Fall 2024 Course Descriptions: Avery Point Campus

Fall 2024

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

2201W. American Literature to 1880

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201/W AMERICAN LITERATURE TO 1880 

  • General Education Requirement: 
    • Content Area One (Arts & Humanities - Literature)
    • The W version of this course satisfies a Writing Competency requirement
  • English Major Requirements:
    • 2021-2023 Plans: Core Category: Early Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic History or one of Four Additional Courses
      • Meets one requirement for the Literary Histories and Legacies Track
  • Meets the American Literature requirement for the English Minor (catalog years 2020 and older)
  • Meets one of NEAG’s Secondary Education American Literature Requirements for IB/M and TCPCG
2201W |TuTh 2:00 - 3:15 | Bercaw Edwards, Mary K

ENGL 2201W: American Literature to 1880 looks at American literature as a form of storytelling. We investigate early pieces composed long before the United States became a nation up through the postbellum period. Genres include journals, short stories, narratives, and novels. Mary Rowlandson, Lewis & Clark, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederik Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain are among the authors we will discuss. The material will be organized chronologically. Written papers and in-class writing will allow students to think critically about the literature they have read. Class time will consist of student-driven discussion. The class is both a CA1-B: Literature gen ed and a W course and is open to anyone.

 

2407. The Short Story

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
  • General Education Requirement:
    • Content Area One (Arts & Humanities - Literature)
  • English Major Requirements:
    • 2021-2023 Plans: One of Four Additional Courses
      • Meets the Literary Genres or Methods requirement for the Creative Writing Track
      • Meets the Cultural, Genre, and Media Studies requirement for the English Teaching Track
  • Meets one of NEAG’s Secondary Education Genre Courses requirements for IB/M and TCPCG
2407 | MW 3:35 - 4:50| Rogers, Lynne

The Short Story, Eng 2407, will introduce students to the short story as a literary genre.   Students will be reading stories from the 19th to the 21st Century.  Stories will be grouped according to thematic ideas and techniques.  We will be reading selected stories from the modern canon as well as contemporary global stories to give students a sense of literary trends around the world. Students will also be reading some commentaries on the short story to help develop their analytical skills and to help formulate ideas for their essays.  Students will write five 2 ½- 3 page essays for the class with the last one due during final exam period.  We will brainstorm for ideas and topics for the essays during class time.  Students should expect to read 3 to 5 stories a week depending on length.

 

2600. Introduction to Literary Studies

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

This course is required of all English majors and should be taken within a semester of declaring the major or at its next offering. This course is offered at all campuses, but only once a year at each Regional campus. 

2600 | TuTh 11:00 - 12:15 | Bedore, Pam 

Are you an English major or minor? Interested in exploring English a little bit more?

Introduction to Literary Studies is a required course for English majors, but it provides a good foundation for anyone who thinks that literature—fiction, poetry, film, etc.—has an impact on how we think about and see the world. The big questions here are: What does literature do? What are the different approaches to analyzing literary texts? What are the insights gained—individually and culturally—through literary study?

There will be quite a lot of reading (it’s an English course!) across genres:

  • Sara Upstone’s Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction (theory)
  • Octavia Butler’s Kindred (novel)
  • Temi Oh’s Do You Dream of Terra-Two? (novel)
  • William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (play)
  • Gil Junger’s Ten Things I Hate About You (film)
  • Dover’s Great Short Stories by American Women (short stories)
  • Dover’s 100 Best-Loved Poems (poetry)

Assignments will include: reading quizzes, response papers, presentations, short papers, and a final exam.

Any questions? Please reach out to pam.bedore@uconn.edu.

3000-Level Courses

3319. Topics in Postcolonial Studies

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher
  • General Education Requirement:
    • Content Area Four (Diversity & Multiculturalism - International) 
  • English Major Requirements:
    • 2021-2023 Plans: Core Category: Antiracism, Globality, and Embodiment (Group 1) or one of Four Additional Courses
      • Meets one requirement for the Literature, Antiracism, and Social Justice Track
  • Meets NEAG’s Secondary Education International Literature Requirement for IB/M and TCPCG
3319 | MW 1:25 - 2:40  | Rogers, Lynne

Currently the world faces the largest global refugee crisis in history and it continues to grow every day.  This class will look at the literary response and witness to the crisis from the Palestinian exodus in 1948 to the current crisis in Arab world, Southeast Asia, and Africa.  The readings will include fiction by the refugees themselves who chose fiction to tell their truth as well as literary journalism and films to give the students a visual context.  Students will be introduced to the political crisis that leads to the decision to leave one’s homeland, the physical perils and bureaucratic obstacles of departure, life in the camps and finally the difficulties and rewards of life in the diaspora.  Students will also be exposed to the complexities surrounding the criteria for adopting “refugee status.”   Students will examine the ethics and literary stylistic response to the refugee crisis and question the effectiveness and worthiness of this response.  Hopefully students will leave the class with a heightened understanding of today’s refugee crisis as well as a deeper appreciation of current literary efforts as an aesthetic and moral response to this global crisis.

Students will write four short 4 page papers using a secondary source with the last paper counting for final exam. Students will brainstorm for papers in class.