1000-Level Courses
1503: Introduction to Shakespeare
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
1503 | MW 11:15-12:30 | Schuhmacher, Kirsten
Pop Culture Shakespeare! Have you ever wondered why William Shakespeare continues to proliferate in western culture 400 years after his death? Why does Shakespeare’s life and works continue to capture our attention and fuel our own creativity? In this course, we will explore Shakespeare as a popular figure and examine how his works are reimagined in popular culture. While Shakespeare’s plays were originally written for the stage, adaptations and extensions of his plays have emerged in a wide variety of media that change how we interact with his work. As we engage with different media, we’ll think critically about why the Bard remains such a popular figure and consider how popular reimaginings of his plays both draw from Shakespeare’s original work as well as create a new text for our current moment. Throughout the course we will use media and adaptation theory to examine a variety of texts—the original plays, graphic novels, video games, virtual reality performances, movies, news articles, podcasts, and more! This course will offer the chance to engage with the afterlives of The Bard through assignments such as a creative adaptation and tattoo designs based on the plays. This is a course designed for non-majors or the Shakespeare curious but can be enjoyed by students in the major as well.
2000-Level Courses
2100: British Literature I
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.
2100 | Online Asynchronous | Schuhmacher, Kirsten
This early survey of British literature will give you the chance to engage with some of the "great works" before 1800 through the lens of transformation, magic, and science. Magic and transformation helped structure and guide early British thought and creative expression. We will look at texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Tempest, and Paradise Lost to better explore how magic and transformation functioned in the period and how it gave rise to early scientific inquiry. This course is structured around practicing close reading through an attention to specific words or phrases from our class texts and will also require weekly discussions and quizzes. This course is open to all majors and is meant to provide the foundational material for students interested in the period and/or in the field of English literature.
2411: Popular Literature
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.
2411 | TuTh 11:15-12:15 |Bedore, Pamela
2635E: Literature and the Environment
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.
2635E| MW 1:25-2:40| Schuhmacher, Kirsten
This course will use ecocritical and intersectional approaches to analyze depictions and literary representations of vegetal thinking and being. It will interrogate the relationship between humans and plants by drawing on critical plant studies as well as more traditional ecocriticism to explore texts spanning a variety of genres from a variety of historical periods. We will have the chance to engage with novels, poems, creation stories, movies, and graphic novel to analyze a variety of texts such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, Dante's "Inferno," Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter," Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Han Kang's The Vegetarian. The course will comprise of two formal essays responding to the course themes and secondary research as well as a creative and exploratory report based on research conducted outside of class. This course is open to non-majors and majors alike and will spend time exploring and reviewing some of the major intersectional approaches to the environmental humanities. Throughout the course, we will be returning to the questions: What does it mean to "become" something other than human and what are the affordances of doing so?
3000-Level Courses
3122: Irish Literature in English since 1939
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; open to juniors or higher.
3122 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 | Troeger, Rebecca
3265W: American Studies Methods
Also offered as AMST 3265W
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; open to juniors or higher.
3265W | TuTh 12:30 - 1:45 | Bercaw Edwards, Mary K
This writing-intensive seminar introduces students to the field of Public History through studying the process by which decisions are made as to whether or not an artifact, particularly a vessel, should be preserved. The final projects for the course will benefit from the skills and knowledge base from those discipline tracks that comprise the Maritime Studies major (Anthropology; Economics; English; Geography; History; Political Science) and the American Studies major (Space, Place, Land, and Landscape; the United States and the World; Popular Culture and the Cultural Imagination; Intersectionalities; Politics, Social Movements, and Everyday Life; the Americas). Students will gain an overview of public history plus in-depth experience in museum studies. This course was originally created out of the cooperative relationship between the University of Connecticut and Mystic Seaport Museum and is made possible through support from both institutions. This course includes development of skills including research, oral presentation, writing in several genres, revision of writing, and sensitivity to different audiences. Texts may include works by Rudyard Kipling, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Alan Villiers. Class will consist of class discussion, lectures, films, and many field trips. There will be both in-class and take-home writing as well as revision of written work. The course is normally taken by MAST and AMST majors in their junior or senior year, but it is open to any advanced undergraduate eager to learn.
3653W: Maritime Literature Since 1800
Also offered as MAST3653
Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011; open to sophomore or higher.
3653W | TuTh 2:00 - 3:15 | Bercaw Edwards, Mary K
For as long as history has been recorded, sailors have stepped on shore with a tale to tell. Until the laying of telegraph cables across oceans finally outpaced sailing ships in carrying messages in the 1850s, the sight of a sail on the horizon might be the first herald of news of many kinds: political, cultural, financial, or personal. The figure of the sailor as a storyteller stretches back beyond the earliest written records. The writers we will consider in this course inherited willingly or unwillingly the long heritage of these sailor storytellers. This course will examine the chronological development of a literature wherein the sea functions as physical, psychological, and philosophical setting. The course will begin by investigating early uses of the sea in literature and ways in which early works influenced later writings. It will continue with a consideration of the sea in contemporary literature. Through the use of literary theory and maritime history, the course will establish the context in which these works were produced as well as closely examining the works themselves. Genres include narrative, short story, novel, and poetry. Texts include works by Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, Joseph Conrad, Diane Wakoski, and the Fisher Poets. There will be both in-class and take-home writing assignments. Class will consist primarily of class discussion, but will also include lectures, class presentations, films, and one field trip. The course is usually taken by ENGL and MAST majors, but anyone who loves books and loves to read is most welcome.