Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1101W-01 | MWF 9:30-10:45 | Hasenfratz, Bob

Honors

This course may strike you as an inherently conservative one, devoted as it is to the Western literary tradition of the ancient and medieval worlds. Not so much. In fact, we will reexamine this Western tradition through a global perspective, reading classical and medieval European epics, lyrics, folktale, myth, drama, etc., beside similar, oppositional, and sometimes inter-related works originating from north Africa, the near east, India, China, and Japan. Instead of revering the classics, sitting before them with an attitude of awe or worship, we have the absolute obligation to interrogate and read them through our contemporary experience and to see how they respond to or are critiqued by other traditions. The great Italian novelist, Italo Calvino, who wrote that “The classics are the books that come down to us bearing upon them the traces of readings previous to ours, and bring in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through.” Luckily most of these texts, which have been read in cases for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years by successive generations of readers, can stand up to re-reading and re-interpretation.

In the course of the semester, we will grapple with The Epic of Gilgamesh, ancient Egyptian love poetry, Aristophanes’s Lysistrata (recently adapted by Spike Lee in his film Chi-Raq), Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, the lyric poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Horace, as well as the Confucian Classic of Poetry. We will survey the lyrics of the troubadours, the Persian Shahnameh and the Conference of the Birds and read Marie de France’s Lais, Chaucer’s bawdy stories, 1001 Nights from the Syrian version, romances about King Arthur, the poetry of Sufi mystic, Rumi, etc.

Come prepared to have a lively discussion about some remarkable texts. Assignments include bi-weekly discussion board posts, which will serve as the basis three separate essays or responses to the texts based on the posts. There will be opportunities for writing in other media. Our readings will come mainly
from the Norton Anthology of World Literature, volumes A and B.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1103-01 | MWF 11:15-12:05 | Gehling, Madison

The Living, the Dead, and the Undead

In this course, we will work across a wide swathe of poetry, drama, and novels spanning from the Renaissance period to the present. We will pay particular attention to the way death and dying (and in some cases, figures who we might consider undead) are depicted: from historical, political, aesthetic, and scientific perspectives. We'll cover such literary movements as the Graveyard School of poetry and the Gothic novel, working our way up to the contemporary YA fantasy fiction genre.

To contextualize our readings, we will also engage with archival research, learning to navigate databases and read public documents (such as those available on the Old Bailey Online). Authors likely to appear on this course's reading list include: William Shakespeare, Sheridan Le Fanu, Toni Morrison, and Aiden Thomas.

Course requirements will be class discussion, a brief presentation, three short writing projects, and a final
creative project.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1103W-01 | MWF 9:05-9:55 | Gallucci, Mary

Theme: Nature, Wilderness, and Biodiversity in the Era of Colonialism

We will explore the themes of nature and wilderness, the savage and the civilized in a wide range of literary and cultural artifacts. Authors and works will likely include Shakespeare, The Tempest, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Aphra Behn, Ooronoko, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Voltaire, Candide, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea, and Derek Walcott, Omeros in addition to documents relating to French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonization. 

Prerequisites: None

Also offered as: AMST 1201, HIST 1503

1201-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Cutter, Martha

Prerequisites: None.

1301-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Hogan, Patrick

This course is designed to introduce students to a few of the many globally influential literary works and traditions originating in India, China, Japan, and the Middle East. The course will divided into four sections, one for each of these regions. Depending on just what works are available, we will probably concentrate on one or two genres in each section as well. In the case of China, we will focus on lyric poetry, though we will also consider social and ethical thought. In India, our focus will probably be on drama, with some attention to poetry as well. Noh drama and film are likely foci of the Japan section, with the Middle East section perhaps taking up some graphic fiction. Coursework will include short responses to readings, a group presentation, general class participation, and four tests (one for each section).  

1503-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Tribble, Evelyn

I love teaching and reading Shakespeare because the plays are so open: open to interpretation, open to new readings, new technologies, new bodies. Although they were written to be performed by an all-male ensemble of actors living four hundred years ago, they are equally at home in the multiplex; in large-scale contemporary theatres with the latest technology; in reconstructed theatres such as Shakespeare’s Globe; in primary and secondary school classrooms, and in experimental spaces. Shakespeare’s plays are also re-written, over-written, challenged, and appropriated, as they are taken up by new generations, and we will consider how Shakespeare has been adapted over time.

We will read Shakespeare’s sonnets and 5--6 plays, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Winter’s Tale.

Active participation will be expected, including participation in exploring the plays through performance and film. Assignments will also include annotation exercises, a midterm, a final, and an independent project.

This class fulfills a CLAS CA1 general education requirement.

1616-01 | TuTh| Dolan Gierer, Emily

Prerequisites:  ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2001-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Courtmanche, Jason

Grant Writing will introduce you to the basics of grants and grant writing.  It is open to students from all majors.  We will explore your research interests, develop a proposal, identify possible sources of funding, review Requests for Proposals (RFPs), review successfully awarded grant proposals, talk with grant writers and other professionals who work in the field, and, finally, write, revise, and ultimately submit a grant proposal.  

We will mostly explore opportunities available to students through the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR), such as IDEA, SHARE, and SURF grants, and we will have guest speakers from OUR, the grants division of the CLAS Business Services Center, the UConn Foundation, and the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), as well as fellow undergraduates who have been successful in their pursuit of grants.  I will also try to connect students to faculty members with related interests.  

Students in this course will engage in a lot of independent, hands-on work—conducting research, working in small groups to share ideas, reading grant proposals as mentor texts, drafting and revising the texts of your own proposals, and giving and receiving feedback on your ideas and proposals.  

There is a book to read—The Only Grant Writing Book You Will Ever Need—and there we be weekly assignments drawn from the book to help you proceed logically through the process, although some writing assignments may be specific to each grant, and due dates may vary depending on the deadlines prescribed by the differing RFPs being pursued by members of the class.  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2013W-02 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Deans, Tom

In this course we’ll review the history of literacy and consider what that means for the future of writing. Drawing on contemporary research in writing studies, we’ll also explore questions of process, genre, audience, persuasion, technology, style, and ethics as those relate to composing for college, work, and civic life. Expect to participate in lively class conversation. Expect to take on quite a few short, informal writing projects alongside several longer, more formal papers. At the end of the semester, you’ll revise earlier work and assemble it in a portfolio. This is the gateway course for the writing minor.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2100-01 | MW 10:10-11:00 | HB | Codr, Dwight

This course provides a broad history of literature written in English up to the end of the eighteenth century. It covers such writers as the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Oliver Goldsmith, Jonathan Swift, and Mary Wollstonecraft. We will read full texts, some excerpts, and watch films to help place these authors and their literary productions into the thousand-year span that saw England go from a violent colonial outpost on the fringes of the former Roman Empire to the most powerful geopolitical unit on the planet (for better and worse). Some of the more specific questions we will ask and attempt to answer include the following:

First: From battles with mythic beasts to criminal adventures to colonial warfare, violence looms large in the British literary tradition. Do literary representations encourage or condemn such violence?

Second: In what ways does literary history record, promote, or impede women's claims to rights, sovereignty, and authority? What techniques and technologies do women writers use to demonstrate resilience and resistance?

Third: Popular imaginings of England often hinge upon the relation between dignified and wealthy nobles on the one hand and obedient commoners or laborers on the other. What role does literature of the period we are studying play in validating or undermining the legitimacy of these social hierarchies?

While these questions – roughly speaking, about violence, gender, and labor – may seem discrete, students will be encouraged to bring them into relation in two examinations and in three short, reflective writings designed to enhance comprehension and foster creative thinking. This class will meet for fifty minutes on Mondays and Wednesdays for discussion and lecture. To foster engagement with the material and to help improve reading comprehension, we will read parts of most texts online and collaboratively prior to class discussions.

2100-02 | MW 11:15-12:05 | HB | Codr, Dwight 

See description for 2100-001

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2101-01 | M 5:00-7:30 | Barreca, Regina

This demanding class, designed with ambitious students in mind, includes works by some of the most admired and significant British writers of the previous two centuries. We'll be reading works by Shaw, Joyce, Mansfield, Sillitoe, Spark, Weldon and Smith. Class participation required; two exams and (almost) daily in-class writings; strict attendance policy.  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2107-01 | MWF 11:15-12:05 | O'Hara, Alyse

The British Empire, Slavery, and Resistance focuses on literature from around 1516 to 1833 that encouraged and/or criticized the rise of the British Empire and the institution of slavery for which it was largely responsible. This course will focus on the Empire's preparations for enslavement, the means and literary forms it used to justify and defend slavery, how slavery was represented in literary texts, and, most importantly, literary responses to slavery by Black writers. The course texts will include a variety of genres, including travel writings, novels, essays, poems, and plays. Our focus will be on the writings of formerly enslaved persons, such as Olaudah Equiano, James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Mary Prince, Briton Hammon, and Phillis Wheatley. Other writers will include early English canonical figures—such as Thomas More, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, and Aphra Behn—and modern readings for the course include lyrics to Lupe Fiasco’s Drogas Wave and Octavia Butler’s Kindred.

Assignments will consist of written reflections, responses to the readings, short presentations on course content, and a final portfolio.

Also offered as: AMST 2200

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2200-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Franklin, Wayne 

This course carries CA 1 Gen Ed credit. 

This course examines the early written and oral record of the area that eventually became the United States. It does so within the context of various non-textual analogues (e.g., architecture, art, landscape, material culture, and social, economic, and political institutions). The goal is to achieve a holistic understanding of the ways in which peoples of many varied backgrounds, from the Asian-derived indigenous inhabitants of North America to the various immigrant populations from continental Europe and the British Isles and the enslaved Africans they introduced to the Western hemisphere, came to express their views of the land and their experiences on it and with each other. Primary readings are drawn from recorded Indigenous mythic and historic texts, travel accounts originally written in various European languages (e.g., French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English), works centered on indigenous-Euro-American contact and conflict, social history documents of literary value, key political documents, and poetry, early fiction, and autobiography. Quizzes or reaction papers on major texts plus a midterm and a paper on the final two texts will be required. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Salvant, Shawn

A selective survey of key works and authors in American literature from the transatlantic and colonial eras through the post-Civil War period. We study the development of American literature during the nineteenth century with emphasis on issues of race, gender, and class as forces in shaping the American literary tradition. Topics include : Native American oral and literary traditions; transatlantic African American writing; European American colonial writing;
African American anti-slavery speeches and slave narratives; the American Renaissance and American Transcendentalism; mid-to-late nineteenth-century American novels. Authors may include Hannah Webster Foster, James Gronniosaw, William Bradford, Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Solomon Northup, Herman Melville, Sojourner Truth among others. Primary texts are supplemented by scholarly secondary readings and current articles.

This discussion-based course emphasizes class discussion over lectures. Lectures are minimal; class discussion is our main method, so be prepared to participate on a very regular basis in order to succeed in the course. Final grade is based on discussion question assignments, participation, midterm exam, final exam, and final essay.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201W-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Franklin, Wayne

This course is designed as an introduction to major issues in American literature from the beginnings to 1880. It will be organized thematically and chronologically. There will be several brief quizzes, a midterm exam, and a major paper that will be drafted, discussed in class, and revised for final submission.

2201W-02 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Courtmanche, Jason

Often, 19th century American literature can be anything but pleasant to read. It is often dense and long-winded. But I do love it and think it is important to our cultural heritage. So I want to make the course as relevant and enjoyable as possible. To that end, I want us to look at ways contemporary, living writers have re-storied the canon of the 19th century. Now, we only have 14 weeks together, so we can only look at a few examples. I'm leaving out Jon Clinch's Finn, which re-stories Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Naslund's Ahab's Wife, which re-stories Moby-Dick, and Brooks' March, which re-stories Little Women, and Green's Paper Towns, which sort of re-stories Leaves of Grass. If you're ambitious and a big reader, you can check those out on your own sometime. But we will read His Hideous Heart, which includes 13 tales and poems by Edgar Allan Poe as well as contemporary re-storyings of each. We will also read slave narratives, such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Incidents in the Life of a Save Girl alongside contemporary slave narratives sch as The Underground Railroad and Kindred. I hope you will find this a fun and interesting approach to the course! 

Most students taking this course are not English majors, so we will not be approaching the course like a bunch of literary scholars. We will approach the texts and the course as a group of educated, literate adults interested in finding meaning in novels and making meaningful connections to our lives and to the events of the world around us. 

This is a W, so there will be lots of writing and writing instruction. What I am going to ask you to do is find two short stories from the 19th century (not those assigned for the course) and re-story them yourself. (Don't worry. I'll help everyone find a couple of stories not on the syllabus). I hope you will try your best to be creative and have some fun with this. Don't be afraid to take a risk or two! 

There will be weekly discussion posts rather than quizzes, and you will work regularly in writing groups. I won't lecture much. We'll mostly talk as a group. I try to emphasize feedback over grades in my response to your writing, though I will give a holistic grade to each essay. Participation and effort mean much more to me than grades, and I think they are better indicators of learning. I hope you will enjoy learning in this class and not stress about due dates, deadlines, and grades. 

Come see me any time about the class, your writing, your ideas, whatever. I will have regular office hours when you can drop by (though it's better if you schedule ahead of time in Nexus). If my office hours don't work for you, we can schedule a time. We can meet in person or via zoom (or some other platform). 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2203-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10| Hunnicutt, Lindsay

This course will explore a curated selection of American literature from 1880 to the present. To ground ourselves in such an expansive period of time, we will read selectively through different movements in literary history and across literary genres to understand how conceptions of America and what it means to be American are constructed and change over time. Readings will include works of fiction, non-fiction, and poems by both canonical and more emergent writers, including Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Edith Wharton, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, Louise Erdich, Ling Ma, and Colson Whitehead, among others. Assignments will include: regular weekly readings and reflections, a presentation, and take-home written exams.

Also offered as: AMST 2207, HIST 2207

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2207-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00 | Phillips, Jerry

AMST:16 seats // HIST 2207 4 seats // ENGL: 20 seats

The poet William Blake observed that “Empire follows Art”; remove art, and “Empire is no more.” One can also say that art follows empire. Empire gives art its characteristic forms, themes and motifs; remove empire, and art will have a completely different identity. In this course, we will examine the dialectical interplay between US empire and culture. We will trace the historical career of American empire from the earliest days of the Republic, through colonial expansion to overseas imperialist war and global power. In particular, we will trace the ongoing tension between the Jeffersonian ideal of the “empire of liberty” and the realist concept of an “empire of force.” Writers to be studied include: Thomas Jefferson, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Leslie Marmon Silko and Cormac McCarthy. Course requirements: two papers and a final examination. 

Also offered as: AFRA 2214

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2214-01 | TuTh 2:00-3:15| Salvant, Shawn

This discussion-based course provides a selective survey of key works and authors in African American literature from the era of the transatlantic slave trade to the present. With so much ground to cover, the readings are highly selective, featuring representative texts and authors from each major period. Authors may include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Nella Larsen, and Colson Whitehead among others. Students learn about the development of African American literature and the historical and political forces shaping this development. Primary texts are supplemented by scholarly secondary readings and current articles. Lectures are minimal; class discussion is our main method, so please be prepared to participate on a regular basis in order to succeed in the course.

Final grade is based on discussion question assignments, participation, midterm exam, final exam, and final essay.

Also offered as: AFRA 2214W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2214W-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Jones, Briona

African American Literature 2214W is a writing intensive course that will focus on the intellectual production of African American and Afro-Diasporic writers, beginning with the 18th century to the present. This course will provide an examination of historical, social, cultural, political, and personal developments shaping established and recent discourses about Black life. This course will also deeply study and traverse topics of gender, sexuality, pleasure, spirituality, selfhood, migration, imperialism, lynching, and anti-black violence. We will closely examine how African American and Afro-Diasporic writers have historically responded to precarity, death, and futurity, through studying essay, speech, sound, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and other forms of writing. We will also study the functions of archives to further understand the various ways in which Black histories have been salvaged and made accessible to the public.

Also offered as: AMST 2274W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2274W-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10 | Ready, Psyche

Disability has always been a central part of the human experience, although it has historically been treated as something outside society, to be either avoided or cured. The Disability Justice movement and the field of Disability Studies have revolutionized this perspective, and Social Media platforms have accelerated these changes and amplified disabled voices. In this class we will investigate how American culture’s understanding of and relationship with disability has shifted over time. The overarching themes we will reflect on throughout the semester are disabled identity, agency, and voice. Other topics we will explore: literary/symbolic portrayal of disabled characters; madness, mental illness, and neurodivergence as disability; institutions and the role of eugenics in American culture.

We will read short historical fiction and non-fiction, including some archival texts, and we will also engage with very recent essays, fiction, and graphic novels, including content from the disabled community on TikTok, Instagram, and twitter. Importantly, we will center texts from disabled writers and creators.

The classroom will not be based on lectures, but rather on discussion, collaborative group work, and independent research. The course is designed to be flexible, so that students can establish their own learning goals and are encouraged to pursue disability-related topics of interest. Rather than a long final paper, students will write several shorter research-based essays, all of which may be revised, and will give a final short class presentation (virtual or in-person) on a research topic of your choice.

This course fulfills CA1, CA4, and COMPW.

Also offered as: AMST 2276W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2276W-01 | Th 11:00-12:15 | HB | Knapp, Kathy

We know a dystopian landscape when we see one, perhaps because recent literature, film, and television abound with examples, from the popular YA franchise The Hunger Games to the serialized version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, to resurgent syllabus favorites such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, all of which bespeak contemporaneous anxieties arising from large-scale problems that we currently contend with: climate change, the rise of fascism, the persistence of racial and economic injustice, the Covid pandemic, and more. Harder to find are compelling depictions of utopia, which translates from the Greek as “no place,” and which theorists Frank and Fritzie Manuel identify as a “fantasy” based on the myth of heaven on earth. In this class, we will focus on predominantly contemporary narratives that complicate our understanding of both dystopian and utopian imaginaries by considering texts that are grounded in a realist tradition but which mine the past in order to suggest the outlines of an alternative future. Using Jack London’s The Iron Heel (1908) as a foundational text, we will read the novels listed below alongside films and other media as well as a variety of theoretical and cultural readings to arrive at our own working definition of what it means to be utopian in the context of what it means to be “American.” In addition to substantial reading and consonant with the requirements of a W course, students will write weekly responses, participate in discussion groups, and create two multimodal projects that respond to and extend course material. The hope is that over the course of the semester, you will come to see that these efforts not only satisfy the requirements of a GenEd, but are utopian acts in and of themselves.

Possible novels for the course include Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves (2017), Lauren Groff's Arcadia (2011), Emily St. James Mandel's Sea of Tranquility (2021), Lydia Millet's A Children’s Bible (2020), and Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones (2012).

2276W-02 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Grossman, Leigh 

It’s a bit terrifying but accurate to say that we are living in a golden age of dystopian fiction. Both dystopias and utopias (often two ways of looking at the same thing) have become pervasive across American media, including books, stories, and graphic novels, tabletop and video games, long- and short-form video, and more. In particular the audience has been getting younger—dystopian worlds that used to be geared toward adults are increasingly focused on teenagers and middle-grade readers. This class will look at some of the roots of the current golden age, but the main focus is on what topics lend themselves to utopias and dystopias, and why authors use particular tropes of the field. We will look both at what authors are trying to accomplish, and what readers expect in a satisfying work (and how those things differ for adult and younger audiences). The class will include many key older works, but with a significant focus on current authors who are changing the field (Sarah Pinsker, Rivers Solomon, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Rebecca Roanhorse, etc.). We will also look at some critical writing, and some of the authors you are reading will be guests in the class.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2301-01 | TuTh 2:00-3:15| Coundouriotis, Eleni

Anglophone literatures are English language works from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. These works were shaped by the history of British colonialism and its long aftermath in an ongoing decolonization. To tackle this complex history and the extensive movement of peoples that resulted, the course focuses on the theme of crossing boundaries whether they are physical boundaries, boundaries of identity, religion, or national affiliation. Although sometimes liberating, the crossing of boundaries often arises from or leads to crisis and added precarity. We will explore the experiences represented in these works but also the literary questions that crossing boundaries provoke. Most of our reading will draw from contemporary works and include fiction as well as drama and poetry. Assignments will include 3 shorter papers (3-4 pages), a video presentation posted on Husky CT, and a midterm exam.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2301W-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Hogan, Patrick

The obvious feature that connects Anglophone literatures is the colonial history (partially) shared by their countries of origin. Why would we otherwise link such different nations as Nigeria, India, Canada, and Australia? This course will, therefore, stress colonialism and the ways in which these diverse literatures emerged from colonial conditions. Of course, the diversity of these literatures is as consequential as the similarity. In connection with this, it is important to distinguish various kinds of colonialism. Colonialism in Nigeria is not the same as colonialism in Canada, for example. As this is a literature course, we also need to be aware of the various literary approaches to “emplotting” colonialism, which is to say, creating stories that address the colonial condition. We will begin the semester by considering just what constitutes colonialism (e.g., how we might define “colonialism”). From there we will turn to the chief varieties of colonialism and some of the recurring structures—particularly story genres—taken up by authors in examining colonialism.  

After a couple of weeks on these theoretical topics, we will turn to literary works. In the course of the semester, we will consider narratives from different types of colony. For example, we may examine a work from Canada (such as Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing) and/or one from Australia (such as Nugi Garimara’s Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence); we will certainly examine some works from India (perhaps including some poetry and visual art about Kashmir), and works from two or three African nations, such as Kenya (e.g., Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat), South Africa (e.g., J. M. Coezee’s Waiting for the Barbarians), and Nigeria (e.g., Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun or Bandele’s film of the novel), as well as a selection of stories from across the continent—probably Ama Ata Aidoo’s African Love Stories.  

Coursework will include short responses to readings, one or two group presentations, general class participation, and two 8-page essays, preceded by outlines and drafts. The essays will explicate part of one of the literary works (or perhaps rewrite part creatively) in line with themes explored in the course; each essay will involve cultural or historical research integrated with the explication (or creative rewriting).  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2401-01 | OA | Choffel, Julie

This course will offer a survey of poetry in English across traditions. We will study conventions of poetic forms, genres, and devices, and how poets have taken up, altered, or abandoned them. We will find out, from the poems themselves, how to read them and what they are for. Coursework will consist of close readings, online discussion and group work, collaborative research and exercises, and a final paper. Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2401-02 | TuTh 8:00-9:15 | Cohen, Bruce

This introductory course will focus on the close reading and analysis of verse to expand your appreciation of the traditions of poetry. We will explore poetic techniques, forms and strategies and learn to critically analyze poetry. In essence, we will delve into what makes a poem a “poem.” We will discuss some of the various “schools” of poetry to provide you with some historical context for the sensibilities and conventions of poetry. The goal of the course is to expand your interest in poetry to the point that you will read it outside of class, well after the course has concluded and be able to discuss poetry in an intelligent manner. Course requirements include class participation, written essays and a final exam.

2401-03 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 | Cohen, Bruce

See the description for 2401-02.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2405-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00| Bolster, Christopher

This course provides an introduction to the study of drama as literature and as performance. Through a combination of readings, discussions, and written assignments, students will explore the historical and cultural significance of drama and gain the critical skills necessary to appreciate, interpret, and comment on a range of dramatic works.

Beginning with an exploration of two iconic plays from ancient Greece, the class will progress in roughly chronological order. We will read plays from the Middle Ages and the early modern period, and the last half of the course will be dedicated to more recent plays, beginning with Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1887) and ending with Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play (1994).

Through analyzing themes, genres, and styles, students will learn how to read plays critically, identify dramatic conventions, and interpret the social and political contexts in which they were written. Additionally, students will engage in practical experimentation with the performance and production of drama, staging scenes and considering questions of casting, costuming, and production design.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2407-01 | MWF 2:30-3:20 | Cordón, Joanne

Narrative Survival Kit

Joan Didion argues in The White Album that stories are fundamental to our survival: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” This survival benefit is not just personal, but also communal and ethical. As Audre Lorde points out in Sister Outsider, the ability to correctly interpret the events of our lives depends upon “the quality of our light by which we scrutinize our lives.” Our narrative survey will allow us a glimpse into diverse persons, places, and time periods. All our stories come from The Story and Its Writer. Assignments will include participation in class discussion, a midterm exam, a group presentation, a class debate of the “best” short story, and a final project.

2407-02 | MWF 11:15-12:05 |Cordón, Joanne

See description for 2407-01

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2408W-01 | TuTh 2:00-3:15 | Marsden, Jean

Honors

Modern Drama

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been a time of theatrical innovation, with playwrights using drama to explore problematic cultural expectations and social injustice while at the same time upending the conventions of traditional theater. We will read a wide range of plays, focusing in particular on experimental drama (absurdist and avant-garde theater) and works that center on untraditional subjects, societies, and conflicts. 

Readings will include works by playwrights such as Beckett, Brecht, Churchill, Fugard, Hansberry, Ionesco, Kushner, Miller, Pirandello, Williams, and Wilson. Assignments: a scene staging; several one-two page reading responses; a five-page stage history; and a longer, research paper. In lieu of a final exam, students will submit a writing portfolio and give a short research presentation.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2411-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00 | Geer, Gretchen

In this course we will read a selection of popular science fiction and fantasy novels. Through our readings of these texts we will explore the themes of monstrosity and heroism. What does it mean to be a monster? What does it mean to be a hero? How do we (as a society and as individuals) decide who is a hero and who is a monster? And what happens when the line between the two becomes blurred? We will read a variety of YA and adult novels over the course of the semester. Texts may include, for example: The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, and Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White. This is a discussion-based class and substantial class participation is expected. Assignments TBD, but will likely include quizzes, short writing assignments, a midterm, and a final exam. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2411W-01 | OA | Cormier, Emily

2411W-01 | TuTh 5:00-6:15 | Grossman, Leigh

This course looks at worldbuilding—building a believable setting that strengthens and deepens the story you want to tell—using recent adult and children’s fantasy literature as a framework. The course looks at the evolution of worldbuilding, both in terms of what authors are trying to accomplish, and what readers expect in a satisfying book (and how you do those things differently for adult and younger audiences). The class will start with works from the fantasy revival of the late 1960s (J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin), through the field’s dramatic changes in the 1990s (Michael Swanwick, Guy Gavriel Kay), with a special focus on major recent authors who are changing the field (Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Beth Durst, Rebecca Roanhorse). We will also look at some critical writing, and some of the authors you are reading will be guests in the class.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. Not open to students who have passed ENGL 3621 when taught as "The Graphic Novel."

2413-01 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 | Litman, Ellen

This course explores graphic narratives – novels, memoirs, works of journalism, and more. We will consider the genre’s history and its incredible rise in popularity. We will analyze the ways images and text can work together to convey meaning and tell stories. We will learn the vocabulary of the graphic
storytelling and acquire critical skills necessary to read and understand this medium. Together we will study several classic texts of the graphic novel genre, as well as some emerging classics, and discuss how these works address historical and contemporary social issues. We will engage with the genre and the
specific works, by trying our own hand at graphic storytelling through a variety of exercises. (Some of you might even attempt to create your own comics.)

Our readings will include works by writers and artists such as Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel, Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, and others. We will also read
selections from graphic narrative theory and comics history, beginning with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Why Comics? By Hillary Chute. The assignments will likely include class discussions, critical and creative exercises, a short paper, and the final long paper or creative project.

2413-02 | OB Tu 2:00 - 3:15 | Knapp, Kathy

Seeing/Reading: The Graphic Novel

Over the past several decades, critics have come to recognize the value of comics as both an art form and as literature. This course will introduce students to key concepts and a working vocabulary for considering what it means to approach the graphic novel as a hybrid form: what can a graphic novel do that a novel can’t, for instance? And how does narrative shape the way we see? We will read graphic novel criticism alongside a variety of graphic novels as we identify the possibilities suggested by a genre that asks us to do several things at once:  we spend more time with and attend more carefully to the page before us as a form of training for developing a new approach to understanding the world around us. Students will keep online journals in which they will read and sketch (No drawing skills required!) and will complete their own multimodal assignment. There will also be a midterm and final. Graphic novels may include Alison Bechdel, Fun Home; Octavia Butler’s Kindred, A Graphic Novel Adaptation; John Lewis, March, Book One;Richard McGuire, Here; Art Spiegelman, Maus; The Arrival by Shaun Tan; and Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011 or 3800; open to English majors, others with instructor consent.

2600-01 | MW 11:15 - 12:05| HB| Dennigan, Darcie

2600-02 | TuTh 9:30-10:45| Coundouriotis, Eleni

This gateway course into the major introduces you to the range of activities and types of analysis that define literary study. We will cover topics such as what makes a text literary, the formal conventions of different genres, and key concepts of contemporary literary theory. We will also explore different avenues for interdisciplinary and comparative studies. The course does not limit itself to a period or a genre but uses an eclectic set of texts that open up to a wide range of different approaches. We will engage in close textual analysis throughout the course while also paying attention to how literature engages the world. 

You will learn research skills, such as searching appropriate databases, distinguishing scholarly sources from other material, how to handle in-text quotations, and MLA style citations. Assignments include two 5-page papers and two exams. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2605W-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10| Phillips, Jerry

Capitalism is the air we breathe. Our work and play, our human development and our inhuman social pathologies, and our nightmares and fantasies are all shaped the complex forces of capitalism. And yet, for all its familiarity (strangely enough), capitalism is difficult to define. Across the ages, capitalism has been variously described as: the quintessence of market society (Adam Smith); the murder of the passions (Charles Fourier); a social relation of production (Karl Marx); the ruthless logic of the cash nexus (Thomas Carlyle); the fulfillment of Objectivism (Ayn Rand); the social expression of the “survival of the fittest” (John D. Rockefeller); the secularization of the work ethic (Max Weber); the best possible form of “organizing human activity”(Friedrich Von Hayek); a “gale of creative destruction” (Joseph Schumpeter); the “economization of society” (Murray Bookchin); the foundation of democracy (Milton Friedman) and, perhaps, most brilliantly, “the teeth of a tiger” (H.G.Wells). The student of human culture cannot fail to be impressed by the range of values and images that capitalism calls to mind. In this course we will investigate the implication of literature and culture in the complex dynamics of capitalism. Writers to be studied include: Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Theodore Dreiser and Margaret Atwood. Course requirements: a short paper, a research paper and a final examination.

Also offered as: CLCS 2609

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. Not open for credit to students who have passed AMST/ENGL 3265W when offered as "Fascism and Antifascism in the US."

2609-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Vials, Christopher

In this course, we will explore the questions: what is fascism? How is it relevant for thinking about the culture and politics of the world today, and the United States in particular? And how does fascism differ from other forms of authoritarianism? Along the way, we will discuss the equally important question of what is has meant to be an antifascist, both in the United States and abroad.

After surveying the historical fascisms of Germany, Italy, and Japan, we will turn to the United States, where we will devote much of the remainder of the class to exploring U.S. fascist or fascist-like movements. Much of the class from this point on will be a study of the extreme right in the United States and across the world over the last century, as well as its overlaps with actual fascist movements. In the process, we will discuss the applicability of the concept of fascism in a country with a history of race rooted in settler colonialism, slavery, and immigrant labor (when does structural racism cross the line into actual fascism, for instance?)

Along the way, we will study major moments of antifascism in the US and abroad, most notably the Popular Front in the 1930s US, the Spanish Civil War, the antifascist currents of the Second World War, and the punk-inspired “antifa movement” in more recent decades.

Also offered as: DMD 2610

Prerequisites: None.

2610-01 | MW 9:05-9:55 | HB | Booten, Kyle

This project-based course will explore how computers can help us to understand humanistic topics (such as literary texts, historical events, and philosophical questions) in new and powerful ways. Students will imagine and design digital games and interactive, web-based archives that aim to teach the player or user about a humanistic topic. They will then prototype these designs with beginner-friendly tools. 

The course will also use hands-on activities to introduce students to other aspects of the field known as “the Digital Humanities,” including how to use computational tools to analyze vast quantities of historical or literary data. 

No prior technical experience of any kind is required or assumed. Especially welcome are students who are interested in games, design, digital media, or education.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2635E-01 | MW 11:15-12:05; Friday discussion options in Student Admin | Menrisky, Alex

This course offers an introduction to human relationships with environment through the lens of literature. In other words, it is a survey of the different ways writers and other figures have represented environment—and human relations with it—over time and across  genres, rather than of the science of environment. We will read fiction, nonfiction, poetry, film, and other media (mostly from the United States) to consider how concepts like “nature” and “environment” have meant different things at different times. We will do so specifically by studying how ideas about “nature,” race, and gender have influenced each other in an American context, from the mid-= nineteenth century to the present. Accordingly, we will have two major objectives throughout the semester: (1) to understand the diversity of ways writers conceive of environment, and (2) to think through the relationship between literary form/genre and environment—why a writer might favor a certain form/genre to communicate about environment and environmental problems and how those forms/genres shape readers’ perceptions. Even though we can’t possibly touch on all of them, we’ll survey a wide range of genres, including nature writing, ecopoetry, and “cli-fi.” Texts will include works by such authors as Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Simon Ortiz, Tommy Pico, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, as well as films such as Princes Mononoke. Weekly meetings include two lectures and one (smaller) Friday discussion section.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2640-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Hasenfratz, Robert

World Cinema.

In this version of this variable topics course we will survey selected classics of world cinema by such filmmakers as Alice Guy, F. W. Murnau, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Carol Reed, Agnes Varda, Alfred Hitchcock, Zhang Yimou, Vittorio de Sicca, Lucrecia Martel, Stanley Kubrick, etc. I’ll consult with the class first before settling on the list of films we’ll consider, and will watch and respond to at least 10 films in the course of the semester.

Readings will include articles on the films as well as film theory. Assignments include bi-weekly discussion board posts and three written responses (essays or other media) to films we’ll be analyzing, responding to, and thinking about. Come prepared for a lively discussion.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. May not be taken out of sequence after passing ENGL 3701, 3703, or 3713.

2701-01 | MW 9:05-9:55 | HB | Dennigan, Darcie

This is a course for students who want to practice becoming more comfortable with failure, boredom, and confusion. You'll write each week, inside and outside of class, and you'll read a lot too. Your final project will be self-directed and may take the form of a play, performance, poem, essay, or something else. Through writing experiments from or inspired by Gabrielle Civil, Yoko Ono, Sibyl Kempson, Bhanu Kapil, Francis Ponge, and Robert Walser, you will get closer to -- maybe even next to!-- your writing self, and the ineluctable expression that only you can execute. Some questions we will explore as a class: *How much space can you or should you take up on the page? *How boring can you be, and what might be wonderful about boring writing? *How can you give yourself permission to write the things you're most scared to write? This is a studio course, which means our class meetings will be part playground, part laboratory, part dark forest. What's most important is being there, in class, every week-- to experiment, explore, and question together.

2701-02 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Forbes, Sean

Finding Your Artistic Voice Through Creative Writing Prompts

In this introduction to creative writing class, we will examine the different approaches that a writer can take when trying to establish a speaker in a poem or short story. The first half of the course will be dedicated to writing narrative poetry and for the second half we will focus on short and long form fiction stories. We will look at exemplary works of poetry and fiction from writers like David Dominguez, Allison Joseph, Richard Blanco, and fiction stories from One Story and One Teen Story, print literary journals that publish only one story per month. Students will produce a final portfolio of their original work. Class participation is an essential component to this largely workshop-based course along with weekly writing prompts such as writing in iambic pentameter and challenging in class writing prose sketches.

2701-03 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Litman, Ellen

Honors Section
This introductory class will concentrate on poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Students will learn by writing original pieces; reading and discussing the works of published authors; responding to their classmates’ stories, poems, and essays; and trying to help one another. We’ll begin by doing a series
of exercises, eventually working our way toward producing two complete poems, one finished piece of creative nonfiction (min. 3 pages), and one short story or novel chapter (min. 3 pages) -- all of which we will workshop in class. Additionally, over the course of the semester, you will each develop a longer
piece (min. 7 pages) in the genre of your choice, which you’ll discuss with me in a series of one-on-one meetings. The longer piece can be a short story, an essay, a portion of a novel or memoir, or a group of poems. Overall, students should be prepared to read and write a lot and actively participate in workshops
and class discussions.

2701-04 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Forbes, Sean

See description for 2701-02.

2701-05 | Tu 5:00-7:30 | Barreca, Regina

“Success means being heard and don't stand there and tell me you are indifferent to being heard. Everything about you screams to be heard. You may write for the joy of it, but the act of writing is not complete in itself. It has its end in its audience.” Flannery O’Conner, Habits of Being Designed for students with an interest in writing non-fiction with any eye towards publication, this seminar assumes a serious commitment both to reading and writing throughout the semester. You'll produce seven pieces of writing (between 500-750 words each; topics are assigned) and email these to all the other members of the seminar at least three days before the class meets. As a final project, you'll submit to me a portfolio of four revised, carefully edited essays, out of which two will be submitted for publication. (We've had excellent results in terms of students seeing their work published both online and in print.) In addition, you will be responsible, each week, for reading and commenting in detail your colleague’s essays; I’ll provide a list of questions. Students will email their comments on one another's essays by 5 p.m. the day before the class meets. Deadlines are absolutely non-negotiable: submission of the essays and submission of the comments must be completed by the deadlines every week without exception. No excuses, no apologies. Reading includes Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead, King's On Writing and Lerner's The Forest for the Trees

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3082-01 | Deans, Tom

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3091-01 | Arr. | Fairbanks, Ruth

Writing Internships provide unique opportunities to apply writing skills and develop practical critical thinking in non-academic settings supervised by professional writers. Internships are recognized as an important experiential aspect of undergraduate education and many employers give preference to applicants with internship experience. English 3091 is open to juniors and seniors in all majors.  Both on-campus and off-campus placements in a broad variety of professional career areas are available.

• Excellent writing and communication skills are essential.
• Applicants must have at least 3.0 cumulative GPA in the major and at least 54 credits.

This is a variable-credit, permission number course with one to six possible credits depending on specific placement projects.  The course may be repeated for credit with no more than eight credits per placement.

Grading Scale:  Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

• See the English Department website link to Writing Internship Program page for further information and application forms: https://english.uconn.edu/undergraduate/writing-internship-program/
• Interested applicants may at any point email questions about the program, application materials, or application process to Fairbanks@uconn.edu.
• Application Timeframe: After applicants discuss the internship opportunity with major advisors, they should schedule a meeting in weeks 8-12 with Professor Ruth Fairbanks through nexus.uconn.edu.
• Application materials (internship application, letter of interest, current transcript, and best academic paper) should be electronically submitted prior to the meeting with Professor Ruth Fairbanks. For further information see the link to online internship pages.

Placements have included Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Connecticut Landmarks, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, Connecticut Writing Project, Globe Pequot Press, The Dodd Research Center and Archive, Mystic Seaport, New Britain Museum of American Art, Striven Software Public Relations Development, UConn Office of Institutional Equity, UConn Women’s Center, UConn Information Technology, and World Poetry Books.  Other placements are available.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011

3117W-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Mahoney, Charles

A dynamic overview of British Romantic literature. Although the historical period covered here is relatively short (more-or-less 1785 through more-or-less 1834), it represents what critics term a “hot chronology,” in that a lot of significant literature was written and published during these years. (The period is bookended by the deaths of two of the greatest British critics: Samuel Johnson, the pre-eminent editor of Shakespeare and the creator of the first comprehensive English dictionary, the forerunner of the Oxford English Dictionary; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the first true literary theorist in the English tradition, famous for his lectures on Shakespeare, renowned for his dazzling conversation and supernatural poetry.) These years also witnessed significant political and cultural upheaval in Britain, including the agitated response to the French Revolution, the wars with Napoleonic France, improvements in the education of women, the abolition of the slave trade, and significant reforms to parliamentary representation. Readings will be selected from a wide range of British writers across a variety of genres (poetry, novels, drama, essays, notebooks, political pamphlets, and more): Jane Austen, Joanna Baillie, Anna Barbauld, William Blake, Edmund Burke, Lord Byron, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Felicia Hemans, John Keats, Mary Robinson, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth.

As Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote of his contemporaries in 1821, “The literature of England … has arisen as it were from a new birth”—not least (he claimed) because “the most unfailing herald … of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is Poetry.” British Romantic literature was and remains revolutionary.

Likely requirements include consistent attendance and participation, two 5-7 page essays, and one 10-12 page research paper.

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

3122-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Burke, Mary

This course introduces a broad range of Irish literature in English (and, to a lesser extent, in translation from the Irish) since 1939. Students will explore themes and subjects such as post-colonialism and social change, examining particularly how authors in the post-independence (post-1922) Irish state and in Northern Ireland contended with inherited traditions. Readings will be situated in the context of Irish history, politics, linguistic traditions, and culture. Fiction, drama, and poetry by writers such as Bowen, O'Brien, Heaney, Ní Dhomhnaill, Tóibín, McDonagh, and Rooney are included.

Also offered as AAAS 3212

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

3212-01 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 | Kim, Na-Rae

Also offered as: AFRA 3215

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

3215-01 | Th 12:30-1:45 | HB | Williams, Erika

A sampling—of 20^th- and 21^st- century African American literature, this course presents some of the key writers of African American literature and Africana discourse from the era of the “New Negro” OR Harlem Renaissance to the high modernist, postmodernist, and Afro-Diasporic landscapes of today. Topics to be addressed include the mythology and politics of the Harlem Renaissance; the phenomenon of racial and gendered passing; the poetics of modernism and naturalism, the Black Power- and Black Arts movements; and the history of intersectional connections among race, gender, sexuality, and class. Authors to be studied include Charles Chesnutt, Nella Larsen, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

Also offered as: AMST 3267W

3267W-01 | Th 11:00-12:15| HB | Duane, Anne Mae

This course provides students with opportunities to observe and critique how scientific and cultural narratives have reinforced one another in ways that can embed racial biases in medical, scientific, and technological discourses. By reading both popular scientific and fictional texts, we will engage in a critical exploration of the ongoing dialogue between the fictional and the scientific. This course will foreground student writing and research, inviting students to offer their own approaches to disconnecting the entangled legacies of scientific racism.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011 or 3800; open to sophomores or higher.

3301-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Biggs, Frederick

Who wouldn’t want to know more about the earliest stories of gods and heroes still depicted all around us? But here are two more reasons. The works themselves are fascinating, ranging for example from the over-the-top exploits of CuChulainn (Tain Bo Cuailnge), through the terse wisdom of Odin (Havamal in the Poetic Edda), to the pointed commentary of Marie de France (Lanval). Moreover, their historical, geographical, and cultural contexts add significantly to our understanding of them. A midterm and a final will assess your basic knowledge of the material, but you’ll also develop your own interests in short papers and presentations, the last of which may be a creative work. Open to all. My preferred form of teaching is lively discussion.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3420-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Capshaw, Katharine

This course examines the features of the modern canon of children’s literature, analyzing children’s books both as works of art and as powerful cultural influences. The class begins by studying landmark fairy tales like Cinderella, Puss-in-Boots, and Sleeping Beauty, noting their roots in oral culture as well as their significance to contemporary child readers, and then turns to the “golden age” of children’s literature by examining Alice in Wonderland. We will explore the Harlem Renaissance by focusing on Langston Hughes's work for children and then shift into contemporary texts. The majority of the course analyzes the work of Black writers and writers of color. Please note that this course does not focus on pedagogy.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011 or 3800; open to juniors or higher.

3422-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00| OS | Cormier, Emily

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. May not be taken out of sequence after passing ENGL 3505.

3503-01 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 | Marsden, Jean

Shakespeare is the most recognizable figure in of all English literature. His plays, even the most obscure ones, are performed around the world, and his works and image appear on the stage, in books, in movies, and even in advertisements (Juliet using a cell phone, Bottom and Titania wearing Levis, Shakespeare drinking Red Bull).  Remarkably, his plays have survived more than four hundred years and still remain exciting, moving, funny, and relevant.  The course will focus on six of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, three comedies (Much Ado about Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure) and three tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear), studying language, major themes and tensions, characterization, stagecraft, and history.  As Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed before an audience, the course will focus in particular on how these plays were – or could be – staged, exploring clues within the plays themselves, watching scenes from more recent performances, reading scenes aloud, and creating our own stagings. 

By the end of the semester, students should have a clear understanding of the six plays read and be able to explicate specific passages, identify the overarching issues in each play, and discuss potential stagings. Assignments will include two papers, short, ungraded response papers and passage annotations, a group presentation and a final exam.

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

3601-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Biggs, Frederick

ENGL 3601 will improve your writing and your ability to improve that of others by explaining some key elements of the grammatical structure of English. It is therefore designed for English majors and minors, future teachers, and all who will need to write well as part of their jobs. The textbook (A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar), which provides a detailed, descriptive account of the many rules which control the language, is an essential starting-point for linguists. Our focus, however, is on those which allow authors to revise their work.

Course materials include the textbook, recorded lectures, and materials available on the internet. The assignments will be self-check exercises (ungraded), tests, a midterm, a final, and discussion board posts. You may earn extra credit with a final presentation.

Also offered as: WGSS 3613

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3613-01 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 | Breen, Margaret

In this course we will read six lesbian, gay, and transgender novels, one short story, and one short story collection.  I have divided the course into three sections. In the first, we will engage one short story and two early novels, written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when sexuality and sexual identities were being theorized; queer sexual acts and identifications pathologized; and same-sex activity criminalized under new, rigorous laws that facilitated prosecution and conviction:  Oscar Wilde’s moving queer-coded story “The Happy Prince,” Alan Dale’s sensationalist novel regarding the horrors of gayness, and Aimée Duc’s groundbreaking and celebratory German lesbian novel, Are They Women? Next, we will consider two mid-century novels: Clare Morgan’s [Patricia Highsmith’s] lesbian classic The Price of Salt (one of the few pre-Stonewall American texts to offer a happy ending); and James Baldwin’s heartbreaking Giovanni’s Room, narrated by a self-hating and homophobic protagonist. In the wake of strict censorship laws, both texts reflect Morgan’s and Baldwin’s ingenious use of narrative strategies that allowed them to have their writings published. In the final section of our course, we will examine three contemporary texts: Chinelo Okparanta’s award-winning lesbian novel set in Nigeria, Under the Udala Trees; Kristen Arnett’s surprising and edgy Mostly Dead Things; and Casey Plett’s transgender short story collection, A Dream of a Woman. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3621-01 | TuTh 2:00-3:15 | Winter, Sarah

Law and Literature

This course will introduce students to texts and methods in law and literary studies by reading novels, plays, satires, and law reports featuring topics including: criminal intent, detection, and the penal system; trials and the legal profession; slavery and servitude; incarceration and racial discrimination; marriage and divorce; wills and the disposition of property; colonization and imperial legal systems; political crimes; sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination; and libel and censorship. A key area of study will be how literature portrays and interrogates the complex concept of legal personhood—how an individual, social group, or a legal entity such as a corporation may gain access to or be excluded from the legal process. We will be particularly interested in the historical deprivations of legal personhood and rights imposed on married women, children, enslaved people, and Indigenous peoples, as well as the overweening legal personality of the corporation. We will study a selection of literary works by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Robert Wedderburn, Charles Dickens, Ann Brontë, Herman Melville, Austin Reed, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Frank Norris, E. M. Forster, Franz Kafka, Toni Morrison, and Leslie Marmon Silko. No prior knowledge of law is required. Assignments will include: three 4-5 page papers; a presentation to lead class discussion; a midterm; and a final exam.  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3623-01 | Tu 3:30-6:30 | Sibelman, Grae

The Holocaust in Print, Theater and Film 

How do you represent the unimaginable? As daunting of a task as this is, the Holocaust is one of the most dramatized and written about events in history for the amount of time since its passing. 

In this course, we will be examining how authors and directors have attempted to represent the Holocaust. We will discuss what tools were used including choices made in written structure, visual imagery, and the use of language. We will also discuss the systemization of the Holocaust and explore the societal repercussions. 

As well as examining both dramatic works and films that depict the Holocaust, we will read first-hand accounts and watch documentaries to broaden our knowledge of the Holocaust so that we can better reflect upon the statements being made in the representations. 

We will also be reading a large body of criticism relating to both the dramatization of the Holocaust and the Holocaust itself. Some of the works being studied in the class include Akropolis by Jerzy Grotowski, Endgame by Samuel Beckett, The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth, Who Will Carry the Word by Charlotte Delbo and Ghetto by Joshua Sobel as well as many others. We will also be examining films including Ida directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, The Pianist directed by Roman Polansky, and Amen directed by Costa-Gavras. 

The coursework will include keeping up with weekly readings as well as discussing them in class. There will also be quizzes, a take home essay style mid-term, a final presentation, and an essay style take home final exam. 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3640-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Semenza, Gregory

This class counts toward the UConn Film Minor requirements (for National Cinema). No prior experience of film studies is necessary.

We will trace the long and colorful history of British film since the invention of the cinema around 1895 until the present day. One of the original powers of the global film industry—along with the US, Germany, France, and Italy—the British cinema has been at the forefront of numerous historical innovations and developments, serving important roles in the rise of documentary film, wartime propaganda film, cinematic realism, and the evolution of the horror film, heritage film, franchise film, and especially film adaptations of literature—to mention only a few key examples. Through all these changes—and for better and worse--the British film industry has always been linked closely to Hollywood, serving not only a training ground for directorial and acting talent (from Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock to Ridley Scott and Florence Pugh), but also as an important site and collaborator in an increasingly multinational film industry (from Lawrence of Arabia to the James Bond and Harry Potter franchises). The course will consider all of these contributions within the context of questions about Britishness itself. The politics of devolution are at this moment putting “English” identity under extreme pressure—as are changes ushered in by the ongoing reconfiguration of traditional geographical, racial, ethnic, class, and sexual hierarchies. In this course, we will need to think, therefore, about ever-changing definitions of what constitutes “British” in order to truly understand the history and culture of British film.

Some of the 15-20 films we’ll be studying: David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945); Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948); Carol Reed’s The Third Man
(1949); Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey (1961); Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973); Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette (1985); Danny Boyle’s
Trainspotting (1996); Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004); Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009); Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock (from Small Axe; 2020).

Assignments include class participation, creation of a short group film, a listicle assignment, and a final examination.

Prerequisites: ENGL 2701; instructor consent required. May be repeated once for credit.

3701-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Forbes, Sean

Narrative Poetry & Fiction

This class is an intensive seminar/workshop/tutorial in writing narrative poems and fiction. Our work will focus on questions of voice. What do we mean when we say a poet has a distinctive voice? How does voice relate to the form, subject matter or characters of a story? What can we as writers do to find and develop our own distinctive voices? We’ll read and discuss poems and fiction pieces that use voice in striking ways. A few authors we will read are Alexander Chee, Justin Torres, Anne Carson, and Allison Joseph. You’ll write regularly, producing new poems and works of nonfiction of your own, which we’ll we critique. Be prepared to write and read daily, to offer your work for frequent feedback, and to give your full energy and attention to your peers during the critique process. Graded requirements for the class will include weekly readings and writings, written feedback for your peers, reviews of on-campus author events, and a substantially revised final portfolio of your work. 

Email sean.forbes@uconn.edu for a permission number

Prerequisites: ENGL 2701; instructor consent required. May be repeated once for credit.

3703-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Cohen, Bruce

The class will be a poetry and prose-poetry writing workshop. It is designed for students who have a serious and committed interest in writing and discussing poetry and have taken 3701. We will be reading and analyzing five books of poems and will be unraveling the craft and esthetic design of the various poets. We will also dissect the differences between poetry & prose poetry. Naturally, students will be required to produce original work and actively participate in the writing workshop. Students will be asked to research outside writers and share work with the class. It is assumed that all students have an active vocabulary and understanding of poetry. The class is by permission only and students will be asked to submit poems for consideration for entrance into the class.

This course meets with DRAM 3145 & DMD 3830

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher, others with instructor consent

3707-01 | MW 9:05 - 11:35 | Ozdemir, Tanju

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher; instructor consent required. Recommended preparation: ENGL 2701.

3711-01 | MW 12:20-1:10 | HB | Dennigan, Darcie

According to the great and weird Margaret Wise Brown, the world of children's literature is "one of the purest and freest fields for experimental writing today." A prerequisite for this class is taking that statement to heart. We'll start and end as far away as possible from what we already know. Instead, you're
invited to invent words and worlds, and to write abundantly, even excessively, in class and out of class. The second prerequisite for this course is your commitment to be there, in class, every week-- to create a community of writers you can trust and be challenged by. To the extent possible, you will also test out at least one draft of each project with corresponding preschool or high school readers. Writers we'll use as lodestars: Margaret Wise Brown, Ruth Krauss & Maurice Sendak (we'll study their process at the Dodd), as well as the work of two contemporary YA novelists--TBD! At the end of the semester, you will have
drafts of 3 works for children and a substantial draft of a YA or MG novel.

Instructor permission required. Email a writing sample to darcie.dennigan@uconn.edu.

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.

4203W-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Cutter, Martha

Race, Gender, and Cultural Constructions of the Body, Healing, and Medicine in Literature and Film 

This class will be a seminar on literature and medicine, with a special focus on race and gender, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought renewed attention to health disparities. Although there will be some older texts dealing with medicine and literature, the focus will be contemporary readings and films having to do with medical humanities and health. We will seek to understand how race and gender have impacted the medical treatment and perception of bodies, as well as the ways in which individuals have asserted control over healing and their bodies in the face of medical disciplining of them. Alternative (Indigenous, native, or folk) modes of healing will be considered as aspects of this field of study.  

 List of Fiction (most of these but not all) 

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories (1892-1915) (excerpts) 

Hemingway, Ernest. “Indian Camp” and “Soldiers Home” (1925) 

Morrison, Toni. Home (2002) 

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go (2005) 

Kalanithi, Paul. When Breath Becomes Air (2016) 

Ward, Jesmyn, Men We Reaped (2013) 

Czerwiec, MK. Taking Turns (graphic novel) (2017) 

Maples, Kwoya Fagin. Mend (2018) 

Ruffin, Maurice Carlos. We Cast a Shadow (2019) 

Boyer, Anne. The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care (2019) 

Greenidge, Kaitlyn. Libertie. (2021) 

DeForest, Anna. History of a Present Illness. 

Orange, Tommy. There There (2018) 

Tentative List of Films 

Red Corn, Priscilla. Medicine Woman (film). (2016). 

https://www.amazon.com/Medicine-Woman-Joy-Harjo/dp/B0721YX4BY 

Rotberg, Dana. White Lies.  (film) (2016). 

https://www.amazon.com/White-Lies-Whirimako-Black/dp/B07C1D7LXN 

Jordan Peele, Get Out (film) (2017) 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.34ad9d89-2a6b-11a1-c5c3-27569d5ee969?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb 

Excerpts from Secondary Scholarship including: 

Foucault, Michel, Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (1973) 

Washington, Harriet A., Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (2006) 

Charon, Rita, Narrative Medicine (2006) 

Owens, Deirdre Cooper,  Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (2017) 

Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation (2022) 

Requirements: Frequent Husky CT “mini-papers” (1-2 pages), an oral presentation, and a final seminar paper (8-10 pages) that can grow out of the Husky CT postings or be on a new topic.  Please note: This is a student-learning centered class, so effective engagement in class discussion is a mandatory part of this course. 

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.

4302W-01 | TuTh 2:00-3:15 | Burke, Mary

Race, Class, and the Irish in American literature

The popular belief that Irish America is Catholic and urban was cemented by the influx of Famine immigrants after 1845, but by 1790, half of the 400,000 US residents who were commonly labelled “Irish” were Presbyterians of Scottish descent from the northern province of Ulster. We will consider the work of Steinbeck and James in terms of this Scots-Irish ancestry and also consider better-recognized depictions of Irish America by writers such as Fitzgerald, O’Neill, and Betty Smith. We will depart from simply auditing stereotypes to discuss how these “Irishnesses” evolved into both the antithesis and the very definition of “American,” attending to the role that race, class, and religion played in such depictions, asking also how an African-American of Irish heritage such as best-selling author Frank Yerby explodes the conjoining of Irishness and whiteness in recent decades. We will also consider the surprisingly common narrative of the “failed return” to Ireland (The Quiet Man; Mary Lavin’s “Tom”) and close with depictions of the postwar and contemporary Irish in America as privileged cosmopolites by contemporary writers Claire Kilroy and Colm Tóibín, asking how the latter aligns with what one cultural theorist calls the 1990s rise of Irishness as “white ethnicity of choice” in the American identity marketplace. Course grades will be based on class participation, research assignments, and presentation to peers, and will culminate in a c. 15-20-page revised research paper.