Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1101W-01 | MWF 1:25 - 2:15 | Biggs, Frederick

1101W-02 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Winter, Sarah 

This course introduces students to ancient Greek and Roman mythology and foundational literary genres arising in antiquity, including epic, tragedy, comedy, and lyric poetry. Greek and Roman authors whose works will be read in translation include: Homer, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Ovid. The second part of the course will focus on the equally influential genre of romance. We will read medieval courtly romances by Marie de France, the Arthurian tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and conclude the semester with Dante’s medieval epic, The Inferno, which tells the story of the poet’s descent into hell. Through multiple opportunities to receive feedback from the instructor and their peers, students will revise and improve their written work by focusing on analytical and conceptual precision of language and effective organization of key claims in their argument. Students will also gain greater proficiency in interpreting the complex and ambiguous meanings of mythic and narrative forms, genres, character types, and figurative language in literary texts, while uncovering changes in recurring themes and ideas across cultural and political history. Course requirements include: two 4–5-page papers and two revised papers of 7-8 pages; completing all reading assignments; class discussion participation; a group presentation; a writing workshop including peer-review; and a final exam.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1103W-01 | MWF 11:15 - 12:05 | 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.  We will examine how Renaissance and early modern Europeans conceptualized “civilization,” “primitivism,” and “wilderness.”  From witches who threatened an orderly Christian world to savages and cannibals who menaced society, Europeans and their descendants were fascinated by ideas of the uncivilized other.  At the same time, were enticed by the natural riches of lands beyond their borders.

Authors and works will likely include Shakespeare, The Tempest, Thomas Middleton, The Witch, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Aphra Behn, Ooronoko, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (selections), Voltaire, Candide, Diderot, Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony, J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarian, and Derek Walcott, Omeros (excerpts), in addition to documents relating to French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonization.

Assignments:  3 papers (6-7 pages), with revisions and a final exam.

1103W-02 | TUTH 12:30 - 1:45 | Tonry, Kathleen 

Also offered as: AMST 1201, HIST 1503

Prerequisites: None.

1201-01 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Anson, April 

A multi-disciplinary inquiry into the diversity of American societies and cultures. We will focus on the myths and realities of what and who are considered American. We will read foundational and contemporary research as well as discuss fiction, film, poetry, and other forms of artistic representation. Students will write weekly responses, two short research assignments, a midterm, and a final exam. Course time will be used for short lectures, class discussion, group work, and individual presentations. This course is open to anyone. There are no recommended prerequisites.

Prerequisites: Recommended preparation: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1401-01 | TU 5:00 - 7:30 | Barreca, Gina 

This course, designed for serious readers of fiction and for students eager to improve their skills in critical writing, will focus on horror as a genre of literature. We will read and discuss, in detail, works by W.W. Jacobs, Edith Wharton, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, Helen Oyeyemi, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, and others.

Attendance is required and no electronic devices are permitted in the classroom. We’ll discuss how words on a page can make the flesh creep on your arm, and how plots are resurrected, brought out of the past to live again, and what happens when they do. We’ll exchange ideas about whether evil exists in places, persons, things, or in thought—or all on its own. We’ll, as Margaret Atwood would put it, “negotiate with dead” and learn where certain kinds of stories emerge and why they refuse to leave us.

Frequent in-class writings, take-home midterm, in-class final, and it’s worth it.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1601W-01 | MWF 2:30 - 3:20 | Phillips, Jerry  

“The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry,” so wrote two sociologists in 1944. Today, the filtering and shaping power of the culture industry, in determining the character of the world, is even more pronounced and effective. The culture industry has colonized society by leave of the media, and, more particularly, social media. It increasingly makes less sense to contrast “reality” with “virtual reality,” as so much lived experience is now determined by our relationship with one sort of screen or another—a computer, a cell phone or a television, for example. In other words, reality has taken on many of the dimensions of virtual reality. It follows that our sense of selfhood must undergo change as the culture industry swallows the world. For what is the self but our learned capacity for experience? It is not uncommon today to see infants playing with video games. A child might hardly know how to talk, but her brain is already captive to the neural patterns of the game. If the culture industry succeeds in making “cyborgs” of all of us, what will be the effect on our sense of the human? In this course, we will address how literary and cultural works explore the reach of the culture industry, particularly regarding race and gender and general questions of identity.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2013W-01 | TUTH 9:30 - 10:45 | Fisher, Howard 

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 | MWF 11:15-12:05 | Biggs, Frederick

2100-02 | MWF 12:20 - 1:10 | Cordon, Joanne  

Love and War

This semester we are going to look at British literature from the medieval era through the eighteenth century using the seeming opposites of Love and War: “Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other” (Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote).

Readings are in the Broadview Anthology of British Literature, concise Volume A, 4th edition. Texts include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Much Ado About Nothing, The Country Wife, The Rape of the Lock and The School for Scandal. Course requirements: Class participation, one essay, midterm and final exam, attendance at the Connecticut Repertory Theater performance of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2101-01 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Burke, Mary

In this survey course, we will explore British literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day across genres, authors, movements, styles, and themes. We will read canonical texts to ask how they explored the social, cultural, and political issues of their times but also trace a tradition of marginalized voices emanating from the United Kingdom’s geographical and ideological peripheries. Our readings will emphasize how such works successively reinforced and challenged mainstream British identity and values. Intended to provide preparation for more advanced courses in British literature, ENGL2101 is strongly recommended for English majors. Requirements: engaged class participation, one short draft essay, one long paper, and one class presentation.

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 annotations, discussion questions, participation, periodic quizzes, and final essay.

2201-02 | TUTH 12:30-1:45 | Franklin, Wayne 

This course is an introduction to Colonial North American/U.S. Literature written prior to 1880. We will survey a rich variety of forms, with special attention to cross-cultural issues, environmental engagement, and the relation of everyday life to the emergence of literary works expressive of American life. Students will write two papers (5 to 6 pages) and take a midterm and a final exam.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201W-01 | MW 12:20 - 1:10 | Hybrid | Dolan Gierer, Emily

This course will explore the development of American literature from the earliest Native American creation accounts to the social reform work of late-nineteenth-century writers. Using a combination of lecture, class discussion, and group work, we will examine issues of class, race, gender, and religion to better understand the factors that make American literature uniquely “American.” By reading a variety of primary and secondary texts, we will examine how the interactions between different people groups have shaped American history, American identity, and American literature. Assignments include daily reading quizzes, weekly journals, and three papers, which we will write in drafts and spend time in class revising.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2203-01 | TUTH| Sanchez, Lisa 

Also offered as: AFRA 2214

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2214-01| TUTH 11:00- 12:15 | Salvant, Shawn 

This discussion-based course provides a selected 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 will be highly selective, often featuring representative texts and authors from each major period.  Students will learn about the literary development of African American literature and the historical and political forces shaping this development.  Primary texts will be supplemented by scholarly secondary readings and current articles.  Lectures are minimal; class discussion will be our main method.  Final grade based on quizzes, assignments, participation, and final essay.

Also offered as: AFRA 2214W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2214-01| MW 10:10 - 11:00 |Hybrid | Cutter, Martha

This course will be an investigation of African American literature written from 1845-2020. We will consider the genre of the slave narrative, early novels and fiction by African American writers, poetry and fiction written during the Harlem Renaissance, and contemporary works by authors such as Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Britt Bennett. We will conclude the class with an examination of Ava DuVernay’s film 13^th.

Readings will likely include Frederick Douglass, Narrative of Life of Frederick Douglass; short stories by Charles Chesnutt, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston; essays by James Baldwin; Nella Larsen’s Passing; Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, Britt Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, and poetry by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others.

Requirements will include: several short papers, which will be revised; a final project; Husky CT postings; a short presentation; and class participation. This class will be centered on discussion of texts by students, and as such it necessitates that students participate on a regular basis. Students from all majors are welcome. Please note that this is a hybrid class that meets in person on Mondays and Wednesdays only, but a substantial amount of work is due on Friday-Sunday. This work may include uploading a student presentation; HuskyCT postings; online groupwork; watching a video lecture by your professor and responding to it on Discussion Board; or other homework.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2274W-01 | TUTH 3:30 - 4:45 | Duane, Anna Mae

Also offered as: AMST 2276

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2276-01 | TUTH 11:00 - 12:15 | Knapp, Kathy

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2276W-01 | TUTH 5:00 - 6:15 | 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 11:00 - 12:15 | Coundouriotis, Eleni

Anglophone literatures are English language works from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. This semester we will focus on contemporary fiction that engages with issues of decolonization, globalization, migration, and gender. We will read about new ways of writing history through fiction and the pressure to document the real. All our texts are narratives (most of them novels). In particular, we will focus on the role of character development in fiction and the ways in which writers create story arcs based on carefully delineated characters to comment on contemporary situations and the context they arise from. Assignments include a writing portofolio of six 2 to 3-page reflections, a midterm, and a final.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2401-01 | TUTH 3:30 - 4:45 | 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.

2401-02 | MW 4:40 -5:55 | Daly, Jerome

This course will offer a survey of poetry in English across traditions, mainly over the past one-hundred years. 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 response papers. In addition, there is a creative writing component to help you gain a better understanding and appreciation of poetry.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2401W-01 | Online Asynchronous | Daly, Jerome 

This course will offer a survey of poetry in English across traditions, mainly over the past one-hundred years. 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, drafting and peer review, and analysis and research papers.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2405-01 | TUTH 2:00-3:15 | Marsden, Jean

This course emphasizes the role of drama as theater – works written to be performed –  what Robert D. Hume describes as “producible interpretation.” In contrast to other forms of literature, drama was created as words to be heard and actions to be seen, three-dimensional and experienced in real time. Thus, will read drama with an eye to its performance. We will discuss plays as texts and explore how they were originally staged as well as to consider the possibilities for staging them today. Class assignments such as staging scenes from specific plays will help build toward that goal, and our HuskyCT site includes numerous films and filmed productions that demonstrate some of the possibilities for presenting modern dramas and recreating dramas from the past. After beginning with an exploration of two iconic classical Greek dramas, the class will progress in roughly chronological order, considering evolutions of genre and experimentations with form. The last half of the course will be dedicated to twentieth-century drama, beginning with John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea (1904), a work from the Irish Renaissance, and ending with Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1991), a play born out of the AIDS crisis. Assignments include: two papers, final exam, group scene staging, and several short writing assignments.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2407-01 | W 5:00 - 7:30| Moores, Don 

The short narrative has a long, rich history, extending all the way back into prehistory in the preliterate, oral tradition. The form finds expression throughout many cultures in the legends, fables, and myths of old. We also see short narratives in numerous sacred texts from the globe's many historical religions. The genre as we know it today, however, emerged in America in the nineteenth century. In this course we will explore such a modern version of the form, reading and analyzing a selection of stories (mostly in English with a few in translation) from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our primary goal will be to engage in a type of close reading that negotiates between affirming the text’s aesthetic properties, that is, its beauty and excellence, while also observing, not without some suspicion, the ideological and psychological implications it suggests. In other words, we will read short stories affirmatively for their artistic complexities, while noting suspiciously some of the objectionable psychological and ideological ideas in which they might be complicit. Through lively discussions and student presentations, we will explore the contextual background of each writer we will read because no author writes in a cultural vacuum. In short writing and longer papers, we will attend to the formal subtleties of the short narrative, exploring the structures, indeterminacies, ironies, characterizations, themes, and symbols that mark the form. Above all, we will seek to answer the question of what, if anything, the short story can teach us about being human beings.

2407-02 | TUTH 12:30 - 1:45 | Sanchez, Lisa

2407-03 | TUTH 3:30 - 4:45 | Grossman, Leigh 

The years from the 1930s through the 1970s were sort of a golden age for commercial short story writers. With a wide range of popular magazines and less competition from television, long-form novels, and the nonexistent internet (though more from movies), you could make a living as a commercial short story writer, and many did. Much of that writing was done, not in glossy literary magazines, but in popular genre magazines ranging from “pulps” to rack-sized digest magazines.

This class will look at some of the best short story writing in genre magazines from the 1930s to today, with a focus on the relationship between the writer and the audience, and the technical side of short story writing. We’ll look less at larger themes than on specific writing techniques and the ways stories achieve particular literary effects, evoke particular emotional responses, and solve particular narrative problems. Each class we will look at one or two stories in context, focusing on what the writer intended to achieve with the story and how they would be read by contemporary audiences.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2408W-01 | MWF 10:10 - 11:00 | Cordon, Joanne

Antagonism & Innovation

This course follows the development of drama from Ibsen to the present, which may sound dull, but the hallmark of modern drama is innovative antagonism, whether because of its daring subject matter, avant-garde forms, or challenging theatrical techniques. Or, as Oscar Wilde puts it in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “the books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” Plays may include Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea, Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Course requirements: Class participation, short writing assignments, three essays, a final portfolio.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2411W-01 | Online Asynchronous | Cormier, Emily

Popular Literature has always included books that attract a young audience; Young Adult books have often found a much wider audience than “young adults.” In this class we will focus on this segment of Popular Literature, concentrating our discussion on the convergence of ideas found in award-winning dystopian fiction, graphic novels, and traditional novels. By reading different sub-genres, we aim to see whether these divergent forms address similar anxieties about coming-of-age in America or if the form is more directly related to content. Each student will also create an individual guiding question that will lead them to examine one specific topic throughout all the texts we read. Students will formulate their guiding question in response to a scholarly article that proposes a relationship between dystopian literature and adolescence itself.  We start with a close look at two adolescent dystopian novels, a classic and a newer novel: The Giver and The Marrow Thieves.  In these novels our protagonists are trapped in worlds where they are constantly surveilled by forces that exert control, eliminate choice, and seem insurmountable. We continue with a word and image text, Fun Home, where we learn how to “read” images in as much detail as words. Finally, we read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, a novel in traditional form to complete our foray into this subset of Popular Literature.

The W component of this class will be dedicated to creating a 15-page, 4,500-word writing project, where students use their individualized guiding question as a way of writing about the texts in the class. This class emphasizes inquiry, close reading, creative thinking, and revision.

2411W-02 | Online Asynchronous | Cormier, Emily

See description for section 01

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2413-01 |TUTH 12:30 - 1:45 | Knapp, Kathy 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011 

2600-01 | TUTH 9:30 -10:45 | Smith, Victoria 

This course will introduce you to literary studies as a field and a practice. Broadly, our aims will be to think about what literary studies does, how it does it, and what it might do for you as a thinker, reader, and writer, at UConn and beyond. Some of the questions we will consider include:

• What approaches can we take to texts that help us understand them in complex ways?
• What are the affordances and limitations of those methodologies?
• How can we locate, understand, and join the conversations scholars in our field?
• What tools are available to stage arguments about texts that are persuasive, engaged, and meaningful?

While it’s impossible to survey the entirety of literary studies in one semester, you’ll have the opportunity to read about and practice a range of ways of thinking and writing important to literary studies, from close reading to archival research to analyses steeped in book history, queer and feminist theory, historicism, and postcolonial theory. Our work will be supported by a range of primary material — texts from the nineteenth century to the present, from fairy tales to poetry to novels—as well as literary criticism and theory. In addition to engaged and thoughtful class participation, students will engage in frequent, low-stakes writing assignments; a longer research project and the thinking, research, and drafting that entails; and reflective writing about the course and their own work.

2600-02 | TUTH 11:00 - 12:15| Codr, Ariana 

This course provides English majors (and prospective English majors) with the basic tools, concepts, terms, and methods needed for college-level literary study. These skills will not only help you to achieve success in upper-division literature courses, they will also enable you to get more from your reading—including more fun!

The primary text in the course will Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights.  A wild gothic cross between a romance novel and a revenge fantasy, Wuthering Heights shocked Victorian readers when it was first published. Since then, scholars, readers, and filmmakers have been fascinated by the novel’s insight into the psychology of trauma and abuse, its bizarre narrative structure, its portrayal of the nonhuman world, its obsession with death, its messy engagement with race, gender, and class, and much more! We’ll get into these conversations, sharpening our skills as literary critics, gaining comfort with scholarly sources, and testing out our own exciting arguments and readings.

Class time will be divided between vibrant discussions, group activities, and hands-on skill practice. We will also have a day devoted to careers with an English degree. Major assignments include a short close reading essay, a midterm exam, in-class participation activities, and a creative final research project for which you will pitch an interpretive film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2603-01 | MW 1:25-2:15| Hybrid| Dolan Gierer, Emily

The goal of this course is to understand the Bible as one of our earliest literary texts, one which weaves together poetry, history, and personal narrative. We will explore the various literary genres of the Bible, examine the complex characterizations of both God and humans, wrestle with thematic ambiguities around gender, national identity, violence, suffering, and sacrifice, while also developing a better understanding of the narrative conventions of ancient Hebrew writers. This course is open to anyone interested in studying the Bible as one of the most popular and enduring literary texts of all times and helps fulfill the Early Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic History requirement for English majors. Assignments include daily quizzes, weekly journals,  a mid-term exam, and a final paper.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2605W-01 | MWF 11:15 - 12:05 | 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. Rockerfeller); 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.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2614-01 | MW 10:10 - 11:00 | Hybrid | Booten, Kyle

What came before ChatGPT?

Almost as long as there have been computers, people have been programming them to generate stories, poems, and other forms of literature. This course is a hands-on introduction to the art of creative text generation. The first part of the course will take the form of a series of beginner-friendly "labs," through which participants will explore ways code can be used to generate literature. In the second part of the course, participants will create, share, and discuss their own works of computer-generated literature—a bit like a creative writing workshop. Readings will introduce key examples of computer-generated literature going back to the 1950s.

This course is designed for those with no prior programming experience. However, it also provides an opportunity to think critically and scientifically about the relationship between computation and language. For instance, we will consider what sorts of texts (styles, genres) computers are well-suited to generate. We will also learn how scientists evaluate the relative success or failure of computers in being "creative."

This course welcomes all participants: those with deep technical experience, those with none at all, those who believe a computer program could be a "creative writer," those who find the suggestion rather sacrilegious, creative writers interested in computers, engineers interested in literature, and everyone in between.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2635E-01 | MW 2:30 - 3:20 with Friday discussions posted 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 the context of the US, 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 and even video games.

2635E-02 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Tonry, Kathleen 

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 | TUTH 9:30 - 10:45 |Forbes, Sean

2701-02 |TUTH 11:00 - 12:15 | Cohen, Bruce  

This introductory class to creative writing will provide instruction to the craft, techniques and esthetics of writing poetry and creative nonfiction. Students will also focus on critical analysis of other students’ work and develop a “community” language for discussing literature; therefore, class participation will be essential. Students will be required to compose polished poems and creative nonfiction essays. Students will learn to become acquainted with the “workshop” format and be required to read contemporary poetry and non-fiction with the end result being to better understand and deepen their appreciation of the practice of creative writing.

2701-03 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Cohen, Bruce

See description for 2701-02

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

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher.  May be repeated for a total of 6 credits

3003W-01 | TUTH 11:00 - 12:15 |Deans, Tom 

Writing With and About AI

We will take up questions that are practical (How do large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini work? How can and should we use them?), philosophical (How do we sort out what is and isn’t human about writing? What is creativity? What is ethical?) and historical (How do emerging AI tools fit within the 5000-year history of writing? What does that history suggest about where writing is going?). Our reading will be intense and sustained; everyone will take part in class discussions (this is a seminar, not a lecture) and occasionally lead discussion. Assignments will include weekly reading responses, a collaborative mid-term exam, a mid-term paper, and a final project. No previous experience with AI is required, but authentic curiosity about it is!

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

3010W-01 | W 4:40 - 7:10 | Shivers, James 

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher. Cannot be taken for credit after passing ENGL 3011.  

3013W-01 | MW 1:25 - 2:15 | Hybrid |Booten, Kyle 

In this hands-on class, you will publish two things. First, you will create a small book—very small, more like a booklet or even a pamphlet—on a topic of your choosing. Since this is a "W" class, you will write this booklet. But you will also design it, print it, and assemble it (and, if you like, distribute it to interested readers). Course readings will introduce perspectives on publishing and book design, while at-home "lab" assignments will allow you to experiment with different ways of designing a book's layout. No prior experience is assumed.

Next, you will take this print object and reconceive it for the web, translating your booklet into a stand-alone website. Retrofitting a project that began as a booklet in this way will offer an opportunity to reflect upon the different expressive possibilities of print and digital modes of publishing (such as the latter's potential for interactivity). No previous experience building websites is expected; the emphasis will be on design thinking, not on technical aspects.  Readings from this part of the course will largely consist of examples of aesthetically-adventurous website design going back to the 1990s.

This class will be of particular interest to students interested in writing, publishing, design, and digital media.

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 pages 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 Ruth.Fairbanks@uconn.edu.  Because internships are in demand, it’s highly recommended that students discuss the ENGL 3091 opportunity with major advisors in advance of the official spring 2025 advising period. Application Timeframe: after applicants have discussed the internship opportunity with major advisors, they should schedule a meeting in weeks 7-11 with Professor Ruth Fairbanks through nexus.uconn.edu and then submit application materials to Professor Fairbanks.

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, World Poetry Books, WithitGirl online magazine, and Write on Black Girl poetry journal. Other placements are available.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3122-01 |TUTH 12:30 -1:45 | 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 - 12:15| Kim, Na-Rae

By exploring various artistic productions by Asian Americans, this course seeks to grasp central issues and themes for understanding contemporary Asian America, and furthermore, multicultural America. Asian American literary productions exhibit vibrant re-imagination of American history, nation-state, nationalism, citizenship, identity, and difference.

This course is not a survey of these works, as Asian Americans are a diverse group of people whose literature reflect multiple backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Instead, our readings and assignments focus on key themes including: racism, stereotypes, gender expectations, migration, representation, and redefining America. Through this course, we consider how even the seemingly most personal relationships expressed in cultural production are rooted in and shaped by historical and social circumstances.

Also offered as: AFRA 3215

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

3215W-01 | TUTH 12:30 - 1:45 | Williams, Erika 

A survey—and sampling—of 20th- and 21st- 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”/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, Chimamanda Adichie, Percival Everett, and Mat Johnson.

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

3240E-01 | TUTH 9:30-10:45 | Franklin, Wayne

Honors 

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the relation of literature to the natural world from the late colonial era to the present. We will read Henry D. Thoreau and trace his influence among later writers such as John Muir, Mary Austin, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, and Annie Dillard. Students will keep a journal of their own experiences in the natural world. Two quizzes but no exams.

Also offered as: AMST 3265W

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

3265W-01 | TUTH 12:30 - 1:45 | Anson, April

This interdisciplinary research and writing-centered class will focus on the role of LAND to what is considered America or American. The class will provide an introduction and overview of research methods in American Studies. We will read foundational and contemporary research as well as discuss fiction, film, poetry, and other forms of artistic representation. Students will write weekly responses, two short research assignments, a midterm, and a final exam. Course time will be used for short lectures, class discussion, group work, and individual presentations. This course is open to anyone. There are no recommended prerequisites.

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

3301-01 | MWF 10:10 - 11:00 | Hasenfratz, Bob

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

3320-01 | Online Asynchronous | Moores, Don 

In this course we will attempt the impossible: to survey the literature and culture of India in one semester. Because we are limited to fourteen weeks, our engagement with the subcontinent must be limited to a representative sampling and thus include a few works while excluding many others. To this end, we will engage Indian history, religion/philosophy, poetry, film, and fiction. Readings and media include short documentaries, two influential sacred texts (the Upanishads and the Gita), a medieval poet, a modern poet, three award-winning films, and a novel by Nobel Prize-winning V. S. Naipaul. Please know that India, throughout most of its history, has remained a plurality. To refer to India is to prompt the question: Which India? The subcontinent is a diverse amalgam of cultures, each with different languages, values, assumptions, and ideologies. During the semester, we will skim the surface of an immeasurably deep ocean. I hope the material will motivate students to take further dives on their own.

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

3420-01 | TUTH 2:00 - 3:15 | Smith, Victoria 

In this course, we will explore a range of children’s literature in English, including picture books, realism, historical fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and graphic narrative. Our task will be to think critically about what these texts tell us about children’s literature as a genre; what literature for young readers reveals about how we understand childhood, including questions of representation and diversity; and how these books participate in larger movements in history, culture, and art. Our course material will include important texts in the history of the genre but will focus on more recent examples that help us explore the changing landscape of literature for young readers in relation to matters of diversity of representation, such as Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender, Dreamers by Yuyi Morales, and Sex Is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth. Please note that this is not a course on teaching children’s literature to young people. We may touch on the role of children’s literature in education, but we will not be discussing teaching practices. This will be a discussion based course. In addition to engaged and thoughtful class participation, you will design and complete a multi-step research project over the course of the semester.

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

3422-01 | TUTH 8:00 - 9:15 | Duarte Armendariz, Luisana 

This course delves into the vibrant and diverse world of Young Adult (YA) literature, exploring a range of genres including fantasy, science fiction, realism, historical fiction, and non-fiction. Students will engage with critically acclaimed texts such as Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, Scythe by Neal Shusterman, and Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez, analyzing how these works reflect and challenge societal norms, individual identity, and coming-of-age experiences.

Through a combination of lectures and class discussions, students will develop a deeper understanding of YA literature's role in both contemporary culture and literary tradition. Assignments include short response papers, the creation of discussion questions, a final essay, and a student-led presentation. The course emphasizes active participation and critical thinking, encouraging students to draw connections between the themes in these texts and broader literary and social contexts.

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 a selection of lesbian, gay, transgender, and queer literature written by a range of authors (Asian, African, European, and North American, including Native American) between circa 1890 and the present day.  I will place special emphasis on queer narrative strategies and on four historical periods: the turn of the 19th century; and the mid-20th century; the 1980s-1990s (AIDS era); and the present day. Likely texts include the following: A Marriage below Zero by Alan Dale; Aimée Duc’s Are They Women?; James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room; selected poems by Essex Hemphill, Mark Doty, and Thom Gunn; Chinelo Under the Udala Trees; Kristen Arnett’s Mostly Dead Things; Casey Plett’s A Dream of a Woman; and Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues. Assignments: Two shorter essays and one longer essay or comparable final project.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3623-01 | TUTH 2:00-3:15 | Simmons, Kali

Indigenous Horror

In recent times, Indigenous writers and filmmakers across the globe have increasingly embraced the horror genre, radically re-inscribing horror’s conventions in order to narrate Indigenous peoples’ historic and ongoing experiences of colonial oppression. Together we will assess the history of Indigenous representation in the horror genre so that we may learn to identify and interpret the ever-changing, culturally contingent concepts of horror, monstrosity, and otherness. Assignments include short responses, in-class activities, and a final project (creative pathways available).

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3640-01 | MWF 1:25 - 2:15 |Hasenfratz, Bob

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

3703-01 | M 5:00 - 7:30 | Barreca, Regina

Creative Nonfiction

“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. Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I'm writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.”  Flannery O’Conner, Habits of Being

Designed for students with an interest in writing creative non-fiction with any eye towards publication, this course assumes a serious commitment both to reading and writing.  Students will produce seven pieces of  writing throughout the semester (between 750-1250+ words each); four of these are required essays. Each work will focus on that week’s assigned topic. Each student will email their finished piece to all the other members of the seminar, including the instructor, by FRIDAY AT NOON. Students are responsible for reading and commenting in detail on their colleagues’ work; I’ll provide a list of questions. Half your grade for the course will be earned by the thoughtful, judicious and specific commentary you offer your colleagues. Comments on each essay written for that week will then be submitted to the other members of the seminar, including the instructor, by the following SUNDAY AT MIDNIGHT. As a final project, each student will submit four carefully edited and revised essays to the instructor for grading, out of which three will be submitted for publication during the final class.  In addition to deadlines being non-negotiable, attendance at every class is assumed. Every member of the class will speak during every session.  Many of the students who have successfully completed this course have seen their work published. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

3703-02 | TUTH 11:00 -12:15 | Dennigan, Darcie 

In Wildness: A poetry workshop

In wildness, so goes this famous Thoreau line, is the preservation of the world. He wasn't speaking this from inside a dark forest but from a comfortable house in town, because wildness isn't a fixed place, but an attitude, a quality... What is alive where you are, asks the poet Éireann Lorsung, and Thoreau, 161 years earlier, adds, The most alive is the wildest. But how can a made thing stay wild... How to participate in ordering our poems while also freeing them, allowing for entropy, irrationality, the unexpected? How can we investigate the weeds, ruins, cascades of energy in the poems that we are making while inside an institution, and still try to remain outside-- of gates, expectations, and more? How can we preserve our aliveness, our words? With these questions in mind, we'll investigate our poem-making processes, exploring listening techniques, internal & external formal pressures, and attitudes toward mastery & control. As we share our poems, we'll talk about the things we don’t want to show in our work, and modes we don't think we can work in, and try to scrape off those scabs with dirty fingernails. Expect to write poems, or pieces of a longer poetic project, each week. Also expect to write generous and engaged feedback for your fellow poets each week. Readings will include Lorsung, Hiromi Ito, Toby Altman, bruno dario, and others. No final exam. Please email darcie.dennigan@uconn.edu with 3-4 recent poems and a short letter of interest.

Prerequisites: ENGL 2701; open to sophomores or higher; instructor consent required. Recommended preparation: one 3000-level creative writing workshop.

3713-01 | TUTH 12:30 -1:45 | Forbes, Sean 

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.

4101W-01 | TUTH 11:00 - 12:15 | Winter, Sarah

Thomas Hardy & Virginia Woolf

In the transition from Victorian realism to modernism, the writings of Thomas Hardy and Virginia Woolf shaped many of the modern novel’s central preoccupations with intimate relationships and sexuality, the internal dramas of the human psyche, the effects on individuals and society of violence and war, relations between humans and animals, changing conditions of life in the British countryside and cities, and the post-Darwinian understanding of nature. Texts will include: Thomas Hardy: novels, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, selected short stories and poems; Virginia Woolf: novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, her critical study on women’s writing, A Room of One’s Own, selected short stories and essays; and excerpts of texts by Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Georg Simmel. The course will also introduce students to key concepts in narrative theory. Course requirements: a 15–20-page research paper including at least one draft and a revised final version; library research orientation and peer writing workshop; one short research database paper and presentation; annotated bibliography; midterm exam.

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.

4301W-01 | TUTH 9:30 - 10:45 | Coundouriotis, Eleni

Transnational Subjects

What does it mean to belong to two places at once? Much recent Anglophone literature reflects the experiences of diasporas yet the authors frequently retain very close ties to their African, South Asian, or Caribbean nations of origin. The course examines ideas of home, belonging, language, political engagements, generational gaps, memory, and other issues that shape the dual commitments to two places/nations/continents. Course assignments will build toward a longer (20 page) research paper that will be the final assessment. Presentations, class participation, and shorter writing/research assignments will be revised with feedback and shaped into the longer project.