Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2013W | TuTh 2-3:15 | Gorkemli, Serkan

This course will introduce you to a field of inquiry that focuses on writing’s social and ethical implications across diverse traditions, contexts, and technologies. Readings and discussion topics will cover threshold concepts and theories of writing, and ways of researching it in social and professional contexts. Assignments in this writing-intensive (W) course will include an autobiographical literacy narrative, an essay based on interviews with people who write at work, and research and reflections on the use of AI in reading and writing.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2101| M 3:35-6:05| Roden, Frederick

British Literature II examines a broad variety of genres (poetry, non-fiction prose, and novel/short story) in three historical periods, from about 1800 to roughly 1950: Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism. We will pay particular attention to works and movements on the margins of these categorical terms. This era was one of tremendous change with respect to definitions of identity: race, class, gender, sexual orientation, national and ethnic self-understanding, and religion -- just to name a few. We will analyze the literature through the lens of a politics of cultural shift, the notion of “progress,” technological as well as social “revolution,” and the idea of "subjectivity": the speaking self.

Engl 2101 will examine a variety of authors and movements chronologically across some two centuries of British literary/cultural history.  Class will combine lecture and discussion.  Students will take weekly in-class quizzes, write three short (3-page) papers, and develop a cumulative final essay exam (open-book and -notebook) responding to a prompt.  We will also have a field trip concerning comparative cultural production (museum, theatre, and/or music); a substitution is possible for those unavailable to attend.

Engl 2101 is open to any student who has completed Engl 1007 or 1010/1011.  It is strongly recommended for majors.  Engl 2100 counts for the English major’s “Literary Histories and Legacies” track (as well as earlier plans of study English B1 requirement ); the English minor; and GenEd 1b.  Under the new Common Curriculum, Engl 2100 serves Topics of Inquiry 2: Cultural Dimensions of Human Experience.  It satisfies the British Literature requirement for TCPCG preparation.  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2203| M 9:05-11:35 | Pierrot, Gregory

This course will cover American Literature from 1880 to today. Our goal in this course will be to gain a better understanding of the developments and trends in American literature throughout that period, exploring their aesthetic and ideological characteristics, analyze  We will discuss what made modern American literature, what ideals and concerns it grappled with, how it engaged with the national and individual questions of its time. Using the Norton Anthology as well as several other sources, we will read a mix of fiction, poetry and drama from Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton to Toni Morrison, Stephen Crane to Sherman Alexie. The course will consist of short lectures and analytical discussions about readings. You will be expected to participate, do the readings and prepare for class. Students will write short textual annotations and two short essays throughout the semester.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

2301W| Sa 10:00-12:30 | Moeckel-Rieke, Hannelore

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2409| TuTh 11-12:15| Cramer, Patricia

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

2635E|M 12:20-2:50 |Sarkar, Debapriya

This course provides a trans-historical introduction to the literary treatment of environmental issues. Focusing on texts from a variety of genres including novels, poetry, short stories, and essays, we will consider how cultural texts can shape relationships between humans and the more-than-human world (including land, plants, animals, etc.). Our governing questions will include: What responsibility does “literature” have to “environment”? How does evolving knowledge about the natural world intersect with ethical, social, and political issues? How does fiction shape ideas about power, policy, and change? How can the fantastic, utopian, and poetic worlds help us grapple with pressing environmental issues, such as climate crisis and access to natural resources?

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

3503W | W 12:20-2:50 | Sarkar, Debapriya

Shakespearean characters continually conjure up the idea of a “world” to define the “stage”: “All the world’s a stage,” they tell audiences, and they invite spectators to witness “A kingdom for a stage.” In this class, we will pursue two related metaphors—the world was a stage, and the stage was a world—to ask: how is the world represented theatrically? How does the theater—and especially Shakespeare’s Globe Theater—become a microcosm for the globe? How does the theater emerge as a space that uses discourses of nationhood, language, ability, gender, and religion to define “English” identity? How might a return to the early modern stage enable us to understand the long history of globalization?

We will read across various dramatic genres, and we will focus on Shakespeare’s sonnets. We will pair our readings with adaptations and filmed performances of plays, and we will watch scholars and artists share their expertise on Shakespearean drama.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011

3611| TuTh 12:30 - 1:45 |Cramer, Patricia

Prerequisites:  ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011, open sophomores or higher.

3629| Th 5:30-8:00| Roden, Frederick

Eighty years have passed since the end of World War II, and literature concerning the Holocaust continues to be published.  The historical event survives as a lived experience through its ongoing cultural production.  As the events and people connected become part of the past, history unfolds through representation.  This course concerns the notion of "survival" and "survivors," as well as “memory” and “memoir,” broadly conceived.  As we contemplate the atrocity of genocide, hope and resilience serve as recurring human themes.  We will interrogate the meanings of “altruism,” “rescue,” “resistance” and "humanitarianism" – as well as “survival,” and “memory” -- at individual and collective levels.  What do studies of "survival" teach us about community and human relationships?  What does “the Holocaust” tell us about individual/collective memory and the genre of memoir?  What does it mean to create “art from the ashes”?  In reading literature as the work of memory, we will explore how trauma shapes identity as well as the commitment to write, to document the “unspeakable.”  We will consider a variety of genres: including diary, memoir, poetry, and even fiction.  These forms share an absolute imperative – at times even a compulsion – to speak their truth and tell their story.  How do we (in E. M. Forster's words) "only connect"?  How do we remember?  How do we survive?

Students will mainly study book-length works of non-fiction.  Class time will be spent discussing those works in their historical and narrative contexts.  Assignments include regular written responses to the assigned texts (brief and informal), a term paper (commensurate to a 3000-level non-W English class), a short written “memoir” to reading works of Holocaust memory, and a field trip to a museum that documents this history (a substitution will be offered to those unavailable).

Engl 3629 is open to any student who has completed Engl 1007 or 1010/1011.  While sophomores and higher can register directly, first-year students may contact the instructor (frederick.roden@uconn.edu) to discuss appropriateness to enroll from their level.  There is no expectation of background knowledge in Holocaust/Genocide Studies, Modern European History, Memoir, or other area studies. 

For current English plans of study, Engl 3629 counts for an Antiracism, Globality, and Embodiment (Group 2-Difference and Diaspora) requirement; it is found in the major “track” on Literature, Antiracism, and Social Justice; and serves as elective major and minor credit.  For 2017-2020 plans of study, Engl 3629 serves a major elective.  It satisfies an international requirement in the TCPCG and IB/M pre-teaching preparation. Engl 3629 counts for the English minor. Engl/HEJS 3629 also counts for the Human Rights major/minor.  For General Education it satisfies Category 1b and Content 4-International requirements, and in Common Curriculum the Topics of Inquiry 2 (TOI-2) “Cultural Dimensions of Human Experience” and TOI-3 “Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice.”