Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1101W-01 | TuTh 8-9:15|Biggs, Frederick

Because it’s often so different from contemporary fiction in its many forms, the Classical and Medieval literature of Europe, aside from being fun to read, raises significant questions about how and why we write. We’ll begin by contrasting Sappho’s apparently universal theme of human desire to the journey of a Celtic folk-motif, the Sovereignty Goddess, into two folk-tales, “The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedon” and the “Pangs of the Men of Ulster,” before it appeared in two literary texts: Marie de France’s Lanval and Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale.” With this trajectory in mind, we’ll move back in time to the first great work of the western tradition, Homer’s Iliad, in search of its origins. We’ll end with the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf, considering its sources and cultural context. The lessons from these three sections should be obvious: revision is fundamental to successful writing. You will be graded on class participation including discussion-board posts, grammar tests, and three revised essays. Up to 6 points of extra credit to be added to your final average may be awarded for individual and group class-presentations.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1103W-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Gallucci, Mary

Theme: Nature, Wilderness, and Biodiversity

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 include Shakespeare, The Tempest, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, 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 the historical context.

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

Also offered as: AMST 1201, HIST 1503

Prerequisites: None.

1201-01 | TuTh 11-12:15 | Capshaw, Katharine

This introduction to the field of American Studies explores the principles, myths, failures, and possibilities of American identity. We will analyze a variety of texts and deploy approaches drawn from literary studies, history, ethnic studies, gender studies, media studies, and art history in order to think with care about the frameworks that define American experience. Expect to discuss race, class, gender, ethnicity, material culture, political and social history, and media. Our section will pay special attention to youth culture and social movements across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Students will write in-class and take-home assignments, as well as quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam. Class participation is highly valued. Use of AI is prohibited in all work in the class.

This course carries general education CA4 credit

1201-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10 | Hirn, Lincoln

Prerequisites: None.

1301-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00 | Bouzan, Ruba

This course is an in-depth study of a major current in West and South Asian literature: how writers imagine power, belonging, and the body in times of empire, partition, and occupation. We will follow themes of love and law, hospitality and exile, veiling and visibility, and the everyday ethics of who gets to look, speak, and stay. Our readings come from a single anthology that gathers a mix of genres so we can move from courts to shrines to city streets to border checkpoints. You will notice scenes you think you already know from film or headlines and then watch them change on the page. Together we will practice close reading, learn the language of literary form, and build arguments that connect text to history without losing sight of human voices. Course work will balance discussion, short analytical assignments, and assessments such as a midterm and a final comparative essay. All readings are in one anthology. Come curious, and leave with a stronger sense of how stories travel and how careful reading can open harder, richer ways of seeing.

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

1401-01 | T 5-7:30 | Barreca, Regina

This course, designed for serious readers of fiction and for students eager to improve their skills in critical thinking and writing, will focus on horror as a genre of literature. We’ll discuss how words on a page can make the flesh creep on your arm. We’ll examine how plots are resurrected, brought out of the past to live again, and what happens to stories when they appear in new shapes and contexts. We’ll exchange ideas about whether evil exists in places, persons, things, patterns, or in thought—or all on its own. We will, as Margaret Atwood would put it, “negotiate with the dead” and learn how certain kinds of stories emerge and why they refuse to leave us.  Plan to arrive and be seated, books ready, by 5 pm. Latecomers are not particularly welcome. Be aware, dear students, of this requirement as well: no electronic devices of ANY KIND can be used during class. No exceptions. Only physical copies of the texts under discussion can be used during class. I suggest you buy cheap copies so that you will become comfortable taking copious notes on every page, which is what you’ll need to do in order to succeed. Being an active part of the detailed conversation concerning the text under discussion will be a decisive factor in your grade. You can’t do that without a book in front of you, and you most certainly can’t do that by relying on any summaries or AI-generated materials to offer interpretations for you. Please don’t even try—it will not work in your favor. You will be expected to quote directly from the page when answering a question or offering an interpretation. You will be expected to give thoughtful and detailed replies when asked questions in class. Be prepared to participate in ALL discussions: 25 percent of your grade will be based on in-class participation, much of which will depend on insightful close-readings of the texts. There is an in-class midterm exam worth 25 percent of your grade in addition to the final in-class exam worth 25 percent of your grade. There are regularly-scheduled in-class, open-book writings given at the beginning of class which cannot be made up if you are not present. These count for the remaining 25 percent of your total grade. Let me emphasize this point: you cannot make up quizzes you have missed, but I do drop the lowest grade.   My office is Austin 130, and I welcome conversations about what we’re reading, what you’re thinking, how to improve your work, and why the horror at the edges (or the center) of these tales is compelling. Or we can just talk about the weather, if that’s what you’d like. I will work with you so that you can do your best work. Books include THE SHINING, THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, ROSEMARY’S BABY, BELOVED, BUNNY: A NOVEL, as well as a selection of short fiction.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

1503-01 | MWF 9:05-9:55| McFarlane, Maragaret

1503-02 | TuTh 3:30-4:45| 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. We will study the nature of Shakespeare's creativity, as well as creative appropriations, adaptations, and performances of his plays.  

We will read 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 exploring the plays through in-class performance. Assessment will also include annotation exercises, a midterm, a final, a performance, and a creative independent project.  

This class fulfills TOI 1 and  CA1 general education requirement 

1616-001 | MWF 2:30-3:20| Bergan, Mckenzie

This course explores a survey of major works from British and American authors from the fourteenth century until the present day. Our investigation will be organized around the themes of the gothic, with particular emphasis on haunting and monstrosity. Texts may include William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching, and Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House. Course requirements include class participation, two short papers, a midterm exam, and final exam.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2013W-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10 |Doran, Tom

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2100-01 | TuTh 11-12:15| Labe, Kyle

This course will survey centuries of literature in early England. Together, we will navigate the incredibly fraught and complex history of England from its Anglo-Saxon to its Restoration days. By doing so, we will inevitably engage with many key dynamics and ideologies that shaped England as a major global and imperial power in the periods to follow. The history of England is entwined with issues of empire, colonialism, race, gender, class, and other systems of power, and this fact was reflected, endorsed, probed, and even challenged in and by the country's literary output. Essentially, this is a couse about how and why we read historical literature, and how the thoughts, emotions, and ideas of those who lived so long ago continue to thrill, surprise, and affect us today.

We will focus on the literature of Britain from the seventh to the eighteenth century, which will take us through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance (or early modern period), the Restoration, and the early Georgian era. Texts could include Beowulf; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; the Digby Mary Magdalene; Spenser's Faerie Queene; Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy; Shakespeare's The Tempest; the poetry of Philip Sidney, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Aemilia Lanyer, Thomas Carew, and Hester Pulter; Milton's Paradise Lost; Behn's Oroonoko; Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress; Defoe's Robinson Crusoe; Swift's Gulliver's Travels; The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; and the verses of Phyllis Wheatley.

2100-02 | TuTh 3:30-4:45| Hasenfratz, Bob

We’ll be careening downhill (on an ox-cart running almost out of control) through more than a millennium’s worth of British literature, all in one semester. As we dash from century to century, we’ll sample a fascinating and complex range of poetry, drama, and fiction. Along the way, I want to hear about your genuine reactions to these early texts which have much to reveal about the early construction of gender, race, class, and power as well as vital questions surrounding colonialism and empire, ideas about the environment and resources, technology, literacy, etc. Though I will act as your guide, plan to participate actively in reading and digging into these quite old, quirky, entertaining, and sometimes disturbing texts.

The focus of this class will be on literatures of Britain from approximately 600 CE through to 1800 CE and will take us through the Medieval (or, pre-modern), Renaissance (or, early modern), Restoration, and Eighteenth Century periods. The texts and authors we will read and explore will include Old English riddles and lyrics, Beowulf, the romances of Marie de France, a bit o’ Chaucer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Malory, Spenser’s the Fairie Queene, Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus or Shakespeare’s Tempest, the poetry of Amelia Lanyer, Robert Herrick, John Donne, Anne Finch, John Milton, etc., fiction by Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift, Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, and the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano.

Writing for this course will include weekly discussion board posts. Twice during the semester (before midterm and then again near the end of classes) I’ll ask you to choose 4 discussion posts from your weekly sets, revise and expand them, and work them into a unified brief essay containing your reactions to and observations on what we’ve read.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2101-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45| Burke, Mary

In this survey course, and deploying a wide definition of “British,” we will explore British literature from the 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 geographic regions and/or ideological peripheries of the United Kingdom and/or British Empire. Our readings will emphasize how such works successively reinforced or challenged mainstream British culture, identity, and values. Grading basis is discussion participation and written assessments (midterm and final week).

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

Also offered as: AMST 2200

2200-01 | TuTh 11-12:15| Franklin, Wayne

ENGL/AMST 2200 will examine the early written and oral record of what eventually became the United States. Our readings will be drawn from a variety of sources: 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. We also will consider various non-textual analogues (e.g., architecture, art, landscape, material culture, and social, economic, and political institutions) that will be introduced during weekly discussions and lectures. The goal is to achieve a rich understanding of the ways in which peoples of many varied backgrounds, beginning with 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. There will be a quiz on each major title. Students will write an 8-10 page paper on our final reading. There will be a midterm exam but no final. We will spend a good deal of time on the writing process in the last part of the course so as to prepare everyone to craft the best possible final paper.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201-01 | MWF 12:20-1:10| 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, other assignments, participation, periodic quizzes, and final essay.

2201-02 | MWF 2:30-3:20 | Salvant, Shawn

See description for 2201-01

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2201W-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Werner, Marta

Illocality: Deep Mapping the (North) American Land-Mind-Scape to 1880

“How can one both move and carry along with one the fermenting depths which are also, at every point, influenced by the pressure of events around them? And how can one possibly do this so that the result is readable? —Hugh Trevor-Roper

“Mapping” should be construed very widely. Maps represent the relationships among the elements of any kind of topography — those of a terrestrial landscape, or of a metaphoric “landscape” of texts, ideas, or networks of relations among people. —Philip J. Ethington and Nobuko Toyosawa

“How do we begin to know or feel where we are, or even where we are going, by lining ourselves up with the features of the grounds we inhabit, the sky that surrounds us, or the imaginary lines that cut through maps?” —Sara Ahmed

“It’s not down in any map; true places never are.” —Herman Melville

Course Description

Deep maps go beyond the documentation of topography to include and interweave natural history, myth, archaeology, narrative, autobiography, memory, emotion, weather, etc. Sometimes it is even possible for a deep map to connect the material and immaterial worlds. This spring we will attempt to compose many-layered maps—necessarily rough around the edges, forever changing and incomplete—of our imagination of “America” by plumbing the archive of a few of its surviving texts and related cultural materials. While the textual witnesses that will serve as our focal points are now part of a standard canon—Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; Or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1798), E. A. Poe’s gothic tales (1840s), Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself (1845), Herman Melville’s “Bartleby” (1853) and “Benito Cereno” (1855), R. W. Emerson’s Essays (1841/1844), H.D. Thoreau’s Walden (1854), and selected poems by Walt Whitman (1855 +) and Emily Dickinson (1858-1886)—the maps we make of and with them will destabilize, complicate, and enlarge our understanding of the multiple cultural forces that shape them and the claims they (still) have on us. Our maps will vary in form—some will be textual or narrative, others may be visual or digital—and in scale, from the seemingly very small—e.g., the coordinates of a single fascicle-poem by Emily Dickinson—to the unimaginably vast—the breadth of an ocean crossed by captives of the transatlantic slave trade. Often, they will touch on social spaces and sometimes they will open hidden ones. Some maps will be dream-maps, and some will be ghost-maps. Ultimately, our maps—and the process of conceiving and making them—will allow us a more deeply embodied experience of our textual inheritance.

All course participants are required to attend and participate meaningfully in the seminar discussion; complete an in-class presentation; and write two essay exams related to the seminar’s content.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2207-01 | MWF 11:15-12:05| Phillips, Jerry

Also offered as: AFRA 2214W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2214W-01 | MW-H 12:20-1:10| Hybrid| Williams, Erika

Also offered as: AMST 2274W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2274W-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Le, Anh

In this course, we will analyze how disability has been represented, imagined, and engaged in American culture and works of literature. We will delve into a range of textual forms and genres, which include slave narratives (William and Ellen Craft’s Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom), verse novels for young readers (Ann Clare LeZotte’s Deer Run Home), graphic novels (Sarah Bargiela’s Camouflage and CeCe Bell’s El Deafo), and memoir (Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl). Themes that we will explore include the experiences and journeys of people with disabilities throughout American history. We will also analyze the construction of disabled identity, voice, and agency as part of a complex “mosaic.” Students from all majors, backgrounds, and interests are welcome.

Our in-person class meetings will consist of collaborative group work, lectures, active discussions, and a mixture of peer-writing workshops and independent writing and research. The assignments for our class will likely include several essays (3-4 pages each), journal entries, annotations of course readings, a creative and “embodied” project, a reflection essay, and a final presentation.

2274W-02 | MWF 11:15-12:05 | Suprenant, Kelly

This class will examine representations of disability on the American page, stage, and screen. By examining multiple forms of media (novels, film, television, plays and photography) and engaging with the work of leading contemporary scholars, we will trace the evolution of disability in America, paying special attention to its intersections with race, gender and performance. Since this is aW course, requirements may include weekly short response papers, two 5-page papers, a class-generated annotated bibliography, and a final project to be presented to the class.

Also offered as: AMST 2276W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2276W-01 | MW-H 11:15-12:05 | Hybrid | Dolan Gierer, Emily

This writing-intensive course examines how American literature has grappled with the paradox of utopian dreams and dystopian realities. From the early seduction novel to twentieth-century gothic fiction, students will trace how writers imagined the United States as a “City on a Hill” while also exposing the greed, violence, racism, sexism, and exclusion that undermined those ideals. Texts may include works by Susanna Rowson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, and Shirley Jackson, alongside historical and cultural readings that provide context. Through close reading, critical discussion, and a series of writing assignments, students will explore how narratives of those who “don’t fit in” challenge the promises of American society. This course meets in person on Mondays and Wednesdays and requires online asynchronous work on Fridays. Assignments include daily quizzes, weekly journals, and three papers.

2276W-02 | TuTh 9:30-10:45| Cutter, Martha

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2301W-01 | TuTh 11-12:15 | Sanchez, Lisa 

This course examines English language literature by writers outside of the U.S. and the British Isles. Our focus this semester will be Caribbean writers, including Edwidge Danticat, George Lamming, Julia Alvarez, Jamaica Kincaid, C.L.R. James, and V.S. Naipaul.

Grades determined by in-class writing assignments and class participation.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Also offered as: AAAS 2305, JAPN 2305.

2305-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Igarashi, Yohei

This course surveys modern and contemporary Japanese literature, from 1868 to the present. All readings are in English translation. Focusing on novels, but including also folk tales, poetry, short stories, and film, the course considers how our works registered various literary traditions as well as momentous twentieth-century historical developments, gender roles and their discontents, and how literary works interacted with other art forms and media. Works include those by Abe Kōbō, Kawakami Hiromi, Mishima Yukio, Murakami Haruki, Natsume Sōseki, and Yoshimoto Banana.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2401-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45| 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 10:10-11 | Hybrid | Forbes, Sean

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2407-01 | TuTh 2-3:15 | Sanchez, Lisa

This course surveys American and other significant writers. Our aim is to analyze the short story as art and artifact. Students will study the history and elements of the short story genre; master the key concepts involved in analysis of the genre; and participate in class discussions and group discussions.

Grades determined by three in-class exams and a class participation grade.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2407W-01 | MWF 11:15-12:05 | Cordon, Joanne

Storytelling= Survival 

In The White Album Joan Didion argues that stories are fundamental to our ability to endure: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” If storytelling ensures our survival, then its benefit is not just personal, but also communal and ethical: Our narrative survey will allow us a glimpse into diverse persons, places, time periods, and topics, including the most sensitive. The book will be a recent collection, The Best Short Stories of 2025 or similar; we will also consider short story classics. Assignments will include participation in class discussion, in-class writing assignments, three six-to-seven-hundred word “short takes,” one revised short take, and a creative project that will be a combination of a brief presentation in class (five to ten minutes) and a written description of how you developed your idea.  

2407W-02 | MWF 12:20-1:10 | Cordon, Joanne

Same as 2407W-01!

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2411W-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | 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, Tamsyn Muir, 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

2413-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Litman, Ellen

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2413W-01 | TuTh 2-3:15 | Knapp, Kathy

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 and memoirs as we identify the possibilities suggested by a medium 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.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2600-01 | MW 10:10-11:00 | Hybrid | Dennigan, Darcie

This course, required for English majors, is an invitation to multifaceted approaches to thinking, writing, and research-- critical and creative, all three! You will be asked to produce one essay (three required drafts, and an option to write a fourth draft), one extended creative piece (two drafts), and one ten-minute presentation. All of these large assignments will build on smaller writing, research, and close reading assignments that you'll do in class or at home. Our touchstones for this work will be Eugene Ionesco's absurdist play The Bald Soprano and Christina Sharpe's book of essays In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. This HYBRID course meets in person on Mondays and Wednesdays with a required asynchronous online component on Fridays.

2600-02 | TuTh 12:30-1:45| 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 citation. Assignments include two 5-page papers and two exams.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2603-01 | MW 10:10-11:00 | 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. This course meets in person on Mondays and Wednesdays and requires online asynchronous work on Fridays. Assignments include daily quizzes, weekly journals, a mid- term exam, and a final paper.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2605-01 | MWF 1:25-2:15 | Phillips, Jerry

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2605W-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Benevento, Brandon

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2607-01 | MWF 1:25-2:15 | Suprenant, Kelly

This course will examine evolving concepts of science and its increasingly prominent impact on literature in the twentieth century, with a particular emphasis on medical humanities and human reproduction. Assignments may include a take-home midterm exam, recorded podcast discussion, contribution to an annotated bibliography, and final project which explores a text of the student’s choice. Emphasis will be placed on in-class discussion. Possible authors might include Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, Deirdre Cooper Owens, and more.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2608-01 | Tu 5-8PM | Simmons, Kali

Also offered as: DMD 2610, HIST 2102

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2610-01 | MWF 10:10-11:00 | Rodriguez, Kenia

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

2635E-01 | MW 12:20-1:10 | Hybrid | 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 to consider how concepts like “nature” and “environment” have meant different things at different times. We will focus primarily on writing based in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, considering the unique role that
ideas of nature, wilderness, and environment have played across American history and culture. 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.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

2640-01 | TuTh 11-12:15| Tribble, Evelyn

This class explores the Hollywood musical from its beginning in the sound era of cinema to the present. Often dismissed as mere entertainment, the American film musical has a complex history, raising questions of national identity, race, and gender. Filmmakers turned a theatrical form into a distinctive cinematic experience, using music, dance, sound to tell stories in registers not available to more conventional forms.  A major focus of the class will be on adaptation, the process by which narrative or cinematic sources are transformed into musical experiences. We will examine the origins of the musical as Hollywood adopted sound; the exploration of musical and dance forms characteristic of the 1930s; the rise of the Technicolor musical and its decline in the 1960s, and the new and hybrid musicals that emerged thereafter. Attention will also be paid to the business side of the industry and the relationship between Broadway and Hollywood. 

Films studied may include: Gold Diggers of 1933; Top Hat; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; The Wizard of Oz; Singin' in the Rain; The Court Jester; Jailhouse Rock; The Pajama Game, Caberet; West Side Story (both versions); Chicago; and Wicked. In addition to assigned films, class time will be devoted to the larger social and artistic contexts of the musical.  

This class will hone both your creative and critical abilities. Assessments will include viewing quizzes; a film clip analysis; a midterm and final in which you will be asked to define terms and identify key scenes and moments in musical history; and an adaptation project, in which you will be asked to pitch an adaptation from a novel, short story, poem, or film that has not yet been made into a musical. 

Please note: you will be expected to view the assigned films before class, and there will be in-class quizzes on your viewing. I have attempted to assign films that are freely available through the UConn library streaming services, but in some cases you may need to purchase or rent films through streaming services. DVDs of all films will be available in the library, and if there is interest, I will screen films in advance of class. Most readings will be available through HuskyCT.  

Textbook: Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film (10th edition)  

This class fulfills CA1, TOI-1, and TO1-2.  

2640-02 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Hasenfratz, Bob

World Cinema

This semester we will be exploring something now usually called “World Cinema” and sometimes “Global” or “Transnational” cinema. The older definition of this big and wonderful slice of film history was negative: that World Cinema was whatever cinema production in the world was NOT Hollywood filmmaking. This alludes to Thompson, Staiger, and Bordwell’s foundational study of how Hollywood developed a classical system of storytelling called “Classical Hollywood Style.” This style settled on camera positions and movements, ways of editing scenes together, use of music, etc., that made sure that early viewers could make sense of the cinematic world and story. (NOT a given in the early days of movies!)  This involved making sure that viewers could orient themselves in the story spaces, understand the time frames and how the scenes were linked, working out a cause and effect logic by the use of several devices including camera placement, movement, film editing (continuity, exposition, establishing shots, match cuts, etc.), use of music. Classic Hollywood developed a kind of storytelling that in general focuses on establishing a cinematic world, presenting protagonists, introducing the protagonist’s goals, which encounter obstacles and conflict, leading to a clear-cut resolution.

Though this model has been very influential throughout the world, and US film production and distribution historically have come to dominate other national cinemas especially after WW2, World Cinema can be understood as representing other filmmaking traditions, which are (arguably) in conflict, competition, and conversation with Classic Hollywood style, though some are completely independent as well.

In this class we will orient ourselves to the theories of Classic Hollywood style, the concepts of World, Global, and Transnational Cinemas through readings and discussion, and will then turn to watching and responding to around twenty films that come from across the globe and exploring the way they tell stories and how this story telling is inflected by different histories, beliefs, and cultures.

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 | Hybrid | Dennigan, Darcie

Welcome to this experiment-based creative writing course. Expect to write abundantly, to write many many imperfect poems, scenes, and more, to take chances on paper and aloud, and to share your ideas, feedback, & attention. Participation matters a great deal in this course and I will ask all to strive to be an active and consistent part of this developing writing community. Our experiments will be influenced by Benjamin Jarnés, Oulipo, Oberiu, Sibyl Kempson, John Cage, and other thinkers & groups. Our questions: How can art make the familiar strange? How can theatre make time strange? How can poetry make language strange? In this exploration, we will read quite a bit, including poetry by Farnoosh Fathi, Harryette Mullen, and more, as well as plays by Caryl Churchill and Jose Rivera, plus many smaller readings along the way. Expect to generate a portfolio of poems and a one-act play, and to be present to give significant feedback to fellow students. This HYBRID course meets in person on Mondays and Wednesdays with a required asynchronous online component on Fridays.

2701-02 | MW 11:15-12:05| Hybrid | Forbes, Sean

2701-03 | MW 12:20-1:10 |Hybrid | Dennigan, Darcie

See Description for 2701-01

2701-04 | TuTh 11-12:15 | 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.

2701-05 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Pieratti, Danielle

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3010W-01 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Pieratti, Danielle

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

3012-01 | TuTh 5:00-6:15 | Grossman, Leigh

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors and higher. May be repeated for credit.

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 Writing Project, Globe Pequot Press, The Dodd Research Center and Archive, 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 the Mystic Seaport Publicity Office.  Other placements are available.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

3118W-01 | MW 11:15-12:05 | Hybrid| Codr, Ariana

The Victorians (1837-1901) lived during a time of unprecedented change. Photography, the telegraph, and the steam engine radically altered experiences of space and time. Great Britain morphed from an important hub of Atlantic trade to a global empire, while those living in its colonies posed increasingly potent challenges to its legitimacy and power. Industrialization enabled the rise of a growing middle class but also spurred the formation of a self-conscious working-class intent upon change. Mushrooming metropolises began to worry about sanitation as contagious diseases swept from impoverished alleyways to gold filigreed mansions. New norms of gender and sexuality inspired by the “Angel in the House” ideology and the rise of psychological sciences emerged only to be resisted in home, street, and courtroom. This course explores Victorian literature (1837-1901) in the context of these and other major historical events, ideologies, movements, and discourses. Texts will include works by Victorian favorites like Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, as well as modern adaptations and remixes of Victorian aesthetics and culture to better understand and appreciate the complex legacy of the Victorians. A series of short reflective, analytical, and creative writing assignments will fulfill the W-requirement. No previous coursework or background in English literature is required.

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

3207-01 | TuTh 11-12:15 | Knapp, Kathy

In this course, we will read American novels in context from the mid-twentieth century to the present.  We will develop a broad sense of the cultural, philosophical, social, economic and aesthetic concerns that arose in the wake of  the Depression and World War II by beginning with seminal novels from the era. These works will lay a foundation for reading and interpreting works that follow: the politically engaged and experimental fiction of the 1960s and ‘70s; the magical and dirty realism and the rise of multiculturalism in the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s; and the literary genre novel in the twenty-first century. Further, you’ll read and write about this literature in the context of broad social changes, ranging from but not limited to postwar prosperity and suburbanization in the 1950s, the various civil rights movements and the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of neoliberalism and feminist backlash in the 1980s, the identity politics of the 1990s, and the return to all of these concerns and more in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the economic meltdown of 2008. Novels may include Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man; Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus;  Octavia Butler’s Kindred. ; Gish Jen’s  Mona in the Promised Land. (1996); Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones; and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God. 

Also offered as: AMST 3295W

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

3265W-01 | TuTh 2-3:15| Franklin, Wayne

"The American Landscape." This course will focus on what "landscape" is (a cultural artifact laid on/made out of the land); how it evolves or devolves or just changes; what cultural, economic, ideological and other meanings it can have; and how we are to study/understand it. We will closely examine the subjects, materials, and methods on display in Michael Conzen's edited collection, The Making of the American Landscape, 2d edition. We will also rely on a variety of texts that explore/record different kinds of "made" landscapes and will pursue some out-of-doors survey work. Each student will choose a specific kind of landscape (strip malls; campuses; roadways; parks; suburban developments; and so forth) on which to do intensive research that leads to a significant written project (15pp. +). Two quizzes and a midterm; no final.

Also offered as: AMST 3265W7W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

3267W-01 | Tu 12:30- 1:45 | Hybrid | Duane, Anna Mae

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

3301-01 | TuTh 11-12:15 | Biggs, Frederick

Everyone knows Beowulf, but what about the equally great or greater medieval literatures from the societies that surrounded England, the Celts in Ireland and Wales, and the Norse in Scandinavia? The Irish gave us the Táin, the epic account of Cúchulainn’s defense of Ulster. The Welsh, the Mabinogi, with some of the first accounts of Arthur. The Norse, a series of poems about the Germanic gods as well as sagas about Viking heroes. We will also consider the Lais of Marie de France and the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Papers and Exams. Lectures and discussion.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

3420-01 | TuTh 2-3:15 | 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; expect to discuss race, class, gender, social history, and other dimensions of lived experience. Please note that this course does not focus on pedagogy. Students will write in-class and take-home assignments, as well as quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam. Class participation is highly valued. Use of AI is prohibited in all work in the class.

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

3422-01 | Online Asynchronous| Cormier, Emily

We will read YA books seriously and have fun, challenging, and heady (asynchronous!) conversation about them. The syllabus is arranged to discuss how the field of Young Adult Literature has changed over time, offering a historical picture of what the genre has been and paying attention to changes in the field. Is there anything that unites these very different books from cultural moments as Young Adult? We will keep in mind that that we’re scholars of literature in this classroom, and come to a better understanding of the history, purpose, and unique challenges of Young Adult Literature.? Most importantly, we will examine the negotiation of power in these texts.? In addition, we will consider published critical responses to the works we read, and, learning from these articles, craft our own analytical responses that demonstrate an ability to engage with the world of ideas in a meaningful and individualized way.?? Expect 3 short papers, weekly VoiceThread participation (webcam required), 1 research project, weekly 400-word Discussion Board posts, and regular use of Perusall for collaborative discussion on scholarly articles.

Please note that async classes (OA) such as this do not meet in a physical classroom and do not meet over Zoom/WebEx. However, the 2.5 hours of "in-class" time should be set aside each week for the Kaltura Lecture and Journaling. This is in addition to a typical "homework" load, since it replaces the in-class time.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; open to juniors or higher.  Students without junior standing who have completed first-year writing can email the instructor to request a permission number, gregory.semenza@uconn.edu

3507-01 | TuTh 2-3:15| Semenza, Gregory

Paradise Lost is arguably the most influential, and perhaps the most controversial, poem in the English language. Its author, John Milton, is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented figures in popular culture. Often labeled a “puritan” (a term whose early modern meaning is extraordinarily complex) by modern readers who mean to highlight what they perceive as the man’s conservatism, Milton was by seventeenth-century standards (and, in ways, 21st-century ones) a heretical thinker and writer. In fact, we might accurately call him the most radical pre-twentieth-century author in the English literary canon, a man whose radicalism was especially well understood by his contemporaries. Milton was also a great writer, of course. His famous epic poem is a treasure trove of beautiful poetry, mind-bending theological twists and turns, sublime imagery, and one of the most mesmerizing anti-heroes in world literature (Satan). Paradise Lost is a poem that warrants reading and re-reading, and it never ceases to yield new wonders. In this class, we will read Paradise Lost, of course, but also enough of Milton’s other poetry and prose to keep the poem in proper perspective. Other primary readings include a selection of the early poetry, Comus, Areopagitica, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. In the second “half” of the course, we will focus more directly on Milton’s cultural legacy, considering several adaptations and/or analogues of Milton’s work including Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, and Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. You’ll need to love to read (the specific paperback text ordered for this class) and think critically about what you read, and you’ll need to be in class to participate in our lively discussions. You’ll also need to complete a variety of assignments, including a group adaptation project, a midterm, and a final exam.

Also offered as: WGSS 3611

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

3611-01 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 | Breen, Margaret

This is an exciting course not only because of the texts we’ll be reading but because of the ones we’ll come away wanting to read. We will be focusing on a selection of significant texts (novels, short stories, essays, and a memoir) that, written by women during the last century, reflect a variety of cultural contexts. Our course texts are important because of both the stories they tell (stories regarding alienation, coming-of-age, resilience, resistance, violence, memory, and forgetting) and the ways in which those stories are told (ways regarding narrative technique, point of view, plot construction, metaphor, and so on). Some of the texts likely to be included: Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own; Nella Larsen's Passing; Alice Walker's “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” and "Everyday Use"; Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing"; Nawal El Saadawi: Memoirs from the Women’s Prison; Toni Morrison's Beloved; Min Jin Lee's Pachinko; and Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan's Mad Honey. 2 essay exams and either one 1750-2200-word essay or equivalent creative project.

Prerequisites: 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. Recommended preparation: ENGL 2210  or ENGL 2608.  

3618-01| TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Simmons, Kali

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; open to sophomores or higher. May not be taken for credit after passing ENGL 3621 Literature and Other Disciplines when taught as Law and Literature.  

3635-01 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Winter, Sarah

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

3701-01 | MW 1:25-2:15 | Hybrid | Forbes, Sean

3701-02 | TuTh 3:30-4:45 | Cohen, Bruce

This creative writing course will provide instruction to the craft, techniques and esthetics of writing poetry and prose. 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. There is the assumption that not only will all students have taken CWI but that all are serious about writing publishable poem.

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

3703-01 | Wed 5-7:30PM | Barreca, Regina

In this advanced course on creative nonfiction, you will write a total of seven pieces between 750-1200 words within the boundaries of assigned topics, at least three of which you will send out for publication at the end of the term.

Class format: You will email your essays to all the other members of the course—including me—by NOON on Fridays. I shut down the computer at noon and will not read anything submitted after that time. Everyone needs to write the first two essays and the final essay, with four others from topics you will select from those allotted for each week. Late work will not be accepted.

Students are also responsible for reading and commenting in detail on their colleagues' essays (I’ll provide a list of suggested questions); you will email your comments to me and the writer of the piece you’re reviewing by NOON on Monday.

Yes, you’re correct: this course involves a LOT of work. And deadlines are non-negotiable. If you don’t make the deadlines for the essays OR the comments, your work will not be evaluated and you will be asked to drop the course.

(You will also have to collect five "Found Lines" overheard and gathered by you during the week and email these to the class along with your review commentaries, but “found lines” become the fun part.)

In addition, we will read and discuss two books on writing and publishing: Lerner's FOREST FOR THE TREES and King's ON WRITING.

Plan to arrive BEFORE 5 so that you can be seated comfortably before class begins. Do not show up late; you will not be welcomed. This class, although an introduction to creative writing, nevertheless assumes a serious commitment both to reading and writing. No computers, iPads, laptops, or other electronic equipment permitted. No cellphones on during class; no exceptions. You must acquire paper copies of the Lerner and King books-- no Kindles, no electronic copies.

Why bother? You’ll learn to see the work of writing for what it really is: facing the blank page or screen because you have a deadline and not because you are inspired; you will conjure up your own original approach and language on a general topic being addressed by others; you will face a captive (although not always willing) audience made up of those who are both your colleagues and your competitors; you will discover how to create formidable, effective, compelling stories/narratives/arguments that people who don’t know you will remember for the rest of their lives. Anyway, you’ll remember what you did in this course, and that’s work the effort.

To request review for enrollment in this course, email inda.watrous@uconn.edu. In the subject line, include Permission Request ENGL 3703. In your email include why you would like to take this course, your Student Admin ID number, and an unofficial copy of your transcript to verify completion of ENGL 2701. 

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 2:00-3:15 |Mahoney, Charles

“The literature of England,” Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in “A Defence of Poetry” in 1821, “has arisen as it were from a new birth, and it is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled by the electric life which burns within their words.” Taking up Shelley’s confident pronouncement as to the powerful achievements of a period we now denominate Romanticism (1785-1834), this seminar will examine some of the most celebrated poetry written in English after the Renaissance, writing which combines a wide range of formal experimentation (sonnets, elegies, odes, blank verse, to name a few of the genres we will consider) with the cultivation of a startlingly modern voice and sensibility (Seamus Heaney famously remarked that it was with William Wordsworth that poetry became modern). We will pay particular attention to lyric poetry, notably that of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charlotte Smith, Felicia Hemans, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and John Clare (but will also consider poetry of Anna Seward, Mary Robinson, John Thelwall, Leigh Hunt, and others). In addition to lyric poetry, we will carefully study a variety of contemporary critical prose writings which reflect on and contribute to this poetic practice, such as Smith’s prefaces to Elegiac Sonnets, Wordsworth’s prefaces to Lyrical Ballads, selections from Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Keats’s letters, Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry,” and Hunt’s Preface to his Poetical Works. Integral to what makes British Romantic poetry so important for the English literary tradition, and so resonant for us now, is the dynamic interplay between the creative and the critical writing, the poetry and the prose. 

The seminar is designed as a capstone class for English majors, but is not restricted to English majors: all are welcome who have an interest in some of the greatest poetry ever written in English. Since this is a “W” class, the principal form of evaluation will be of your critical essays (which will total a minimum of 15 pages of revised writing). Since this will be a small seminar (rather than a large lecture: the emphasis will be on critical discussion), attendance and participation will also factor into your final grade.  

Please don’t hesitate to contact me (charles.mahoney@uconn.edu) with any questions you may have. 

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 | Th 11-12:15|Kim, Na-Rae

Title: Asian in Asian American Literature

While Asian American literature has been engaging Asia from its incipient moment, there has been a recent upsurge of Asian American texts that focus heavily, if not entirely, on Asia. This course explores how Asia figures in 21st Century Asian American cultural productions to grasp the place of Asia in Asian American literature.

"Asia" appears in various ways in our course readings, for instance as the setting for a historical fiction and an American protagonist's visit to Asia, or as a fleeting reference embedded in the narrative. Certain aspect of its culture may be highlighted such as Asian cuisine on a food show or music industry in a novel where an American woman falls in love
with a K-pop star.

Our primary focus will be literature (novels, short stories, poems, plays, memoirs) but we will also look at films, documentaries, food shows, social media, and other forms of cultural productions.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; at least 12 credits of 2000-level or above English courses or consent of instructor; open to juniors or higher.

4401W-01 | Tues 5-7:30PM | Pelizzon, V. Penelope

Can writing poems be political act? What is a “political poem”? How do authors of politically-engaged poems balance thematic concerns with formal craft? We’ll consider these questions as we examine the work of some of the most fascinating poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. We’ll begin by reading the work of poets responding to World War I, and then we’ll study a cluster of writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In the second half of the semester, we’ll focus on poets writing in and around the AIDs epidemic and the struggle for LBGTQ+ rights, and we’ll wrap up the course with several recent poets responding to contemporary issues.

This is a W-course, and writing will be part of our work each week. Over the semester, you’ll write several shorter projects leading up to a substantial final project addressing a course-related topic and poet of your choice.