English

Chair: Samuel Coale
Department home page: http://www.wheatoncollege.edu/Acad/English/

The English curriculum offers a balance of old and new literature, film and print media, writers recognized in the traditional canon and writers who have been traditionally marginalized. Courses are taught through a variety of literary, critical and theoretical approaches and all courses integrate concepts and scholarship on race and its intersections with class and gender.

The English Department participates in interdisciplinary major programs in American Studies, Theatre and Dance Studies, and Women's Studies and others.

English majors wishing to study abroad may do so through Wheaton's Center for Global Education sites in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Majors who plan their junior year away should take at least four courses toward their major (Eng 101 does not count toward the major) before leaving. All 300- and 400-level English requirements must be taken at Wheaton. Majors contemplating graduate study in literature or communications should normally take Eng 306, Eng 313, Eng 376, and Eng 377, among at least 13 English courses beyond Eng 101.

Major in English

Print a major planning worksheet

The major in English consists of 10 or more courses in English beyond the 100 level. These requirements include:

Eng 290, a section of Eng 401, two other courses at the 300 level or above and two courses that focus on literature written before 1800. The 300- and 400-level courses must be taken at Wheaton.

Major in English with a concentration

The English major with a concentration requires 11 courses. Students fulfill the same requirements as for the basic English major and also choose a five-course concentration, for a total of 11 courses in the major. It is normally desirable that one of the five courses in the concentration be at the 300 level or above. One of the five courses can, with the approval of the department, be taken in a department other than English. In general, if a student wants to count a course that is not specifically listed for a concentration in the catalog, he or she needs to petition the department for approval. Similarly, a student who wants to create a concentration that is not listed below needs to petition the department. Students who want to major in English with a particular concentration should normally apply by the end of the junior year.

The concentration in creative writing

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With permission of the department, a student interested in creative writing may enroll in a program that emphasizes writing and literature equally. Students wishing admission to the creative writing concentration should submit a portfolio of work to the department early in the first semester of the junior year. Detailed guidelines are available from the department. Students hoping to apply for admission to the concentration are strongly advised to discuss their course plans with the director of the creative writing program, preferably by the end of their first year or during the first semester of sophomore year.

The English major with a concentration in creative writing consists of 11 or more courses beyond the 100 level, including:

At least six courses in literature, including Eng 290, one literature course at the 300 level and Eng 401. At least one course must be in literature from before 1800 and at least one course must be in contemporary literature.

At least five writing courses above the 100 level, normally including three courses at the 200 level and two courses at the 300 level or above. The concentration must include at least one 200- or 300-level sequence (poetry writing/advanced poetry writing or fiction writing/advanced fiction writing). Students who successfully complete an advanced writing course may be invited to undertake an Eng 499 independent study in writing or a 500-level honors project, with the permission of the department.

Other concentrations

The following are examples of other potential concentrations within the English major. A student wishing to create a concentration not listed, or to modify a listed concentration, needs to petition the department for approval.

Major in dramatic literature and theatre

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The major in dramatic literature and theatre is administered jointly by the Theatre and English departments. See the Theatre and Dance Studies department listing for additional requirements.

Minor

Print a minor planning worksheet

The English minor is in literature and consists of at least five courses, one of which must be at the 300 level or above and one of which is Eng 290 or the equivalent.

Courses

Interview Courses

002. Interview for Fiction Writing

See Eng 284 for course description.

007. Interview for Advanced Playwriting

See Eng 388 for course description.

013. Interview for Advanced Poetry Workshop

See Eng 383 for course description.

Writing courses for first-year students and sophomores

101. Writing

Required of all first-year students except those who have passed the Advanced Placement examination with a 4 or 5 or have passed the Wheaton exemption examination, which is given by invitation. The focus for the writing and reading varies from section to section, permitting students to follow special interests and explore new material. All sections introduce students to some college-level literacy practices. The topic for each of the sections will be announced before the date of course selections and sent to all entering students during the summer. Recent topics have included popular culture, London, multicultural lives, the environment and rebellion and authority.

At least one short paper each week or a longer paper biweekly is required. Focus is on understanding invention, composing, revising and editing processes and using them. Students are encouraged to engage in conferences outside of class with their professors and to seek the help of Wheaton's student writing tutors, who have completed a one-semester peer tutoring course that is jointly offered by the English and education departments.

You will be asked to do a lot of writing at Wheaton, and this course will help you to do it well. You will work with the instructor and your classmates on different kinds of writing assignments, and you'll become more comfortable with writing while you improve your skills. Most sections include both formal and informal writing, and you will confer with the instructor about individual drafts and, at times, read and respond to other students' writing in a workshop setting.

Fall Semester 2009

Section A01 Writing Beyond the Classroom

This section of first-year writing focuses on the rhetorical skills and strategies that you will need to participate in the many conversations taking place in your classrooms, on campus, and in the broader world beyond the classroom. We might begin with a brief work of fiction that lends itself to at least three possible interpretations, such as materialist, postcolonial and semiotics. You will learn about audience, among other rhetorical strategies, and the kinds of evidence you'll need to persuade the various interpretive communities to which you'll write. Students enrolled in this section of first-year writing should end the semester with a better understanding of what is considered "good writing" in academic environments and in the broader world.
(Deyonne Bryant)

Section A02 Writing about London

From Big Ben to the Tower of London and a quick pint at the pub: is this your idea of London? In this class, we will explore the history of modern London. We will read and write about a variety of literary and historical writings, as well as visual texts such as maps, paintings, television shows and films, in order to look behind the tourist's London. From the 18th century onward, the city was the metropolitan center of the British Empire, as reflected in the buildings, the layout of the city and its inhabitants. You will study topics such as the use of architecture to reflect England's idea of itself as an imperial nation, and the ways in which different neighborhoods, and even particular streets, come to symbolize the class and racial relations of the city. We will look at the diverse peoples who have lived in and left their mark on London: the ruling elites who governed England and designed the city; the working-class poor of the 19th century slums, including Irish and Jewish immigrants; and the South Asian and Caribbean immigrants of the later 20th century. As you learn about the differences between high school and college writing expectations, we will use formal and informal writing as a tool for learning, reflection, and communication. Expect to write a lot and read a lot, including the writing your student peers produce.
(Claire Buck)

Section A03 Writing about London

From Big Ben to the Tower of London and a quick pint at the pub: is this your idea of London? In this class, we will explore the history of modern London. We will read and write about a variety of literary and historical writings, as well as visual texts such as maps, paintings, television shows and films, in order to look behind the tourist's London. From the 18th century onward, the city was the metropolitan center of the British Empire, as reflected in the buildings, the layout of the city, and its inhabitants. You will study topics such as the use of architecture to reflect England's idea of itself as an imperial nation, and the ways in which different neighborhoods, and even particular streets, come to symbolize the class and racial relations of the city. We will look at the diverse peoples who have lived in and left their mark on London: the ruling elites who governed England and designed the city; the working-class poor of the 19th century slums, including Irish and Jewish immigrants; and the South Asian and Caribbean immigrants of the later 20th century. As you learn about the differences between high school and college writing expectations, we will use formal and informal writing as a tool for learning, reflection, and communication. Expect to write a lot and read a lot, including the writing your student peers produce.
(Claire Buck)

Section A04 Writing about Reality and Risk

Writing about Reality and Risk will focus on the ease with which we use the term "reality" and will seek to discover the many levels of its meaning by examining what is "real" in the essays, fiction, poetry, and occasional play that will constitute our weekly reading. These works will cover such authors as Emma Goldman, Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Sophocles, Virginia Woolf, Auden, Blake, Flannery O'Connor, James Joyce and many others. The level of attention we apply to each reading will uncover the risk each author has taken to say something real; we, in turn, will come as close as we can to engaging in the reality each author presents, taking something of a risk ourselves by doing so. This course is writing and reading intensive and includes the keeping of an academic journal, active participation in class discussions and engagement with each other's written work through the ongoing process of peer review and workshops.
(Constance Campana)

Section A05 Writing about H.O.U.S.E. Music

To develop and apply strategies that writers use in producing effective writing, this section of English 101 will employ musical samples, a series of contemporary writings such as Anthony Thomas', The House the Kids Built, documentary films such as Paris Is Burning and related writings such as Phillip Brian Harper's The Subversive Edge: Paris Is Burning, Social Critique, and the Limits of Subjective Agency, which demonstrate why some groups in the United States and abroad believe that "It's All About House Music."

The essays students will examine are useful for studying the craft of written discourse because they demonstrate, for example, how writers conceptualize a project, examine cultural practices, contemplate audience, develop a claim into an argument, or manipulate structure to convey point of view. Early class discussions will grow out of our efforts to collectively define HOUSE music and use that definition as a framework for reading course texts. We will also evaluate and model essays to critically analyze course material, apply strategies and thoughtfully articulate our insights about what makes a piece of writing effective. Class assignments and activities for this section will include weekly readings; participating in/or leading class discussion; in-class journaling; peer feedback and editing sessions; short response papers; longer, peer-edited, prompt-driven papers.
(Shawn Christian)

Section A06 Writing about H.O.U.S.E. Music

Section A07 Writing about Chocolate, Dragons and Other Problems

The course will be conducted as a workshop, with students completing assignments tailored to their individual writing needs and conferring frequently with the instructor. Most assignments will be analytic essays of the sort expected in other college courses (e.g., comparison and contrast, deductive essay, book review and literary or quantitative analysis), yet some of the topics will allow for creativity (e.g., dragon fighting, eating chocolate, and personal experiences).
(Beverly Lyon Clark)

Section A08 Writing about Chocolate, Dragons and Other Problems

Section A09 Writing as Discovery

This section of English 101 will explore some of the many ways writing functions as a means of discovery--of who we are, what we think and know, and what we have to say to others. Within a workshop format, the challenges of writing effectively in college will be addressed through frequent one-to-one consultation with the instructor regarding individual students' work in progress. Assignments are designed to provide ample opportunity for independent and creative exploration while enabling students to gain confidence in a variety of writing modes, both formal and informal, by means of a process involving idea generation, drafting, revision and editing.
(Susan Dearing)

Section A10 Writing as Discovery

Section A11 Writing about Environmental Arguments

Nature. We worship it, battle it, defend it, preserve it, buy it, sell it, define it against our art, our enemies, ourselves. So what is it? And what are the current conversations surrounding it? How do various texts form and inform these conversations, and how do we enter the exchange? Finally, how do our own relationships, histories and experiences with nature and technology filter these arguments? Through reading, discussing, researching and writing about arguments suggested by authors as diverse as Ursula LeGuin and Robert Bullard, we will engage the kinds of critical reading and writing needed to participate in college life. Writing will unfold as a means of self-reflection, self-expression and communication with others. Peer reviews, collaborative writing, in-class workshops, and conferences with the professor will help you to hone and understand your literacy processes. The course culminates with the submission and presentation of an electronic final portfolio that will be due on the last day of classes.
(Lisa Lebduska)

Section A12 Writing about Los Angeles

Los Angeles: the City of Angels. How has a city burdened with such divine hope come to symbolize all that is most sinfully and hopelessly human about American culture? Why does it continue to attract those whose sense of the American dream is tinged with golden hues, those who read in the tale of Icarus not a cautionary narrative but rather an achievable desire? Is it the possible commodification of LA as the utopian realization of the American dream? In Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo has said: "Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash." This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of LA and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the pluralities of life in LA, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and drama. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne, Anna Deavere Smith and others.
(James Patrick Byrne)

Section A13 Writing about Los Angeles

Section A14 Writing about Image and Reality

When we read something, we know words can mean lots of different things, but in such an objective genre as photography, is truth easily visible? Then we'll look at films by Antonioni, Herzog, and Zana Briski as we explore the power of images to define, not merely record reality. Readings include a play (Edward Albee), a novel (fiction contextualized in real events and images), selected essays and short stories.
(Sherry Mason)

Section A15 Writing about Image and Reality

When we speak of reality--reality TV, say, or narrative realism--whose reality do we mean? What does an accurate representation of reality look like, and is there such a thing as objective reality? Is lived experience harmonious (as reflected in naturalistic drama) or chaotic (where the narrative arc is less of a rainbow and more of a downward spiral)? We will analyze the ways various artists/writers/filmmakers explore and share their versions of reality. We'll discover common threads and asymmetries in our own perceptions as we look at constructions of meaning, truth in fiction and illusions behind certain truths. We'll start by exploring the line between fiction and nonfiction; fact and opinion; image and evidence.
When we read something, we know words can mean lots of different things, but in such an objective genre as photography, is truth easily visible? Then we'll look at films by Antonioni, Herzog, and Zana Briski as we explore the power of images to define, not merely record reality. Readings include a play (Edward Albee), a novel (fiction contextualized in real events and images), selected essays and short stories.
(Sherry Mason)

Section A16 Writing about Multicultural Lives

What do you think of when you hear the word "culture"? Race? Religion? Traditions? Language? Gender? What does it mean to be living among people who embody different aspects of culture? What does it mean to identify with more than one culture simultaneously? We'll look at some possible answers, along with the work of Louise Erdrich, Martin Espada, Barbara Kingsolver, Nelson Mandela and others. If you're really good, we'll spend a class or two with Will Smith. This course will have elements of traditional lecture and discussion along with workshop and small group work. We'll use the different aspects of culture as a framework to discuss the larger issues of writing in both formal and informal assignments. Each student will have frequent one-on-one consultations with the instructor. There will be an emphasis on process and revision while we develop the skills needed for college-level writing.
(Ruth Foley)

Section A17 Writing about Multicultural Lives

Spring Semester, 2010

Section B19 Writing Beyond the Classroom

Section B20 Writing about Reality and Risk

Section B21 Writing about Postmodernism

Exactly what is postmodernism? And are we still "in" it, or have we moved on? Can it be related to something as esoteric as quantum theory in physics? Or evolution and "intelligent design"? What are the "special" attributes of the postmodernist writer? How have their subjects and visions shifted from more traditional texts?

We will read a novel a week, and then discuss it in class, focusing on such authors as Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Tim O'Brien, Edward Albee, Paul Auster, John Cheever and others. Students will lead discussions on each text that we wrestle with and will write a 5-page paper every two weeks. In terms of writing, we will focus on thesis-driven arguments, backed up by clear and logically organized evidence from the texts we discuss.

We will also attempt to shape and form our own definition of postmodernism and its effects on our consumer culture, imperialistic ambitions, and media-driven images. Quantum Theory plays a role in this postmodern age as well, and we will look into it in relation to the books we read.
(Samuel Coale)

Section B22 Writing about Crime and Injustice

The rhetoric of mystery, crime, or court narratives has become a dominant discourse in American culture. We will discuss conventions that cast characters as victims or transgressors and examine the assumptions within those conventions. Using this lens in a college writing class allows us to practice various methods of creating arguments and presenting textual evidence that demonstrates complexity and is able to sway readers. John M. Lannon's The Writing Process (10th edition) will be our primary text, but we will read the nightmarish Innocent Man by John Grisham and Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress. We will focus research around cultural practices that bring harm to others yet seem to resist reform. In defining and redefining crime we will question, research, and, through writing multiple drafts, perhaps even reach audiences beyond our classroom.

Class texts include films that will be shown outside of class on a weekday evening. If you can't make class viewing times, however, you may see the film on your own. Library viewing rooms make this option possible.
(Katherine Conway)

Section B23 Writing as Discovery

Section B24 Writing about the Journalistic Tradition

Powerful imagery, moving stories and unforgettable quotes all make for great journalism. But the craft of writing news and criticism for the popular press grows as much from a "readerly" approach to writing as it does from the other stand-bys of the craft: skilled observation, rigorous reporting and critical thinking. This course is about reading to write. We will revisit Civil War hospitals and battlefields with Walt Whitman; follow the muckraking paths of Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair; go to war with Edward Murrow, John Hersey and Neil Sheehan; and immerse ourselves in the counterculture with Hunter S. Thompson. With these pieces of writing as our companions and guides, we will learn to read deeply, excavating the reporting methodologies, expressive devices and storytelling techniques that have allowed great reporters to confront their objects of analysis. Through in class reading and writing workshops, this course will teach you to read like a writer and write like a critic.
(Talitha Espiritu)

Section B25 Writing about the Journalistic Tradition

Section B26 Writing about Los Angeles

This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of LA and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the pluralities of life in LA, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and drama. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne, Anna Deavere Smith and others.
(James Patrick Byrne)

Section B27 Writing about Image and Reality

Section B28 Writing about Multicultural Lives

Section B29 Writing about Knowing and Not Knowing

We are going to explore and explode systems of knowledge building--and their surrounding myths--in a variety of contexts that challenge class and cultural assumptions about what is important to know. Authors ranging from Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglas to Jamaica Kincaid and Joan Didion have taken up this subject with wildly different ideas in mind. Together, we will engage a variety of writings, at least one film, a radical encyclopedia, and likely a play in production to begin to shape a critical approach to what we study and why. All of this will be taken up with the goal of creating a dynamic environment for your rhetorical writing to grow. Writing and rewriting will be our mantra, as well as peer critiques, intellectual rigor and stimulating conversation. Be prepared to share your brilliance, generosity and enthusiasm for the luxurious life of the mind and the responsibility that comes with it.
(Charlotte Meehan)

010. Basic Writing

A small class for students who want individualized instruction and practice in writing and who need to achieve a satisfactory level of proficiency in written academic English. In addition to one class meeting per week, students meet individually with the course instructor and a writing tutor to identify and pursue solutions to specific writing problems. The course is normally taken either prior to or at the same time as English 101.
(Susan Dearing, Constance Campana)

060. Writing for Multilingual (ESL) Students

English 060 is designed to help non-native speaking of English to gain the knowledege, skills and practice necessary to succeed at college writing. Students who place into this course must take it for two semesters, once concurrently with English 101 in the fall semester, and then once more in the spring, in order to fulfill the first-year writing and foreign language requirements. With permission of the instructor, other students for whom English is a second language may elect to take the course once for one-half credit or twice for one full credit.
(Ruth Foley)

198. Experimental Courses

Other writing courses

280. Professional and Technical Writing

An advanced course in practical writing, with emphasis on writing as problem solving and on conciseness and clarity. Each student will select a particular local problem requiring a professional or technical solution, research the history of that problem, and write a report recommending a course of action to a specific audience. In addition to preparing frequent shorter writing assignments and the final large report, students will also be required to attend at least one career-related workshop or seminar offered by the Filene Center and to prepare a short report based on that seminar.
(Lisa Lebduska)

Connections:
Conx 20018 Communicating Information
Conx 20066 Public Writing

281. Creative Nonfiction

Workshop participants will study and practice the techniques of creative nonfiction through guided exercises. Significant writing and revision. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors with permission of the instructor.
(Deyonne Bryant)

282. Literary Translation

An introduction to the theory and practice of literary translation. In addition to reading translations and discussing the pleasures and problems of translation, students will undertake individual projects in translation of poetry and fiction of their choice. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors with reading competency in one or more languages in addition to English. Previous experience in creative writing is desirable, but not required.
(Sue Standing)

283. Poetry Writing: Form and Craft

An introduction to poetry writing and poetics. Student writing, as well as issues of craft and technique, will be discussed in class and in individual conferences. Some experience in writing poetry is preferred, but not essential.
(Sue Standing)

284. Fiction Writing: Form and Craft

This course is designed to give students practical knowledge of the basics of craft as well as insight into the creative process. Workshop participants will study and practice the techniques of writing the character-driven story through guided exercises. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors with permission of the instructor.
(Deyonne Bryant)

285. Literary Journalism

Combines practice in expository journalistic writing with basic reporting skills and discussion of the cultural work of journalism. The focus in the class will be on depth rather than timeliness, on rewriting and revision rather than writing quickly. Students should expect to publish some of their work in an appropriate forum.
(Paula M. Krebs)

287. Writing for Performance

What is performance? From the wave of a hand and the way we hold utensils to our intonation patterns and use of vocabulary, what often appear to be "unconscious" behaviors actually play out as signifying performances for spectators on the stage of everyday life. Together, we will recreate, revise, expand and contextualize our own performances and "stage" them--everywhere but in the theatre. Readings in philosophy, performance theory, art history, theatre and current events will help to foster a climate of heightening and transforming the details and language of autobiography.
(Charlotte Meehan)

Connections:
Conx 20009 Performing into Theory

288. Playwriting: Form and Craft

Conflict. Paradox. Mystery. Suspense. Gossip. Poetry. Lies. All the ingredients of great plays. From dreams, memories, coupons, newspaper articles, rare books, overheard snippets of conversation, visual images and sounds, you will be encouraged to create fragments of dramatic writing (i.e., dialogues, monologues, settings) unique to your own imagination and temperament. Then our focus will shift to revision and expansion--deepening character, refining language and building a dramatic arc. Readings of contemporary plays, theory, manifestos and reviews will supplement our creative work.
(Charlotte Meehan)

289. Word and Image

This course focuses on interrelations between creative writing and visual imagery. Following explorations of writers' responses to visual phenomena (including painting, sculpture, photography, artists' books, scientific imagery and other media) and artists' responses to language, you will have the opportunity to write about and to create multimedia pieces and to collaborate with others, both inside and outside the class. This course is designed primarily for creative writing students, but artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers and others interested in multimedia projects incorporating texts are also encouraged to enroll.
(Sue Standing)

Connections:
Conx 23012 Visualizing Information

383. Advanced Poetry Workshop

Intensive practice in the writing of poetry. Exercises and independent work, using assigned readings as models, will be discussed in workshop sessions and individual conferences.
(Sue Standing)

384. Advanced Fiction Workshop

This course allows students to study and practice various aspects of fiction writing through workshops and readings in the long story, the novella and the novel. Class discussions will be based on the students' manuscripts and selected published works. Significant written output and revision are expected of workshop participants.
(Deyonne Bryant)

388. Advanced Playwriting

After we've written one or two plays, what we have to hold onto in those terrifying moments of facing the blank page are more refined instincts; a sharper sense of immediacy; some tools for creating character, dialogue, setting and dramatic arc, and probably a stronger determination to make the beast fly. Through a series of writing exercises and an ongoing discussion of individual creative process, we will focus on developing, shaping, refining and energizing our content. Plays written in this course will be included in the annual spring New Plays Festival. Readings of contemporary plays, theory, manifestos and reviews will supplement our creative work.
(Charlotte Meehan)

398. Experimental Courses

Rhetoric and Advanced Composition

This course explores ancient and contemporary concepts of rhetoric and composition. As individuals and collaborators, we will compose and deliver numerous arguments for a variety of audiences. Student work will culminate with the submission of a digital portfolio containing written, visual and (possibly) oral arguments.

(Lisa Lebduska)

Culture and New Media

New technologies of communication do more than shape how we produce and share information, ideas and images. They respond to and accelerate profound cultural changes. In this course, we will focus on the relationship between culture and "new media," a term that describes the convergence of formerly distinct media--cinema, television, print, photography, etc.--in a digital environment.

The ascendancy of new media is being felt across a broad spectrum of cultural institutions and practices--libraries, museums and universities; the authorship and ownership of intellectual property; licit and illicit forms of exchange; collective intelligence and participatory culture. Embedded within these and myriad other examples are questions to which we will strive to find answers: When my username lets me be anyone I want, what happens to our sense of Self? When you can connect to anyone, anywhere at any time, what happens to neighborhoods? To nations? How are Google and Wikipedia changing what it means to "know" something? In a world where borders are easy to miss and hard to police, who belongs? Who doesn't? Who decides?

We will cast our net wide in the pursuit of answers to these and other questions, consulting both "popular" and "academic" sources such as: visual media and video games, online fan communities and social networks, cultural studies, literary criticism, and feminist, queer and critical race theories. Students should expect to be part of a highly participatory learning community, as we will all be teachers and students of the material both in the classroom and in various online spaces, including a class blog and wiki.

(Josh Stenger)

Third Cinema

Peoples of color are the majority filmmakers of the world. Ironically, the aesthetically and politically diverse cinemas of Asia, Africa and Latin America continue to be a "minority" presence in film studies. This advanced film course focuses on Third Cinema theory--the only body of film theory that did not originate in Europe or North America. Originally tied to the political agendas of the decolonizing world, Third Cinema has since expanded to embrace indigenous, hybrid and transnational forms of cinematic production and political mobilization. What affinities exist between the cinemas of Black America and Black Brazil? What are the continuities and discontinuities between the popularity of Bollywood films and the "national popular" in New Latin American cinema? How have indigenous elites in the Philippines and Senegal set the political agendas of their respective vanguard cinemas? Through a mix of case studies and theoretical explication, this course will give advanced film students the tools to embark on original research on Third Cinema and the productive dialogues that may be opened up within and between "minority" communities.

(Talitha Espiritu)

399. Independent Writing

As part of the creative writing concentration, after successful completion of at least one advanced writing workshop, students may be invited to undertake a semester of independent writing under the guidance of and with permission of the instructor.
(Deyonne Bryant, Charlotte Meehan, Sue Standing)

English literature and languages

After successfully completing English 101, all students are encouraged to take any English Department course at the 200 level, except English 290, which should be taken once at least one other 200-level English course has been successfully completed.

207. Medieval Literature: Beowulf and Others

The class will examine medieval literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the 15th century. All texts will be in translation or modernized. We will read Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Dante's Inferno as well as various shorter texts from the Old and Middle English periods.
(Michael Drout)

208. Anglo-Saxon Literature

Students in this class will learn Anglo-Saxon, the earliest form of English. We will mix the study of language with the study of literature and by the end of the semester students will be able to translate Anglo-Saxon poetry. Readings will include famous and beloved poems such as Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer and The Seafarer as well as prose texts and less well-known poems. The course uses King Alfred, an experimental computerized learning assistant.
(Michael Drout)

Connections:
Conx 20056 Computing and Texts

209. African American Literature and Culture

A survey of African American literature and its interplay with other modes of cultural production in African America. Students will examine representations of African American experiences in poetry, drama, autobiography, fiction and film/documentary. Individual projects and small-group work will enable students to engage in the contexts out of which the experiences detailed in the texts emerge.
(Shawn Christian)

Connections:
Conx 23010 Black Aesthetics

224. Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

By introducing students to the poetry, prose, drama, and culture of the late 17th century and early 18th century, this course examines the enormous political, social and literary changes that occur with the advent of modern Great Britain. We will read more traditional authors such as Swift, Rochester, Dryden and Pope, as well as recently "discovered" authors like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Anne Finch and Aphra Behn. We will look at Pepys's accounts of England during fire, plague and political upheaval; explore the emergence of modern journalism in Addison, Steel and Haywood; and read travel narratives that will help bring into focus British encounters--and responses to encounters--with the cultures and people of the Americas, the Near East, India and the Pacific Islands.
(James Mulholland)

232. Romantic Reveries and Revolutionary Visions

What has the British Romantic legacy of writers like Wordsworth and Keats, Coleridge and Shelley left us? How did they grapple with their revolutionary ideals as well as their own historical circumstances? We will critically and culturally examine their poetic exploration of the mind in all its psychological complexities, the political dimensions of their lyric assertions and the images that still seem to affect our contemporary culture.
(Samuel Coale)

235. Empire, Race and the Victorians

By the end of the 19th century, Britain had the most powerful colonial empire in the world. That empire was acquired during a key time in the formation of European and American ideas about race and we have inherited many of the Victorians' assumptions about race, ethnicity and relations between Western Europe, Africa, Asia and America. This course explores literature about the British Empire, the political, social and sometimes even sexual issues that underlay the acquisition of colonies and the scientific writings that helped to shape definitions of race. We will read poetry, nonfiction prose, novels, travel literature and plays, and we will share resources and some class time with Bio 111.
(Paula M. Krebs)

Connections:
Conx 20019 The Darwin Connection: Evolution, Race and Culture

236. Sex, Work and the Victorians

Male and female Victorians were obsessed with "the Woman Question" in employment, education and other public and private areas. Upper-, middle- and working-class Victorians wondered about the effects that both industrialization and the abolition of slavery in British colonies would have on traditional relations among social classes and races. This course will examine Victorian literature that explores ideas about women's role and sexuality as well as literature that focuses on new kinds of work and the concerns about class that arose from the changes of industrialism. We will read poetry, nonfiction prose, novels, travel literature and plays.
(Paula M. Krebs)

Connections:
Conx 20019 The Darwin Connection: Evolution, Race and Culture

240. Gender, Genre and Poetry

Poets are male. Muses are female. But what happens when the conventions get reversed? This course introduces you to the study of poetry by focusing on how gender gets associated with types of poetry and what individual poets do to subvert or refuse those associations. We will also ask what gender has to do with categories such as race, class and sexuality in the writing of poetry. You will read poems from different periods and cultures with an emphasis on the relationship between works that have come to exemplify a particular genre, such as Homer's epic poem The Illiad or sonnets by Shakespeare and later works that revise those models.
(Claire Buck)

Connections:
Conx 23004 Gender

241. Modern Drama

Although it is impossible to read all the plays of the modern period in one semester, by reading the "blockbusters" alongside lesser- and little-known avant garde plays, we will together build a foundation for taking up the important question of how the "canon" becomes encoded. Supplemental readings of particular productions, manifestos, theoretical essays, biographical accounts and historical material will enrich individual and collective responses to the dramatic texts. In this way, all of us become active participants in keeping the "body" of modern drama alive. Authors will include Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, Jean Genet, Lorraine Hansberry, Eugène Ionesco, Eugene O'Neill, Gertrude Stein, August Strindberg, Tennessee Williams and others.
(Charlotte Meehan)

243. Science Fiction

This course is an examination of recent science fiction (mostly written after 1970) and the ways in which the genre fits into and shapes the wider culture. In most years, the course will be linked to Math Thought and students will be required to take both courses in order to take either one. In those years the course will focus on the ways that mathematics and science fiction interact to describe the contemporary world and shape the future. When not linked to Math Thought, the course will examine the ways that science fiction creates worlds and offers salvation, and how gender, power and race are developed in a science fiction context.
(Michael Drout)

Connections:
Conx 20031 Science FACTion

244. Contemporary Caribbean Literature in English

An introduction to the work of Anglophone Caribbean writers who grapple with the issues of colonialism, class, race, ethnicity and gender in a context of often-conflicting allegiances to Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. The main emphasis will be on fiction and poetry published since the 1950s, but we will also read some earlier 20th-century literature to better understand the priorities and concerns of later writers. As we read, we will find some common concerns reappearing, such as anti-imperialism and nationalism, migrancy and homeland, and the relationship of literature to oral traditions and Caribbean music such as calypso, reggae and dub. Authors usually include Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Louise Bennett, Grace Nichols, Olive Senior, V. S. Naipaul, The Mighty Sparrow and Jean Binta Breeze.
(Claire Buck)

245. African Literature

An introduction to sub-Saharan African literature, orature and film in English and English translation. Authors usually include Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, J. M. Coetzee, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutuola, among others.
(Sue Standing)

Connections:
Conx 23001 African Worlds

246. Modern Irish Literature

A study of the role of literary culture in the formation of modern Ireland since the late 19th century. We will examine the response of Irish writers to English racial stereotypes of the Irish and their attempt to create new images of Ireland and Irishness. Topics will include the viability of the Irish language in modern literature, the use of Irish mythology, the place of women in national culture, the role of the United States in contemporary Irish culture, and debates about the censorship of homosexuality. We will read drama, poetry and fiction by familiar figures such as Wilde, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Joyce, and Friel and less-familiar figures such as Marina Carr, Frank McGuinness, Marie Jones and Mary Dorcey.
(Claire Buck, James Patrick Byrne)

247. Feminist Fiction

This course is about American feminist fiction of the 1970s and 1980s. Participants will examine how the discourses of Women's Liberation and Black feminism reshaped the imaginative constructions of women's lives in American society. In addition to revisiting the major social movements in America of the 1930s to the 1980s, students enrolled in the class will also apply contemporary theories of identity and subjectivity to the feminist realist fiction of the Seventies and Eighties. Some attention will be given to the early Chicana feminist movement. Texts include those by authors Marge Piercy, Marilyn French, Alice Walker and Cherry Moraga, among others. The course ends with the question: Is there an enduring feminist aesthetic?

Previously African American Women's Literature
(Deyonne Bryant)

Connections:
Conx 20034 The Historical Context of Contemporary American Culture
Conx 23005 Women in the United States

249. Hollywood Genres

What makes a western a western, a musical a musical? For Hollywood, genre has historically served as a form of product differentiation organized around specific narrative codes and conventions. Genres reveal much about how Hollywood interacts with and responds to shifts in audience tastes and cultural values. The course will introduce students to a variety of Hollywood genres and theories of generic formation in order to increase our understanding of the commercial, artistic and ideological function of genres. Required weekly film viewing.
(Josh Stenger)

Connections:
Conx 20034 The Historical Context of Contemporary American Culture

250. Film History I: Cinema to 1940

This course examines motion picture history from the late 19th century to the advent of World War II. Students will be introduced to the artistic, technological, industrial and social dimensions of film during these decades. Areas of focus may include: emergence of film narrative, genre, silent features and the star system; formation of the Hollywood studio system; American "race movies"; Soviet montage; German expressionism; French impressionism; documentary and avant-grade cinema and so on.
(Josh Stenger)

252. Contemporary Drama: The Tip of the Iceberg

Just as painting changed with the invention of the camera, contemporary plays continue to be influenced by television and film. Some playwrights use the influence to create a new twist on the realistic tradition, while others write highly theatrical, often nonlinear pieces that can only be performed for the stage. We will address the inherent tensions between these dramatic strategies, taking up the question of how content (political, socioeconomic, race, gender and aesthetic concerns) affects form. Readings will range from recent Pulitzer Prize winners to hot-off-the-press unproduced plays by some of America's most renowned, as well as emerging, playwrights.
(Charlotte Meehan)

253. American Literature to 1865

A critical and cultural exploration of works and ideologies from Navajo and Hopi tales of origins to Puritan pathologies and predestined patterns, from enlightened progress to slave narratives and romantic reveries. Writers will include Wheatley, Edwards, Bradstreet, Franklin, Hawthorne, Stowe, Douglass, Poe and others. We will examine literature as historical and cultural document as well as individual testimony and demonic vision.
(Beverly Lyon Clark, Samuel Coale)

Connections:
Conx 20057 Early American Studies

255. Cultural Diversity in American Literature: From the Civil War to the 1940s

A critical survey of race, class, ethnic, gender and immigration issues by the richly diverse authors of America's late 19th and early 20th centuries. Works by African American, Asian American, Native American and Anglo American writers such as Chesnutt, Dunbar, Du Bois, Hughes, McKay, Eastman, Eaton (Sui-Sin Far) Standing Bear, James, Wharton, Chopin, Hemingway and Faulkner.
(James Patrick Byrne, Samuel Coale)

256. The Discourses of Cultural Diversity in U.S. Fiction

Examination of writers since the post-World War II period from a variety of discourses and traditions in U.S. culture, including Native American, African American, Latino/a and Asian American.
(Shawn Christian)

Connections:
Conx 20070 Language and Literacy
Conx 20034 The Historical Context of Contemporary American Culture

257. Race and Racism in U.S. Cinema

U.S. cinema has always struggled with both race and racism. This course examines the long, complex history of representations (and erasures) of racial difference in U.S. film. Although most mainstream films and public discussions frame race as a black-and-white issue, this course understands racial formations in the U.S. to be more multiple. We will watch films from a wide historical range that speak to and problematize the experiences of Chicanos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Anglo Americans (yes, white is a race, too) in the U.S. Required weekly film viewing.
(Josh Stenger)

Connections:
Conx 20034 The Historical Context of Contemporary American Culture

258. Introduction to Film Studies

Current trends stemming from the globalization of the media and its accompanying media synergies make it untenable to view the cinema as a discrete, unitary phenomenon. This course addresses this phenomenon in a parallel manner by bridging the disciplinary divides between film theory, media and cultural studies. Conjoining theoretical and historical approaches to cinematic texts, institutions and audiences, this course explores the multidimensional nature of the cinema and its place in society: (1) as representational spaces with textual properties and reading protocols enabling the creation of "meaning," (2) as a unique industry driven by political and economic agendas; and (3) as a social practice that audiences "do," involving relations of subjectivity and power.

As such, we shall survey various approaches to the study of the cinema, and work through crucial questions regarding film analysis (e.g., what is the relationship between film and literature?), the political economy of the media (e.g., is the cinema a democratic institution?) and audience reception (e.g., what is a fan? Why do we adore "stars"?). By engaging these issues, this course will teach you not only how to engage critically with media texts, but also how to "talk" to the powerful media institutions that touch our lives.
(Talitha Espiritu)

259. J. R. R. Tolkien

Sometimes called the "author of the century," J. R. R. Tolkien left his mark on both scholarship and the popular culture. Whether or not The Lord of the Rings is "literature" is one of the major topics of this course. Students will read Tolkien's major works, including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, as well as his medieval scholarship. We will also examine Tolkien's sources, including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Old Norse poetry and saga, and the Finnish Kalevala. The reading load for this course is greater than 2000 pages (plus all three Peter Jackson films), so students should be prepared.
(Michael Drout)

Connections:
Conx 20056 Computing and Texts

260. American Voices in Lyric Combat

Who can claim to be an "American" voice? And how? Langston Hughes or Walt Whitman? Emily Dickinson or Elizabeth Bishop? Hart Crane or Sylvia Plath? T. S. Eliot or Marianne Moore? This course will explore American poetry from several vantage points, including race, gender, class, historical circumstance, cultural imperative, linguistic patterns and the whole uncertain idea of an "American" voice.
(Samuel Coale)

271. Nineteenth-Century Narrative

The 19th century had many different storytelling modes, from the satirical romances of Jane Austen to the psychological realism of George Eliot to the ghost stories of Dickens and the detective tales of Arthur Conan Doyle. This course provides an overview of the many kinds of narrative loved by 19th-century Britons and helps students develop skills in close reading as well as historical and cultural analysis.
(Beverly Lyon Clark, Paula M. Krebs)

272. Romancing the Novel

A course addressing both high-culture and pop-culture romances, from Jane Austen to Harlequin. Works may include Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Daisy Miller, The Making of a Marchioness, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lolita, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, The English Patient, a Harlequin romance and criticism of romance fiction.
(Beverly Lyon Clark)

Connections:
Conx 23006 Sexuality

273. Malcontents, Monarchy and Revenge in Early Modern Drama

The decades from 1590 to 1640 produced some of the richest--and most violent--drama written in English. Playwrights such as Marlowe, Kyd, Dekker, Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher as well as Shakespeare dramatized nationhood and nightmarish revenge for London audiences who also were entertained by bear baiting and public hangings. As global exploration and commerce accelerated, the English public and private theatres excited playgoers by portraying foreign characters and societies as degenerate and immoral. Students will read selected plays and historical and cultural texts, perform and produce scenes, and write a variety of papers as well as a revenge play to understand more fully the social and imaginative worlds of early modern English theatre.
(Katherine Conway)

274. Restoration Theatre and Beyond

From Aphra Behn's The Rover to The Beggar's Opera to Sheridan's School for Scandal, this course covers shifting modes of humor, wit and sophistication portrayed on the English stage, while taking into account the social, cultural and political elements driving change in the English state. The course covers the Restoration antimoralist backlash, the theatre's relationship to the mid-18th-century rise of the novel, the late-century move toward sensibility and the changes to English theatre that arrived with the 19th century.
(James Mulholland)

276. Victorian Poetry

Victorian culture valued poetry: children recited it in the parlor, soldiers sang it en route to battle and the queen kept Tennyson on her bedside table (his poetry, that is). This course brings you a range of Victorian poetry and highlights some of the recurrent themes of the period (such as imperialism and gender roles) as well as issues of form (with special attention to the dramatic monologue, comic poetry and narrative poetry).
(Paula M. Krebs)

286. Children's Literature

An in-depth historical survey of British and U.S. children's literature focused on appreciating the texts as literature, but also addressing their responsiveness to children's needs and interests and other cultural contexts. Readings include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Little Women, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Charlotte's Web, Where the Wild Things Are and much more.
(Beverly Lyon Clark)

Connections:
Conx 20012 Reading Children

290. Approaches to Literature and Culture

This course introduces current debates in the field of English studies. It tackles a variety of ways of approaching literary and cultural texts, including film, from the Freudian to the feminist to the postcolonialist. What difference does knowledge about the historical period or cultural context in which a text was written make to the way we read it? Does knowing the author of a text change our reading of it? Is film authorship different from literary authorship? Does our own class, race or gender affect our reading? We will read theory about language and representation, race in literature and the economics of literary and cultural production, and we will test these ideas on literature and other kinds of texts such as advertisements, film and other visual media.
(Claire Buck, Shawn Christian, Paula M. Krebs)

298. Experimental Courses

Introduction to English Renaissance Literature and Culture: Queens, Kings, Wooing and Wedding

Elizabeth I, England's (eternally) Virgin Queen, inspired lyrics, epics, and plays. We'll read and decipher some sonnets, perform scenes from Shakespeare, and get metaphysical with John Donne. As a class we'll attend a play together, practice "close reading," and report on persons and passions of English early modern culture. Writing requirements include maintaining a journal that explicates our reading, a play review, a material culture project and an analytical paper.

(Katherine Conway)

Eighteenth-Century Bristish Literature and the Technology of Writing

This course reconstructs the shock accompanying the proliferation of writing in 18th-century British culture. Through readings from Addison, Swift, Richardson and Coleridge, among other less-familiar authors, we will examine the discomfort associated with writing's capacity to produce change. Today a similar kind of uneasiness is on the rise as the internet encourages readers to create their own texts. Given our heightened awareness of the effects that online media have on us, we will juxtapose past and present uncertainties about what the technology of writing does. Taking 18th-century British poetry, prose, and fiction as its point of departure, the course explores the varying ways in which writing induced readers to become writers themselves and how this shift influenced the formation of subjectivity, social relations, gender and race.

(Daniel Block)

306. Chaucer

A study of the Canterbury Tales and other Chaucerian verse in the original Middle English. We will discuss the ways that Chaucer portrays the social and cultural struggles of the 14th century as we marvel at the poet's skill with verse and laugh at his dirty stories. Students do not need previous experience with medieval literature or Middle English to be successful in the course.
(Michael Drout)

309. Shakespeare and the Performance of Cultures

"What is my nation?" This key question from Henry V can be interjected into many of Shakespeare's plays. This course will look especially at how Shakespeare's plays serve to define places and peoples. We will investigate how different productions may have aided rebellion and question how others may be used for affirmation of nationhood. How have different productions fortified pride--and prejudice? Richard III, and Henry IV, Henry V, along with Hamlet, Othello, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida and the Tempest may be among the plays we'll read.
(Katherine Conway)

310. Shakespeare and the Company He Keeps

Focusing on Shakespeare's poetry and plays and the sources he used as well as the social and cultural contexts that produced them, this course looks, too, at the dramatic responses the Bard's work provokes. We'll read, for instance, Shakespeare's 'English' sonnet and compare it to some of Sidney's Petrarchan sonnets. We'll read Hamlet, King Lear, and Henry V, Othello, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, among others, to understand the ideas and conventions of thought and bias among the early modern English literary and play-going culture. Using documents contemporary with Shakespeare's writing, we'll see how Shakespeare's ideas are perhaps unoriginal, and how his inventions, experiments and riffs are extraordinary.
(Katherine Conway)

313. Early Modern English Poetry

We begin with Skelton and proceed to sonnets by Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Drayton, Spenser, Shakespeare and Mary Wroth. Various theoretical perspectives will help us to consider how gender is constructed by the sonneteers as well as Jonson, Herrick, Queen Elizabeth I and Amelia Lanyer. Through our close reading, we'll examine the literary conventions of form and meter and the divergence from such conventions made by Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Milton and Bradstreet.
(Katherine Conway)

320. Beowulf

In this course students will translate all of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon poem that is usually called the earliest English epic. Topics of discussion will include manuscripts and material culture, comparative philology, heroism and epic morality, influence, adaptation and oral tradition. Students must be proficient in Old English, having taken either Eng 208 or its equivalent.
(Michael Drout)

325. The Eighteenth-Century Novel

Before the 18th century, novels in English did not exist. By the end of the 18th century, however, many cultural figures worried about the seemingly obsessive novel reading that was going on among young (particularly female) readers. This course will examine what changed between 1700 and 1800 to make the novel the most important genre of English literature. We will explore the novel as a historical and literary phenomenon. We will see the many ways that the novel answered the grand social and cultural questions which dominated the 18th century. What is the difference between men and women? What makes a human life worthwhile? How should I relate to my family and loved ones? What makes a story seem truthful or false? By reading the prose of Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney and Austen, we shall find out.
(James Mulholland)

326. Eighteenth-Century Poetry: Epic, Satire and Wit, 1660-1798

Coming after the English Civil War, the period from 1660 to 1800 involved some of the most significant transformations in British life, and poetry played a crucial part. We will begin by looking at vicious satires of gender and sexual relations and of political and religious beliefs composed by Rochester, Behn, Pope, Swift and Montagu. Then, we will chart how poetry changes when authors discover new motives for writing--such as financial gain or describing the exotic locales in Scotland, India and America--or when poetry is written by figures who had historically been excluded from it, like lower-class workers or African Americans. Finally, we will see what happens at the end of the 18th century when poetry becomes visionary and spiritual, as it does for Blake, or self-consciously "ordinary," as it does for Wordsworth and Coleridge.
(James Mulholland)

341. Public Poetry, Private Poetry

Is rap poetry? Do poetry slams encourage "bad" poets? We will look at questions like these in order to examine two competing ideas about poetry's role in the contemporary world. Is poetry the last refuge of the individual in a world dominated by corporations, as poet Robert Pinsky argues? Or can poetry be the effective vehicle for public culture, as when Maya Angelou read her poetry at Clinton's presidential inauguration? Poets will usually include established writers like Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo and Yusef Komunyakaa and newer names like the gay, Cuban American poet Rafael Campo and slammers such as Willie Perdomo and Tracie Smith.
(Claire Buck)

343. Fiction of the Modern

Fiction responding to the radical changes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries--industrialization, urbanization, colonization, mass culture, the women's movement and the influence of Marx and Freud. We will study writers who searched for new ways to represent and explore experiences that the traditional novel did not or could not express. The thematic focus of the course will vary from year to year, but will always include comparison between writers from the modernist period with one or two later-20th-century or contemporary novels. Readings by writers such as Djuna Barnes, Joseph Conrad, Jean Rhys, D. H. Lawrence, Jack London, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Samuel Selvon, Monique Ali, Sadie Smith, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and writers representing the Harlem Renaissance.
(Claire Buck)

344. Woolf and Joyce and Others

In different ways, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf revolutionized the forms of the novel to focus on the inner world of the mind as well as outer "reality." But they also focused on psychological as well as social experiences that had been traditionally marginalized. They brought into focus--and into question--"realistic" forms of storytelling that had been rendered invisible. They challenged conventional ideas of literature, politics and gender. And they stretched the limits of thought, feeling and expression through dazzling experimentation and comedy. The first half of the semester will focus on James Joyce's Ulysses, the second half on works by Virginia Woolf.
(Claire Buck)

346. Contemporary American Fiction: Quirks, Quarks and Quests, or Sex, Lies and Quantum Leaps

In this course we will read a selection of novels by Paul Auster, Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, David Plante, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Stone and others. We will focus on postmodern modes of structures and vision as a way of seeing our world from different and controversial perspectives, as well as those explored by a selection form such critics as Colin McGinn, Christopher Norris, Todd Gitlin, Terry Eagleton, Wendy Steiner, Linda Hutcheon and others.

The course will also explore and examine (from a nonscientific perspective, in terms of language and images) the effects and influences of quantum theory on contemporary fiction in terms of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the difficulty of the relationship between language and quantum experience, which seems to flaunt and evade every logical way we have of trying to describe it. In this regard race, gender, sexuality and class can be seen from entirely new perspectives and shed light on the constant confrontation between "essences" and "relationships."
(Samuel Coale)

Connections:
Conx 20059 Quantum Theories: Contemporary American Fiction, Modern Physics and the Universe

347. Contemporary African-American Fiction

This course is a study of Black postmodern fiction. Students enrolled in the class will examine formal innovations in post-Soul and "post-racial" African-American fiction, especially graphic texts, and the impact of these innovations on African American literary history. Students must take Eng 290 before taking this course.
(Deyonne Bryant)

348. Sexual Politics of Film Noir

Film noir refers to a group of films made primarily in the decade or so after World War II and which frequently addressed, in the narrative terms of the thriller, crises surrounding gender, sexuality and race in American culture. The course will investigate through a feminist framework how the sexual politics of postwar films noir and of more recent neo-noirs engage and diagnose these crises. The course will have strong applications for students interested in film studies, gender studies, American studies and cultural studies. Required weekly film viewing.
(Josh Stenger)

Connections:
Conx 23006 Sexuality

349. Harlem Renaissance and Modernity

An important period for artists in North America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, the Harlem Renaissance (1919-1940) was also a chronicle of social and political dynamics such as uplift philanthropy and migration. This course examines its emergence as a distinctive current of black literature and arts in the modern world.
(Shawn Christian)

357. Cinema and the City

From its beginning, cinema has been fascinated with the city as a site of social cohesion, capital flows and intense ideological conflicts. From Hollywood to Bollywood to Hong Kong, from Soviet socialist realism to German expressionism, Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave, virtually all major film movements have a special relationship to the metropole. In this course, we will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between film production and consumption, urban space, architecture and cultural geography. Required weekly film viewing.
(Josh Stenger)

376. Literary and Cultural Theory

This course enables students to explore in greater depth some of the ideas introduced in Eng 290. Topics will change from year to year, but the course will include the study of language theories, postcolonial theory, cultural studies theory, and film and media theory. This course will be especially important for students who wish to attend graduate school in English.
(Shawn Christian, Paula M. Krebs, Josh Stenger)

377. Feminist Criticism

Do women read or write differently? Has their work been marginalized? What difference do race, class and sexual orientation make? We will explore U.S., British and French approaches to feminist criticism; also psychoanalytic, Marxist, African American, queer, postcolonial and cultural-studies approaches.
(Beverly Lyon Clark)

Connections:
Conx 23005 Women in the United States

398. Experimental Courses

Rhetoric and Advanced Composition

(Lisa Lebduska)

Culture and New Media

(Josh Stenger)

Third Cinema

(Talitha Espiritu)

Other special courses

401. Seminars

Seminars study individual authors or special topics. A list for the following year is announced each spring. Students will be asked to express preferences among the subjects offered. Each group meets weekly. There are certain sections especially suited to writing and literature majors and to American Studies majors.

500. Individual Research and Writing

Open to senior majors by invitation of the department; other interested students should consult with the chair of the department.

English

Major in English

Major in English with a concentration

The concentration in creative writing

Other concentrations

The concentration in literature, film and race

The concentration in colonial and postcolonial literature

The concentration in drama

The concentration in gender

The concentration in medieval/Renaissance literature

The concentration in poetry

The concentration in modern and contemporary culture and media

Major in dramatic literature and theatre

Minor

Courses

Interview Courses

002. Interview for Fiction Writing

007. Interview for Advanced Playwriting

013. Interview for Advanced Poetry Workshop

Writing courses for first-year students and sophomores

101. Writing

Fall Semester 2009

Section A01 Writing Beyond the Classroom

Section A02 Writing about London

Section A03 Writing about London

Section A04 Writing about Reality and Risk

Section A05 Writing about H.O.U.S.E. Music

Section A06 Writing about H.O.U.S.E. Music

Section A07 Writing about Chocolate, Dragons and Other Problems

Section A08 Writing about Chocolate, Dragons and Other Problems

Section A09 Writing as Discovery

Section A10 Writing as Discovery

Section A11 Writing about Environmental Arguments

Section A12 Writing about Los Angeles

Section A13 Writing about Los Angeles

Section A14 Writing about Image and Reality

Section A15 Writing about Image and Reality

Section A16 Writing about Multicultural Lives

Section A17 Writing about Multicultural Lives

Spring Semester, 2010

Section B19 Writing Beyond the Classroom

Section B20 Writing about Reality and Risk

Section B21 Writing about Postmodernism

Section B22 Writing about Crime and Injustice

Section B23 Writing as Discovery

Section B24 Writing about the Journalistic Tradition

Section B25 Writing about the Journalistic Tradition

Section B26 Writing about Los Angeles

Section B27 Writing about Image and Reality

Section B28 Writing about Multicultural Lives

Section B29 Writing about Knowing and Not Knowing

010. Basic Writing

060. Writing for Multilingual (ESL) Students

198. Experimental Courses

Other writing courses

280. Professional and Technical Writing

281. Creative Nonfiction

282. Literary Translation

283. Poetry Writing: Form and Craft

284. Fiction Writing: Form and Craft

285. Literary Journalism

287. Writing for Performance

288. Playwriting: Form and Craft

289. Word and Image

383. Advanced Poetry Workshop

384. Advanced Fiction Workshop

388. Advanced Playwriting

398. Experimental Courses

Rhetoric and Advanced Composition

Culture and New Media

Third Cinema

399. Independent Writing

English literature and languages

207. Medieval Literature: Beowulf and Others

208. Anglo-Saxon Literature

209. African American Literature and Culture

224. Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

232. Romantic Reveries and Revolutionary Visions

235. Empire, Race and the Victorians

236. Sex, Work and the Victorians