1616W | MW 1:25-2:40 | Falco, Daniela

The UConn undergraduate catalogue lists ENGL 1616W as a course that “includes important works from the major genres and historical periods since Beowulf”; that is exactly what we will be doing in this course: we will read notable British and American works of literature, while we will also get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with three literary genres: poetry, drama, and fiction (both short stories and novels).

The poems we will read come from hundreds of years of poetry, with authors such as William Shakespeare, George Herbert, John Donne, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot—to name a few. 

We will read two plays: Hamlet by William Shakespeare and A Raisin in the Sun by American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and two novels, 1984 by George Orwell, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Short stories written by (among others) Kate Chopin, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, John Updike, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway will complete our reading list.

Although the course is listed as Lecture, lecturing will not be the main mode of instruction in this course; rather, the course will unfold as a seminar to which students are invited and expected to come prepared as active participants in their own learning process—having done their reading thoroughly, and being ready to get involved dynamically in class discussions and activities.

Course requirements: ENGL 1616W has its specific writing requirement, established by GEOC: minimum 15 pages / 4,500 words of revised, polished writing; in this course three 5-6 page papers, one per genre, will fulfill this requirement. In addition, class participation, reading responses, reading quizzes, and a final exam will be computed into the final grade.

2635E | MW 1:25 - 2:40 | Islam, Najnin

4101W| M 11:15 - 12:30 hybrid, online synchronous | Carillo, Ellen 

This capstone course for English majors focuses on one of the most famous and influential female and modernist writers, Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s major contributions to literary modernism and beyond include her novels, diaries, essays, talks, and reviews. We will read Woolf’s writing in order to better understand its ideological underpinnings, as well as the thematic and aesthetic characteristics that mark her works. Woolf’s writing will also give us insight into literary modernism’s historical and cultural contexts. Beyond Woolf’s own writing, we will discuss critical commentary on Woolf’s novels and read two contemporary novels, Assembly and The Hours, to see how more recent authors have (re)interpreted her writing.  

 In order to meet the “W” requirement of the course, significant time will be devoted to writing instruction. The major assignment of the course will be a research-driven essay, which will be preceded by a research proposal and an annotated bibliography.