Writing Across Disciplines
ENGL 147
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
G.Demeter
In this course, students will develop their genre knowledge and metacognitive skills to prepare for the advanced writing, reading, and research tasks required in upper-level writing and disciplinary courses across the university. Through individual and group inquiry, students will analyze and discuss the conventions of academic genres to understand the textual and linguistic features and disciplinary expectations of each form of writing. Then, students will apply these generic conventions through the production and revision of writing within each genre. Throughout the semester, students will engage in workshops and discussions that foster skills in the areas of seminar participation, collaboration, rhetorical awareness, and critical thinking. This course is specifically designed for non-native speakers of English, but native speakers may take the course with the approval of the instructor.
Writing Tutorial
ENGL 180
To Be Announced
M.Schaffer
Substantial scheduled tutorial work in writing.
Literature in English
ENGL 200
M/W/F: 2:15-3:05PM | 3:20-4:10PM
To Be Announced
This course introduces students to the reading of literature in the English language. Through close attention to the practice of reading, students are invited to consider some of the characteristic forms and functions imaginative literature has taken, together with some of the changes that have taken place in what and how readers read. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar or SAGES First Seminar.
Introduction to Creative Writing
ENGL 203
M/W/F: 2:15-3:05PM
M/W: 4:50-6:05PM
R.Schaer
A course exploring basic issues and techniques of writing narrative prose and verse through exercises, analysis, and experiment. For students who wish to try their abilities across a spectrum of genres.
Introduction to Journalism
ENGL 204
T/TH: 5:30-6:45PM
D.Polverine
Students will learn the basics of reporting and writing news stories, but also the traditions behind the craft and the evolving role of journalism in society. Instruction will include interviewing skills, fact-checking, word choice and story structure--all framed by guidance on making ethically sound decisions. Assignments could include stories from a variety of beats (business, entertainment, government, science), along with deadline stories and breaking news Web updates, profiles and obituaries.
Introduction to Fiction Writing
ENGL 213
M: 3:20-5:50PM
T.Umrigar
A beginning workshop in fiction writing, introducing such concepts as voice, point of view, plot, characterization, dialogue, description, and the like. May include discussion of literary examples, both classic and contemporary, along with student work.
Introduction to Poetry Writing
ENGL 214
M/W: 3:20-4:35PM, R.Schaer
T/TH: 1:00-2:15PM, L.Turner
A beginning workshop, focusing on such elements of poetry as verse-form, syntax, figures, sound, tone. May include discussion of literary examples as well as student work.
Podcasting Workshop- Shakespeare in Harlem
ENGL 215
T/TH: 2:30-3:45PM
C.Elliott
This thematically-focused podcasting workshop uses literature as a model for creative audio storytelling. Class meetings will alternate between discussions of the readings and hands-on podcast script brainstorming, research, writing, workshopping, and production (including mini-workshops and tutorials on audio recording and editing). Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 215 and WRIT 215.
Business and Professional Writing
ENGL 217A
M/W: 8:00-9:15AM | M/W:3:20-4:35PM
T/TH: 1:00-2:15PM
To Be Announced
The ability to communicate effectively is a powerful skill, one with real and significant consequences. This is particularly true in the 21st-century workplace, where we use words and images to address needs, solve problems, persuade audiences, and even arrange the details of our professional and personal lives. Communication requirements and expectations are constantly changing, whether we work in small business, large companies, non-profit organizations, research labs, or hospitals. As such, we need to be adaptable writers and readers of all kinds of documents -- from print to digital. This course offers students an introduction to professional communication in theory and practice. We will pay special attention to audience analysis, persuasive techniques in written and oral communication, document design strategies, and ethical communication practices. Recommended preparation: Passing grade in an Academic Inquiry Seminar or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 217A and WRIT 210.
Writing for the Health Professions
ENGL 217B
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
T/TH: 8:30-9:45AM | 10:00-11:15AM
To Be Announced
This course offers practice and training in the professional and technical writing skills common to health professions (e.g., medicine, nursing, dentistry). Attention will be paid to the writing processes of drafting, revising, and editing. Typical assignments include: letters, resumes, personal essays, professional communication genres (e.g., email, reports, patient charts, and histories), and scholarly genres (e.g., abstracts, articles, and reviews). Offered as ENGL 217B and WRIT 211.
Reading Fiction
ENGL 257A
M/W/F:10:35-11:25AM | 2:15-3:05PM
T/TH: 11:30-12:45PM
To Be Announced
This course introduces students to prose narrative forms in English by exploring their intersecting histories and their contemporary developments. As we read these texts in their historical and social contexts, we will pay particular attention to the ways in which prose fiction represents gender, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, race, and indigeneity. Our work will require careful reading, critical thinking, and scholarly, argument-based writing (including revision), as we appreciate the diversity of fiction's forms and features. We will introduce and develop the key terms, concepts and practice of literary studies. The specific focus of the course may vary. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar or SAGES First Seminar.
Reading Poetry
ENGL 257B
M/W: 3:20-4:35PM | 4:50-6:05PM
T/TH: 11:30-12:45PM | 5:30-6:45PM
To Be Announced
This course will help you to read and enjoy poetry by introducing you to the history of poetic forms in English. We'll pay close attention to the enchanting details of poetic expression, as well as to the cultivation of individual styles and to the place of poetry in a world defined by global movements of many kinds. Our work will require careful reading, critical thinking, and scholarly, argument-based writing (including revision), as we appreciate the diversity of forms and features of poetry in English. We will introduce and develop the key terms, concepts and practice of literary studies by turning to poems for our test-cases; examples may include the sestina, sonnet and villanelle, ghazal, pantoum, haiku, and open forms. The specific focus of the course may vary. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar or SAGES First Seminar.
Science Fiction
ENGL 258
M/W: 3:20-4:35PM
M.Clune
Science fiction is an art form dedicated to creating imaginary worlds, and to exploring the possibilities of human transformation and deformation. Critical questions will include the ethics of new technology, the relation between real and imagined worlds, the transformations of faith and belief, the ethics of otherness, and the status of science fiction as the contemporary literature of prophecy. Authors include H.G. Wells, H.P Lovecraft, Mervyn Peake, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, and Cixin Liu. Written work will consist of two short papers, one revision, and one longer paper.
Special Topics Seminar- The Art of the Feature Story
ENGL 285
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
A.Girvin
Seminars focusing on topics in literature and culture. See class notes in class search for topics and detailed descriptions. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar(AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar.
Literature, Gender, and Sexuality
ENGL 286
M/W: 4:50-6:05PM
M.Jewell
This course focuses on how writers engage with the complex subjects of gender and sexuality in their works. We will read works by novelists, short story writers, playwrights, and poets, focusing on gender's multiple intersections with sexual identity, race, social class, and abilities. Throughout the course, we will keep in mind the following questions: What techniques do writers use to engage with the issues of gender identity and sexuality in their works? How do writers protest against -- or participate in -- the reproduction of gender ideologies? How might literary works provide unique spaces of resistance for reimagining gender roles and identities? How is literary authorship itself gendered and how might authors employ innovative strategies to write beyond binary roles? Students will complete five critical responses, write a midterm essay, and complete multimedia final projects accompanied by a critical essay, and a final short reflection paper to be included in the Experience Portfolio. Recommended preparation: Passing grade in an Academic Inquiry Seminar or a SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 286 and WGST 286.
Introduction to Modern Jewish Literature, 1880-1945
ENGL 293
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
B.Mann
Survey introduction to main themes and canonical texts from modern Jewish writing (1880-1945). Works will be discussed in relation to the cultural, economic and social conditions in which they were produced, and in light of broad questions regarding genre, history, modernity and identity. Authors include Y. L. Peretz, Franz Kafka, Leah Goldberg and Henry Roth. Offered as ENGL 293, JWST 293, and WLIT 293.
English Literature to 1800
ENGL 300
M/W: 8:00-9:15AM
S.Justice
A survey of major British authors from Chaucer to Milton and Dryden.
Playwriting
ENGL 305
M: 3:20-6:05PM
G.Vovos
Theory and practice of dramatic writing, in the context of examples, classic and contemporary. Recommended preparation: ENGL 203 or ENGL 213 or ENGL 214 or ENGL 303 or ENGL 304. Offered as ENGL 305, THTR 312 and THTR 412.
American Literature
ENGL 308
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
W.Hunter
A survey of major American authors from the Puritans to the present. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar.
African American Literature Survey
ENGL 311
T/TH: 10:00-11:15AM
C.Elliott
This course explores the relationship of African American authors to Africa and to the classics of the Western literary tradition. The poetry, fiction, autobiographies, essays, and speeches on the syllabus--and contextual information about their political, social, and historical contexts--will prepare you to reflect on the traditions and prospects of African American literature, including in relation to the literary mainstream. Also, you will learn about important creative modes, approaches and movements (such as neoclassicism, local color, New Criticism, the Harlem Renaissance, modernism, and Black Arts). Perhaps more important, you will explore key instances when African American authors innovated literary form or upended literary conventions. Those breakthrough moments in American literary history inspire some of the big questions we will tackle collectively, including: why do literary genres exist, and what do they preclude and accomplish? Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as AFST 310 and ENGL 311.
Renaissance Literature- Gender & Sexuality
ENGL 320
T/TH: 11:30-12:45PM
M.Vinter
Aspects of English Renaissance literature and its contexts from 1500-ca. 1620. Genres studied might include poetry, drama, prose fiction, expository and polemic writing, or some works from Continental Europe. Writers such as Skelton, More, Erasmus, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Lanier, Wroth, Shakespeare, Donne. Maximum 6 credits. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 320, ENGL 320C and ENGL 420.
Shakespeare: Histories and Tragedies
ENGL 324
T/TH: 1:00-2:15PM
M.Vinter
Close reading of a selection of Shakespeare's tragedies and history plays (e.g., "Richard the Third," "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," "King Lear"). Topics of discussion may include Renaissance drama as a social institution, the nature of tragedy, national history, gender roles, sexual politics, the state and its opponents, theatrical conventions. Assessment may include opportunities for performance. A student may not receive credit for both ENGL 324 and ENGL 324C. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 324, ENGL 324C, ENGL 424, and THTR 334.
American Literature 1914-1960- American Modernism
ENGL 358
T/TH: 4:00-5:15PM
W.Marling
Aspects of American literature and its contexts from the First World War to the Cold War. Genres studied might include fiction, poetry, drama, polemics. Writers such as T.S. Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Moore, W.C. Williams, Dos Passos, West, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Cather, Faulkner, Barnes, Miller, T. Williams, O'Neill. Maximum 6 credits. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 358 and ENGL 458.
Irish Literature
ENGL 361
M/W: 7:00-8:15PM
M.Jewell
This course will introduce students to major periods of Irish Literature with a strong focus on concepts of artistic identity and the experiences of writers struggling to produce work outside of official culture. We will begin with an examination of Stone Age archaeology and pre-Christian poets and apply this deep historical context to our examination of the writing being produced around the time of the conversion to Christianity and colonialization in the 16th Century. We will then focus on Anglo-Irish writers such as Yeats, Joyce, Synge, and the lesser-known Maria Edgeworth and then examine contemporary responses to Irish identities and literary cultures by reading the works of more recent poets and playwrights such as Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Brian Friel, Paula Meehan, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, and Mary Dorsey. Course outcomes include learning about major Irish literary traditions, the connection of communal identities to literature, colonial Irish contexts, and the construction of literary tradition within post-colonial contexts. Offered as ENGL 361 and ENGL 461.
The Immigrant Experience
ENGL 365E
T/TH: 2:30-3:45PM
W.Marling
Study of fictional and/or autobiographical narrative by authors whose families have experienced immigration to the U.S. Among the ethnic groups represented are Asian-American, Jewish-American, Hispanic-American. May include several ethnic groups or focus on a single one. Attention is paid to historical and social aspects of immigration and ethnicity. Maximum 6 credits. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 365E, ENGL 365EC, ENGL 465E, WLIT 365E and WLIT 465E.
Introduction to Film
ENGL 367
T/TH:1:00-2:15PM
R.Spadoni
An introduction to the art of film. Each week we'll take an element of film form (editing, cinematography, sound, and so on) and ask how filmmakers work with this element to produce effects. Most weeks we'll also screen a whole film and discuss it in light of the week's focus. Films screened will include masterworks of the silent era, foreign films, Hollywood studio-era classics, and more recent cinema. This course has no prerequisites and welcomes first year students. Offered as ENGL 367 and ENGL 467.
Topics in Film- Storytelling and Cinema
ENGL 368
T/TH: 10:00-11:15AM
R.Spadoni
Individual topics include Horror Films, Storytelling & Cinema, Science Fiction Films, Films of Alfred Hitchcock, American Cinema & Culture, History of Cinema, and many others. This course has no prerequisites and welcomes first year students. Other than the number of credits from one department a student can apply toward graduating, there is no limit to the number of times Topics in Film can be taken. A student who has previously taken ENGL 368C may receive credit for ENGL 368 only if the themes/topics are different. Offered as ENGL 368, ENGL 468, WLIT 368, and WLIT 468.
Studies in Genre- Dark Comedy
ENGL 376
M/W: 12:45-2:00PM
M.Clune
Topics in literary genres, such as comedy, biography and autobiography, satire, allegory, the short story, the apologue, narrative poetry. May cross over the prose/poetry boundary. Maximum 6 credits. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 376 and ENGL 476.
Disciplinary Writing Seminar- Restoration Drama
ENGL 380
T/TH: 4:00-5:15PM
E.Olbricht
This seminar explores a significant literary period, topic, author, or theme in the study of literature. Readings vary by term and include both primary texts and secondary sources. Students will gain practice in the written analysis of literature, interacting with major historical and cultural discourses that literature engages, and producing distinct and recognizable forms of literary argument. This course will provide students with the concepts, skills, and strategies needed to succeed in their capstone course. Requirements include active class participation, the close reading paper, an argumentative research paper, and a presentation. Required of all English majors, preferable in the junior year.
Special Topics in Literature- Reading and Writing the Memoir
ENGL 385
W:3:20-5:50PM
T.Umrigar
Close study of a theme or aspect of literature not covered by traditional generic or period rubrics, such as "spatial imagination," "semiotics of fashion in literature," "epistolarity." Maximum 9 credits. Recommended preparation: Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS) or SAGES First Seminar. Offered as ENGL 385 and ENGL 485.