Fall 2025
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.
1000-Level Course
1503: Introduction to Shakespeare
1503 | TuTh 12:30 - 1:45 | Kneidel, Greg
We will read and discuss a handful of Shakespeare’s plays (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, and A Winter’s Tale), with a special focus on their reception and performance history. Grade components may include a reading journal and written performance reviews, as well as creative components, such as designing a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in our Hartford campus building
2000-Level Courses
2101: British Literature II
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2101| TuTh 9:30 - 10:45 | Shea, Tom
Romantics Through Contemporaries
First Year Through Seniors Welcome:
Email Thomas.Shea@uconn.edu for a permission number if needed
This survey of British Literature from 1800 through the Present, will take us on an extensive tour through the last 200+ years of Britain’s finest writing.
Readings will feature the Radically Unconventional, including
- Carmilla: The first female vampire novel (preceding even Dracula), fraught with lesbian overtones and sexual tensions.
- The Girl on the Train: Both the best-selling thriller and the artistically creative movie.
- In Bruges: Martin McDonagh’s shooting script preceding—and very different from—the screenplay of his award-winning movie.
We will also take full advantage of the Wadsworth Atheneum, exploring links between British Literature and the various artistic masterpieces one-half block away.
Course grades will be based on class participation--40% of your semester grade, occasional brief writings, a mid-term essay, and a medium-length final essay.
Usually, NO FINAL EXAM.
2201W: American Literature to 1880
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2201W| MWF 8:00 - 8:50 | Horn, Jacob
2408W: Modern Drama
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2408W| TuTh 12:30 - 1:45| Shea, Tom
First Year Through Seniors Welcome:
Email Thomas.Shea@uconn.edu for a permission number if needed
This course is to deigned to enhance our appreciation of Modern and Contemporary Drama ranging from early 20th century into the present 21st. We will be exploring some of the most provocative plays and movies (screenwriting), from both sides of the Atlantic. As a “W” course, English 2408W will also focus on building the essential Writing skills that will help you excel in your future career(s).
We will coordinate our readings with seeing a professional play in Hartford
We will also take full advantage of the Wadsworth Atheneum, exploring links between Modern Drama and the various artistic masterpieces one-half block away.
Course grades will be based on class participation--40% of your semester grade, occasional brief writings, a mid-term essay, and a medium-length final essay.
Usually, NO FINAL EXAM.
2635E: Literature and the Environment
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2635E | TuTh 9:30 - 10:45| Choffel, Julie
In this class we will explore the many ways that literature reflects and shapes our relationship to the environment: How do the concepts we encounter about our environment frame the human and the nonhuman, the natural and the unnatural, the living and the nonliving? How does our understanding of these shift our roles within these ecologies? We will learn from environmental texts in multiple genres literature and visual media. Class discussion and group activities will be essential to the course. Assignments will include reading notes, a nature journal, short response papers, and a final project with options for working in genres that most appeal to each student.
2640: Studies in Film
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2640 | MWF 10:10 - 11:00 | Campbell, Scott
2701: Creative Writing I
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. May not be taken out of sequence after passing ENGL 3701, 3703, or 3713
2701 | TuTh 12:30 - 1:45 | Choffel, Julie
This course provides an introduction to the writer’s workshop in poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. We will approach creative writing as an experimental process that thrives in the shared perspectives of both author and reader. In this class you will be required to read and write daily through new styles and forms; to take unexpected turns and risks in your own writing, to take it apart and reconstruct through creative revision, and above all, to contribute to conversations about the results. We will talk and write about what we read and what we write and what happens next. Immersed in this practice, you will create your own works of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, and revise your strongest works for a final portfolio. Everyone will also participate in a collaborative performance of poetry and music on the Hartford campus. Additional class requirements include keeping a writer’s journal, completing writing assignments and workshop feedback on time, and participating in every class.
3000-Level Courses
3212: Asian American Literature
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. May not be taken out of sequence after passing ENGL 3701, 3703, or 3713
3212 | TuTh 3:30 - 4:45 | Staff
3635: Law and Literature
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011
3635 | TuTh 2:00 - 3:15 | Kneidel, Greg
A survey of texts and critical approaches that link imaginative literature to law and legal culture. We will split the course between classic law and lit texts and films (Shakespeare, Conrad, Kushner), and texts and films specifically tailored to Connecticut’s role in US legal history (esp. the Amistad/slavery, Griswold/reproductive rights, and Kelo/property rights and eminent domain). Grade components may include a reading journal, in-class writing, as well as short critical essays.