Spring 2024 Course Descriptions: Stamford Campus

Spring 2024

General Information:

For guidance about courses, majors, and minors, contact any English faculty member or Professor Roden, Curriculum Coordinator, at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or Inda Watrous, English Undergraduate Advisor, at inda.watrous@uconn.edu.

 

Helpful Information for Non-Majors

  • 1000-level courses do not count toward the English major but are terrific introductions to literary study and typically serve GenEd Category 1b or 4.
  • If you think you might be interested in an English major, try out a course; if you know you’re set on the major, plan on taking 2600 as early as possible.
  • Non-majors are welcome in advanced courses (including the 3000- and 4000-level); check your preparedness with an instructor before registering if you have questions.  Following completion of the first-year writing requirement, most upper-level courses are open to all students.  If you encounter difficulty in registering, contact the instructor or Prof. Roden.
  • English courses make great “related field” classes for many other majors.  Check with your major advisor for appropriateness of choices.
  • The English minor is highly recommended and easy to accomplish: see https://advising.english.uconn.edu/minoring-in-english/to determine your requirements.
  • The English major makes a terrific second major.  If you’ve not yet declared, see https://advising.english.uconn.edu/plan-of-study-catalog-year-2021-2-2/for requirements.  If you declared on or before May 9, 2021, see  https://advising.english.uconn.edu/plan-of-study-catalog-year-2017/
  • Remember you can complete the English major at the Stamford Campus; there’s no need to branchfer.  Many students enroll in pre-professional grad programs (for example, in education) immediately following their degree.

Reach out to an English faculty member or advisor to learn about what you can do with an English major or minor.  We and the Center for Career Development can help you brainstorm, point you toward internships, and introduce you to alumni working in a range of different fields

Helpful Information for Stamford English Majors and Minors

  1. Engl 2600 (Major Requirement A or “Methods for the Major”) is offered annually in the Fall semester.
  2. A single-author course (Major Requirement D, Plan of Study 2017-2020) is offered annually or every third semester: Engl 3503W in Spring 2024.
  3. An “Advanced Study” course (Major Requirement E, Plan of Study 2017-2020) is typically offered every third semester.  It will be offered at Stamford in Spring 2024 as Engl 4407W, “Memoir”.  
  4. We offer at least one pre-1800 course each semester (Engl 3503W in Spring 2024). All plans of study require two classes categorized either as pre-1800 or “Early Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic History.”  Check with your advisor or the coordinator if you have questions.
  5. We regularly offer courses in the “Antiracism, Globality, and Embodiment” category: this term, Engl 2301W, 3215W (Group 1) and 3609 (Group 2) .
  6. We offer a variety of survey and methods courses each semester for Catalog Years 2017-2020.  This term Major Requirement B1=2101; B2=Engl 2203 and Engl 3215W; B3=Engl 2301W; Major Requirement C= Engl 2401.

Catalog years 2017-2020 allow for 9 elective credits; Catalog years 2021-2023 allow for 12.  Courses that meet a requirement you have already satisfied can count for elective credit.

Tracks

The Stamford Campus offers courses towards a number of different “tracks” within the 2021 English major plan of study.  Term offerings are as noted below.

  • The Stamford Campus offers courses towards a number of different “tracks” within the 2021-2023 English major plan of study.  Term offerings are as noted below.

     

    Creative Writing: Engl 2401, Engl 2635E, Engl 3703

    Teaching: Engl 2401, ENGL 2635E

    Literature, Antiracism, and Social Justice: Engl 2301W, Engl 2635E, Engl 3215W, Engl 3609

    Literary Histories and Legacies: Engl 2101, Engl 2203, Engl 2301W, Engl 3123W, Engl 3215W, Engl 3503W

    Literature of Place and Environment: Engl 2635E

 

2000-Level Courses

2101: British Literature II

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2101 | Mon. 3:35-6:05 | Roden Frederick

British Literature II examines a broad variety of genres (poetry, non-fiction prose, and novel/short story) in three historical periods, from 1800 to roughly 1950: Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism. We will pay particular attention to works and movements on the margins of these categorical terms. This era was one of tremendous change with respect to definitions of identity: race, class, gender, sexual orientation, national and ethnic self-understanding, and religion -- just to name a few. We will analyze the literature in the context of the politics of identity and the idea of "Subjectivity": the speaking self. Course requirements include weekly quizzes, three short essays, and an open-book, in- class final exam. Students are encouraged to attend a field trip. Hard copies of the textbook and novels must be used in class unless approved CSD documentation allows for alternate media.
Engl 2101 counts for the English major Literary Histories and Legacies track; in earlier plans of study, the B1 requirement; elective credit; the English minor; and GenEd 1b. It is also preparation for teacher certification.

2101: British Literature II HONORS

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2101 Honors | Mon. 3:35-6:05 | Roden Frederick

British Literature II examines a broad variety of genres (poetry, non-fiction prose, and novel/short story) in three historical periods, from 1800 to roughly 1950: Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism. We will pay particular attention to works and movements on the margins of these categorical terms. This era was one of tremendous change with respect to definitions of identity: race, class, gender, sexual orientation, national and ethnic
self-understanding, and religion -- just to name a few. Honors students will select to focus on clusters of historical documents concerning some of
these themes and will develop their formal course writing around those texts. Professor Roden will mentor these projects individually, and we will meet as an Honors group to workshop this independent study. Collectively as a full class, we will analyze the literature in the context of the politics of identity and the idea of "Subjectivity": the speaking self.
Course requirements include weekly quizzes, three short essays, and an open-book, in- class final exam. Students are encouraged to attend a field trip. Hard copies of the textbook and novels must be used in class unless approved CSD documentation allows for alternate media.

Engl 2101 counts for the English major Literary Histories and Legacies track; in earlier plans of study, the B1 requirement; elective credit; the English minor; and GenEd 1b. It is also preparation for teacher certification.

2203: American Literature Since 1880

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2203 | TuTh 2-3:15 | Pierrot, Gregory

 

2301W: Anglophone Literatures

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2301W-01 | Sa 10:00 - 12:30 | Moeckel-Rieke, Hannelore 

 

2401: Poetry

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2401 |TuTh 11:00-12:15 |Brown, Pamela

Poetry is powerful: we use it to mark, celebrate, advocate or mourn at crucial times in our lives, and to help change the world. Poems also catch the ephemeral and help renew and inspire us. This course will help you become a better reader and listener of poetry, by introducing you to the major historical periods and writers in the literary canon, while paying attention to poetry and songs that fall outside the canon, in oral and popular culture of many periods. To catch the music of poetry, we'll listen to videos and write some poems as well. We will study a wide range of poetry, including songs by Native Americans, sonnets by Shakespeare, Romantic works by Blake, Keats, and others, and 20-21c works by a variety of poets in many styles, including spoken word poets. Weekly quizzes, a group presentation, midterm, and final.

2635E: Literature and the Environment

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. 
2635E | MWF 1:25-2:15 |Hybrid Limited| Newell, Mary

With M online synchronous, W in-person, F equivalent online asynchronous

Environmental literature encompasses a broad range from nature immersion  through climate crisis documentation. We will read, discuss, and respond in writing to some major works of environmental writing, including a few classics such as Gilgamesh and Henry David Thoreau. The emphasis will be on contemporary writers such as Linda Hogan, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, and selected ecopoets. Short readings from David Abram, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Lynn Keller can stimulate our consideration of the human relationship to the more-than-human world.

3000-Level Courses

3123W: British Literature from 1890 to the Mid-Twentieth Century

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher. Cannot be taken for credit after passing ENGL 3011.
3123W | Wed 6:20-8:50 | OS (Online Synchronous)| Morgne Cramer, Patricia

The modernist writers of late 19th and early 20th century Britain responded to what they experienced as cataclysmic shifts in cultural norms caused by, e.g., the women’s and homosexual rights movements; World War I; the birth of Freudian psychoanalysis; the rise of the working class and Labor Party; the breakdown of British empire; the rise of technology, etc. Modernists revolted against Victorian social and literary norms and inaugurated fundamental innovations in literary style and genres.

We will read works by 19th century and early 20th century women’s rights activists (e.g., Josephine Butler, Christabel Pankhurst) and look at how late 19th century aesthetes (Wilde and Pater) and iconoclasts (Edward Carpenter and Samuel Butler) broke with Victorian norms and inaugurated the experimentalism and revolt of the next generation of modernists.

Early twentieth century writers include Bloomsbury figures Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey; Hilda Doolittle and Richard Aldington; William Butler Yeats and Maud Gonne; D. H. Lawrence; Katherine Mansfield; and T. S. Eliot.

3215W: Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century African American Literature

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher. 
3215W | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Pierrot, Gregory 

 

3503W: Shakespeare I (Writing Intensive)

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher. Cannot be taken for credit after passing ENGL 3011.
3503W | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Brown, Pam

Why is Shakespeare so influential today, more than four centuries after he died? What about his characters and conflicts seem so compelling they lead to adaptations all over the world? In addition, why is Shakespeare at the center of controversies about race, class and gender in the early modern period? These are a few of the questions we will take on as we read some of his greatest plays -- Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest. Short lectures and secondary readings will introduce students to their historical, cultural, poetic, and linguistic contexts. But performance will be the most important means of approaching the plays: students with watch and compare filmed versions and rehearse scenes themselves. For each play, students create questions that will be used to structure class discussion, honing their interpretations of key scenes and topics. Requirements: midterm,
questions for class discussion, and 15 pages of revised writing, generated from biweekly short responses.

3609: Women’s Literature

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher. Cannot be taken for credit after passing ENGL 3011.
3609 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 |HB  with Tu online synchronous and Th in person | Morgne Cramer, Patricia

This course focuses on poems, essays, manifestoes, plays, novels, and short stories by women from Sappho (c 610‐570 BCE) through to contemporary artist‐activists Carolyn Gage (playwright) and Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Authors include (but are not limited to) Jane Austen (1775‐1817), Virginia Woolf (1882‐1941), Julia Alvarez (1950‐present), Nawal el Saadawi (1931‐ 2021), Adrienne Rich (1929‐2012), Margaret Atwood (1939), Alice Walker (1944‐present), and Toni Morrison (1931-2019) as well as filmmaker Deepa Mehta. We will also study feminist manifestos, narratives by survivors of sexual and domestic assault, and position statements by women authors on their aesthetic aims and strategies.  

 

3703: Creative Writing Workshop

Prerequisites: ENGL 2701; instructor consent required.
3703|Wed 3:35-6:05| Newell, Mary 

Poetry

This class will stimulate your practice of writing poetry in your chosen modes. We will read a variety of poetry and analyze the poets’ methods as a stimulus to enhance our writing skills. We will experiment with contemporary forms such as the Golden Shovel and hybrid poetry, borrowed forms such as Haiku and haibun, and varieties of experimental poetry. The main focus will be on writing, workshopping, and strategies for revision.

4000-Level Courses

4407W: Advanced Study – Prose

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; at least 12 credits of 2000-level or above English courses or consent of instructor; open to juniors or higher.
4407W | Th 5:30-8:00 | Roden, Frederick 

Memoir

This course is designed to allow the student to interrogate the narrative genre of nonfiction prose in the form of memoir. As an “advanced study” (capstone) class, we will study the technique and production of literary style. This process will involve the comparative reading of memoir and critical writing about those examples, including scholarly research into specialist analysis of the texts. We will also practice the form of memoir writing: influenced by the examples we read, the storytelling that shapes us outside of the class and indeed the academy, and our own voices. This 4000-level course is intended for both readers and writers. As a W course, Engl 4407 will expect more than 15 pages of graded, revised writing divided into a range of critical and creative exercises. There are no formal exams, but journal entries and a final portfolio will contribute to the grade evaluation. Any student who is unable to register based on level or English credit prerequisites should contact Professor Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu to determine whether a permission number
for enrollment is appropriate.
English 4407W satisfies the English major “Advanced Study” requirement; it is a variable topic elective for the major and minor and counts for the Writing Minor; as a W course it satisfies one Writing Competency for General Education.