English Undergraduate Course Descriptions

 

ENG 202 
Intro to Poetry 
M/W 11:00-12:15 
Instructor TBA 
 
 
ENG 203 
World Literature 
Multiple sections available 
 
 
ENG 208 
Games and Fiction 
M/W 9:30-10:45 
Dr. Craig Carey 
 
This course introduces literary and critical methods for playing, reading, writing, and designing video games and interactive fiction. Students will play, read, and analyze interactive stories while engaging with broader critical issues in game studies and literary studies. The course will explore topics such as game literacy, game writing, worldbuilding, character design, text adventures, user interfaces, dialogue trees, branching narratives, visual novels, environmental storytelling, and more. By exploring the relationship between games, fiction, storytelling, design, and culture, students will learn how games are used to tell stories, build worlds, and think through social issues. The course is open and accessible to all kinds of players, from the experienced or casual to those without any gaming experience. Students will learn critical skills in reading, writing, and analysis, along with digital competencies in game writing and interactive storytelling. 
 
 
ENG 221 
Fiction Writing I 
M/W 9:30-10:45 
Instructor TBA 

 

In this class, you will write your own original fiction. Class sessions will be organized around craft topics, which will include assigned outside readings and writing exercises. You will also write one short story or novel chapter. Craft topics will include: character, dialogue, setting, structure, style, revision, and more. 

 

 

In this course, you will write your own original fiction and poetry. Class sessions will be organized around craft topics, which will include assigned readings and writing exercises. We’ll begin with fiction. Craft topics will include: character, dialogue, setting, structure, revision, and more. For poetry, craft topics will include: the line, sound, imagery, and more. 

Recommended Text: Imaginative Writing, 3rd or 4th Edition, Janet Burroway

Short stories and poems to be distributed in class.
 
 
ENG 301 
Advanced Grammar 
T/TH 9:30-10:45 
Mrs. Amy Carey 
 
A study of the structures, origins, power, and rhetorical nature of language and the effects of different approaches to grammar. This course is designed for both English and English Licensure students and will fulfill the language elective requirement for licensure students. Students will analyze standard and rhetorical features of English language and grammar, also considering how history, culture, and systems of power have traditionally defined grammatical standards and how those standards are continually changing and adapting. Participants will gain confidence in their own mastery of advanced English grammar; they will also deepen their ability to analyze its rhetorical effects and communicate that analysis to others through Field Notes assignments and a final research project. Students in this course will use a rhetorical framework for studying both prescriptive and descriptive grammar structures and apply that framework to their own writing. 
 
 
ENG 311 
Survey of Contemporary Literature 
T/TH 2:30-3:45 
Dr. Monika Gehlawat 
 
What is the contemporary? When does it begin and how do we keep up with its endlessly shifting horizon? In an effort to identify what constitutes contemporary literature, what themes, forms, and prevailing concerns arise in this historical period, we will read literature starting from the postwar period by authors like Grace Paley and Christopher Isherwood and move all the way up to the present day where we'll read the work of living writers like Zadie Smith and George Saunders. Along the way, we'll consider ideas linked to postmodernism, realism, the "new sincerity" and autofiction, as well as related artistic developments in film, painting, and music. 
 
 
ENG 314 
Elementary, My Dear Watson: Detective Fiction 
M/W 9:30-10:45 
Dr. Alexandra Valint 
 
Detective fiction is a genre seemingly obsessed with rules; in fact, the members of the 1920s Detective Club actually took an oath to uphold them. And yet, much of the fun in reading detective fiction is watching authors play with and even upend such rules. In this course, we will read influential, canonical examples of detective fiction and more contemporary and global examples across different media (literature, film, podcasts). We will start with two authors who indelibly shaped the genre and created the stereotypical detective: Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (along with his sidekick Watson); we will also consider nineteenth-century female detectives, paying particular attention to how the gender of the detective affects the investigation and the narrative. We will read “golden age” authors such as Agatha Christie, as well as the hardboiled fiction of Raymond Chandler. The primary rule of detective fiction is known as “fair play”—the notion that an author must construct the mystery in a way that allows an observant reader to solve the crime; and yet, detective fiction also revels in tricking and misleading the reader through false clues, leads, and suspects. Therefore, throughout the course, we will seek to understand how detective fiction works—its conventions, its moves—and how it works on us—its effects, its thrills, its surprises. We will also be attuned to how issues of gender, class, and race intersect with criminality and its detection. 
 
 
ENG 321 / 421 
Fiction Writing II / III 
M/W 9:30-10:45 
Dr. Jennifer Brewington 
 
 
ENG 322 / 422 
Poetry Writing II / III 
T/TH 1:00-2:15 
Instructor TBA 
 
 
ENG 330 
Writing and Education 
M/W 4:00-5:15 
Instructor TBA 
 
 
ENG 333 
Technical Writing 
Multiple sections available 
 
 
ENG 340 
Analysis of Literature 
T/TH 11:00-12:15 
Dr. Nicolle Jordan 

 

 

ENG 340 
Analysis of Literature 
M/W 2:30-3:45 
Dr. Leah Parker 
 
In this section of ENG 340 Analysis of Literature, we will engage with that most infamous of Old English poems—Beowulf—as our constant companion through the historiography of English studies, movements in critical theory, and the core English major skills of literary analysis and argumentative writing. We will read multiple translations of Beowulf, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Maria Dahvana Headley, and trace evolving approaches to the poem from the traditional to the cutting-edge. Not only will successful students have an intimate familiarity with Beowulf by the end of this course, but they will also be prepared to apply their expertise in literary analysis and critical theory to remaining coursework in the English major or minor. 
 
 
ENG 350 
British Literature I 
M/W 4:00-5:15 
Dr. Leah Parker 
 
How does literature shape our culture, our history, and our individual selves? This survey explores British literature from the eighth century through the eighteenth century. Students will read authors and texts that are considered parts of the “canon” of English literature, as well as their less canonical—though no less important—contemporaries. We will explore the relationship between literature and history, through stories that reimagine history in light of their own historical moments, from the beginnings of the English language to the dawn of the British Empire. We will also explore aspects of British literature beyond English, including texts translated from Latin, French, and Celtic languages and texts inspired by or commenting on other parts of Europe and the world. 
Readings will include selections from Beowulf, the Mabinogi, Le Morte Darthur, Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, and works by authors including the Venerable Bede, Marie de France, Geoffrey Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Sir Philip Sidney, Lady Mary Wroth, Queen Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, Margaret Cavendish, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, and Phillis Wheatley. 
 
 
ENG 351 
British Literature II 
M/W 11:00-12:15 
Dr. Charles Sumner 
 
 
ENG 370 
American Literature I 
T/TH 11:00-12:15 
Dr. Luis Igelsias 
 
 
ENG 371 
American Literature II 
T/TH 1:00-2:15 
Dr. Ery Shin 
 
Picking up in the aftermath of the Civil War, this introductory survey traces how literature forms out of, and feeds into, a distinctly national ethos. What makes certain styles, genres, and sensibilities “American”? This question, along with those concerning the nature of nationalist narratives and narratives of nationhood, will be of primary interest all throughout. 
 
 
 
ENG 372 
African American Literature 
T/TH 2:30-3:45 
Dr. Sherita Johnson 

In this course, you will survey the African American literary tradition, concentrating on the experiences of those who were enslaved and/or struggled to be free, as expressed through their poetry, fiction, autobiography, essays, and vernacular art (e.g. folk tales and music—religious, secular, and work songs). Starting from the colonial era progressing to the dawn of the 20th century, we will examine generations of writers including Jupiter Hammon, Phillis Wheatley, Venture Smith, George Moses Horton, David Walker, Frances Harper, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar,  Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Pauline Hopkins, and Charles Chesnutt.

 
 
ENG 400 
Senior Seminar: Cancelling the Confederacy 
T/TH 4:00-5:15 
Dr. Kate Cochran 
 
This capstone course will investigate the persistence of the Lost Cause mythology, historical revisionism, white nationalist ideology, and antebellum nostalgia in various texts set before, during, and after the Civil War. To be clear, the class does not advocate for any aspect of the Confederacy: we will consider history and literature, film and current events as we seek to discern why the Confederate legacy retains such an enduring presence and how we might alter that in future. Texts will include excerpts from John Pendleton Kennedy’s Swallow Barn (1832), Frederick Douglass’s Narrative (1845), Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), and Mary Boykin Chesnut’s A Diary from Dixie (1905); the 1939 film adaptation of Gone With the Wind; 20th and 21st-century novels including Shelby Foote’s Shiloh (1952), Ernest Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad (2016); and secondary sources and recent articles about Confederate flag and monument controversies. 
 
 
 
ENG 400 
Senior Seminar: Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling 
T/TH 1:00-2:15 
Dr. Jameela Lares 
 
In this seminar, we will be exploring how three blockbuster authors—J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and J. K. Rowling—have both understood the nature of imaginative literature and successfully written it. As a class, we will read not only several works by each author but also look at their own theories of composition, including Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories,” Lewis’s On Stories, and whatever we can turn up on Rowling.  Class members will also post written responses on the Canvas discussion board, facilitate a class discussion, and present on an additional literary text by one of the authors or in some way informed by one of more of the authors.  
  
Texts:   
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia.  
---, Out of the Silent Planet.  
---, On Stories and Other Essays on Literature.  
---, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold.  
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  
---, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Scholastic, 2001).  
---, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  
---, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay.  
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Tolkien Reader (includes “Leaf by Niggle,” “On Fairy-Stories,” and Farmer Giles of Ham).  
---, The Hobbit.  
---, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings.  
 
 
ENG 402 
Literature Study for Teachers 
T/TH 2:30PM-3:45PM 
Dr. Kate Cochran 
SYNCHRONOUS ONLINE 
 
This course is designed to examine both theoretical and practical problems in the teaching of literature. Through reading poems, short stories, memoirs, and novels as our primary texts, we will become acquainted with textual and generic issues while our secondary text offers pedagogical and methodological guidance for instructors charged with teaching literature. Students will practice class activities, create a book talk, complete a multigenre research project, take a final comprehensive essay exam, and observe a class video, including writing a reflection on the observation. As a required course for English Education students and an elective course for Elementary Education students at the undergraduate level, this course seeks to help students understand the current theories and processes of teaching literature. Students will learn about themselves as readers and will work together to further deepen their understanding of how students learn. 
 
 
ENG 414 
LGBTQ+ Literature: Queer(ing) America 
T/TH 9:30-10:45 
Dr. Luis Iglesias 
 
While The Stonewall Riot of 1969 in New York City’s Greenwich Village marked the dramatic turning point of the LGBTQ Rights movement and spirit, the United States has long made expressive space for queer(ing) aesthetics and literary production. Locating Walt Whitman as the emergent outspoken and unapologetic writer of Queer America, this class will highlight works that engage with the idea of “America” and the nation’s spirit of personal freedom and individualistic expression, opening up spaces for writers in the US to explore the imaginative and authentic stories of LGBTQ people across a wide spectrum of social and racial identities. These works examine the lives, dangers, and survival of individuals and forged communities where homosocial/homosexual desires and loves shape their self-understanding and place in American society. 
 
Potential Readings: 
Leaves of Grass (1855), “Live Oak with Moss” sequence (1859), Calamus culster (1861), Walt Whitman 
Giovanni’s Room (1956), James Baldwin 
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), Audre Lorde 
Angels in America (1991), Tony Kushner 
Lot: Stories (2019), Bryan Washington 
Gender Queer: A Memoir (2019), Maia Kobabe 
Fiebre Tropical (2020), Julianna Delgado Lopera 
Afterparties: Stories (2021), Anthony Veasna So 
 
Note: Several works depict adult situations and content 
 
 
 
ENG 458/558 
Rhetoric in English Renaissance Literature 
T/TH 11:00-12:15 
Dr. Jameela Lares 
 
"Rhetoric is the greatest barrier between us and our ancestors. . . . Older than the Church, older than Roman Law, older than all Latin literature, it descends from the age of the Greek Sophists.  Like the Church and the Law it survives the fall of the Empire, rides the renascentia and the Reformation like waves, and penetrates far into the eighteenth century; through all these ages not the tyrant, but the darling of humanity. . . .  "
--C. S. Lewis  
  
This seminar will close-read some of the finest literature in English—from the late sixteenth century through Milton—while it learns more about how the English Renaissance understood language and its role in culture in terms of rhetoric. Seminar members will thus expand their understanding not only of Renaissance English literature but also of classical rhetoric and its critical potential. We may discover conferencing and publishing possibilities as well. This course will be co-taught with ENG 558.  
  
Course requirements (weights will differ between graduates and undergraduates): thoughtful reading of texts, regular attendance and participation in seminar discussions; ten weekly discussion posts; two oral presentations, each with a short written component (undergraduates) or a more extended class teaching session and teaching portfolio write-up (graduates); a researched seminar paper.  
  
Texts:   
Thomas M. Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition (U of Chicago P).  
Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th edition, vol. B.   
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 4th edition, ed. Chris Baldick. 
 
 
ENG 464 
The British Novel to 1900: Novel Environments 
T/TH 8:00-9:15 
Dr. Nicolle Jordan 
 
What does the British Novel pre-1900 teach us about humanity’s relationship to the environment? How has the novel imagined the value of the earth’s resources, and must this value necessarily be based on their usefulness to humanity? How would the world look different if humanity instead valued nature for its own sake? Finally, how have novels trained us to think of humanity as part of nature or, conversely, as separate from it, and with what consequences? This course explores these questions by investigating nature in its many guises: rivers, storms, flowers, floods, animals, plants, and much more. Authors include Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad. 
 
 
 
ENG 467 
Survey of 20th Century British Literature 
M/W 2:30-3:45 
Dr. Charles Summer 
 
This class will cover classic twentieth-century British novels and novels. The book list includes: Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf); Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce); Women in Love (Lawrence); Lady Chatterley's Lover (Lawrence); Good Morning, Midnight (Rhys); Return of the Solider (West); "Indissoluble Matrimony" (West); Tarr (Lewis); Goodbye to Berlin (Isherwood); The Wasp Factory (Banks); and Butcher Boy (McCabe). 
 
 
ENG 473 
Studies in African American Literature 
T/TH 9:30-10:45 
Dr. Michael Aderibigbe 
 
This course examines major African-American authors and cultural movements from the 20th century to the present. Among the movements and topics we will study are the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts, the Dark Room Collective, and Afro-formalism. Some of the authors we will focus on include Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett, James Baldwin, Etheridge Knight, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marilyn Nelson, Tracy K. Smith, and Kevin Young.