Fall 2023 Course Descriptions: Avery Point Campus

Fall 2022


Each semester the faculty for the Department of English provide course descriptions that build upon the University's catalog descriptions. These individually crafted descriptions provide information about variable topics, authors, novels, texts, writing assignments, and whether instructor consent is required to enroll. The details, along with reviewing the advising report, will help students select course options that best meet one's interests and academic requirements.

The following list includes Undergraduate courses that are sequenced after the First-Year Writing requirement and will change each semester.

2000-Level Courses

2100: British Literature I

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2100 |M 11:15 - 12:30 pm | HB | Sarkar, Debapriya

This course surveys texts and ideas from the early medieval period to the eighteenth century. We will examine a variety of genres—poetry, drama, and prose—across a broad historical period to trace the changing histories and technologies of literary production. A central theme of the course will be the role played by the literary imagination in shaping selves and worlds. We will explore issues of politics, ethics, race, gender, and religion. We will follow writers from the court to the country, from the past to the present, and we will ask how these creative forays enabled them to traverse linguistic and national boundaries. Throughout the semester, we will pursue a series of questions in order to trace how ideas and forms evolve across the period of our study: How do authors formulate new models of selfhood in their writings? How do they situate these selves within imagined communities? How do literary writings formulate and disseminate social, political, and ethical ways of being? How does the idea of the “literary” emerge over this time?

 

2413: The Graphic Novel

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2413 | TuTh 11 - 12:15| Bedore, Pamela

 

3000-Level Courses

3240E: American Nature Writing

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher

3240E | TuTh 3:30 - 4:45  | Bercaw Edwards, Mary K

 

3320: Literature and Culture of India

Prerequisites: Not open to students who have passed ENGL 3318 with a topic of "India."

3320 | TuTh 2:00 - 3:15  | Rogers, Lynne

Literature and Culture of India will look at the literature of India from the Partition to India’s current challenges to the widespread Diaspora through contemporary literature and film. The readings will introduce students to the diverse historical and cultural background of these periods of grave political and historical change.  Readings will include selections from the modern canon of contemporary Indian literature as well as more popular literature. The readings selected will explore the gender, religious, economic, ecological and political challenges faced by India as well as the moral choices of the individual caught in the web of these challenges. The class will watch some films together to help students contextualize the settings of the literary works.  The class will also look at some postcolonial criticism as a tool to approach the readings and to deepen their understanding of the text and the collective concerns addressed by the texts. The class will brainstorm for the papers together to help students focus on a topic. Students will write three five-page paper with secondary sources.  Students are not expected to have a familiarity with the culture and literature of India but to have a curiosity about this part of the world and an objective of the course is to open up the rich tapestry of Indian culture to students.