Courses

 

Schedule of English courses can be found at  Browse Courses 

ENG 020: LITERATURE & CULTURE, 3 credit hrs.

This course provides an introduction to literature as a significant form of culture. Students read a broad range of writers and types of writing from a variety of historical periods to investigate how literature shapes, and is shaped by, the culture of which it is a part and to become familiar with different literary practices and cultural definitions of literature.

ENG 021: TV TROPES, 3 credit hrs.

This course examines issues of representation and identity through the techniques and tropes found in popular television shows. Students will analyze the appeals and consider the ethics of specific patterns of rendering social difference that have become familiar. We will examine how perceptions and judgments may be shaped by televisual techniques, cliched depictions and notable exclusions in traditional genres and conventional narrative devices of the medium. Discussions and projects will include critical reflections on how we are each positioned as viewers and consumers of television and give close attention to the larger social systems that are contexts for television's social subjects. 

ENG 022: CRITICAL MEDIA STUDIES, 3 credit hrs.

This course explores media as a form of cultural production. Through a variety of critical perspectives, this course is designed as an introduction to analyzing media cultures that may include film, advertising, television, new media, and other forms of mass culture. We will investigate the contexts surrounding media production, the oftentimes unique circuits of transmission, and the ways in which historical and/or contemporary audiences make meaning.

ENG 025: DIGITAL CULTURES AND NEW MEDIA, 3 credit hrs.

This course considers the cultural ramifications of new media in shaping life experiences, cultural norms and meanings. As interactive digital technologies expand opportunities for social control, networking, instant messaging, file sharing, collaborative authoring, work from home, blogging, and podcasting, this course asks how these technologies impact culture, identity formation, creative participation and concepts of public culture. This course will focus on the effects of digital technologies on our self-concept, social relations, and communal belonging. We will explore these issues within the context of globalization, social justice, equity, and democracy. 

ENG 026: SUBURBIA IN FILM, 3 credit hrs.

This online course examines representations of suburban lie in contemporary American film, with particular attention to cinematic critiques of suburban culture as normative. Students will view films, read essays on suburban rhetorics and the cultural significance of place and space in daily life, and produce their own critical analyses of the way these films represent, undermine, or celebrate the American dream of home ownership in an idealized setting of family life. Readings, projects, and discussions will attempt to address the relationships between popular films and calls to return to -- or dramatically redefine -- traditional family values, as well as themes of visual/spatial rhetoric and persuasion/identification in film more generally. 

ENG 027: IMAGING THE CITY, 3 credit hrs. 

This course introduces students to urban studies, visual rhetoric, and photography, while giving them the opportunity to produce their own images of city scenes. The first unit will cover key concepts in urbanism and photography, the second unit will profile the role and function of techniques particular to the photographic medium, and the final unit will explore the metaphoric capacity of photography and the urban issues it can address through the creation of student portfolios that will be presented to the class. 

ENG 030: GENRES, 3 credit hrs.
An examination of the history, criticism, theory and status of a single genre, such as the essay, epic, romance, short story, sitcom, and so on. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies. Intended especially for first- and second-year students.

ENG 031: RHETORIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE, 3 credit hrs.                            Introduction to foundational concepts and perennial themes regarding the role of persuasion in public life. The course considers various forms of discourse-- including advertising, photography, and film-- to investigate the political and ethical issues at stake in the relationships between language, power, identity and culture.

ENG 032: BOOK HISTORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE, 3 credit hrs.

This course introduces students to the history of the book as an information technology and a social practice and considers its role in periods of significant social change. Religion, class, race, and other identity categories determine access to book and print technologies in significant ways, so students will pursue cultural questions as we follow book historical lines of inquiry. As part of the course, students will get hands-on experience with the historical processes of book production, including quill-cutting, dip-pen handwriting, typesetting, moveable-type letterpress printing, and/or bookbinding.

ENG 033: COMMUNICATION AND RELIGION, 3 credit hrs. 

Study of the interrelated areas of the Bible as persuasion, the relationship between preaching and Biblical interpretation, and the problem of representing Biblical faith in a pluralistic society. 

ENG 037: PUBLIC VOICES, 3 credit hrs.
This foundational course focuses on oral performance as a vital cultural practice for sharing thoughts and words, positions, and perspectives. Grounded in rhetorical theories of genre, situation, and invention, the class gives students opportunities to prepare and present for live audiences. Thematic focus and assignments will vary, with instruction aimed at developing different types of deliberative, creative, or dramatic skills, and will prepare students to evaluate distinct standards of an oral genre suited to specific audiences, occasions, and contexts. In addition to developing skills needed for classroom and capstone presentations, Public Voices addresses issues of equity and ethics when accessing the powers of speech to participate in communal and civic life. 

ENG 038: LITERARY STUDY, 4 credit hrs.
This course introduces students to the theories and processes of literary study--that is, to the problems, questions and issues that constitute literary study as a critical activity and as a profession. Students examine such areas of inquiry as literature's definition, function, and value; the authority of authors, readers, critics and texts; the "nature" of texts; and the problem of situating both the text and the reader in history, society and culture. Required for English and Writing majors and minors, this course is open to all students with a serious interest in literary study. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 039: WRITING SEMINAR, 4 credit hrs.
This is a topics-oriented course, concerned with theoretical issues that confront writers and the practical ways in which those issues are addressed. The course is designed to help students become more fully aware of what assumptions govern their own and others' writings, of how writing works cognitively to contribute to intellectual growth, of ways of reading writing culturally and rhetorically. Required for all English and Writing majors, this course is open to all students with a serious interest in writing. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 040: TOPICS IN LITERARY HISTORY, 3 credit hrs.
This course will introduce students to a question or set of questions germane to the study of language and literature produced before 1900.

ENG 041: INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDY, 3 credit hrs.
Critical approaches to film study, emphasizing the development of film as both an art form and cultural practice, and based on analysis of at least a dozen film texts. Viewing lab required. 

ENG 042: APPROACHES TO AMERICAN LITERATURE (BEFORE 1900), 4 credit hrs.
Students will read poetry, prose, and/or drama composed before 1900, becoming familiar with a variety of approaches to interpreting how such texts represent the cultures of the Americas. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 044: APPROACHES TO BRITISH LITERATURE (BEFORE 1900), 4 credit hrs.
Students will read British poetry, prose, and/or plays composed prior to 1900, becoming familiar with a variety of approaches to interpreting how such texts represent British and/or colonial culture and identity. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 054: READING DRAMA, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course gain experience reading a variety of dramatic texts and writing about their reading by engaging in questions related to form, genre, performance, history and culture. Typically the course focuses on a dramatic kind, like comedy or tragedy, or on an issue (representing women) or character type.

ENG 056: THE CLASSIC THEN & NOW, 4 credit hrs.
"What is a Classic?" By reading selected "classic" texts against the critical commentary on them from two (or more) historical periods and/or cultures, students in this course consider whether the "classic" owes its status to universal literary appeal or to transient critical taste. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 058: READING SHAKESPEARE, 4 credit hrs.
What do we need to know in order to read a 400-year-old writer? Does it matter that that writer never expected to be read? How did his contemporaries see him? How have others at other times read and seen him? How do we read/see him? And what exactly are we "reading" when we read "Shakespeare"? By examining a limited number of plays with specified contexts, students confront some of the conventions of reading/seeing Shakespearean play/texts and gain acquaintance with various mechanisms (curricula, performance history, literary criticism, popular culture) that operate to shape "Shakespeare." Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 060: TOPICS IN CULTURE & IDENTITY, 3 credit hrs.
This course will introduce students to a particular question or set of questions concerning the construction, representation, depiction, and/or interpretation of cultural, ethnic, national, racial, or other forms of identity.

ENG 061: APPROACHES TO AMERICAN LITERATURE (AFTER 1900), 4 credit hrs.
Students will read poetry, prose, and/or drama composed after 1900, becoming familiar with a variety of approaches to interpreting how such texts represent the cultures of the Americas. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 062: APPROACHES TO BRITISH LITERATURE (AFTER 1900), 4 credit hrs.
Students will read poetry, prose, and/or drama composed after 1900, becoming familiar with a variety of approaches to interpreting how such texts represent the cultures of the British Isles and colonies. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 063: AMERICAN WRITING SINCE 1960, 3 credit hrs.
An examination of significant trends in American writing from 1960 to the present in prose fiction, poetry and non-fiction prose.

ENG 064: AFRICAN-AMER LIT BEFORE 1920, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on the constitutive role that African-American literature plays in American literature. Students will learn the history of African-American literature from narratives of enslavement and other abolitionist writings, through Reconstruction and up to the Harlem Renaissance. The course will consider the ways that historical and social forces have shaped, and continue to shape, African-American literature. 

ENG 065: AFRICAN-AMER LIT SINCE 1920, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on the constitutive role that African-American literature plays in American literature. Students will learn the history of African-American literature from the Harlem Renaissance, through the Civil Rights movement, and up to contemporary works. The course will consider the ways that historical and social forces have shaped, and continue to shape, African-American literature. 

ENG 066: READING RACE & ETHNICITY, 3 credit hrs.
This course explores literature from the perspective of the cultural work it performs with regard to constructing or challenging racial and ethnic identities, including racialized national, communal and individual identities. The course varies but may examine particular literary traditions (e.g., African American Literature) or particular critical issues (e.g., challenges to the Eurocentric canon). Fulfills DEI requirement. 

ENG 067: ASIAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
A brief introduction to 20th century literature by and about North Americans of Asian descent. This course aims to provide students with an historical foundation, a literary survey, and an appreciation of some of the contemporary issues related to race, class, and gender identity among Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Filipino Americans, and Asian Indians. Includes fiction, poetry, criticism, autobiography/memoir, nonfiction essay, and film. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

ENG 068: RHETORIC IN POPULAR CULTURE, 3 credit hrs.

Rhetoric in Popular Culture is a course that critically examines how the signs and symbols we all encounter in daily life work to shape our cultural practices, our political commitments, and even our social identities. By learning to analyze common cultural texts, objects, and spaces through the lens of rhetoric, students will reflect on how particular ideas, values, attitudes, and actions can appeal to publics to become social norms. Examining how these cultural rhetorics operate will also afford students opportunities to consider the consequences of these influences as well as the possibilities for social change. 

ENG 069: RHETORIC AND POLITICS, 3 credit hrs. 

Rhetoric and Politics examines the role of rhetoric in public discourses, policies, and practices shaping political life in contemporary U.S. culture. Students analyze the strategies and evaluate the consequences of particular positions taken by politicians, citizens, and activists in relation to popular controversies and national campaigns. Students will study the rhetorical dimensions of electoral politics and protests while also considering how particular texts participate in broader struggles to define political practice, citizenship, and national identity in America. 

ENG 070: ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION, 3 credit hrs.

This course focuses on the role of communication in shaping distinctions and relations between "culture" and "nature," in representing policies and practices. We will critically examine 1) how publics come to view environments through representations in a variety of media; 2) problems of efficacy and ethics in the public discourse, forums, and voices playing a part in environmental controversies and debates; 3) our own practices of advocacy. We will also be reflecting on the relationships between all of these arenas--the theory, critique, and practice of environmental communication. 

ENG 071: RHETORICS OF RACE, 3 credit hours

Americans in the 21st century often think of racism as a problem of the past that crops up occasionally in prejudiced individuals or in extreme situations. This course offers instead the view that race is all around us--it is as pervasive and as powerful as the media we use and the language we speak. Working with a variety of different kinds of texts, especially film and visual images, the course examines the nature and history of racial discourses in the US, considering the ways in which race is represented, understood, and contested in American society. 

ENG 073: RHETORIC AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, 3 credit hrs.

This course invites students to think theoretically, historically, and rhetorically about social movements throughout U.S. history. We will begin with the premise that American democracy has been hospitable to activist efforts or social change, which have punctuated our nation's history. Working with scholarship that utilizes social movements theory and public sphere theory, we will explore a wide range of case studies to develop a broad understanding of social change and activism in the U.S. and on a global scale. 

ENG 075: INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S AND GENDER STUDIES, 3 credit hrs.
This course is designed to familiarize students with women's experiences, as well as with the ways in which society shapes notions of gender. The course also provides ways to identify and analyze how a society's notions of gender shape the ways in which a society sees and organizes itself. Class members examine the construction of women's societal roles and their personal experiences, discussing points of congruence and dissonance. As an interdisciplinary course, reading and discussion material are drawn from fields such as religion, sociology, psychology, political science and literature, among others, so students can examine the view, status and contributions of women. Class sessions consist of a mixture of lectures, guest speakers, films and discussion. Crosstlisted with WGS 075. Fulfills DEI Requirement.

ENG 076: RHETORICS OF SEX AND GENDER, 3 credit hrs.

This course critically examines how language, images, and practices communicatively create and/or challenge sexual and gendered norms and identities. Students will explore the role of rhetoric in defining distinctions between normal and deviant, male and female, and masculine and feminine, and consider how discourse disciplines the boundaries between categories and shapes our relations with ourselves and others. 

ENG 077: READING GENDER, 3 credit hrs.
This course explores literature from the perspective of the cultural work it performs with regard to constructing or challenging gender identities. The course varies but may examine particular literary traditions (e.g., literature by women of color) or particular critical issues (e.g., (de)constructing masculinity in the writings of women).

ENG 078: PUBLIC FEELINGS, 3 credit hrs.

This course explores crucial facets of feelings as cultural phenomena and political forces, such as the gender dynamics by the body/mind split, the role of pathos in social movements, and the interests benefiting from depictions of the "healthy" and "well-adjusted" citizen. Drawing on recent writing in the "affective turn" in the humanities and earlier work on "structures of feeling," this course considers the rhetorical policing of the boundaries between stability/instability, acceptance/resistance, and normality/deviance in specific emotional and political states of being and becoming. 

ENG 079: HOME AND BELONGING, 3 credit hrs.

This course explores the idea, experience, representation, and feeling of home as a site of intimate belonging and of social status. As a place or places where we locate personal identity as well as public values, home may serve as a complex origin of memory, joy, pain, loss, and longing. For some, home is a real or imagined sanctuary of privacy, intimacy, or luxury, while others find it a source of deprivation, repression, or abuse. We will personally and critically reflect on the ideals and structures that place and displace residents in the individual, familial and communal homes that anchor our relations to our selves and each other. 

ENG 080: TOPICS IN WRITING, 4 credit hrs.
This course will introduce students to a question or closely related set of questions germane to the study of the processes and production of writing and/or to a particular genre of writing not represented by courses numbered 81-99. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 081: INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, 3 credit hrs.
An introduction to the systematic study of the English language and of language in general. Words; sounds; grammar and structure; language and culture; world languages and development of English; language and the brain; language growth in the child; variations and dialects; writing systems.

ENG 082: AI IN FICTION, 4 credit hrs.

This course allows students to both read and write fictions about "artificial intelligence." We will examine past and present cultural belies and anxieties about conceptions of artificial intelligences, looking at popular works that have spoken to audiences' fears of, and hopes for, intelligent machines that interact with humans and participate in human life. From Calculating murderers (eg: HAL 9000) to protective companions (eg: Baymax), how have we viewed these artificial "persons," and what have we imagined becomes of natural, biological humans who live lives integrated with AI? Students will explore their won visions of present and future by writing their own stories about conceived "AI." Crosslisted with AI051.

ENG 083: LANGUAGE, MEDIA, AND SOCIETY, 3 credit hrs.
This course intends to introduce students to ways that the national media, the government, the academic community and broader American society have represented English: as local and national language, as citizen, and national identity: during the second half of the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries. By examining competing representations of English, students will investigate what English has come to mean for different groups with different interests, as well as the implications of these competing perspectives for how English functions in various social contexts.

ENG 086: READING AND WRITING SEXUALITY, 4 credit hrs.
This course explores contemporary conceptions of sexual identity with particular emphasis on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and queer identities. The course examines theories and practices of representing sexuality, including conventions for talking about or censoring talk about sex. Writing assignments are designed to help students think critically and creatively about the complex phenomenon of human sexuality. Frequent writing and revision. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies concentration.

ENG 087: READING AND WRITING NATURE, 4 credit hrs.
This course will explore a variety of forms of nature writing: science writing, personal essays, manifestos, poetry, natural history, film, and writings about place. Most of the readings will be short, but we may also read longer works. Student writing will be a combination of journal writing, creative writing, and critical writing. Discussions will range from detailed questions about craft (such as use of narrative time or value of anthropomorphism) to larger questions about human perception of the natural world.

ENG 088: READING AND WRITING ABOUT CLASS, 4 credit hrs.
This course explores contemporary conceptions of socioeconomic class identity, with particular emphasis on the United States context. The course examines theories and practices of representing class. Writing assignments are designed to help students think critically and creatively about the complex phenomena of class structures and class-based identity categories, and about the effects of these structures and categories on everyday life and self-presentation. We will read and discuss texts from a variety of genres: fiction, non-fiction, and theory. Also, we will trace historical changes in American definitions and perceptions of class. Frequent writing and revision. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration. Fulfills DEI Requirement.

ENG 090: READING AND WRITING DRAMA, 4 credit hrs.
An introduction to the practice of drama, this course will explore a variety of approaches to both reading and writing plays. Traditions and theories that have helped shape and continue to influence plays and playwriting will be discussed in relation to the student's own work in this genre. Writing assignments include both critical and original scripts. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 091: READING AND WRITING POETRY, 4 credit hrs.
An introduction to the practice of poetry, this course explores a variety of approaches to both reading and writing poems. Traditions and theories that have helped shape and continue to influence contemporary poetry are discussed in relation to the student's own work in this genre. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 092: READING AND WRITING THE SHORT STORY, 4 credit hrs.
An introduction to reading and writing short fiction. The course explores the traditions, theories and practices that have shaped short stories, with emphasis on the fiction of the later 20th century. Writing assignments include both critical papers and original stories. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 093: READING AND WRITING NON-FICTION, 4 credit hrs.
An introduction to reading and writing non-fiction. Different sections may focus on essay writing, life writing, literary journalism, travel writing, scientific writing, and so on. Emphasis is on the student's own production of texts, as well as on traditions and practices of the particular genre. Activities will include frequent writing and discussion of papers. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 094: BUSINESS & ADMINISTRATIVE WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
The theory, principles, and processes of effective business and administrative communication, among which may be informative and persuasive letters and memos, informal proposals, policy and procedure descriptions, application letters, resumes, directives, performance reviews and evaluations, and letters of recommendation. Class discussion of student work with emphasis on how each document represents the writer and how well it achieves its purpose. Frequent writing and revision. Prereq.: Sophomore standing.

ENG 102: STRUCTURE OF MODERN AMERICAN ENGLISH, 3 credit hrs.
This course engages students in a synchronic (present-day) analysis of the phonological, morphological and grammatical structure of current American English. Prescriptive practices ("correctness") are considered within a socio-linguistic context. Students are asked to develop a vocabulary to talk about language and style systematically and scientifically, and to produce deep-structure, hierarchical sentence analyses.

ENG 104: HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on the development of the English language from pre-English through the Old and Middle English periods, to the Early Modern and Modern period. In addition to historical changes and developments in the phonological, morphological, and lexical and grammatical systems of English, students will consider the cultural implications of those changes over time, as evidenced by the existence and continuing development of creoles and "World Englishes."

ENG 105: AESTHETICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE, 3 credit hrs. 

Analysis of how the material environment of architecture, clothes, furniture, music, signage, tools, toys, and other objects operates as a field o persuasive appeals and how it influences and constrains the formation of identity and community. 

ENG 106: TEACHING AND TUTORING SPEAKING, 3 credit hrs.

This course provides students with training in teaching public speaking, preparing them to work as tutors in the Speaking Center or apply to be graduate teaching assistants in a speech communication program. Students will observe all sessions of a Public Speaking Course with an experienced instructor, consult with the supervising professor to analyze pedagogical techniques, design short presentations, peer tutor students, and evaluate classroom dynamics. The final project will require students to research pedagogical materials and draft a sample syllabus or annotated bibliography of their own. Registration is by permission only.

ENG 107: TEACHING AND TUTORING WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on the theory and practice of teaching writing. Students will be introduced to competing theories of writing and explore their implications for various teaching practices. Topics to be addressed include the overall design and structure of writing and writing- intensive courses, relations between writing and reading, assignment writing, responding to student papers, responding to "error," and working with diverse student populations. Prereq.: Instructor Permission

ENG 108: VISUAL RHETORICS, 3 credit hrs.

This course will introduce students to the critical study of visual texts in popular culture, such as advertising images, architecture, and national Iconography. Students will learn different approaches to analyzing visual texts and consider the merits and limitations of applying traditional frameworks of rhetorical criticism to visual imagery and spatial relations. In addition, the course will examine techniques used by media critics and satirists who draw attention to the politics of visual culture by refiguring its symbols. 

ENG 109: PROSE STYLISTICS: ANALYSIS & APPLICATIONS, 3 credit hrs.

This course invites students to develop a capacity to analyze language closely at the phrase and sentence level, and thus, to become more aware of the stylistic qualities of written prose. Students will gain some familiarity with grammatical and rhetorical terms as they focus on what constitutes "style" in a given text, and how style and "substance" are related. Through frequent writing and revision, students will work to gain control over their own style, and will become more adept at shaping their language to suit their own writing purposes.

ENG 111: ADVANCED WORKSHOP IN CREATIVE FLASH NONFICTION, 3 credit hrs. 
(ENG 093 Recommended.) This advanced creative nonfiction writing workshop, will focus on nonfiction flash narratives (flash essays of fewer than 1000 words). The goal will be for each student to compose a collection of flash nonfiction by the end of the semester, which means students should expect to write, at minimum, 25 pages of formal writing and revision. This course requires active participation as it is discussion and workshop based. Students will also analyze and discuss assigned readings, including flash nonfiction collections and flash memoirs.

ENG 112: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIR, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course will focus on two genres of life writing: autobiography (primarily based on verifiable information) and memoir (primarily based on the author's memories). The course will address remembering and capturing the past; vividly describing people and places; incorporating dialogue, emotion, historical context, and humor; and other components of effective life writing. The class will also examine the ethics of life writing. Over the course of the semester, students will explore the strategies discussed in class by writing and revising their own memoirs. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 113: CROSS-GENRE WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course will explore the possibilities for writing within and against traditional generic boundaries. Students read works situated within genres (essays, poetry, drama, and fiction), as well as experimental cross-genre works, to increase their understanding of genre (as a concept and as practice), of the changing historical construction of literary genres, and of the numerous possibilities for writing. Students write within each genre, then experiment with writing that complicates or breaks down the boundaries between them. This course requires frequent writing and revision. 

ENG 114: ADVANCED POETRY WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course-- intended for those who have previous experience with reading and writing poetry-- will explore further the practice of poetry. Students will read essays on poetry and poetics, write poems, and discuss elements of craft within the broader context of literary studies. The course emphasizes critical analysis of selected texts, including student work. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisites: ENG 091 or 113 or instructor permission.

ENG 115: ADVANCED FICTION WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course-- intended for those who have previous experience with reading and writing fiction-- will read and analyze published fiction, write their own fiction, and discuss elements of effective fiction writing. This course emphasizes the critical analysis of selected texts and discussion of student work. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisite: ENG 092 or 113, or instructor permission.

ENG 116: WRITING IN A NETWORKED WORLD, 3 credit hrs.
Our social-commercial-informational networks re-draft reality in real time, and present new challenges to the tradition of “authorship,” the boundaries of “game play,” and the credibility of individual meaning-making, all while generative AI mechanizes the production of text. Writers, how do we write in a world where “extended engagement” is measured in characters or seconds, “fake” and “real” are weaponized messages of rhetorical warfare, and concepts underlying authorship like “free will” and “originality” have been coopted to advance brands, and poison politics? In this course we will read and write our way through questions of this kind, and subject our conceptions of the changing world to critical analysis, so that we might come to a better understanding of the role of the author in the networked world.   

ENG 117: ADAPTATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS, 3 credit hrs.
This course examines the theory and practice of adapting narratives into new mediums and/or for new audiences, and asks essential questions about what defines a "story" in the face of radical transformations, how those transformations can reflect changes in culture and interpretation, and why certain elements of a text may be stable or unstable over time. Forms may include (but are not limited to): folk tales, literary fiction, staged performances, television, film, and video games. Students can expect to analyze the adaptations and transformations of others as well as create original adaptations themselves. Frequent writing and revision.

ENG 118: READING AND CREATING COMICS, 3 credit hrs.
This course will allow students to explore comics as literature, art, and design, and to create comics of their own. Readings may include Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics; Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home; selections from online comics including The Oatmeal, xkcd, and Existential Comics; as well as essays and theoretical readings that consider comics as both visual and literary art. Students in this course will create approximately 8 pages of comics, write several responses and essays that engage with readings and reflect on individual practice, and will engage in frequent drawing and writing exercises. The course will culminate in a polished comic of at least five pages. Course requires no prior experience in drawing. No prerequisite.

ENG 119: COMMUNITY WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
The goal of Community Writing is to provide students with an engaged learning experience that utilizes their interest in workplace- and socially-engaged writing within a mutually beneficial and jointly negotiated partnership with a campus or community organization. As they complete writing projects, research, and deliverables on behalf of the community partner, students will consider service and writing as a form of engaged rhetorical practice, learn about the social concerns addressed by the community partner through readings and activities, reflect on the differences between writing in classroom and professional settings, and build critical competence and self/communal esteem through literacy practices that support both personal and public discovery.

ENG 120: ADVANCED TOPICS IN WRITING, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course at the advanced level will explore a focused issue or set of issues in the process and production of writing. Section-specific course descriptions, and, in some cases, prerequisites, will be available before registration. Frequent writing and revision. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 121: RHETORICS OF SPACE AND PLACE, 3 credit hrs.

This course will consider the rhetorical aspects of space and place by studying how spaces become places: the process through which certain locations come to create a "sense of place" and the meaning and function of those places in public culture. Readings and assignments will address how communication about, in, and through places plays a role in social identities and practices. 

Students in this course will explore, in-depth, a particular topic or approach to theory and criticism, or a closely-related group of topics and approaches. Students will be asked to familiarize themselves with the key principles and methods of the topic or approach, as well with the specialized vocabularies and usages particular to it. Examples of such topics include Poetics, Aesthetics, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Feminist Theory, and Post-Colonialism. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies. 

ENG 124: ADVANCED TOPICS IN HISTORY AND TRADITION, 3 credit hrs.
Topics for sections of this course will focus on pre-1900 texts and on literary practices and genres specific to the time period or national culture within which those texts were written. Thus, a version of the course might focus on the 19th century Gothic novel or on 17th century metaphysical poetry in ways that examine the cultural and historical context surrounding the production and reception of the texts. Such courses will ask students to work intensively with the language and conventions of the texts and with its contemporary as well as modern critical reception and interpretation. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies. 

ENG 125: ADVANCED TOPICS IN CULTURE AND IDENTITY, 3 credit hrs.
This course concentrates on topics in popular culture and representations of identity. Each version of the course will devote attention to a particular set of issues in the production and reception of specific popular cultural and/or identity formations -- for instance, the politics of 21st-century memes, a century of detective fiction, the birth and death of the soap opera, gender in contemporary horror fiction and film, technologies of reproduction in science fiction/fantasy. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 126: FILM AND TELEVISION HISTORY AND CRITICISM, 3 credit hrs.
This course serves as a survey to the interpretation of cinema and/or television as mass culture forms. Each version of the course will take a broader approach to the history of cinema and television studies in relation to the cultural context in which such media were produced and consumed (e.g. early cinema history, French cinema, World cinema, suburbs and the rise of television). The course will attend to issues of genre definition, representation and narration, production and reception, or, more generally, to the "cultural work" such texts and practices perform. Outside film screenings will be a feature of this course. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 127: ADVANCED TOPICS IN NEW MEDIA, 3 credit hrs.
Students will focus on one or several New-Media topics that fall within the scope of English Studies (Language, Literature, Storytelling, Poetics, Cultural Studies, an so on). Specific subjects may include "Literature of the Internet," "Narratives of Gaming," Electronic Poetics." May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 128: ADVANCED TOPICS IN DRAMA, 3 credit hrs.
Students will explore a particular question, problem, issue, or topic germane to the study of drama as a literary genre (rather than as theatrical or technical practice). A particular section of this course may delineate its topic according to historical period, dramatic tradition, cultural origin, theoretical or critical method, theatre or theatre company, or "schools" of drama. Examples of such topics include Modernist Experimental Drama, Epic Drama, Melodrama, Classical Drama, Drama of Resistance, Gendered Performances, Theatre of Cruelty, Absurdism, and the like. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 129: ADVANCED TOPICS IN FILM, 3 credit hrs.
This course is designed to have students perform an intensive critical analysis of a particular topic in cinema studies. Topics may be arranged according to genre, movement, author or theoretical approach (i.e. historical film noir, the Nouvelle Vague, Hitchcock/Wilder, film theory and the aesthetics/politics debate). Students should anticipate a more rigorous theoretical, historical and formal examination of the cinema. Outside film screenings will be a feature of this course. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 130: STUDIES IN LITERARY GENRES, 3 credit hrs.
An examination of the history, criticism, theory and status of a literary genre, such as the epic, romance, short story, essay and so on. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 131: MAJOR HISTORICAL FIGURES (BEFORE 1900), 3 credit hrs.
A study of the works of one or more major writers whose works were composed, for the most part, prior to 1900 with an emphasis on understanding the figure’s/figures' importance in historical context as well as their legacy. Primary texts will be supplemented by secondary texts (such as literary criticism, biography, and/or adaptations) that discuss the figure(s). The figure(s) to be studied may vary. May be repeated once for credit when the topic changes.

ENG 132: DICKENS IN LONDON, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this seminar will read texts written by Charles Dickens and will visit sites in London that are pertinent to Dickens's life and writings. Sites visited in London will include: The Dickens House Museum, The British Library, Covent Garden, The Tate, Southwark (including Borough Market and the remaining wall of the Marshalsea prison), Kensington Palace, and walking tours of neighborhoods with Dickensian connections. During a side trip to Rochester, students will tour Restoration House (a model for Satis House in Great Expectations) and Watt's Charity (central to The Seven Poor Travellers). Readings will include Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, The Seven Poor Travellers, a brief biography of Dickens, and selections of Dickens's journalism. The writing assignments for the course ask students to reflect critically upon how visiting London affects their understanding of Dickens's writing as well as how reading Dickens's writings affects their response to and experience of London.

ENG 133: MAJOR CONTEMPORARY FIGURES (SINCE 1900), 3 credit hrs.
A study of the works of one or more major writers whose works were composed, for the most part, after 1900. Primary texts will be supplemented by secondary texts (such as literary criticism, biography, and/or adaptations) that discuss the figure(s). The figure(s) to be studied may vary. May be repeated once for credit when the topic changes.

ENG 134: TRANSATLANTIC LANDSCAPES, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on an interdisciplinary understanding of “landscape” conventions within a transatlantic context. We will read theories about art history and aesthetics (particularly in history and landscape painting) by Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Ruskin, Thomas Cole, Asher Durand and others. We will examine paintings, prints, and drawings by John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, Frederic Church, 19th century American women painters, and amateur travellers. Our focus will be on how different aesthetic modes reflect and produce different understandings of “nature” and the human presence in the landscape. We will look at art/writing in the context of colonialism, economic change, the rise of the middle class, travel/tourism, and other contexts that shape 19th century identity (both national and individual) in Anglo-American contexts. We will also consider ways that writing and the visual arts share certain concerns—but also represent nature, humanity, history and divinity in different ways.

ENG 135: ADOLESCENT LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
Selected readings in fiction, poetry and non-fiction written for young adults, with emphasis on contemporary novels. Discussions explore the relationship of the adolescent characters to adults and peers, the rites of passage in each story, and the contrasting narrative viewpoints from which these stories are told. Some attention to teaching this literature to junior high and high school students.

ENG 136: ADOLESCENCE AND AMERICAN FICTION, 3 credit hrs.
This course explores how selected short stories and novels represent the adolescent experience in the United States: how the adolescent protagonist is positioned in relation to other groups and the larger culture, the attitude of the implied author toward adolescence, and experiences that comprise "growing." Writing assignments include critical responses and an original short story. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

ENG 137: GENDER AND HORROR, 3 credit hrs. 
This course critically examines depictions of women and gender in horror fiction and film, with an emphasis on film. Primary texts are horror films and horror fiction from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Our reading is framed by theoretical and critical writing on gender and horror. Students will analyze horror film as genre, read horror fiction, and create critical essays. 

ENG 138: ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCASY, 3 credit hrs. 

Argumentation and Advocacy introduces students to theories and practices of public argument by offering critical appraisals of the roles that argument and advocacy play in contemporary culture. Students will practice argumentation and advocacy by creating, evaluating and critiquing arguments. They will theorize the practice by considering how various forms of argument and advocacy function in particular cultural political contexts. 

ENG 139: LANGUAGE AND LOGIC, 3 credit hrs.

Content-based course with discussion and creative projects. This course looks at the ways scholars and writers have attempted to systematize the English language through descriptive linguistics, prescriptive grammar rules, categories of rhetorical persuasion, syllogism, metaphor, and narrative structures, and asks how reasonable language is? additional questions may include: why is natural human language such a challenge for machines? What attempts have been  made to systematize language, and why is language resistant to these attempts? 

ENG 140: SHAKESPEARE: TEXTS/CONTEXTS, 3 credit hrs.
This course centers on reading selected Shakespearean plays closely and imaginatively, focusing especially on how they are shaped by and, in turn, give shape to the interrelations between the culture that gave rise to them as well as in late 20th and early 21st-century culture(s).

ENG 142: ADVANCED TOPICS IN EARLY ENGLISH TEXTS (TO 1500), 3 credit hrs.

To read original texts written during the 1000 year period beginning with the epic poem, Beowulf, and ending with Chaucer and Malory requires specialized knowledge not only of the (developing) English language of the period, but also of medieval interpretive practices. Different versions of this course may focus on such topics as the Arthurian tradition, courtly love and the medieval love lyric, early epic and heroic literature, saints' lives, homilies and ecclesiastical histories. Students will gain some familiarity with the language(s) of medieval England and Scotland, contemporary cultural practices, authorship and deliberate textual obscurity, and the Christian exegetical tradition. They will also consider modern theoretical and critical responses to medieval literatures. Sections which focus on Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse epics will read those texts in translation. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 143: ADVANCED TOPICS IN EARLY MODERN TEXTS (1500-1780), 3 credit hrs.
This course examines cultural texts from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and/or eighteenth centuries, focusing critical attention on what makes these works both "early" and "modern." Study will likely be organized by period, national tradition, theme, and/or genre, and may consider topics like the construction of subjectivity, literacy, nationhood, colonialism, and the like. Past topics, for example, have included revenge in the English Renaissance, early modern women writers, and literature from the scene of Atlantic encounter. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

ENG 146: 19TH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
The study of a variety of texts from the British Isles and its colonial territories published between 1800-1899, with sustained attention to the way fiction as well as non-fiction interacted with the social issues of the time, including contested notions of "British" identity, the Industrial Revolution, social class mobility, gender roles, scientific debates, race relations, and imperialism.

ENG 147: 20TH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
Students in this course will focus their attention on a particular topic, question, issue, or problem germane to the production, reception, interpretation, or analysis of British literary and/or filmic texts of the 20th Century. This course encourages students to explore a narrowly focused body of work, such as a particular genre or form or works dealing with a particular theme or question, and to consider it principally in terms of developments and tensions in British society and of what it may have meant to be and to write "British" during the 20th Century.

ENG 149: CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.

Students in this course will focus their attention on developments in British literary and cultural production since the late 20th Century. This course encourages students to understand British literature in terms of specifically contemporary social, historical, and/or aesthetic factors, such as globalism, terror, the new Europe, rapid cultural and ethnic diversification, the rise of digital technologies and new media, celebrity culture, and the like.

ENG 151: SALEM WITCH TRIALS, 3 credit hrs.

This course will focus on the Salem Witch Trials (1692) as an entry point into thinking about the role of writing in the American "colonial" experience. We will read 17th century documents, including legal documents from the trials, sermons, poetry, and personal writing; explanations of the events from a variety of fields and eras (including legal history, trauma studies, and race studies); and literature that seeks to extend the legacy of the trials through fiction, drama and film. This course is less focused on understanding exactly what happened and more focused on how the meaning of the 1692 trials has been constructed, contested, extended, willfully misunderstood, and amended. Crosslisted with Honors. 

ENG 152: 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
Students will study a genre, social issue, historical period, aesthetic movement, or collection of related texts written between 1800 and 1900, exploring the interconnections among history, "American" identity, and what we call "literature."

ENG 155: 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
The study of a variety of literary writing in America during the 20th century. Fiction, poetry and other writings, including film, considered principally in terms of developments and tensions in modern American society and of what it may have meant to be "American" during this period.

ENG 156: CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
This course will explore recent literature (poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama), focusing on one genre or working across genres. Students should anticipate studying a variety of styles/forms, connecting literature to contemporary experience and culture.

ENG 158: SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
An intensive study of literature from South Africa ranging in date from the late nineteenth century to the present. Students will consider the ways in which writers use fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to capture, represent, and comment upon the complexities of South African life and culture during and after apartheid. This course investigates representations of issues such as the long-term effects of apartheid on race relations, gender relations, and economic inequity. More broadly, the course considers how the literature of this nation raises and addresses broader questions of what it means to form human identity, the troublesome propensity of human beings to oppress and inflict suffering on others, and the sometimes surprising methods in which suffering people survive assaults on their bodies as well as their imaginations. This course satisfies the Global/Multicultural Understanding AOI requirement.

ENG 163: TRANS-CULTURAL LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.

This course asks students to investigate the relationship between writing and the exploration of positions on the "border" of diverse cultures. Students will read and write about texts by writers whose gender, professional, educational, religious, and family backgrounds tend to "place" them simultaneously within a range of dissonant cultures. To provide critical perspectives for their reading and writing, students will also examine critical essays that investigate issues which face writers concerned to write from the borders and the cultural function of this type of writing.

ENG 164: LATINO/A LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
This course is an introduction to Latino/a literature and film, especially to their cultural influences and effects. Readings are studied in context with the history of relations between Latin American/Caribbean countries and the United States, with Anglo-American representation of Hispanics, and with contemporary cultural issues such as bilingualism. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

ENG 165: POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.
This course is an introduction to literature by writers from nations that were formerly European colonies. Influential texts by European writers about the colonial situation are also studied. The course introduces students to the critical framework and primary debates within the field of postcolonial literature. There are two versions of this course: one centering on the literature of Africa, the other on Asia. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

ENG 166: LITERATURE OF WAR, 3 credit hrs.
This course explores the special problem of writing and reading about war. Students study how writers have attempted to make sense out of the experiences of war and of war's psychological, social, political, and cultural aftermath. The course may focus on a particular war: Civil, World War II, Vietnam, Gulf, for instance: or it may examine the phenomenon of war from a chronological and/or cross-national perspective. In any case, the texts (stories, essays, poems, films, documentaries, etc) are placed in a historical context.

ENG 167: RHETORICS OF WAR, 3 credit hrs.

Discussion of the relationships between war and public discourse, with special attention to public debate about the conduct of war, the effect of war on ideas about public discourse, and the representation of war in contemporary media. 

ENG 168: POSTCOLONIAL RHETORICS, 3 credit hrs.

Understanding and expression are shaped by the complex interplay of colonial relations. The class examines how the character of colonial discourse and the resistance to colonial forms of discourse, power, and identity shape social life and key controversies of the contemporary world including race relations, gender controversies, forms of nationalism, and relations between "nature" and "culture." 

ENG 169: THEORIES OF MYTH & ARCHETYPES, 3 credit hrs.

The terms "myth" and "archetype" account for diverse cultural practices and a range of theoretical understandings studies in such disciplines as anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics, folklore and literary theory. To understand how myths and archetypes function as representational systems within cultural and literary narratives -- ancient or modern-- we will draw from different theoretical frameworks as we construct ways of reading through a given set of national myths (e.g., Old Norse, Greek and Roman, Babylonian), or mythic systems or subjects (e.g., creation, the hero, the divine child).

ENG 173: CRITICAL THEORY, 3 credit hrs.

This course considers ways in which critical theories are embodied in reading and writing practices. Students read, discuss and write about texts in critical theory and engage in specific critical/theoretical practices.

ENG 174: THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND DISCOURSE, 3 credit hrs.

The course is designed to familiarize students with the different ways theorists have studied and defined language and discourse. Theories constructed by philosophers, psychologists, linguists, and social theorists are examined, and students become involved in critical analysis of the epistemological assumptions of these theories. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration. 

ENG 178: TOPICS IN MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE, 3 credit hrs.

As an alternative to a survey, this course invites an issue- oriented approach to the interpretation of Multicultural literature in general or of different cultural or ethnic traditions such as African American, Asian American, Chicano or Native American in particular. The course explores (and problematizes) the study of multicultural writing in terms of its relationship to the prevailing history of Anglo-American letters, its posture outside of that history, and its relation to other literatures of color. The specific focus of the course varies each time offered, but each version of the course devotes some attention to the matters of genre definition, period definition, and canon definition. 

ENG 181: TOPICS IN LITERACY STUDIES, 3 credit hrs.

A seminar on varying topics concerning literacy, such as its relation to orality, its relation to culture(s), its acquisition, the history of literacy, theories of composing in writing, the past and contemporary teaching and learning of literacy, and theories of written "error." 

ENG 182: TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES, 3 credit hrs.
This course concentrates on approaches to specific topics or issues in the interpretation of social change in American culture. Intensive investigation of primary materials is a feature of every version of the course offered. Interdisciplinary methods for exploring questions of culture frame each course version. 

ENG 185: TRAVEL SEMINAR, 3 to 6 credit hrs.

Ranging from 3-6 credits, travel seminars take place primarily off campus, with some class meetings occurring on campus before travel and the possibility of on-campus class sessions after travel.

ENG 195: CAPSTONE IN ENGLISH, RHETORIC AND MEDIA STUDIES, & WRITING, 3 credit hrs.

This seminar fulfills the capstone requirement for Writing, Rhetoric and Media Studies, & English majors. The specific topic of the seminar will be determined by the instructor, but all capstone seminars are summative, providing students with an opportunity to reflect on their development and direction at the end of their undergraduate experience. Toward that end, students will undertake a semester-long project, tied to the seminar topic, but providing opportunities for students to reflect critical on the text they are producing and to participate in conversations that extend the project beyond the classroom. This course may be taken to fulfill other upper-division requirements and electives, with advisor approval, instead of as a capstone seminar.

ENG 198: INDEPENDENT STUDY, 1 to 3 credit hrs.
Readings, conferences, reports and a research paper/ semester portfolio under the direction of a faculty member. The student defines the topic and schedule of activities in consultation with a faculty mentor.

ENG 199: WRITING IN SERVICE AND PROFESSIONAL SETTINGS, 1 to 3 credit hrs.
Internship in Writing (one to three credits): This course provides students the opportunity to use, develop, extend and reflect upon their writing. Internships may be within or outside the university, in business or non-profit organizations, and must require writing in some form as a key feature of the work. Prerequisites: 60 hours in college credit; ENG 038 and ENG 039; major/minor status; 2.75+ GPA in English courses; advisor approval.