Courses

ENGL 100 (3)–Composition
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. A study of the process of writing with practice in a variety of forms, emphasizing the development of composition skills. Offered every year in the fall semester.

ENGL 104 (3)–Thought and Expression
A workshop-based course that develops more effective reading and writing skills. It uses the process of revision to help students clarify their prose and to construct cogent arguments and analyses. Developing research skills and incorporating secondary sources into student work are also emphasized. FYW.

ENGL 108 (3)–Women and Literature
A study of women characters and women writers in English, American, and foreign literature. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. FYW, III.W, V.2, V.5.

ENGL 109 (3)–The Origins of Fairy Tales
Magic mirrors, sleeping thorns, elves, ogres, and talking animals - though commonplace in modern animated films and children’s stories, the trappings of fairy tales find many of their roots in the medieval imagination. This course will explore fairy stories from medieval Celtic and Germanic literatures, investigating the cultural beliefs that inspired them and tracing their development and enduring popularity into the modern era. Offered alternate years. FYW, III.W, V.2.

ENGL 110 (3)–Writing Across Worlds
Prerequisite: Not open to students with credit for HNRS 247. This course focuses on selected works by acclaimed international writers, emphasizing historical and cultural contexts and exploring cross-cultural connections. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 112 (3)–Literature of the South
A study of such 20th-century Southern authors as Faulkner, Warren, Wolfe, Wright, Porter, Welty, McCullers, O’Connor, Williams, Bambara, Walker, and Tyler. Topics will include the Southern Renaissance, narrative experimentation, women’s writing, and Southern authors’ interest in their characters’ storytelling. V.2.

ENGL 116 (3)–American Fiction
This course examines distinctive contributions made to the art of fiction by selected 20th century writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Welty, Morrison, Hong Kingston, Erdrich, DeLillo, and Diaz. We will also consider how the geographical, historical, social, and psychological landscapes depicted in these works shape our understanding of America today. FYW, III.W, V.2.

ENGL 124 (3)–Myth, Legend, and Their Retelling
Prerequisite: ENGL 104. A study of myths and legends from biblical, classical, and medieval sources, and of their modern retellings in both literature and film. Works to be examined will include the story of Samson from the Book of Judges and Milton’s “Samson Agonistes,” “The Odyssey” and the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” “Beowulf” and John Gardner’s “Grendel.” Offered alternate years. V.2.

ENGL 126 (3)–Forbidden Love
From Renaissance poems bemoaning chastity to modern novels confessing illicit rendezvous, literature has both shaped and reflected our understanding of love and sexuality. Most notably, forms of desire disdained by society have found expression in the imaginative space of literature. This course will investigate literary and filmic representations of these forbidden loves, with particular attention to the works’ literary and social ramifications. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.2, V.5.

ENGL 132 (3)–What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Romantic Comedy through the Ages
Reading works by Shakespeare, Austen, Wilde, and Shaw and viewing films such as “Bringing Up Baby,” “Love Actually,” and “Sex and the City,” we will explore the genre of romantic comedy over time. We will study the relationship between gender, genre, and the social and examine comedy’s fascination with the creation of fantasy worlds and disguise. V.2.

ENGL 136 (3)–Something Wicked: Monsters and Monstrosity, Medieval to Modern
From “Beowulf’s” murderous Grendel to modern horror films, people have always been fascinated by the monstrous. This course will cover a variety of texts that incorporate both “real” monsters and characters demonstrating monstrous behavior, examining how the definition of what is monstrous has changed over the years and the social commentary implicit in the distinction between what is human and what is not. Offered alternate years. V.2.

ENGL 138 (3)–The Art of Poetry
Emily Dickinson wrote that poetry made her “feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off.” In this introductory course, students will cultivate an appreciation of poetry by reading both classic and contemporary poems, with attention to language, form, and literary context. Our goal will be to share Dickinson’s sense of wonder, pleasure, and intellectual satisfaction as we ourselves practice the art of reading poetry. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 140 (3)–Passion and Romance: Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters
This course examines the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontes in their historical and cultural context. It explores Austen’s reimagining of plots for the novel from “Pride and Prejudice” to “Persuasion.” It studies the Brontes’ incorporation of both gothic and realist plots in their novels and considers how the confluence of gender and genre reinvented the form and plots of the nineteenth-century novel. This course is not open to student who have credit for ENGL 134, ENGL 204 (spring semester 2005), or ENGL 218 (spring semester 2007). FYW, III.W, V.2, V.5.

ENGL 143 (3)–Introduction to Shakespeare
An overview of Shakespeare’s plays, narrative poems, and sonnets. No prior experience of Shakespeare necessary. We will proceed slowly, learning how to read and take enjoyment in Shakespeare’s pyrotechnical wordplay. Works studied may include “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Sonnets,” “The Rape of Lucrece,” and others. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option. FYW, III.W, V.2.

ENGL 145 (3)–Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, and Dracula: The Other Victorians
We normally associate the Victorian period with domesticity, family values, and propriety. In this course we will explore the dark side of Victorian literature focusing on secrets, detection, urban violence and prostitution, sexuality, and vampires. Works to be studied may include the Sherlock Holmes stories, accounts of Jack the Ripper, “Tess,” “Dracula,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Woman in White,” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” V.2.

ENGL 149 (3)–Introduction to Film Studies
Students will become familiar with the aesthetic elements of cinema (visual style, sound, narrative and formal structure), the terminology of film production, and film theories relating to formalism, psychoanalysis, and feminism. Films will be discussed from aesthetic, historical, and social perspectives. V.6a.

ENGL 150 (3)–Introduction to Film History
This course will introduce students to the history and analysis of film. Students will learn the technical and critical vocabularies of film studies and analyze films representing a variety of styles and genres. The global and historical scope of this course will lead us to consider films from America, Italy, France, Germany, and Japan and from the silent period to the present. Offered alternate years. V.6a.

ENGL 203 (3)–Major British Writers I
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. A study of important works by and critical approaches to writers of the Middle Ages and theRenaissance, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 204 (3)–Major British Writers II
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. A study of the poets and novelists of England and Ireland after the English Renaissance. Writers may include satirists like Pope and Austen, innovators like Wordsworth and Joyce, romantics like Emily Bronte, and realists like Dickens. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 205 (3)–Business Writing
Prerequisites: ENGL 104 or its equivalent, and sophomore standing. In this course, students will study and practice various forms of business writing, including reports, letters, memoranda, proposals, and other documents. Assignments will replicate typical business cases, scenarios, and cultures. Selected readings introduce students to business discourse. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option. III.W

ENGL 206 (3)–Technical Writing
Prerequisites: ENGL 104 or its equivalent, and sophomore standing. In this course, students will study and practice various forms of technical writing, including formal and informal reports, technical papers, lab reports, proposals, physical and process descriptions, instructions, and technical correspondence. Students will develop flexible problem-solving skills and a clear style for communicating technical information to a range of readers in various professional and organizational contexts. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option. III.W

ENGL 217 (3)–Special Topics in Literature I
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. Topic will vary by semester. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. This course may be counted toward the transnational requirement for the majors of English and English and creative writing when content is appropriate. V.2.

ENGL 218 (3)–Special Topics in Literature II
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. Topic will vary by semester. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. V.2.

ENGL 221 (3)–Loveliness Extreme: Women Poets as Visionary Inheritors
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. How does poetry help people to live their lives and, in Adrienne Rich’s phrase, to ask the world’s questions? In particular, how do women poets engage the past, challenge received ideas, and shape live traditions for future generations? We will consider many kinds and styles of poems in their inner workings and cultural contexts as we explore these and related questions. III.W, V.2, V.5.

ENGL 226 (1)–Tutoring Writing: Theory and Practice
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing, 3.0 GPA, and permission of the instructor. The course is a practicum designed to introduce students to the theory and practice of peer tutoring in writing across the disciplines. Students will study composition theory and pedagogy and develop skills in responding to student writing through course readings, writing assignments, and peer tutoring. Theories will be tested through observation and practice.

ENGL 228 (3)–The Art of the Essay
See description listed under “Course Descriptions–Creative Writing.” Counts as a 200-level workshop in creative writing.

ENGL 235 (3)–Shakespeare
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. A study of selected comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances by William Shakespeare with attention to the plays’ cultural and literary context. Topics will vary by semester. Topic for Spring 2011: “The Women of Shakespeare.” While Shakespeare probably never worked with female actors, he wrote some of the best female roles in the history of theater. This semester, our focus will be plays that feature these powerful, complex, and compelling representations of women. May be counted as an elective course toward the minor in gender studies. V.1, V.2.

ENGL 239 (3)–Old English Language and Literature
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. An introductory study of the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of the Anglo-Saxon language. Because Old English is the linguistic ancestor of Modern English, students will learn some of the foundations of the language they speak as they begin translating prose and poetic texts from the 9th-11th centuries. Students will also consider elements of the Anglo-Saxon culture and poetics as they translate such poems as “The Dream of the Rood,” “Judith,” “The Seafarer,” and portions of “Beowulf.” V.2.

ENGL 243 (3)–Star Struck: Stardom and Hollywood Cinema
Why are film stars so fascinating to us and what are the pleasures we get from them? In this course we will study the Hollywood star system and the relationship between performance and stardom. We will examine issues such as the star as commodity, the star as text, and the star as an object of desire. Films to be considered are: “The Godfather,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Some Like it Hot.” V.6a.

ENGL 253 (3)–Banned Books
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. We will read banned books from a range of historical periods and will work to understand society’s ethical ambivalence towards these texts. We will investigate whether literature’s treatment of topics like religion, violence, race, and sexuality is dangerous or even harmful, ask how society should react to potentially disruptive literature, and work to determine the social value of these works. III.O, V.2, V.7.

ENGL 256 (3)–New Writing from Ireland and Scotland
Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. This course introduces students to the extraordinary vitality of the contemporary Irish and Scottish literary scenes. We will focus on competing visions of Ireland and Scotland and what it means to be “Irish” or “Scottish” today, the growing dialogue between the two cultures, and the role of literature in responding to, and at times promoting, social and political change. All works will be read in English. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 258 (3)–Native American Literature
Native American life and texts are bicultural products which combine, sometimes uneasily, tribal concepts and narrative forms with “Western” ones. This course will examine some of the literary effects of such intersections and issues such as gender constructions in the works. The class will introduce students to a variety of significant native writers and cultural traditions. Works studied can include fiction. Close read- ing, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 261 (1, 2, or 3)–Directed Study
Prerequisites: One ENGL course and permission of the instructor. Study at an introductory level of selected topics in literature or writing to be pursued by individual students under the immediate supervision of a department member.

ENGL 282 (3)–Modern American Authors
Works in different genres by selected modern and contemporary American authors will be studied in relation to larger literary, social, and cultural developments. Writers may include Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Robert Frost, Sterling Brown, Richard Wright, Carson McCullers, Lorraine Hansberry, Allen Ginsberg, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Anna Deveare Smith, and Li-Young Lee. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 301 (3)–Hollywood Genres
Prerequisite: ENGL 149 or ENGL 150. Focusing on the historical forms of Hollywood genres (film noir, gangster, western, horror, melodrama, romantic comedy, musical) from the classical period of the studio system in the 1930s to the present, we will consider the following questions. Are genre films inherently conservative because they are based on familiar aesthetic conventions or do they persist because of the ways that they expose social contradictions? How do generic transformations over time reflect changes in the social relationships of race, class, gender, and sexuality? We will look at two examples of each genre, a film from the studio period and a contemporary example. V.6a.

ENGL 302 (3)–Special Topic
Topic will vary by semester. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic is different. V.2.

ENGL 315 (3)–Swords and Shield- maidens: Gender Politics in Medieval Heroic Epic
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. Though medieval heroic epics focus on (and are often named for) their male heroes, they also include female characters of subtle but essential significance. This course will examine representations of gender and gender roles in medieval heroic literature and how those representations change over time and across cultures, assessing the extent to which the heroes of this genre owe their fame and fates to the unacknowledged heroines with whom they interact. V.2, V.5.

ENGL 317 (3)–History of the English Language
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A study of the continuing development of English words, grammar, and syntax, including sources of vocabulary and changes of form, sound, and meaning. Offered alternate years. V.1.

ENGL 319 (3)–Chaucer
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A reading of Chaucer’s early dream visions (“The Book of the Duchess” and “The Parlement of Foules”) and “The Canterbury Tales.” Offered alternate years. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 322 (3)–Romance and Renewal: Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. An examination of English Renaissance drama before 1603, including early works by Shakespeare and plays by his Elizabethan con- temporaries such as Lyly, Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, and Dekker. We will study the increasing secularization and professionalization of theater, the development of comedy and pastoral, and the emergence of revenge tragedy. Both textual analysis and dramaturgy will be emphasized. Plays studied in ENGL 325 are generally excluded from this course. Offered alternate years. V.2, V.6a.

ENGL 324 (3)–Revenge and Ravishment: Shakespeare and Jacobean Drama
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. An examination of English Renaissance drama after 1603, including late works by Shakespeare and plays by his Jacobean contemporaries such as Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and Ford. We will study the theater’s increasing use of sensationalistic plots and characters as well as the drama’s probing exploration of the individual’s relationship to social authority. Both textual analysis and dramaturgy will be emphasized. Plays studied in ENGL 325 are generally excluded from this course. Offered alternate years. V.2, V.6a.

ENGL 329 (3)–American Romanticism
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. Study of works of 19th-century American Romantic writers or those who are strongly influenced by them. Emphasis on writers such as Alcott, Douglass, Emerson, Fern, Fuller, Whitman, Dickinson, Hawthorne, Melville, Phelps, Thoreau, and Chopin. Offered alternate years in the fall semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 330 (3)–African-American Literature
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A study of 20th- and 21st-century African- American writers, with emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance and more contemporary works. Topics may include models of identity and sexuality, the effects of primitivism, folk materials, and dominant cultural values on literary forms. Writers such as Dubois, Toomer, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Larsen, Morrison, and Walker will be included. Offered alternate years in the spring semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. V.2, V.5.

ENGL 331 (3)–The 19th-Century American Novel
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. Topics can include the movements towards modernism and realism as well as the re-evaluation of women and minorities in American life. Offered alternate years in the fall semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 332 (3)–Modern and Contemporary Women Writers
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A study of a cross section of 20th- and 21st- century American and international women’s works in relation to the following literary and thematic issues: narrative experimentation, ethnic or cultural identity, and relation between individual aspiration and cultural expectation. Offered alternate years. May be counted as a core course toward the minor in gender studies. V.2, V.5.

ENGL 340 (3)–The Sacred and the Profane in the English Renaissance
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. This course will investigate the relationship between the religious and secular realms in Early Modern English literature. We will give particular attention to the uncertain delineations among holy, patriotic, familial, and erotic forms of love in poetry and literary prose. Contexts will include the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the court, colonialism, and the English Civil War. Authors may include Spenser, Sidney, Wroth, Herbert, Donne, Milton, Cavendish, and the Cavalier poets . Offered alternate years. V.2.

ENGL 343 (3)–Gothic Worlds
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. We will study gothic literature in England during the nineteenth century in texts by Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde and then examine gothic returns in three films: “Let the Right One In,” “Sin City,” and “The Dark Knight.” We will explore historical, social, and psychological reasons for the appearance of gothic literature as we read critical works on gothic theory. Offered alternate years. V.2.

ENGL 344 (3)–Women in the Rensaissance
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. During the time of Shakespeare, the social posi- tion of women was both paradoxical and pre- carious. A woman ruled England, yet women were considered “naturally” inferior to men. In this course, we will examine Early Modern literature written by women- as well as literature written by men about women- that explores women’s various roles in both personal and public Renaissance settings. Offered alternate years. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. III.W, V.2, V.5.

ENGL 361 (1, 2, or 3)–Special Study
Prerequisites: One 100-level ENGL course and permission of the instructor. Study at an inter- mediate level of selected topics in literature or writing to be pursued by individual students under the immediate supervision of a department member.

ENGL 367 (3)–Visionary Rebels: Romantic Artists
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. This course explores Romantic poets and Gothic novelists, focusing on key Romantic ideas such as the artist as hero, the sublime, nature and the imagination, the irrational, and revolution. It will then study parallel developments in painting through the examples of Constable, Delacroix, and Turner, and in music through the examples of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Berlioz. Offered alternate years. V.1, V.2.

ENGL 377 (.5, 1, 2, or 3)–Internship
Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor, department chair, and dean. This course is graded P/CR/NC only.

ENGL 380 (3)–Classics of Modern Drama
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A study of the major western playwrights, dramatic theories, and theatrical styles of the twentieth cen- tury. The dramatists studied will include Ibsen, Chekov, Synge, Pirandello, O’Neill, Williams, Miller, Beckett, Ionesco, Hansberry, Pinter, and Wilson. Offered alternate years. V.2, V.6a.

ENGL 382 (3)–Contemporary International Fiction
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. This course is designed to suggest the range, variety, and possibilities of the novel today. Readings will come from all across the English- speaking world. Their diversity will itself be a central theme. Since these works also register deep responses to social changes and historical crises, discussions will often focus on relations between literary texts and their wider contexts. Offered alternate years. Not open to students who have credit for ENGL 398. III.W, V.2.

ENGL 386 (3)–Fatal Attractions: Death and Sex in the 19th-Century Novel
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. This course will study the conjunction between sex and death in the nineteenth-century novel. It will explore the relationship between prostitution and death, criminality and death, and carnal love and death in the novels of Flaubert, Zola, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Mary Shelley. Theoretical works to be studied are those of Foucault, Freud, and Darwin. Offered alternate years. V.2.

ENGL 393 (3)–Modern Poetry
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. This course focuses on the poetry of Yeats, Lawrence, Eliot, Stein, Millay, and Hughes. We will study their distinctive poetic achievements in relation to relevant traditions and contexts. In particular we will examine how their poetry reflects or contests modern ideas about the self, the nature of language, the significance of poetic forms, and the purpose of poetry. Offered alternate years in the fall semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 394 (3)–Contemporary Poetry
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A study of a wide range of poetry in English from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Poets may include Auden, Larkin, Bishop, Lowell, Sexton, Plath, Brooks, Rich, Heaney, and Walcott. We will focus on questions of form, technique, and interpretation while relating these works to relevant movements and traditions as well as to the writers’ lives and times. Offered alternate years in the spring semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. III.O, V.2.

ENGL 397 (3)–Becoming Modern
Prerequisite: Sophomores with permission. A seminar focusing on 20th-century novels that helped to shape modern literature as well as our sense of what it means to be “modern.” Readings may include works by American, British, Irish, and European writers (in translation). Topics include the rise of mass culture and new technologies, crises of war and empire, and changing representations of the self, the unconscious, gender, and sexuality. Offered alternate years in the fall semester. III.W, V.1, V.2.

ENGL 451 (1)–Senior Exercise Preparation
Prerequisite: Open only to senior English majors and minors and English/creative writ- ing majors. During this fall term course, a student under the supervision of an advisor will prepare her proposal and annotated bibliography for her senior thesis in the spring term. She will select a topic and line of inquiry that matches her strengths and interests. She will have the option to 1) re-envision and develop an earlier paper in ways that lead her into new areas of inquiry or 2) start an new project entirely. Each student should get departmental approval for her proposal by November 1. An annotated critical bibliography will be due by the end of the semester. This course will be graded P/CR/NC.

ENGL 452 (3)–Senior Seminar
Prerequisites: ENGL 451; required of all English majors. In this course, a student will write her senior thesis, participate in a weekly seminar, teach at least one class session related to her project, and give a public presentation of her work. The structured series of activities of the seminar will aid each student in building on the preliminary work she has done as an English major. Each student will contribute to her class- mates’ projects by following their progress and offering constructive criticism of their work. The senior seminar also involves the further study of research methods, argumentation, and critical theory. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/ NC grading option. III.W

ENGL 461 (1, 2, or 3)–Independent Study
Prerequisites: One 100-level ENGL course, one 200-level ENGL course, and permission of the instructor. Pursuit of an upper level research project determined in advance by the student in consultation with a faculty member who will act as the sponsor.

Creative Writing

ENGL 106 (3)–Introduction to Creative Writing
An introductory course in the writing of fiction and poetry. The course may include other genres, such as creative nonfiction or drama. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 209 (3)–Poetry Workshop: Poetry and Environment
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. This course will study poetry and place, and activities will include field work in two destinations - one urban, one rural and/or sub-rural - and will encourage students to consider the way that art, experience, and our common shared physical/political reality influence one another. Offered alternate years III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 211 (3)–News Writing and Investigative Reporting
Prerequisite: ENGL 104. This course provides an introduction to “hard news” reporting and editing in the age of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. Emphasis will be placed on devel- oping story ideas, research and interviewing skills, and the ethical use of social media as news-gathering tools. Students will be required to maintain a blog and submit course assignments to the student newspaper. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 216 (3)–Poetry Workshop: Form, Function, and Meaning
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. The poem is a com- bination of music and meaning, with each ele- ment guided by form or structure. This course will teach rhyme, meter, a variety of forms, and free verse strategies. What elements of form can amplify meaning? How can free verse avoid arbitrary lineation? Students will read, write, and peer-critique poems in a variety of traditions. Readings will include selections from the “Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry” and Paul Fussell’s “Poetic Meter and Poetic Form.” Offered alter- nate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 254 (3)–Fiction Workshop: First- Person Narrative
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. The first-person narrator in fiction - the “I” of a story - is a unique creature: an enchanter, a confessor, a witness. What are the advantages and risks of first-person narration? How is that controlling perspective or point of view established? This course will introduce students to a variety of compelling first-person narrators in short fiction and ask students to create a series of persuasive voices for their own stories. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 263 (3)–Fiction Workshop: The Love Story
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. There are as many dif- ferent kinds of love story as there are different kinds of love: between parent and child, between siblings, between spouses, between friends, between people and places or people and objects. Are all love stories necessarily tragic? How does a writer avoid the danger of sentimentality? What about writing about sex? Students will write their own love stories over the semester and read short fiction that will enlarge and enrich their definitions of love. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 266 (3)–Fiction Workshop: A Sense of Place
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. The setting or place of a story - the fictional universe, real or imag- ined - can be as important as a story’s characters and events, shaping narrative in powerful ways. How do writers use setting to enrich or enlarge or complicate a story, and how does the world of a story play a role in a story’s unfolding drama? Students will read short stories distin- guished by vivid or unusual landscapes and write original works of their own in which setting plays an important part. Offered alternate years. III.O,III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 271 (3)–Nonfiction Workshop: The Art of the Personal Essay
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. This course will acquaint students with the personal essay as a literary genre. Readings will range widely in sub- ject matter, period, and style in order to afford students an understanding of the different ways in which essays can be “personal.” Writing assignments will ask students to engage in dif- ferent styles, experiment with the conventions and structures common to essays of the past, and explore innovations of the present. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 275 (3)–Nonfiction Workshop: Memoir Writing
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. In this course students will write the first three chapters of their own memoir. In preparation for this semester-long writing project, students will closely read a vari- ety of contemporary memoirs to become familiar with both the array of narrative conventions and strategies memoirists employ as well as the stylistic and structural concerns one confronts when writing autobiographically. Emphasis will be placed on recent memoir scandals and memoirs that question the line between fact and fic- tion. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 309 (3)–Poetry Workshop: Art, the Poem, and Collaboration
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. Since modernism, poets have focused their attention on the rendition of visual images in language. Poems that respond to the visual arts, either in their subject or in their mode of composition, bring the reader a uniquely layered and synesthetic experience. This course will offer collaborative opportunities, and will encourage students to respond to paintings, photography, sculpture, dance, film, and conceptual art. Students will read, write, and peer-critique poems in a variety of traditions. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 311 (3)–Feature Writing: Profiles, Columns, and Op-eds
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. This work- shop-based course introduces students to the reporting techniques, stylistic differences, and structural conventions of profiles, columns, and op-eds — the types of journalism commonly found in newspapers and magazines under the headings “Feature” and “Opinion.” Special emphasis will be placed on writing for Web publications and blogs and on using social media (Facebook and Twitter) to develop story ideas. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 318 (3)–Poetry Workshop: Poetry of Transgression - Envy, Ecstasy, Gluttony, Lust
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. If the ability of a poet is a balance of her powers of perception and powers of expression, how can consideration of subject mat- ter amplify the former? How can broadening one’s emotional and intellectual range refine the latter? This course will encourage students to approach the broadest possible range of subject matter, and to engage it in a way that’s ethical, elegant, and effective. Students will read, write, and peer-critique poems in a variety of traditions. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 334 (3)–Fiction Workshop: Research and the Fiction Writer
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. This course focuses on how fiction writers use the material of the real world - real places, real people, real events - in the fictional universe, considering such ques- tions as how a fiction writer’s research methods and purpose might differ from an historian’s. Students will read and write short stories that arise out of historical or contemporary fact or account and examine how the imagination transforms fact into fiction. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 348 (3)–Fiction Workshop: The Long Story
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. The long story or novella seems to fall into a middle distance between the novel and the short story. In their unique suspension of a narrative over time, novellas and long stories have neither the luxury of a novel’s length nor the constraint of a short story. What are the possibilities and characteristics and challenges of the form? Students will both read examples of long stories and novellas and, over the course of the semester, write one of their own. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 365 (3)–Fiction Workshop: Linked Narratives
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. Stories in collections of narratives linked by theme, setting, and/or char- acter function both individually and as a unified whole. What are the pleasures and achievements of such collections? Is there a particular narra- tive that lends itself to this treatment? How are such stories different from chapters in novels? Collections of linked narratives will serve as models for students as they write their own series of linked stories and examine the pleasures, challenges, and opportunities of the form. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 371 (3)–Nonfiction Workshop: Writing about Film and Music
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. This course introduces students to the strategies for writing with depth, intelligence, and style about film and music. Students will learn to write brief capsule reviews for general audiences and longer researched review essays for more sophisticated and niche audiences. All students will be required to create and maintain a blog as well as attend film screen- ings and live musical performances. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 383 (3)–Fiction Workshop: The Fantastic in Fiction
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. Ghosts, talking animals, and aliens - among other strange phenomena - belong to the fictional universe referred to as magical realism or fabulism or fantastic fiction. What is the difference between this broad genre and so-called fantasy fiction (and why is one a higher order of art than the other), and how and why does a writer employ the impossible to describe the possibilities of human experience? Students will read and write stories that push at the boundaries of the real world. Offered alternate years. III.O, III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 389 (3)–Nonfiction Workshop: Bearing Witness - Writing about Human Rights and Social Justice Issues
Prerequisite: ENGL 106. Students in this course will examine and attempt journalistic and essay- istic accounts of human rights disasters and social justice issues, discussing the ways in which writers balance personal agenda and ideology against the burden of proof and objectivity, both of which are often difficult to come by in the midst of a war, natural disaster, or atrocity. Readings may include Martha Gelhorn, Orwell, Primo Levi, John Hersey, Seymour Hersh, Tim O’Brien, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and Philip Gourevitch. Offered alternate years. III.O,III.W, V.6b.

ENGL 453 (3)–Senior Portfolio Seminar
Prerequisite: Senior standing; open to English/ creative writing majors only. This course serves as a workshop for senior English/creative writing majors completing their creative writing portfolios. Students will read across three genres — fiction, poetry, and nonfiction — from a range of contemporary literary journals, developing a picture of the current publishing landscape beyond the traditional form of the book. In addition, through peer and instructor responses and editing, students will revise and refine the work to be included in their final portfolios. III.W, V.6b.