Descriptions for ENGL Spring 2015 Classes
ENGLISH MAJOR OFFERINGS
Spring 2015
Spring course registration begins November 17, 2014. If you are a junior or senior and need to complete
your major requirements, you are strongly advised to register at the first opportunity, or you may find
yourself unable to meet graduation requirements. Please note: ENGW1111/ENGL1111/ENG U111 (or the
equivalent) is a prerequisite for all ENGL courses except ENGL 1400. For the most up-to-date
information about course scheduling, go to myNEU and search the spring course offerings by clicking the
“Schedule of Classes (Spring 2015)” link. Please see the English Department Faculty Advisor, Professor
Beth Britt, in 409 Holmes (x 5170) e.britt@neu.edu, if you have any questions.
All registration is done through the Banner Self Service registration system, accessible through the
myNEU Web Portal. For detailed instructions on how to use this system, go to
http://www.northeastern.edu/registrar/ref-udc-reg-ugd-details.html.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Foundational Courses
ENGL1400: Introduction to Literary Studies
Mullen
CRN: 32987
Sequence D (9:50-11:30 TF)
Introduces the various disciplines that make up Literary studies, such as literature, cultural studies, linguistics, film,
rhetoric, and composition. Explores strategies for reading,
ENGL1410: Intro to Writing Studies
Poe
CRN: 36782
Sequence G (3:25-5:05 TF)
(ENGL140 is a Foundational Course for all English Majors who enroll at Northeastern in Fall 2014 or later.
Other students may take it as an elective.)
Introduces students to the basic theories, history, methodologies, and debates surrounding the study of how people
learn to write and how writing is used in home, school, work and civic contexts. Considers writing itself as both a
practice and an object of study. Explores historical, rhetorical, linguistic, cognitive, social, and critical approaches to
the teaching, study, and practice of writing, both in the U.S. tradition and in international contexts (e.g., UK, France,
China). Emphasizes research on the development of critical reading and writing practices and students’
understanding of their own experiences to practices of other groups. Satisfies Introductory course requirement for
English majors.
ENGL1700: Global Literatures to 1500
Blessington
CRN: 34864
Sequence A (11:45-1:25PM MR)
Readings in Greek, Roman, and biblical literature and beyond: Homer, Virgil, Old and New testament, and Dante’s
Inferno. The works all writers read. Emphasis upon background to Western culture and imagination: myth, literary
genres and conventions, philosophy, and religion.
Literary Periods
Early Literatures
ENGL3678: Bedrooms and Battlefields: Hebrew Bible and the Origins of Sex, Gender, and Ethnicity
Lefkovitz
CRN: 36631
Sequence B (2:50-4:30 MW)
Bedrooms and Battlefields: Sex, Gender, and Ethnicity in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)
First stories—stories that come to be considered origin stories—have a powerful influence on people and culture. In
every generation, writers wrestle with first stories. We will read stories from Hebrew Scripture in English translation,
beginning with the Garden of Eden through the Book of Ruth, asking how these foundational narratives establish the
categories that have come to define our humanity. We will look at how the Bible’s patterns of representation
construct sexual and ethnic identities and naturalize ideas about such social institutions as “the family.” These
patterns include the Bible’s bedrooms and battlefields, repeated stories of identity masquerade, and metaphors of
fluids and voices. We will read the Bible as a collection of stories that sets in motion one trajectory of the Western
narrative tradition, and we will interrogate some of the basic assumptions of that tradition.
17th-18th Centuries
ENGL2250: 18th Century British Literature
Peterfreund
CRN: 36619
Sequence A (11:45-1:25PM MR)
The eighteenth century in England marked the return of relative social stability after a century notable for societal
unrest, civil war, and the disruption of the English monarchy. This course will focus on the period’s ongoing attempt
to identify the principles of its Englishness and to reform or build its idea of English community—and, by extension, its
idea of English society—in accord with those principles. The texts to be studied include the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose of the period. Grades will be assigned on the basis of take-home essay examinations.
ENGL3160: Topics in 17th/18th Century British Literature: Becoming Human
Leslie
CRN: 36625
Sequence D (9:50-11:30 TF)
The boundaries of the human came into visibility in the early modern period primarily through a series of border
skirmishes. The relationship between man and beast, man and woman, man and machine, flesh and spirit, matter
and mind were all subjects of fierce debate, whose terms did not generally resolve into strict or stable binaries.
Indeed, early modern print culture is well-populated by monsters, faeries, sprites, savages, hermaphrodites, talking
animals, automata, and other creatures who complicated notions of human exceptionalism, autonomy, or dominion.
We will explore how neoclassical idealism, Cartesian dualism, New World exploration, and the New Science’s
discoveries all contributed to the controversies over what it meant to be human and led to the production of whole
new disciplines as well as newly emerging and intersecting systems that described gender, racial, and species
difference. Course requirements will include an archival project and a research paper.
ENGL3618: Milton
Blessington
CRN: 36629
Sequence 3 (10:30-11:35PM MWR)
Students will read Paradise Lost with supplementary readings in the minor poems and prose. The course’s emphasis
will be upon Milton as a writer of poetry. Midterm, final, paper, and short reports.
19th Century
ENGL3619: Emerson and Thoreau
Davis
CRN: 36630
Sequence 4 (1:35-2:40PM MWR)
This course will take a close look at the essays, poetry, and journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau, two nineteenth-century American writers and friends. In their often whimsical, prophetic, philosophical and
at times personal writings, they each considered what it would mean to think that a new day was dawning in human
existence: how might persons live to their true potential, in harmony with nature and with society? In addition to
studying these writers' literary and philosophical achievements, we’ll consider their troubled friendship, and their circle
of colleagues, friends, and rivals. Requirements: three six to seven page papers and a reading journal. This course
will include a fieldtrip to Concord, Mass., where Emerson and Thoreau both lived.
20th/21st Centuries
ENGL2440: Modern Bestseller
Goshgarian
CRN: 36623
Sequence 2 (9:15-10:15 MWR)
"Bestseller" is an artificial category determined solely by numbers of books sold. However, we will explore some
reasons behind the success of recent quality fictional best-selling--i.e., what special fantasies, obsessions, themes,
plot lines, characters, action etc. appeal to popular tastes. The selections will represent a cross-section of
mainstream and genres titles—e.g., thriller, mystery, "literary," etc.--by men and women, some of whom who have
become brand names.
Guest bestselling author(s) will visit class. We will also watch and discuss movies made from the works studied in
the course.
Student writing: announced quizzes; midterm & final take-home essay exams (7-10 pages each). Optional critical
paper (7-10) pages analyzing a bestselling novel not read in the course.
ENGL3210: Topics in 20th/21st Century Literature: Harlem Renaissance
Kaplan
CRN: 36626
Sequence E (11:45-1:25PM WF)
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural explosion considered unprecedented even in its own day and notable as
much for troubling paradoxes as for extraordinary productivity. On the one hand, Harlem was black America’s
Mecca, “the symbol,” as Adam Clayton Powell Sr. put it, “of liberty and the Promised Land to Negroes everywhere” -the ideal, after decades of devastating racism, of black self-determination and self-definition; and the idea, entirely
novel at the time, of eschewing white values and standards to, instead, embrace Blackness. And yet, the Harlem
Renaissance was also thoroughly and complexly interracial: financially underwritten by many white philanthropists;
promoted by white editors, publishers, gallery owners and theater producers; and deeply influenced – including in its
black self-definitions – by a range of white writers, musicians, visual artists, actors, editors, publishers, political
activists, and more. This interracialism – and its many attendant ironies and complexities – is deeply embedded into
the fabric of Harlem Renaissance writing. But how successfully have literary historians accounted for this texture?
For the Harlem Renaissance’s myriad ties to both modernism and realism? We will read a range of Harlem
Renaissance writers, including Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B.
DuBois, Claude McKay, Mary White Ovington, Nancy Cunard, Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, George Schuyler, Zora
Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Bruce Nugent, Countee Cullen, Carl Van Vechten, and others, to re-consider this
perennially fascinating period and, at the same time, inquire critically into how it has fascinated us, and why. This will
be a reading-intensive discussion seminar, requiring one short paper, a longer seminar paper, and active
participation.
Comparative and Tranhistorical/Transnational
ENGL1500: British Literature 1800
Boeckeler
CRN: 34863
Sequence D (9:50-11:30AM TF)
Read the greatest hits of English Literature until 1800 in one, action-packed semester: fight scenes and motherbashing in Beowulf; sex, lies, and religious pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales; King Arthur and the adventures of the
knights of the round table; the best and worst places in the universe according to Utopia and Paradise Lost; raunchy
poetry about skulls, love triangles, shipwrecks, fleas and worms, wearing wings, and forsaken lovers; a trip to
fairyland in The Faerie Queene; a racy roman à clef by a woman publicizing her scandalous affair with a first cousin
in The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania; and Shakespearean play thrown in for good measure. Assignments
include weekly reading exercises, some memorization of weird poetry, a mix of formal and informal writing, and a
take home exam.
ENGL2370: Modern Short Story
TuSmith
CRN: 36621
Sequence 4 (1:35-2:40PM MWR)
This course explores a range of American short stories by a diversity of prominent writers from 20th and 21st
centuries. Short story cycles are examined for their artistic aspects (e.g., narrative structure, point of view, visual
imagery, linguistic experimentation, thematic development) within their appropriate social/historical context.
Requirements include brief weekly responses to readings (posted on Blackboard), textual explications, annotations of
scholarly articles, and a final analytical paper.
ENGL3398 Topics in Genre: Memoirs
TuSmith
CRN: 36627
Sequence B (2:50-4:30PM MW)
This course examines the modern/contemporary American memoir as a literary genre. Narrative theory on
nonfictional prose (memoir, autobiography, personal narrative) informs its critical methodology and provides solid
foundation for a range of culturally diverse texts. We will consider each work from both the reader’s and writer’s
perspective. Requirements include brief weekly responses to readings (posted on Blackboard), short papers (textual
explication, personal narrative, annotation of scholarly article), and a final paper.
ENGL3572 Fantasy
Kelly
CRN: 36628
Sequence B (2:50-4:30 MW)
In The Craft of Fiction, the 1921 study that enshrined the opposition between showing and telling in modern critical
consciousness, Percy Lubbock begins his discussion of Flaubert by asserting that
the art of fiction does not begin until the novelist thinks of his story as a matter to be shown, to be so exhibited that it
will tell itself. . . . The book is not a row of facts; it is a single image. . . . Narrative—like the tales of Defoe for
example—must look elsewhere for support; Defoe produced it by the assertion of the historic truthfulness of his
stories. But in a novel, strictly so called, attestation of this kind is, of course, quite irrelevant; the thing has to look true,
and that is all. (62)
And this is where we will begin: how is it that fantasy worlds—parallel worlds, or worlds laid on top of the “real” world,
and/or worlds powered by magic—look true? Why is it that so many of us desire to suspend our disbelief in order to
enter into the worlds of C.S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R.R. Martin, J. K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others?
(And why do fantasy writers have so many initials?)
We’ll begin by reading Libriomancer (Jim C. Hines, 2012), a tale about wizards who have developed the ability to
reach into any book and pull out any object they desire. (Sounds like reading to me, or at least an allegory for
reading!) We’ll read a few classics, such as The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908), The Hobbit (J.R.R
Tolkien, 1937), and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis, 1950), and discuss the film adaptations as
well. We’ll read War for the Oaks (Emma Bull, 1987), a fine example of urban fantasy, and The Left Hand of
Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969)—sci-fi, granted, but fantasy-like: the book presents an opportunity to talk about
genre in/and speculative fiction. We’ll also move back in time and read The Mabinogion, a compilation of medieval
Welsh tales of faerie and magic, and the artful modern retelling, Children of Lyr (Evangeline Walton, 1971). And
there’s a marvelous film adaptation. I’ve saved time for the class to research and then choose two novels for
everyone to read. (Familiarity with the Harry Potter books and/or films assumed, as well as a knowledge of Game of
Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire . . .) Requirements: two brief response papers, a brief presentation on an example of
fantasy in other media (graphic novels, video games, music, painting), and two six-page formal papers, the first due
at midterm and the second at the end of the course.
Theories & Methods
ENGL3339: Topics in Literary Criticisms: Queer Theory
Mullen
CRN: 34866
Sequence F 1:35-3:15 TF
This course will introduce students to queer culture and critique from the 1890s to the present. We will read across a
range of literary, historical, scientific and critical texts and will also engage other media notably film and visual arts.
We will examine the emergence of sexuality as an institutional discourse and as a mode of counter discourse.
Students will read works from diverse national traditions, both major and minor figures, as we attempt to both queer
the canon and to recuperate lost queer histories. Authors might include: Wilde, Woolf, Proust, O’Brien, and Baldwin,
along with critics such as Freud, Foucault, Butler, and Berlant. We will also have the chance to meet contemporary
writers and artists. Requirements include a series of short writing assignments and a longer research paper at the
end.
ENGL3381 Processes of Writing and Tutoring
Gonso
CRN: 33842
Sequence 3 (10:35-11:35AM)
The purpose of “Processes of Writing and Tutoring” is three-fold: It is designed to help students reflect on and
improve their writing. It is also designed to help students explore and understand the complex processes involved in
written composition. Finally, it is designed to prepare students to become writing consultants, whether at the
Northeastern Writing Center or at various educational sites, including community literacy agencies and Boston-area
public schools (As part of participating in an experiential-learning course, students will be required to spend
approximately 3-4 hours per week “experiencing” the act of tutoring writing at partner sites.). As consultants, students
will be able to apply the knowledge they are gaining in the course to help other students improve their writing. To
accomplish these goals, we will (a) examine what researchers and theorists have said about writing, (b) examine
what theorists and practitioners have said about teaching in a conference setting, and (c) observe, examine, and
reflect upon our own experience as writers and tutors. Students will produce in a wide variety of genres, conduct
primary research on their tutoring sessions, respond to readings and reflect on experiences, and present in-class
activities on the teaching of writing. ENGL 3381 satisfies the experiential learning and writing-intensive requirement
for English majors and is an elective option for Rhetoric minors.
LING1150: Introduction to Language and Linguistics
Section
CRN
Sequence
Days & Time
Instructor
1
30495
4
1:35-2:40pm MWR
Randall
2
30379
3
10:30-11:35am MWR
Painter
3
32092
3
10:30-11:35am MWR
Randall
4
32292
D
9:50-11:30am TF
Cooper
6
32293
F
1:35-3:15pm TF
Cooper
Fulfills the Arts/Humanities Level 1 requirement in the NU Core
Experiential Education
ENGL3381 Processes of Writing and Tutoring (See description under Theories and Methods)
Writing
(These courses count as electives for students entering Northeastern before Fall 2014)
ENGL3378: Fictional Workshops
Goshgarian
CRN: 37036
Sequence 3 (10:30-11:35AM MWR)
This is a fiction-writing workshop, the objective of which is to get you started on the novel you always wanted to
write. With an eye to producing material worthy of publication, our primary objective is for you to produce at least two
solid chapters (the first and a subsequent chapter) and an enticing synopsis which will serve as bases to develop and
eventually present to a literary agent and or editor. Any fictional genre is acceptable—mainstream, literary, mystery,
thriller, horror, science fiction, romance, western, etc.—all but vampire or zombie stories. Those have been
overdone. I do not encourage writing short stories since they don’t sell. You will be expected to read your own
material in class for roundtable response and to offer comments on others’ material. Maximum 15 students.
ENGL3377: Poetry Workshop
Peterfreund
CRN: 33841
Sequence 4 (1:35-2:40PM MWR)
This course surveys the six canonical male English Romantic poets: William Blake; William Wordsworth; Samuel
Taylor Coleridge; George Gordon, Lord Byron; Percy Bysshe Shelley; and John Keats. The course also incorporates
writing by prominent female poets of the period, such as Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Joanna Baillie, Felicia Hemans, and
Elizabeth Laetitia Landon. All of these poets wrote during the English Romantic Period (1789-1832), an era of
significant social and intellectual change, although this change was not without its turbulence, confusion and, on too
many occasions, its violence. The period was one in which English culture moved beyond traditional modes of
knowledge, social organization, and belief, and into an intellectual, sociopolitical, and religious milieu in which the
only certainty was uncertainty and the only constant was change. We will study the impact of the era on the
individual, and the artistic response of that individual to the era. Students functioning in small work groups will take
responsibility for framing some of the questions we should address in response to our reading. Grades in this course
will be determined on the basis of three five-to-seven-page papers, written on topics chosen from a list of options.
Capstone
ENGL4710 Capstone Seminar: Naturalist Fiction
Davis
CRN: 30613
Sequence A (11:45-1:25 MR)
What did the coming of modernity feel like for the human beings who lived at the dawn of the twentieth century? For
American naturalist writers including Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, and Edith
Whatron, the world was a complex of social and natural forces against which individual subjects struggled mightily but
often fruitlessly. We will consider the aesthetic, historical, and political aspects of complex fictions of the individual
shaped by both the destiny of biological being and by the driving force of historical change. This course will also
include consideration of major critical and theoretical texts on naturalism. Requirements: three six to seven papers
and a final presentation.