| English majors and minors should consult pre-requisites and major requirements as well as the 8-year course cycle before registering for any course. English majors or minors are encouraged to complete the advising template, available in Word or .PDF format though these links, before meeting with their academic advisors. Those who choose to register on line might consider filling our the document in Word, saving it to file, and sending it by e-mail to their advisors as part of the "permit to register" request. Click here to download the template in Word format (can be saved, e-mailed, or printed). Click here to download the template in .PDF format (can be printed).
EN 098, Internship in Private School English
D. Dougherty, TBA This course places selected students in middle and secondary schools to learn about teaching English in the private school setting. Interns spend ten hours per week in a private school, working closely with a mentor who is an experienced teacher, under the supervision of the chair of the school’s English department. Interns are responsible for keeping journals, for meeting biweekly with the internship coordinator, and for producing a final reflection on the internship. Prerequisites: interns must be seniors, with at least six upper-division English courses completed and a Q.P.A of at least 3.0. Written permission of Internship Coordinator is required for registration. EN 099, Internships in English
D. Dougherty, TBA Qualified students, ordinarily seniors, can enrich their liberal arts education by taking advantage of available English department internships in areas including publishing, public relations, and advertising. Internships in law offices, judicial chambers and governmental agencies are also available to students interested in the law. Internships give the student an opportunity for intensive, hands-on experience in business, philanthropy, law, journalism, and other possible career options. An intern works closely with a faculty member to design a course during which the student learns skills and approaches specific to one enterprise, whether that be the court system, news reporting, public relations, publishing, or philanthropic organizations. Interns have the unique opportunity to apply their skills as English majors in areas in which they may choose to pursue their careers. These are unpaid positions. En 099 may be taken only once for degree credit, and does not count toward the English major or minor. Prerequisites: Interns must be seniors; in special circumstances, junior in their second semester may intern with specific permission from the instructor.
EN 201.01, Major Writers: English Literature
Gayla McGlamery TTH 1:40-2:55 From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to Lloyd Jones’s Mr. Pip (2007), our readings in this course will chart the sweeping changes of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that gave birth to modernity. The rise of science and technology, the emergence of individual rights and the democratization of power, challenges to religious faith, and the development of new ways of public expression-all will be the focus of study and debate as we explore the reactions of novelists, poets, and essayists to their changing times and issues we still grapple with today. Course requirements: Students will take weekly reading quizzes and three period exams, give an oral report in partnership with a classmate, and write at least one documented, analytical essay. The class will combine lecture and discussion and require the viewing of at least one film. EN 201, Major Writers: English Literature
Erin Goss TTH (section 02) 12:15-1:30 and (section 03) 3:05-4:20 This section of English 201 will consider literature that engages with questions of knowledge. We will begin in the English Renaissance, a period marked by “rebirth” and a great interest in the new forms of knowledge made available through exploration and scientific innovation. From the Renaissance, we will move into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As English society and culture encountered new worlds and discovered new technology, it had to contend with the ways such novelty affected its understanding of itself and its notion of humanity. This course will assume that literature offers evidence of the ways that English culture sought to understand and grapple with its ever-changing notion of knowledge. We will consider some ways that literature registers responses to the questions raised by new forms of knowledge, as well as raising its own questions about what it means to be in the world. What kinds of knowledge does literature offer? Some texts will include: Doctor Faustus, The Tempest, Gulliver’s Travels, Don Juan, Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Brave New World EN 203.01, Major Writers: American Literature
Louis Hinkel MW 3:00-4:15 A study of selected works written by major American writers, focusing primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This course may be organized chronologically, thematically, or by genre. EN 203.02, Major Writers: American Literature
Staff MW 3:00-4:15
A study of selected works written by major American writers, focusing primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This course may be organized chronologically, thematically, or by genre. EN 203.03, Major Writers: American Literature
Paul Lukacs TTH 8:00-9:15 "Identity," declared the American novelist, Ralph Ellison, "is the great American theme." This section of EN 203 explores that theme by investigating different visions and versions of American identity. We do so by examining major works by major writers, including Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Course Requirements: We will read ten books in total. There will be weekly quizzes, two papers, and two tests. EN 205.01, Major Writers: Shakespeare
David Dougherty TTH 1:40-2:55
Close readings of selected plays about English history, comedies, and tragedies by the most important writer in English language history, supplemented by a few readings from the sonnets. We'll examine closely some of the standards, like Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and King Lear, as well as some that may be new to you. Expect spirited discussion of the texts and frequent discussion board topics. There will be an optional film adaptation paper as well as a mandatory research project, mid-term exam and a final. EN 205.02, Major Writers: Shakespeare
Bryan Crockett TTH 3:05-4:20 This course surveys some of the plays and poems of the greatest writer of all time (sorry, Homer; move over, Virgil; too bad, Dante: it’s true). In addition to a few sonnets, we’ll read nine of Shakespeare’s best plays. Likely candidates include Richard III, Henry IV, Part 1, either A Midsummer Night's Dream or Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. Course requirements will include participation in discussions, short, informal written responses, a research paper, and mid-term as well as final exams. EN 211.01, Major Writers: Classical Mythology
Thomas McCreight MWF 10:00-10:50 A study of the traditional stories of the Greeks and Romans as expressed in their literature and art, with an emphasis on the relationship of mythology to rituals and religious beliefs, legends, and folk tales.
EN 307.01, Seminar: Reinventing the Middle Ages
Kathleen Forni TTH 12:15-1:30 This course is broadly concerned with medievalism, that is, the ways in which the Middle Ages is imagined in modern culture. More specifically, we'll examine how several seminal medieval texts and figures have been reinvented, appropriated, invoked, and adapted in popular culture, both literary and cinematic. Texts will include Beowulf, John Gardner, Grendel, Michael Crichton, The 13 th Warrior, Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, Malumud, The Natural, The Fisher King (1991), Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur, Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, White, The Once and Future King, The Gest of Robyn Hode, The trial of Joan of Arc (excerpts), The Messenger (1999). Course requirements: quizzes and responses papers; research paper EN 310.01, Shakespeare I
Thomas Scheye MW 3:00-4:15 “He doth bestride the narrow world/ Like a colossus.” Cassius’ description of Julius Caesar can apply as well to his creator. And that is not only because Shakespeare’s achievement towers over that of nearly all the other authors in our language. It is also because of the nature of that achievement: Shakespeare does more than write plays; he creates a world—one where the characters seem to come alive and the language becomes part of our patrimony, our common inheritance as English speakers. This course focuses on Shakespeare’s history plays, where he lays the foundation for that world, and the major tragedies, where it finds its fullest expression. EN 320.01, Milton
Phillip McCaffrey TTH 1:40-2:55 A study of Milton’s prose and poetry, especially Paradise Lost, in order to understand the work and the mind of the most educated poet and perhaps the most stubborn individualist, ever to write in English. Politics and religion figure largely in the works themselves and in their context. When you first meet him in his early works you will hate him. You may change your mind when you have to deal with his characterization of Satan. Or when you begin to understand his intellectual courage. You won’t be bored all the time. Nor will I. I usually require three tests during the semester and the usual term paper preceded by one or two preparatory reports. No quizzes unless you flag in the reading. And you have to talk in class. EN 327.31, Seminar in 17th Century Literature: Love's Alchemy: Poetry & Prose of John Donne
Bryan Crockett TTH 4:30-5:45 Primarily known in our day as a poet both astoundingly witty and spiritually profound, John Donne achieved fame in the seventeenth century largely as a writer and performer of entertaining, moving sermons. He also penned and published boldly controversial prose. The man is a study in contrasts—sex-loving bachelor and devoted husband, God-fearing Catholic and Jesuit-hating Protestant, swashbuckling warrior and peace-loving priest—an altogether brilliant, tormented soul. In addition to one or two literary biographies, we’ll read and discuss the best of Donne’s complex, rewarding poetry and prose. Course requirements will include frequent participation in discussions, two presentations, mid-term and final exams, and a research paper. EN 350.01, The Romantic Movement
Erin Goss TTH 10:50-12:05 Romanticism is a term used to designate the period from roughly 1785 to 1830. These decades were a time of great political and philosophical upheaval, and the literature of the time worked to find appropriate means of response. In this course, we will trace the possibilities that those thinkers deemed “Romantic” found in the face of the revolutions that rocked the foundations of their society. Such possibilities suggested an overturning of systems of thought that had been in place for centuries. They promised that change was possible, that systems of oppression and repression could be overcome, and that revolution could be effected on the level of the individual intellect. We will consider Romantic literature as a site in which we can witness the rising importance of the individual subject, an increased sense of the power of the individual imagination, and an urgent desire for literature – especially poetry – to effect change in the world. For the authors we will consider, poetry was not a stale or merely academic pursuit, but rather a way to effect cultural transformation. Course Requirements: midterm and final exam; three essays; short weekly writing assignments EN 366.01, American Literature to the First World War
Paul Lukacs TTH 10:50-12:05 This course surveys American Literature from the Colonial Period until the early twentieth century, a long, complex period in which the colonies and then the country identified the place and the people living there as being somehow apart from or different from the rest of the world. The theme of separation or difference unities the various texts we shall read throughout the semester. Many of them will be excerpts collected in an anthology designed specifically for this course. We shall, however, read two complete novels: Moby-Dick and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Course Requirements: There will be regular quizzes on the reading, two papers, and two tests. EN 367.01, Topics in American Literature: Representing Segregation
Brian Norman MWF 1:00-1:50 African American intellectual W.E.B. DuBois famously ushered in the twentieth century by defining its core dilemma: the problem of the color line. This also poses an aesthetic challenge for American literature: How to represent race segregation without necessarily reinscribing it? Segregation is a touchstone issue in African American history, and it profoundly shapes how we think about group identity and belonging in the United States across all social groups. We will read literature about key strategies for navigating segregation, such as passing and desegregation; key related experiences, such as lynching and race riots; and post-Civil Rights era retellings of key events, such as blackface minstrelsy and the March on Washington. We will also consider stories that consciously turn away from the color line to explore the richness and diversity of black communities within segregation. This course will provide a good foundation in African American literature and you will use that knowledge to inform your own conclusions about whether or not there is such thing as a segregation narrative and, if so, what are its scope and functions, both in literary and historical terms. Course work will likely include active class discussion, weekly writing, one presentation, one term paper, and two exams. Key authors will likely include James Baldwin, Wesley Brown, Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Lorraine Hansberry, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Suzan-Lori Parks, Alice Walker, and Richard Wright. These stories are as rich and interesting as they are challenging; I am certain that our class conversations will be, too! EN 372.01, Modern British and American Poetry
Mark Osteen TTH 3:05-4:20 Five figures loom like colossi over English-language Modernist poetry (that is, works written between about 1900 and 1945): Anglo-Irishman W. B. Yeats; two transplanted Americans, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound; and two American professional men---pediatrician William Carlos Williams and insurance executive Wallace Stevens. The poems of the first three are learned, allusive, and highly symbolic; Williams’s work, by contrast, is direct and deceptively simple, while Stevens’s poems are rich metaphysical sonatas. Into this salad we’ll toss a pinch of Robert Frost, a tincture of Thomas Hardy, a dash of D. H. Lawrence, a morsel of Marianne Moore, plus a taste of the World War One poets’ bitter fruit. Lastly, we’ll sample Langston Hughes’s savory variations on blues and jazz. Students will give an oral presentation in which you’ll be asked to recite a poem from memory; and we’ll visit websites and watch films detailing the working methods and careers of these figures. A research paper will test students’ reading and scholarly skills; a couple of exams will stretch your mental fibers. EN 385.01, Seminar in Post-Colonial Literature: Travel Literature
June Ellis MW 2:00-3:15 This seminar traces journeys depicted by writers hailing from various ports of call, primarily in the English-speaking world. We will focus on the way the experience and concept of travel is portrayed, on writers’ conceptions of culture (their own and others), and on the way literature itself creates forms of travel and culture. We will examine three particular modes of literary travel: the fantastic journey, compulsory travel, and voyages of discovery. Our investigations will require you to develop detailed analyses of the ways writers employ form and structure to portray travel. Writers we will study may include Agha Shahid Ali, Edwidge Danticat, Sia Figiel, Jack Kerouac, C.S. Lewis, and Albert Wendt. Course requirements: Emphasis upon class discussions and presentations, as well as two exams and a research paper. EN 409.01, Senior Honors Seminar: Literature of the American West
Jean Cole MW 4:00-5:15 By invitation only. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner announced in 1893 that the American frontier had ceased to exist. So why does it continue to fascinate us? In this course, we will be examining the mythos of the American West, beginning with the "eastern frontier" depicted in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking tales ( The Last of the Mohicans, 1826) and ending with recent films (e.g., No Country for Old Men, 2007). Along the way we will examine celebratory representations of the west (Owen Wister, The Virginian, 1902), works that question the individualistic and patriarchal values associated with western expansion and settlement (Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913), and archetypes and parodies of the western genre. In addition to films, we will also consider artistic and musical responses to the West. Course requirements: in-class presentations, discussion/response papers, and a 20-page research paper. Counts toward American Studies minor.
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