class readings will be proportionally adjusted.
English 471: Illness and Narrative: Discourses of Disease
Mita Mahato
Drawing off of the growing field of “Medical Humanities,” this senior seminar is as much about
illness—its politics, histories, and personalities—as it is about language and representation. The
texts that we will encounter will attest to the diverse ways in which disease has influenced our
modes of communication (and how these modes have influenced how we think about disease) and
might include novels (Love in the Time of Cholera, The Plague), comics (Stitches, Tangles), poetry
(Tori Dent), medical journals, film, advertisements, and critical readings on semiotics and
narratology. Though the scope of our discussions will be broad (ranging from plague in
enlightenment London to the swine and avian flu scares of today), they will be grounded by
questions about discourse and narration, including: What influence does illness (epidemic or
personal) have on narrative? What is the relationship between social and political attitudes toward
disease and the way texts characterize healthy and sick? What are the recuperative or reformative
functions of narrative? The central issue students will explore is whether narrative can express an
experience that is by nature inexpressible or if, in moments of creative and curative genius,
narrative can nurture conversation and community.
English 475: The Irish Literary Revival and Beyond
William Kupinse
“Did that play of mine send out / Certain men the English shot?” asks Yeats in his poem “Man and
the Echo,” musing whether the one-act Cathleen ni Houlihan was responsible for the 1916 Easter
Rising. Whether or not we accept a causal relationship between a single literary text and a given
political event ("If Yeats had saved his pencil-lead / would certain men have stayed in bed?" Paul
Muldoon has answered), that the literature produced in Ireland from the late nineteenth-century
through the end of World War II shaped Ireland’s politics and its sense of national identity is
undeniable. This course will examine the development of Irish literature written in English during
this period, and our reading will include poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. We will consider a
wide range of writers, but particular emphasis will be given to J. M. Synge, G. B. Shaw, Lady
Gregory, W. B. Yeats, and James Joyce. The "and beyond" of the course subtitle refers to the fact
that we read Ulysses (really an anti-Revival text, but fictively set squarely in the Revival's midst) in
full, which occupies the second half of the semester. This course fulfills the LCI requirement for
English majors.
Suggested--but not required--course preparation: ENGL 223.
Not a bad idea: to have read Joyce's Dubliners and/or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before
class begins.
Absolute requirement: willingness to read as fiercely as the Irish hero Cuchulain slaughtered his
foes.
English 486: Native American Literature
Tiffany Aldrich MacBain
This course introduces students to Native American literature from the early nineteenth to the
early twenty-first centuries. Beginning with the complicated matter of translation and moving into
issues of mixed-race identity, custom and assimilation, and American Indian nationalism (to name
a few), students will develop a nuanced understanding of Native American literature during the
period and become familiar with areas of contemporary critical concern within the field. The
breadth of our study calls for a somewhat heavy reading load; we are, after all, covering more than
150 years in sixteen weeks’ time. While the tradition begins much earlier than the early
nineteenth century, our course begins with the advent of English-language written texts, for I want
us to enjoy a true seminar experience that involves the close examination of a relatively small
sampling of literature and the deep knowledge that such study can yield. In addition to the
primary literary texts, students will read primary historical and secondary critical sources to orient
themselves in time and place and to enable them to articulate with sophistication their own
responses to the literature. Students will contribute to our knowledge base by performing
independent research. They will write summarily, reflexively, and critically; and they will create
oral, written, and visual texts.
English 493: Independent Research Seminar
Priti Joshi
This class is an independent research-and-writing seminar. In the course of the semester each of
you will: (1) choose a topic and primary text(s); (2) develop a questions that you will be pursuing
about that topic and text(s); (3) create a bibliography of 10-15 primary and secondary sources; (4)
read and assess those sources; (5) write and revise (multiple times) a 25-30 page
analytic/academic paper about your text(s) that engages the sources, while putting forth your
own argument.
If this sounds daunting ... it is! Daunting, but doable. The reason for this class is twofold: (a) for
each student to work in a guided community; and (b) for me to break down the steps of the
process, move you through it and keep you on track, and provide feedback and guidance. But you
are, in a manner of speaking, the “author” of this course: you pick the topic, you pick the readings,
you shape the contours of the “course,” and you create the final product.