Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2013W | TuTh 2:00 - 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. It counts toward the English major and minor, as well as the Writing Minor. Readings and discussion topics will cover threshold concepts and theories of writing, and ways of researching it in social and professional contexts (textbook: Rhetorical Innovation with AI Integration by Nicole Hospital-Medina; other readings will be provided in PDF). Assignments in this writing-intensive (W) course will include an essay based on interviews with people who write at work and an autobiographical narrative that includes research on reading and writing with AI.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2201| TuTh 8:00 - 9:15 | Pierrot, Gregory

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2301 | Sa 10:00 - 12:30 |

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2401 | W 3:35 - 6:05 | Lattig, Sharon

What Does Poetry Do?/Doing Things With Poems

W.H. Auden famously wrote, “For poetry makes nothing happen.”  Despite the marginalization of poetry in our time, the genre continues to be a common means of self-expression. But poetry can do many things besides express a self.  This course is an exploration of the various roles that poetry has played throughout the history of the West. Proceeding chronologically, the course will investigate the historical, social and psychological pressures that have produced significant formal breakthroughs in poetry.  It will focus on the tectonic shifts that have characterized the history of poetic innovation, including, but not limited to, those effected by the Sapphic lyric, the cult of courtly love, the sonnet, the Romantic revolution, the poetry of the American Renaissance, varieties of modernism, and late twentieth-century poetry of protest.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2409| Mo 3:35 - 6:05 | Cramer, Patricia

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2470| M 3:35 - 6:05 | Roden, Frederick

What does it mean to be a “collector”?  What is an archive and why do we “preserve”?  What (and who) are we saving?  This is a course on memory: of ideas, and material things.  In the words of artist and writer Edmund de Waal, stories are things too.  This is culture.

In Engl 2470 we will explore collecting and collections through various, different means:

• We will read about the process of how and why individuals and cultures have sought to preserve their objects and stories – personally and professionally.
• We will speak with and hear from curators, archivists, and collectors, and learn what they do and why.
• Through field trips – remote and in-person – we will “visit” a range of collections, museums, archives, and keepers of story.
• You will review your own collecting and archiving process: individually and collectively with respect to both passion and memory. You will learn to document and tell stories about materials and objects that are sacred to you and your communities.

Course requirements will include:

• Regular written responses to readings, speakers, and visits (on-site and remote).
• A paper in which you write about a collection/archive of your own (or belonging to your family/community). You will present in class about that.
• A profile of an archive or collection we haven’t studied that you choose to depict and share with your instructor and peers.

The words “curator,” “curation,” and the “curatorial” refer to display and representation.  They’re rooted in the Latin word for “care.”  Playwright Moises Kaufman quotes a museum administrator: even as we are compelled to discover a part of ourselves in each item we see, inevitably materials will get lost on our watch.  How do we preserve and save -- ourselves?  What is it that we seek to acquire, share, pass on to others, and remember?

English 2470 is an elective for the English major and counts towards the minor.  For GenEd it satisfies a CA1: Arts & Humanities.  For Common Curriculum it serves TOI1:Creativity: Design, Expression, Innovation and TOI2: Cultural Dimensions of the Human Experience.  

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2616| W 12:20 - 2:50 | Dunson, Stephanie

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

2635E | TuTh 9:30 - 10:45 | 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?

Also offered as HEJS 3401W

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 

3220W | Th 5:30 - 8:00 | Roden, Fred

The first Jews to come to what is now the United States were refugees: fleeing the Inquisition in Brazil, after expulsion/forced conversion had already driven them from Portugal to Amsterdam.  They named their new assembly in New York the “remnants of the Jewish people.”  This was 1654, and ever since, the Jewish story in America has been the American story: one of migrants and displaced persons.  This course will consider the American Jewish experience through lenses of both “race” and “religion.”  From questions of “when Jews became white” to inflections of gender, sexuality, and class, we will explore Jewish identity in a comparative context.  From politics to peoplehood, we will pay particular attention to issues of Jewish diversity.  Drawing on literary and non-literary sources, through guest speakers, cultural events and field trips, the intersectionality we analyze will focus on concepts of “belonging” and “voice,” as well as the impact of Jews on American culture (and vice versa).  Prior experience in Jewish studies or literature is not required.

Our study of Jewish American literature and culture will primarily focus on the 20th-21^st centuries, following study of the colonial period and 19^th century.  We will read non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and drama.  Our class meetings will center on discussion of a set of assigned readings, about which you'll have written a journal entry.  The journal is meant to help you formulate your thoughts.  You'll write two formal papers (each revised): one focused on "becoming" American and the next on "being" American.  Both of these may be comparative, concentrating on some other identity (race, ethnicity, religion, group, etc.) in relation to the Jewish literature we study.  We will hold a field trip to NYC for further learning about Jewish American history and culture.  Our class will conclude with a final exam where you'll write your own perspectives on the experiences of immigrants and cultural belonging in this society.

Engl 3220W/HEJS 3401W is open to any student who has completed Engl 1007, 1010, or 1011.  You need not be a major or minor, specialist, or an advanced student.

English Major Requirements:

• Core Category: Antiracism, Globality, and Embodiment (Group 2) or one of Four Additional Courses (elective)
• Meets one requirement for the Literature, Antiracism, and Social Justice Track

General Education/Common Curriculum Requirements:

• Content Area One (Arts & Humanities - Literature)
• Content Area Four (Diversity & Multiculturalism - USA)
• Topics of Inquiry: TOI2: Cultural Dimensions of Human Experiences, TOI3: Diversity, Equity, Social Justice
• The W version of this course satisfies a Writing Competency requirement

Meets NEAG/TCPCG’s Secondary Education American or Multicultural Literature requirement

Enrollment Requirements: ENGL 2701; instructor consent required. 

3703| TuTh 3:30 - 4:45 |Gorkemli, Serkan

This course is open to advanced student writers who have taken English 2701: Creative Writing I and are interested in writing and discussing fiction. It counts toward the English major and minor, as well as the Concentration in Creative Writing, and includes the following activities:

-Read about aspects of craft and analyze sample prose by various writers (textbook: Crafting Stories: A Guide to Creative Writing by Ethel Rackin).

-Produce and share original work and participate in writing workshops.

-Research and present on creative writing journals that publish work by undergraduates.

Enrollment is by instructor permission only. If interested in taking the course, email serkan.gorkemli@uconn.edu with your student ID# and a brief statement of interest and experience in creative writing.