The Department of English offers over 200 courses for undergraduate- and graduate-level students. These courses focus on a diverse array of topics from across the fields of American and British literature; world literature; critical and narrative theory; film, video game analysis and other areas of popular culture studies; writing, rhetoric and literacy; digital media studies; and folklore. We also offer creative writing workshops in fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
For a PDF of this academic year's course offerings, see the Course Bulletin [pdf] for this year.
For complete and accurate meeting days and times for courses of interest, and to register, please visit the Ohio State Master Course Schedule. The master schedule is maintained by University Registrar and includes information about Department of English courses offered across all of our campuses. While we make every effort to ensure that the information below is complete and correct, the link above is guaranteed to be so.
Spring 2025
*For information about mode of delivery, search for the course description in the Student Information System.
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Section 70 & 80 Instructor: Frank Donoghue
Section 90 Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
2000-Level
English 2202: Selected Works of British Literature: 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This class will dig through the complexities of British cultural history and consider how it has generated interesting, world-important literature and ideas that still resonate with us today. We’ll cover the Haitian and French Revolutions, slavery and abolitionism, empire and decolonization, the rise of the capitalist middle class, debates over gender roles and sexuality, and the cultural entrenchment of scientific values. Art forms and movements will also be central to our discussions. Some examples include poetry of Romantic sublime, the Gothic, satire, Aestheticism, detective fiction, realism, and magic realism.
Authors will likely include (among others) Mary Prince, William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, Robert Browning, Toru Dutt, Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, Una Marson, and Mohsin Hamid.
Likely course requirements: active and engaged participation, three short response papers, two exams, and a final critical project.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 20 Instructor: Alan B. Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Henry The Fifth, Othello, and The Tempest. Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance, and active participation.
Section 10 Instructor: Eileen Horansky
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2221: Introduction to Shakespeare, Race, and Gender
Instructor: Alan B. Farmer
In this course we analyze how Shakespeare's plays engage with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Part of the course will thus consider what these plays reveal about the history of these concepts and how they were understood in early modern England. But the course will also examine how Shakespeare's plays continue to shape lived experiences today, and how his plays have been used to reinforce and challenge understandings of identity at different moments in history. Readings will include: (1) critical and historical essays on the history of race, religion and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; (2) some combination of the following plays, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Othello; (3) and selected modern adaptations of the plays on stage, in film, and in literature. Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance, and active participation.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Lauren Colwell
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Matthew Cariello
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2262: Introduction to Drama
Instructor: Shaun Russell
A critical analysis of selected dramatic masterpieces from Greek antiquity to the present, designed to clarify the nature and major achievements of Western dramatic art.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Section 10 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, communicate complex ideas, and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. We will use each week’s film as both a case study in the strategic deployment of certain cinematic techniques, and as a specific set of images and sounds that combine to create a unique cinematic expression.
Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the ways in which the multiple elements of moviemaking come together to make, and complicate, meaning. Our primary goal in this class is to become skilled at thinking, talking, and writing critically about movies and, in the process, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the film medium.
Texts: Do the Right Thing, His Girl Friday, In the Mood for Love
Section 20 Instructor: Patrick McCabe
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Section 10 Instructor: Umut Mert Gurses
Section 20 Instructor: Zainab Saleh
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity, and gender in popular cultures.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 30 Instructor: Mikayla Schutte
In this course, we will ask ourselves the fundamental questions of fiction writing. How do you build a scene? How do you make your characters compelling? How do you write believable dialogue? How do you create a world from scratch? Through various writing exercises and a discussion of published stories from contemporary writers like Carmen Maria Machado, George Saunders, and Karen Russel, we will begin to answer these questions and create a cache of tools to use in our own writing. By the end of this course, you will have learned the basics of fiction writing, read a variety of published work, taken part in a writing workshop, and built a portfolio of work to carry you into your future as a fiction writer.
Section 10 Instructor: Chinasa Menakaya
Section 40 Instructor: Fengyuan Liu
Section 50 Instructor: Porter Yelton
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Max Gillette
Section 20 Instructor: Connor Beeman
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Misha Ponnuraju
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Heather McCabe
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Instructor: Joshua Cornelius
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Rosemary Hathaway
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 10 Instructor: Corinne Sugino
This course introduces students to rhetoric as an "art of persuasion." Rhetoric is a primary means by which identity, participation, and agency is expressed in public discourse. This course engages the questions: how does rhetoric enable us to express our interests, formulate identity, shape social reality, right wrongs, urge fairness, enact justice, and elicit compassion? How might we develop a critical lens for interpreting and engaging public texts and arguments, as well as how they interact with issues of justice, citizenship, and public decision-making? Students will learn about foundational and contemporary concepts in rhetorical theory, including the elements of persuasion, audience and rhetorical effects, genres and situations, forms and structures, argumentation schemes, narrative and myth, tropes and metaphors, and cultural and ideological frameworks. They will develop their skills in both constructing persuasive arguments as well as critically examining what factors make texts persuasive, how rhetoric constructs social reality, and how rhetoric interacts with issues of diversity, justice, and equity.
Texts: Hallsby, "Reading Rhetorical Theory: Speech, Representation, and Power", Palczewski et al, "Rhetoric in Civic Life"
Section 20 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Katelin Anderson
Disability is commonly understood as the absence of health or well-being. However, the abundance of disability art, culture, scholarship, and activism all indicate that the full story of disability is more complex, and Disability Studies is all about the investigation of that complex story! We’ll explore how disability is discussed, theorized, represented, and experienced as an embodied phenomenon, drawing on scholarship and media from disabled people inside and outside the academic field of Disability Studies.
Texts: Keywords for Disability Studies, ed. Adams et al., Academic Ableism, Dolmage (selections), Various online videos and articles
Section 20 Instructor: Luke Van Niel
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
Enliglish 2280: The English Bible
Instructor: James Fredal
If you've always wanted to know what was in the Bible and how to approach it, this would be a good course for you. By the time you've completed this class, you will have read from most books of the Bible, from all the major Biblical genres, in both testaments, from Genesis to Revelation. You'll be familiar with biblical history, events, figures, and culture, with biblical themes like holiness, prophecy, worship, wisdom, apocalyptic, gospel, and messianism, with biblical language, terms and style, and with biblical analysis and criticism. We'll have short answer exams roughly every week, a midterm, and a final. Your only required text is an NRSV Bible, preferably a study Bible like the Harper Collins or Oxford editions.
Texts:
NRSV Harper Collins Study Bible.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Section 10 & 30 Instructor: Julia Applegate
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
English 2290: Colonial and U.S. Literature to 1865
Section 10 Instructor & Title: Molly Farrell - Myths of American Exceptionalism
What are the origins of American literature, and why do they matter? This course is organized around the idea that early American literature is less an origin point than a site for the telling of competing origin stories. Together we will explore influential writers and texts that simultaneously establish and complicate origin myths about American exceptionalism. In the process, we will learn how to use tools of critical literary analysis to embrace the enduring complexity of these key works.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 10, 20, 140 Instructor: Rebecca Thacker
What drives social change? And how does rhetoric shape social change movements? In this course, we will delve into the study of digital rhetoric—the art of effective persuasive communication online—by examining how a variety of U.S. nonprofit organizations use various forms of composition to promote social and cultural equity and justice. In other words, we’ll take a "rhetorical approach" to thinking about social media accounts: specifically, those used by U.S. nonprofits to promote and advance their changemaking agendas.
Texts: Andrea Lunsford—Let's Talk: A Pocket Rhetoric; Cabrera and Montoya—Activism or Slacktivism? The Potential and Pitfalls of Social Media in Contemporary Student Activism; Victoria Carty—Social Movements and New Technology.
Section 40, 50, 70 Instructor & Title: Garrett Cummins - STEM Literacy and Popular STEM Writing in the U.S. Experience
In the standard course descriptions, English 2367.01 extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics about education and pop culture in America. The popular culture and education topics we will be looking at focus on how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) relates to topics in your majors and/or future professions, open to all majors. In the instance of things like climate change denial intersects with all kinds of majors in all kinds of ways, from business majors to education majors, to humanities majors, sports management, to STEM majors.
For both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how popular American STEM writing and communication intersect with STEM literacy, i.e. the American public’s understanding, misunderstanding, use, and misuse of STEM-related facts, such as climate change denial, flat-earth conspiracy, COVID denial, etc.
However, these topics and the related readings only work as a springboard for your own writing and research. As a composition course, we focus on the writing process, research, and using OSU’s libraries online resources, along with Google Scholar.
Texts: I will provide all the readings and textbooks you need as this class uses Open Educational Resources.
Section 150 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
You've probably heard the claim, "we're all fans of something" before. But are you curious about how fans 'participate' across fandoms--or subcultures of fans from a wide range of genres to entertainment to sports? Over the semester, we'll explore not only how fans are studied, but examine forms of fan generated content that contribute to forms of social change. If you're a fan of something and want to dive into how fan works and activities ranging from fanfiction to cosplay to social media campaigns and fan activism generate pathways for social, cultural, and political change, then maybe you'll find what you seek in Fandom and Fan Practices as Social Change.
Texts: Textbooks for this course may include Who Says? The Writer’s Research. 3rd ed., by Deborah H. Holdstein and Danielle Aquilline and So What? The Writer’s Argument. 3rd ed., by Kurt Shick and Laura Schubert. We may also read work like Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal (comic).
Section 160 Instructor: Sam Risak
Our understanding of addiction depends not just on medical discourse, but on the representations of addiction we engage with through media. In this class, we will look at how addiction has been represented and what impacts such representations have on us and society. Through research and writing, we will develop our analytical skills as we explore a variety of texts and genres (poetry, fiction, film, theory, etc.) produced by a wide range of movements and voices. We will work together to address the following questions: How is addiction represented in media? What are the effects of such representations? What changes do we need to see in such representations? How can we use our writing and research to effect such change?
Texts: Let’s Talk…A Pocket Rhetoric by Andrea Lunsford; Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story by Julia Wertz
Section 30 Instructor: Soyoo Park
Section 60 Instructor: MaryKatherine Ramsey
Section 80 Instructor: Natalie Kopp
Section 120 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 10 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
Section 20 Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
Section 50 Instructor: Mary Gibaldi
Section 70 Instructor: Joshua Mishaw
Section 100 Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Garrett Cummins
In the standard course descriptions, English 2367.04 extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics about Science and Technology in America. In this course, we look at American attitudes about technology, from business majors to education majors, to humanities majors, sports management, to STEM majors. In other words, for both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how attitudes about Science and Technology inform various disciplines. Studying these attitudes includes analyzing a piece of popular STEM writing that deals with attitudes about technology.
However, these topics and the related readings only work as a springboard for your own writing and research. As a composition course, we focus on the writing process, research, and using OSU’s libraries online resources, along with Google Scholar.
Texts: I will provide all the readings and textbooks you need because this course uses Open Educational Resources.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Shalini Abayasekara
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one decimal subdivision of English 2367 may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 30 Instructor and Title: Emily Eikost - Storytelling and Identity
The goal of this course’s theme is to examine the ways in which storytelling and player identity impact one another within video games, primarily through RPG (role-playing games) that allow students to "write" the story along with the game’s creators through the complex decisions that they make within it along the way. In order to do so, it is important to understand how and why these games not only reflect aspects of our own society but also the ways in which it impacts our own perceptions of ourselves. Fantasy has a well-established history in treating present concerns through a distanced, fictional lens while storytelling itself has often been used as a mechanism for exploring our own individual and collective identities, though the ways we tell stories has evolved over time. Video games are a blend of this, introducing a modern way of telling stories that requires audience participation. We will tackle various issues regarding the representations of race, gender, class, sexuality, and mental health as we discuss at length intersections between player choice, fantasy, and world-building.
Texts: Ede, Lisa. The Academic Writer. Fifth Edition (2021). World of Warcraft (base game through level 20 is free). Detroit: Become Human (free through DMP or available for purchase on STEAM).
Section 10 Instructor: Karen Aston
Section 20 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 40 & 50 Instructor: Guy Spriggs
Section 60 Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
Section 70 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 80 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Section 10 & 20 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Jared Gardner
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
3000-Level
English 3000: Writing for Social Change
Instructor: Caleb Hays
In this course we will use academic writing and research practices across various forms of media to investigate the role of citizenship historically and currently, exploring the ways that we as citizens can work towards a more just and diverse society. We will develop a definition of citizenship that emphasizes a citizen's relationship to their local, national, and global environments.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3020: Writing About Sustainability
Instructor: Brittany Halley
This course asks students to consider their place in the natural world by conducting primary and secondary research, analyzing data, composing and revising written arguments, and becoming more proficient with the conventions of academic discourses. We will employ rhetorical theory as one approach to engage in advanced, in-depth, and scholarly investigations about sustainability.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Sustainability
English 3031: Rhetorics of Health, Illness, and Wellness
Instructor: Eduardo Mabilog
Students examine rhetorical concepts and how rhetorical devices construct our understanding of our bodies, health and wellness. Students learn how power structures and ideologies enable commonplace rhetorical devices to structure normative beliefs about bodies, health, and wellness and how rhetoric shapes perceptions of health and wellness and makes and unmakes healthy bodies, including your own.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3110: Citizenship, Justice, and Diversity in Literatures, Cultures, and Media
Instructor & Title: Joe Ponce - U.S. Citizenship and Its Others
"U.S. Citizenship and Its Others." This course considers how the category of U.S. citizenship has been historically constituted through racial, gender, and class hierarchies, on the one hand, while also being contested by those excluded from its privileges, on the other. After a brief overview of the legal history of U.S. citizenship, we will focus on the ways that minoritized writers and activists from the Civil Rights era to the present have used various literary forms and media to challenge their marginalized positions and to reimagine the terms of social belonging in a diverse and globalized world. In what ways have cultural workers associated with the racial, gender, and sexual liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s; AIDS activism of the 1980s and 90s; and post-9/11, undocumented, refugee, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements in the twenty-first century deployed manifestos, personal essays, poetry, fiction, and social media to further their political goals? By examining the rhetorical and aesthetic strategies embedded in their texts, we will reflect on whether citizenship itself is capable of delivering the kind of justice that their expressive practices call for and demand.
Texts: Possible authors: Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Janice Mirikitani, Rodolfo Gonzales, Allan Barnett, Essex Hemphill, Suheir Hammad, Philip Metres, Bao Phi, Carmen Maria Machado, Javier Zamora, Claudia Rankine, Evie Shockley, Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 30 Instructor & Title: Clare Simmons - Monsters Among Us
The loose topic for this course in "Monsters Among Us." It might seem easy to spot a monster, but an age-old fear is that there may be monsters among us that we have not recognized. In this course we will read monster stories from the Middle Ages to modern times that show that monsters might be with us—or even be us. Requirements will include reading response questions, a movie viewing report, an essay, and a laptop poster display.
Texts: Readings will include: Marie de France, "Bisclavret"; Saki, "Gabriel-Ernest"; Angela Carter, "The Company of Wolves"; John Polidori, "The Vampyre"; Sheridan Le Fanu, "Carmilla"; John Keats, "Lamia"; Letitia Landon, "The Fairy of the Fountain"; James Hogg, Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Section 60 Instructor & Title: Christopher A. Jones - The Vampire
Why have vampires gripped the popular imagination for so long? How does the figure of the vampire reflect changing attitudes about health and disease, as well as about communal and individual identity? Addressing such questions, this section of English 3264 will focus on the evolving figure of the vampire in nineteenth- and twentieth-century stories, novels, and films. After a preliminary consideration of vampire legends from folkloric and scientific perspectives, we will focus on representations of the vampire across a series of texts and films.
Texts: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire (1977), and Jon Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let Me In (2004)
Section 10 Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Section 20 Instructor: Nick White
Section 40 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 50 Instructor: Shaun Russell
Section 70 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 80 Instructor: Seonoh Kim
Section 90 Instructor: Chris Vanjonack
Storytellers have long used monsters not only to frighten us but also to jolt us into thinking deeply about ourselves, others, and the world we live in. This course examines how various horror genres use monsters to explore issues of wellbeing and citizenship, and debates about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, social justice, and personal responsibility.
Section 100 Instructor & Title: Jesse Schotter
Ghosts—and the stories we tell about them—have always been the emblems of the worst fears of societies and cultures. They can embody historical or racial repressions; anxieties about new technologies like photography, television, or the Internet; and fears about mental illness and psychological trauma. Focusing mostly on 20th century texts, we’ll look at narratives about ghosts and hauntings ranging from literary novels to popular films, exploring all the various uses writers and directors have made of these specters and revenants. Texts may include films—Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse; novels—Toni Morrison’s Beloved, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw; and plays—August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play, and, last but not least, Adrienne Kennedy’s The Ohio State Murders. This course is a second session class that will be taught asynchronously. Requirements include watching video lectures, responding to discussion board questions, completing brief response papers, and writing a final essay.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Section 30 Instructor: Gabriella Modan
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Zaira Girala Muñoz
Section 20 & 140 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Section 30 Instructor: Adrian Salgado
Section 40 & 130 Instructor: Kelsey Mason
Section 50, 60, 110 & 120 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 70 & 80 Instructor: Liz Miller
Section 90 & 100 Instructor: Guy Spriggs
Section 150 Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Irma Zamora
Section 20 & 40 Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3340: Reimagining Climate Change
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Come build a digital museum of Ohio's climate future!
The primary goal of this class is to explore the ways climate change effects some of the fundamental ideas that guide our thinking: nature, the human, growth, future, and time itself. All of the work we do will be oriented towards a collective final project where the class will design its own version of a future Ohio and build a digital museum of artifacts to explain how they arrived in their climate future. We will be assisted in using digital tools and AI technology by Jeremy Patterson (ACCAD). To think about curation and museums, we will collaborate with the Wexner Center for the Arts and view two exhibitions on energy and indigeneity that will be on display in 2025.
To undertake our work, we will begin with two interrelated questions: first, how can we imagine climate change properly so that we can grasp its multiscalar effects across time and geography as well as the ways it seeps into our daily lives? Second, and more provocatively, how does climate change challenge the very concepts and tools we have to imagine and think at all? How should we now think about ideas like the human, history, energy, growth, and time on an altered planet? This class will attempt to grapple patiently and rigorously with these questions from multiple perspectives. We will read broadly from ecomodernists who advocate for technology and market solutions to degrowth advocates who want us to revisit the very idea of markets and growth. We will visit futures--dystopic and utopic--in fiction and film that ask us to think more carefully about our present. Visual artworks will challenge our grammar for seeing the natural world, our energy infrastructure, and our capacities to make judgments about all of it. Assignments: short concept papers, an exercise based at the Wexner Center for the Arts, engaged class participation, and collaborative work on the final speculative museum from an Ohio future project.
Texts: Readings may include: Octavia Butler The Parable of the Sower, Jeff VanderMeer Borne, the Ecomodernist Manifesto, Jason Hickel Less Is More, essays by Kyle Powys Whyte, Kim Tallbear, Becky Chambers A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and more.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Sustainability
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Jim Phelan
Study of fictional and nonfictional narratives offering diverse perspectives on such medical issues as health, illness, aging, treatment, healing, wellbeing, and doctor-patient relationships. GE lit course. GE theme health and well-being course.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-Being
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture
Section 20 Instructor & Title: Christopher Highley - Popular Culture in Shakespeare’s England
You might think of popular culture as a modern phenomenon encompassing everything from hip hop to Manga to Romantacy. But as you’ll discover in this class, English popular culture has a deep history. We will study it during the first age of print and consumerism we know as Early Modern (or Shakespeare’s) England. Our focus is not on rulers and aristocrats, but on the cultures of common people, the non-elites: what forms of entertainment did they consume? We look first at the reading matter of ordinary folk like bawdy and satirical jestbooks; ballads about monstrous births and unnatural murders; and cheap pamphlets about witchcraft. We’ll then turn to popular venues like alehouses (where ballads were performed), cockpits and bear-baiting arenas, and the playhouses that drew audiences from all social ranks. And we’ll ask, was Shakespeare a part of popular culture, was he ‘a man of the people,’ or was he the dramatist of courts and kings?
Texts: Thomas Deloney, 'Jack of Newbury.' Shakespeare, 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.'
Section 10 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Focused study in reading popular culture texts, organized around a single theme, period, or medium.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 20 Instructor & Title: Zoe Brigley Thompson - The Science Fiction Version (Session 1 course)
When we hear the term, 'science fictions,' we might immediately think of the word, 'future,' and the genre certainly does look forward to fifty years from now, a hundred, a thousand or even ten thousand. Science fiction often speculates looking at everything from our intimate relationships to our social lives and how technology might change the way we live. Such stories, however, are always rooted in the present; reflections on love, sex, community, and lifestyle are very often actually reflections on our lives in the present moment.
In this class, we are going to focus on two short forms: the short story and the TV episode. The short story is a brief but intense snapshot of an interlude, a specific chapter in a story. Because it does not have the room of the novel, it cannot tell an epic or give every detail of a character's life story. Instead we have a glimpse and very often this might include an epiphany, a surprise, a twist, a revelation (unless writers are going against conventions). Frank O'Connor in The Lonely Crowd talks about how in a short story, 'an iron bar must be bent, and it must be seen to be bent'. We will look at stories by Asimov, Butler, Dick and others, and TV shows like Stranger Things, Electric Dreams and Westworld.
Section 30 Instructor & Title: Zoe Brigley Thompson - The Fantasy Version (Session 2 course)
Science fiction and fantasy often overlap, for example in Star Wars where futuristic spacecrafts and light sabers exist alongside the magic of the force, witches, and a powerful sense of destiny and fate. But what make fantasy unique? The fantasy genre is often a means to look at aspects of our own lives in a new context and the texture of its imaginings often tells us a great deal about how we imagine ourselves in the 'real world'. In class, we are going to look at screen representations from fantasy TV series like The Witcher, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, and more, alongside writers like Sapkowski, Martin, Jordan, and more. We will consider how screen representations are adapted from original source texts. As we; as what is gained and lost in such adaptations.
Section 60 Instructor & Title: Elizabeth Hewitt - Feminism and Science Fiction
Since Mary Shelley birthed Frankenstein’s monster, science fiction has been devoted to issues that are crucial to the history of feminism: alterity and equity. The imagination of other worlds, other places, other species, other laws has the unique ability to make the familiarities of sexism strange. In this class, we will read some of the canonical texts of science fiction focused on issues involving sexuality, gender, reproduction, and corporeality, including Mary Shelley, Jacqueline Harpman, Margaret Atwood, James Tiptree, Jr., Samuel Delany, Judith Merril, and Octavia Butler.
Texts: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale; James Tiptree, Jr., "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"; Jacqueline Harpman's I Who Have Never Known Men
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature
Section 20 Instructor & Title: Luke Wilson - Shakespeare's Tragedies
In this course we will read and discuss five or six of Shakespeare’s tragedies and watch and analyze some significant film adaptations of these plays. We’ll work by reading the plays themselves, carefully, first, and then investigate how different directors have responded. Film adaptations of Shakespeare cover a wide range of approaches, from those that follow Shakespeare’s text closely to those that translate the text into a wholly different language and idiom. The best filmic renderings of Shakespeare tend not to scrupulously adhere to the text but rather bring to bear the film medium’s own unique representational resources. Because parody is often the most productive form of imitation, we will pay special attention to films that undertake to parody their models. In this course we’ll focus on Shakespeare’s major tragedies (chosen from among Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Coriolanus), and watch one or two films of each play. You’ll write frequently about what you’re reading and watching, in discussion posts and response papers, and you’ll have a chance to explore your ideas in greater depth in a substantial essay. There will also be a final exam, as well as an assignment in which you report on a film we haven’t watched in class. Possibly group presentations.
Texts: Five or six of the following plays: Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Richard III, Coriolanus.
Section 10 Instructor: Simone Drake (Session 2 course)
This course focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and nation in film and fiction. We will focus on texts that challenge viewers and readers to think critically about how they understand core philosophical concepts such as what makes one human; what constitutes freedom; the line between reality and fiction; and what does justice look like. The creative texts will be paired with social and culture theories that students will be expected to apply when analyzing the texts. Assignments include weekly short review papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
Texts: Joe Talbot, The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower. James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”. Cord Jefferson, American Fiction. Julia Hart, Fast Color. Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things. Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Kate Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby”. Plato, Allegory of the Cave. Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall. Kasi Lemmons, The Caveman’s Valentine. Toni Morrison, Recitatif. Charles Chesnutt, “The Wife of His Youth”. Celine Song, Past Lives.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Christa Teston
This class will introduce you to the interrelated fields of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy by familiarizing you with key concepts and scholarly methods. Together, WRL involves the study of how people use language and other symbols to convey messages, persuade audiences, and create meaning; it also involves the study of how such practices are both learned and taught.
Texts: All course materials will be made freely available on Carmen.
English 3395: Literature and Leadership
Instructor: Shaun Russell
In this course students consider leadership as a component of national citizenship and literature as a mode of exploring and analyzing a range of perspectives on leadership. The course will encourage students to think about how responses to power are mediated by race, gender, and class and how literary study can help them reflect on and articulate their own leadership strengths and aspirations.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 30 Instructor: Leslie Lockett
English 3398 is different from many of your other English Literature courses. You won’t be listening to protracted lectures on literary history, and the opinions that you formulate about the literature aren’t meant only to be shared with other members of the class. English 3398 is about developing arguments that speak to an academic audience beyond the classroom. This course is designed to build the skills needed for the advanced study of literature: close reading of literary texts; familiarity with the genres of poetry, the short story, the novel, and drama; the understanding and use of literary-critical methods; the formulation of scholarly arguments about literature; the use of other scholars’ research in developing your analysis of texts; the construction of clear and insightful essays about literature. Requirements include several informal written assignments, which develop skills in academic argumentation, and three formal essays, two of which involve research.
Texts: Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah. Short works by Kevin Young, Richard Wilbur, Emily Dickinson, Jamaica Kincaid, Flannery O'Connor, and others.
Section 40 Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Poems, plays, and stories are part of what makes us human. We’ve been inventing these verbal contraptions for longer than recorded history, far longer than printing, way longer than we’ve been studying them in colleges and universities, and there are no signs writers will ever stop. What are these linguistic doohickeys, though? How do they work and what do they do? How do we read and make sense of them? How do we talk and write about them? This course will focus on a variety of provocative literary works, considering especially matters of literary history, genre, form, and language, as well as the interconnected roles of authors, texts, and readers, exploring all the many ways in which novels, poems, and plays make meaning. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re here.
Texts: William Shakespeare, King Lear, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Anne Carson, H and H Playbook, A, E, Stallings, This Afterlife: Selected Poems.
Section 20 Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth
Section 60 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing. Required of English majors. Open to English majors only or others by dept permission.
English 3405: Special Topics in Professional Communication
Instructor: Paige Mason
Study of principles and practices in technical communication, technical editing, managerial communication, international business communication, visual rhetoric, writing for the web, and scientific writing.
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Kathryn LeMon
Section 30 Instructor: Gianna Gaetano
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Katelyn Roth
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Allison Kranek
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Julie Kim
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3595: Literature and Law
Instructor: Jack Rooney
This course examines how legal structures, practices and concepts are represented and explored in and through literature written in English (poetry, fiction, drama, and/or essays).
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 10 Instructor: Danielle Ola
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
Section 20 Instructor: Megan Jones
So you’ve written an essay, or a story, or a poem. So you’ve put it through rounds and rounds of revision, and you’ve polished it, and maybe you’re thinking, "Now what?" If that "what" involves questions of publication, then this class might be for you! Through an interactive, multifaceted process, you’ll learn about and engage with the publishing landscape, with a special (but not exclusive) focus on literary magazines. You can expect a generative semester that will help you understand and practice life as a publishing writer. Throughout the course, you will engage closely with your own creative work and the work of your peers as you fine-tune your essays, stories, or poems and write and revise accompanying cover letters. Along the way, you’ll learn about how literary magazines function and will identify some you might submit to now or in the future. Questions about what happens after we send our work out into the world? Where does it actually go, and who reads it? What does an editor do? Glad you asked! You’ll also approach this semester from an editorial angle, gaining hands-on experience working with real-world literary magazine.
4000-Level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4513: Introduction to Medieval Literature
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
The study of masterpieces from the Middle Ages, chosen for their values in interpreting medieval culture as well as for their independent literary worth.
English 4520.02: Special Topics in Shakespeare
Instructor and Title: Hannibal Hamlin - Bodies Desired, Destroyed, Transformed: Shakespeare and Ovid
William Shakespeare is the most influential author not only in English-speaking countries but around the world. But his own influences were many. One of his favorite books, which he adapted and alluded to across his career, was The Metamorphoses of Ovid, the bad boy of Augustan Rome. Ovid's favorite subject was love, which he saw as entirely tied up with sexual desire. He wrote love poems, a manual for seduction and love The Art of Love, but his masterpiece was The Metamorphoses, which retells many of the famous myths the Romans stole from the Greeks and sees the whole cosmos driven by desire, change, and transformation. Apollo and Daphne, Narcissus and Echo, Theseus and the Minotaur, Orpheus and Eurydice, Phaeton, Philomela, Proserpina, Arachne, Jason and Medea, Perseus, Hyacinthus, Hermaphroditus, the Fall of Troy, the assassination of Julius Caesar. Because of some mysterious business involving Augustus's daughter or granddaughter, Ovid was banished to the Black Sea, where he died in exile. We will read and discuss The Metamorphoses, as well as some of Shakespeare's works most deeply influenced by Ovid.
Texts: Ovid, Metamorphoses; Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale.
English 4540: Nineteenth-Century British Poetry
Instructor: Clare Simmons
In this course we will read British poetry of the Romantic and Victorian eras with a particular emphasis on poetry that is innovative or experimental. We will read both short poems such as sonnets and longer works that tell a story. The course will include poems by "canonical" poets such as William Wordsworth and Alfred Tennyson, but will also feature many works by woman poets such as Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Amy Levy, and Michael Field (yes, he was two shes). Most readings will be available online through Carmen. Course requirements are careful reading in advance; participation in class discussion; some short written responses; a poem close reading; and a final research essay.
Texts: Lots of poems.
English 4551: Special Topics in 19th-Century U.S. Literature
Instructor & Title: Elizabeth Renker - Reconstruction and the Gilded Age
Recent 150-year commemorations of Reconstruction and The Gilded Age have prompted significant reassessments of this violent and transformative period after the US Civil War. Activism by and on behalf of millions of newly freed people provoked terrorist violence in the former rebel states. Settlers, railroads, and federal troops pushed into the West, displacing and slaughtering indigenous peoples. The rise of big business and robber barons, conflict between labor and capital, wealth inequality, and massive economic shifts arising from large-scale industrialization, immigration, and other massive social changes upended daily life. Our class will explore the complex social conflicts of the age through short readings from the public conversations of the time. Most of our assigned reading will be short poems, which helps to keep the number of pages of homework manageable for students, supplemented by selected historical readings in primary and secondary sources. Beginning in week one, I will provide thorough training in the step-by-step methods of how to read complex poems. Students who are unfamiliar with poetry or think they "just don’t ‘get’ poetry" as well as to those who already like it will find this class suits them well. The learning in this class will take place mostly in the classroom, so requirements stress in-class activities (attendance, active discussion every day, in-class quizzes, and so on) rather than out-of-class writing assignments. You will finish the class with significantly improved analytical skills overall.
Texts: Frances E.W. Harper, Walt Whitman, Sarah Piatt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Bret Harte, E. Pauline Johnson, William Dean Howells, Emma Lazarus, Stephen Crane, and Edwin Arlington Robinson and others.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Kathy Fagan Grandinetti
Join us for this immersive poetry workshop in which we read deeply our own and one another's work, respond to "model" poems I provide in class discussion, and create a short collection of poems worthy of submission to contests and literary magazines. Prompts will be provided based on contemporary poems by poets as diverse as Ada Simon, Diane Seuss, Ross Gay, and Li-Young Lee, from whom we will learn lineation, organization of material, and modes of utterance ranging from narrative and lyric to meditative and experimental. 6 poems minimum plus revisions.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Zoe Brigley Thompson
Advanced workshop in the writing of creative nonfiction. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: Calvin Olsen
This section will take up the study of critical making, a nebulous term coined by Matt Ratto in 2008 that lies at the intersections of critical thinking and hands-on making. According to Garnet Hertz, "Ratto wanted the term to act as glue between conceptual and linguistic-oriented thinking and physical and materially based making with an emphasis on introducing hands-on practice to scholars that were primarily working through language and texts" (Current, vol. 8). If there’s one thing we do in English, it is work through language and texts, and in this course we will push the boundaries of literary studies by mixing in physical media.
Our principal medium of choice this semester is 3D printing. Once a practice with huge barriers to entry, 3D printing has become cheaper, faster, and more accessible over the past decade or twoThe English department has invested in a 3D printer at my bequest (which is so cool of them), and we will be literally and figuratively putting it to the test as an instrument for teaching and learning. Among other endeavors, we will learn (1) how to design and modify objects for printing, (2) why limitations exist within the medium and within our particular mash-up(s) with/of it, and (3) what happens when you cross literary and media studies. Ideally, all of us will get a little taste of what it feels like to bend the boundaries of our discipline and spend a few weeks in the shoes of Victor Frankenstein as the things we make bound off in unexpected directions.
Texts: Frankenstein [1818] (Mary Shelley). "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Walter Benjamin). All readings will be made available for free and delivered electronically via our course Carmen/Canvas site
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Section 10 Instructor: Daniel Seward
Section 20 Instructor: Lauren Squires
An examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes
Instructor & Title: Chris Vanjonack - Experimental Forms
This fiction workshop will give students the opportunity to read, write, and workshop fiction that eschews traditional structural boundaries to instead take on radically new forms, from grocery lists to PowerPoint Presentations to choose-your-own-adventure books. Throughout the class, we'll be reading authors such as Carmen Maria Machado, Charles Yu, Ling Ma, George Saunders, and Jamaica Kincaid, and students can expect to have their stories workshopped multiple times throughout the semester.
Instructor permission required to enroll; please submit the Creative Writing 4000-level workshop submission form to be placed in this course.
English 4578: Special Topics in Film
Instructor and Title: Sandra MacPherson - Weeping, Screaming, Wanting: Film's Body Genres
Why and how does film affect our bodies, using its technical apparatus and formal conventions to make viewers cry, or gasp in terror, or feel desire? As a visual and aural medium capturing real bodies moving in space and time, film always depends upon embodiment. But its three "body genres” (melodrama, horror, and pornography) are unique in being singularly devoted to representing and producing bodily responses (tears, screams, and arousal, respectively). We will survey the history and logic of each of the genres separately; discover what they have in common; and, since genres function by reflecting and seeking to resolve social problems, we’ll learn what these ones have to tell us such things as gender, sexuality, identity, performance, intimacy, harm, and justice.
Texts: will include All That Heaven Allows, Candyman, Videodrome, and The Handmaiden among many others
English 4587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture
Instructor & Title: Pranav Jani - Immigration and Empire: We Are Here Because You Were There
TLDR: Many immigrant rights groups, in the face of racism and hate, say: "We are here because you were there." In this class on Asian American/AAPI literature, culture, and history, we will learn why. In the process we will explore questions of belonging, citizenship, and the role of imperialism in setting conditions for Asian American experiences.
Asians in the US—like all immigrants of color—have always been treated like outsiders. Whether it’s a friendly question ("Where are you from?"), a gasp of appreciation ("I love your people’s food!") or a hostile retort ("Stop stealing American jobs!"), Asian Americans are repeatedly sent the message that we are not from here, or even not "real Americans." Our skin, our eyes, our music, our food, our culture, our religion, our language – all get us marked as Other. Being seen as a "forever foreigner" is a key aspect to Asian American racialization.
In this course, we will study literature, film, and nonfictional texts by Asian Americans to understand the many ways this Otherness is experienced by different Asian American/AAPI groups, including those linked to South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Hawai’i, and West Asia (Palestine and the Middle East). Gender, sexuality, and family, we will learn, are key sites at which this racialization happens. We will focus on how these experiences of migration are linked to imperialism—including militarism, colonialism, settler-colonialism, and corporate globalization. While US and European empires figure prominently in this history, we will also examine how Asian powers like Japan, China, Turkey and India have shaped Asian American realities.
Texts: Authors may include Viet Thanh Nguyen, Min-Jin Lee, Randa Jarrar, Kamila Shamsie, Edward Said, Haunani-Kay Trask, Suheir Hammad, Agha Shahid Ali, Jhumpa Lahiri
English 4588: Studies in Latino/a Literature and Culture
Instructor & Title: Mintzi A. Martínez-Rivera - Latinx Folklore
Using a wide array of resources, in this course we will study of a wide array of cultural manifestations—oral traditions, music, festivals, dance, material culture, healing and spirituality— practiced by the US Latinx community, while also paying attention to wider debates concerning migration, gender, nationalism, and identity. The course will begin with an overview of the study of Folklore and of Latinx Studies. The remainder of the course will be divided into five main areas of inquiry: Oral Narratives, Music and Performance, Material Culture, Rituals and Festivals, and World View and Spirituality. We will also pay attention to five main themes—migration, gender, nationalism, and identity and the interrelation between them—and how different cultural practices and traditional expressive forms help express, negotiate, transform, and maintain Latinx communities in the United States.
English 4590.07H: Literature in English after 1945
Instructor & Title: Elizabeth Sheehan - Fashion and Fiction
What are the connections between fashion and fiction? This course explores the links between these forms of cultural expression with an emphasis on the global ascendence of U.S.-based literature and design over the last seventy years. As we study fashion and fiction, we also will gain insights into related phenomena like style, beauty, celebrity, commodification, labor, imperialism, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, freedom, violence, individuality, and community. We will analyze texts by writers including Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Fae Myenne Ng, Shailja Patel, Anne Boyer, Carmen Maria Machado alongside garments, photographs, and periodicals. Students will have the opportunity to do archival research and to interact with contemporary artists and designers.
Texts: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar; Fae Myenne Ng, Bone; Shailja Patel, Migritude
English 4591.01H: Special Topics in the Study of Creative Writing
Instructor: Nick White
A seminar in literary forms and themes, with a significant creative writing component.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Section 10 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Using feminist perspectives, students will learn to analyze literature and other cultural works (film, television, digital media) written by or about women. Time period and topic vary.
Section 20 Instructor & Title: Elizabeth Renker - Sarah Piatt and 19th-Century Concepts of Gender
We’ll explore the world of 19th century gender conventions through the work of a recently rediscovered woman poet, Sarah Piatt. Popular in her lifetime, Piatt wrote extensively about social definitions of "woman" imposed upon females-- like belle, bride, angel, wife, and mother--as well as about people who defied or didn’t fit in the social categories. Piatt was pushed out of the canon in the early 20th century, like most women writers and rediscovered only in the 1990s. Scholars and fans are bringing her back to public attention as one of the great lost voices of American literary history. Our class will dive deep into the discourses and debates about gender in the media world of the time, dominant ideas to which Piatt’s poems pushed back hard. Students who are unfamiliar with poetry or think they "just don’t ‘get’ poetry" as well as to those who already like it will find this class suits them well. Beginning in week one, I provide thorough training in the step-by-step methods of how to read complex poems. You will finish the class with significantly improved analytical skills. Since the learning in this class will take place mostly in the classroom, requirements stress in-class activities (attendance, active discussion every day, in-class quizzes, and so on) rather than out-of-class writing assignments. Our focus is short poems, so the number of pages of reading per class is usually fifteen pages or less.
Texts: One paperback edition of Piatt's selected poetry (Palace-Burner: The Selected Poetry of Sarah Piatt, ed. Paula Bernat Bennett, Univ. of Illinois Press, 2001, ordered at OSU Bookstore); other readings posted to Carmen.
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor: Paige Mason
Study of rhetorical theories and practices through examination of social communities, texts, movements, and periods both past and present.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cross-Disciplinary Seminar
5000-Level
English 5711: Intermediate Old English
Instructor & Title: Leslie Lockett - Beowulf
In this course, students will read Beowulf in Old English using a student edition that offers plenty of help with vocabulary and grammar. We will also read and discuss current and classic studies of the poem.
Requirements: prepare some translation for each class meeting; present (at least) one scholarly article or chapter about Beowulf to the class; write a final research paper.
Required textbook: George Jack, Beowulf: A Student Edition. ISBN-13: 978-0198710448.
Texts: We will read Beowulf in Old English. Other readings will consist of scholarly articles and chapters, selected on the basis of the students' research interests.
PREVIOUS COURSE OFFERINGS
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
Section 50 Instructor: Frank Donoghue
Section 60 Instructor: Frank Donoghue
Section 70 Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin
Section 100 Instructor: Staff
Section 150 Instructor: Staff
Section 1140 Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
2000-Level
English 2201: Selected Works of British Literature: Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course will provide a taste of some of the best items on the menu of British literature, stretching from the so-called Dark Ages (spoiler: they weren't as dark as you think!) through the era of Transatlantic exploration and colonization. These include Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko. Lectures will emphasize close reading, form and genre, and historical context; recitation assignments will encourage you to engage creatively with our readings and to think beyond the confines of the textbook.
Texts: In addition to the long works listed above, we'll read short and mid-length poems from each era, such as The Dream of the Rood (Old English), plenty of sonnets (Renaissance), satirical poems by Jonathan Swift (18th century), and we'll read sci-fi by Margaret Cavendish and an autobiographical slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2202H: Selected Works of British Literature: 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This class will dig through the complexities of British cultural history and consider how it has generated interesting, world-important literature and ideas that still resonate with us today. We’ll cover the Haitian and French Revolutions, slavery and abolitionism, empire and decolonization, the rise of the capitalist middle class, debates over gender roles and sexuality, and the cultural entrenchment of scientific values. Art forms and movements will also be central to our discussions. Some examples include poetry of Romantic sublime, the Gothic, satire, Aestheticism, detective fiction, realism, and magic realism.
Texts: Tentative selections for the longer works: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 20 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 30 Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, sexuality, religion, race, nationalism, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Texts: In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fifth, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Tempest.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Probeyahn
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 & 30 Instructor and title: Elizabeth Renker – “Game of Thrones as Literature”
Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. Focusing on the first two seasons of the HBO series, this class will train you in core analytical and literary methods that will enable you to understand GoTat a deeper level; it will also improve your analytical skills overall. (We will not have time to read the books by George R.R. Martin.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones.
Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the HBO series before second session begins; re-watch (and read the transcript for) one episode per asynchronous lecture; answer five homework questions as you watch the episode; take a quiz about the homework questions prior to watching the lecture; listen carefully to lecture; take three exams on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Required materials: an HBO subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Texts: The first two seasons of the HBO series "Game of Thrones."
Section 40 Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
Section 60 Instructor: Angus Fletcher
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Staff
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity, and gender in popular cultures.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Jessica Vazquez Hernandez
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 10 Instructor: Daisy Ahlstone
Section 20 Instructor: Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Shalini Abayasekara
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
English 2291: U.S. Literature: 1865 to Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course will provide a survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the present day. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political, social, and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural, and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by the aftermath of war; the transformative realities and legacies of industrial capitalism, settler colonialism, and imperial ambition; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; economic turbulence; shifts in American conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality; and the role of technological innovation. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them. Recitations will enhance your understanding of these issues, develop close reading skills, and allow you to work through texts not covered during the lectures.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature 2: 1865 to the Present; Nella Larsen, Passing; and either Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones or Richard Powers, Bewilderment.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 30, 40, 60, & 190 Instructor: Garrett Cummins
The particular popular culture and education topics we will be looking at focus on how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) relates to writing in our majors and/or future professions, open to all majors. In the instance of things like climate change denial intersects with all kinds of majors in all kinds of ways, from business majors to education majors, to humanities majors, sports management, to STEM majors. For both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how popular American STEM writing and communication intersect with STEM literacy, i.e. the American public’s understanding, misunderstanding, use, and misuse of STEM-related facts, such as climate change denial, flat-earth conspiracy, COVID denial, etc.
Texts: Potential excerpts (provided on Carmen) include The War on Science (Shawn Otto), The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit (John V. Petrocelli), Not a Scientist (Dave Levitan), Merchants of Doubt (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway), Unscientific America(Chris Mooney). Our text is a free Open Educational Resource, English Composition 2.
Section 70 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 80 Instructor: Mary Gibaldi
Section 90 Instructor: Natalie Kopp
Section 120 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 20 & 40 Instructor and Title: Shaun Russell - "Character and Characterization"
This course will develop your ability to write analytically by focusing on a variety of American literature. The course theme is loosely Character and Characterization, which is meant to highlight one important aspect of fictional literature, but our conversations will surely explore a wide range of aspects about the chosen works. Since the course is about literature, broadly defined, we will read works in the genres of fiction, poetry, and perhaps even drama. Writing assignments will include two major papers, as well as some shorter writings and occasional low-stakes reading quizzes. Through it all we will learn about different elements of literature and how to write effectively about the literary genre.
Texts: We will read some works by Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. Note that while there will be a few texts for you to purchase, most will be provided.
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 70 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Explores how technological changes impact our culture & relationships; students build & expand skills in rhetorical analysis & composition through experimentation with new forms of communicating. One 2367 (367) subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.05: Writing About the U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Mintzi Martínez-Rivera
Concepts of American folklore and ethnography; folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills in the context of lived environments.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Lauren Chivington
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one decimal subdivision of English 2367 may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus
Instructor: Staff
This service-learning course focuses on collecting and preserving literacy narratives of Columbus-area Black communities. Through engagement with community partners, students refine skills in research, analysis, and composition; students synthesize information, create arguments about discursive/visual/cultural artifacts, and reflect on the literacy and life-history narratives of Black Columbus.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 10 Instructor: Brittany Halley
Section 20 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 30 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 40 Instructor: Jonathan Thomas
Section 50 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Staff
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Section 80 Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts2000-Level
English 2201: Selected Works of British Literature: Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course will provide a taste of some of the best items on the menu of British literature, stretching from the so-called Dark Ages (spoiler: they weren't as dark as you think!) through the era of Transatlantic exploration and colonization. These include Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko. Lectures will emphasize close reading, form and genre, and historical context; recitation assignments will encourage you to engage creatively with our readings and to think beyond the confines of the textbook.
Texts: In addition to the long works listed above, we'll read short and mid-length poems from each era, such as The Dream of the Rood (Old English), plenty of sonnets (Renaissance), satirical poems by Jonathan Swift (18th century), and we'll read sci-fi by Margaret Cavendish and an autobiographical slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2202H: Selected Works of British Literature: 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This class will dig through the complexities of British cultural history and consider how it has generated interesting, world-important literature and ideas that still resonate with us today. We’ll cover the Haitian and French Revolutions, slavery and abolitionism, empire and decolonization, the rise of the capitalist middle class, debates over gender roles and sexuality, and the cultural entrenchment of scientific values. Art forms and movements will also be central to our discussions. Some examples include poetry of Romantic sublime, the Gothic, satire, Aestheticism, detective fiction, realism, and magic realism.
Texts: Tentative selections for the longer works: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 20 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 30 Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, sexuality, religion, race, nationalism, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Texts: In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fifth, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Tempest.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Probeyahn
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 & 30 Instructor and title: Elizabeth Renker – “Game of Thrones as Literature”
Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. Focusing on the first two seasons of the HBO series, this class will train you in core analytical and literary methods that will enable you to understand GoTat a deeper level; it will also improve your analytical skills overall. (We will not have time to read the books by George R.R. Martin.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones.
Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the HBO series before second session begins; re-watch (and read the transcript for) one episode per asynchronous lecture; answer five homework questions as you watch the episode; take a quiz about the homework questions prior to watching the lecture; listen carefully to lecture; take three exams on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Required materials: an HBO subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Texts: The first two seasons of the HBO series "Game of Thrones."
Section 40 Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
Section 60 Instructor: Angus Fletcher
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Staff
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity, and gender in popular cultures.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Jessica Vazquez Hernandez
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 10 Instructor: Daisy Ahlstone
Section 20 Instructor: Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Shalini Abayasekara
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
English 2291: U.S. Literature: 1865 to Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course will provide a survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the present day. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political, social, and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural, and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by the aftermath of war; the transformative realities and legacies of industrial capitalism, settler colonialism, and imperial ambition; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; economic turbulence; shifts in American conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality; and the role of technological innovation. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them. Recitations will enhance your understanding of these issues, develop close reading skills, and allow you to work through texts not covered during the lectures.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature 2: 1865 to the Present; Nella Larsen, Passing; and either Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones or Richard Powers, Bewilderment.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 30, 40, 60, & 190 Instructor: Garrett Cummins
The particular popular culture and education topics we will be looking at focus on how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) relates to writing in our majors and/or future professions, open to all majors. In the instance of things like climate change denial intersects with all kinds of majors in all kinds of ways, from business majors to education majors, to humanities majors, sports management, to STEM majors. For both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how popular American STEM writing and communication intersect with STEM literacy, i.e. the American public’s understanding, misunderstanding, use, and misuse of STEM-related facts, such as climate change denial, flat-earth conspiracy, COVID denial, etc.
Texts: Potential excerpts (provided on Carmen) include The War on Science (Shawn Otto), The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit (John V. Petrocelli), Not a Scientist (Dave Levitan), Merchants of Doubt (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway), Unscientific America(Chris Mooney). Our text is a free Open Educational Resource, English Composition 2.
Section 70 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 80 Instructor: Mary Gibaldi
Section 90 Instructor: Natalie Kopp
Section 120 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 20 & 40 Instructor and Title: Shaun Russell - "Character and Characterization"
This course will develop your ability to write analytically by focusing on a variety of American literature. The course theme is loosely Character and Characterization, which is meant to highlight one important aspect of fictional literature, but our conversations will surely explore a wide range of aspects about the chosen works. Since the course is about literature, broadly defined, we will read works in the genres of fiction, poetry, and perhaps even drama. Writing assignments will include two major papers, as well as some shorter writings and occasional low-stakes reading quizzes. Through it all we will learn about different elements of literature and how to write effectively about the literary genre.
Texts: We will read some works by Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. Note that while there will be a few texts for you to purchase, most will be provided.
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 70 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Explores how technological changes impact our culture & relationships; students build & expand skills in rhetorical analysis & composition through experimentation with new forms of communicating. One 2367 (367) subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.05: Writing About the U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Mintzi Martínez-Rivera
Concepts of American folklore and ethnography; folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills in the context of lived environments.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Lauren Chivington
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one decimal subdivision of English 2367 may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus
Instructor: Staff
This service-learning course focuses on collecting and preserving literacy narratives of Columbus-area Black communities. Through engagement with community partners, students refine skills in research, analysis, and composition; students synthesize information, create arguments about discursive/visual/cultural artifacts, and reflect on the literacy and life-history narratives of Black Columbus.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 10 Instructor: Brittany Halley
Section 20 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 30 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 40 Instructor: Jonathan Thomas
Section 50 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Staff
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Section 80 Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts2000-Level
English 2201: Selected Works of British Literature: Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course will provide a taste of some of the best items on the menu of British literature, stretching from the so-called Dark Ages (spoiler: they weren't as dark as you think!) through the era of Transatlantic exploration and colonization. These include Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko. Lectures will emphasize close reading, form and genre, and historical context; recitation assignments will encourage you to engage creatively with our readings and to think beyond the confines of the textbook.
Texts: In addition to the long works listed above, we'll read short and mid-length poems from each era, such as The Dream of the Rood (Old English), plenty of sonnets (Renaissance), satirical poems by Jonathan Swift (18th century), and we'll read sci-fi by Margaret Cavendish and an autobiographical slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2202H: Selected Works of British Literature: 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This class will dig through the complexities of British cultural history and consider how it has generated interesting, world-important literature and ideas that still resonate with us today. We’ll cover the Haitian and French Revolutions, slavery and abolitionism, empire and decolonization, the rise of the capitalist middle class, debates over gender roles and sexuality, and the cultural entrenchment of scientific values. Art forms and movements will also be central to our discussions. Some examples include poetry of Romantic sublime, the Gothic, satire, Aestheticism, detective fiction, realism, and magic realism.
Texts: Tentative selections for the longer works: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 20 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 30 Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, sexuality, religion, race, nationalism, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Texts: In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fifth, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Tempest.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEL: Literature
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Probeyahn
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 & 30 Instructor and title: Elizabeth Renker – “Game of Thrones as Literature”
Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. Focusing on the first two seasons of the HBO series, this class will train you in core analytical and literary methods that will enable you to understand GoTat a deeper level; it will also improve your analytical skills overall. (We will not have time to read the books by George R.R. Martin.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones.
Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the HBO series before second session begins; re-watch (and read the transcript for) one episode per asynchronous lecture; answer five homework questions as you watch the episode; take a quiz about the homework questions prior to watching the lecture; listen carefully to lecture; take three exams on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Required materials: an HBO subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Texts: The first two seasons of the HBO series "Game of Thrones."
Section 40 Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
Section 60 Instructor: Angus Fletcher
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Staff
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity, and gender in popular cultures.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Jessica Vazquez Hernandez
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 10 Instructor: Daisy Ahlstone
Section 20 Instructor: Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Shalini Abayasekara
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
English 2291: U.S. Literature: 1865 to Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course will provide a survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the present day. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political, social, and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural, and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by the aftermath of war; the transformative realities and legacies of industrial capitalism, settler colonialism, and imperial ambition; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; economic turbulence; shifts in American conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality; and the role of technological innovation. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them. Recitations will enhance your understanding of these issues, develop close reading skills, and allow you to work through texts not covered during the lectures.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature 2: 1865 to the Present; Nella Larsen, Passing; and either Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones or Richard Powers, Bewilderment.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 30, 40, 60, & 190 Instructor: Garrett Cummins
The particular popular culture and education topics we will be looking at focus on how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) relates to writing in our majors and/or future professions, open to all majors. In the instance of things like climate change denial intersects with all kinds of majors in all kinds of ways, from business majors to education majors, to humanities majors, sports management, to STEM majors. For both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how popular American STEM writing and communication intersect with STEM literacy, i.e. the American public’s understanding, misunderstanding, use, and misuse of STEM-related facts, such as climate change denial, flat-earth conspiracy, COVID denial, etc.
Texts: Potential excerpts (provided on Carmen) include The War on Science (Shawn Otto), The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit (John V. Petrocelli), Not a Scientist (Dave Levitan), Merchants of Doubt (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway), Unscientific America(Chris Mooney). Our text is a free Open Educational Resource, English Composition 2.
Section 70 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 80 Instructor: Mary Gibaldi
Section 90 Instructor: Natalie Kopp
Section 120 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 20 & 40 Instructor and Title: Shaun Russell - "Character and Characterization"
This course will develop your ability to write analytically by focusing on a variety of American literature. The course theme is loosely Character and Characterization, which is meant to highlight one important aspect of fictional literature, but our conversations will surely explore a wide range of aspects about the chosen works. Since the course is about literature, broadly defined, we will read works in the genres of fiction, poetry, and perhaps even drama. Writing assignments will include two major papers, as well as some shorter writings and occasional low-stakes reading quizzes. Through it all we will learn about different elements of literature and how to write effectively about the literary genre.
Texts: We will read some works by Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. Note that while there will be a few texts for you to purchase, most will be provided.
Section 10 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 70 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Literature
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Explores how technological changes impact our culture & relationships; students build & expand skills in rhetorical analysis & composition through experimentation with new forms of communicating. One 2367 (367) subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.05: Writing About the U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Mintzi Martínez-Rivera
Concepts of American folklore and ethnography; folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills in the context of lived environments.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Lauren Chivington
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one decimal subdivision of English 2367 may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus
Instructor: Staff
This service-learning course focuses on collecting and preserving literacy narratives of Columbus-area Black communities. Through engagement with community partners, students refine skills in research, analysis, and composition; students synthesize information, create arguments about discursive/visual/cultural artifacts, and reflect on the literacy and life-history narratives of Black Columbus.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 10 Instructor: Brittany Halley
Section 20 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 30 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 40 Instructor: Jonathan Thomas
Section 50 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Staff
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Section 80 Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
3000-Level
English 3011.01: Digital Activism
Instructor: John Jones
Because of their networked nature and participatory potential, digital media can be powerful actors in affecting social change and enacting citizenship. We tag, tweet, retweet, swipe left, swipe right, add filters, link, like, follow, friend, and more. Connections are made. Alliances are forged. Technology, power, and values are wonderfully and frightfully connected. In this class, we will investigate and experiment with digital media’s affordances and constraints‚Äîparticularly for the ways they do or do not engender social concern, garner attention, mobilize human and monetary resources, and spark political action.
Texts: Alexander, Jarratt, & Welch (2018). Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics; Roberts-Miller (2017). Demagoguery & Democracy.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3031: Rhetorics of Health, Illness, and Wellness
Instructor: Margaret Price
Students examine rhetorical concepts and how rhetorical devices construct our understanding of our bodies, health and wellness. Students learn how power structures and ideologies enable commonplace rhetorical devices to structure normative beliefs about bodies, health, and wellness and how rhetoric shapes perceptions of health and wellness and makes and unmakes healthy bodies, including your own.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3110: Citizenship, Justice, and Diversity in Literatures, Cultures, and Media
Instructor: Staff
Since the beginning of the modern nation state, cultural texts (poems, novels, films, pamphlets, zines, short stories, advertisements, comics, etc.) have been the essential medium through which the discourse of citizenship has been developed, constructed, refined, and debated. In this course student examine a range of literary periods, genres, and media focused on citizenship and social justice.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 20 Instructor: Aman Garcha
We will learn how some of the horror stories of the 19th to the 21st century reveal profound anxieties about individualistic ambition, changing norms of gender and sexuality, political threats, and technological change.
This online course will require students to complete regular quizzes on the reading and recorded lectures; there will also be a final exam.
Texts: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), and Steven King’s The Shining (1977). Films will include Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Cabin in the Woods (2011).
Section 40 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
What’s up with the proliferating A-24 roster of Horror movies—Heredity, Midsommar, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Under the Skin, Saint Maud? What is at stake in a similar flourishing of Black Horror—Blacula, Tales of the Hood, Candyman, Get Out, His House? In this course we will investigate the long cultural history of tales of horror and deviance, asking what historical conditions the genre might be responding to, and what it reveals about changing notions of danger, harm, personhood, humanity, and inhumanity. Assignments will include weekly quizzes or responses, an oral presentation, a course journal, and a cumulative final exam.
Texts: Possibilities include some of the aforementioned films; gothic novels from the eighteenth-century to the present—The Castle of Otranto, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Beloved, White is for Witching; a trove of graveyard poems; and some philosophical accounts of monstrosity.
Section 50 Instructor: Shaun Russell
What to expect from a course called Monsters Without and Within? Monsters, of course. And there is no question that we will be exploring some literary monsters from the past few centuries. But beyond some traditional monsters, we will also be exploring the boundaries of what that key term even means. Not every monster has fangs or claws, nor does every monster skulk in the shadows or lurk in your dreams. Some monsters hide in plain sight, and some are the perfect picture of normalcy...until they're not. So yes, we will examine the monsters that exist outside the fringes of humanity, as well as those that exist within. Along the way we'll look at some canonical and traditional literature, as well as some works that might challenge those definitions. Fiction, drama, poetry, and film will all be on the agenda, and assignments will include at least one exam, at least one major paper, some low-stakes reading quizzes, and perhaps a creative assignment to round everything out.
Texts: Stories by Kafka, Mansfield, Poe, O'Connor, and King; poetry by Auden, Rossetti, and Milton; a play by Shakespeare, and likely a novel or two, among other works. Film(s) TBA.
Section 80 Instructor: Jill Galvan
VARIETIES OF THE GOTHIC, THEN AND NOW. Where does the Gothic come from? How do authors and filmmakers use it now? This class will cover the origins of the genre, go up through the nineteenth century, and continue into the present. We’ll study how creators use major gothic features for socially provocative purposes. This is a fascinating art form, in which our fear response is constantly being twisted to explore identity and culture. How does the gothic force us to think about the nature of the human or about gender, sex, sexuality, and race, for instance? Among other topics, we’ll look at domestic gothic, urban gothic, queer gothic, southern gothic, new black gothic, and Mexican gothic.
Graded requirements: biweekly viewing of class videos, occasional discussion posts, reading/viewing quizzes, two exams, and a final project.
Texts (tentative): Novels—Frankenstein, Bondwoman’s Narrative, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mexican Gothic. Short stories by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Flannery O’Connor, and others. Films—It Follows, Get Out, Us, The Babadook, Lake Mungo, Barbarian.
Section 10 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Section 30 Instructor: Christopher Jones
Section 60 Instructor: John Rooney
Storytellers have long used monsters not only to frighten us but also to jolt us into thinking deeply about ourselves, others, and the world we live in. This course examines how various horror genres use monsters to explore issues of wellbeing and citizenship, and debates about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, social justice, and personal responsibility.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Section 20 & 40 Instructor: Galey Modan
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Zaira Girala Munoz
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
Section 40 Instructor: Katelin Anderson
Section 50 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Staff
Section 70 Instructor: Staff
Section 80 Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Section 20 Instructor: Irma Zamora
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc..
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This class will offer a survey of some of the most important philosophical meditations on literature in history, stretching from Plato to Kant. We will take a step back from what usually happens in classes about literature (and art) and ask some of the big questions about why people study these things in the first place. Why is literature a good thing? How is the experience of art important and what does it have to teach us that is different from the experience of the real world? How are different kinds of art (literature, music, film) like each other and how do they present different worlds and different possibilities? Readings will include a wide selection of thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Blake. The course should be very exciting for anyone interested in the connections between literature and philosophy. It is also recommended for anyone considering graduate school.
Texts: We'll use an anthology including many of the writers listed above
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture
Section 20 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand (This section will count toward the Game Studies minor.)
This course aims to help us get a critical and theoretical handle on what is arguably the most dominant and influential cultural form of the 21st century: the video game. We start with the intuition that while we play games, games might also play us: the virtual worlds we inhabit are shaped by us, but also might come to shape us in surprising and important ways. The games we will play together in class run the gamut from retro games to indie titles to triple-A blockbusters, and we will play them with an eye to how they help us think about our present moment: how does Detroit Become Human reflect our anxieties about AI and digital culture? Can The Last of Us help us get a handle on climate change? In what ways does Omori transform discourses on mental health? How does Stardew Valley reflect post-pandemic politics? Can Undertale help us think about social and cultural differences? What does Call of Duty have to say about nationalism and imperialism? While we will play (many) games together, you do not need any previous experience with them to enjoy the class: all are welcome!
Section 101 Instructor and title: Thomas Davis – “Insurgent Youth: Punk, Riot Grrrl, Black Metal”
How do underground subcultures develop and respond to their historical moments? How can music, art, and lifestyles model other ways of living and thinking? How do different subcultures theorize freedom and autonomy, shock and antagonism? This class pursues these questions by investigating three distinct subcultures: punk, riot grrrl, and black metal. We will listen to a wide range of music, placing it in its historical context and tracing its lasting influences. Readings and viewings will range across documentary films, memoirs, cultural theory, zines, a video game, a visit to OSU's Special Collections, and other literary and visual texts.
AUTHOR VISITS: James Spooner (author of High Desert & director of Afropunk), Brad Sanders (music journalist for Bandcamp, Decibel, Pitchfork, and more), and more!
Texts: Sara Marcus, Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution; James Spooner, High Desert, Dick Hebdige: Subculture: The Meaning of Style
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 50 Instructor: Zoë Brigley
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL: Literature
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature
Instructor and title: Robyn Warhol – “Janeites: Austen Fiction, Films, and Fans”
All Jane Austen, all the time! Close study of Austen's fiction, film adaptations of her novels, and the fans who have adored her from the early 19th century to the present. Special attention paid to ideas about adaptation, narrative, film analysis, and historical context. If you love romance fiction and rom-coms and are willing to read five Austen novels cover-to-cover, this is the course for you. Not suitable for anyone who does not read novels.
Texts: Emma by Jane Austen; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; Longbourn by Jo Baker
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
Introduction to the interrelated fields of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy, familiarizing students with key concepts that underlie work in these interrelated fields and to the scholarly methods of WRL. Together, this discipline studies the ways people use language and other symbols to convey messages, persuade audiences, and create meaning, and how these practices are learned and taught.
English 3395: Literature and Leadership
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
Do we know what we mean when we celebrate leadership? This course explores depictions of leadership in literature, folklore, and related cultural representations from a variety of traditions. These texts also give us diverse perspectives on the exercise of leadership withindifferent traditions, notably the Anglo-American. We will learn how to read cultural texts as practice in thinking situationally and perspectivally--which happens to be why many prominent CEOs and politicians say they read literature. In a multi-stage course project, we'll transfer these analytical skills from the interpretation of leadership in fictive worlds to the diagnosis of real-life challenges of leadership, cooperation, citizenship, and justice.
Texts: Appalachian, African American, Native American, and Italian folktales; war poetry; popular fiction by Horatio Alger, Harry Kemelman, and Octavia Butler; Américo Paredes' With His Pistol in His Hand; and more!
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 10 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This course has two goals. First, the course will give you the tools you need to succeed as an English major. We will work on fundamental skills such as close textual analysis, practice putting together essays and research projects, and learn some of the specialized vocabulary writers and scholars use to talk about literary works. Second, we will also think together about why literature is important, what it does for us and how we understand its place in the modern world.
Texts: We will use an anthology of poetry and also read Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun
Section 20 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Section 30 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Section 70 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing. Required of English majors. Open to English majors only or others by dept permission.
English 3465: Special topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 30 Instructor and title: Trista Koehler - "Speculative and Imaginative Fiction"
In this class, we will be exploring the reading, writing, and interpreting of imaginative fiction. Imaginative fiction—what we can also call speculative or genre fiction—is writing that deals with worlds within or beyond our own, with the fantastical and the impossible. We will focus on the art of writing into the traditions of fabulism, fantasy, and science fiction, how to craft fantasy worlds, and how to break down barriers between the literary and the genre. In this course, we will learn to write not only what we know, but what we love, and what we can only dream of.
Texts: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Section 40 Instructor: Staff
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Sappho Stanley
As poets advancing in our journey together, we will be paying particular attention to the beginnings, endings, line breaks, and forms of poems. We will read a collection of poems by one poet and craft essays by many. We will be writing at least 4 poems together and workshopping each as a class.
Texts: Chord by Rick Barot
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Beverly J. Moss
Do you like providing feedback to your classmates on their drafts? The aim of this course is to prepare you to work with writers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines in the University Writing Center. This class provides a unique opportunity for you to learn about composition theory and pedagogy, tutoring strategies, and writing center theories and practices in order to put these theories and practices to work in classroom and writing center settings. In addition to our regularly scheduled class time, each person enrolled in this course will spend approximately one hour per week in the Writing Center observing and working with experienced consultants. After successfully completing the course, you will be able to apply for a paid position in the Writing Center.
Texts: Possible texts include Fitzgerald and Ianetta's Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors and articles posted on Carmen.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Staff
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-Level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Section 30 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Critical examination of the works, life, theater, and contexts of Shakespeare.
English 4523: Special Topics in Renaissance Literature and Culture
Instructor and title:Sarah Neville - “Pastoral”
In the early modern imagination, the pastoral mode functioned like a safe space, a place where authors could cope with their anxieties by allegorizing their real world in what Philip Sidney called “pretty tales of wolves and sheep.” This course will examine the pastoral in all kinds of literary forms‚ “poetry, prose, and drama,” to consider why authors like Fletcher, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Wroth, Sidney and others found this rustic world view so compelling a trope that they returned to it again and again.
Texts: The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, Mucedorus, The Faithful Shepherdess, The Winter's Tale
English 4542: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Instructor: Aman Garcha
We will study how the novels of the 1800s reveal some of the major conflicts in nineteenth-century English society. The five works of fiction we will read, by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and H. G. Wells, try to embrace seemingly irreconcilable ideas: of the aristocracy's age-old cultural power and the new middle class's influence; of a Romantic emphasis on individual passion and a growing emphasis on social conformity; of traditional, religious concepts of truth and a new embrace of science, including Darwin's theory of evolution; of male power and women's changing roles; and of small community identities and the expansion of British bureaucratic, capitalist, and imperial power. The class will provide some instruction in how to write critically about the texts we read.
Texts: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd; H. G. Wells, War of the Worlds
English 4543: 20th-Century British Fiction
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
A study of the development of British fiction after 1900, with emphasis on such major novelists as Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, and Woolf.
English 4555: Rhetoric and Legal Argumentation
Instructor: James Fredal
Examines legal argumentation as a specialized type of rhetorical discourse; considers the relationship between rhetoric and legal discourse from historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives; covers key concepts in rhetorical theory and explores their relevance for analyzing and producing legal arguments; students apply theory in analysis and production of spoken and written legal arguments.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Nick White
Section 20 Instructor: Lee Martin
Advanced workshop in the writing of fiction. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Marcus Jackson
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: Scott DeWitt
This course will explore how we use digital media technologies to document our lives, our worlds, our stories, and our times. Our class will consider documentary as both a genre and as a method of identifying, gathering, interpreting, and telling nonfiction stories. The most significant part of this course will focus on production. This course is structured mostly as a studio class where we will be working together in one of the Digital Media Project’s classroom. I believe that we cannot talk intelligently about digital media technologies and their influences on the act of documenting until we compose with them. Some of you may have experience with the technologies we will compose with. For those of you new to these technologies, I will teach you more than you need to know to be successful in this class. Please do not let your lack of experience with technology intimidate you.
You will not be asked to purchase a textbook for this class. You will have access to cameras, audio recorders, and computers from The Digital Media Project. You may need to spend a small amount of money on short-term subscriptions to various composing platforms. Even in this era of cloud-based storage, you may choose to purchase a portable external hard drive. I will advise you on this possible need once class begins.
This class can be used to fulfill the Digital Media Studies requirement in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy concentration for the English Major.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Daniel Seward
An examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
Have you ever been told not to end a sentence with a preposition? Not to split infinitives? To avoid adverbs or passive voice? Ever wondered what basis that kind of advice is given no? What even ARE prepositions, infinitives, adverbs, and passive voice?! Join this class for a deep dive into English grammar, where you will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences. You will become familiar with grammar from a linguistic‚ scientific perspective. We will seek to understand the linguistic patterns that underlie all speaking and writing in English, and you will acquire the concepts and terminology necessary to describe those patterns. Importantly, this is not a writing course, an editing course, or a course designed to teach people how to speak/write in English. I will not tell you how to write, or what kinds of words or sentences to use or not to use! However, our enhanced understanding of how English grammar is structured will ultimately equip you with the knowledge to more critically understand speaking and writing styles, including effective writing, usage handbooks, dictionaries, and language-learning pedagogical materials.
Texts: Free Online textbook: English Learning Linguistics Modules
English 4578: Special Topics in Film
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
Examination of particular topics, themes, genres, or movements in cinema; topics may include particular directors (Orson Welles), periods (The Sixties), genres (horror).
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literatures and Cultures
Instructor and title:Joe Ponce – “Reading Across Differences”
In this course, we will read a diverse sampling of late 20th and 21st-century North American literary texts that foreground the multiple, expansive, and competing meanings of “queer” sexualities and genders that have developed in the recent past. Moving beyond queer theory’s “single-issue” focus on sexuality alone, we will examine the literature in relation to a variety of intersectional frameworks that have extended and complicated what “queer” can mean and do both aesthetically and politically.
Texts: Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006); Monique Truong, The Book of Salt (2003); Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017)
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures
Instructor and title:Joe Ponce – “Literatures of U.S. Empire: Race, Gender, Sexuality”
Over the past few decades, scholars have theorized U.S. empire as a capacious framework for examining how settler colonialism, transatlantic slavery, overseas military interventions, and immigration policies have produced racialized, gendered, and sexualized subjects. This course considers how 20th and 21st-century U.S. literatures by writers of color have remembered, represented, and resisted these geopolitical and social forces. We will focus in particular on the ways that the literary texts break with generic conventions and use innovative formal techniques in order to register the traumatic legacies of the past as well as construct cultures of survival, solidarity, and even joy in the face of these violent oppressions.
Texts: Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987); Deborah A. Miranda, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir(2013); Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home (2008)
English 4584: Special Topics in Literacy Studies
Instructor and title:Beverly J. Moss – “Literacy, Place, and Community Spaces”
What are the dominant literacy practices in your communities outside school like your church, your sorority, the literacy center where you volunteer, or your intramural basketball team? Whether it is a focus on the work of literacy practitioners working in community literacy centers, community organizers using literacy for social justice, or members of a social club engaging in literacy practices that advance the mission of the club, documenting the rich and complex literacy practices that occur beyond traditional academic settings has become an important part of understanding the nature of community literacies and the relationship between literacy, space, and place. Literacy scholars have begun to question the “what” “how” and “why” certain literacy practices function and circulate in local community spaces, social clubs, community organizations, political organizations, community centers, churches, and other community sites. In this class, we will explore the following questions:
Who are the literacy sponsors in these community spaces, and what are the constraints and affordances of these sponsorships?
- What is the relationship between a community site’s dominant literacy practices and that site’s identity?
- What is the relationship between the literacy identities of communities and how these communities are positioned economically, politically, socially, and rhetorically?
- What constitutes “community”?
Texts: Possible texts:
1) Campano, Ghiso, and Welch. Partnering with Immigrant Communities: Action through Literacy. NY: Teachers College Press, 2016;
2) Henry and Stahl (Eds), Literacy across the Community: Research, Praxis, and Trends. NY: Routledge, 2021
English 4590.05H: The Later 19th Century
Instructor: Clare Simmons
Intensive study of the later 19th century.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Section 10 Instructor: Molly Farrell
What does the literary history of Black women’s writing in America tell us about the poetry book as a form, and vice versa? In this class, we will read across four centuries of Black women’s volumes of poetry, each book expressing a moment in time in the careers of legendary writers, rather than an anthology that attempts to be comprehensive. How do these poems speak to each other within the book, and how do African American women poets speak to each other—or not—across time? Our explorations into these questions will begin and end in the eighteenth century, with Rita Dove’s epic Sonata Mulattica set in that historical period, and with the first book published by an African American, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects. In between we will read breakout books by Frances E. W. Harper in the nineteenth century and Gwendolyn Brooks in the twentieth; as well as books celebrating Black Power and the expansiveness of children’s literature. Course requirements may include short interpretive exercises, response papers, a discussion presentation, and a final essay.
Section 20 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Section 30 Instructor: Clare Simmons
Using feminist perspectives, students will learn to analyze literature and other cultural works (film, television, digital media) written by or about women. Time period and topic vary.
5000-Level
English 5191: Internship in English Studies
Instructor: Elizabeth Falter
Students may receive credit for internships across a wide variety of career fields including, but not limited to, the arts and nonprofit administration; creative, business, and technical writing; communications, marketing and public relations; consulting; education; human resources; law and politics; media production; publishing; sales; social services and counseling; and technology services.
English 5710: Introduction to Old English Language and Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
Introduction to Old English language, followed by selected readings in Anglo-Saxon prose and verse texts.
English 5720: Graduate Studies in Shakespeare
Instructor and title:Alan B. Farmer – “Shakespeare in History: Theater, Print, and Criticism”
This course will have two primary focuses: first, the history of Shakespeare in the early modern theater and the early modern book trade; and, second, the history of Shakespearean literary criticism, especially since the turn to New Historicism in the 1980s. We will read several plays and think about how they are not only works thoroughly immersed in the concerns of early modern English culture but also works that continue to resonate in fields of contemporary scholarship. We will study the collaborative practices of the early modern theater; the printing, and publishing of Shakespeare’s works in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England; and the sites where his plays were performed in London and at court. We will also read some of the most influential scholarly work on Shakespeare’s plays from the past several decades, criticism that ranges from editorial and bibliographic theory, feminist theory, and political theory, to studies of race, sexuality, and religion in early modern England. This course is open both to graduate students and to advanced undergraduates (it is an excellent course for undergraduates interested in or curious about pursuing graduate study in English).
Texts: In addition to reading several Shakespeare plays, we will read influential scholarly essays on theater history, book history, and the criticism of Shakespeare's plays.
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers.
GEL Writing and Communication, level 1
GEN Foundation, Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Section 40 Instructor: Anthony Shuttleworth
Section 70 Instructor: Francis Donoghue
Section 80 Instructor: Francis Donoghue
Section 90 Instructor: Seonoh Kim
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GEL writing and comm course: level 1.
GEN foundation writing and info literacy course.
2000-Level
English 2202: British Literature, 1800 to Present
Section 10 Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
This course will introduce students to the major movements in British literature since the end of the eighteenth century. We will read works from authors who have played dominant roles in shaping the English literary tradition; these authors include William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie and many others. In lecture, we will learn about some of Great Britain’s dramatic social and political transformations over the last two hundred years as the nation became the first modern, industrialized imperial power in the nineteenth century and then, in the twentieth, faced crises arising from the crumbling of its colonial holdings, its economic decline and the effects of radically new technologies. Perhaps more importantly, the lectures will aim to show how those historical transformations influenced writers’ creativity as British literature moved from the idealism of the Romantic movement to the subdued pragmatism of the Victorian age, to the conceptual challenges brought on by the modern and postmodern eras. During recitation, students will explore the historical and artistic issues covered in lecture in more detail; recitation will also help students increase their understanding and appreciation of the assigned literary works.
Potential Assignments: Quizzes, midterm, final exam
English 2202: British Literature, 1800 to Present
Section 20 Instructor: Bethany Geiger
Section 30 Instructor: Lauren Colwell
Section 40 Instructor: Bethany Geiger
Section 50 Instructor: Lauren Colwell
An introductory critical study of the works of major British writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
GEL: Literature and Diversity Global Studies
GEN Theme: Foundation Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2202H: British Literature: 1800 – Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will introduce you to major British literary trends of the last two centuries. Class meetings will include both lecture and lots of discussion. Our texts will cover the Romantic, Victorian, modernist and contemporary periods, including a bit of the twenty-first century. We’ll talk about many major artistic forms and movements—for example, the lyric, the Gothic, the dramatic monologue, aestheticism, World War I poetry, postcolonial literature and magic realism. We’ll also cover the cultural and historical phenomena that inform our texts, including the Haitian Revolution, French Revolution, slavery and abolitionism, gender roles and “separate spheres,” major scientific discoveries, challenges to religious faith, imperialism, anti-imperialism, sexuality’s expression/oppression and burgeoning modern views about art. Finally, besides teaching you literary and cultural history, English 2202H will help you to become a better critical reader and literary analyst, either for future classes or for your own enjoyment. You’ll practice reading texts with an eye for fine detail (a.k.a. close-reading or explicating) in order to construct logical, complex interpretations based on textual evidence.
Potential Texts: Some of our authors: William Blake, Mary Prince, Mary Wollstonecraft, Henry Derozio, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Toru Dutt, Christina Rossetti, Olive Schreiner, Oscar Wilde, Wilfred Owen, Virginia Woolf, Una Marson, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Mohsin Hamid.
Potential Assignments: Regular, active participation; two exams (midterm and final); three brief analytical responses, designed to build your skills in literary interpretation; and a final critical or creative project.
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GEL: Literature and Diversity Global Studies
GEN Theme: Foundation Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare, Honors
Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Students will view and write a review of a performance of a Shakespeare play, and in addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Richard II, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Othello and The Tempest.
Potential Texts: I will order editions from the New Cambridge Shakespeare, but any modern edition with glosses, notes, and line numbers of the above plays is fine. Good editions of single plays are published by Folger, Pelican, Norton, Oxford, Bedford, Arden, Bantam, and Signet. Reputable one-volume editions of Shakespeare’s plays are published by Longman, Oxford, Pelican, Riverside, and Norton. You will need to have physical copies of the plays we read, so do not buy any electronic editions.
Potential Assignments: Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, an academic performance review, two critical essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance, and active participation.
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Kayla Probeyahn
This course will teach students how to unravel the meanings of poems through close-reading skills and understanding poetic form and historical context. We will read a selection of poems, ranging from Ancient Greece to 2013 Tumblr, with authors varying from Sylvia Plath to ChatGPT, from William Wordsworth to Kendrick Lamar, all while considering their ideological, aesthetic, and experimental aims. This course is designed for students new to the study of poetry, but will be worthwhile for students at any stage who want to read poetry and improve their close-reading and writing skills.
Potential Assignment: Short essays and quizzes
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 10 Instructor: Sandra Macpherson
Section 30 Instructor: Matthew Cariello
Section 70 Instructor: Sean Yeager
Section 80 Instructor: Matthew Cariello
This course will introduce students to the study of fiction. Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GEL: Literature
GEN Theme: Foundation Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction: Literature of Metamorphosis – Tales of Trickery and Transformation
Section 20 Instructor: Shaun James Russell
In this online asynchronous Intro to Fiction course, titled Literature of Metamorphosis: Tales of Trickery and Transformation, we will be reading a wide range of literary works spanning from antiquity to (almost) present day, and will have a few oddities sprinkled in with some generally canonical work. All of the works included will engage with the course theme to a large extent, but an open question we will be exploring throughout the course is: what constitutes transformation? Sometimes the answer will be clear: if an enchantress turns sailors into pigs, or if a man wakes up as a cockroach, that is a quite literal transformation. But what about when a boy has a pivotal moment in which he arguably becomes a man? Or when a woman realizes that she can only be herself when she dons the guise of others? Amid these and other thematic questions, we will also explore some of the building blocks of fiction, such as plot, character, setting, symbolism etc., and form our own educated opinions and analyses about what makes these literary works effective (or not).
Potential Texts: Apuleius's The Golden Ass; Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Kafka's The Metamorphosis; Heywood's Fantomina; and several other works of short fiction.
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts, mid-term exam, comparative analysis paper, final paper and likely one creative option
GEL: Literature
GEN Theme: Foundation Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261H: Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course has two goals. The first is to familiarize (or re-familiarize) you with literary concepts associated with fiction, as well as to introduce new concepts that will allow you to see this genre in more sophisticated terms. The second is to teach you how to come up with persuasive, thought-provoking interpretations of literature. My goal is to help you feel confident analyzing fiction on your own (whether in books or in other media). Each class will include some lecture, but most of the course will be conducted as an open discussion. We will likely end with a unit that considers: how does learning about fiction help someone to become a better critical thinker about texts, voices, and stories overall—even stories that are technically nonfiction? Our readings will span time periods and cultural and social perspectives.
Potential Texts: (Tentative) Novels: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. Short story authors: Herman Melville, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Toni Morrison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, Curtis Sittenfeld, Carmen Machado, and others. Plus at least one film.
Potential Assignments: Regular and enthusiastic participation, three short response papers (1 ½-2 pp. each), a final project (5-7 pp.) and two exams.
GEL: Literature
GEN Theme: Foundation Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2262: Introduction to Drama
Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
This course will provide a broad overview of theatre and its historical development from ancient Greece to the modern day. It will place emphasis on nineteenth-century British drama and the material history of theatrical productions and the rise of celebrity culture. In addition to reading plays such as Bluebeard, Macbeth, and East Lynne, we will learn about the actors and set designs that brought these shows to life on the stage in the 1800s. The nineteenth century witnesses the rise of celebrity culture, with people like Sarah Siddons and Lord Byron becoming household names with countless fans. As we read and analyze dramas from this period, we will also consider concepts of fame and how they are connected to the literary and theatrical market.
Potential Texts: Lord Byron, Manfred; George Colman, Bluebeard; William Shakespeare, Macbeth; Ellen Wood, East Lynne.
Potential Assignments: Weekly discussion boards, reading quizzes, short essays (1.5-2 pages), biography of a playwright/actor, performed monologue
GEL: Literature
GEN Theme: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Section 10 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
Section 30 and 50 Instructor: Sam Risak
Section 60 and 80 Instructor: Caleb Hays
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, communicate complex ideas, and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. We will use each week’s film as both a case study in the strategic deployment of certain cinematic techniques, and as a specific set of images and sounds that combine to create a unique cinematic expression. Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the ways in which the multiple elements of moviemaking come together to make, and complicate, meaning. Our primary goal in this class is to become skilled at thinking, talking, and writing critically about movies and, in the process, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the film medium.
Potential Texts: Films may include: Top Gun: Maverick, His Girl Friday, Rear Window, In the Mood for Love, The Conversation, Killer of Sheep, Do the Right Thing, Cleo from 5 to 7 and more.
Potential Assignments: Close analysis response, final paper, final exam
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN Theme: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Rachel Stewart
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity, and gender in popular cultures.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Theme: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN Theme: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2265: Introduction Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Megan Jones
Section 30 Instructor: Gianna Gaetano
Section 40 Instructor: Cat McMahan
Section 50 Instructor: Porter Yelton
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introduction to Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Hannah Nahar
The word "poem" comes from the Greek "poeisis," meaning to make. A poem is a "made thing." A thing made out of words, out of images, out of lines, out of thoughts, out of feelings, out of time! In this introductory poetry writing course, we will make poems and talk about them. We'll read lots of published poems and consider how they work, how they sing and move us. Together, we will define craft elements such as meter, rhyme, form, repetition, syntax, lineation, field of page, metaphor, image, etc. How do poems work, and what differentiates this strange, slippery genre from others? Why, across human history, do we keep making poems?
Potential Assignments: Creative work, reflection papers on published poems, thoughtful notes on classmate work.
English 2266: Introduction to Poetry Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Alexandra Smereka
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Claudia Owusu
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Danielle Ola
We all have stories to tell. This is a class that’s interested in nonfiction writing that defies convention and blurs genres. Be prepared to encounter essays that veer into poetry, pop culture critique that delves into memoir, and memoir that uses the tools of fiction to speculate what might have been. In our time together, we will develop a writing practice that captures the little wonders of our lives, become acquainted with the various forms our stories can take on the page, and expand our notions of what nonfiction can be.
Potential Texts: Body Work, Melissa Febos; Letters to a Writer of Color, Ed. Deepa Anappara and Taylor Soomro; Craft in the Real World, Matthew Salesses; Excerpts from The Little Devil in America, Hanif Abdurraqib; “No Name Woman,” The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston; "Ground Zero", The Undocumented Americans, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.
Potential Assignments: Weekly writing exercises, one presentation on a class reading, one creative essay submitted for workshop, feedback letters written for their peers
Guiding Questions: How has the nonfiction genre evolved in modern literature? What form(s) does it take today?
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
Section 40 Instructor: Luke Van Niel
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN Theme: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 10 Instructor: Zahra Abedi
Section 20 Instructor: Daisy Ahlstone
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Theme: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN Theme: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 10 Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 20 Instructor: Kay Halasek
How do citizens engage a public to express their interests, to right wrongs, urge fairness, enact justice and awaken compassion? How can citizens critically interpret and engage with public texts and arguments as members of a common political body? We’ll explore these questions and others through the lens of rhetoric as the art of public argumentation, persuasion and interpretation. We’ll learn about the elements of rhetorical interactions, including audience and rhetorical effects, texts and meanings, genres and situations, forms and structures, authors and authorial purposes, argumentation schemes, narrative and myth, tropes and metaphors, as well as cultural and ideological frameworks.
Potential Texts: Our main course text will be Atilla Hallsby's Reading Rhetorical Theory: Speech, Representation, and Power. It's available online as an open access text that can be downloaded as a pdf.
Potential Assignments: Assignments tentatively include ungraded quizzes (to determine students’ degree of understanding of key terms and concepts), three short (2-page) papers, two unit exams and a take-home final exam in which students identify and analyze a rhetorical problem in terms of one of the three thematic situations set out by Hallsby: settler, secrecy, or digital rhetoric. For example, they may analyze the rhetoric of a contemporary perspective on the (1) rights of indigenous groups, (2) conservative or liberal conspiracy theory, or (3) racialized implications of digital algorithms.
Guiding Questions: Because rhetoric (which includes basically every message you send or receive) has this world-building ability, it’s an appropriate tool to investigate questions of citizenship, diversity, and justice: Who counts as a citizen? What does it mean to be a citizen? How do we organize and maintain a just and diverse society? Through applying rhetorical concepts to historical and contemporary texts asserting people’s right to belong, this course teaches students to identify rhetorics of citizenry and justice, to analyze their effects and to understand their implications.
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Katelin Anderson
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Cynthia Young
This course introduces students to key African American writers and cultural movements of the last two and half centuries. Central questions for the class include: how are community, power, race, gender, and sexuality represented and experienced in and through the texts we will read? How are these texts shaped by the audience to whom they may be addressed? How do these texts relate to struggles for racial justice, including anti-slavery, anti-colonial, and prison abolition movements? We will read work by writers including Phyllis Wheatley, David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler, and we will examine literary and political movements including the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEN Theme: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEN Theme: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Julia Applegate
Section 20 Instructor: Peyton Del Toro
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEN Theme: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN Theme: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2290: Colonial and U.S. Literature to 1865
Section 10 Instructor: Molly Farrell
Section 20 Instructor: Soyoo Park
Section 30 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 40 Instructor: Mica Edmiston
Section 50 Instructor: Erin Temple
Section 60 Instructor: Soyoo Park
Section 70 Instructor: Mica Edmiston
Introductory study of significant works of U.S. literature from its Colonial origins to 1865.
GEL: Literature
GEN Theme: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the US Experience
Section 10 Instructor: Mary Gibaldi
Section 120 Instructor: Rebecca Thacker
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.01: Popular science writing and the American public's STEM literacy
Section 50 and 140 Instructor: Garrett J Cummins
From the standard course description, English 2367/01 extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
The particular popular culture and education topics we will be looking at focus on how STEM(science, technology, engineering, and math) relates to writing in our majors and/or future professions, open to all majors. In the instance of things like climate change denial intersects with all kinds of majors in all kinds of ways, from business majors to education majors; from humanities majors to sports management, and STEM majors to just name a few majors.
For both STEM and non-STEM majors, we will focus on how popular American STEM writing and communication intersect with STEM literacy, i.e. the American public’s understanding, misunderstanding, use, and misuse of STEM-related facts, such as climate change denial, flat-earth conspiracy, COVID denial, etc.
However, these topics and the related readings only work as a springboard for your own writing and research. As a composition course, we focus on the writing process, research, and using OSU’s libraries online resources, along with Google Scholar.
Potential Texts: Potential excerpt readings from the following books, which I will supply: The War on Science by Shawn Otto; The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit by John V. Petrocelli; Not a Scientist by Dave Levitan; Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway; Unscientific America by Chris Mooney.
We will also read various scholarly and popular articles about popular STEM writing, American STEM literacy, and issues with STEM information and misinformation in online spaces, like social media. For the writing textbook, we will use an Open Educational Resource, called English Composition 2, which I will supply to you.
Potential Assignments: Smaller, weekly discussion board posts that work to help you create writing for the larger assignments. These discussion board posts can be summaries, reading responses to course readings, or reflections on what we wrote. In turn, the class has the following assignment sequence for the larger assignments: Literature review/exploratory essay that connects American STEM literacy, popular STEM writing, and a topic from your major A critical analysis of a popular piece of STEM writing A piece of original writing that appeals to a public audience, arguing how STEM literacy is vital for understanding the topic related to your major. Reflection on what learned over the source of the semester.
Guiding Questions: Potential questions for the course include: How does the American public’s STEM literacy affect how scientists and nonscientists compose and present STEM information in public forums, such as in online and popular publications? How does STEM literacy and popular information affect nonscientific disciplines, such as business, humanities, the arts, etc.? How does popular STEM writing and American STEM literacy affect policymakers’ decisions, which impacts all Americans’ lives--especially Americans from historically underrepresented populations?
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
GEN Theme: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.05: Writing About the U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Mintzi A Martinez-Rivera
This section of 2367.05 is designed to employ the core concepts and methods of the field of folklore as the basis for reading assignments and writing projects. Because the theme of this course is the U.S. Folk Experience, we will begin with a brief introduction to basic concepts of American folklore and ethnography, including folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology, focusing on how these concepts and methodologies contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Along the way, we will explore the diversity of experiences of different groups in the U.S. both through course readings and through your writing assignments and projects.
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
GEN Theme: Lived Environments
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Lauren Chivington
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Section 10 Instructor: Christoffer Turpin
Section 20 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 30 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 40 Instructor: Lauren Cook
Section 50 Instructor: Liz Miller
Section 60 Instructor: Liz Miller
Section 70 Instructor: Lauren Cook
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
GEN Theme: Lived Environments
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Section 80 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
This semester, our work will be situated around the theme of “Whose Game Is It Anyway?” In less pithy terms, we’re going to spend a lot of time playing, discussing, and writing about games that make decisions (conscious and unconscious) about who is depicted in them (and how). We’ll taking into consideration the way that many games were built by and for what digital humanities scholar Roopika Risam called the “exclusionary universal subject” (white dudes…like your professor…), and we will look at the presence and absence of diverse characters in the games. In order to ensure we devote plenty of time to the writing portion of the course, we’ll focus mostly on the two types of identifiers people think of when we consider diversity—race and gender/sexuality—but we’ll also work together to find and highlight games that make use of a wide a range of interesting characters that might guide us toward an inclusionary universal subject. The more the merrier, as they say.
Potential Texts: Who Says? by Deborah H. Holdstein and Danielle Aquiline. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197525494. Required.
Potential Assignments: Weekly discussion posts, project pitches, papers and side quests.
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Section 10 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 20 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
3000-Level
English 3000: Writing for Social Change
Instructor: Rebecca Thacker
In this course we will use academic writing and research practices across various forms of media to investigate the role of citizenship historically and currently, exploring the ways that we as citizens can work towards a more just and diverse society. We will develop a definition of citizenship that emphasizes a citizen?s relationship to their local, national, and global environments.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3020: Writing About Sustainability
Instructor: John L. Seabloom-Dunner
Writing about Sustainability is an advanced-level writing course that fulfills the GE requirements for the Sustainability Theme by asking students to consider their place in the natural world through the following learning activities: conducting primary and secondary research, analyzing data, composing and revising written arguments, and becoming more proficient with the conventions of academic discourses.
Potential Texts: Graff + Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: WW Norton & Co. (5th Edition)
GEN Theme: Sustainability
English 3031: Rhetorics of Health, Illness and Wellness
Instructor: Eduardo Mabilog
Students examine rhetorical concepts and how rhetorical devices construct our understanding of our bodies, health and wellness. Students learn how power structures and ideologies enable commonplace rhetorical devices to structure normative beliefs about bodies, health, and wellness and how rhetoric shapes perceptions of health and wellness and makes and unmakes healthy bodies, including your own.
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3110: Citizenship, Justice, and Diversity in Literatures, Cultures, and Media: [Specific Topic: Law, Literature, and Contested Citizenship in the Long Nineteenth Century]
Instructor: John Rooney
“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
—Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry (1821)
It is an odd fact: literary writers have, since the nineteenth century, imagined themselves as the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In short, they have maintained, sometimes in earnest and sometimes in jest, that literature might have the force of law. Since that time, the institutions of the law have, for their part, adopted the techniques of literary writers to lend their pronouncements gravity and authority, as if the force of law were at bottom a creation of literary style. In this course, we will examine the ways in which literature sought to read itself as law, and law as literature, at the time when both literature and law came to hold the meanings we now commonly associate with them—the nineteenth century, when both Anglo-American jurisprudence and literature were exercised over fundamental questions of citizenship and justice. In imagining who might be a citizen, and in excluding others from this newly and direly important category, the discourses of law and literature, borrowing from each other, created many of the assumptions, and much of the prejudice, surrounding questions of citizenship with which we still grapple to this day. In this class, we will read poetry, plays, short stories, philosophical treatises, and judicial opinions from both sides of the Atlantic authored in the century whose ways of imagining citizenship, community, and justice still haunt our contemporary moment. This course will be of special interest to pre-law students and to others considering a career in legal or law-adjacent professions, but all interests are welcome.
Potential Texts: Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); William Godwin, From An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793, 1796, 1798); Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound (1820); Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831); Additional Readings Posted to Carmen. Key cases in defining citizenship in legal casebooks and histories: Selections from Sources of English Constitutional History, edited by Carl Stephenson and Frederick George Marcham (1937, 1972); Selections from Constitutional Law and Politics, Volume 2: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, edited by David M. O’Brien and Gordon Silverstein, 12th ed. (2023); J. H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 5th ed. (2019)
Potential Assignments: Commonplace journal containing favorite passages and interpretations; a choice of papers examining literary and/or legal texts from a critical perspective; weekly discussion posts on readings; and a final exam dependent on the chosen paper plan. Possibilities for creative assignments exist.
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 10 Instructor: William Spriggs
Storytellers have long used monsters not only to frighten us but also to jolt us into thinking deeply about ourselves, others, and the world we live in. This course examines how various horror genres use monsters to explore issues of wellbeing and citizenship, and debates about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, social justice, and personal responsibility.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 20 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
By writing Frankenstein (and publishing it in 1818), Mary Shelley brought a monster into the world (and birthed the science fiction genre). The novel’s creature has been a part of pop culture ever since, to the point that we conflate it with the word Frankenstein. One of the many interesting questions at the core of Frankenstein has to do with the monster’s humanity. It was made of (mostly) human parts, but is it human? This is an unanswerable question based on what we’ll encounter in the text, but one certainty is that the creature’s body is what makes it monstrous—or, better, what made humans label it monstrous.
This course will examine a handful of literary monsters whose monstrosity is deeply rooted in and possibly inseparable from the human-ish bodies they inhabit. As we read and discuss these novels, we will examine how notions of monstrous corporeality (monstrous body-ness) push readers to explore fundamental issues of wellbeing and citizenship. We’ll stitch these texts together with ideas (and sometimes debates) about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, social justice, and national and/or personal responsibility. Each writer’s monster gives us a different angle from which to examine ourselves and our interactions with other humans, and each will push us to confront monsters without and within as we take a long look in the proverbial mirror.
Potential Texts: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson; The Haar by David Sodergren
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 30 Instructor: Christopher A. Jones
Why have vampires gripped the popular imagination for so long? How does the figure of the vampire reflect changing attitudes about health and disease, or community and alienation? Addressing such questions, this section of English 3264 will focus on the evolving figure of the vampire in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. After a preliminary consideration of vampire legends from folkloric and scientific perspectives, we will focus on representations of the vampire across a series of texts including Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954), Rice’s Interview With the Vampire (1977) and Lindqvist’s Let Me In (2004), along with the film adaptations of each of these. There will be reading quizzes at least weekly, a final short paper, a take-home midterm exam, and a final research or creative project. This class is in person and attendance is required.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 40 Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Old Nick, the Prince of the Power of the Air. For millennia, humans have attributed the evil in the world, even the evil that men do, to an external supernatural agent, a fallen angel, a demon, the Lord of Hell, the enemy of God and the Good. After exploring the origins of Satan, we’ll read a variety of works in different genres (plays, novels, films) featuring the Devil or characters like him. In Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass, Satan sends a demon to corrupt London, but the city is already so corrupt that the demon ends up in prison. Norman Mailer’s last novel, The Castle in the Forest, is the story of Hitler’s childhood, told by the demon assigned to put him on the wrong path. Particularly influential is the legend of Faust, the man who sold his soul for knowledge and power. We’ll read the influential play by Johann von Goethe, Germany’s Shakespeare, James Hogg’s Faustian Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and watch Istvan Szabo’s brilliant Nazi-era Faust film, Mephisto. But is the Devil just a projection of evil inclinations that are all too human? We’ll discuss devilish sociopaths and serial killers in Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEN Theme: Health and Well-Being
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 Instructor: Clarissa Surrek-Clark
Section 30 Instructor: Clarrissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 20 Instructor: Elise Robbins
This course is an introduction to English linguistics. You will gain the analytical tools to scientifically analyze any language, and apply those tools to English. We?ll learn about the basic characteristics of language: the sounds of English and how they?re put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. While studying how the basic building blocks of language work, we will also investigate linguistic variation, accents of American English, and language and education. We?ll also consider how standard and non-standard varieties of English get evaluated in the US, and the implications of such evaluations in educational settings.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Profesional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Julianna Crame
Section 20 Instructor: Adrian Salgado
Section 30 Instructor: Angel Evans
Section 40 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 50 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 60 Instructor: William Spriggs
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Irma Zamora
Section 30 Instructor (Session 2): Susan Lang
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 20 Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Technical Writing is designed to improve the communication skills and career prospects of three groups: (1) science and engineering majors preparing for technology-focused careers, (2) humanities majors interested in exploring career options in technical communication, and (3) students of any major who want to enhance their marketability by learning about workplace writing
English 3360: Ecopoetics
Instructor: David Ruderman
'Ecopoetics' is a thematic literature course focused on interpretation and analysis of literary texts that represent interactions between humans and the natural world within specific cultural and historical settings, through a contextual examination of how human activity has impacted the environment, how social and natural systems interact, and the long-term impact of human choices.
GEN Theme: Lived Environments
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture: Gaming and Playing
Instructor: Misha Grifka Wander
What do you think about when you hear the word “game”? Is it video games? Board games? Games of pretend? Maybe it’s TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, or game shows, or card games, or gambling games. Maybe it’s improv games or LARP. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Gaming and play are an important part of every human culture, throughout the millennia, but many people don’t think about them in depth. In this class, we will be diving into the depth and breadth of the world of games. What makes something a game? Do games have to be fun? How does the type of game influence what it’s like to play? How are some people encouraged or discouraged from playing games? We’ll look at board games, video games, tabletop games, and more. You’ll be introduced to game theories and theories of play, and produce both critical and creative writing on the class themes. This class will involve play, of course, but also serious thought about how games affect us, from the personal to societal level. You do not need to have experience with any specific type of game, so self-identified gamers and non-gamers alike are welcome!
Potential Assignments: Papers, quizzes and creative work
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 10 Instructor: Robert Hughes
Section 30 Instructor: Andrew Romriell
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GEL: Literature
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 20 Instructor: Zoe Thompson
When we hear the term, “science fictions,” we might immediately think of the word, “future,” and the genre certainly does look forward to fifty years from now, a hundred, a thousand or even ten thousand. Science fiction often speculates looking at everything from our intimate relationships to our social lives and how technology might change the way we live. Such stories, however, are always rooted in the present; reflections. on love, sex, community, and lifestyle are very often actually reflections on our lives in the present moment.
In this class, we are going to focus on two short forms: the short story and the TV episode. The short story is a brief but intense snapshot of an interlude, a specific chapter in a story. Because it does not have the room of the novel, it cannot tell an epic or give every detail of a character’s life story. Instead we have a glimpse and very often this might include an epiphany, a surprise, a twist, a revelation (unless writers are going against conventions). Frank O’Connor in The Lonely Crowd talks about how in a short story, “an iron bar must be bent, and it must be seen to be bent”.
The TV episode is slightly different, though it can sometimes stand alone, like a short story. Often however it is part of an interlinking story that takes up a whole series. The TV episode has an art to it however, and its brevity means that it has particular demands on it, as well the build-up of suspense and intrigue if it is part of a longer series. Your research project will be to explore these short forms and to discover and compare what the short story and the TV episode have in common and how they differ.
Potential Texts: We will look at specific stories from these anthologies, but I would recommend reading these collections widely to get a strong sense of the variety of the genre.
Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century ed. Orson
Scott Card.
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, ed.
Sheree R. Thomas.
TV Episodes: Electric Dreams, limited series, episode 3, ‘Human Is’. Electric Dreams, limited series, episode 9, ‘The Commuter’. Stranger Things, season 2, chapter 3 ‘The Pollywog’. Westworld, series 2, episode 5, ‘Akane no mai’. (This episode does have some spoilers – so binge-watch the rest beforehand if this bothers you.)
Optional: The Walking Dead series 1, episode 1. The Man in the High Castle, series 1, episode 1. Raised by Wolves, series 1, episode 1.
Potential Assignments: Online participation, essay plan, annotated bibliography, essay.
Guided Questions: Could the TV episode be akin to the short story? And if so how are both the story and the episode used in science fiction storytelling? When science fiction stories present future worlds, to what extent are they reflecting back on our present, asking questions about how we want to live and what it is to be human?
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 40 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This class will survey some of the most important children's fantasy novelists of the 20th century, from E. Nesbit and C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien up through Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. LeGuin, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and N.K. Jemisin. We will examine how these two genres--fantasy and children's lit--grew up together, and will explore the varying influences on these writers, from myth and folklore to Christianity and Taoism and Existentialism to feminism and critical race theory.
Course requirements include a paper, two responses, a final exam, reading quizzes, and, active participation in class discussions.
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy: Fantasy Set in Our World
Section 60 Instructor: David Brewer
When most people think of fantasy, they think of fantastic other worlds: Middle Earth, Narnia, Westeros, or at least fantastic worlds hidden away within our own (Hogwarts). But there is a persistent strain of fantasy set squarely in our own world: past, present, or future. This course will investigate the difference it makes to locate fantasy within a world we know and can visit (or at least study the history of or speculate about the future of, based on our current knowledge). What happens when magic, supernatural beings, or any of the other stock elements of fantasy are combined with people and places that, at least in other situations, have seemed quite solid and mundane? It's something of a truism in the study of narrative that what happens depends in large part on where it happens. What sorts of fantastic stories are made available by (or foreclosed by) being set in, say, Seattle or provincial France or at the Target at Easton?
Potential Texts: Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, Roshani Chokshi’s The Gilded Wolves, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.
Potential Assignments: A weekly reading journal; a recommendation of a fantastic story set in our world that we are not reading together; a response to one of your colleagues' recommendations; a few short writing exercises; active participation in our discussions; and a significant contribution to a group project in which you sketch out a fantasy narrative set in Columbus, Ohio.
English 3378: Shakespeare and Film
Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course, we will study some of the most innovative and influential films ever made of Shakespeare’s plays. We will both read specific plays (probably RICHARD III, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ROMEO AND JULIET, HAMLET, TITUS ANDRONICUS, and MACBETH) and view films that cut across dramatic genres, time periods, countries, and cinematic styles, by such directors as Max Reinhardt (Austria and Germany), Laurence Olivier (England), Akira Kurosawa (Japan), Baz Luhrmann (Australia), Michael Almereyda (U.S.), and Al Pacino (U.S.). We will focus on how directors and actors have chosen to adapt Shakespeare for performance, but also consider how these films have shaped, and continue to shape, the cultural meaning of “Shakespeare” for modern audiences. This course can satisfy various requirements: an upper-level (4000-level) or lower-level (3000-level) course for the English Major and Minor; a course for the Film Studies Minor; a course for the Popular Culture minor; a film course for the Pre-Education Major; and a Historical and Cultural Studies course for the new GE.
Potential Assignments: Requirements will include two essays, several quizzes, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance, and active participation.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Section 10 Instructor: Susan Lang
This course will introduce students to a continuum of research methods used by scholars in such fields as writing, rhetoric, literacy studies, composition studies, and technical communication. We will focus primarily on empirical research methods. You will learn techniques of these various methods and apply them to a series of activities throughout the semester. During the last month, we will shift focus to writing research in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies.
English 3395: Literature and Leadership, Reluctant Leaders
Instructor: Shaun James Russell
Leadership is an intrinsic part of the human condition, and is often seen as a defining character trait. Someone can be a "born leader" or a "natural leader," and when we think about real-world concerns like politics, social justice, and career development, we place a high value on "leadership skills," broadly defined. It is often said that art imitates life, and the world of literature is full of stories of great leaders and conquering heroes who are much beloved by their followers. But not everyone is born to a leadership role, and the truth is that almost all of us have had to pivot from being supports to being leaders as situations require. Despite what we see in much historic literature, the human who does naught but lead is a rare bird indeed. Instead, when most people take a leadership role, it is often done reluctantly and out of necessity, with little thirst for the glory of command. This idea governs the theme of this course on Literature and Leadership: who are the reluctant leaders in literature and history, and how might we assess their character? Does one kind of "good leadership" easily transition to another? Can a group of people in a terrible predicament be a sort of leadership collective? Can a child ever lead, and if so, is it ethical for them to do so? All of these questions are directly connected to some of our readings.
Potential Text: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game; Robert Graves, I, Claudius; William Shakespeare, Coriolanus; John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down. We will also watch two films, and potentially some other shorter videos/episodes
Potential Assignments: Two reflection papers, a mid-term exam, and a final essay, along with several low-stakes reading quizzes
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 20 Instructor: Clare Simmons
English 3398, Methods for the Study of Literature, is designed to help develop the reading, analytical, research, and writing skills appropriate to the English major. We will read and discuss a variety of texts and practice developing responses both to the text itself and to what others have written about it. The loose topic for the course is nature and the environment, and how people have responded to the natural world in literature through the centuries.
Potential Texts: Readings will likely include Shakespeare’s Tempest, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a variety of poetry and short stories representing the natural world and the human impact on it from medieval to current times, and some ecocriticism. In addition we will use a writing handbook.
Potential Assignments: Active engagement with the text and participation in discussion is important to the success of the class. There will be some short discussion prompts, three shorter papers and final research project.
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 30 Instructor: Jacob Risinger
In this gateway course, we’ll take our cue from one of George Orwell’s famous lines: “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.” Over the course of the semester, our weekly readings, discussions, and informal exercises will work to annihilate old patterns of complacent reading—leaving in their place the analytical skills and rhetorical strategies you need to establish your own critical/original perspective on literary texts. We’ll attend to the practical work of conducting literary research and writing solid, well-argued essays—but we’ll also practice using literary theory and various methods of criticism to identify new levels of meaning, even in familiar or (seemingly) straightforward texts. The hard work of writing and analysis will be supplemented by an array of engaging texts by writers like Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Bishop, Kazuo Ishiguro, Claudia Rankine, Jesmyn Ward, and others.
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 40 Instructor: Christopher Jones
Section 60 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing.
English 3405: Special Topics in Professional Communication: Automating Professional Communication through Interactive Documents, Structured Authoring, and Artificial Intelligence
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
In this section of English 3405, you will learn about and practice using technologies that automate different aspects of professional writing. After initial discussions of the history and ethics of automating professional communication, we will explore how to automate writing through different composing tools—including desktop publishing platforms, XML editors, content management systems, and generative AI. Major assignments will be project-based and culminate in a portfolio of samples that demonstrate your ability to automate writing for different contexts.
Potential Assignments: Major assignments will be project-based and culminate in a portfolio of samples that demonstrate your ability to automate writing for different contexts.
English 3465: Intermediate Fiction
Instructor: Trista Koehler
In this class, we will be exploring the reading, writing, and interpreting of genre fiction. Genre fiction--such as sci-fi, fantasy, romance, or horror--is still regarded in many academic circles as simplistic and non-literary. In this course we will work to break down those barriers and learn to write not only what we know, but what we love, and what we can only imagine
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing: Chapter. One
Section 30 Instructor: Katheryn LeMon
In the matter of a few pages, a good novel immerses you in a world, introduces you to characters, makes you care about them, and then plunges those characters into a plot that will play out over the course of however many hundred pages. But how, exactly, do they do all that? Together we will explore how published authors have crafted compelling first chapters and use what we?ve learned to draft the openings to our own novels. Later on, we?ll read a few novels in their entirety to see how the promises of their first chapters are developed and expanded into a full novel. We?ll explore different models of plotting and produce an outline that cultivates the seeds we planted in Chapter One.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Aline Resende Mello
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Allison Kranek
Welcome to “Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing”! English/CSTW 3467S focuses on theories and practices in tutoring writing. Whether you’re coming to this class with an interest in tutoring or teaching writing in the future, or are working to better understand how to work with others in individualized ways, this course seeks to equip you with tools to work productively with diverse writers across a variety of contexts. To that end, this course is guided by practical, pedagogical, and scholarly goals. We will use a range of resources to facilitate our learning, including in-class discussion of scholarly texts; observations of writing center sessions; and reflective reading and writing outside of class. These resources and activities are designed to intertwine and inform one another. At the beginning of the semester, we will invite your input on the course themes and shape of the course, but you can generally expect that we will discuss research on writing center theories and pedagogies that help us think about practical best practices for tutoring writing, including tutoring writing across disciplines, inclusive tutoring practices, and tutoring online, to name a few. Finally, we will also work toward an understanding of the writing center as a site of scholarly inquiry, a space where a myriad of forms of writing and research are created, cultivated, and nurtured. Our class will culminate in a research project related to the tutoring of writing.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Kurt Ostrow
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 10 Instructor: Sappho Stanley
*POETRY FOCUSED LITERARY PUBLISHING* In this course, we will be focusing on the methods and practices a poet may inhabit in relation to publishing. Topics will include writing practices, literary journals, contests, MFA programs, chapbooks, full length collections, how to read in front of an audience, & meetings with people experienced in the industry. We will take a week to discuss practices related to prose writing, as well.
Potential Texts: “Ordinary Genius” by Kim Addonizio
Potential Assignments: Class meetings, collecting poems into a document (10-20 pages)
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 20 Instructor: Sophia Huneycutt
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-Level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
This class will offer you a chance to explore to a range of types of workplace writing. Many of our course assignments are designed to help you compile a writing portfolio that will be useful if you apply to the Minor in Professional Writing, and/or in future job searches. Additionally, you will find and interview two professionals in your field of interest. You will hone your editing skills by practicing AP style, reviewing common usage mistakes and how to avoid them, giving and receiving feedback in peer review, practicing repurposing content and drafting for different audiences and revising for clean, professional copy in every deliverable. Throughout the term, you will work individually and collaboratively to explore a professional writing field of your choice, culminating in an engaging group presentation and panel discussion.
Potential Texts: We will read many real world samples of the kinds of writing we'll work on in class.
Potential Assignments: A variety of professional writing genres to help build your professional writing portfolio and your confidence as you anticipate professional spaces.
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4515: Chaucer
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
The aim of this course will be to introduce students to the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, starting with his early works and leading up to a reading of large sections of his most famous poem, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's poetry offers a window onto an unusually exciting moment of political, cultural and philosophical transformations, and we will consequently read these poems with close attention to the society and culture that produced them, the turbulent end of the fourteenth century. Students should also acquire a familiarity with Chaucer's Middle English and with the literary culture of the time.
Potential Texts: Dream Visions and Other Poems and The Canterbury Tales
Potential Assignments: Two exams and one paper
English 4522: Renaissance Poetry: John Milton
Instructor: Amrita Dhar
In this course, we will read the major works of the seventeenth-century poet and polemic John Milton, especially Milton's magnificent epic, Paradise Lost. Reading Paradise Lost will be one of the grandest and most surprising and most rewarding literary/readerly/poetic experiences of your lives. Readers who have encountered Milton before are welcome, and even more welcome are those who have not. People who like poetry are welcome, and even more welcome are those who do not. Prepare to be challenged, amazed, and just possibly, to fall in love.
Doing this class in 2024 is special. 2024 will see the 350th anniversary of Paradise Lost, A Poem in Twelve Books, published in 1674.
Potential Texts: Lycidas, Areopagitica, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes
Potential Assignments: Reflection papers, close reading papers, creative-critical work, and final essay.
English 4533: The Early British Novel, 1688-1808
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
ENG 4533 introduces the modern novel through a deep dive into the cultural and literary history that shaped it. We will focus on eighteenth-century novelists’ experiments in creating a new genre that came to be the preeminent literary form for representing the main character’s interiority at the same time it fostered a robust criticism of the ills of eighteenth-century society, including unchecked patriarchal privilege, especially landowning men’s behavior. As we study the ways that the novel is the middle class genre, we will focus on novelists’ experiments in formal elements of narration, character, tone, setting, plot, and structure: both first and third person narration are undergoing rapid transformation in this era.
I have selected novels that dramatize the cultural debates and literary pleasures on which the early novel hinged. Tales of unrequited love and lethal lust; stories of shipwreck and enslavement on the fringes of the Ottoman and growing European empires in the Americas; representations of the hazards of courtship and marriage; and, depictions of overwrought emotions are the main topics of the early novel that we will study. These novels also explore philosophical issues, including the relationships among property, race, and enslavement; the emergence of individualism and modernity; and gendered and rank-specific behavior that becomes the hallmark of a “civilized people,” freighted with the implications for situating Englishness in a global world both sexually and otherwise. Contemporary counterparts to the novels we will read in literature and film include the interracial male buddy film/police TV show (Robinson Crusoe), the detective novel (Caleb Williams), the Gothic horror/terror film/novel (Caleb Williams and The Wrongs of Woman), the stage musical and soap opera (Pamela), the lives of the rich and famous celebrity exposé (The Fair Jilt and Fantomina), the coming of age novel/film (pretty much everything we are reading in one way or another), the courtship novel/film (Pamela, Evelina, The Woman of Color).
Objectives for the course include your learning influential theories of the eighteenth-century novel, understanding the distinctive kinds of characters, plots, and aesthetics of the early novel, and recognizing the various modes in which the novel is written, including Romance, didacticism, satire, realism, and sensibility, all of which dramatized contemporary social ills distinctively but in ways we still see today (e.g., the #MeToo Movement).
Potential Texts: Aphra Behn's, Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (1688); Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719); Samuel Richardson, Pamela or Virtue Rewarded (1741); Frances Burney, Evelina or A Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778); Anonymous, The Woman of Color (1808)
Potential Assignments: Short Analytical Papers
English 4542: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
In this course, we will study how the novels of the 1800s, in their ways of representing characters and events, reveal some of the major conflicts in nineteenth-century English society. The five works of fiction we will read – by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and H. G. Wells – try to embrace seemingly irreconcilable ideas: of the aristocracy's age-old cultural power and the new middle class's increasing influence; of a Romantic emphasis on individual passion and freedom and a growing emphasis on social conformity and productivity; of traditional, religious concepts of truth and a new embrace of rationality and science, including Darwin's theory of evolution; of male power and women's changing roles; and of small community identities and the expansion of populous urban cities and of British bureaucratic, capitalist, and imperial power. The class will provide some instruction in how to write critically about the texts we read.
Potential Assignments: Requirements include regular class attendance and participation, the completion of periodic reading quizzes, a few short papers, and a comprehensive final exam.
English 4554: English Studies and Global Human Rights: Trafficking Rhetoric: Human Rights and Modern-Day Slavery
Instructor: Wendy S. Hesford
Trafficking in human beings is a complex, global phenomenon. Human trafficking can be approached as an issue of migration or organized crime that affects state security, and/or from a human rights perspective, since trafficking encompasses a spectrum of human rights abuses. Increasingly, scholars, journalists, and activists classify human trafficking as a form of modern-day slavery. While the analogy between the contemporary problem of human trafficking and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade may bring greater attention to human trafficking, it also runs the risk of obscuring the afterlives of racial slavery in the post-civil rights era. In addition to considering both the scholarly promise and limits of the analogy between modern trafficking in humans and the slave trade of the past, this course will examine the formal elements of modern slave narratives, such as raid and rescue motifs, as well as the political role that such narratives play in anti-trafficking campaigns, legislation, and nation-state reports.
Potential Texts: Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness; Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation; Zana Muhsen, Sold: One Woman’s True Account of Modern Slavery; Louise Shelley, Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective
Potential Assignments: Two essays and one visual project (photoshop)
English 4563: Contemporary Literature
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
A study of poetry and prose written since approximately 1960.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Nick White
Section 20 Instructor: Christopher Vanjonack
Advanced workshop in the writing of fiction. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Zoe Thompson
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Elissa Washuta
The advanced creative nonfiction workshop is devoted to furthering your development of the craft of creative nonfiction. Through studying published nonfiction pieces and craft texts, developing new work, responding to peers’ manuscripts, and revising your essays, you will continue to refine your individual approach and further your understanding of how to most effectively use craft elements to shape your work.
Potential Texts: No textbook will be required. Various essays and craft texts will be provided via Carmen. The bulk of students’ reading will consist of their peers’ workshop essays.
Potential Assignments: Workshop essays, peer responses, writing exercises, and brief reading responses
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Students in 4569 will use the programable Arduino platform to explore the rhetorical possibilities of interactive digital objects, paying particular attention to the new forms of digital creativity these tools are enabling. In this way, students will not only analyze digital objects but become makers themselves, thinking about new relations between people and the physical world that are enabled by our devices and the new forms of writing they can support.
Potential Texts: Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform, 3rd Edition Readings supplied by the instructor
Potential Assignments: Students will create multiple interactive design projects, a short paper, and take occasional quizzes.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Section 10 and 20 Instructor: Daniel Seward
In this class, we will explore English grammar as both a natural phenomenon and as an artificial collection of usage rules traditionally taught as the Standard, all while considering the social and ethical implications of using (or not using) and teaching (or not teaching) the Standard. Alongside lessons on English syntax and pragmatics, we will consider the affordances of non-standard English usage associated with particular discourse communities, as well as the ways spoken and written expression contribute to our personal, social, and cultural identities. Finally, we will consider what it means to be a good "citizen-grammarian": that is, someone who can offer accurate, pragmatic, and socially conscientious guidance about usage, all without simplistically privileging standardized forms, which tend to reflect the preferences of already-privileged discourse communities.
Potential Texts: Required textbook: Louise Cummings, Working with English Grammar (Cambridge UP, 2018). This is available in print or electronic formats. Other readings on writing style will be distributed on Carmen as PDF documents or through URLs.
Potential Assignments: Three online, open-resource exams; a Lexical Field Guide focusing on usage in a particular discourse community; weekly participation postings in various forms
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Section 30 Instructor: Lauen Squires
In this class you will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences. You will become familiar with the concepts and patterns of grammar from a linguistic—a scientific—perspective. We will seek to understand the linguistic principles that underlie all speaking and writing in English. Importantly, this is not a writing course, an editing course, or a course designed to teach people how to speak/write in English. However, our enhanced understanding of how English grammar is structured will ultimately equip you with the skills to more critically understand speaking and writing styles, including effective writing and products designed to encourage it, such as usage handbooks and language-learning pedagogical materials.
Potential Texts: Online open-access (free) textbook
Potential Assignments: Midterm; final; journal; final assignment
Guiding Question: How do English sentences work?
English 4577.02: Legend, Superstition, and Folk Belief
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
Have you heard? Rumors and conspiracy theories, spooky stories and superstitions, fake news and folk belief: folklorists study all these things and more as legendry. Societies work through their most pressing fears, beliefs, and doubts in just-might-be-true tales that spread like wildfire in every medium. Take this course for a deep dive into how we crystalize cultural anxieties into stories, memes, and TikToks and use them to debate the nature of our world. Your social media feed is already full of this stuff. Get the tools to understand it.
Potential Texts: McNeill, Lynne S. Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies. Utah State University Press, 2013.
Potential Assignments: Students will identify examples legendry "in the wild," document and interpret them as cultural expressions.
English 4578: Special Topics in Film: The Musical
Section 20 Instructor: David Brewer
This course will investigate what is perhaps simultaneously the most beloved and the most mocked of all film genres: the musical. We’ll explore the enduring appeal of characters bursting into song and dance when their emotions swell. We’ll investigate the perennial (and perhaps perennially flawed) attempts of filmmakers to make musicals edgier or cooler in some way. And we’ll consider why such an inherently ridiculous and unrealistic form should persist, despite all of the changes to both society and the film industry over the past century.
Potential Texts: Singin' in the Rain; The Wizard of Oz; West Side Story; Cabaret; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Grease; The Little Mermaid; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Across the Universe; and Hamilton.
Potential Assignments: A weekly viewing journal; a recommendation of a musical we are not watching together; a response to a colleague's recommendation; a few short writing exercises; active participation in our discussions; and a significant contribution to a group project in which you collectively sketch out a new film musical.
English 4578: Special Topics in Film: FILM AND AMERICAN SOCIETY AFTER WORLD WAR II
Section 30 Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course examines the history of the American cinema in the years immediately following the Second World War, covering the period from 1945 to 1960. We will view and discuss significant Hollywood films from a variety of genres (e.g., comedy, musical, film noir, western, melodrama, social problem film), contextualizing them by reading articles and excerpts from a variety of sources (e.g., popular magazines, film-trade publications, books of popular sociology, design treatises, political speeches) published during the era in which these films were produced and released. These textual primary sources will serve to illustrate historical discourses describing, reinforcing, and/or critiquing what were conceived of as significant social issues and shifts—from the “veterans problem,” to the “housing crisis,” to “juvenile delinquency,” to sexism, and racial segregation in schools. In our discussions, we’ll be interested in how the assigned films reflected, responded to, and inflected the print debates happening around these issues and shifts—even and perhaps especially when the films are not overtly working in the “social problem” genre. We’ll also approach the films in the context of the upheavals happening in the American film industry during this period, as a result of the Paramount decree, the HUAC hearings, suburbanization, and declining movie theater attendance. In particular, we’ll examine the ways in which the rise of television as a competing medium of mass entertainment shaped the stories that Hollywood movies told and the visual devices that they used to dramatize these stories.
Potential Texts: Genre films and supporting primary texts from the postwar era.
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes, group presentation, analytical essay, take-home final exam.
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures
Instructor: Pranav Jani
Study of selected issues or forms in U.S. ethnic literatures and cultures. Topic varies. Examples: Native American autobiography, Asian American poetry; Latino/a novel.
English 4583: Special Topics in World Literature in English
Instructor: Pranav Jani
Study of literatures written in English and produced outside of the U.S. and Britain; topics include colonial/postcolonial writing, regional literature, theoretical and historical approaches, genres.
English 4588: Introduction to Latinx Literature and Culture
Instructor: Mintzi A Martinez-Rivera
Through the study of oral narratives (such as legends, corridos, and wordplay), novels (including Children and YA novels), poetry, short stories, musicals, and films, this course offers a broad introduction to the study of U.S. Latinx Literature and Culture. Moving among and away from the canon, we will explore issues of race and ethnicity, citizenship and belonging, ideologies of gender and sexuality, revolution and social movements, growing up in the U.S., among other topics, as they relate to the experience of Latinx communities living in the U.S. Through different assignments, students will have the opportunity to investigate a topic of their choice and create their own (non)creative project.
English 4590.06H: The Modern Period
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Intensive study of The Modern Period.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women, Literature, and Culture: Women’s Sonnets
Section 10 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Women played an influential role in the development of the sonnet. When the Italian poet Petrarch popularized the form in the fourteenth century, he started an ongoing literary tradition, and women have been at the forefront of its innovation almost from the start. Initially present only as love objects, women quickly adapted the form to their own poetic voices. The Protestant exile Anne Locke was responsible for getting the first sonnet sequence in English published in 1560 when she appended Thomas Norton’s paraphrases of Psalm 51 to her translation of one of Calvin’s sermons, while women like Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley participated in the translation of Petrarch’s original Canzoniere in the 1590s. After we dive into the mechanics of what makes a sonnet “a sonnet,” we’ll apply our knowledge to trace the history of women’s sonnets from the sixteenth century to today. In addition to gaining mastery of poetic form, students will engage with feminist and queer theory to explore what sonnets help us understand about gender and sexuality, and what gender and sexuality can help us understand about sonnets.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women's Literature: Artists and Artistry in U.S. Women's Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Susan Williams
Some of the most popular fiction by U.S. women, both in the 19th century and today, has featured characters and plots that focus on women writers and artists. From the March sisters' dreams of acting, painting, writing, and playing the piano in *Little Women* to the photographer Mia Warren in Celeste Ng's *Little Fires Everywhere*, best-selling authors have explored both the power of and barriers to artistry faced by amateur and professional practitioners. In this class, we will think about the enduring interest in the figure of the artist for U.S. women writers from both an historical and cultural perspective. We will also consider how and why these texts have inspired adaptations across a number of genres. Along the way, we will examine the nature of creative practice; the relation between craft and art; the evolving nature of "genius"; and the enduring power of art in U.S. culture.
Potential Texts: Louisa May Alcott's, Little Women; Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills; Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring; Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
Potential Assignments: Assignments will likely include one brief research paper; short in-class and homework exercises; a midterm exam; and a final project.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture: "The Surplus Woman Debate and the Beginnings of Feminism."
Section 30 Instructor: Clare Simmons
English 4592 fulfills an upper-level literature requirement for any English major; it is a requirement for the Pre-Education concentration.
The British Census of 1851 revealed that there were perhaps half a million more women in Britain than there were men, leading to the conclusion that many women would never be wives. If marriage could no longer be assumed to be the ultimate goal of women’s lives, this raised the question of what women’s roles in society should be. Modern feminism owes much of its origins to debates over the so-called “Surplus Woman Question,” so in this course we will read examples of nineteenth-century women’s writing that challenge earlier notions of womanhood and that present a variety of answers as to how women might find personal fulfillment. Most of the texts that we will read provide insight not only into women’s lives but also into representations of race and colonialism in the nineteenth century.
Potential Texts: Louisa May Alcott, Work; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh; Lydia Maria Child, Hilda Silfverling; Diana Mulock Craik, The Half-Caste; Florence Nightingale, Cassandra; Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market; Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures in Many Lands.
Potential Assignments: Presentation; short paper; longer research paper; reading preparation questions
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World: Disability Poetry, Milton and Beyond
Instructor: Amrita Dhar
This advanced undergraduate seminar on critical disability studies will centre the disability poetics of John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet and polemic who is to this day credited with creating the greatest epic poem in the English language, Paradise Lost, a poem he composed while completely blind. Here are some of the questions we will consider: how does one write a poem that is 10,500+ lines long (and that is so beautiful that it is read hundreds of years on and celebrated in languages across the world) while blind, and In a time before assistive technology, before Braille, before even electricity? What does that composition look like--and where does it come from? What has the poem meant to generations of disabled writers, and what does it mean today in our world?
Readers who have encountered Milton before are welcome, and even more welcome are those who have not. Those who enjoy poetry are welcome, and even more welcome are those who do not. Paradise Lost, which is often regarded as one of the most difficult and most allusive poems ever written, is also one of the most accessible poems ever written. It is a poem of genuine access and accommodation—matters which have become even more current and urgent in our day than they were in Milton’s. But Milton will always remain one of those who started the conversation to get us here.
Doing this class in 2024 is special. 2024 will see the 350th anniversary of Paradise Lost, A Poem in Twelve Books, published in 1674.
Potential Texts: Paradise Lost, Contemporary afterlives of Paradise Lost, Sonnets responding to Milton/Milton's sonnets
Potential Assignments: Reflection papers, close reading papers, creative-critical work, final project.
5000-Level
English 5191: Internship in English Studies
Section 30 Instructor: Staff
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Falter
This internship opportunity will offer students experience in creating timely, relevant and compelling short-form promotional media (primarily video and audio) for the Department of English. Students will work closely with their supervisor as well as with key communications personnel to develop projects and set priorities and deadlines. English 5191, Promotional Media Internship, will be intensely hands-on and focus almost exclusively on digital media production and related work-management skills in professional settings. This internship opportunity is especially applicable to students across majors who would like to develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting and for those who have digital media skills with nowhere to apply them. Media skills are NOT a pre-requisite for this internship; students will have the opportunity to learn all media skills necessary for the class. (This internship fulfills the digital media requirement for the Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy concentration in the English Major.)
Potential Assignments: YouTube videos, podcasts.
Guiding Questions: How can a promotional media internship opportunity help students across majors develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting?
English 5664: Studies in Graphic Narrative: Graphic Memoir
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
A course designed for both advanced undergraduates and graduate students, “Graphic Memoir” will introduce the styles, structures, and strategies of autobiographical life stories told in comics form. Beginning with the insights we can gain about the form from how-to books drawn by comics artists Scott McCloud (Making Comics) and Matt Madden (99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style), we will read graphic memoirs in a range of genres and media, asking what it means to put the “graph” in “autobiography.”
The class will tour the collection at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on the OSU campus, which will be the focus of students’ research projects.
Potential Texts: Among author graphic memoirs we will read "Maus" by Art Spiegelman, "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel, "One! Hundred! Demons!" by Lynda Barry, "Diary of a Teenaged Girl" by Phoebe Gloeckner, "Vietnamerica" by G. B. Tranh, "Hyperbole and a Half" by Allie Brosh, "Epileptic" by David B, "Cancer Vixen" by Marisa Acochella Marchetto and others.
Potential Assignments: Assignments will include an in-class oral critique of a critical article on graphic memoir; an in-class oral presentation on a short passage from a graphic memoir; weekly 250-word reading responses that answer a question posted after each class on Carmen; a one-page “snippet” of graphic memoir; and a research paper or an extended graphic memoir project.
English 5711: Intermediate Old English
Instructor: Staff
Students with intermediate or advanced reading knowledge of Old English will continue their study of Old English to strengthen translation skills, explore scholarship in the field, and learn discipline-specific research tools.
English 5721.01: Graduate Studies in Renaissance Drama: Religion on Stage
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
So what will a course on Renaissance Drama and Religion cover? Easy answer: the dramatic representation of everything that matters. Life, death, and what (?) comes next. Love, sex, and desire. Sin, corruption, and evil. Grace, forgiveness, and salvation. Politics and power, free will and fate, conflict and violence, martyrdom and conversion, plagues and earthquakes, gardens and games. It’s been argued that atheism was impossible in Renaissance Europe, but even if that’s not true, every man, woman, and child in England was required by law to attend church on Sundays and holidays, and most everyone did. Even among those few who didn’t, most risked punishment only to worship in a different way, Catholics persisting secretly in their faith in the midst of a Protestant nation, and a tiny number of Jews persisting in theirs even more secretly, Jews having been banished from England in the 12th century. Early moderns would not understand our word “religion” since everyone was in a basic sense religious, “religion” pervaded and influenced every aspect of daily life, and the Bible (the basis of Christian) was popular culture to an extent nothing in modern culture can approach.
Potential Texts: We’ll begin with some popular medieval plays, whose influence lasted long after their last performances. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plays will include Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, about the legendary scholar who sells his soul to the devil, and the team-written The Witch of Edmonton, about an old woman who sells her soul to a black dog named Tom, who also happens to be the devil. We’ll look at the collision and conflict of Protestants and Catholics, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Massinger’s The Renegado, Dekker’s The Whore of Babylon, and Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. Peele’s David and Bethsabe and Greene and Lodge’s Looking Glass for London and England adapt biblical stories for the London stage, telling stories of sin and punishment, prophecy and repentance. Many plays reflect popular religious belief and practice as well as church orthodoxy, but only Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair features a Bible-based debate about gender and cross-dressing between a Puritan and a puppet.
Potential Assignments: Evaluation will based on participation in discussion, a seminar presentation, and shorter and longer essays
**English 5721 is open to graduate students and also experienced undergraduates, with the permission of the instructor.**
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.02: First Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.03: First Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing.
2000-Level
English 2201: British Literature, Medieval-1800
Instructor: Karen Winstead
The readings and lectures will introduce you to trends, authors and works from each of the four major periods of pre-1800 British literature and explore the contexts—social, historical, political, cultural—within which works were written and read. You will discover important forerunners of today’s popular genres, including horror, romance, comics and science fiction.
Potential Texts: Students will read a free online textbook I that developed specifically for this course.
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes will help consolidate your knowledge, while weekly writing assignments and discussions will challenge you to apply what you learned and to grow intellectually from your colleagues’ insights. The final portfolio project encourages you to channel your knowledge and thinking in creative ways.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 10 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2220H: Honors Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
Shakespeare continues to astound us over 400 years after his death. What's that all about? Why does he still occupy the top spot in the hierarchy of the literary - especially when what he wrote was not considered high literature at the time he wrote it? Our aim in this course will be to increase your understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s plays; to give you a sense of the kinds of critical debates that surround the plays, and enough historical context to make clear how the times in which Shakespeare lived both differed from and resembled our own; and to lodge in your mind for future reference at least a bit of Shakespeare’s language. Our primary concern will be with Shakespeare’s text, but we will also spend some time discussing theatrical performances as well as film adaptations. We'll read about five plays, and possibly some of Shakespeare's sonnets. Plays may include Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Coriolanus and The Winter's Tale.
Potential Texts: The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, et al. 3rd ed. Norton, 2015. Vol. 1: Early Plays and Poems; Vol 1: Early Plays; Vol. 2: Later Plays.
Potential Assignments: A paper, a group presentation, a critical article review, several short, informal writing assignments.
Guiding Questions: What's the big deal about Shakespeare? How can we read Shakespeare in light of and as an expression of the period in English history in which he wrote? What would going to the theater have been like during his lifetime? How have filmmakers tapped into and transformed his texts? Why is he still a big box office draw at the movies?
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2221: Introduction the Shakespeare, Race and Gender
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This course explores the historical roots of our ideas about race and gender by way of Shakespeare and the culture in which he wrote. Students will learn how Shakespeare's formulations of issues of race and gender are products of a time when both categories were undergoing significant conceptual development and how Shakespeare's ways of imagining this turbulence continues to resonate today.
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Shaun Russell
When you think of poetry, do you think of old, dead white guys? You would be forgiven for thinking so, and British poetry largely started out that way; but even in history, this form of literature is not the monolith it is sometimes made out to be. With that idea in mind, this Intro to Poetry course has the thematic subtitle of "The Renaissance and Everything After." While this course is a true survey, we will also explore the idea that much of the poetry that came after the Renaissance (also known as the early modern era) is both directly and indirectly indebted to the Renaissance in many ways. As a result, we will start the course with several weeks of early modern poetry before we segue into transhistorical and transatlantic poetry to see if we can make connections between the poems written in different centuries on different continents, and the poems written in 16th- and 17th-century Britain. In addition to many of the key figures of Renaissance poetry, such as Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert and Milton (i.e. the traditional "canon"), we will also spend considerable time on women poets and poets of color, all with a view toward exploring the interconnectedness of influence across eras and areas.
Potential Texts: Norton Anthology of Poetry, 6th edition
Potential Assignments: Regular short reading quizzes, a close-reading assignment, a mid-term exam and a final research essay.
Guiding Question: How did poetry of the English Renaissance influence the poetry that came after it?
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20: Jessica Prinz
Section 70: Roxann Wheeler
Section 80: Sandra MacPherson
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261 (30): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course has two goals. The first is to familiarize (or re-familiarize) you with literary concepts associated with fiction, as well as to introduce new concepts that will allow you to see this genre in more sophisticated terms. The second is to teach you the skills for coming up with persuasive, thought-provoking interpretations of literature. Each class will include some lecture, but most of the course will be conducted as an open discussion. We will likely end with a unit that considers: how does learning about fiction help someone to become a better critical thinker about texts, voices and stories overall—even stories that are technically nonfiction? Our readings will span time periods and cultural and social perspectives. The schedule is still very tentative, but longer works might include Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, Toni Morrison's Sula, and Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things. We will also read short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Leonora Carrington, ZZ Packer, Jennifer Egan, Ted Chiang, Carmen Machado, and others. Graded requirements (also tentative): regular and enthusiastic participation, three short response papers (1 ½-2 pp. each), a final project (5-7 pp.) and two exams.
English 2261 (90): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Angus Fletcher
Session 2
In this course, we'll use narrative theory to analyze how your favorite stories work--and identify the benefits they can give your brain. Grading will be assignment-based and does not require in-person attendance or participation. Students will have the opportunity to workshop assignments and ideas via weekly in-person meetings with the instructor and small online discussion groups.
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Dennin Ellis
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Popular Culture Studies through a variety of methods and case studies. The specific focus will be on the entanglement of race, ethnicity and gender in popular cultures.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Kathryn LeMon
Section 20 Instructor: Trista Koehler
Section 30 Instructor: Gianna Gaetano
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introduction to Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Isaiah Back-Gaal
Section 20 Instructor: Sappho Stanley
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Aline Resende Mello
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Megan Jones
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Luke Van Niel
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: Kay Halasek
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media and cultural contexts.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Amrita Dhar
What is disability studies? How did we get to this field of inquiry? Why does the discussion of disability pertain to us all? This introductory class on interdisciplinary disability studies will provide students with a grounding in sociopolitical models of disability as well as community-based modes of knowledge production. Together, we will also read disability testimonials, think disability justice, and imagine a future of collective access and belonging.
Potential Texts: Keywords for Disability Studies, eds Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin Disability Visibility, ed. Alice Wong
Potential Assignments: This class will ask students to complete brief reflection papers throughout the term, two class presentations, and a short final paper.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme - Health and Well-being
English 2280: The English Bible
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
The Bible contains some of the weirdest and most wonderful literature you will ever read, and there is certainly no book that has had a greater influence on English and American literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s Progress to The Chronicles of Narnia, Whitman’s Song of Myself to Morrison’s Song of Solomon. We will read a selection of biblical books in order to gain some appreciation of the Bible’s wide range of literary genres, forms, styles and topics. Our discussion will include the nature of biblical narrative and characterization, the function of prophecy and its relation to history, the peculiar nature of biblical poetry, so-called Wisdom literature, anomalous books like Job and The Song of Songs (including the historical process of canonization that made them “biblical” and the kinds of interpretation that have been used to make them less strange), the relationship between (in traditional Christian terms) the Old and New Testaments (including typology, the symbolic linking of characters, events, themes and images in the books before and after the Incarnation), and the unity (or lack thereof) of the Bible as a whole. As occasion warrants, we will also look at some of the diverse ways the Bible has been read and interpreted––the stranger the better––by poets and writers, artists and film-makers over the past millennia.
Do note: this is NOT a course in religion, but rather an English course on the Bible as a literary work. Any and all faiths, or none, are welcome, and none will be privileged.
Potential Texts: The English Bible: King James Version (2 vols.), ed. Herbert Marks (1) and Gerald Hammond and Austin Busch (2), Norton Critical Edition
Potential Assignments: Evaluation will be based on active participation in class discussion and activities, a film review, an essay, a mid-term test and a final exam.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
This course introduces students to key African American writers and cultural movements of the last two and half centuries. Central questions for the class include: how are community, power, pleasure, race, gender and sexuality represented and experienced in and through the texts we will read? How are these texts shaped by the audience to whom they may be addressed? How are these texts related to struggles for racial justice, including anti-slavery, anti-colonial, and prison abolition movements? We will read work by influential African Americans writers and activists including Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Toni Morrison, and we will examine key literary and political movements including the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Staff
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class and nationality.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2291: American Literature 1865 to the Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course provides a survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the present day. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by the aftermath of war; the transformative realities and legacies of capitalism, settler colonialism and imperial ambition; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; economic turbulence; shifts in American conceptions of race, gender and sexuality; and the role of technological innovation. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them.
Potential Texts: Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865 to the Present and a contemporary novel such as Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, Ling Ma's Severance, or Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones.
Potential Assignments: A few quizzes, a midterm, a final and a handful of discussion posts.
Guiding Questions: What are the multiple ideas of "America" that emerge in and through a diverse and dynamic set of writings? What is the relationship between innovations in literary form and the historical, political and social turbulence of these decades? And what exactly do we want literature to do for us?
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Natalie Kopp
Have you ever wanted to make a documentary? In this second-year writing course, you will become a storyteller behind a camera or microphone as you combine words, sounds, and images to explore the stories behind a community to which you belong. As an advocate-storyteller, you will consider your role as a community member, individual, and author as you investigate the roles we take on when we write about ourselves, our surroundings, and others. We will explore concepts such as authorship, documentary and nonfiction ethics, and community belonging. Before creating our own video, audio, and written pieces about our communities, we will explore documentary works that explore similar concepts, such as James Chase Sanchez’s Man on Fire and Elizabeth Barret’s Stranger with a Camera. No prior video, audio, or creative nonfiction experience is necessary to take this course. As a second-year writing course, we will be using nonfiction writing and documentary as a way to hone analytical research skills.
Potential Assignments: Nonfiction essay, digital documentary short (video or audio)
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 2
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 2
2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus
Instructor: Angel Evans
ENG 2367.7s is a service-learning course centering literacy practices in Black communities of Columbus. You will learn about the field of literacy studies and African American literacies along with the importance of collecting, analyzing, and preserving life history and literacy narratives through ethnographic research. You will also collaborate with a small group of peers to gather literacy narratives in partnership with local members of the Black Columbus community, such as local Black artists, genealogists, historians, and civic leaders.
More specifically, our course topic centers around the concepts of rhetorical lineage and homeplace; that is, how Black communities sustain their own trajectories of history, culture, and place-making. Ultimately, we'll ask ourselves: how do representations of homeplace and lineage show up in the literacies of Black Columbus? And how might we recognize these rhetorical modes as forms of liberation?
All backgrounds are welcome. If you are looking for an opportunity to sharpen your skills as a writer, artist, activist, digital media worker, and/or community-minded researcher, join us next fall.
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 2
GEN: Theme - Lived Environments
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience – Writing About Video Games
Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 2
GEN: Theme - Lived Environments
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video gameplay is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Patrick McCabe
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2581: Introduction to U.S. Ethnic Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Staff
This course provides a broad survey of literature produced by and about the major racial groups in the United States, examining how social movements of the 1960s and 70s led to the emergence of ethnic studies in higher education and how the literature addresses a wide range of historical events and political processes that have constructed racial differences and hierarchies in the U.S.
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
3000-Level
English 3011.01: Digital Activism
Instructor: John Jones
Because of their networked nature and participatory potential, digital media can be powerful actors in affecting social change and enacting citizenship. We tag, tweet, retweet, swipe left, swipe right, add filters, link, like, follow, friend, and more. Connections are made. Alliances are forged. Technology, power, and values are wonderfully and frightfully connected. In this class, we will investigate and experiment with digital media’s affordances and constraints—particularly for the ways they do or do not engender social concern, garner attention, mobilize human and monetary resources, and spark social justice. These are all valuable ways of performing citizenship.
Potential Texts: Alexander, Jarratt, & Welch’s (2018) Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics, Roberts-Miller’s (2017) Demagoguery & Democracy
Potential Assignments: Composing a spreadable 60-second mashup of various media that, through its mashing-up, constructs a suasive argument about a particular issue of social consequence; A mashup that demonstrates your facility with appropriation by designing a spreadable artifact; designing a “Bad Faith Resistance Campaign” aimed at warding off bad-faith digital activities that attempt to derail democratic participation
Guiding Questions: What are the consequences of humans’ relationships with digital media? How can we become comfortable using digital technologies while examining their potentials, problems, and ways they present possibilities for democratic action and may be implicated in unjust systems of power, privilege, and exploitation?
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
English 3031: Rhetorics of Health, Illness and Wellness
Instructor: Margaret Price
We spend each day in a flood of communication about illness and disability (and related ideas, including “health,” “wellness,” and “self-care”). In the United States, we spend almost $10,000 per person per year on health care, while also being bombarded with information about the “Campus Mental Health Crisis.” Buzzfeed videos show us the latest stair-climbing wheelchair; Twitter debates Serena Williams’s choice of athletic attire; and Facebook is filled with requests to donate to GoFundMe for a person whose life-saving surgery has left them bankrupt. We, as writers and readers, are both the authors and the audience of all this information. The purpose of this course is to offer you a chance to think through and discuss these complicated discourses—what they say, how they circulate, what cultural stories they unearth and ultimately what they mean for you and your own understanding of health and illness.
Potential Assignments: Papers & accessible multi-media assignments
GEN: Theme - Health and Well-being
English 3110: Citizenship, Justice, and Diversity in Literatures, Cultures, and Media
Instructor: Beth Hewitt
Since the beginning of the modern nation state, cultural texts (poems, novels, films, pamphlets, zines, short stories, advertisements, comics, etc.) have been the essential medium through which the discourse of citizenship has been developed, constructed, refined, and debated. In this course student examine a range of literary periods, genres, and media focused on citizenship and social justice. This course will study literature about and from the numerous social reform movements that began to sprout up across the United States beginning in the early 19th century. We will read novels, poetry, and treatises about various social and political movements including abolitionism, temperance, women's suffrage, free love, anarchism, socialism, labor reform, health and sanitation reform, prison reform, American Indian rights, and others. This course fulfills the Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World GE requirement and will provide students an opportunity to read literature that analyzes how theories of justice have changed across history and influenced popular notions of citizenship.
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 10 Instructor: Karen Winstead
Section 20 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Storytellers have long used monsters not only to frighten us but also to jolt us into thinking more deeply about ourselves, others, and the world we live in. This course will examine how four classic horror novel(la)s and their film adaptations use monsters to explore fundamental issues of wellbeing and citizenship: Frankenstein (Mary Shelley/James Whale), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson/Rouben Mamoulian), The Shining (Stephen King/Stanley Kubrick), and I Am Legend (Richard Matheson/Francis Lawrence). These texts join debates about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, social justice, and national and/or personal responsibility.
Potential Assignments: Participation in weekly discussions, director's notebook, final project
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
GEN: Theme - Health and Well-being
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 & 20 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Section 40 Instructor: Galey Modan
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 40 Instructor: Staff
Section 50 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc..
English 3340: Sustaining Literature
Instructor: Sandra Macpherson
The title of this course has various meanings. We will survey the literature of sustainability across a range of disciplines: natural history, legal and critical theory, ethnography, architectural planning, conceptual art, and fiction broadly construed (poetry, novels, non-fiction, film). We will investigate the concept of sustainability, which initially emerged as a critique of prosperity and perpetual growth but is fast becoming an alibi for maintaining present comforts in the face of escalating economic and ecological crises. We will investigate practices of sustainability as they exist at present and might be reimagined for the future. And we will ask: what is sustaining about the art and literature of catastrophe? Does literature itself need to be sustained? Or is that so much fiddling while Rome burns? What should be saved amidst the possibility of so much loss, and what should be let go?
Potential Texts: The course will be organized around what the Greeks called the four elements, but which we might call the four disaster zones: earth, air, fire, water. Texts might include Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones; Ian McEwan’s Solar; Susan Orleans’s The Library Book, Amitav Gosh’s The Nutmeg’s Curse, John McPhee’s Coming Into the Country; selections from Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, Stefan Helmreich’s Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas, Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes From a Catastrophe; poems by Oliver Goldsmith, Jorie Graham, Joshua Clover, and Juliana Spahr; and films such as Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, Julie Hart’s Fast Color, James Cameron’s Avatar, Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi, and documentaries about fishing (Leviathan), plastic (Blue Vinyl), and regeneration (2040).
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes or discussion posts, an oral presentation on extra-curricular material related to sustainability, an essay, and a cumulative final exam.
GEN: Theme – Sustainability
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Shalini A. Abayasekara
When was the last time you noticed a story being included in a healthcare setting? Who told this story? How did the narrative make you feel? What has narrative got to do with medicine anyway? In this course, we will ask ourselves these questions and more! Narrative scholar and Ohio State English Professor James Phelan calls narrative medicine “a project for transforming medical practice grounded in the principle that increasing the skills of caregivers and patients as storytellers and story-listeners can improve both caregiver-patient interactions and the outcomes of medical treatment.” Delving into a range of stories about illness and treatment both within and outside the US, and bringing our own disciplinary perspectives to the table, we’ll test this principle that narrative competence can enrich the medical experience. In this way, the course will have a pragmatic component as we consider how aspects of healthcare would—or even should—change if caregivers and patients put the principle into practice.
Potential Texts: Excerpts from Rita Charon’s Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness, excerpts from James Phelan’s Narrative Medicine: A Rhetorical Rx, excerpts from Charon et al.’s Principles and Practices of Narrative Medicine, journal articles and digital texts like videos, documentaries, websites and digital archives of narratives (e.g., the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives)
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts, digital stories, presentations and a final project/paper
Guiding Questions: Why study narrative in/and medicine? What medical narratives are we most familiar with and why? What makes a story easy or hard to tell in a healthcare context? How can skill in narrative analysis translate to skill in treating patients? How can skill in storytelling improve patients’ experiences with caregivers?
GEL: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture: Early Modern England
Instructor: Christopher Highley
In this exploration of popular culture we will travel back to Early Modern England, or the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period we associate with Tudor monarchs like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. However, it's not the great and the good we will be interested in here, but their subjects: the common people, householders, craftsmen, apprentices, servants and farm workers who made up the bulk of the population. We will look at the customs and rituals that gave their lives meaning--customs and rituals based on a contested church calendar and the agricultural seasons. We'll discover how these people worshipped, but also how they feasted, drank, danced and sung. We'll study a range of media from printed ballads, that might recount tales of witchcraft or monstrous births, to wall paintings and graffiti. Along the way, we'll visit key cultural sites like alehouses, brothels, animal baiting arenas, and of course playhouses that admitted anyone with a penny to spare. Shakespeare might seem like high culture to us, but the milieu of the early theater was decidedly popular.
Potential Texts: Ballads, plays, prose romances. Most texts will be provided in pdf format.
Potential Assignments: quizzes, papers, exams.
Guiding Questions: What do we mean by popular? Did a clear distinction exist in this period between popular (or low) and elite (or high) culture?
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 10 Instructor, Session 2: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Staff
Section 40 Instructor: Staff
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3372 (50): Special Topics in Science Fiction and Fantasy: How Magic Works
Instructor: David Brewer
The most fundamental mark of fantasy is that it features stories in which magic works. The magic may be front and center (Harry Potter) or kept largely in the background (Game of Thrones); it may be an instrument of strong good or evil or merely a morally neutral tool. But regardless of the form it takes, in the vast majority of fantasy, magic is real, which means that to the extent that we buy into these stories and the worlds in which they’re set, we are temporarily accepting the existence of magic (or at least suspending our disbelief in its existence). This course will investigate how that process works, and what it might be able to tell us about the practice of worldbuilding more generally. We’ll also consider how fantasy’s open embrace of magic has contributed to its (traditionally low, but recently rising) cultural status.
Potential Texts: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Benedict Jacka, Veiled, Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire, Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows, Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea, John Bellairs, The Face in the Frost, S. A. Chakraborty, The City of Brass, Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Potential Assignments: A weekly reading journal; a recommendation, in the form of a slide show, of a magic system that is not part of what we’re reading together, posted to Carmen for your colleagues’ consideration; a short response to one of your colleagues’ recommendations; a short essay connecting one of the magic systems we’re exploring to the other tools of worldbuilding employed in that narrative; a significant contribution to a group project in which you collectively devise a new magic system and explain how it would help construct a fictional world; active, “game” participation in our discussions
Guiding Questions: What place does magic occupy in the worldbuilding that's at the heart of fantasy and what might it teach us about other sorts of worldbuilding?
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3378: Janeites: Austen Fiction, Films, and Fans
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
Janeites: They have outfits. They re-enact Regency balls at annual conventions. They are Jane Austen fanatics. There are at least 62 film and TV adaptations of works by Austen, 28 of them made in the last decade. There’s Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, movies about “Jane” herself, and movies where modern people go into Austen’s world and vice-versa. There’s fan fiction. There are Jane Austen action figures and “Mrs. Darcy” t-shirts. And now there’s even an online role-play game, “Ever, Jane.” There are children’s versions of Austen novels. Jane Austen cookbooks. Advice books and board games about “WWJD?” (“What would Jane do?”) And of course, lots of literary criticism. In this class we will be reading some criticism as well as four Austen novels, and watching film adaptations including Clueless and the Bollywood-style Bride and Prejudice. We will look at the proliferation of all these contemporary avatars of Jane and more, to ask what it means, especially for women now.
Potential Texts: Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Austen, Mansfield Park (1814), Austen, Emma (1815), Austen, Persuasion (1818), Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary (1999), Baker, Longbourn (2014), Copeland and McMaster, eds. Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (2011) (this one is RECOMMENDED, not required)
Films & TV Adaptations: Clueless (with Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd), 1995, Mansfield Park (with Frances O’Connor and Jonny Lee Miller), 1999, Bride and Prejudice (with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson), 2004, Becoming Jane (with Anne Hathaway), 2007, Lost in Austen (TV miniseries, 4 episodes), 2007, Miss Austen Regrets (TV movie, available on Amazon Prime), 2008, Love and Friendship (with Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny), 2016
Potential Assignments: We will have group oral presentations, twice-weekly brief writing assignments (some of them creative) and identification exams.
Guiding Questions: What were Jane Austen's novels saying to her 19th-century audience? What do they mean today? Why is Austen still so popular? And what exactly is a "Janeite"?
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379 (20): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: James Fredal
In English 3379, you will learn about Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies by studying what researchers in these subfields of English Studies study and do. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing, and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. You will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts, both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
Potential Texts: All materials are available for free on Carmen. This course was supported by an Affordable Learning Exchange grant, through which WRL faculty developed and curated free learning resources.
Potential Assignments: Multiple short assignments to practice different methods; scaffolded writing activities; final project (paper or research proposal)
Guiding Questions: What is rhetoric? What is writing? What is literacy? How do we study these concepts? How do they organize scholarly disciplines?
English 3379 (30): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
In English 3379, you will learn about Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies by studying what researchers in these subfields of English Studies study and do. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. You will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts—both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
Potential Texts: All materials are available for free on Carmen. This course was supported by an Affordable Learning Exchange grant, through which WRL faculty developed and curated free learning resources.
Potential Assignments: Multiple short assignments to practice different methods; scaffolded writing activities; final project (paper or research proposal)
Guiding Questions: What is rhetoric? What is writing? What is literacy? How do we study these concepts? How do they organize scholarly disciplines?
English 3395: Literature and Leadership
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
In this course students consider leadership as a component of national citizenship and literature as a mode of exploring and analyzing a range of perspectives on leadership. The course will encourage students to think about how responses to power are mediated by race, gender, and class and how literary study can help them reflect on and articulate their own leadership strengths and aspirations.
GEN: Theme – Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3398 (10): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Poems, plays and stories are part of what makes us human. We’ve been inventing these verbal contraptions for longer than recorded history, far longer than printing, way longer than we’ve been studying them in colleges and universities. What are these linguistic doohickeys, though? How do they work and what can they do? How do we read and make sense of them? How do we talk and write about them? In this course we will read a variety of provocative literary works, considering especially matters of literary history, genre, form and language, as well as the interconnected roles of authors, texts and readers, exploring all the many ways in which novels, poems, and plays make meaning.
Potential Texts: Works will include Shakespeare’s young adult tragedy Hamlet; Dickens’ Hamlet novel Great Expectation; the dazzling poems of A.E. Stallings; and Tomson Highway’s trickster play, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing. We will also read critical essays on these works, representing different theoretical and methodological perspectives.
Potential Assignments: Evaluation will be based on participation in discussion, short assignments, and four essays.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
Do you love reading literature but feel less confident about your ability to analyze and interpret it? Would you like to develop and make more concrete your strategies for "close reading" all kinds of texts? This section of English 3398 is designed to help you meet these goals. The class combines exercises in analytical reading with formal and informal writing assignments. The emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and strengthening of skills required in many upper-division English courses. These skills include (A) the ability to objectify and articulate what we, as readers, bring to interpretation of a text; (B) the ability to “close read” for patterns and argue from them; (C) the ability to identify the conventions of various textual forms (genres) and the different kinds of critical engagement they encourage; and (D) the ability to conduct and effectively incorporate research into the historical backgrounds, reception, or influence of authors and texts.
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 30 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Section 70 Instructor: Leslie Lockett
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing. Required of English majors. Open to English majors only or others by dept permission.
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Kurt Ostrow
Section 30 Instructor: Sophia Huneycutt
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Hannah Nahar
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrew Romriell
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Alexandra Smereka
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-Level
ENGLISH 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Section 30 and 40 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
ENGLISH 4189: Professional Writing Minor - Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4520.02: Special Topics in Shakespeare
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This upper-level Special Topics in Shakespeare course is designed to give students an opportunity to explore the relationship between dramatic texts, literary criticism and live performance through the hands-on experience of working on a real Shakespeare production. Lord Denney’s Players is producing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in November 2023, and this section of ENGL 4520.02 will form the show’s production team. Students in ENGL 4520.02 will work in groups to learn hands-on basics of theatrical adaptation from concept, dramaturgy and script development to casting, costumes, lighting/sound/set design, topromotions, budgeting, and front-of-house management. Beyond the practical theatre experience they will gain, students in this course will study the theatrical, textual and critical history of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, exploring topics like Elizabethan politics and censorship, Renaissance books in print, textual transmission and revision, performance criticism, theatre reviewing, adaptation, and Shakespeare’s use of popular and historical sources. In addition to our regularly scheduled class, students are required to attend a selection of the show’s rehearsals, which will run Monday-Thursday evenings between September and November. Students will be assessed by critical writing assignments, a theatre journal and a final reflection. Students in ENGL 4520.02 have the option of auditioning for the cast of the show in the first week of class, but they are not obligated to act in the production.
English 4521: Renaissance Drama: The Dangerous Christopher Marlowe
Instructor: Alan Farmer
Although Shakespeare is undeniably now the most famous dramatist from early modern England, that was not always the case. In the early 1590s, when Shakespeare’s career was just beginning, Christopher Marlowe was undeniably London’s most influential, notorious and dangerous playwright. A spy and supposed atheist, he was ultimately killed, and perhaps assassinated, in a lodging house in May 1593. Before then, Marlowe wrote plays that transformed the early modern theater in exciting, unsettling and troubling ways. His plays are filled with disturbing villains, daring women, violent spectacles, cruel humor, and subversive political and sexual philosophies. In this course, we will read each of Marlowe’s plays and consider how they offer radical explorations of such early modern—and contemporary—topics as religion, sexuality, feminism, race, politics, science and power.
Potential Texts: Christopher Marlowe, THE COMPLETE PLAYS, ed. Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey (New York: Penguin, 2003) (ISBN 978-0140436334)
Potential Assignments: Requirements include critical essays, research exercises, quizzes, an exam and active participation.
English 4540: Nineteenth-Century British Poetry
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course covers British poetry written between 1789 and 1901, encompassing the Romantic and Victorian periods. I’ll begin with some brief discussions of poetic elements and critical reading strategies, for those new to in-depth poetry analysis (or needing a refresher). (**You do not need to consider yourself fantastic at analyzing poetry to take this course! Part of my goal will be to help everyone become more confident approaching the genre by the end.)
Authors will include William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charlotte Smith, John Keats, Lord Byron, Henry Derozio, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, A.C. Swinburne, Toru Dutt, Augusta Webster, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, and Oscar Wilde. We will focus on these authors’ forms, styles, and thematic concerns. At the same time, we will consider how their poems respond to significant cultural ideas and historical developments—for example, slavery and empire, the French Revolution, abolitionism, ideas of the sublime, the “woman question” and debates about gender, momentous scientific discoveries, challenges to religious faith, and burgeoning modern views about the value of art. Students will also learn about important poetic forms (e.g., the ode, the sonnet, and the dramatic monologue) and important literary modes and movements (e.g., the Gothic, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Aestheticism). I’ll be lecturing but will also incorporate lots of discussion. Tentative course requirements: regular and enthusiastic class participation, four brief analytical responses (1-2 pp. each), a final project (5-7 pp.), a midterm exam, and a final exam.
English 4550: Special Topics in Colonial American and Early National U.S. Literatures - Abolition Then and Now
Instructor: Molly Farrell
What do the writings of prison abolitionists today have in common—if anything—with those of the first antislavery abolitionists in America? From where we are in the 21st century, it’s hard to even imagine a world without incarceration; and in the 18th century, a global economic system without the trade in enslavement seemed pretty unimaginable, too. Putting texts by Black writers from then and now side by side, we will ask, how do we imagine alternative futures? Where does racism come from, and what is its relationship to capitalism and colonialism? When is reading transhistorically helpful, and when does it lead us astray? Through it all, we will seek to redefine what literature even is by blurring the lines between protest writings and genres like poetry and autobiography. Readings may include work by Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and others.
Potential Texts: Readings may include work by Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and others.
Potential Assignments: Literary critical essay, quizzes, presentation and short responses.
Guiding Questions: What can literature of Black abolitionists in the eighteenth century teach us about our present struggles?
English 4553: 20th-Century US Fiction - Fashion and Fiction
Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
This course explores the relationship between U.S. fashion and fiction across the 20th and early 21st centuries. It examines the connections between the ways that garments and texts construct narratives, shape identity and locate people and things within local and global systems. In fiction, for example, descriptions of dress help to set a scene, while fashions invite people to create certain stories about themselves and the world. Our study of fashion and fiction will also attend to how the history of fashion design, production, and consumption in the U.S. is related to developments in U.S. literary culture. We will consider what fashion—and related terms such as style, beauty, celebrity, branding and subcultures—can help us to understand about how literature has been written, sold and read over the last 120 years. Possible readings include literary texts by Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Jhumpa Lahiri, William Gibson, Anne Boyer and Ocean Vuong. In addition to analyzing works of fiction, students will study garments, magazines, photographs, films, new media and critical and cultural theory.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Nick White
Welcome, writers! Join me this semester as we study the "willed word" that is our fiction. A man who suffers from PTSD after surviving a werewolf attack struggles to keep his family together; after accidentally shooting and killing an albatross, a young woman finds her life spiraling out of control; a flock of endangered birds sings a haunting eulogy to our dying planet - these are just a few of stories we will read and study this semester, with an eye toward what made them unforgettable pieces of art. You will also "join" the writerly conversation by workshopping your own short stories. I promise you much energy, much laughter, a touch of rue and many blessings with respect to our time together.
Potential Texts: All texts will be provided as PDFs on Carmen/Canvas
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Marcus Jackson
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4567S: Rhetoric and Community Service
Instructor: Beverly Moss
Are you interested in working with a non-profit? Gaining experience as a professional writer? Learning about the rhetorical moves that writers in non-profits employ? In this undergraduate service learning course, you will experience firsthand, through writing for a community non-profit coupled with in-class workshops and conversations how rhetoric (and writing) can affect (both positively and negatively) social change in an organization. You will be assigned to work with a specific community organization for ten weeks of the semester.
Potential Assignments: You will complete writing assignments designated by your community partner, a rhetorical analysis of your community organization's public-facing documents, and compile a portfolio and reflection of your work with the community partner.
GEL: Service Learning
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Lee Martin
This is a workshop for writers of creative nonfiction. We'll read examples of literary essays online, but the bulk of our work will involve conversations about our own creative work. Through these conversations, we'll get a better grasp on elements of the craft and then apply them to our revisions.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: John Jones
Students in 4569 will use the programable Arduino platform to explore the rhetorical possibilities of interactive digital objects, paying particular attention to the new forms of digital creativity these tools are enabling. In this way, students will not only analyze digital objects but become makers themselves, thinking about new relations between people and the physical world that are enabled by our devices and the new forms of writing they can support.
Potential Texts: Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform, 3rd Edition
Potential Assignments: Students will create multiple interactive design projects, a short paper, and take occasional quizzes.
Guiding Questions: What are the rhetorical and communicative properties of objects? How can the affordances of interactive objects be leveraged for rhetorical purposes?
English 4571: Special Topics in English Linguistics
Instructor: Lauren Squires
This course will explore language in popular media, bringing critical language analysis to bear on media texts. We will explore how sociolinguistic concepts can help us understand what we find in both mass media (like movies, TV, newspapers, music, and sports broadcasting) and digital media (like email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and texting). In our investigations, we will pay careful attention to media forms, linguistic forms, and social factors. You will leave the class equipped with new ways of viewing media and popular culture, and with new tools for critically considering the role of language in everyday life.
Potential Texts: Queen, Robin. 2015. Vox popular: The surprising life of language in the media. Wiley Blackwell. Fought, Carmen, and Eisenhauer, Karen. 2022. Language and Gender in Children's Animated Films. Cambridge University Press.
Potential Assignments: Class presentation; "TV Club" group online discussion and final presentation; final paper
Guiding Questions: How does language in media reflect social identities? How can a sociolinguistic lens inform our understanding of pop culture?
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
Examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4573.01: Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
In this course, you will learn about rhetorical theories and apply those theories as you write different kinds of rhetorical criticism.
Potential Texts: Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action, edited by Jim Kuypers and Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts; papers
Guiding Questions: What is rhetoric? What are some important rhetorical theories? How can we use them to better understand rhetorical artifacts?
English 4578 (10): Special Topics in Film - Black Independent Cinema After the Transition to Sound
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course will focus on what was known as "race films"--African American-cast movies made by independent companies to cater to African American film audiences--from the early 1930s through the late 1940s. Focusing on this period in the history of race cinema, rather than the better-known silent-era productions, we will delve deeply into the mode of production, aesthetics, and social and political concerns of filmmakers and audiences working in this Hollywood-adjacent film milieu.
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film - Bad Reviews
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
“That story counts for less than gimmicks, and characters less than both.” “A big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.” These are excerpts from some of the reviews that greeted The Empire Strikes Back when it premiered. In this class, we’ll watch a selection of classic, canonized films, and read bad reviews of them. What can we learn from these contrarian takes? About these films, or what we look for in films more generally? About critics’ blind spots when it comes to genre, gender, or race? About how certain films get canonized and others don’t? In so doing we’ll try to clarify what our own criteria are in judging movies and understand what makes for an insightful and effective review.
Potential Texts: Films may include "The Empire Strikes Back," "Do the Right Thing," "The Heartbreak Kid," "Celine and Julie Go Boating," "Clueless," "They Love," "Schindler's List" and others.
Potential Assignments: Three 3-page reviews and one 6-page review essay, plus quizzes and one discussion presentation.
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literature and Culture
Instructor: Martin Joseph Ponce
This course focuses on 20th and 21st-century North American literary texts that invoke “queer” histories, homelands and futures through the framework of LGBTQ+ literacies. What roles has reading (for) depictions of homoerotic desires and nonbinary gender embodiments played in the construction of queer and trans selves, communities, histories and traditions? How have those literacy practices and processes of self-understanding and community formation been complicated and transformed by the foregrounding of racial, colonial and other social differences? How have queer of color, queer diasporic and queer postcolonial approaches challenged both heteronormative and (white) queer histories and theories of sexuality and gender? Throughout the course, we will consider the ways that intersectional representation matters for diverse readers, while also remaining attentive to the array of formal strategies that LGBTQ+ writers (of color) have used to evoke and reimagine not only histories of gender-sexual, racial, and colonial violence and oppression but also alternative homelands and futures of survival and possibility.
Potential Texts: Possible authors: Alison Bechdel, Eli Clare, Thomas Glave, Carmen Maria Machado, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Audre Lorde, Danez Smith, Rivers Solomon, Samuel Steward, Monique Truong, Craig Womack
Potential Assignments: Attendance, participation, discussion posts, key term exercises, midterm paper, final project
English 4583: Special Topics in World Literature - National and Transnational Narratives
Instructor: Pranav Jani
"Decolonial" and "anticolonial" perspectives link questions of identity and culture with on-the-ground movements for national liberation and self-determination. But nationalism, even anticolonial nationalism, can be limiting, too. This world literature course considers representations of colonized and postcolonial worlds in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Palestine, and Ireland. In the process we will study some poignant narratives about national oppression and resistance, and also consider transnational texts that focus on shared histories across national borders.
Potential Texts: Tsitsi Dangarembga; Nervous Conditions, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place, Ken Loach, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film), Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy, Viet Nguyen, The Refugees, Joe Sacco, Palestine, Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows
Potential Assignments: Eager class participation, weekly posts, short paper, research paper.
Guiding Questions: (1) What is decolonial? What is postcolonial? (2) Why do artists from colonized places often turn to nationalism as a solution? How do such literatures, graphic novels, and films blend personal and political concerns? (3) What are the power and limits of nationalism? What is transnationalism?
English 4587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Martin Joseph Ponce
This course focuses on Asian American literary texts that engage in creative, experimental and reflexive ways with history—and, at the end, with the future. We will begin with the Asian American movement of the 1960s and 70s to appreciate the emergence of “Asian American” as a category of political identification and coalition. Then we will turn to (mostly) contemporary canonical writers who have engaged with key Asian/American historical events and processes in formally innovative ways. These include Chinese immigration and exclusion, Japanese American incarceration, Japanese imperialism in East and Southeast Asia, U.S. colonialism in the Philippines, the Vietnam War, 9/11/2001 and the persistence of the “model minority” myth since the Cold War era. Throughout the course, we will remain attentive to the ways that race and ethnicity intersect with class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, location and other social differences to produce the heterogeneous imaginary known as “Asian America.”
Potential Texts: Possible authors: Jessica Hagedorn, Mohsin Hamid, Cathy Park Hong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Ling Ma, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Julie Otsuka, Asako Serizawa, Karen Tei Yamashita
Potential Assignments: Requirements: attendance, participation, discussion posts/presentations, informal journal responses, midterm paper, final project
Guiding Questions: What historical knowledge does Asian American literature seek to reclaim and remember? What are the risks and possibilities of doing so using experimental literary forms? To what extent are these histories in tension with one another and thereby complicate “Asian American” as a panethnic coalitional identity? What insights do intersectional modes of analysis offer for reading this body of work?
English 4590.02H: The Renaissance
Instructor: Christopher Highley
This class will explore one of the most turbulent and exciting periods in English history and culture from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century. This period saw an intellectual and cultural awakening (the Renaissance) as well as profound social and religious upheavals (the Reformation). We will examine and interrogate these 'movements' through some of the literary works that bear their imprint most vividly. These will include Shakespeare's great tragedy 'Hamlet,' Edmund Spenser's chivalric romance 'The Faerie Queene,' John Donne's lyrics and John Milton's biblical epic 'Paradise Lost.' These canonical masterpieces are grounded in their historical moment, but they also pose questions that we grapple with today: what does it mean to be human? What is the connection between the human and the divine? How should a society be organized? What is the relationship between the sexes?
Potential Texts: Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene,' John Donne's lyrics, and John Milton's 'Paradise Lost.'
Potential Assignments: quizzes, research papers, take home/in-class exams
English 4592 (30): Special Topics in Women and Literature - Gender and Empire
Instructor: Molly Farrell
The colonization of the New World has usually been told as a "boy story," with pirates or explorers, shipwrecks or frontiers, as its characters and settings. This class asks what would happen if we put girls and women, homes and domestic spaces, at the center of that story instead. Reading literature from and about early America, we will look at the ways sex, gender and families are inextricably bound up with appetites for expanding an Empire. Texts may include Toni Morrison's "A Mercy", early novellas about shipwrecks on deserted islands and novels about sex scandals from pre-"Bridgerton" New England and Jamaica.
Potential Texts: Toni Morrison, A Mercy; Phillis Wheatley, Complete Poems; Unca Eliza Winkfield, The Female American; William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy; Leonora Sansay, Secret History, or the Horrors of St. Domingo; Anonymous, The Woman of Colour: A Tale
Potential Assignments: Course requirements will likely include two critical essays, two response papers, reading quizzes, presentations, attendance and participation.
Guiding Questions: How are gender, race and empire related? What can we learn about intersectional feminism from early American writing?
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Instructor: Koritha Mitchell
Special Topic = Womanhood in Black and White. Using feminist perspectives, students in this course will analyze texts by or about women. As an intellectual community, we will explore literary works that help us to think critically about how womanhood figures in American culture. If literature both reflects existing ideas and shapes what seems possible, how varied are the possibilities it imagines for women? How does whiteness expand or limit options? How are an individual’s horizons affected when one is not considered white? We will operate as an intellectual community and help each other think through various authors’ representations of issues, such as romantic and platonic love, mothering and childfree living, and power dynamics of all sorts.
Potential Texts: Likely authors include Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Julie Otsuka.
Potential Assignments: Consistent reading and very active class participation required. Quizzes are the norm as are oral presentations.
English 4592 (10): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
Special Topics in Women, Literature, and Culture: Sarah Piatt and 19th Century Concepts of Gender. Sarah Piatt (1836-1919) has been called America’s great undiscovered poet. A celebrity in her own time, she was, like many women writers of the nineteenth century, expunged from the canon in the early twentieth century. In the 1990s, scholars began at last to bring her work back to public attention as part of a more general recovery of the work of women writers. Since that time, she has achieved recognition as one of the great voices of American and transatlantic literary history, writing extensively about the conflicts and fractures of nineteeth-century social life in a searing and often ironic voice. One of her major topics was the position of woman in society, including her roles as belle, wife, mother, poet, and public figure. This class will explore her poems and bring them into dialogue with public conceptions of gender as her world defined them as well as with selected short writings by other women of her era.
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World Instructor: Margaret Price
This course is organized around the question, What does it mean to “see” disability? We will begin with an examination of the common metaphor for disability awareness, “visibility,” moving from there to questions of staring, looking, gazing and representing. For example, what does it mean to say one has an “invisible” disability? Why are visibly disabled people so often stared at; what are the purposes of those stares? What happens when the disabled person stares back? When we look to media such as films, paintings, advertisements, magazines and social media, how are disabled people represented—and who does the representing? What can we learn from looking at signage and iconography involving disability—for example, the conventional blue-and-white “accessibility logo” with an upright figure in a wheelchair, as well as more contemporary manifestations such as the one from the Accessible Icon Project (https://proxy.qualtrics.com/proxy/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccessibleicon.org&token=IB8TcI40gFwa7ufUtmjZlNLqbltFYaKrwAZG5YUYOsc%3D)? How do spaces and interfaces affect the ways that disability appears (or disappears)? Rather than understanding representation as always and only visual, we will investigate ways that disability is represented multimodally—and will study ways of creating such multimodal compositions ourselves.
Potential Assignments: Papers and accessible multi-media projects
GEL: Cross-Disciplinary Seminar
5000-Level
English 5710.01-.02: Introduction to Old English
Instructor: Christopher Jones
"Old English" is the name for the earliest surviving form of the English language--the language of the great poem Beowulf and other fascinating texts from over a thousand years ago. Old English and its literature were an important influence on J. R. R. Tolkien and other pioneers of modern fantasy. This course aims to give students a basic reading knowledge of Old English. We will begin with a concentrated overview of its grammar before moving on to the translation of simple prose and poetry. In addition to a final exam, there will be short but frequent grammar or translation quizzes and a final translation or research project.
English 5722.01-.02: Poetry and Social Disorder in Civil War England
Instructor: Luke Wilson
This course, designed for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, will focus on the poetry of perhaps the most unsettled and unsettling three decades in English history, from the mid-1630s to the mid-1660s. Dominated by the Civil Wars and the execution of Charles I in 1649, these years saw the world turned upside down. Radical religious heterodoxies sprang up along with schemes for the radical reorganization of the political, economic, and social order. And poets – among them John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Margaret Cavendish, Hester Pulter, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew, and many others – struggled to make sense of their role in it all. How does the poet, writing in times of crisis, rationalize what she or he does? What is the place of the poet in such times? What are the politics of poetic (and for that matter material) pleasures? What kinds of enjoyment are possible in a time of political exigency? What is the relation between models of authority – monarchist, parliamentarian, vitalist-materialist – and poetic style? We’ll pay special attention to the Cavalier poets, whose commitment to joy sat uneasily with the defeat of the Royalist cause, to the poems of Milton’s 1645 Poems, which are (apart from Paradise Lost) the preeminent expression of a radical Puritan sensibility for which joy was equally fundamental, and to the exuberant and politically elusive poems of Andrew Marvell. We’ll also devote significant attention to the female poets of the later years, including Margaret Cavendish and Hester Pulter, who complicate traditional accounts of the gendering of the poetic. Assignments will include a couple of short essays, a class presentation, and a final research paper.
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers.
GEL Writing and Communication, level 1
GEN Foundation, Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.01 (14): First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Sean Yeager
This is an introductory composition course. We will discuss the conventions of academic writing and put them into practice. Students will learn writing methods which are iterative and collaborative.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.01 (15): Representations of Place and Community in Media
Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
What is the relationship between place and community? Exploring topics ranging from environmental justice activism to eco-tourism, rural revitalization efforts, online forums, and TV/movies, this course will explore the various ways Place and Community and represented in media. How is "place" made? How are communities built, sustained, or destroyed? Let's find out together. In this writing course, you will develop your capacity for undertaking academic research and analysis through an original research project and presentation of the results of your work to an audience of your peers. You will identify an area of interest within our course theme—Representations of Place and Community in Media—and find materials to analyze, develop analytical research questions, explore secondary texts, and make claims that are connected to the evidence you have discovered.
As many researchers do at this stage in their work, you will then reframe what you have learned for a public audience. During the research process, you will also be preparing for the English 1110 Symposium Presentation, a 5-minute presentation consisting of 15 images, each accompanied by 20 seconds of text/narration. The creation of your Symposium Presentation will provide significant opportunities for considering the nature of your research, the relationship between visual and written text, and issues of writing craft.
Potential Texts: Ferebee, Kristin, Edgar Singleton, and Mike Bierschenk. The Writer’s Companion: A Guide to First-Year Writing with Excerpts from Writing Analytically. 2nd ed. Cengage Learning, 2017.
Potential Assignments: Primary source analysis; annotated bibliography; a secondary source integration essay; an analytical research paper; a 5-minute Symposium Presentation
English 1110.01 (30): Writing and Information Literacy
Instructor: Aline Resende Mello
Your work in English 1110 will help you develop your writing and information literacy skills by engaging with and participating in a research community. You will learn to ask critical questions, make connections among writers and ideas, contribute to your peers’ understanding of a subject or issue, and reflect on your role as a writer and composer within your research community. Through a series of projects, you will gain experience locating, identifying, interpreting, and using objects within digitized collections and archives. Also, you will access a variety of databases to build a Worknet, a tool for researching and reading scholarly texts. You will learn responsible and ethical practices for accessing, using, and creating information. Finally, you will learn to make effective rhetorical choices while composing accessible print and multimodal texts.
Potential Assignments: Major Project 1: The Archival Collage, Major Project 2: The Worknet, Major Project 3: Welcome to the Community, and Major Project 4: Asset
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.01 (70): First Year English Composition
Instructor: Eileen Horansky
Your work in English 1110 will help you develop your writing and information literacy skills by engaging with and participating in a research community. You will learn to ask critical questions, make connections among writers and ideas, contribute to your peers’ understanding of a subject or issue, and reflect on your role as a writer and composer within your research community. Through a series of projects, you will gain experience locating, identifying, interpreting, and using objects within a collection of digital archives.
Potential Texts: Ball, Cheryl E., Jennifer Sheppard, and Kristin L. Arola. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. 3rd Ed. Macmillan, 2022. ISBN: 978-1-319-24505-4. Lary-Lemon, Jennifer, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides. Try This: Research Methods for Writers. WAC Clearinghouse, 2022.
Potential Assignments: Four major multimodal projects, period short writing assignments and discussion posts.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.01 (130): Language and Controversy
Instructor: Evan DeCarlo
Some times, with the unbelievably fast changes we see in technology, it becomes easy to lose sight of what else has been accelerating all along: language. Language today -- and the way we use it -- is in a constant state of change. And nowhere else do we see that change erupt more visibly than through the lens of public controversy. This course runs the gamut from seemingly small disagreements about controversial comma placements in legal language -- to debates about what we say on social media -- all the way up to massive cultural controversies about the ways we use language to define our own identities. Today's public discourse is fueled by disagreement about the words and rules we do (and do not) decide to use -- and that's exactly what we'll be studying and writing about this summer.
Students are encouraged to bring their interests, expertise, and unique backgrounds to their work in this class as we select individual topics for research and analysis. Expect to write, chat, debate, and have a lot of fun as we explore this exciting topic together.
Potential Assignments: Papers, Research Project, Creative Work
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
2000-Level
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Tamara Mahadin
A visitor strolling along London’s South Bank in the late sixteenth century would encounter, in quick succession, brothels, a bull- and a bear-baiting ring, a notorious prison already centuries old, and a round wooden theater. For this theater, Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, in the process attracting an audience from all walks of life—aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. In this course, we’ll be imagining what it was like to be among them, experiencing Shakespeare’s plays in action.
For better or worse, the figure of Shakespeare looms large in our cultural imagination. He is, without a doubt, the most canonized of English authors. Thus, to an introduction to his work is an introduction to literary study as a whole. It is also an introduction to the many ways Shakespeare is weaponized and valorized in our broader culture—from politics to business to medicine to law to psychology and more. Alert to such larger concerns, this course introduces students to some Shakespearean texts and contexts. Emphasis is placed on Shakespeare’s choice of drama— thus the plays are treated as plays, and experienced in performance—and on close reading and interpretation. But interpretation will be done in light of the traditions in and against which Shakespeare wrote, most especially the conventions of the three traditional Shakespearean genres: comedy, tragedy, and history. Potential Texts: Our in-depth exploration of Shakespeare’s language, works, and world will include the texts and contexts of Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and The Tempest.
Potential Assignments: Glossing Shakespeare's Language, Mini-Papers, Open-book Quizzes administered through Carmen, and Final Exam
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261 (20): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Rachel Stewart
"Elementary, my dear Watson!" Or, I should say, "Introduction to Fiction, my dear students!" In this course, we will examine the foundational elements of fiction through a focus on the detective fiction genre. Treating these elements as "clues" to be investigated, by the end of the semester you will understand the building blocks of fiction, as well as how these "clues" operate in one of fiction's most beloved genres. We will not be chained down by time period or type of media, starting with a visit to Sherlock Holmes in Victorian London, making a pit-stop in 1940's Japan, and ending with contemporary film and television detectives.
Potential Texts: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (1887), Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (1937), The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (1946), Knives Out by Rian Johnson (2019)
Potential Assignments: Opportunity for both traditional papers and creative work for major assignments will be provided.
GEL: Literature
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261 (30): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Samantha Trzinski
C. S. Lewis once argued that “a children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest” Though intended for a younger audience, children’s literature teaches readers of all ages and can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. This course will focus on early forms of children’s literature from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. We will read moral tales from authors such as Maria Edgeworth and Amelia Opie, selections from the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. We will learn how children’s literature evolved throughout the course of the nineteenth century and how changing concepts of childhood influenced literature. This course provides a foundational introduction to the study of fiction and will familiarize you with some of the basic literary concepts associated with the genre of fiction. Throughout the semester, you will learn college-level strategies for analyzing literature and how to construct logical interpretations based on textual evidence.
Potential Texts: Moral tales from Maria Edgeworth and Amelia Opie, Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women
Potential Assignments: Discussion boards, quizzes, short papers, creative final project
GEL: Literature
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Andrew Romriell
Section 20 Instructor: Sophia Huneycutt
Stephen King, Jane Austen, Sarah J. Maas, and Colleen Hoover all started somewhere. Now is your chance to start writing, too! In this class, we'll explore the pillars of fiction writing (character, dialogue, point of view and narration, plot and structure, suspense, setting, and style) and apply them to our own stories.
Potential Texts: Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn’t Tell the Trojans Because at that Point Fuck Them Anyway by Gwen E. Kirby, Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot by Robert Olen Butler, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado
Potential Assignments: Writing new short stories and flash fiction; completing short craft analyses on published stories; sharing and giving feedback on classmates' stories
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Amrita Dhar
What is disability studies? How did we get to this field of inquiry? Why does the discussion of disability pertain to us all? This introductory class on interdisciplinary disability studies will provide students with a grounding in sociopolitical models of disability as well as community-based modes of knowledge production. Together, we will also read disability testimonials, think disability justice, and imagine a future of collective access and belonging.
Potential Texts: Keywords for Disability Studies, eds Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin, Disability Visibility, ed. Alice Wong
Potential Assignments: This class will ask students to complete brief reflection papers throughout the term, two class presentations, and a short final paper.
English 2291: American Literature 1865 to the Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course provides a survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the present day. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural, and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by the aftermath of war; the transformative realities and legacies of capitalism, settler colonialism, and imperial ambition; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; economic turbulence; shifts in American conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality; and the role of technological innovation. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them.
Potential Texts: Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865 to the Present and a contemporary novel such as Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower or Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones.
Potential Assignments: A few quizzes, a midterm, a final, and a handful of discussion posts.
GEL: Literature
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.01 (10): Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Addison Koneval
The National Council of Teachers of English defines literacy as “a tool for meaningful engagement with society makes sense.” More than simply the ability to read and write, literacy is a complex means of communication, navigation, and even a means of empowerment or control. In this course, we will explore these complex facets of literacy, paying special attention to its entangled relationship to intersectionality, identity, and justice as they relate to literacy issues in education. We will understand how literacy practices, standards, and infrastructures inside and out of school contribute to “success” in school. Readings will explore topics like linguistic nationalism, linguistic discrimination, code-switching, neoliberal schooling standards, and more through a number of research-based literacy projects.
Potential Texts: Who Says? The Writer’s Research. Deborah H. Holdstein & Danielle Aquiline. Third Edition.
Potential Assignments: Major research-based literacy projects, weekly practice and reflection assignments
English 2367.01 (20): Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Caleb González
You are currently living #collegelife. As students at a major public research university, you are part of a community that produces, circulates, and critiques knowledge. But why do we live #collegelife? Who gets to live #collegelife? And why is #collegelife always being discussed in the news, popular culture, government committees, and private homes as both the problem and the solution to America's problems? In this course, we will critically and creatively explore American higher education – it's histories, identities, and representations – and produce research that addresses its cultural, sociological, economic, and affective aspects.
Potential Assignments: Literacy narrative, rhetorical analysis of a podcast, research proposal and critical project.
English 2367.01 (30): Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience Cultural Citizenship - Advancing Recognition through Literature and Media
Instructor: Irma Zamora
In this course we will use the definition by scholars Renato Rosaldo, William V. Flores and Rina Benmayor’s of cultural citizenship as the claim for marginalized groups to keep their differences while still belonging to the nation through a process of “building community, claiming space, and claiming rights” (Flores and Benmayor 296). Considering this, we will analyze representations of community-building, space-claiming, and belonging of marginalized group sin excerpts from novels, television, film and more. We will question: how are communities and spaces represented across media? How do these representations affect interpretations of belonging of marginalized groups in the United States? How are authors/creators from marginalized groups working towards cultural citizenship? What are the larger implications of literary representations of cultural citizenship? In what ways do these representations shape our understanding of the world around us?
Potential Texts: Ede, Lisa. The Academic Writer: A Brief Rhetoric. Bedford, 2021. 5th ed. Holdstein, Deborah H. and Danielle Aquiline. Who Says? The Writer's Research. Oxford University Press, 2013. (2nd Edition)
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts, Presentations, Final papers.
Guiding Questions: How are communities and spaces represented across media? How do these representations affect interpretations of belonging of marginalized groups in the United States? How are authors/creators from marginalized groups working towards cultural citizenship? What are the larger implications of literary representations of cultural citizenship? In what ways do these representations shape our understanding of the world around us?
Additional Materials: May need access to Netflix.
English 2367.01 (40): Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience Instructor: Carissa Ma
Our course theme is Rhetorical Perspective on Invasion Ecology in the U.S. In this class we will discuss the ways in which the notion of invasion, i.e. the entering or taking over of a place, is rhetorically deployed for particular projects of nationalism, white supremacy, imperialism, and other intersecting political frameworks. Non-native species are real and persistent features of life on this planet insomuch as beings (animals, plants, bacteria) physically move (or are moved) from one place to another. What constitutes a ‘non-native’, and the various vocabularies through which we are encouraged to ‘speak,’ ‘see,’ and act toward them, are, however, symbolic constructions. Indeed, “invasive species” as a trope turns our attention to such vital questions as: What belongs? What/where are the boundaries? Who constructs them? We’ll be reading a number of texts addressing eco/biological discourses, contemporary crises of refugees, policed borders, occupied Indigenous lands, etc. Through these readings and activities we’ll examine issues of ability, health, disease, and nativity.
Potential Texts: Deborah H. Holdstein and Danielle Aquiline, Who Says? Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest (1972)
Potential Assignments: Book Review, Reflections, Abstract, Final Paper & Draft
Guiding Questions: What/who belongs? What/where are the boundaries? Who constructs them?
English 2376.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Natalie Kopp
The American Midwest, from the Rust Belt to Chicago to rural farmland, occupies a unique space in the American cultural imagination. It has been called everything from America’s “heartland” to “flyover country.” It is a place where politicians vie for votes, a cornerstone of American industry, and, sometimes, the punchline of jokes. In this course, we will turn to literature and film (poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, and documentary) about the American Midwest, by the diverse voices that make it up. These works will serve as an entry point into conversations about the land and culture, including issues such as gentrification of midwestern cities and stereotypes surrounding rural and small-town midwestern life. We will call on our own regional backgrounds, from within and outside the Midwest, to enrich our discussions of the Midwest’s place in the American cultural imagination. As a second-year writing course with a literature focus, this class will allow you to hone your academic writing skills and further develop the ways in which you write about narratives and stories.
Potential Texts: The Crown Ain’t Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib, Universal Harvester by John Darnielle, essays from Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest, and others.
GEL: Literature
GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: level 2
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.08: A Cultural History of Video Games
Instructor: Chris Turpin
Depending on who you ask the first computer game was invented in either 1940 (Nimatron) or 1958 (Tennis for Two). The history of games go back even further. In nearly every society (historic and current) you can find evidence of people playing games, thinking about games, and discussing games. While they are often written off as simple wastes of time, games are and always have been huge cultural influences. Games have shaped how we think about everything from getting a date to waging global nuclear war. In this class you will learn about the the cultural impact of games from the very first extant board games to the next-gen video games the future. You will also learn how to write and talk about complex cultural phenomena like games in a way that is legible to academic audiences. By the end of the course you will have a fuller understanding of how games influence the world around us, how the world influences our games, and how to productively discuss those influences. You'll also get to play a lot of video games, which is almost never a bad thing
Potential Assignments: Writing Papers and Recording Video Essays
Guiding Questions: Where do games come from? What effects have games had on our society? What effects has society had on our games?
Additional Materials: Xbox Live Cloud Gaming Pass
3000-Level
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Instructor: Lauren Squires
Want to learn more about how the English language works, and how it reflects social facts and identities? This class is an introduction to the linguistic structure of the English language: its systems of sounds, words, and sentences, and how these systems differ across dialects, contexts, and periods in history. This fully online, asynchronous version of the course moves quickly in an intensive 6-week session. We first work to acquire the analytical tools needed to scientifically analyze any language, and apply these to the structure of English. We then move to understanding patterns of English in its conversational and social contexts, exploring how English is used in interaction, how its dialects and styles vary across individuals and groups, how the language we now think of as “English” came to be.
Potential Texts: Curzan, Anne and Michael Adams. 2012. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. 3rd edition. Boston: Longman.
Potential Assignments: Weekly online activities including readings, quizzes, discussions, midterm and final exam
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Rachel McCoy
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3372 (10): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Dennin Ellis
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GEL: Literature
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3372 (40): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Elise Robbins
Building New Worlds (And Re-Building Our Own): One of the reasons fantasy appeals to so many is that it creates new worlds to escape to. But one of the most interesting things about these alternate worlds is often how they make us think about our own. The novels, short stories, games, TV shows, and films in this class will explore how writers and artists craft alternate worlds for their audiences. Together, we will discuss what makes these worlds appealing, unappealing, convincing, beautiful, etc. and what building worlds can show us about how narrative works more generally. We will also use fantasy worlds as lenses to re-examine the social, economic, political, racial, religious, and cultural contexts around us.
4000-Level
English 4450: Literature and Culture of London
Instructors: Kay Halasek
Admission by application only. Applications closed January 10, 2023.
Literature and Culture of Londong: Detecting Victorian London_Crime in the City" engages students in investigating some of the most sensational criminal cases (both real and fictional) of the Victorian era. Seen through the lenses of poverty, policing, punishment, and popular opinion, the course seeks to explore racial difference and racism, social and economic class prejudice, and political constraint and upheaval—and their intersections—as they impinge upon crime, criminality, and social justice.
While in London, students will attend classes, guest and public lectures, and theatre performances; visit museums; gather for group meals and high tea; and take tours of numerous London sites, including the East End, Highgate Cemetery, Inns of Court, and the Old Bailey. Planned out-of-London excursions include travel to Portsmouth and Southsea (on the southern coast of England)—Dickens' birthplace and Conan Doyle's home while first writing his Sherlock Holmes stories.
Potential Texts: Students will examine how the cases studied themselves—as well as the genres of police memoir, crime reporting, ephemera, and fiction of the period (e.g., Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, C.L. Pirkis, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Sheridan Le Fanu, L.T. Meade, and Matthias McDonnell Bodkin)—reflected and influenced shifts in social and cultural practice, legal reform, and political belief.
Potential Assignments: Topic overview (encyclopedic entry), British Library archival project, two multimodal projects, and textual and image analysis
5000-Level
English 5189S - Comparative Studies Field School
Instructor - TBD
Introduction to ethnographic field methods (participant-observation, writing field notes, photography, interviewing), archiving, and public humanities. An introduction to fieldwork is followed by a field experience (where students will reside together in local housing) followed by accessioning, exhibition planning and reflection.
1000-Level
English 1110: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Garrett Cummins
This class focuses on first-year composition students doing a semester-long research project related to writing in their majors, future professions and/or activist passion. As such we focus on connecting ideas about academic writing, rhetoric and information literacy so that we can better understand the conversations that are happening in our major field of study. Lastly, this class focuses on writing as both a way to learn information as well as learning how to write academic papers and do academic research.
Potential Texts: The instructor supplies all the readings for the course because he uses open educational resources.
Potential Assignments: The class has four assignments: 1) an initial source evaluation of research, 2) a literature review, 3) a researched argument related to information literacy in your major, 4) major written course reflection. Also, we write parts of the bigger assignments throughout the semester, giving students credit for their efforts.
English 1110.01: Writing and Information Literacy
Instructor: Shaun James Russell
This course is not designed to teach you how to write. You already know how to write. Whether you believe your writing is a weakness, a strength, or somewhere in between, you have been using the written word in various forms for most of your life. Frankly, you wouldn’t be in a college classroom if you haven’t. Instead, this course is designed to hone the considerable writing ability you already possess, and develop it into a set of skills that will prove indispensable throughout your college career and beyond. Although much of this course will understandably be tied to the written medium—it is a composition course, after all—we will be using the theme of MUSIC AND IMAGE (broadly defined) to help get at many of the same concepts we will seek to uncover in our writing. This semester, we will examine some of the many ways in which music joins with images to help deliver a message, and we will analyze the effectiveness of its rhetoric. Through many examples (some of which you will provide) we will look at how music is being used with images, who is using it, for what purposes and why.
Potential Texts: Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. Writing Analytically 8th ed. Cengage Learning, 2018. (ISBN 9781337559461 (paperback); 9781337672429 (ebook)).
Potential Assignments: This course will feature an assignment sequence that includes source selection, a primary source analysis, an intro and thesis statement exercise, an annotated bibliography, a brief multimodal presentation, and a final analytical research paper.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.01: Writing and Information Literacy
Instructor: Liz Miller
Your work in English 1110 will help you develop your writing and information literacy skills by engaging with and participating in a research community. You will learn to ask critical questions, make connections among writers and ideas, contribute to your peers’ understanding of a subject or issue and reflect on your role as a writer and composer within your research community. Through a series of projects, you will gain experience locating, identifying, interpreting and using objects within a collection of digital archives. Also, you will access a variety of databases to build a Worknet, a tool for researching and reading scholarly texts. You will learn responsible and ethical practices for accessing, using and creating information. Finally, you will learn to make effective rhetorical choices while composing accessible print and multimodal texts.
Throughout the semester, you will be encouraged to apply composing strategies and rhetorical analysis practices–we will learn these together during the course–to projects and topics that interest you personally. We’ll work together to brainstorm priorities for your individual research and writing to ensure that you’re able to create work that is meaningful to you beyond the immediate scope of our course.
Potential Texts: Ball, Cheryl E., Jennifer Sheppard, and Kristin L. Arola. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. 3rd Ed.
Clary-Lemon, Jennifer, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides. Try This: Research Methods for Writers.
Potential Assignments: Discord discussion, artifact presentations, creative digital projects, research work
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.03: First-Year English Composition
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 & 30 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, 1193. This course is available for EM credit only through the AP program.
GEL: Writing and Communication, Level 1
GEN: Foundation - Writing and Information Literacy
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing. This course is graded S/U.
2000-Level
English 2150: Career Preparation for English and Related Majors SESSION 2
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
This general elective course helps English majors and students from other Humanities disciplines to explore and prepare for careers after graduation. Students will analyze texts to gain a practical and theoretical understanding of the world of work. They will learn to identify their own strengths and preferences to guide their job activity and career choices.
English 2201H: Selected Works of British Literature - Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Christopher Jones
The class introduces the literary history of England from the beginnings through the later 18th century. Through a study of representative authors from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and 18th century, students will trace major developments in literary forms, styles, and content.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2202: Selected Works of British Literature - 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will introduce you to some of the major British literary and cultural trends of the last two centuries. Our texts will cover the Romantic, Victorian, modernist, and contemporary periods, including a bit of the twenty-first century. We’ll talk about many major artistic forms and movements—for example, the lyric, the Gothic, the dramatic monologue, aestheticism, World War I poetry and postcolonial literature. We’ll also cover the historical phenomena that inform our texts, including the French Revolution, slavery and abolitionism, industrialization, imperialism, debates over gender roles, the rise of scientific values, the two world wars and decolonization. Finally, besides teaching you literary and cultural history, English 2202 will help you to become a better critical reader and literary analyst, either for future classes or for your own enjoyment. You’ll practice reading texts with an eye for fine detail (a.k.a. close-reading or explicating) in order to construct logical, complex interpretations based on textual evidence.
Potential Text(s): (tentative) William Blake, Mary Kingsley, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Charlotte Brontë, Olive Schreiner, Oscar Wilde, Wilfred Owen, Virginia Woolf, Una Marson, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kazuo Ishiguro
Potential Assignments: (tentative) two exams, midterm and final; two short papers (3-4 pp. each), designed to build your skills in literary interpretation; and regular attendance and participation in a weekly recitation section
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220 (20): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Christian B. Williams
This Introduction to Shakespeare course introduces students to the plays, theater, life, and times of England’s greatest writer, Mr. William Shakespeare. In this course, students will learn how to read Shakespeare’s language, practice close-reading of selected passages, discuss dramatic form and genre, and contextualize Shakespeare’s dramatic works in their historical moment. In doing so, students will explore various questions and topics that particularly interest them as well as those that interest other Shakespeare scholars. These explorations will range from asking and answering such questions as what makes certain characters in Shakespeare’s plays so darn “mean and nasty” (and why we love them), to addressing the ever-popular question, “why does Shakespeare talk like that?”; from examining closely how a “savage” historical moment is possibly dramatized in a particular play, to understanding the ways in which certain forms and structures within the dramatic tradition work to bring all of these matters to life on the contemporary stage.
Potential Texts: Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well.
Potential Assignments: Exam(s), formal-essay writing, short quizzes, close-reading assignments
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220 (40): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Meaghan Pachay
A visitor strolling along London's South Bank in the late sixteenth century would encounter in quick succession, brothels, a bull-and a bear-baiting ring, a notorious prison already centuries old, and a round wooden theater. For this theater Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, in the process attracting an audience from all walks of life— aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. In this course, we'll be imagining what it was like to be among them, experiencing Shakespeare's plays in action. For better or worse, the figure of Shakespeare looms large in our cultural imagination. He is, without a doubt, the most canonized of English authors. Thus, to an introduction to his work is an introduction to literary study as a whole. It is also an introduction to the many ways Shakespeare is weaponized and valorized in our broader culture— from politics to business to medicine to law to psychology and more. Alert to such larger concerns, this course introduces students to some Shakespearean texts and contexts. Emphasis is placed on Shakespeare's choice of drama— thus the plays are treated as plays, and experienced in performance— and on close reading and interpretation. But interpretation will be done in light of the traditions in and against which Shakespeare wrote, most especially the conventions of the three traditional Shakespearean genres: comedy, tragedy, and history.
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
For four centuries now, William Shakespeare has been widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He's certainly the most influential. More has been written about Shakespeare than any other writer in the history of the world, no joke. His plays have been adapted into countless other plays, novels, poems, music, paintings, films, TV shows, and comics, and not only in English but in German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and Yoruba. We will read a sampling of Shakespeare's plays in a variety of genres and over the course of his career. We'll think about how his plays work as theater; how he adapts and transforms the source material on which so many of his plays depend; how Shakespeare can be such an "original" when he borrows so much from other writers; how he can create such deep and realistic characters; and how it is that Shakespeare can accomplish all of the above (and more) through language. What we'll discover is that, as one critic put it, "the remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good."
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity - Global Studies
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2221: Introduction to Shakespeare, Race, and Gender
Instructor: Tamara Mahadin
How has the past shaped our society’s ideas about race and gender? When Shakespeare’s plays are read and performed today, how do they reinforce and challenge systems of oppression? We will examine these questions as we use the plays of Shakespeare to study the historically and socially constructed categories of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. This course attends to the ways these categories intersect to shape lived experiences today, and it considers how they influence what and how we read. We will analyze how Shakespeare represents the anxieties and desires of the past, as well as how modern playwrights like Toni Morrison resist and remake Shakespeare’s narratives. In doing so, we will reflect upon our own experiences and assumptions.
Potential Texts: Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello; Toni Morrison's Desdemona
Potential Assignments: Reflection quizzes, Glossing Shakespeare's Language, Play Analysis, Group Work: Adaptation Analysis, and Take-home final exam.
Additional Materials: Laptops or tablets to watch performances (accessible through Ohio State library: Drama Online)
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Elise Robbins
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems. This course will acquaint you with a variety of poetry, representing different eras, styles and topics. You do not need to consider yourself fantastic with poetry to take it! No matter what background you come from with poetry, my goal is that by the end, you'll feel comfortable articulating both how it works and why it matters. We will explore the art of poetry by reading, reciting, discussing, analyzing and writing a range of poems from across space and time. We will break down the mechanics of how poems work (e.g., rhyme, meter, word choice, genre, etc.) and how they've been used across cultures for millennia to tell stories, to celebrate religious rites, to preserve history, and to reflect on the human experience. In doing so, we will explore how this art both reflects and constructs both our collective cultures and our individual senses of what it means to be human.
Potential Texts: Art of Poetry by Shira Wolosky, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse by John Hollander, Odyssey by Homer / Emily Wilson
Potential Assignments: (tentative) short response/analysis papers (2-3), creative oral presentation, midterm and final exams, final project (creative or critical) and class participation
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: John Rooney
“All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially." -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821)
Poetry is infinite because, as English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley tells us, it must be rediscovered and even recreated by each generation. In this course, we will read and rediscover poetry in English of the past five centuries, from the English Renaissance to the present day, by focusing on the short lyric, a form both concise and inexhaustible. Along the way, we will see the lyric in many forms, including the sonnet, the ode, the ballad, the villanelle, and even free verse. We will also explore lyric’s many moods and modes: the mournfulness of elegy, the wit and humor of satire and epigram, the reverence of the hymn, the natural beauty of the pastoral, and the passion of love poetry. We will try to understand what makes these poems work, as we investigate meter, rhyme, word choice, and figures of speech. But, at the same time, we will also be deeply invested in attempting to realize what they make us feel, and enable us to know. We will read many poets, including William Shakespeare, John Donne, Katherine Philips, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Smith, John Keats, Emily Brontë, Alfred Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, Claude McKay, and Louise Glück, among others. No prior experience with poetry is necessary.
Potential Assignments: Engaged reading, short responses, and a choice of approaches to papers/projects.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 10 Instructor: Sandra Macpherson
Section 30 and 70 Instructor: Matthew Cariello
Section 80 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261 (20): Introduction to Fiction - What's Love Got to Do with It?: The History, Rhetoric, and Politics of Love Stories.
Instructor: Antonio Ferraro
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261H: Introduction to Fiction (Honors)
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course has two goals. The first is to familiarize (or re-familiarize) you with literary concepts associated with fiction, as well as to introduce new concepts that will allow you to see this genre in more sophisticated terms. The second is to teach you the skills for coming up with persuasive, thought-provoking interpretations of literature. Each class will include some lecture, but most of the course will be conducted as an open discussion. We will likely end with a unit that considers: how does learning about fiction help someone to become a better critical thinker about texts, voices and stories overall—even stories that are technically nonfiction? Our readings will span time periods and cultural and social perspectives.
Potential Text(s): Longer works (novel-length) (tentative): Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. Short stories (also tentative): Herman Melville, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Toni Morrison, Jennifer Egan, Ted Chiang, Curtis Sittenfeld, Carmen Machado, and others.
Potential Assignments: Regular and enthusiastic participation, three short response papers (1 ½-2 pp. each), a final project (5-7 pp.) and two exams (midterm and final).
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, communicate complex ideas, and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. We will use each week's film as both a case study in the strategic deployment of certain cinematic techniques, and as a specific set of images and sounds that combine to create a unique cinematic expression. Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the ways in which the multiple elements of moviemaking come together to make, and complicate, meaning. Our primary goal in this class is to become skilled at thinking, talking, and writing critically about movies and, in the process, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the film medium.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Instructor: Natalia Colon Alvarez
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies.
*Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 30 Instructor: Katie Harms
Section 40 Instructor: Aline Resende Mello
Section 50 Instructor: Andrew Romriell
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Polley Poer
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2266 (20): Introductory Poetry Writing
Instructor: Hannah Nahar
The word "poem" comes from the Greek "poeisis," meaning to make. A poem is a "made thing." A thing made out of words, out of images, out of lines, out of thoughts, out of feelings, out of time! In this introductory poetry writing course, we will make poems and talk about them. We'll read lots of published poems and consider how they work, how they sing and move us. The primary materials for this course will be your own poems, though, and the interests of the class will help determine how we run it and what we read.
Potential Texts: Poems, all available on Carmen
Potential Assignments: Creative work, informal reading responses
Guiding Questions: What is a poem? How can we make poems?
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Kurt Ostrow
Essays, line breaks and plot—oh my! Buckle up for this crash course in creative writing. Over the course of the semester, we will flex our prose muscles, sharpen our poetry scissors and mix all our metaphors. As we read a lot of excellent, mostly contemporary writing, you will fill up notebooks with your own stories and poems—some true, others made up. We will also share work in class, giving and getting generous feedback. No creative writing experience required, just courage.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elise Gorzela
Anne Lamott says, “Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artists true friends…. We need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.” In this course, I will encourage you to make a mess. Being a writer means putting aside the time to sit and stare and read and think and write, to make a mess over and over again to figure out how to tell the story you came to say. Life is messy and that makes writing nonfiction the unique work to form that mess into a narrative on the page. This course is set up to introduce students to writing nonfiction with a variety of readings to discuss craft, low stakes writing exercises and workshop where you will receive feedback on your writing.
Potential Assignments: Writing exercises, one longer creative essay and a final portfolio.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Christoffer Turpin
Section 40 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts course
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 10 Instructor: Zahra Abedi
Section 20 Instructor: Daisy Ahlstone
A general study of the field of folklore including basic approaches and a survey of primary folk materials: folktales, legends, folksongs, ballads, and folk beliefs.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
*Cross-listed in CompStd 2350
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: Anna Bogen
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Addison Koneval
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme - Health and Wellbeing
English 2280: The English Bible
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
The Bible contains some of the weirdest and most wonderful literature you will ever read, and there is certainly no book that has had a greater influence on English and American literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s Progress to The Chronicles of Narnia, Whitman’s Song of Myself to Morrison’s Song of Solomon. We will read a selection of biblical books in order to gain some appreciation of the Bible’s wide range of literary genres, forms, styles, and topics. Our discussion will include the nature of biblical narrative and characterization, the function of prophecy and its relation to history, the peculiar nature of biblical poetry, so-called Wisdom literature, anomalous books like Job and The Song of Songs (including the historical process of canonization that made them “biblical” and the kinds of interpretation that have been used to make them less strange), the relationship between (in traditional Christian terms) the Old and New Testaments (including typology, the symbolic linking of characters, events, themes, and images in the books before and after the Incarnation), and the unity (or lack thereof) of the Bible as a whole. As occasion warrants, we will also look at some of the diverse ways the Bible has been read and interpreted––the stranger the better––by poets and writers, artists and film-makers over the past millennia.
Do note: this is NOT a faith-based course in religion, but rather an English course on the Bible as a literary work. Any and all faiths, or none, are welcome, and none will be privileged.
Potential Text(s): The English Bible: King James Version (2 vols.), ed. Herbert Marks (1) and Gerald Hammond and Austin Busch (2), Norton Critical Edition
Potential Assignments: Evaluation will be based on active participation in class discussion and activities, a film review, an essay, a mid-term test, and a final exam.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
This course introduces students to key African American writers and cultural movements of the last two and half centuries. Central questions for the class include: how are community, power, race, gender, and sexuality represented and experienced in and through the texts we will read? How are these texts shaped by the audience to whom they may be addressed? How do these texts relate to struggles for racial justice, including anti-slavery, anti-colonial, and prison abolition movements? We will read work by writers including Phyllis Wheatley, David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler, and we will examine literary and political movements including the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
*Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Lily Blakely
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GEL: Cultures and ideas and diversity soc div in the US course
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
*Cross-listed in WGSSt
English 2290: Colonial and U.S. Literature to 1865
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
This course provides a broad survey of selected literature from the time of European colonial occupation in North America to the end of the Civil War and the beginning of federal Reconstruction of the former Confederate states. We will explore how various writers working in a number of genres--nonfiction, short fiction, the novel, and poetry--addressed a broad array of historical, cultural, and literary concerns, including settlement of the what they called a New World; encounters and conflicts with indigenous peoples; political and theological upheavals; aesthetic conventions and rebellions; race and gender categories; literary and philosophical movements; slavery and emancipation; and civil war and its contentious and violent aftermath.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 10 Instructor: Caleb Gonzalez
Section 0120 Instructor: Peyton Del Toro
Section 140 Instructor: Appy Frykenberg
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
English 2367.01 (50): Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Kay Halasek
In this section of English 2367.01, you will analyze the various ways that scholars in academic disciplines and commentators in the public sphere take up and contribute to some of the most widely debated topics of our time. Working from within and across disciplinary texts and artifacts in mathematics and the sciences, social sciences, business, architecture, food and agricultural studies, engineering, education, humanities, health professions and arts, you will investigate the intersections among rhetoric, language, identity and culture and their relationship to citizenship for a diverse and just world. The course is framed by and engages these public and disciplinary conversations through concepts and theories from both classical and contemporary rhetorical theory.You will complete a series of scaffolded assignments that ask you to investigate, analyze, critique and contribute to current scholarly and public debates on your selected topics. The course includes extensive guided instruction and practice in scholarly research, and as a “flipped” classroom, it also asks that you a conduct a great deal of independent research and complete numerous activities outside of class.
Potential Text(s): All course readings and videos will be available in Carmen. A separate textbook is not required.
Potential Assignments: Students will complete a series of class activities, homework assignments, one Reading Response, an Academic Analysis Assignment, Public Discourse Analysis Assignment and Final Project (including a Proposal).
Guiding Questions: We will explore how scholars, researchers and other academics--as well as public figures--address and frame their arguments in a wide range of topics related to politics and ideology, higher education, technologies, gender and consumerism, etc. Questions might include the following: What does it mean to be a "good" citizen? What is the role (and responsibility) of scholars, researchers, and students in contributing to debates in the public sphere?
Additional Materials: Students must have access to their Ohio State email and Carmen accounts and Microsoft 365. RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT: Computer: current Mac (OS X) or PC (Windows 7+) with high-speed internet connection. Webcam: built-in or external webcam, fully installed and tested. Microphone: built-in laptop or tablet mic or external microphone. Other: a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) or landline to use for BuckeyePass authentication.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Diversity - Social Diversity in the US
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 10 Instructor: Kayode Odumboni
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Literature (BS only)
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.02 (30): Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Honor Lundt
This course will be an introduction to science fiction, stretching from the pulp era to the present, which features short fiction, film, novels and television. We will use these examples of the fantastic to explore depictions of gender and race in the American imagination.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Literature (BS only)
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.02 (50): Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Amelia Mathews-Pett
We will be exploring the Western genre in this course. By discussing literature, film, and other media, we will examine how Westerns create and mold American identity and mythology through their construction of race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, and sexuality. Our consideration of Westerns will be integrated within a broader context of discussing genres, in which we will also examine how academic writing genres operate. Over the course of the semester, students will explore a storytelling genre of their choosing, and demonstrate their ability to write in the academic research writing genre for their final projects.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Literature (BS only)
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.02 (70): Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Carissa Ma
Our course theme is Rhetorical Perspective on Invasion Ecology in the U.S. In this class we will discuss the ways in which the notion of invasion, i.e. the entering or taking over of a place, is rhetorically deployed for particular projects of nationalism, white supremacy, imperialism, and other intersecting political frameworks. Non-native species are real and persistent features of life on this planet insomuch as beings (animals, plants, bacteria) physically move (or are moved) from one place to another. What constitutes a non-native? And the various vocabularies through which we are encouraged to speak, see, and act toward them, are, however, symbolic constructions. We'll be reading a number of texts addressing eco/biological discourses, contemporary crises of refugees, policed borders, occupied Indigenous lands, etc. Through these readings and activities, we'll examine issues of ability, health, disease, and nativity.
Potential Texts: Deborah H. Holdstein and Danielle Aquiline, Who Says?; Janet E. Gardner, Reading and Writing About Literature
Potential Assignments: Papers, leading class discussion, oral presentation
Guiding Questions: What/who belongs? What/where are the boundaries? Who constructs them?
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Literature (BS only)
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.02 (100): Literature in the U.S. Experience: Environmental Literature
Instructor: Misha Grifka
In this course, we will practice analyzing all kinds of written media - novels, short stories, poems, comics, even games - and understanding them in the context of the environment. How does literature portray and respond to climate change? How do writers and readers imagine their environmental surroundings? How have people tried to leave behind their anthropocentric perspective and understand nature on a deeper level? While we can't answer those questions definitively, we'll use them as a springboard for posing our own questions.
Potential Assignments: Potential assignments include papers, creative works, short writing assignments, and quizzes.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Literature (BS only)
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Explores how technological changes impact our culture & relationships; students build & expand skills in rhetorical analysis & composition through experimentation with new forms of communication.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
English 2367.05: Writing about the U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Mary Hufford
Concepts of American folklore and ethnography; folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills in the context of lived environments.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
GEN: Theme - Lived Environments
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
GEL: Social Diversity in the United States
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience - Writing About Video Games
Section 10 Instructor: Kelsey Mason
Section 20 Instructor: Carlos Kelly
Section 30 Instructor: Morgan Beers
Section 40 and 50 Instructor: Lauren Cook
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GEL: Writing and Communication - Level 2
English 2463: Introduction to Video Game Analysis
Section 10 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 20 Instructor: Alex Thompson
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Rolando Rubalcava
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2581: Introduction to U.S. Ethnic Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Julianna Crame
This course explores multi-ethnic literature in the U.S. through the lens of U.S. empire, with a particular focus on how various generations interact with hegemonic systems of power based in colonialism. While dominant media often portrays U.S. society as socially equal and diverse, those who do not fit into colonial ideals based on their race, gender, sexuality, and/or class must contend with numerous inequalities. We will explore various literature (novels, short stories, memoirs, etc.) to discuss depictions of how Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinx Americans struggle against systems of U.S. empire. Each group’s different historical contexts influence their strategies for survival and the ideologies they instill in subsequent generations. Children born into the empire must then figure their roles in a society that both “Others” them and enforces their assimilation. These narratives will facilitate discussion on different kinds of colonialism, such as neocolonialism and internal colonialism, as well as strategies particular to the U.S. empire, such as the American Dream and model minority myth. Although U.S. media often asserts the injustices of colonialism are in the past, we shall see how these systems still inform current hierarchical social practices.
GEN: Foundation - Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity
3000-Level
English 3110: Citizenship, Justice, and Diversity in Literatures, Cultures and Media - Social Reform Literature in the U.S.
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
This course will study literature about and from the numerous social reform movements that began to sprout up across the United States beginning in the early 19th century. We will read novels, poetry, and treatises about various social and political movements including abolitionism, temperance, women's suffrage, free love, anarchism, socialism, labor reform, health and sanitation reform, prison reform, American Indian rights, and others. This course fulfills the Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World GE requirement and will provide students an opportunity to read literature that analyzes how theories of justice have changed across history and influenced popular notions of citizenship.
GEN: Theme - Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 and 30 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3271 (20): Structure of the English Language
Instructor: Galey Modan
This course is an introduction to English linguistics. You will gain the analytical tools to scientifically analyze any language, and apply those tools to English. We'll learn about the basic characteristics of language: the sounds of English and how they're put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. While studying how the basic building blocks of language work, we will also investigate linguistic variation, accents of American English, and language and education. We'll also consider how standard and non-standard varieties of English get evaluated in the US, and the implications of such evaluations in educational settings.
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Lauren Colwell
Section 40 Instructor: Natalie Kopp
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3304 (10): Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Angel Evans
Who are you--professionally? What do you want your work to say about you--even in meetings and conference rooms where you aren't present? This course will guide students in personal branding, building an effective resume and cover letter, interviewing, salary negotiation, and successfully navigating other workplace situations/communicative contexts. Regardless of major, students who complete the course will gain more confidence and tools for their professional future. You will also complete a polished portfolio showcasing your experience to prospective employers.
English 3304 (30): Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christa Teston
In this online, asynchronous course you will learn principles and practices associated with writing well in business and professional contexts. I’ll provide you with a lot of feedback on your prose and give you several opportunities to refine your style, organization, and collaborative writing strategies.
Because the majority of the writing you’ll do in this class is collaborative and in service of a community partner’s marketing campaign, students enrolled in this version of the course should be (or be willing to become) adept at asynchronous team writing. Asynchronous team writing regularly requires daily check-ins with team members and advanced time management skills.
At the end of this course, you will have writing samples that demonstrate expertise in the following genres,
- correspondence genres (letters, memos, social media);
- presentation genres (pitches, pecha kucha, slideware);
- collaboration genres (charter document, strategic plan);
- information genres (reports, documentation, public service announcements, fact sheets);
- proposal genres (project proposals, marketing proposals);
- employment search genres (resume, cover letter, interview techniques).
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Susan Lang
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3305 (20): Technical Writing
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
Technical Writing is designed to improve the communication skills and career prospects of three groups: (1) science and engineering majors preparing for technology-focused careers, (2) humanities majors interested in exploring career options in technical communication and (3) students of any major who want to enhance their marketability by learning about workplace writing.
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This class will take a step back from what usually happens in classes about literature (and art) and ask some of the big questions about why people study these things in the first place. Why is literature a good thing? How is the experience of art important and what does it have to teach us that is different from the experience of the real world? How are different kinds of art (literature, music, film) like each other and how do they present different worlds and different possibilities? Readings will include a wide selection of thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Mary Wollstencraft and William Blake. The course should be very exciting for anyone interested in the connections between literature and philosophy -- or anyone interested in honing their abilities in critical thinking. Highly recommended for anyone considering graduate school.
Potential Assignments: Midterm, Final, and possible short paper.
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Humanity's death rate remains steady at 100%. We all die. How we come to terms with death, or resist it, or deny it, varies among peoples and cultures. No surprise then that death has been so popular a topic throughout the history of stories. Adam and Eve bring death into the world by eating the forbidden fruit. Gilgamesh mourns his beloved friend Enkidu. Priam and Troy mourn the death of Hector. David laments Saul and Jonathan. The pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the terra cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Treasury at Petra, and Ohio's Serpent Mound are all tombs. This course explores plays, poems, stories, novels, and films about death. Aided by readings in sociology, philosophy, and medical ethics, we will ask what death is, why and how we die, how we grieve, why we treat the dead as we do, and why we imagine the dead returning to the living. Thinking about death and dying is obviously essential to anyone planning a career in health care, and studying literature allows this in ways unavailable to medicine, philosophy, sociology, and other disciplines. But readings in these fields will also enrich the experience of literature for students in English.
Potential Texts: Readings will include excerpts from Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Thomas Lynch's The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, Richard Selzer’s The Exact Location of the Soul, and Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Literary works will include excerpts from the Bible and Gilgamesh, stories by Poe and Raymond Carver, John Crace’s novel Being Dead, George Saunders' weird historical-purgatorial fantasy Lincoln in the Bardo, Wole Soyinka’s tragedy Death and the King’s Horseman, Abba Kovner’s verse illness narrative Sloan-Kettering, Amy Bloom’s memoir of her husband’s euthanasia, In Love, and Maylis de Kerangal’s novel of organ transplant, Heart.
GEL: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture: “Disneyfying” Diversity - Disney’s Depictions of Race in Feature Film and on Network Television
Instructor: Katlin Marisol Sweeney-Romero
On May 26, 2023, Disney will premiere its latest live-action remake of one of its most iconic, animated feature films: The Little Mermaid. When it was announced that Princess Ariel would be portrayed by multi-hyphenate superstar Halle Bailey, the internet was flooded with backlash exemplifying what media scholar Moya Bailey terms misogynoir: the combined anti-Black racism and misogyny that is projected at Black women across film, news and social media. In anticipation of the film’s release, we will place the online discourse surrounding The Little Mermaid in the larger context of how audiences have responded to The Walt Disney Company’s complicated 100-year history of depicting race on-screen. We will track the evolution of racial representation across Disney’s transmedia storytelling in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with attention to how its films, television shows, theme parks, soundtracks, and the careers of its “Franchisable Girl” stars have each contributed to this history. To guide our inquiries into this topic, we will analyze how the emergence of Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) in the 1980s effectively capitalized on the nostalgia of Disney’s feature-length animated films for a new, “tween” market while simultaneously introducing new venues for racial representation.
Potential Texts: Bailey, Moya. Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women's Digital Resistance (NYUP, 2021); Beltrán, Mary and Camilla Fojas, editors. Mixed Race Hollywood (NYUP, 2008); Blue, Morgan Genevieve. Girlhood on Disney Channel: Branding, Celebrity, and Femininity (Routledge, 2017); Brode, Douglas. Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment (U of Texas P, 2005); Cheu, Johnson, editor. Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013); Telotte, J.P. The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology (U of Illinois P, 2008)
Additional Materials: Disney+ subscription (will be used for all primary viewings)
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3372 (20): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy - My Hideous Progeny
Instructor: Karen Winstead
"My hideous progeny" - that's what Mary Shelley called Frankenstein (1818), widely considered the first science fiction novel in English. Dr. Frankenstein created a living being and abandoned it, with devastating consequences. Shelley's Frankenstein introduced crucial questions that subsequent generations of science fiction authors and filmmakers have seized on: What is our responsibility towards the beings we create? What happens when our creatures develop minds of their own and goals that conflict with ours? What happens when they rebel? May their creators destroy them? We might think of theses science fiction authors and filmmakers as Shelley's spiritual children, and their works as Frankenstein's own "hideous progeny". In this course, we'll explore how authors of science fiction dealt with the issues Mary Shelley introduced. We'll begin by reading Frankenstein and move on to other novels and films treating the relation between creatures and their creators, including Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), Spike Jonze's Her (2013), Alex Garland's Ex Machine (2014), Neil Blomkamp's Chappie (2015), Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun (2021), and Sara Gailey's The Echo Wife (2021).
Potential Texts: Students would only need to purchase Klara and the Sun and The Echo Wife.
Potential Assignments: Weekly discussions, a reading/viewing journal, and a final project developed in consultation with me.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (30): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Dennin Ellis
Science fiction is good for an awful lot (including pure entertainment), but in particular it gives us a lens through which to observe and reflect on our own world. This can be useful for exploring issues on the micro scale (such as those of individual identity) or the macro scale (issues pertaining to larger sociopolitical forces). We’ll be focusing on the latter in this class - how does the genre of science fiction address society, politics, culture, etc.? Specifically, we will consider how sci-fi addresses topics like (anti-)authoritarianism, (anti-)fascism and (anti-)capitalism. Don’t worry, those smaller issues of identity certainly come up too, as they’re swept along by these larger forces. We’ll also find some space to fit in some anime and comics. We’ll do a week on ‘the weird’ as a subgenre of sci-fi, and a week on the REALLY weird (Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges) in order to test the boundaries of sci-fi.
Potential Texts: Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic, Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Blade Runner (1982), Starship Troopers (1997), Things to Come (1936), Snowpiercer (2013), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Brazil (1985), Metropolis (1927).
Potential Assignments: Writing/group activities throughout the semester, final project (solo or in a group) focusing on a text of your choice.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (40): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy - At the Margins of Humanity
Instructor: Morgan Podraza
What does it mean to be human? Through our readings and discussions, we will question and analyze concepts of the "human" and "humanity." The short stories, books, comics and films we will spend time with this semester will allow us to explore the qualities, experiences and potential futures of humanity through the science fiction genre. Together we will examine characters and worlds that will help us to see ourselves and others in new ways, to discover new ways of understanding our bodies and minds, and to make connections between the fictional worlds of science fiction and the world we live in.
Potential Texts: The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin; Black Panther Volume 1 written by Ta-Nehisi Coates; The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe; Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro; The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang; O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti.
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts, short essays, in-class debate and reflections.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (60): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy - How Magic Works
Instructor: David Brewer
The most fundamental mark of fantasy is that it features stories in which magic works. The magic may be front and center (Harry Potter) or kept largely in the background (Game of Thrones); it may be an instrument of strong good or evil or merely a morally neutral tool. But regardless of the form it takes in the vast majority of fantasy, magic is real, which means that to the extent that we buy into these stories and the worlds in which they're set, we are temporarily accepting the existence of magic (or at least suspending our disbelief in its existence). This course will investigate how that process works, and what it might be able to tell us about the workings of literature more generally. We'll also consider how fantasy's open embrace of magic has contributed to its (traditionally low, but recently rising) cultural status.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature
Instructor: Luke Wilson
In this course we will read and discuss five of Shakespeare’s tragedies and watch and analyze some of significant film adaptations of these plays. We’ll work by reading the plays themselves, carefully, first, and then investigate how different directors have responded. Film adaptations of Shakespeare cover a wide range of approaches, from those that follow Shakespeare’s text closely to those that translate the text into a wholly different language and idiom. The best filmic renderings of Shakespeare tend not to scrupulously adhere to the text but rather bring to bear the film medium’s own unique representational resources. In this course we’ll focus on Shakespeare’s major tragedies (probably Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and Coriolanus), and watch one or two films of each play. You’ll write frequently about what you’re reading and watching, in discussion posts and response papers, and you’ll have a chance to explore your ideas in greater depth in a substantial essay. There will also be a final exam, as well as an assignment in which you report on a film we haven’t watched in class.
Potential Texts: An edition of Shakespeare's plays. Everything else on Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Frequent short writing (discussion posts, response papers); a final paper; a final exam; a film review.
Questions: How have some directors translated Shakespeare's densely literary texts into the cinematic medium?
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation - Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379 (10): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Susan Lang
This course will introduce students to a continuum of research methods used by scholars in such fields as writing, rhetoric, literacy studies, composition studies, and technical communication. We will focus primarily on empirical research methods. You will learn techniques of these various methods and apply them to a series of activities throughout the semester. During the last month, we will shift focus to writing research in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies.
English 3379 (20): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Kay Halasek
Introduction to the interrelated fields of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy, familiarizing students with key concepts that underlie work in these interrelated fields and to the scholarly methods of WRL. Together, this discipline studies the ways people use language and other symbols to convey messages, persuade audiences and create meaning, and how these practices are learned and taught.
Potential Text(s): No course textbook must be purchased for this course. All course materials will be available in Carmen.
Potential Assignments: In-class activities and homework assignments; literacy autobiography; short rhetoric, writing and literacy unit projects; research proposal and final project; colloquium presentation.
Guiding Questions: What is rhetoric--and how is its practice defined by cultures, politics, and education? How do we define literacies? Whose literacies are (de)valued and why? What does it mean to study writing as a rhetorical, political, and literate act?
Additional Materials: Students will need access to a computer or other robust device during class with a current Mac (OS X) or PC (Windows 7+) with a high-speed internet connection. Webcams and microphones are optional.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course offers a foundation for those seeking to develop the skills and practices to succeed in the English major. We will think carefully about how our understanding and analysis of texts relate to the world as well as the practical ends of the kinds of work we do; to that end, we will experiment with different methods and different forms of writing (close reading exercises, public-facing criticism, and researched essays). Students will engage with a wide range of genres, forms, and media, including poetry, climate fiction, visual media and possibly a video game. We will also consider the value of economic, intellectual, and cultural undertaking of humanistic work in our contemporary moment of political antagonism, economic transition, and ecological breakdown.
English 3398 (30): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course builds skills pertinent to the advanced study of literature, especially the close reading of literary texts, familiarity with multiple genres, the use of literary-critical methods and other scholars’ research in developing one's analysis of texts, and the construction of clear and insightful essays about literature. We will practice varied approaches to literary criticism and study texts from across different genres, including poems, short stories, drama, and the novel. Requirements include informal written assignments, which develop skills in academic argumentation, and three formal essays, two of which involve research.
English 3398 (40): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Koritha Mitchell
This class will introduce students to a variety of "methods" for literary studies. It builds on the critical thinking and writing skills that students already possess by offering opportunities to put forth clear, thesis-driven arguments. We will cover several theoretical approaches to literature. In many cases, we will examine The Great Gatsby through different lenses in order to get a feel for how these approaches illuminate the richness of a single text. To further test the theories introduced, we will read other literary forms, including drama and poetry.
Potential Text(s): REQUIRED READING will include: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, 3rd edition; (all other texts available electronically)
Potential Assignments: REQUIREMENTS will include: thoughtful class participation, three essays, a library assignment and a thesis-driven oral presentation. So, students enrolling in this section of 3398 should welcome the opportunity to practice their public speaking skills.
English 3398 (60): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This class is designed to support students in developing the writing and research skills they need to be successful English majors. Classes and short assignments will cover issues like: What does secondary criticism add to literature? How do I read actively? What kinds of tools do I need? How do I stake a claim? Do I need a flag? What's the difference between a long paper and a short one? How can I distinguish between what they say about a text and what I say? In addition, over the course of the term students will learn the types, tools, and methods of literary criticism that English scholars employ as they construct projects in both print and digital media. Along the way, we'll read a novel by Robertson Davies, short stories by Dorothy Parker, Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthelme, and George Saunders, plays by Djanet Sears and William Shakespeare, and poems by Billy-Ray Belcourt. Students will complete in-class exercises and multiple short writing assignments that ultimately build towards a longer research paper. Previous students have found this course "rigorous in the best way, "inspiring," "engaging," "respectful of students' time" and "encouraging."
English 3405: Special Topics in Professional Communication
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
This course will introduce students to a range of technical editing practices: developmental editing, comprehensive editing, focused editing (for style, structure, design, etc.), copyediting and proofreading. You will learn editing techniques and apply them in both print and electronic publishing contexts. We will also discuss the ethical and legal aspects of technical editing and the social and organizational factors that affect editorial practices. At the end of this course, you should feel confident in applying for an entry-level position as a technical editor.
Potential Text(s): Cunningham, Malone, and Rothschild. Technical Editing: An Introduction to Editing in the Workplace.
Potential Assignments: Editing projects, editing exams, regular practice assignments
Additional Materials: Access to Micrsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. We will also use an XML editor that 1) will be free to students and 2) is platform independent (Mac or PC).
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 30 Instructor: Nicole Barnhart
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3465 (10): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Instructor: Sahalie Martin
Welcome to Intermediate Fiction: Kitchen Sink Storytelling! In your introductory writing courses, you have learned about the basic building blocks of fiction: character, plot and detail. Now we can focus on taking all of the disparate elements of fiction and balancing them to create strong, cohesive stories. With a vast amount of storytelling at our fingertips, it can be tempting to throw “everything but the kitchen sink” at your draft. But how do you narrow your focus to what your story actually needs to reach its full potential? To explore this question, we will be reading short stories from a diverse group of writers whose use of individual story elements bring their work to life.
Potential Assignments: One short story, one revised story, and multiple in-class creative exercises
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Amanda Scharf
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Allison Kranek
Theories and practices in tutoring and writing; explores writing-learning connections and prepare students to work as writing consultants/tutors for individuals and small writing groups.
*Cross-listed in ArtsSci
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Amber Taylor
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 20 Instructor: Eros Livieratos
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
English 3662 (10): An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Hannah Smith
In this course, we will consider the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature. We'll discuss the history and evolution of literary publishing across a variety of contexts, particularly focusing on how the industry is currently evolving. We’ll contemplate the various social, economic, and political factors that influence the publishing industry and how to engage with these elements of the literary landscape as readers, writers, publishers, and editors. Students will work on acquiring some of the basic skills demanded by the publishing industry: editing, industry knowledge, historical knowledge, development of aesthetic vision and discernment, considerations of ethics, and more. The course is designed around each student executing a major project of their choosing— something that will contribute to their job portfolios and/or development in their prospective career (writer, editor, literary agent, et cetera).
Potential Texts: Literary Publishing in the 21st Century; NYT and other journalistic articles; a collection of poetry + a collection of short stories
Potential Assignments: Write a book review; present on a topic within the publishing industry; create a zine
4000-Level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4150 (10): Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
This class will offer you the opportunity to explore a range of types of workplace writing. Many of our course assignments are designed to help you compile a writing portfolio that will be useful if you apply to the Professional Writing Minor, and/or in future job searches. Additionally, you will interview two professionals in your field of interest. You will hone your editing skills by practicing AP style, reviewing common usage mistakes and how to avoid them, giving and receiving feedback in peer review, practicing repurposing content and drafting for different audiences and revising for clean, professional copy in every deliverable.
Potential Texts: All our texts will come from real-world examples, articles and other readings posted to Carmen.
Potential Assignments: You'll practice writing in different professional genres including press releases, feature articles, agendas, reviews, brochures, procedural guides, website copy, and more. You'll also hone your editing skills each week through editing exercises that focus on common writing errors and how to revise them.
Guiding Questions: What do I want to do when I graduate? How can I polish my writing? How can I build my professional network? How is the work world changing in and through this pandemic? What kind of professional life would I like to have?
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor - Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4513: Introduction to Medieval Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This class introduces students to medieval European literature, especially those aspects of it that would be influential on authors in subsequent periods of literary history. We will sample texts about mythology and religion, heroic legend, chivalric romance, satire, allegory, and autobiography.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Alan Farmer
This course will explore the formal, social and political engagements of Shakespeare’s plays. It will pay particular attention to how his plays conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history and romance, and to how they represent such issues as gender, sexuality, religion, race and political power. In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Requirements include two essays, an academic performance review, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance and active participation.
Potential Text(s): I will order specific editions of the plays we will read, usually from the New Cambridge Shakespeare editions, but any modern edition with glosses, notes and line numbers will be fine. Good editions of single plays are published by Folger, Pelican, Cambridge, Norton, Oxford, Bedford, Arden, Bantam and Signet. Reputable one-volume Complete Shakespeares are published by Longman, Norton, Oxford, Pelican and Riverside. You will need to have physical copies of the plays we read, so do not buy any electronic editions.
English 4522: Renaissance Poetry -The Faerie Queene
Instructor: Sarah Neville
Dragons. Knights. Swordfights. Magicians. Princesses. Satyrs. Tournaments of Champions. King Arthur. Giants. Enchantresses. Secret meanings. Symbolism. Righteous English patriotism. A desperate plea for patronage. And that’s just the first book. Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is a rollicking adventure story, a powerful national epic, a searching philosophical meditation and guide for moral conduct, a profound exploration of renaissance theology, a pointed critique of traditional attitudes toward gender and class, a wildly imaginative work of fantasy and a deeply beautiful poem unto itself – this is unquestionably one of the most fascinating and complex works in all of English literature. In this course we will read the whole poem – all six books and change – paying special attention to historical questions about gender, class, politics, science and religion. Reading all of The Faerie Queene is a major accomplishment that few people ever attempt – Publishers’ Weekly named it one of the Top Ten Most Difficult Books – making it the Everest climb on an English major’s bucket list and offering lifelong bragging rights. Are you brave enough to take the challenge?
Potential Text(s): Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene.
Potential Assignments: Students will be evaluated by reading quizzes, short essays, and a final creative project.
English 4542: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
We will study how the novels of the 1800s, in their ways of representing characters and events, reveal some of the major conflicts in nineteenth-century English society. The five works of fiction we will read -- by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte Thomas Hardy, and others -- try to embrace seemingly irreconcilable ideas: of a Romantic emphasis on individual passion and freedom and a more modern emphasis on social conformity and productivity; of the aristocracy's age-old cultural power and the new middle class's increasing influence; of traditional, religious concepts of truth and new ideas from science, including Darwin's theory of evolution; of male power and women's changing roles; and of ancient community ideals and the expansion of governmental and capitalistic institutions.
English 4543: 20th-Century British Fiction
Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
Over the course of the 20th century, Britain went from being the world's largest empire to being one of a number of global financial and political powers. This course explores the relationship between literature and empire. Key questions for the class include: how do British writers--whether elite intellectuals in London or writers from British colonies--uphold or contest imperial systems? How do the form and content of literary texts register and reconfigure the dynamics of empire, including hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and class, as well as processes of extraction and migration? What might 20th century British fiction help us to understand about our contemporary moment, which has been described as a period of U.S. imperial decline?
Potential Text(s): Works by Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Claude McKay, George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Graham Greene, Jeanette Winterson, Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro, as well as related literary and cultural theory.
Guiding Questions: How to British writers—whether elite intellectuals in London or writers from British colonies—uphold or contest imperial systems? How do the form and content of literary texts register and reconfigure the dynamics of empire, including hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and class as well as processes of extraction and migration? What might 20th century British literary text help us to understand about our contemporary moment, which has been described as a period of U.S. imperial decline?
English 4551: Special Topics in 19th-Century U.S. Literature - Popular Culture, Industrial Print, and the Remaking of American Literature, 1830s-1890s
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course will study the emergence of mass popular culture in the age of industrial print, opening up imaginative literature to new audiences, authors and media. We will look at the rise of serial fiction in the U.S. and at a range of new print marketplaces, including the penny press, the story paper, the dime novel. We will study the impact of the changing technologies and economics of print throughout the 19th century, and how the rise of popular literature shaped a new understanding of "serious literature" which American authors had to negotiate as they considered venues and publishers. We will conclude by looking at the emergence of two new narrative media at century's end—the twinned birth of comics and film—which would go on and shape popular culture for the first half of the twentieth century.
Potential Text(s): Authors studied will include Edgar Allan Poe, Fanny Fern, E.D.E.N. Southworth, George Lippard and Charles Chestnutt. We will also read true crime writing, temperance literature, urban sketches and dime novels.
Potential Assignments: We will engage in short projects involving archives, both traditional and online. Final projects will offer a wide range of possible methods and goals.
English 4555: Rhetoric and Legal Argumentation
Instructor: James Fredal
In this course, we will learn about rhetorical theory, analysis and practice, as they apply to legal argumentation. We will begin by reviewing some fundamentals of rhetoric and its elements, and then we'll look at legal texts: oral arguments from trials, Supreme Court decisions, and law articles on the nature of legal argument. We'll ask what rhetorical methods can bring to an understanding of argument in the law.
English 4562: Studies in Literature and the Other Arts
Instructor: Christopher Stackhouse
However employed, verbal and written language has provided foil and scaffold in the visual arts. As much as the image of an artwork defines itself in our presence, descriptions by word have coordinated with our material and conceptual experience of it. Visual artists have long understood this; and writers – poets in particular – have necessarily exercised literary craft to accommodate the power of images. Historically, the Abrahamic religious traditions offered early examples of the deployment of images, which illustrated sacred texts or enhanced spiritual experiences for their publics. But the range of devotional practices where beliefs are represented by figural and abstract imagery extends far beyond Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. By contrast, our time now faithfully favors personal expression while relying on consonant systems of communication. Contemporary literary and visual artists often subvert wanting conceptual stabilities of ‘representation’ and ‘meaning’ to more importantly produce and convey sensibility. Our interdisciplinary survey will closely examine the plasticity of language across media and artistic fields, evaluating the archive through an ultramodern lens.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Austen Osworth
This is the advanced undergraduate workshop in the writing of fiction, designed for creative writing concentrators and other writers by permission of the instructor. We'll begin the semester by looking closely at the work of such contemporary masters of the short story as Tessa Hadley, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Danielle Evans, and short writing assignments in response to prompts, and then we'll transition into workshopping your full-length stories.
Potential Assignments: Numerous short assignments, two complete full-length stories and a final revision.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Kathy Grandinetti
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elissa Washuta
Advanced workshop in the writing of creative nonfiction. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: John Jones
Students in 4569 will use the programable Arduino platform to explore the rhetorical possibilities of interactive digital objects, paying particular attention to the new forms of digital creativity these tools are enabling. In this way, students will not only analyze digital objects but become makers themselves, thinking about new relations between people and the physical world that are enabled by our devices and the new forms of writing they can support.
Potential Texts: Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform, 3rd Edition. Readings supplied by the instructor
Potential Assignments: Students will create multiple interactive design projects, a short paper, and take occasional quizzes.
Guiding Questions: How can objects communicate? What is the rhetoric of objects?
Additional Materials: The Arduino Starter Kit
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Daniel Seward
In this class, we will explore English grammar as both a natural phenomenon and as an artificial collection of usage rules traditionally taught as “the Standard”—all while considering the social and ethical implications of using (or not using) and teaching (or not teaching) “the Standard.” Alongside lessons on English syntax and pragmatics, we will consider the affordances of “non-standard” English usage associated with particular discourse communities, as well as the ways spoken and written expression contribute to our personal, social, and cultural identities. Finally, we will consider what it means to be a good "citizen-grammarian": that is, someone who can offer accurate, pragmatic, and socially conscientious guidance about usage, all without simplistically privileging standardized forms, which tend to reflect the preferences of already-privileged discourse communities.
Potential Texts: Required textbook: Louise Cummings, Working with English Grammar (Cambridge UP, 2018). This is available in print or electronic formats. Other readings on writing style will be distributed on Carmen as PDF documents or through URLs.
Potential Assignments: Three online, open-resource exams; a Lexical Field Guide focusing on usage in a particular discourse community; weekly participation postings in various forms.
English 4577.02: Folklore II - Genres, Form, Meaning and Use: Legend, Rumor, Superstition and Folk Belief
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
Rumors and spooky stories, superstitions and conspiracy theories, fake news and folk belief, UFOs and elves: folklorists study all these things and more as legendry, the genre in which societies work through their most pressing fears, beliefs and doubts. Take this course for a deep dive into how legend crystalizes cultural anxieties and how people use legend in ongoing debates about the nature of our world.
Potential Texts: Lynne McNeill, Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies; Reidar Christiansen, ed., Folktales of Norway.
Potential Assignments: Collection project, short writings
Guiding Questions: What happens at the edge of narrative credibility?
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film - Television, Narrative, Seriality
Instructor: Sean O'Sullivan
This course will consider central questions of televisual art and narrative, focusing on the first seasons of three 21st-century series: The Wire, Mad Men and Orange Is the New Black. What are the basic narrative practices and structures of television—and serial television in particular? How are story worlds created? What are the strategies and effects of devices such as the episode and the season? How does character operate within television narrative? How does televisual storytelling organize space and time? What are the consequences of genre conventions and audience responses? A recurring subject for the class will be the tension between the episodic and the serial—between individual aesthetic experiences and sprawling fictional universes. Throughout, we will examine the vital intersections of an array of fields and practices: film studies, narratology, literature, media studies, visual culture and the segmented organization of experience.
Potential Assignments: Viewings (3-4 episodes per week); readings (typically modest in length); regular quizzes; two short essays; final project.
English 4578 (30): Special Topics in Film - Film and American Society After World War II
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course examines the history of the American cinema in the years immediately following the Second World War, covering the period from 1945 to 1960. We will view and discuss significant Hollywood films from a variety of genres (e.g., comedy, musical, film noir, western, melodrama, social problem film), contextualizing them by reading articles and excerpts from a variety of sources (e.g., popular magazines, film-trade publications, books of popular sociology, design treatises, political speeches) published during the era in which these films were produced and released. These textual primary sources will serve to illustrate historical discourses describing, reinforcing, and/or critiquing what were conceived of as significant social issues and shifts - from the "veterans problem," to the "housing crisis," to "juvenile delinquency," to sexism, and racial segregation in schools. In our discussions, we'll be interested in how the assigned films reflected, responded to, and inflected the print debates happening around these issues and shifts-even and perhaps especially when the films are not overtly working in the "social problem" genre. We'll also approach the films in the context of the upheavals happening in the American film industry during this period, as a result of the Paramount decree, the HUAC hearings, suburbanization, and declining movie theater attendance. In particular, we'll examine the ways in which the rise of television as a competing medium of mass entertainment shaped the stories that Hollywood movies told and the visual devices that they used to dramatize these stories. Our primary goal in this course is to attain a deep understanding of the intersection of media and ideology during a particular historical moment. Students in this course will gain advanced experience in various aspects of film criticism, including formal analysis and the application of historical frameworks, and in making and supporting written and verbal arguments. The final research project will require students to situate a film of their choosing in relation to the major trends in postwar cinema covered by this course, and the final exam will test students' mastery of course content.
Potential Texts: All videos and readings will be available through the library catalogue at no cost to students.
Potential Assignments: Class participation, weekly quizzes, a group presentation, an analytical essay, and a take-home final exam.
English 4583: Special Topics in World Literature in English - Self and Nation in World Literatures
Instructor: Pranav Jani
This course will offer a broad understanding of a field of world literature known as “postcolonial literature.” We will examine literature from several regions that are now politically independent but have been and continue to be fundamentally shaped by colonialism and imperialism, like Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. We will also deepen our understanding of postcolonial literature by comparing it with texts from groups who are colonized today – like Native Americans and Palestinians. While paying attention to historical and political contexts and the authors’ unique styles and narrative practices, we will read these texts through the lens of how they construct, in their specific contexts, unique notions of self and nation. We will learn critical terms and methods of reading that allow us to answer a number of questions about colonialism, nationalism, patriarchy, race, caste, class, sexuality and the construction of self in postcolonial literature.
Potential Text(s): Authors will probably include: Edwidge Danticat, Salman Rushdie, Ama Ata Aidoo, Kamila Shamsie, Shyam Selvadurai, Tstisti Dangarembga, Randa Jarrar and Elissa Washuta, List subject to change.
Potential Assignments: Weekly posts, 1-2 shorter paper, research project.
English 4587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Jian Chen
Focuses on problems and themes in Asian American literature and culture from the late nineteenth century to the present. Topic varies. Examples: Asian American Literature and Popular Culture; Empire and Sexuality in Asian American Literature.
English 4588: Studies in Latino/a Literature and Culture
Instructor: Paloma Martinez-Cruz
This course is designed to provide students with a working knowledge of key themes in U.S. Latinx identities and cultural practices beginning with a timeline of Latino/a/x literature in the colonial period (shipwrecked Spaniards in Texas!) and concluding with the individual preparation of a critical anthology (choose your own adventure!) to demonstrate students’ ability to thoroughly read and meaningfully critique major themes in Latinx culture. Class organization will emphasize critical engagement with texts, films, performances, lectures, discussion, and class materials that foster a greater awareness of how to interpret the cultural production of Latinx citizens and denizens of the U.S. national project along creative, political, social, and economic trajectories. Class meetings are structured in a seminar format centered on thoughtful discussion of films and readings. The course will be conducted in English and readings will be in English and Spanglish.
English 4590.04H: Romanticism - The Emergence of the Gothic
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
The Gothic, a genre that arose alongside Romanticism and continues to structure our imaginings and our understanding of fictionality. In this class, we will dive into the Gothic at its moment of emergence, reading some of the novels, poems and plays that reviewers in the 1790s described as predicated upon “the art of frightening young people, and reviving the age of ghosts, hobgoblins, and spirits.” All haunting aside, we’ll interrogate the cultural desires and anxieties that lurk beneath the surface of Gothic texts, as well as the historical and philosophical contexts that made this mode of writing both popular and culturally incisive. In our wide-ranging class, we’ll read novels by writers like Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, James Hogg and Mary Shelley, and because the Gothic fixates on the return of the repressed, we’ll have occasion to think pay particular attention to the revolutionary Gothic, the feminist Gothic, and the postcolonial Gothic.
Guiding Question: What happens when you live through the Enlightenment—a cultural moment attuned to the power of rationality, skepticism, and empirical science—only to discover that you are still afraid of the dark?
English 4592 (10): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture - Sarah Piatt and 19th Century Concepts of Gender.
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
Sarah Piatt (1836-1919) has been called America's great undiscovered poet. A celebrity in her own time, she was, like many women writers of the nineteenth century, expunged from the canon in the early twentieth century. In the 1990s, scholars began at last to bring her work back to public attention as part of a more general recovery of the work of women writers. Since that time, she has achieved recognition as one of the great voices of American and transatlantic literary history, writing extensively about the conflicts and fractures of nineteenth-century social life in a searing and often ironic voice. One of her major topics was the position of woman in society, including her roles as belle, wife, mother, poet, and public figure. This class will explore her poems and bring them into dialogue with public conceptions of gender as her world defined them as well as with selected short writings by other women of her era.
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture - Medieval Women
Instructor: Karen Winstead
In this course you'll meet some of the diverse women who inhabited the Middle Ages, including Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, medieval Europe's first dramatist; Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, advisor to rulers and popes, inventor of a language and alphabet, and author of poetry, music, plays, and treatises on topics ranging from botany to sex; Margery Kempe, visionary, mother of fourteen, entrepreneur, and traveler; and Christine de Pizan, a young widow who supported her children and mother by writing poetry, political allegories, and self-help books at the court of France. You'll encounter remarkable gender-benders, including the military leader and martyr Joan of Arc and the (fictional) Silence, born a woman but raised to be a great knight. You'll find that women's experience in the past was a lot more complex than you might have expected, and it can help you think in new ways about women's experiences today.
English 4592 (30): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture -The Surplus Woman Question and the Beginnings of Feminism
Instructor: Clare Simmons
The British Census of 1851 revealed that there were at least half a million more women in Britain than there were men, leading to the conclusion that many women would never be wives. If marriage could no longer be assumed to be the ultimate goal of women’s lives, this raised the question of what women’s roles in society should be. Modern feminism owes much of its origins to debates over the so-called “Surplus Woman Question,” so in this course we will read examples of nineteenth-century women’s writing that challenge earlier notions of womanhood and that present a variety of answers as to how women might find personal fulfillment. Many of the texts that we will read provide insight not only into women’s lives but also into representations of race and colonialism in the nineteenth century.
Potential Texts: Texts will include Louisa May Alcott, Work; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Diana Mulock Craik, The Half-Caste; Florence Nightingale, Cassandra; Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market; Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures.
Potential Assignments: Course requirements are careful reading in advance; regular attendance and participation; reading response questions; two essays; and a teaching-related presentation.
Guiding Questions: How did women start to make independent lives for themselves? How did women create ideas of community? How did Britain's colonial ventures impact them?
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor: Amrita Dhar
This advanced undergraduate class exists at the intersection of disability studies and cultural studies. We shall discuss a range of materials (including life writing, contemporary’s art and film, podcasts, academic essays) to explore the various meanings of disability in our world. We shall similarly take note of areas where work remains to be done: towards intersectional thinking, and wider recognition of the community scholarship and activism that advance the field of disability studies.
Potential Texts: All the readings (book chapters, journal articles, blogs) will be available on Carmen in the pdf format.
Potential Assignments: one-two paper(s), one group project, one creative work.
Questions: What are some guiding questions that this course will explore?
What does it mean to understand disability as a global phenomenon? How does disability intersect with race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and geopolitics?
5000-Level
English 5191: Internship in English Studies - Promotional Media Internship
Instructor: Scott DeWitt
This internship opportunity will offer students experience in creating timely, relevant and compelling short-form promotional media (primarily video and audio) for the Department of English. Students will work closely with their supervisor (Professor DeWitt) as well as with key communications personnel to develop projects and set priorities and deadlines. English 5191, Promotional Media Internship, will be intensely hands-on and focus almost exclusively on digital media production and related work-management skills in professional settings. This internship opportunity is especially applicable to students across majors who would like to develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting and for those who have digital media skills with nowhere to apply them. Media skills are NOT a pre-requisite for this internship; students will have the opportunity to learn all media skills necessary for the class. (This internship fulfills the digital media requirement for the Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy concentration in the English Major.)
Potential Assignments: YouTube videos, podcasts.
Guiding Questions: How can a promotional media internship opportunity help students across majors develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting?
Additional Materials: Experience with technology is helpful, but you will learn all of the skills you need in class.
English 5664: Studies in Graphic Narrative - Graphic Memoir
Instructor: Jared Gardner
A course designed for both graduate students and advanced undergraduates, "Graphic Memoir" will introduce the styles, structures, and strategies of autobiographical life stories told in comics form. Starting with "how-to" texts by comics artists, we will investigate the relationship among form, content, and medium in graphic memoirs in a variety of styles. The readings fall into three groupings: lifewriting set in the context of larger historical events; memoirs of illness and recovery; and women's memoirs focusing on gender and sexuality.
Potential Texts: David B, Epileptic (1996), Lynda Barry, One! Hundred! Demons! (2005), Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006), Brownholtz, Bethany (2013), Exercises in Style: 21st-century Remix pdf:http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1141&context=etd Phoebe Gloeckner, Diary of a Teenage Girl (2002), Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (2005), Marisa Acocella Marchetto, Cancer Vixen (2009), Scott McCloud, Making Comics (2006), Khale McHurst, I Do Not Have an Eating Disorder (webcomic): http://misspixnmix.tumblr.com/post/3232725607/i-do-not-have-an-eating-disorder-p01-ive-been Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style (1947/1981) pdf: http://www.altx.com/remix/excerpts-ex.pdf Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (2000), Art Spiegelman, Maus (1991), GB Tran, Vietnamerica (2011), Critical articles and book chapters on Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Students write weekly reading responses and do two kinds of oral presentations, one a commentary on a critical reading and one a close reading of a single page of graphic memoir. Each student creates a one-page graphic memoir. For the final project, students may choose to write a research paper or to create a more extended graphic memoir.
Questions: How do comics make meaning through graphic design? What can graphic narrative do for autobiography that prose narrative can't do? How (and why) do comics artists use their medium to represent personal, national and familial traumas?
English 5723.01: Tree, Forest, Pasture, Garden, Animal: The Literature and Politics of the Natural World in Seventeenth-Century England
Instructor: Luke Wilson
At the heart of this course is the importance of the tree in the British literary and political imagination. One tree – the so-called Royal Oak – is central to some of the mythologies that shaped the English experience of the Civil War period. Pursued by the Parliamentary forces Charles II hid in it before fleeing to the continent; and the regicide of 1649 was represented as its felling at the hands of, or at least at the direction of, Oliver Cromwell. But trees were of far broader significance to English national identity. The seventeenth century gave rise to the phenomenon of what Keith Thomas has called “trees as pets” – singular, fetishized trees loaded with personal, familial, or historical significance. At the same time, trees collectively – forests, and the timber they produced – were esteemed as the symbolic and literal source of English power abroad and prosperity at home, but one that was increasingly recognized as under threat of exhaustion as the consequences of centuries of deforestation.
In this course we’ll try, then, to see the forest for the trees, and the trees for the forest. But we’ll also read about other natural and artificial configurations of the landscape, including gardens, pastures, and fields, and about the animals that inhabited them. Some of the most important literary works of the century are shaped around these figurations of the natural world: Shakespeare’s As You Like It; Jonson’s The Forest, Marvell’s garden and country house poems; the spiritually-inflected landscapes of Herbert and Vaughan; Milton’s Paradise Lost and Masque at Ludlow Castle; Margaret Cavendish’s animal poems; country house poems by various writers; and many more, including works by Amelia Lanyer, Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller, and Richard Lovelace. The Civil War period saw land-use disputes that called into question the traditional order of the landed gentry and its rights and obligations; we’ll read material related to the Digger and Leveller movements, which called for the conversion to public use of privately held farm and pastureland. The course will (probably) begin with As You Like (c. 1599) and end with excerpts from Paradise Lost (1667).
Potential Texts: An anthology of seventeenth-century poetry; an edition of Shakespeare; most other material on canvas.
Potential Assignments: Short paper; final research paper; class presentation.
Questions: Why were the English so obsessed with trees? How was the natural world understood by the English in the seventeenth century? How did the political and social upheavals of the seventeenth century affect representations of the natural world?
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
*Traditional and online sections available
Old GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
New GE: Foundation Writing and Information Literacy Course
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
*Traditional and online sections available
Old GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
New GE: Foundation Writing and Information Literacy Course
English 1110.03 (10): First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, ENGLISH-1193. This course is available for EM credit only through the AP program.
Old GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
New GE: Foundation Writing and Information Literacy Course
English 1110.03 (20 and 30): First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, ENGLISH-1193. This course is available for EM credit only through the AP program.
Old GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
New GE: Foundation Writing and Information Literacy Course
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing.
2000-Level
English 2201: Selected Works of British Literature: Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
We will explore major British literary texts written from the early Middle Ages through the late eighteenth century, including Beowulf, the lais of Marie de France, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the poetry of Shakespeare, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko. Our approach to the literature will emphasize close reading, form and genre, and historical context.
Old GE: Literature
Old GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2202H: Survey of British Literature, Romanticism to the Present (Backwards)
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
This writing-and discussion-intensive course surveys English literature from the Romantics to the 21st century—backwards. We begin with postmodern-era writers from Africa, India, Canada, Ireland and England; next we read Modernist authors; then we survey the Victorian period; and finally, we come to the Romantics. By starting with the present, we can recognize the themes, styles and genres of the past that became important for the writers of today. We can place authors who are underrepresented in traditional literary history because of their race, gender or sexual orientation at the center of our inquiry, rather than coming to them last, as if they were an afterthought of literary history.
Topics of discussion in the class are student driven. For each day of class, students come prepared with a short, informal written response to a specific question about the day’s reading assignment, which will be the first question we discuss. Every day one student will present an oral close reading of a 100-word passage from the assigned text, ending the presentation on a question for class discussion. Lectures—featuring illustrated powerpoints and focusing on the historical, biographical, geographical and cultural context for the day’s reading—will be open-ended, inviting questions and challenges from the class.
In addition to informal writing assignments, students will do creative work such as mapping a storyworld, finding illustrations online for one of our texts, creating timelines of literary history, diagramming a plot and writing parodies or imitations of works that we discuss. Some projects will be individual, and students will work in groups for other projects.
Guiding Questions: What do you need to learn to be able to comprehend any poem, story, play or novel you happen to pick up after this course is over? How does literary history look when you observe it upside down (placing Africa and Asia at the center, rather than North America) and backwards?
Potential Text(s): The required text for the course is the Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors, 10th Edition, Volume 2.
Old GE: Literature
Old GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220 (10): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Tamara Mahadin
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
Potential Text(s): TBD
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220 (20): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Christopher Highley
In late sixteenth-century London, on the south bank of the Thames, amongst bear-baiting rings and brothels stood a round wooden theater that brought together people from all walks of life - aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. It was for this space and for these people that William Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, and in this course, we'll be imagining what it was like to stand with them and watch Shakespeare's theater in action. Our in-depth exploration will include selected comedies and tragedies, not to mention a lot of fun along the way.
Potential Text(s): Free online editions of Shakespeare from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220 (30): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
Why does our culture continue to fetishize Shakespeare? In this course we'll try to find out, by reading five or six of the plays -- some more and some less well-known, along with a few of his sonnets. Our focus will be on close analysis of the texts themselves, but we’ll also pay attention to the social and political milieu in which the plays were composed and first performed. Possible plays include: The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Pericles and The Winter’s Tale.
Guiding Questions: What's so great about Shakespeare? How are his plays a part of what we are today? What were the cultural and historical circumstances that shaped what and how he wrote?
Potential Text(s): The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Greenblatt, third edition, in two volumes (Early Plays; Later Plays).
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes, a formal essay, a short writing exercise, a performance review and a final exam.
Old GE: Literature
Old GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Alan B. Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion, and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Students will view and write a review of a performance of a Shakespeare play, and in addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Richard II, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure For Measure, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Macbeth and The Tempest.
Potential Text(s): I plan to order specific editions from the New Cambridge Shakespeare series.
Potential Assignments: Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, an academic performance review, two critical essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance and active participation.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will acquaint you with a variety of poetry, representing different eras, styles and topics. You do not need to consider yourself fantastic with poetry to take it! Newcomers are welcome, and part of my goal will be to help everyone become more confident by the end of the semester. Our syllabus will be divided into four units. The first will overview primary elements and teach you how to break down a poem and develop an interpretation. The second unit will do a deep dive into specific genres (sonnet, dramatic monologue, ghazal, ballad, etc.). The third unit will cluster around particular themes, exploring how variously poets address them (for instance, love/sex; nature; mythological figures). The fourth unit will focus on a few specific poets.
Potential Texts: Poems by Ha Jin, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Ocean Vuong, Audre Lorde, William Shakespeare, Terrence Hayes, Robert Browning, Evie Shockley, Natalie Diaz, Sylvia Plath, Una Marson, Oscar Wilde, Mary Oliver, Ray Gonzalez, and many more.
Potential Assignments: (tentative): Three short analytical responses (1 1/2 - 2 pp. each), midterm and final exams, final project (either critical or creative) and regular participation
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 (Full term), 30 & 70 Instructor: Staff
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2261 (40): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course has two goals. The first is to familiarize (or re-familiarize) you with some of the basic literary concepts (character, point of view, tone, symbolism, etc.) associated with the genre of fiction. The second is to help you feel comfortable approaching fiction critically. You will learn college-level strategies for analyzing literature, including reading a text with an eye for fine detail (a.k.a. close-reading), and how to construct logical interpretations based on textual evidence. I will probably provide some lecture in each meeting, but much of the class will be conducted as a general discussion. Our readings will span literary history and diverse cultural and social perspectives. Possibly, they will loosely circulate around the theme of humanity/what it means to be human (in a variety of senses!). We may also consider the question: how do we as readers (maybe unconsciously) bring ideas of fiction--a storyline, character, symbolism, etc.--into our consumption of *nonfiction*? How do these ideas influence how we read public accounts (like the news or social media)? How do they shape our experience of, say, memoir?
Potential Texts: (Tentative list for novels): Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Octavia Butler's Kindred, Art Spiegelman's Maus, Justin Torres' We the Animals, Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime
Potential Assignments: (Tentative): Active participation, regular reading quizzes, three short response papers (1 1/2 - 2 pp. each), midterm exam, final exam
English 2261 (20 & 80)-SESSION 2: Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. Focusing on the first two seasons of the HBO series, this class will train you in core analytical methods that will enable you to understand GoT at a deeper level; it will also improve your analytical skills overall. (We will not have time to read the books by George R.R. Martin.) All students are required to watch all eight seasons of the HBO series before second session begins. You will then re-watch (and read the transcript for) one episode per class period. Each class session will train you to understand and apply the core skills of literary interpretation without a lot of heavy reading assignments. You will see very quickly how meaningful and helpful they are in achieving a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones. Class meets via Zoom during our scheduled class period, and attendance is required.
Potential Assignments: Daily attendance with cameras on (maximum of four absences and/or four days without camera allowed before a penalty begins); preparation of five daily written homework questions; short daily quizzes about the homework; daily participation in class discussion; and three exams conducted on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count.
Required Materials: an HBO subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, communicate complex ideas, and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the way in which the multiple elements of movie-making coming together to make, and complicate, meaning.
Potential Text(s): Opensource textbook and weekly screenings.
Potential Assignments: Two projects, including creative options, quizzes and active discussion on Carmen and in recitation.
Old GE: Visual and Performing Arts
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Rob Barry
Section 20 Instructor: Dennin Ellis
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Nicole Barnhart
Section 20 Instructor: Grace Culhane
Section 30 Instructor: Katie Harms
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Arah Ko
Section 20 Instructor: Eros Livieratos
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Polley Poer
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268 (10): Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Kurt Ostrow
In this course, we will write and share true stories about our lives and society. We will first study the craft of published works—from personal essays to cultural criticism—and write short pieces inspired by them. We will then workshop longer drafts of student essays with a protocol that we will create together. Why take this course? After all, creative nonfiction is vulnerable work. For me, Gloria Anzaldúa says it best: "I write...to discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself...To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of s***." Here, I hope we will all write ourselves closer to appreciating our own and others' worth.
Potential Text(s): We will read work by writers such as Jo Ann Beard, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Eula Biss, Brian Blanchfield, Alexander Chee, Tressie Macmillan Cottom, Annie Dillard, Melissa Febos, Masha Gessen, John Green, Leslie Jamison, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kiese Laymon, Audre Lorde, Rebecca Solnit, Jia Tolentino and Jerald Walker.
English 2268 (20): Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Amber Taylor
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 10 Instructor: Morgan Beers
Section 40 Instructor: Staff
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
Old GE: Visual and Performing Arts
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
"Wait, you can study that?" Folklore isn’t just fairy tales. It’s also everyday culture from rumors and memes to holiday recipes and Bloody Mary in the mirror. All of it is meaningful and communicates messages about the identity and values of groups and individuals. Take this course to learn about how to think about the familiar in unfamiliar ways, see the artistry in the everyday, and discover the fascinating culture that is already yours.
Guiding Questions: What is folklore? How is meaning encoded in the everyday things we say, do and make?
Potential Texts: Lynne McNeill, Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies
Potential Assignments: Folklore collection project, short essays, leading class discussion
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: Melissa Guadron
English 2276 introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media and cultural contexts. Come learn the ancient and modern arts of persuasion! In English 2276, we'll practice techniques developed for writing effective, ethical (and stylish) arguments. Plus, we'll learn theory designed for dealing successfully with complex and contentious issues.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Staff
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2280: The English Bible
Instructor: James Fredal
The Bible in English translation, with special attention to its literary qualities, conceptual content and development within history.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2280H: The English Bible
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
The Bible in English translation, with special attention to its literary qualities, conceptual content and development within history.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2281 (20): Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Koritha Mitchell
This course will not only introduce students to major figures in African American literature; it will also place these figures in the context of African American history and culture. We will work from the premise that this literary tradition has never existed solely to respond to so-called "dominant" culture and "mainstream" literature. In addition to well-known writers, such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, this course will explore the work of equally important but less widely known authors, such as Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Charles Chesnutt and Audre Lorde. All students must invest in both volumes of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
Old GE: Literature
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
New GE: Foundation: Race, Ethnic and Gender Diversity
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2281 (30): Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
Old GE: Literature
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
New GE: Foundation: Race, Ethnic and Gender Diversity
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class and nationality.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
New GE: Foundation: Race, Ethnic and Gender Diversity
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in WGSSt
English 2291: U.S. Literature 1865 to the Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course will provide a survey of American literature from the aftermath of the Civil War to the present. We will attend closely to the formal and stylistic developments of different periods of literary history with an eye on the political and historical antagonisms that accompany and underwrite these aesthetic innovations. The lectures will sketch out the broad historical, cultural, and artistic transformations of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries: the changes wrought by war, race, colonialism, and capitalist expansion; the material and psychological impact of two world wars; technological transformation; and the lived experiences of environmental crisis. As we move through the centuries, we will be able to see how literature not only internalized many of these historical pressures, but provided unique ways to see and to think about them. Recitations will enhance your understanding of these issues and develop close reading skills.
Potential Assignments: Quizzes and exams.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
Old GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 20, 40 & 60 Instructor: Staff
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
Old GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
Old GE: Literature (BS only)
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.02 (70): Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Pranav Jani
Reserved: English Major Only
Our subject will be literature from 2001 to the present. Our class this semester has this thesis: while the up-to-date concern for diversity would seem apt for new forms of literature and contemporary modes of art, I will argue that diversity has always been a subject for Twentieth-Century authors. Most canonical works have always had the theme of diversity, We will see some of the following: ethnic diversity (African-American, Native American, Asian American and Jewish); literature about disabilities (injured veterans; blindness, autism, depression, alcoholism); the insane and the temporarily insane; the victims of racism, prejudice, and violence. Many works also consider traditionally denigrated groups, like women and homosexuals. The conclusion here is that such diversity in literature (as in life) calls for a good deal of tolerance and compassion, and it exercises our capacity for empathy and understanding.
Potential Texts: Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad, David Eggers The Circle, Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Art Spiegelman Maus.
Potential Assignments: Two or three short essays, Midterm, Final, and Participation in Discussions.
Old GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
Old GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
Old GE: Literature (BS only)
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Section 10 Instructor: Christoffer Turpin
Section 20 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 40 Instructor: Lauren Cook
Section 50 Instructor: Liz Miller
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
Old GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.08 (30): The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Instructor: Kelsey Paige Mason
Our course will address theories in game studies, with the focus of our analysis being tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and video game RPGs. Students will analyze character development and creators, plot and story, NPCs and party interactions, narrative structures, gameplay mechanics, worldbuilding and more. Our approach will be to look at all gameplay and story choices as intentional and rhetorical. The structure of this class will give students the opportunity to investigate TTRPG sourcebooks, video games, streams / podcasts and actual play performances.
Guiding Questions: How do we imagine decolonized, accessible, non-discriminatory game worlds? What influence does the past of roleplaying games have on possible futures for roleplaying game development?
Potential Text(s): This is an asynchronous, online course with a variety of ways to participate. Materials will be available via Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Assignments which will be revised and build into future assignments (scaffolded), presentation, creative project, annotated bibliography, peer review workshops.
Old GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
*This is an asynchronous, online course with a variety of ways to participate. Materials will be available via Carmen.
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Natalia Colón Alvarez
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
Old GE: Visual and Performing Arts
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2581: Introduction to U.S. Ethnic Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Martin Joseph Ponce
This course provides students with a broad survey of literature produced by and about the major U.S. racial groups from the late 19th century to the present. Through readings of novels, memoirs, short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, we will consider how African American, American Indian, Asian American, and Chicanx/Latinx writers have addressed the social and historical construction of racial differences and hierarchies—and their intersections with ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, dis/ability, location, citizenship status, and so on—while also seeking to imagine alternatives to those conditions of domination and subordination.
Guiding Questions: How have African American, American Indian, Asian American and Chicanx/Latinx writers critically and creatively engaged with practices of racial, class and gender subordination and territorial dispossession? What kinds of historical, cultural and experiential knowledges—often obscured, forgotten or disavowed—do they demand that readers acknowledge, remember and reckon with? What sorts of literary forms have they used and invented to claim cultures and communities of survival, renewal and transformation? Most broadly, how have U.S. ethnic literatures challenged, revised and reimagined the realities, ideals and possibilities of “America”?
Potential Text(s): Possible authors include: Toni Morrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Zitkala-Ša, Carlos Bulosan, Nella Larsen, Tomás Rivera, Julie Otsuka, James Baldwin, N. Scott Momaday, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Javier Zamora, Mohsin Hamid, Claudia Rankine, Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier.
Potential Assignments: Requirements: attendance, participation, quizzes, worksheets, 2 discussion posts/presentations, 2 papers, final exam.
New GE: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity
3000-Level
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Instructor: Karen Winstead
Storytellers have long used monsters not only to frighten us but to jolt us into thinking more deeply about ourselves, others and the world we live in. This course will examine how horror novel(la)s and their film adaptations use monsters to explore fundamental issues of wellbeing and citizenship. The films this course features are all “rogue adaptations,” that is, films that aggressively and self-consciously transform their literary sources—reinterpreting characters and retooling plots to create monsters that offer different visions of what we have to fear and of how we can (or cannot) overcome the monsters without and within.
Guiding Questions: How do literature and film use monsters to join debates on urgent contemporary issues? How can we analyze films’ multifarious, often antagonistic, relationships to their literary sources? How have works of horror anticipated social, personal and national problems before they were identified as such? How can you use monsters to think about the problems—personal, national, global—that confront us in the twenty-first century?
Potential Text(s): Stephen King, The Shining; Richard Matheson, I Am Legend; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Potential Assignments: You'll be keeping a "Director's Notebook" through the term, reflecting on interpretive cruxes and the challenges of adaptation; you'll engage in weekly discussions; for your final project, you'll imagine how you might go about producing your own "rogue adaptation" of one of the works we have studied.
New GE: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World
New GE: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 & 20 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3271 (30): Structure of the English Language
Instructor: Galey Modan
This course is an introduction to English linguistics. You will gain the analytical tools to scientifically analyze any language, and apply those tools to English. We will learn about the basic characteristics of language: the sounds of English and how they're put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. While studying how the basic building blocks of language work, we will also investigate linguistic variation, accents of American English, and language and education. We'll also consider how standard and non-standard varieties of English get evaluated in the US, and the implications of such evaluations in educational settings.
Potential Text(s): How English Works, by Anne Curzan and Michael Adams.
Potential Assignments: Problem sets, slang journal, group discussions, quizzes, midterm and final.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3271 (40): Structure of the English Language
Instructor: Lauren Squires
This class is an introduction to the linguistic structure of the English language: its systems of sounds, words, and sentences, and how these systems differ across dialects, contexts, and periods in history. We first will work to acquire the analytical tools needed to scientifically analyze any language, and apply these to the structure of English. We will then move to understanding patterns of English in its conversational and social contexts, exploring how English is used in interaction, how its dialects and styles vary across individuals and groups, how the language we now think of as “English” came to be, and what its future holds.
Guiding Questions: What makes up the sound system of English? How does English form words? What makes English sentences grammatical? How can we understand society through understanding language variation?
Potential Text(s): Curzan, Anne and Michael Adams. 2012. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. 3rd edition. Boston: Longman.
Potential Assignments: Weekly online activities; homework sets; midterm quizzes; final quizzes; Slang journal.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Staff
Section 20 Instructor: Lauren Colwell
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3360: Ecopoetics: British Environmental Poetry and the Industrial Revolution
Instructor: Clare Simmons
Why was “Nature” so important to nineteenth-century British poets? One answer is environmental: with the rise of industrialization, less and less Britons were living in rural communities, and an increasing proportion worked in factory cities where land, water and air were becoming polluted to the extent that human and animal life were endangered.
This course, which can be used as part of the English major or towards the General Education “Lived Environments” Theme requirement, will provide an introduction to the types and forms of poetry in English, with a focus on poetry written during Britain’s first period of industrialization, approximately 1780 (the beginnings of factory production) to 1880 (after Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent of Man and general recognition of human impact on the environment). No previous experience in reading and writing about poetry is required. Students will have the opportunity to read a wide selection of readings contrasting the natural and industrialized environment; and to practice skills in close reading, analyzing, discussing and writing about literary works.
Guiding Questions: How do we think of "Nature"? How does learning about past environmental disasters help guide our thinking today?
Potential Text(s): Online poetry anthology through Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Reading journal; quizzes; midterm and final.
New GE: Theme: Lived Environments
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine: Death
Instructor: Rolando Rubalcava
This class will cover narrative studies and its application towards narratives of illness and disability in an effort to apply and practice the goals of narrative medicine. By studying core concepts of narrative (time, plot, character), we will learn about the applications of narrative studies and how it can be used in a clinical setting. Readings will include novels, memoirs, short stories written by physicians and medical students, and graphic narratives, as well as theoretical texts to enhance our understanding of the goals of narrative medicine. This study is inherently interdisciplinary, encouraging students to bring their interests from fields outside of narrative studies to the class. By discussing key features like intersubjectivity and temporality, and its methods, including ethical listening and close reading, our class will become the vehicle for discussions on more complex topics, like health disparities, the ethics of medical practice, and acknowledging physician’s roles as listeners when engaging with narratives.
Guiding Questions: What are the goals for practitioners of narrative medicine? How can narrative medicine help bridge the study of medical education and the humanities? How can discussion on subjects such as narrative, temporality, and space help us think about the needs of patients?
Potential Texts: Being Mortal (Atul Gawande), No Apparent Distress (Rachel Pearson), Winter Journal (Paul Auster), Lighter Than My Shadow (Katie Green), COVID Chronicles (Ethan Sacks)
Potential Assignments: Assignments will include in-class discussions, reading responses, quizzes, and a final essay
Old GE: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture: Media Franchising in the Age of Streaming, Shared Universes and Legacyquels
Instructor: Alex Thompson
In this class students will examine two of the biggest current media franchises, Marvel and Star Wars, for how they operate in various media, including film, TV, comic books and video games. Students will ask how companies make decisions in situations where the stakes are as big as they can be, how creators attempt to make corporate art personal to them, and how audiences respond to those works in an ever-changing cultural, political and economic landscape.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3372 (10): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Amelia Matthews-Pett
The content of this course inhabits a space between science fiction and fantasy. In it, we will explore what some of the most common supernatural threats in literature and popular culture at large can tell us about human anxieties. To this end, we will dip our toes into the world of monsters, exploring formerly-human entities, humans with special powers and human-made creatures. Our exploration will cover folklore, literature and film to discuss how people use the idea of monsters to explain the unexplainable and create possibilities for interpreting human experience. While this course is neither strictly science fiction or strictly fantasy, by tracing some of the most common supernatural entities in American popular culture we can consider how monsters are made across those and related genres, juxtaposing critical differences between magical and scientific worldbuilding. At the core of each week’s content will be one central question: “What do monsters tell us about ourselves?”
Potential Text(s): Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu, Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Clay's Ark by Octavia E. Butler, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Potential Assignments: Discussions, quizzes, creative and traditional essay options for midterm and final
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (20): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Morgan Podraza
What does it mean to be human? This course explores the qualities, experiences and potential futures of humanity through science fiction. Together we will examine characters and worlds from a variety of media in order to test the boundaries of the human and discover new ways of understanding our bodies and minds.
Potential Text(s): Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler; O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti; Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany; Advantageous by Jennifer Phang; The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Potential Assignments: Discussion posts, in-class presentations, creative mid-term and final projects.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372—SESSION 2: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Molly Farrell
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (40): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy: Environmental Science Fiction
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Science Fiction and Fantasy often takes us to places with weird environments, including future Earths, dreamscapes and other planets. In recent years, sci-fi and fantasy works have begun directly addressing the crises of climate change, the sixth mass extinction, and the uncertain prospects for human life on an altered planet. This class examines the ways environmental sci-fi/fantasy novels, short fiction and film narrate planetary change and what that means for human and nonhuman futures. Students will read from and view a diverse set of sci-fi/fantasy fiction, ranging from intergalactic epics, Afrofuturism, weird fiction and the recent subgenre cli-fi. Students will also get a chance to build their own environmental sci-fi/fantasy worlds.
Guiding Questions: How does literature think through environmental change? What does sci-fi world-building have in common with other types of modeling? What can environmental literature teach us now in our own moment of ecological breakdown?
Potential Text(s): H.G. Wells The Time Machine, Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed, Octavia Butler The Parable of the Sower, Jeff VanderMeer Borne, Ling Ma Severance and the film The Girl With All the Gifts.
Potential Assignments: Short papers, a zine, a bestiary and a final world-building project.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3372 (50): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Honor Lundt
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
Old GE: Literature
New GE: Foundation: Literary, Visual and Performing Arts
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature: Filming the Pandemic in Black
Instructor: Simone Drake
This course will focus on “Black film” productions between 2019 and 2022. We will contemplate the various roles the COVID-19 pandemic played in the production, marketing and consumption of Black film as the entertainment industry, like the rest of the world, pivoted to virtual spaces. The selected films will be placed in conversation with African American writers, as we contemplate intertextuality and shared tropes between film, prose and performance.
Potential Text(s): Films include: The Last Black Man in San Francisco; The Forty-Year-Old Version; Sylvie’s Love; Uncorked; Black Box; and Concrete Cowboy. Written texts include: Toni Morrison, Love; Lisa B. Thompson, Single Black Female; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Richard Wright, “Almos’ a Man”; Tananarive Due, The Good House; and August Wilson, Radio Golf.
Potential Assignments: Reading/viewing quizzes, active participation, a film reference entry paper (2 pages) and three synthesis papers (4-5 pages) are required.
Old GE: Cultures and Ideas
New GE: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379 (20): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
In English 3379, you will learn about the scholarly practices of researchers in Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy (WRL) Studies. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields of English studies by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing, and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. And you will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts - both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
English 3379 (30): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
instructor: John Jones
In English 3379, you will learn about the scholarly practices of researchers in Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy (WRL) Studies. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields of English studies by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing, and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. And you will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts - both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
Potential Text(s): Students will read a range of articles in writing, rhetoric and literacy.
Potential Assignments: Students will complete three questionnaires and worksheets that explore methods in writing, rhetoric and literacy, respectively, and propose or write an 8-page research project in one of these fields.
English 3398 (10): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
This course has two goals. First, the course will give you the tools you need to succeed as an English Major. We will work on fundamental skills such as close textual analysis, practice putting together essays and research projects, and learn some of the specialized vocabulary writers and scholars use to talk about literary works. Second, we will also think together about why literature is important, what it does for us and how we understand its place in the modern world.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This section of English 3398 combines exercises in analytical reading with formal and informal writing assignments. The emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and strengthening of skills required in many upper-division English courses. These skills include (a) the ability to objectify and articulate what we, as readers, bring to interpretation of a text; (b) the ability to "close read" for patterns and argue from them; (c) the ability to identify the conventions of various textual forms (genres) and the different kinds of critical engagement they encourage; and (d) the ability to conduct and effectively incorporate research into the historical backgrounds, reception, or influence of authors and texts. These four emphases inform the four unit divisions of our class.
English 3398 (30): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This class is designed to support students in developing the writing and research skills they need to be successful English majors. Classes and short assignments will cover issues like:
- What does secondary criticism add to literature?
- How do I read actively? What kinds of tools do I need?
- How do I stake a claim? Do I need a flag?
- What’s the difference between a long paper and a short one?
- How can I distinguish between what they say about a text and what I say?
In addition, over the course of the term students will learn the types, tools, and methods of literary criticism that English scholars employ as they construct projects in both print and digital media. Along the way we’ll read a novel by Robertson Davies, short stories by Dorothy Parker, Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthelme and George Saunders, plays by Djanet Sears and William Shakespeare, and poems by Billy-Ray Belcourt. Students will complete in-class exercises and multiple short writing assignments that ultimately build towards a longer research paper. Previous students have found this course “rigorous in the best way,” “inspiring,” “engaging,” “respectful of students’ time” and “encouraging.”
English 3398 (70): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
This section of English 3398 combines exercises in analytical reading with formal and informal writing assignments. The emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and strengthening of skills required in many upper-division English courses. These skills include (a) the ability to objectify and articulate what we, as readers, bring to interpretation of a text; (b) the ability to "close read" for patterns and argue from them; (c) the ability to identify the conventions of various textual forms (genres) and the different kinds of critical engagement they encourage; and (d) the ability to conduct and effectively incorporate research into the historical backgrounds, reception, or influence of authors and texts. These four emphases inform the four unit divisions of our class.
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Sophia Honeycutt
Section 30 Instructor: Sahalie Martin
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Hannah Smith
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elise Gorzela
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Amanda Scharf
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-Level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Chrisstiane Buuck
Section 30 & 40 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4515: Chaucer
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
A close study of Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales as introduction to the artist and his period.
English 4520.01 (20): Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
This course is designed as an introduction to some of the more important critical problems and issues in Shakespeare studies through close study of plays in each of the dramatic genres in which Shakespeare wrote. Our primary concern will be with Shakespeare’s text, but we will also spend some time discussing theatrical performances as well as film adaptations. Written assignments will encourage you to develop your knowledge of Shakespeare by way of different sets of skills: informal response; close textual and semantic analysis; engagement with secondary (scholarly) discussions of Shakespeare; group work on play performance; and the production of substantial critical arguments of your own.
Guiding Questions: What's the big deal about Shakespeare? Why does our culture still fetishize his plays and sonnets?
Potential Text(s): The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, et al. 3rd ed. Norton, 2015. Vol. 1: Early Plays and Poems; Vol. 2: Later Plays.
Potential Assignments: Several informal responses; a close reading assignment; possible class presentation; possible group work on play performance; a final critical essay.
English 4523: Special Topics in Renaissance Literature and Culture: Court and Society in Stuart England.
Instructor: Christopher Highley
In the forty years after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, England went from a state of relative tranquility to the brink of bloody civil war. This course examines the political, religious and social forces that turned a nation upside down during the reigns of the first Stuart kings—James I and his son Charles I. We will explore one of Britain’s most politically tumultuous and culturally vibrant periods through classics like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, as well as the king’s own publications, and a plethora of poems, pamphlets and pictures. The course is organized around a series of crisis points, starting with the Scottish 'invasion' of England in 1603, and moving to the Gunpowder Plot, the death of a royal heir, the outbreak of war in Europe, court favorites and scandals, religious and political polarization and the struggle between king and parliament. We will read modern historical scholarship and literary criticism alongside the primary literary and political texts.
Potential Texts: Elegies on the death of Elizabeth; King James's coronation pageant; Shakespeare, Macbeth; Selected works of King James, including Of Demonologie, A Counterblaste against Tobacco; preliminary materials to King James Bible; masques and other court entertainments; poetry of Ben Jonson, John Donne, Robert Herrick and others; libels and ballads; paintings by Van Dyck and others.
Potential Assignments: Short exercises; quizzes; research papers.
English 4535: Special Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture: The Invention of Celebrity
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will investigate the invention of celebrity (and celebrities) over the course of the eighteenth century. Fame has been around since antiquity; celebrity began sometime between 1660 and 1820. In so doing, we'll try to get a new vantage point from which to assess our own culture of celebrity. Some of what we'll be considering will seem quite familiar, despite all the wigs and beauty marks. Some of it will seem deeply odd (though I hope equally deeply thought-provoking). Either way, though, you should come away from this course with not only a fresh sense of both the eighteenth century and our present moment, but also the often twisted and counterintuitive connections between the two. For better or worse, we are the heirs of the eighteenth century in far more ways than just our political system.
Guiding Questions: We will explore what sort of beings celebrities are, if and how that varies by what they're celebrated for, why we're so fascinated with them, and what the cultural consequences of that fascination might be.
Potential Texts: We'll be reading a range of plays, poetry and life writing (diaries and biographies) and considering quite a few images. Likely candidates include work by John Gay, David Garrick, William Shakespeare [as he was rewritten in the period], Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Samuel Pepys, Frances Burney, Olaudah Equiano, James Boswell, Lord Rochester, Alexander Pope, Phillis Wheatley, Lord Byron, William Hogarth and Thomas Rowlandson. We'll also consider some recent films, including The Favourite.
Potential Assignments: Course requirements will include active participation in our discussions, a weekly reading/viewing journal, a presentation on a current celebrity and how they fit or extend the questions we’re considering, a few short written exercises, and some engagement with the collections of our Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.
English 4540: Before Night Falls: Nineteenth-Century British Poetry
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
Set down on a darkling plain, poets from Thomas Gray and William Blake to Christina Rossetti and Oscar Wilde raged against the dying of the light.
In this course, we will explore poets who tried to make sense of the long nineteenth century and its tumultuous changes. These poets were some of the first writers to grapple with the modern world as we know it. Their century was rocked by the invention of the train, the telegraph, the photograph and the bicycle. The industrial revolution gave rise to a broad but unpredictable social realignment, and Darwin’s evolutionary hypothesis disrupted religious convictions and comfortable visions of nature. Revolutionary political ideas prompted the reconsideration of tradition, custom and order. As the British Empire expanded to cover a quarter of the globe, many writers confronted an increasing disjunction between local culture and a globalized world. Over the course of the semester, we will think about how these developments resulted in the formal and thematic transformation of British poetry.
English 4564.04: Major Author in the 20th-Century Literature in English: Reading Toni Morrison as Theory and Practice
This course has two goals. The first is to read Toni Morrison’s fiction and non-fiction oeuvre as theoretical tools for studying and understanding the social construction of Blackness and its inseparability from various other identities. An important question arises: what knowledge is gained when we privilege the intellectual thought and creative production of a Black woman cultural producer and scholar like Toni Morrison over the canon of dead and aging white, male critical theorists? The second goal is to apply Morrison’s theories in our own work, as well as consider how her work can be placed in conversation with other types of cultural productions (i.e. music, visual art, film, dance, etc.) as well as social problems.
Potential Text(s): Texts will include a selection of Morrison’s novels, essays, and speeches, along with other cultural texts that will be placed in conversation with her work.
Potential Assignments: Reading quizzes, a digital project, and a seminar paper (12-15 pages) are required.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Lee Martin
Storytelling is a way of thinking on the page through action, character, dialogue and setting. In this workshop, you'll write stories and present them to the class for conversation about what the story is attempting to do, how it's attempting to do it, and what might be done in revision to make it better. We’ll think about the technical choices writers make and the effects these choices have on the process of storytelling. Reading and analyzing from a writer’s perspective gives us a chance to think about how stories are made and also an opportunity to build our own technical repertoire when it comes to constructing narratives.
Guiding Questions: What makes a story memorable?
Potential Text(s): I'll provide online sample of published stories for our consideration.
Potential Assignments: Generally, each student will have the chance to present two original works, significantly revising one of them by the end of the semester. Each student will also provide verbal and written commentary for their peers' stories.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Marcus Jackson
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
This is the advanced creative writing workshop in creative nonfiction. Admission is limited to creative writing concentrators who have taken English 2268, and to other students who have successfully completed English 2268 with permission of the instructor by portfolio submission.
Potential Text(s): No textbook will be required. Various essays and craft texts will be provided via Carmen. The bulk of students' reading will consist of their peers' workshop essays.
Potential Assignments: Workshop essay, peer responses, writing exercises, and brief reading responses.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: John Jones
Students in 4569 will use the programable Arduino platform to explore the rhetorical possibilities of interactive digital objects, paying particular attention to the new forms of digital creativity these tools are enabling. In this way, students will not only analyze digital objects but become makers themselves, thinking about new relations between people and the physical world that are enabled by our devices and the new forms of writing they can support.
Guiding Questions: How can objects and the environment be rhetorical? In what ways can communicators learn to craft rhetorical interactions with objects?
Potential Text(s): Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform, 3rd Edition.
Potential Assignments: Students will create multiple interactive design projects, write a short paper and take occasional quizzes.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
In this class you will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences, becoming familiar with the concepts and patterns of grammar from a linguistic—a scientific—perspective. We will seek to understand the linguistic principles that underlie all speaking and writing in English. Sound boring? It won't be! By looking at grammar with an open mind, we will see how issues of grammar relate to our human interactions, social dynamics and identities, and the quirks and changes we all notice when we pay attention to the language around us. Note that this is not a writing course, an editing course, or a course designed to teach people how to speak/write in English. However, having an enhanced understanding of English grammar will equip you with the skills to more critically understand speaking and writing styles, including effective writing and products designed to encourage it, such as usage handbooks and language-learning pedagogical materials.
Guiding Questions: How do English speakers form sentences? How do we know what kinds of sentences are grammatical in English? How can we investigate contemporary English usage?
Potential Text(s): Free online textbook: English Language Learning Modules.
Potential Assignments:
Homework sets; midterm exam; final exam; final analysis project.
Mode of Instruction: We will meet in a computer-equipped classroom so we can use digital tools daily for exploring grammar!
English 4574: History and Theories of Writing
Instructor: Dan Seward
Theories of writing have generally reflected ideas about a) how the mind works in the act of communication and b) how individuals influence others through public and private discourse. In this class, we will learn the ways these ideas have evolved over time and across cultures. Our sources will include scholarly studies and two different kinds of primary texts, namely, philosophical reflections on writing and excerpts from writing handbooks representing a range of historical periods and places.
And though this course focuses on theories, we will keep in mind that writing is a psychological and social act, one that needs to be mindfully performed to be understood. Towards that end, we will try our hands at writing exercises taught to onetime students like William Shakespeare and Martin Luther King. We will describe the distinctive features of written works by those left out of formal education, like Margaret Cavendish and Juana de la Cruz. We will rehearse moves of institutional resistance performed by reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Kwame Nkrumah. In our final unit, we will practice different modes of digital composition as we examine modern theories influenced by cognitive studies, sociolinguistics, ecological sciences and disability studies.
This class has something for anyone awed by or curious about the act of writing, including students of literary and political history, philosophers of the mind and society, students of human behavior, activists eager to influence, and all writers seeking to expand their communicative repertoires by exploring the techniques practiced by others.
Guiding Questions: How did past theories of writing shape the written work and intellectual dispositions of individuals living in those historical periods? What do these theories of writing reveal about our understanding of the human condition? How adaptable are past theories for 21st-century concerns about social justice, equity, wellness and accessibility? How do we weigh the act of writing—morally, intellectually and pragmatically—among other forms of action?
Potential Text(s): Excerpts from or short pieces by Plato, Han Fe Tzu, Quintilian, Nagarjuna, Aphthonius, Julian of Norwich, Erasmus, Elizabeth Tudor, Juana de la Cruz, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Virginia Woolf, M.K. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Thich Nhat Hanh; chapters and articles by modern scholars surveying traditions of writing reflecting various cultures from across the globe.
Potential Assignments: Semi-formal online postings to facilitate reflection on and discussion of readings; an oral Reading Report (presenting an optional reading to classmates); a formal midterm paper (6-8 pages); a final web-based writing project (no prior web writing experience necessary; a great chance to learn).
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms: Story Engineering
Instructor: Angus Fletcher
In this course, you'll learn to write like your favorite author, in any genre or any medium, from poetry to comics, film to fiction, essays to television, memoir to mashup, ancient or modern. You'll uncover your author's creative blueprint by identifying the formal elements that she uses like nobody else. Maybe her unique style, or her special recipe for character, or her innovative use of plot. Then you'll incorporate that blueprint into your own writing, creating an original piece that sounds just like your favorite author--while also sounding just like you.
Potential Text(s): Your favorite books, scripts, comics, etc.
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film: Bad Reviews
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
“That story counts for less than gimmicks, and characters less than both.” “A big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.” These are excerpts from some of the reviews that greeted The Empire Strikes Back when it premiered. In this class, we’ll watch a selection of classic, canonized films, and read bad reviews of them. What can we learn from these contrarian takes? About these films, or what we look for in films more generally? About critics’ blind spots when it comes to genre, gender or race? About how certain films get canonized and others don’t? In so doing we’ll try to clarify what our own criteria are in judging movies and understand what makes for an insightful and effective review.
Guiding Questions: What makes for an effective review? What can we learn about films, canons and the culture from reading negative reviews? What are your criteria for judging films?
Potential Texts: The Empire Strikes Back, Clueless, The Graduate, Schindler’s List, Do the Right Thing, The Tree of Life, They Live, and Celine and Julie Go Boating.
Potential Assignments: Three 3 page response papers, class discussions and one 6-8 page review.
English 4578 (30): Special Topics in Film
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Examination of particular topics, themes, genres or movements in cinema; topics may include particular directors, periods, genres.
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Koritha Mitchell
When society is designed to deny your humanity, creating a life requires deliberate effort and purpose-driven strategies. Queer people of color are therefore some of the most intellectually rigorous artists on the planet. In this class, we will explore works by queer authors of color who have chosen to write about their lives. In so doing, we will approach queer literature in a way that does not exoticize queer experiences, but instead, highlights how strange society’s most accepted values are. To honor each author’s intellectual rigor, we will focus on the deliberate choices about craft that shape the texts and the deliberate choices that shaped the lives represented by those well-crafted narratives. To bolster our critical and literary awareness, we will also read scholarly analysis of the genres of life writing, memoir and biography. Students should register for this course only if they are also willing to hone their oral presentation skills. Public speaking is a top fear among Americans; college-educated people need practice.
Potential Text(s): Janet Mock's Redefining Realness, Meredith Talusan's Fairest, Michael Arceneaux's I Can't Date Jesus, Samra Habib's We Have Always Been Here, and scholarship on life writing, memoir and biography.
Potential Assignments: Careful, consistent reading; active, thoughtful class participation; a scholarly annotation assignment; and oral presentations.
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures
Instructor: Martin Ponce
This course considers how formally innovative texts produced by Indigenous and U.S. writers of color have engaged with deeply political topics, such as chattel slavery, settler colonialism, overseas war and imperialism, labor recruitment and exploitation, immigration exclusion, segregation, incarceration, policing, the “war on terror,” sexual violence, and queer genders and sexualities.
Guiding Questions: In what ways have Indigenous and U.S. writers of color contested not only ideologies of racialization that have justified various modes of social domination and subordination but also the conventional literary forms expected of them? What are the aesthetic and political implications of using experimental techniques that result in potentially “difficult” texts to address conditions of oppression and forge possibilities for resistance?
Potential Text(s): Possible authors: Toni Morrison, N. Scott Momaday, Deborah Miranda, Jessica Hagedorn, Emily Jungmin Yoon, Randa Jarrar, Philip Metres, Kazim Ali, Valeria Luiselli, Javier Zamora, Claudia Rankine.
Potential Assignments: Attendance, participation, in-class work, 2 discussion posts/presentations, midterm paper and final project.
English 4582: Special Topics in African American Literature: Things African American Poetry Does with Words
Instructor: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́
This lecture and discussion, senior level, class, will read, analyze, and write about, panegyric, invective, and prophecy; three dominant, interrelated, thing-doing, world-changing, speech acts in African American poetry. Each of these acts will be interpreted and discussed apart from the standard metrical forms--e.g., spirituals, sonnet, blues, haiku, ballad, lyric--they inhabit. The three main speech acts will be further divided into other sub-forms like self-praise, the praise of culture heroes, self and social interrogation, malediction, divination, benediction, and prognostication. It is envisaged that at the end of the course, students would have developed a good understanding of how poems can be read as speech acts and, more specifically, how those acts constitute and articulate desires that are driven persistently by freedom aspirations in the larger African American society.
Guiding Questions: Poetry is hardly ever about itself; hardly ever.
Potential Texts: Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric; a course anthology of poems.
Potential Assignments: 12 weekly responses, each about 250 words; 2 analytical papers, each about 1,750 words; punctual and regular attendance
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 4584: Special Topics in Literacy Studies: Literacy, Place and Community Spaces
Instructor: Beverly J. Moss
Whether it is a focus on the work of literacy practitioners working in community literacy centers, community organizers using literacy for social justice, or members of a social club engaging in literacy practices that advance the mission of the club, documenting the rich and complex literacy practices that occur beyond traditional academic settings has become an important part of understanding the nature of community literacies and the relationship between literacy, space and place. With the “social turn” in Composition and Literacy Studies, writing and literacy scholars have begun to question the “what” “how” and “why” certain literacy practices function and circulate in local community spaces—social clubs, community organizations, political organizations, community centers, churches and other community sites.
Guiding Questions:
In this class, we will explore the following questions:
- Who are the literacy sponsors in these community spaces, and what are the constraints and affordances of these sponsorships?
- What is the relationship between a community site’s dominant literacy practices, location, and that site’s identity?
- What is the relationship between the literacy identities of communities and how these communities are positioned economically, politically, socially and rhetorically?
- What constitutes “community”?
These are just some of the questions that we will pursue as we read scholarship in community literacy, examine community literacy programs, explore the strengths and weaknesses of university-community literacy partnerships and engage in designing (and carrying out) community-based literacy research.
Potential Assignments: One short essay, a longer research project and research journal.
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture: The Marriage Plot, Then and Now
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl marries boy in the end. . . But does she always have to?
This course traces the convention of the marriage plot from its flowering in Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, to its dominance in mainstream U.S. popular culture throughout the 20th century and even today. Looking at Hollywood films, T.V. movies, popular novels, graphic memoirs and literary fiction, we will identify the 21st-century strongholds of the marriage plot and explore variations, subversions and queerings of the form.
Guiding Questions: Where did the marriage plot come from in Western culture? What kinds of privilege does the marriage plot presume? Why has the storyline persisted into an era when women have so many other acceptable paths to follow besides marriage?
Potential Text(s): Readings will include Stephanie Coontz’s 2006 Marriage: A History, or, How Love Conquered Marriage; Austen’s Persuasion (1818); Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847); Frances Harper's Iola Leroy (1892), Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958); Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1983), Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine (1989) and Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s graphic memoir Cancer Vixen (2006) as well as Hollywood films like Clueless, Pretty Woman and the most recent Pride and Prejudice.
Potential Assignments: In addition to a midterm and a final requiring identification of passages from the reading, students will write informal responses to daily prompts and present a close reading of one short passage in class. Students will also do group projects on cheap romance novels and Hallmark movies.
English 4592 (30): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture: Gender and Empire
Instructor: Molly Farrell
The colonization of the Americas has usually been told as a "boy story," with pirates or explorers, shipwrecks or frontiers, as its characters and settings. This class asks what would happen if we put girls and women, homes and domestic spaces, at the center of that story instead. Focusing on literature from and about early America, we will look at the ways sex, gender and families intersect with enslavement and empire.
Potential Text(s): Toni Morrison's A Mercy and Playing in the Dark; early novellas about shipwrecks on deserted islands; and novels about sex scandals from pre-"Bridgerton" New England and Jamaica.
Potential Assignments: Two critical essays, presentations, response papers, reading quizzes, attendance and participation.
English 4597.04H: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Narrative in the Contemporary World: Narrative Ethics
Instructor: James Phelan
My working title for this course is "Ethics and the Experience of Reading Narrative." How, if at all, do moral values relate to authorial construction and readerly re-construction and de-construction of narrative? The short answer is "it's complicated, but way more than you probably suspect." The longer answer will be the course itself, as we work through some narrative theory and a range of contemporary narratives--short stories, novels, literary nonfiction, film and graphic narrative. More specifically, we will explore the crucial role of ethics in what I call rhetorical reading.
Rhetorical reading is an activity rooted in two aspects of our engagements with literary narrative. (1) We love literary storytelling because it has the capacity to make us think and feel deeply about human experiences. (2) When we are engaged in such rich thoughts and feelings, we are finding pleasure and value in the lives we are living as readers. Rhetorical reading is a method for doing a deep dive into the lives we live as readers, and it sees ethics--the moral dimensions of storytelling--as central to our reading experiences. Rhetorical reading distinguishes between the ethics of the told and the ethics of the telling, even as it remains attuned to the interactions between them. The ethics of the told refer to the moral dimensions of characters and events (who are the good guys and bad guys, and what happens when it's hard to tell the difference?). The ethics of the telling refer to the moral dimensions of narrative strategies such as unreliable narration, surprise endings, and so on. Rhetorical reading also explores the interactions between readers' ethical engagements and both their emotional responses (those deep feelings) and their aesthetic judgments (is it any good?).
Just as important, rhetorical reading distinguishes among three activities, as part of its own ethical stance: (1) understanding, the effort to meet authors and narratives on their own terms; (2) overstanding, the move to establish a dialogue between those terms and the readers' own values; and (3) spring boarding, an endeavor to use the narrative for the readers' own purposes, including finding various kinds of relevance between it and their particular situations. By the end of the course, students will have enhanced both their skills and their knowledge, as they deepen their understanding of the ethical dimensions of narrative, of the powers (and limits) of rhetorical reading, and of a range of rich narrative texts.
Guiding Questions: Does this narrative succeed in making us think and feel deeply? If so, how? If not, why not? What role does ethics play in our response? How do we negotiate the relations between the ethical values we bring to our reading and the values underlying an author's construction of a narrative? Is understanding possible? Is it an ethical obligation? What are the ethical obligations of understanding? How does rhetorical reading handle disagreements among readers?
Potential Text(s): Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (1989) (with that title, how could we not include it?), Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad; Miriam Engelberg, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person; a range of short stories (by Edwidge Danticat, Joyce Carol Oates, Colm Toibin, William Trevor and others), and selected nonfiction narratives to be determined.
Potential Assignments: Everyone will have a turn to do an agenda setting. Two short papers, one an exercise in understanding, the second an exercise in overstanding or spring boarding; a final paper worked out in consultation with the instructor.
5000-Level
English 5612: The History of the Book in Modernity
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will explore books from the past two centuries as physical objects and consider what difference that makes for our understanding of the texts and images they bear and the uses to which they've been put. We will range widely in terms of genre, language and price point, and be completely embedded in the holdings of Ohio State's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (indeed, we may never set foot in our assigned classroom in Denney). By the end of the course, you'll understand not only why judging books by their covers is impossible to avoid, but also why it's actually a good thing and how it can help us make sense of the many ways in which books work in and on the world.
Please note that undergraduates can take 5000-level classes without any sort of special permission.
Guiding Questions: We've all been told not to judge a book by its cover. Yet we do it every day, and the world of books depends on our doing it. Let's learn to do it in better, more interesting and more far-reaching ways.
Potential Text(s): We will be considering a wide range of books, pamphlets, periodicals and zines from Ohio State's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, not all of which we'll be able to read in the conventional sense. But we'll quickly see how much we can grasp about the function and use of books whether or not we know the languages in which they're written.
Potential Assignments: Course requirements will include active participation in our discussions, a weekly object journal, a few short written exercises, researching and deciding with your colleagues on a few new items to acquire for the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library [to be purchased by you with at least $5,000 of OSU funds], and a collectively curated exhibition of materials from the RBML collection that will be open to the public.
English 5710.01/5710.02: Introduction to Old English Language and Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This course teaches students to read and declaim Old English, which was the spoken language of the English people in the early Middle Ages (up to ca. 1150), and the original language of evocative poems including Beowulf and The Wanderer. In the first half of the semester, we will learn declensions, conjugations, and vocabulary; in the second half, we will translate works of Old English prose and poetry. No prior knowledge of Old English or other languages is required.
Potential Text(s): Mitchell and Robinson's A Guide to Old English
Potential Assignments: Students are graded on their preparation for each class meeting, eight quizzes, three written translation assignments and a final exam.
English 5721.01/.02: Graduate Studies in Renaissance Drama: The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: Genre, Kingship, Sexuality and Colonialism
Instructor: Alan B. Farmer
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were two of the most popular and innovative playwrights in Renaissance England. Their plays were regularly performed at court, were best-sellers in print, and were eventually monumentalized in a 1647 folio collection. The plays they wrote—by themselves, collaboratively with each other and collaboratively with other playwrights—radically changed the genres and forms of English drama. Beaumont’s wildly allusive The Knight of the Burning Pestle challenged audiences to follow its ironical, metatheatrical plots, while their tragicomedies The Faithful Shepherdess, Philaster and A King and No King astonished—and confused—audiences with their complex plots and surprise endings. Their plays often explored gender and power, as in The Woman's Prize, which centers on the revolt of a wife against her shrew-taming husband, and in The Maid's Tragedy, which ends with the King’s mistress taking revenge on her former lover, while several of the later plays of Fletcher, most notably The Island Princess and The Sea Voyage, present searing representations of European colonialism. In this course, we will read several well-known and lesser-known plays by Beaumont and Fletcher as we consider how these plays engage with such important early modern topics as courts and kings, gender and sexuality, London and colonialism, revenge and tragedy.
Potential Assignments: Several short research assignments, a presentation and a final essay.
1000-level
English 1109: Intensive Writing and Reading
Instructor: Erin Bistline
Provides intensive practice in integrating academic reading and writing.
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.03: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, 1193.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing.
2000-level
English 2202: British Literature, 1800-Present
Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
This course will introduce students to the major movements in British literature since the end of the eighteenth century. We will read works from authors who have played dominant roles in shaping the English literary tradition; these authors include William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and many others. In lecture, we will learn about some of Great Britain’s dramatic social and political transformations over the last two hundred years as the nation became the first modern, industrialized imperial power in the nineteenth century and then, in the twentieth, faced crises arising from the crumbling of its colonial holdings, its economic decline and the effects of radically new technologies. Perhaps more importantly, the lectures will aim to show how those historical transformations influenced writers’ creativity as British literature moved from the idealism of the Romantic movement, to the subdued pragmatism of the Victorian age, to the conceptual challenges brought on by the modern and postmodern eras. During recitation, students will explore the historical and artistic issues covered in lecture in more detail; recitation will also help students increase their understanding and appreciation of the assigned literary works.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220 (10): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
In this online, asynchronous introduction to Shakespeare, we will read five or six plays representing some of Shakespeare’s range, including some of the most canonical and some that are less well known. Our focus will be on close analysis of the texts themselves, but we’ll also pay attention to the social and political milieu in which the plays were composed and first performed. Possible plays include: The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, King Lear, Pericles and The Winter’s Tale.
Potential Text(s): Text: The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Greenblatt, third edition, in two volumes (Early Plays; Later Plays).
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes; a formal essay; a short writing exercise; a performance review; and a final exam.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220 (20): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: The Comedy of Errors, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fifth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Macbeth and The Winter's Tale.
Potential Texts: I will order the New Oxford Shakespeare, gen. ed. Gary Taylor et al. (ISBN 9780198749721), but any modern edition with glosses, notes and line numbers of the above plays is fine. Good editions of single plays are published by Folger, Pelican, Cambridge, Norton, Oxford, Bedford, Arden, Bantam and Signet. Reputable one-volume Complete Shakespeares are published by Longman, Pelican, Riverside and Norton.
Potential Assignments: Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance and active participation.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220 (40): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This class will approach a selection of Shakespeare’s plays through several methods, examining them not only as historical artifacts rooted in the time and place of their creation, but also as spectacles created to be continuously performed and re-adapted right through to our modern age. In order to better enable us to consider the ways that staged properties, blocking, special effects and audience engagement are crucial parts of Shakespeare’s stagecraft, this section of 2220 is especially interested in the practical means by which Shakespeare’s plays resonate with both historical and contemporary audiences. Through exercises, assignments and class discussions in costuming, casting, producing and directing, we will seek to answer questions like: “How was the English stage of 1592 different from a typical American stage of 2020?” “How did a production simulate two actors playing twins?” “When you don’t have modern technologies, how do you create special effects?” and “What did Elizabethans think a Roman or medieval battle looked like?” Students in this class will develop the capacity for discriminating judgment based on aesthetic and historical appreciation of Shakespeare through reading, discussion and informed critical written interpretation of the texts. Through this process, students will also learn to appraise and evaluate both the social values of Shakespeare’s cultural moment as well as their own.
Potential Text(s): New Oxford Shakespeare (2016).
Potential Assignments: Students will be evaluated by short writing assignments, a group presentation and a final exam.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
In late sixteenth-century London, on the south bank of the Thames, amongst bear-baiting rings and brothels stood a round wooden theater that brought together people from all walks of life—aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. It was for this space and for these people that William Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, and in this course, we’ll be imagining what it was like to stand with them and watch Shakespeare’s theater in action. Our in-depth exploration will include selected comedies and tragedies, not to mention a lot of fun along the way.
Potential Texts: Readings will be from the free online editions published by the Folger Shakespeare Library.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will acquaint you with a variety of poetry, representing different eras, styles and topics. You do not need to consider yourself fantastic with poetry to take it! Newcomers are welcome, and part of my goal will be to help everyone become more confident by the end of the semester. Our syllabus will be divided into three units. The first will overview primary elements and teach you how to break down a poem and develop an interpretation. The second unit will do a deep dive into a few specific genres (sonnet, dramatic monologue, ghazal, ballad, etc.). The third unit will cluster around a few particular themes, exploring how variously poets address them. Our authors will range widely, including Ha Jin, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Ocean Vuong, Audre Lorde, William Shakespeare, Terrence Hayes, Robert Browning, Evie Shockley, Natalie Diaz, Sylvia Plath, Una Marson, Oscar Wilde, Mary Oliver, Ray Gonzalez and many more.
Potential Assignments: Tentative course requirements: three short analytical responses, two exams, final project (either critical or creative) and regular participation.
GE: Literature
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry: Ohio Poets
Instructor: Shaun Russell
This Intro to Poetry course has the thematic subtitle of "The Renaissance and Everything After." While this subtitle is a little tongue-in cheek, it evokes an unspoken idea that we’ll explore in this course: that much of the poetry that came after the Renaissance (also known as the early modern era) is fundamentally indebted to the Renaissance in many ways, both directly and indirectly. As a result, we'll start the course with several weeks of early modern poetry before we segue into transhistorical and transatlantic poetry to see if we can make connections between the poems written in different centuries on different continents, and the poems written distinctly in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain. In addition to many of the key figures of Renaissance poetry, such as Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and Milton, we will also spend considerable time on women poets and poets of color, all with a view toward exploring the interconnectedness of influence across eras and areas. Assignments will include regular short reading quizzes, a close-reading assignment, a mid-term exam, and a final research essay.
GE: Literature
English 2260 (40)--SESSION 2: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Timothy Griffin
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE: Literature
English 2260H: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
This class will train you to understand how poems work. Week by week, you will learn specific analytical methods that will unlock the art of poetry for you. (Most college students report that they have not learned these methods in high school.) Each week, we apply new concepts as we break down and discuss two or three short poems each day. (Reading assignments are mostly short poems, so there are few pages of reading for each class.) Class will include a mini-lecture on the day’s topic followed by extensive discussion during which I will guide you in learning the core skills of valid interpretation based in meaningful evidence. Your skills will grow and improve each week. You will complete this class with a new ability to understand poetry as well as with improved analytical skills overall. Class will include a unit on current song lyrics (the most popular form of poetry in the US today).
Guiding Questions: How do poems work? Why do so many people feel intimidated by "poetry"? When I read a poem for the first time, what basic features do I want to notice in order to start to unlock it?
Potential Assignments: Five short papers (1-3 pages), one of which you will present in class.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 10 and 30 Instructor: Zoë Brigley Thompson
Section 20 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Section 70 and 80 Instructor: Matthew Cariello
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2261 (90 and 100): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
This class has not only a subject (fiction) but also a thesis. While the up-to-date concern for diversity would seem apt for new forms of literature and contemporary modes of art, I will argue that diversity has always been a subject for twentieth-century authors. Such “canonical” works (those texts deemed to be part of the “great” tradition) have always treated the theme of diversity. Thus, such writers like Hemingway and Ellison, Ozick and Spiegelman, all address the diverse nature of life in the U.S and Europe. This semester we’ll see some of the following: ethnic diversity (African American, Native American, Asian American, and Jewish); literature about disabilities (injured veterans; blindness, autism, depression; alcoholism); the victims of racism, prejudice and violence. Many works also consider traditionally denigrated groups, like women and homosexuals (LGBTQ). The conclusion here is that such diversity in literature (as in life) calls for a good deal of tolerance and compassion, and it exercises our capacity for empathy and understanding
Potential Texts: Texts will include short fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Potential Assignments: Two short papers and two exams. Participation in discussion required.
Additional Materials: Almost all readings will be available in Carmen.
GE: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course familiarizes students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, communicate complex ideas and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Our primary goal in Introduction to Film is to become skilled at thinking, talking and writing critically about movies and, in the process, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the film medium.
Potential Texts: Looking at Movies (6th edition): e-textbook available at a reduced cost and integrated into Carmen site through CarmenBooks program.
Potential Assignments: Weekly quizzes, shorter analytical writing assignments, a shot-by-shot analysis essay and participation in recitation.
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Instructor: Staff
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Sahalie Martin
Section 30 Instructor: Katie Harms
Section 40 Instructor: Sophia Huneycutt
Section 50 Instructor: Clancy Tripp
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Maya McOmie
Section 20 Instructor: Neomi Chao
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Elizabeth Lawson
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elise Gorzela
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Instructor: Staff
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Staff
Folklore theory and methods explored through engagement with primary sources: folktale, legend, jokes, folksong, festival, belief, art. Folklore Minor course.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Staff
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2281: Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Staff
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Staff
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in WGSSt
English 2290: Colonial and U.S. Literature to 1865
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
This course provides a broad survey of selected literature from the time of colonial occupation in North America to the U.S. Civil War. We will explore how various writers working in a number of genres--nonfiction, short fiction, the novel and poetry--addressed a broad array of historical, cultural and literary concerns, including settlement of the “New World”; encounters and conflicts with the indigenous peoples who already lived there; political and theological upheavals; aesthetic conventions and rebellions; race and gender categories; literary and philosophical movements; slavery; and civil war. This course fulfills a GE requirement in Literature. The format of the two weekly lectures will be synchronous online and will include some class discussion; attendance at lecture is optional, and lectures will be recorded for later viewing. Recitation sections will meet synchronously once per week, and attendance is required.
Guiding Questions: What are the basic analytical methods that help students to understand literary texts, even those written in remote historical periods? Why is literature interesting? How does historical context inform literature?
Potential Texts: Students must rent or purchase one (new or used) paperback anthology that contains most of our assigned class readings and one short paperback novel. Any additional reading will be posted to Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Daily reading assignment; brief Carmen quiz prior to each of the two weekly lectures; attendance and participation at each of the weekly recitation sections; three exams, of which you may count the two highest grades.
GE: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America. Only one 2367 (367) decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Discussion & practice of the conventions, practices, & expectations of scholarly reading of literature & expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GE: Literature (BS only)
English 2367.03: Documentary in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Zoë Brigley Thompson
An intermediate course that extends and refines skills in critical reading and expository writing through analysis of written texts, video, and documentaries.
GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Section 10 and 20 Instructors: Staff
Section 30 and 40 Instructor: Lauren Cook
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE: Writing and Communication: Level 2
3000-level
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 and 30 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Instructor: Staff
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically: TOYS R US
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
This class will introduce students to a millennial strand of critical theory called “Thing Theory,” an intellectual project devoted to thinking through the relationship between human beings and the non-human entities we create, use and misuse. What is a thing, anyway? Is it different from an “object”? The philosopher Martin Heidegger says yes: a thing is what emerges when an object forces itself upon our attention by breaking. A hammer is an object; a broken hammer is a thing. On this account, things are defined by their relation to the human subjects who use them. This makes sense as a way of thinking about tools, perhaps: tools are made by us for us. What about paintings, however? Paintings are objects made by human subjects. But are they made to be used? If not, what are they made for? Is there a difference between the painting as painting and the painting as a commodity in the art market? What about natural objects such as trees? These are not made by us, but they are used—and used up—by us. In recent years the law has increasingly been willing to grant non-human animals the status of legal persons, endowed with rights and protections. (As I write this, drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s hippos were just made legal persons.) Should we not likewise protect the natural objects upon which the human species depends for breath and shelter? If corporations have rights, why not forests or water systems? We live in a world organized on the one hand around a pervasive interface of human and machine, and on the other around a growing understanding of the human species as itself a natural object, a geologic force. How might contemporary developments in robotics, climate change, genetic engineering and animal rights require us to rethink the special status of the human being upon which Thing Theory—and indeed much of the history of culture—is based?
Potential Text(s): Theoretical texts by Martin Heidegger (on things), Sigmund Freud (on the fetish), Karl Marx (on the commodity), Roland Barthes (on fashion), Norman Bryson (on still life painting), Donna Haraway (on the cyborg), Katherine Hayles (on cybernetics), Jane Bennet (on the electrical grid), Anna Tsing (on mushrooms), Peter Stallybrass (on gloves), Heather Keenleyside (on pets), Anne Cheng (on ornaments), Stephen Best (on the slave). Possible literary texts include J. M. Coetzee’s Slow Man, Richard Powers’ The Overstory, a selection of Georgic poems, short stories by Virginia Woolf and A. M. Homes, films by Robert Bresson (Au Hasard Balthazar), Agnès Varda (The Gleaners and I) and Julia Ducourneau (Titane), and artworks by Jean-Siméon Chardin, Anne Valleyer-Coster, J.M. Turner, John Constable, Charles Ethan Porter, Agnes Martin, Cindy Wright, Theo Jansen and Olafur Eliasson.
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine: Death
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Humanity’s death rate remains steady at 100%. We all die. How we come to terms with death, or resist it, or deny it, varies among peoples and cultures. No surprise then that death has been so popular a topic throughout the history of the arts. Adam and Eve bring death into the world by eating the forbidden fruit. Gilgamesh mourns his beloved friend Enkidu. Priam and Troy mourn the death of Hector. David laments Saul and Jonathan. The pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the terra cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Treasury at Petra, and Ohio’s Serpent Mound are all tombs. This course explores plays, poems, stories, novels, and films about death. Aided by readings in sociology, philosophy, and medical ethics, we will ask what death is, why and how we die, how we grieve, why we treat the dead as we do, and why we imagine the dead returning to the living.
Potential Texts: Readings will include excerpts from Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade and Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Literary works will include excerpts from the Bible and Gilgamesh, René Depestre’s magical Haitian zombie novel Hadriana in All My Dreams, George Saunders’ weird historical-purgatorial fantasy Lincoln in the Bardo, Alejandro Amenábar’s haunting film The Others, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s visionary Civil War novel The Gates Ajar, stories by Raymond Carver, and elegiac poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.
GE: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture: Insurgent Youth: Punk, Riot Grrrl, and Black Metal
Instructor: Thomas Davis
How do subcultural worlds develop and respond to moments of political distress? How can music, art, and lifestyles model other ways of living and thinking? This class pursues these two questions by investigating three distinct subcultures: punk, riot grrrl, and black metal. We will listen to a wide range of music, placing it in its historical context and tracing its lasting influences. Readings and viewings will range across documentary films, memoirs, cultural theory, zines, and other literary and visual texts. We will have visits from Hawak (California based punk band), Myke C-Town (Dead End Hip Hop), and others. We will also collaborate with OSU's Special Collections and work with their archive of punk, queercore, and Riot Grrrl zines.
Potential Texts: Dick Hebdige Subculture: The Meaning of Style; Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC (Film); Decline of Western Civilization (Film); Until the Light Takes Us (Film); Punk Singer (Film); Gone Home (Video Game)
Potential Assignments: Three short concept papers, a zine, and longer cultural analysis final project.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 20 & 30 Instructor: Staff
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (60): Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course turns to a wide range of speculative fictions taking us into futures in which climate change has already wrought monumental changes. National borders have been rewritten, economies have crumbled or completely transformed, political systems have been upended and everyday life moves to rhythms unimaginable in our present. As we come upon a tipping point beyond which these possible futures become increasingly probable, this course will allow us to use the imaginative time travel of science fiction to think about what lies beyond for a world in which climate change is no longer a call to action that keeps on not coming, but is now a transformative event from which humanity and the planet we share must now rebuild. Some of these works will be grim, to be sure, but many are also hopeful, imagining possibilities on the other side of a climate changed to rethink many of the forces that have brought us to this juncture in human history. We will read novels, short fiction and graphic narrative (and maybe watch a movie or two) so as to visit a range of futures in which all we fear has come to pass and humanity—always adaptable, infinitely resilient, but so terribly bad at imagining its own futures—tries not to make the same mistakes again.
GE: Literature
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature: Shakespeare and Film
Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course, we will study some of the most innovative and influential films ever made of Shakespeare’s plays. We will both read specific plays and view films that cut across dramatic genres, time periods, countries and cinematic styles, by such directors as Max Reinhardt (Austria and Germany), Laurence Olivier (England), Akira Kurosawa (Japan), Baz Luhrmann (Australia), Michael Almereyda (U.S.), Al Pacino (U.S.) and Julie Taymor (U.S.). We will focus on how directors and actors have chosen to adapt Shakespeare for performance, but also consider how these films have shaped, and continue to shape, the cultural meaning of “Shakespeare” for modern audiences.
Potential Texts: Probably Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus and Macbeth.
Potential Assignments: Requirements will include two essays, several quizzes, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance and active participation.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Section 10 Instructor: Susan Lang
Section 20 Instructor: James Fredal
Introduction to the interrelated fields of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy, familiarizing students with key concepts that underlie work in these interrelated fields and to the scholarly methods of WRL. Together, this discipline studies the ways people use language and other symbols to convey messages, persuade audiences, and create meaning, and how these practices are learned and taught.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Susan Williams
Let's hone your writing skills and de-mystify the methods behind literary analysis! This course will familiarize you with analytical methods in such a way as to prepare you for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of creative writing. We will practice the skills of literary criticism and apply a range of critical theories to poems and short stories, with a particular interest in those that explore and respond to works of art. We will also practice using digital databases to do research in literary history.
Guiding Questions: How do we articulate the relationship between literature and the visual arts? How do different theoretical, conceptual and thematic frames affect literary interpretation? What are the transferable critical thinking skills that come from literary analysis? What does "close reading" really mean?
Potential Texts: In addition to poems from different historical periods, we will read Suzan-Lori Parks’s play In the Blood and Celeste Ng's novel Little Fires Everywhere as re-readings of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, considering how authors build on each other as they practice their craft.
Potential Assignments: Three papers; one 2-3 page close-reading exercise; two peer review assignments; occasional asynchronous homework assignments
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 30 Instructor: Jacob Risinger
Section 60 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing.
English 3465 (10): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Instructor: Katie Pyontek
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. This intermediate fiction workshop will focus on story structure and the writing process. We’ll start the semester watching films, reading published short stories, and discussing how and why these different stories work for us. Then we’ll devote time to generating new stories and talking about issues students come across in their writing. The second half of this course will focus on workshopping student stories with the intent of exploring what’s working and how to best revise. Students will begin at least three new stories, and workshop at least one short story in class.
English 3465 (30): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Instructor: Macey Phillips
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Arah Ko
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Allison Kranek
Theories and practices in tutoring and writing; explores writing-learning connections and prepares students to work as writing consultants/tutors for individuals and small writing groups.
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Louise Edwards
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 10 Instructor: Hannah Smith
Section 20 Instructor: Amanda Scharf
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150 (10): Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
This class will explore a range of types of workplace writing. Many of our course assignments are designed to help you compile a writing portfolio that will be useful if you apply to the Professional Writing Minor, and/or in future job searches. Additionally, you will interview two professionals in your field of interest. You will hone your editing skills by practicing AP style, reviewing common usage mistakes and how to avoid them, giving and receiving feedback in peer review, practicing repurposing content and drafting for different audiences and revising for clean, professional copy in every deliverable.
Guiding Questions: What do I want to do when I graduate? How can I polish my writing? How can I build my professional network? How is the work world changing in and through this pandemic? What kind of professional life would I like to have?
Potential Texts: All our texts will come from real-world examples, articles and other readings posted to Carmen.
Potential Assignments: You'll practice writing in different professional genres including press releases, feature articles, agendas, reviews, brochures, procedural guides, website copy, and more. You'll also hone your editing skills each week through editing exercises that focus on common writing errors and how to revise them.
English 4150 (20): Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4321: Environmental Literatures, Cultures and Media
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Can literature and art help us live more justly on a warming planet? This course begins to answer that question by examining the intertwined relationship of cultural production and environmental justice movements over the last several decades. We will explore the critical roles of imaginative storytelling, activist writing, documentary film, poetry and visual art in shaping the knowledge and tactics of environmental justice struggles. How do these works center the voices and lived experiences of Black, Indigenous and people of color who have historically experienced greater exposure to toxic waste, oil spills, geographic displacement, and environmental racism? Over the course of the semester will we ask how environmental justice reframes our ideas of nature, culture, violence, and the human. We will look at artworks that emerge from key situations—the #NoDAPL movement at Standing Rock, Cancer Alley in Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina and campaigns for justice for nonhumans. Our case studies will allow us to think more critically and imaginatively about the different futures for life on a warming planet.
Potential Texts: Non-fiction and criticism: Henry David Thoreau, Robert Bullard, Nick Estes, Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Julie Sze, Dana Alston and Andreas Malm. Poetry: Nikky Finney, Gwendolyn Brooks, Layli Long Soldier and Craig Santos Perez. Fiction: Cherie Dimaline The Marrow Thieves, Jesmyn Ward Salvage the Bones and Ashley Shelby Muri. Visual art: Cannupa Hanska Luger, The Winter Count Collective and Monique Verdin.
Potential Assignments: Short critical and creative assignments, a collaboratively authored "Keywords for Environmental Justice" zine and a longer project modeling environmental futures.
English 4513: Introduction to Medieval Literature
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course introduces students to major genres of medieval European literature written over the span of a millennium and situates those works of literature within their diverse historical and intellectual contexts. Building upon selections from classical Rome and early Christianity, we will explore the medieval literature of feud and warfare, romance, monastic and scholastic learning, and popular religion and mysticism. Along the way, we will work to dismantle “presentist” misconceptions about the Middle Ages, particularly those that oversimplify pliable categories such as “hero” and “feminist.” Students are strongly encouraged to choose topics for written assignments that will make the literature more meaningful and enjoyable within the contexts of their individual interests.
For most of our readings, students are required to bring paper copies to class or to have electronic copies that can be marked up on a tablet. Some works are best consulted in the editions prescribed on the syllabus; some will be compiled in a course pack that will be housed on Carmen.
Potential Texts: Vergil, Aeneid; Augustine of Hippo, Confessions; Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy; selected Lives of Saints; short Old English poems such as "The Wanderer"; anonymous, Njal's Saga; anonymous, Song of Roland; Chrétien de Troyes, Percival; Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias; Peter Abelard, History of My Misfortunes; Thomas of Celano, Life of St. Francis of Assisi.
Potential Assignments: Two research projects, in-class presentation, midterm and final exams.
English 4522: Renaissance Poetry
Instructor: Luke Wilson
How did English poets of the Renaissance think and write about the natural world? What even was “the natural world” for them? Was that even a thing? Maybe; but when poets wrote about what we’d call nature they were really writing as much about the human as about something outside it. Perhaps that’s true of all writing about nature, but it’s especially important to avoid misunderstanding Renaissance poetry. The course title avoids labels such as “ecopoetics” and “the environment” in order to resist, at the outset, an anachronistic approach more oriented toward our own categories of thinking than the period’s; our approach will be primarily, but not exclusively, historical rather than theoretical.
We’ll read Renaissance poetry, primarily by major and minor English poets of the seventeenth century, probably including Ben Jonson, Amelia Lanyer, Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, John Milton, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell and Margaret Cavendish. The seventeenth century, at the center of which were the English civil wars (1642-1651), was a period of intense political violence and struggle, and either in spite of or because of this, these poets turned with renewed interest to the natural environment as a means of making sense of the times, but also as a source of poetic interest in its own right. Time permitting, we’ll also read prose from the period addressing different elements of the natural world in more practical contexts (forestry, mining, farming, legal disputes involving land use, and so on). Some likely topics: trees as pets; pets and other animals; forests and their cultural, political, and allegorical significance; agrarian land use and labor; resource extraction; “the country” as a political and socio-economic category; chorography and mapping; literary genres including pastoral, georgic and the sylva.
Potential Assignments: Short response papers; discussion posts; joint class presentations; a final research paper.
English 4533: The Early British Novel: Origins to 1830
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
What is the history of the novel before Jane Austen wrote? Criticizing powerful Englishmen is at the heart of the early novel; the flip side of this coin is representing what was on the minds of fictional characters whose situations were made miserable by elite men? The early novel dramatizes a new kind of character in literary history: the underdog, and it stages both cultural debates about and literary pleasures of unrequited love and lust; the hazards of courtship and miserable marriage; enslavement on the colonial fringes of empire; and overwrought emotions aroused by a stranger's suffering. These early novels for the first time depict an ordinary protagonist's interiority, the hallmark of the modern novel, as they explore modern emotions elicited by dislocations of slavery, capitalism and overbearing patriarchal power. In studying how to interpret the strange characters and disturbing plots of early novels, we will learn how to situate literary Englishness in a global world both sexually and otherwise.
Guiding Questions: What forms of the novel were popular and important? What made the eighteenth-century novel's theory of character, setting and plot different from the nineteenth century's?
Potential Texts: Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave (1688); Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded (1741); Frances Burney, Evelina; the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778); William Godwin, Things as They Are: or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794); Anonymous, The Woman of Color (1808).
Potential Assignments: One short literary analysis, one research paper and a final exam.
English 4542: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Instructor: Clare Simmons
Victorians loved novels. In the Victorian period, the novel became the dominant literary form in Britain, providing a means both to express cultural anxieties and to escape them. A loose theme for this course is the representation of social class in the novel, raising such questions as how novels delineate class distinctions; the respective roles of men and women in society; and the role of outsiders. We will consider not only what story is told, but how the story is told and how the novel form reflects both material and cultural changes over the course of the nineteenth century from the Romantic period to the late Victorian period. We will examine the works in their historical and cultural contexts and try to account for material and social circumstances that give rise to different sub-genres such as the Gothic, realism, the sensation novel and naturalism.
Guiding Questions: How do novels raise our awareness both of the social and cultural contexts in which they were written, and of human values?
Potential Texts: Readings will include: Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Dinah Mulock Craik, The Half-Caste; Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret; and Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Potential Assignments: Regular attendance and participation; reading response questions; two essays.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Michelle Herman
This is the advanced undergraduate workshop in the writing of fiction, designed for creative writing concentrators and other writers by permission of the instructor. We'll begin the semester by looking closely at the work of such contemporary masters of the short story as Tessa Hadley, Jhumpa Lahiri and Danielle Evans, and short writing assignments in response to prompts and then we'll transition into workshopping your full-length stories.
Potential Assignments: Numerous short assignments, two complete full-length stories, a final revision.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Kathy Grandinetti
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Lee Martin
This is an advanced workshop for those of you interested in writing creative nonfiction. We'll study the craft though assigned readings and the discussion of your own essays.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Section 10 and 20 Instructor: Daniel Seward
An examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film: Bad Reviews
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
“That story counts for less than gimmicks, and characters less than both.” “A big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.” These are excerpts from some of the reviews that greeted The Empire Strikes Back when it premiered. In this class, we’ll watch a selection of classic, canonized films, and read bad reviews of them. What can we learn from these contrarian takes? About these films, or what we look for in films more generally? About critics’ blind spots when it comes to genre, gender or race? About how certain films get canonized and others don’t? In so doing we’ll try to clarify what our own criteria are in judging movies and understand what makes for an insightful and effective review.
Potential Texts: Films may include The Empire Strikes Back, Schindler’s List, The Graduate, Do the Right Thing, Clueless, The Tree of Life, Celine and Julie Go Boating and others.
Potential Assignments: Assignments will include two brief reviews of films and one longer analytical essay, as well as participation in class discussions.
English 4578 (30): Special Topics in Film: Film and American Society After World War II
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course examines the history of the American cinema in the years immediately following the Second World War, covering the period from 1945 to 1960. We will view and discuss significant Hollywood films from a variety of genres (e.g., comedy, musical, film noir, western, melodrama, social problem film), contextualizing them by reading articles and excerpts from a variety of sources (e.g., popular magazines, film-trade publications, books of popular sociology, design treatises, political speeches) published during the era in which these films were produced and released. These textual primary sources will serve to illustrate historical discourses describing, reinforcing, and/or critiquing what were conceived of as significant social issues and shifts—from the “veterans problem,” to the “housing crisis,” to “juvenile delinquency,” to sexism and racial segregation in schools. In our discussions, we’ll be interested in how the assigned films reflected, responded to and inflected the print debates happening around these issues and shifts—even and perhaps especially when the films are not overtly working in the “social problem” genre. We’ll also approach the films in the context of the upheavals happening in the American film industry during this period, as a result of the Paramount decree, the HUAC hearings, suburbanization and declining movie theater attendance. In particular, we’ll examine the ways in which the rise of television as a competing medium of mass entertainment shaped the stories that Hollywood movies told and the visual devices that they used to dramatize these stories.
Guiding Questions: Our primary goal in this course is to attain a deep understanding of the intersection of media and ideology during a particular historical moment. Students in this course will gain advanced experience in various aspects of film criticism, including formal analysis and the application of historical frameworks, and in making and supporting written and verbal arguments. The final research project will require students to situate a film of their choosing in relation to the major trends in postwar cinema covered by this course, and the final exam will test students’ mastery of course content.
Potential Texts: All videos and readings will be available through the library catalog at no cost to students.
Potential Assignments: Class participation, weekly quizzes, a group presentation, an analytical essay and a take-home final exam.
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Martin Ponce
This course examines 20th and 21st-century U.S. literary and visual texts that explore “queer” histories, homelands and futures through the framework of LGBTQ2+ literacies. What roles has reading (for) depictions of homoerotic desires and nonbinary gender embodiments played in the constitution of queer and trans selves, communities and traditions? How have those literacy practices and processes of self-understanding and community formation been transformed by the foregrounding of racial and colonial differences? What histories, homelands and futures have LGBTQ2+ readers and writers (of color) invoked, represented and reimagined?
Potential Text(s): Alison Bechdel, Samuel R. Delany, Natalie Diaz, Audre Lorde, Larissa Lai, Carmen Maria Machado, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Joanna Russ, Danez Smith, Samuel Steward, Monique Truong and Craig Womack.
Potential Assignments: In-class exercises, two discussion posts + presentations, one shorter paper and one final project.
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures
Instructor: Pranav Jani
In September 2020, US President Trump aimed to turn back the clock, arguing that classroom curricula – including Critical Race Theory, historians like Howard Zinn and critiques of whiteness – have diminished the “greatness” of the US in the eyes of Americans. Since then, the fights over "CRT" have gotten even more intense, with states like Ohio attempting to pass bills banning the teaching of "divisive concepts."
But Ethnic Studies and related fields, in explaining why racism and white supremacy have such a strong hold in US society, push in the opposite direction, building on past criticisms of racism to expand our understanding of it. Indeed, classes like this would be under threat if Ohio HB 322 & 327 passed.
These debates lower the bar about what racism is, and how we learn about it. Our class will raise the bar, and go well beyond the basic defense of racial justice education.
Reading novels, short stories, essays and films, we will take up: How can we grasp the different but linked experiences and histories of Black, Native, Latinx, Asian and Arab peoples in the US? How do the legacies of settler colonialism in the Americas, the enslavement of Africans and colonialism in Asia and elsewhere shape BIPOC lives in the US? How do gender, sexuality and the family interact with race?
We will examine how people of color and Indigenous peoples have survived and struggled in racialized spaces that are very much products of US history. Part of this history is the effort to articulate these stories in the face of dominant forces that would rather ignore and erase them/us.
Guiding Questions: How is race tied to history? How are people of color and indigenous people differently racialized? How can literature and culture show points of solidarity and difference? Why is the right-wing so invested in fighting histories that center BIPOC peoples?
Potential Text(s): Gyasi, "Homecoming"; Kincaid, "A Small Place"; Aldama, "Long Stories Cut Short"; Jarrar, "A Map of Home"; Nguyen, "The Refugees"; Shamsie, "Burnt Shadows"; Native Nonfiction essays from Washuta and Warbuton anthology; Nair, "Mississippi Masala" (film).
Potential Assignments: Two short papers, oral presentation, research paper and weekly Carmen posts.
English 4583: Special Topics in World Literatures in English: Literature of the Black Atlantic
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
The term "Black Atlantic" was coined by the cultural historian, Paul Gilroy, to describe the historical encounters between African, European and American people that have shaped our modern world. This course will study the literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, film and comics) of this encounter. We will read writing from four centuries of the Black diaspora and we will consider how this writing challenges the nationalist emphasis that dominates literary studies. We will study work by Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Honorée Fanon Jeffers, Mary Prince, Ousmane Sembène, Ryan Coogler, Toussaint Louverture, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, George Lamming, Saidiya Hartman and others.
Potential Assignments: Course requirements will include two reflection essays, annotation and archival projects and creative lesson plans.
English 4584: Special Topics in Literacy Studies
Instructor: Christopher Castillo
Whether you are trying to cop a new pair of Bad Bunny Crocs, find a local coffee shop near you, or building your own website, coding presents new opportunities to investigate the theory and practice of emerging digital literacies. In this seminar, we will investigate how coding as a type of literacy and sociomaterial theory of new literacies inform the practices of particular cultural communities. We will read scholarship that explores how people develop and use their digital literacies practices in response to intersecting themes of oppression and discrimination. We will also develop as coders by practicing genres unique to coding such as app and web page development.
Guiding Questions: Who programs, and who can call themselves a programmer?; How is programming learned and sponsored?; How is programming used?; How do technologies and social factors intersect in programming?
Potential Text(s): Byrd, Antonio. "Like Coming Home": African Americans Tinkering and Playing toward a Computer Code Bootcamp. College Composition and Communication 71.3 (2020): 426-452. Watkins, S. Craig, and Alexander Cho. The Digital Edge: How Black and Latino youth navigate digital inequality. Vol. 4. NYU Press, 2018. Vee, Annette. Coding literacy: How Computer Programming is Changing Writing. Mit Press, 2017.
Potential Assignments: App Development; Web page development; and argumentative essays.
English 4590.08H: U.S. and Colonial Literature
Instructor: Molly Farrell
How do contagious diseases make us who we are? Starting from the premise that epidemiology is a narrative form, this class will call into question the boundaries between science and literary or historical study. Immunities and illnesses that take place in the body also create communities that can overlap or transgress categories like race, nation and culture. Just as medical doctors and public health advocates seek to understand the dangerous force of disease outbreaks, so too have storytellers from ancient times to the present. Pairing medical information with narrative texts, the class will consider five pandemics that preceded COVID-19: plague, smallpox, yellow fever, influenza and AIDS. Collectively, we will develop an understanding of why humans repeatedly feel compelled to contain epidemics through narrative, and speculate how we might begin to narrate COVID-19.
Potential Text(s): Journal of the Plague Year; Clotel; Pale Horse, Pale Rider; The Normal Heart; Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative; and Contagion [film].
Potential Assignments: Course requirements may include research presentations, written responses, composing your own outbreak narrative and a final project.
English 4591.01H: Special Topics in the Study of Creative Writing: Monsters, Mayhem, Method: Crafting Horror
Instructor: Nick White
Writers, beware: There will be no happy endings in this class. In this workshop, I will expect you to learn an appreciation for the shocking art and bewitching craft that is horror. For those of you daring enough to face the abyss with me, I can teach you how to bedevil the minds and entangle the senses of your readers with the demonically-willed word. Stephen King has said that "we make up horrors to help us cope with real ones." In that spirit, the kind of horror literature we will study and write in this workshop will not be interested cheap thrills and schlocky gore alone, but in plumbing the depths of what frightens us to better understand ourselves and each other.
Potential Texts: Flash pieces from Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror; Short novels by Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom), Carmen Maria Machado (Especially Heinous), Stephen Graham Jones (Night of the Mannequins) and Samanta Schweblin (Fever Dream).
Potential Assignments: Shorter creative flash pieces to specific writing prompts and one longer short story.
English 4591.02H: Special Topics in the Study of Rhetoric
Instructor: Kay Halasek
Guilt. Fear. Shame. Anxiety. Remorse. Tools of the trade for tyrants and despots—and also for Big Oil, political extremists and the NRA (to name just a few); as they seek to secure their bottom lines, increase their political power; and deflect attention away from their own culpability, lies, and deceits. Just how do corporations, organizations, political figures and zealots use language, images, objects or actions to convince us of their (un)truth(s)? Investigating that question is at the center of “Rhetorics of Deception and Deflection: How Big Oil, Political Extremism and the NRA are Framing Our Future.” Taking as our primary case study the competing contemporary rhetorics of global climate change, we will collectively investigate how rhetorical appeals, the arts of linguistic deception and deflection, and the framing of arguments define and defy truth. Students will analyze discourses, images, bodies, actions, digital platforms, and material artifacts through a wide range of methods and methodologies: cluster criticism, qualitative coding, historiographic analysis, case studies, ethnography, and fieldwork. Each student will select and investigate throughout the term a debate, public policy, social movement, organization, etc., deploying multiple means of analysis—not to settle on a belief (or persuade others to that belief) but—to examine (as Krista Ratcliff writes) “how we use language and how languages uses us.”
Guiding Questions: Just how do corporations, organizations, political figures and zealots use language, images and objects or actions to convince us of their (un)truth(s)? What tools (if not those of the master) can I use (to quote Audre Lorde) to “dismantle the master’s house”?
Potential Texts: Jensen, Tim. Ecologies of Guilt in Environmental Rhetorics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Mann, Michael E. The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back the Planet, Public Affairs, 2021. Rai, Candice, and Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, eds. Field Rhetoric: Ethnography, Ecology, and Engagement in the Places of Persuasion, The University of Alabama Press, 2018.
Potential Assignments: Short rhetorical analysis exercises, ethnographic observations, "fieldwork" investigating living-rhetoric-in-action, a final project and showcase (discursive, visual, or multimodal).
English 4592 (10): Special Topics in Women, Literature and Culture: Women's Sonnets
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Women played an influential role in the development of the sonnet. When the Italian poet Petrarch popularized the form in the fourteenth century, he started an ongoing literary tradition, and women have been at the forefront of its innovation almost from the start. Initially present only as love objects, women quickly adapted the form to their own poetic voices. The Protestant exile Anne Lock was responsible for getting the first sonnet sequence in English published in 1560 when she appended Thomas Norton’s paraphrases of Psalm 51 to her translation of one of Calvin’s sermons, while women like Elizabeth Carey and Lady Spencer participated in the translation of Petrarch’s original Canzoniere in the 1590s. After we dive into the mechanics of what makes a sonnet “a sonnet,” we’ll apply our knowledge to trace the history of women’s sonnets from the sixteenth century to today. In addition to gaining mastery of poetic form, students will engage with feminist and queer theory to explore what sonnets help us understand about gender and sexuality, and what gender and sexuality can help us understand about sonnets.
Potential Texts: Stephen Regan, Mary Wroth, Emma Lazarus, Charlotte Smith, Patience Agbabi, Natasha Trethewey, Marilyn Nelson, Marilyn Hacker, Gwendolyn Brooks and June Jordan.
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women, Literature and Culture: Medieval Women
Instructor: Karen Winstead
In this course you’ll meet some of the diverse women who inhabited the Middle Ages, including Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, medieval Europe’s first dramatist; Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, advisor to rulers and popes, inventor of a language and alphabet and author of poetry, music, plays and treatises on topics ranging from botany to sex; Margery Kempe, visionary, mother of fourteen, entrepreneur and traveler; Christine de Pizan, a young widow who supported her children and mother by writing poetry, political allegories and self-help books at the court of France; Leoba, the teacher who promoted self-care as a prerequisite to effective learning. You’ll encounter remarkable gender-benders, including the military leader and martyr Joan of Arc and the (fictional) Silence, born a woman but raised to be a great knight.
Guiding Questions: How do the structures of patriarchy that prevailed during the Middle Ages resemble or differ from those that prevail now? What were the social, political, economic, and cultural factors that shaped women's lives and writings? How can a nuanced understanding of women's experience in the past nuance our understanding of women's experience in the present? How did queerness manifest itself in the Middle Ages?
Potential Texts: The Romance of Silence, Book of Margery Kempe, Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Lais of Marie de France, Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan.
Potential Assignments: Most of your grade will be determined by your performance on the weekly quizzes and informal writing assignments designed to deepen your engagement with and appreciation of the literature you will be reading. For your final project, you will construct a metaphorical "City of Ladies" from the stories and experiences of the women you have studied.
English 4592 (30): Special Topics in Women, Literature and Culture: African American Women’s Poetry Books, 1773-present--SESSION 2
Instructor: Molly Farrell
What does the literary history of Black women’s writing in America tell us about the poetry book as a form, and vice versa? In this class, we will read across four centuries of Black women’s volumes of poetry, each book expressing a moment in time in the careers of legendary writers, rather than an anthology that attempts to be comprehensive. How do these poems speak to each other within the book, and how do African American women poets speak to each other—or not—across time? Our explorations into these questions will begin and end in the eighteenth century, with Rita Dove’s epic Sonata Mulattica set in that historical period, and with the first book published by an African American, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects. In between we will read breakout books by Frances E. W. Harper in the nineteenth century and Gwendolyn Brooks in the twentieth; as well as books celebrating Black Power and the expansiveness of children’s literature. Course requirements may include short interpretive exercises, response papers, a discussion presentation, and a final essay.
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor: Sona Hill
Disability Studies is a field of study which offers a critique of commonly held assumptions regarding oppressive binaries such as normal/abnormal, disabled/non-disabled, rational/irrational, human/subaltern, white/colored, civilized/savage – binaries that are justified by claiming that they are rooted in irrefutable scientific fact. This course aims at fostering a critical conversation among social justice studies, transnationalism (or global studies) and disability studies. These are three interdisciplinary realms of knowledge in need of engagement with one another, given today’s socio-political landscape.
In the global context, people become disabled as they are often forced to move/migrate/seek-asylum. At other times, people cannot move precisely because they are disabled. People become disabled in containment/immobility (e.g., prison), or they are imprisoned in institutions because they are disabled. A new wave of emerging literature argues that moving and not-being-able to move in relation to borders, walls, wars and bodies should be politicized and historicized. In this course, we use the global context of a capitalist economy, the imperialist politics of the US, Western Europe, Russia and China, and regional imperialism(s) and nationalism(s) in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Latin America to understand how disabled bodies are generated through incarceration, neocolonialism, forced migration and armed conflicts sustained by exploitative social relations, which are always and inevitably gendered and raced. In this course, we will also take a look at Indigeneity (relationship to land) and disability. In order to think about race, Indigeneity and disability together, we must pay close attention to the multiple dimensions of settler-colonial violence, including the violence of: healthcare, education and social services. Moreover, we must grasp both the ways in which settler-colonialism is disabling through its violence, racism and gross inequality; and the ways in which settler-colonialism represents Indigenous people as always/already disabled.
This course is designed in a way that Disability Studies attempts to take up disability in the context of settler- and neo-colonialism as well as global- and regional-imperialism(s). We will query the seemingly irresistible urge toward research entitlement in health and disability studies in the global context, and interrogate locations of settler/imperial power and privilege. As well, this course will focus on the gender, race, and class dimensions of population movement, global class relations, and forced migration. The course will pay careful attention to competing theoretical analyses of the relationship between disability, gender, race, and class in the context of neocolonialism and imperialism. We will discuss disability theories, critical feminist and race theories, Marxist feminist analysis, transnational, diaspora, mobility and cultural studies.
Guiding Questions: What does it mean to understand disability as a global phenomenon? How does disability intersect with race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class and geopolitics?
Potential Text(s): All the readings (book chapters, journal articles, blogs) will be available on Carmen in the pdf format.
Potential Assignments: One-two paper(s), one group project, one creative work.
5000-level
English 5191: Internship in English Studies
Instructor: Scott DeWitt
This internship opportunity will offer students experience in creating timely, relevant and compelling short-form promotional media (primarily video and audio) for the Department of English. Students will work closely with their supervisor (Professor DeWitt) as well as with key communications personnel to develop projects and set priorities and deadlines. English 5191, Promotional Media Internship, will be intensely hands-on and focus almost exclusively on digital media production and related work-management skills in professional settings. This internship opportunity is especially applicable to students across majors who would like to develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting and for those who have digital media skills with nowhere to apply them. Media skills are NOT a pre-requisite for this internship; students will have the opportunity to learn all media skills necessary for the class. (This internship fulfills the digital media requirement for the Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy concentration in the English Major.)
Potential Assignments: YouTube videos, podcasts.
Guiding Questions: How can a promotional media internship opportunity help students across majors develop their digital media skills in a workplace setting?
Additional Materials: Experience with technology is helpful, but you will learn all of the skills you need in class.
English 5664: Studies in Graphic Narrative: Graphic Memoir
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
A course designed for both graduate students and advanced undergraduates, “Graphic Memoir” will introduce the styles, structures and strategies of autobiographical life stories told in comics form. Starting with “how-to” texts by comics artists, we will investigate the relationship among form, content and medium in graphic memoirs in a variety of styles. The readings fall into three groupings: lifewriting set in the context of larger historical events; memoirs of illness and recovery; and women’s memoirs focusing on gender and sexuality.
Guiding Questions: How do comics make meaning through graphic design? What can graphic narrative do for autobiography that prose narrative can't do? How (and why) do comics artists use their medium to represent personal, national and familial traumas?
Potential Texts: David B (1996), Epileptic; Lynda Barry (2005), One! Hundred! Demons!; Alison Bechdel (2006), Fun Home; Bethany Brownholtz (2013), Exercises in Style: 21st-century Remix pdf; Phoebe Gloeckner (2002), Diary of a Teenage Girl; Matt Madden (2005), 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style; Marisa Acocella Marchetto (2009), Cancer Vixen; Scott McCloud (2006), Making Comics; Khale McHurst, I Do Not Have an Eating Disorder (web comic); Raymond Queneau (1947/1981), Exercises in Style pdf; Marjane Satrap (2000), Persepolis; Art Spiegelman (1991), Maus; GB Tran (2011), Vietnamerica.
Potential Assignments: Students write weekly reading responses and do two kinds of oral presentations, one a commentary on a critical reading and one a close reading of a single page of graphic memoir. Each student creates a one-page graphic memoir. For the final project, students may choose to write a research paper or to create a more extended graphic memoir.
English 5721.01/5721.02: Graduate Studies in Renaissance Drama
Instructor: Christopher Highley
This course will introduce students to current critical approaches, methodologies and resources in the study of Early Modern drama. It defines drama broadly, in a way that encompasses many forms of performance, from adult and boy plays on the public stage, to school plays and court masques. Topics include: the business of theater; playwrights, players, and playgoers; the control and regulation of the stage; drama in print; the closing of the public theaters; and editing Early Modern plays. The plays we read will depend on student interests, but there will be a mix of the canonical (Marlowe's Dr. Faustus) and the more obscure (Ralph Roister Doister). We will also read modern scholarship, as well as documents from the period.
Guiding Questions: What forms did dramatic performance take in early modern England? What functions and whose interests did it serve? Why did a culture of public playgoing emerge in London and its suburbs in the later sixteenth centuries? How was public theater organized, managed and regulated? What sorts of questions and approaches have guided recent criticism of this drama and English theatrical culture more generally? What new resources are available for the study of this subject?
Potential Texts: Various paperback versions of plays as well as lots of Carmen readings.
Potential Assignments: Students will give in-class reports and write a research paper (which may be based on an examination of a play in the library's rare book room). There will also be various short exercises that utilize resources like the Early English Books Online (EEBO) database; the Database of Early English Playbooks (DEEP); Martin Wiggins, British Drama: A Catalogue; the Records of Early English Drama (REED); and the Map of Early Modern London (MOEML).
1000-level
English 1109: Intensive Writing and Reading
Instructor: Staff
Provides intensive practice in integrating academic reading and writing.
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.03: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, 1193.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing.
2000-level
English 2150: Career Preparation for English and Related Majors
Instructor: Jenny Patton
This general elective course helps English majors and students from other Humanities disciplines to explore and prepare for careers after graduation. Students will analyze texts to gain a practical and theoretical understanding of the world of work. They will learn to identify their own strengths and preferences to guide their job activity and career choices
English 2201: British Literature to 1800
Instructor: Karen Winstead
I teach this course with the conviction that engaging deeply with the literature of the past can enrich your lives and make you savvier consumers of the present. Everything you read and do is designed to stimulate a creative and productive engagement with the literature and culture of pre-1800 Britain. The readings and lectures will introduce you to major trends, authors and works from each of the four major periods of pre-1800 British literature and explore the contexts—social, historical, political, cultural—within which works were written and read. You will discover important forerunners of today’s popular genres, including horror, romance, comics and science fiction. Weekly quizzes will help consolidate your knowledge, while weekly writing assignments and discussions will challenge you to apply what you learned and to grow intellectually from your colleagues’ insights. The final portfolio project encourages you to channel your knowledge and think in creative ways.
Potential text(s): All readings will be available in a PressBoooks anthology designed specifically for this course.
Potential assignments: Weekly quizzes and informal writing assignments; participation in recitations; and a final portfolio project
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2201H: Selected Works of British Literature: Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This class seeks to give students a roadmap to the history of English literature from the earliest recorded texts to the late 1700s. Older literature in English often intimidates modern readers, but this course aims both to make texts understandable and to show their enduring interest and relevance to questions about identity, morality and aesthetics that still confront us today.
Guiding question(s): What is literature? How has it both shaped and been shaped by society? What value is there is studying texts written centuries ago?
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2202H: Survey of British Literature—Romantics to the Present
Instructor: Robyn Warhol
This writing- and discussion-intensive course surveys English literature from the Romantics to the 21st century—backwards. We begin with postmodern-era writers from Africa, India, Canada, Ireland and England; next we read Modernist authors; then we survey the Victorian period; and finally, we come to the Romantics. By starting with the present, we can recognize the themes, styles, and genres of the past that became important for the writers of today. Authors who are underrepresented in traditional literary history because of their race, gender or sexual orientation are at the center of our inquiry, instead of coming last, as if they were an afterthought of literary history.
Guiding question(s): What does the history of English literature look like, if viewed from other places in the world where English is spoken and written? What does our present-day culture remember about the Romantics, the Victorians and the Modernists, and what have we forgotten? What reading techniques can we use to get the most out of fiction, poetry and drama from the present and the past?
Potential text(s): The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Major Authors, 10th Edition, Volume 2. Be sure that you use this edition of the anthology. At least one copy will be on reserve at Thompson Library.
Potential assignments: Students will do creative work (like mapping, illustrating and parodying works we read) as well as informal and formal writing. Each student will also present one oral close reading of a short passage from the assigned reading.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 10 and 20 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
In late 16th-century London, on the south bank of the Thames, amongst bear-baiting rings and brothels stood a round wooden theater that brought together people from all walks of life—aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. It was for this space and for these people that William Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, and in this course, we’ll be imagining what it was like to stand with them and watch Shakespeare’s theater in action. Our in-depth exploration will include selected comedies and tragedies, not to mention a lot of fun along the way.
Potential text(s): Free online editions of Shakespeare from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 30 Instructor: Allison Hargett
When taking a course based entirely on one author, we have to ask: Why is Shakespeare so popular? Shakespeare’s enduringness and universality, as shown by the dozens of current film and novel adaptations of his plays, makes him a constant in English departments and high school curriculums. However, despite being the most quoted author in the English language and, debatably, the center of Renaissance literary studies, Shakespeare hardly existed in a vacuum. Our study of Shakespeare will move chronologically through a selection of his major works including lyric poetry, sonnets and plays, while recognizing those works by lesser-known authors that influenced and were influenced by Shakespeare. We’ll explore the social and political conditions in which Shakespeare wrote and aim to bust some common myths about several of Shakespeare’s major works and his representations of gender, sexuality, race and social identity. Ultimately, we’ll question how Shakespeare achieved his dominance in English classrooms while considering the impact of his works on 17th-century London and beyond.
Potential text(s): Free online editions of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 40 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Shakespeare continues to blow our minds, over 400 years after his death. This is a little surprising. No other writer, before or since, has quite captured the minds of people across the globe in the way that Shakespeare has. His plays have been translated into over 100 languages, and performed in at least 75 countries. Countless film versions have been made in dozens of countries, including all the European ones (of course) but also India, China, Japan, Russia, Korea, Madagascar, and on and on. Despite a decline in the popularity of live theater in western cultures, Shakespeare continues to thrive on stage. And his works continue to be read at all levels in the Anglo-American world and beyond. What accounts for this enduring popularity? Why do we care so much about Shakespeare? In this course we’ll explore some of the reasons for this global phenomenon, by reading the plays themselves closely and by studying the historical conditions—the culture, the politics, the religious milieu—in which Shakespeare wrote and lived. We’ll play special attention to the theatrical conventions that shape the kinds of plays Shakespeare wrote (comedies, histories, tragedies, romances), and to the ways in which he combined socially conservative views with an often radical and seemingly modern understanding of the relation between persons and cultural norms.
Potential text(s): Third edition of The Norton Shakespeare, in two volumes (early plays and late plays).
Potential assignments: Quizzes, response papers, collaborative group project, and one formal essay.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2220H: Honors Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Potential text(s): In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Richard II, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Macbeth, and The Winter's Tale. I will order the New Oxford Shakespeare, gen. ed. Gary Taylor et al. (ISBN 9780198749721), but any modern edition with glosses, notes and line numbers of the above plays is fine. Good editions of single plays are published by Folger, Pelican, Cambridge, Norton, Oxford, Bedford, Arden, Bantam and Signet. Reputable one-volume Complete Shakespeares are published by Longman, Pelican, Riverside and Norton.
Potential assignments: Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance and active participation.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity: Global Studies
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: David Brewer
Poetry used to be a fairly central part of American life, both in school and out. These days, except for song lyrics, it’s not. I think that’s a loss. This course will be devoted to exploring the many joys and insights that poetry (including lyrics) has to offer, in the hope that it will become a pleasure and a resource in your own lives, both now and going forward.
Potential assignments: Course requirements include a weekly reading journal; several short written exercises; several opportunities to write your own verse; active participation in our discussions; and a final project.
GE: Literature
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course introduces students to strategies for understanding and enjoying poetry in English, from Old English elegies through Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyrics to the musical Hamilton. We will learn about the sounds of poetry in the ear and the shapes of poetry on the page; we will discuss social and political uses of poetry; and we will learn about the techniques by which poets imbue their words with multiple layers of meaning.
Guiding question(s): How can we unfold the multiple layers of meaning in great poetry? How can we describe the sounds of poetry, and what do those sounds do to enhance a poem's meaning? How does performance, with or without music, change our perception of poetry?
Potential text(s): Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton; Shira Wolosky, The Art of Poetry; Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Wreck of the Deutschland"; and many short poems.
Potential assignments: Commonplace Book entries, several very short papers and quizzes.
Additional materials: Subscription to Disney+ for at least a month in order to view Hamilton multiple times.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Our subject will be literature from 2001 to the present. Our class this semester has this thesis: while the up-to-date concern for diversity would seem apt for new forms of literature and contemporary modes of art, I will argue that diversity has always been a subject for 20th-century authors. Most canonical works have always had the theme of diversity. We will see some of the following: ethnic diversity (African-American, Native American, Asian American and Jewish); literature about disabilities (injured veterans; blindness, autism, depression; alcoholism); the insane and the temporarily insane; and the victims of racism, prejudice and violence. Many works also consider traditionally denigrated groups, like women and homosexuals. The conclusion here is that such diversity in literature (as in life) calls for a good deal of tolerance and compassion, and it exercises our capacity for empathy and understanding.
Guiding question(s): What are the central themes in the literature of our time?
Potential text(s): Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad; David Eggers, The Circle; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me; Art Spiegelman, Maus.
Potential assignments: A few short essays; a midterm; a final; and participation in discussions.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 30 and 40 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2261 (Session 2): Introduction to Fiction—Game of Thrones as Literature
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker
Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. Focusing on the first two seasons of the HBO series, this class will train you in core analytical methods that will enable you to understand GoT at a deeper level; it will also improve your analytical skills overall. (We will not have time to read the books by George R.R. Martin.) All students are required to watch all eight seasons of the HBO series before second session begins. You will then re-watch (and read the transcript for) one episode per class period. Each class session will train you to understand and apply the core skills of literary interpretation without a lot of heavy reading assignments. You will see very quickly how meaningful and helpful they are in achieving a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones.
Potential assignments: Daily attendance with cameras on (maximum of four absences and/or four days without camera allowed before a penalty begins); preparation of five daily written homework questions; short daily quizzes about the homework; daily participation in class discussion; readings posted on Carmen; and three exams conducted on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count.
Additional materials: An HBO subscription
GE: Literature
English 2261H: Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth
Examination of the elements of fiction—plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc.—and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, communicate complex ideas and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the way in which the multiple elements of movie-making come together to make and complicate meaning.
Potential assignments: Two projects, including creative options; quizzes; and active discussion on Carmen and in recitation
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Instructor: Rob Barry
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Marne Litfin
Section 20 Instructor: Max Delsohn
Section 30 Instructor: Elise Gorzela
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Hannah Smith
Section 20 Instructor: Maya McOmie
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition, and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Clancy Tripp
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Amber Taylor
Section 20 Instructor: Elizabeth Lawson
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Instructor: Staff
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Emma Cobb
Folklore theory and methods explored through engagement with primary sources: folktale, legend, jokes, folksong, festival, belief, art. Folklore Minor course.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
*This is a combined-section course. Cross-listed in CompStd
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: Andrew Bashford
English 2276 introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts. Come learn the ancient and modern arts of persuasion! In English 2276, we'll practice techniques developed for writing effective, ethical (and stylish) arguments. Plus, we'll learn theory designed for dealing successfully with complex and contentious issues.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Melissa Guadron
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2280H: The English Bible
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
The Bible contains some of the weirdest and most wonderful literature you will ever read, and there is certainly no book that has had a greater influence on English and American literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s Progress to The Chronicles of Narnia, Whitman’s Song of Myself to Morrison’s Song of Solomon. We will read a selection of biblical books in order to gain some appreciation of the Bible’s wide range of literary genres, forms, styles and topics. Our discussion will include the nature of biblical narrative and characterization; the function of prophecy and its relation to history; the peculiar nature of biblical poetry; so-called Wisdom literature; anomalous books like Job and The Song of Songs (including the historical process of canonization that made them “biblical” and the kinds of interpretation that have been used to make them less strange); the relationship between (in traditional Christian terms) the Old and New Testaments (including typology, the symbolic linking of characters, events, themes and images in the books before and after the Incarnation); and the unity (or lack thereof) of the Bible as a whole. As occasion warrants, we will also look at some of the diverse ways the Bible has been read and interpreted—the stranger the better—by poets and writers, artists and film-makers over the past millennia.
Do note: this is NOT a course in religion, but rather an English course on the Bible as a literary work. Any and all faiths, or none, are welcome, and none will be privileged.
Potential text(s): The English Bible: King James Version (2 vols.), ed. Herbert Marks (1) and Gerald Hammond and Austin Busch (2), Norton Critical Edition.
Potential assignments: Evaluation will be based on active participation in class discussion and activities; a film review; an essay; a mid-term test; and a final exam.
GE: Literature
English 2281 (10): Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́
"It is right that what is just should be obeyed.” (Blaise Pascal, Pensee 1670)
In this introductory course, we will be interpreting fiction, poetry, film, drama and commentary about variations on the African American drive for justness. The historical coverage will be wide, and the range will extend far back to 1773.
Guiding questions: One recurrent question: why seek justness?Potential texts: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Valerie Smith (eds.), Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Films: Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters; Jordan Peele's Get Out; Ryan Coogler's The Black Panther
Potential assignments: (a) Two analytical papers, each about 1,500 words long, on different sections of course readings and discussion topics; (b) One short answer final exam on the main themes, genre and texts discussed in the class; (c) Reading assignment quizzes.
Additional materials: MS Office, Adobe Acrobat
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt.
English 2281 (20): Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course offers a chronological survey of African American literature from its beginnings in the 1700s through the late twentieth century, introducing students to major African American-authored texts from a variety of genres (autobiography, poetry, fiction, drama, oratory, and essay). While conceiving of African American literature as a coherent set of traditions with recurring themes and styles, we will seek to understand each writer’s representational project in depth and to situate his or her work in its specific literary, cultural, and historical contexts.
Potential Texts: We'll be looking at texts included in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. The authors we read will likely include: Philip Wheatley, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Keckley, Frances E. W. Harper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, Ida Wells-Barnett, Claude McKay, Rudolph Fisher, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler.
Potential Assignments: Daily reading quizzes, two shorter papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Lesia Pahulich
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in WGSSt
English 2291: U.S. Literature—1865 to the Present
Instructor: Brian McHale
This course provides a broad survey of American literature over more than a century and a half, from the aftermath of the Civil War to the new millennium. Examining a wide range of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, the course studies literary engagements with such historical and cultural phenomena as post-Civil War Reconstruction; the expanding social, economic and cultural networks of the late-19th and early 20th centuries; immigration and internal migration; race and regional identity; the two World Wars and other armed conflicts of the 20th century; and the increasingly rapid pace of social and technological changes over the last 75 years. Our investigation of literary responses and influences will include attention to such literary genres, trends and movements as the short story, the emergence of new forms of poetry, realism and its variants, modernism and postmodernism.
Guiding question(s): 1) How did U.S. literature change over the decades from Reconstruction to the end of the 20th century? In response to what external and internal factors? 2) How do the successive periods of U.S. literature – Realism, Modernism, Postmodernism – differ from each other? What is distinctive about each? 3) Who made U.S. literature in these decades? What were their backgrounds? How did U.S. writers relate to each other, to the cultural institutions of their time, and to the larger forces of history? 4) What kinds (genres) of writing were practiced in each period of U.S. literary history?
Potential text(s): Robert S. Levine et al, editors, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2: 1865 to the Present. Shorter Ninth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017. Other texts will be made available via Carmen.
Potential assignments: Weekly quizzes; regular posting to discussion boards; midterm exam; final exam
GE: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 20, 40 and 60 Instructor: Staff
Discussion and practice of the conventions, practices and expectations of scholarly reading of literature and expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
GE: Literature (B.S. only)
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 70 Instructor: Jessica Prinz
Our subject will be literature from 2001 to the present. Our class this semester has this thesis: while the up-to-date concern for diversity would seem apt for new forms of literature and contemporary modes of art, I will argue that diversity has always been a subject for 20th-century authors. Most canonical works have always had the theme of diversity. We will see some of the following: ethnic diversity (African-American, Native American, Asian American and Jewish); literature about disabilities (injured veterans; blindness, autism, depression; alcoholism); the insane and the temporarily insane; and the victims of racism, prejudice and violence. Many works also consider traditionally denigrated groups, like women and homosexuals. The conclusion here is that such diversity in literature (as in life) calls for a good deal of tolerance and compassion, and it exercises our capacity for empathy and understanding.
Guiding question(s): How do we read contemporary fiction? What are some of the central themes of the period?
Potential text(s): Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad; David Eggers, The Circle; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me; Art Spiegelman, Maus.
Potential assignments: Two or three short essays; a midterm; a final; and participation in discussions.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
GE: Literature (B.S. only)
English 2367.03: Documentary in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
An intermediate course that extends and refines skills in critical reading and expository writing through analysis of written texts, video, and documentaries.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2367.05: The U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Staff
Concepts of American folklore & ethnography; folk groups, tradition, & fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, & thinking skills.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Jamie Utphall
Extends & refines expository writing & analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality & reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education & pop culture in America.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
English 2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus: Hip Hop Literacies
Instructor: Christopher Castillo
This particular course centers the study of literacy in the Black Columbus community. You will learn about the field of literacy studies, African American literacies, and the importance of collecting, analyzing, and preserving life history and literacy narratives. You will collaborate with a small group of peers to gather literacy narratives in partnership with local members of the Black Columbus community. Our course topic centers around Hip Hop as a global youth culture rooted in the histories, politics, and experiences of African/Black Americans. We will explore the historical and contemporary intersections between literacy and Hip Hop -- from the lived creative communities of rappers, taggers, and break dancers to the commodified cultural products found on Fortnite, TikTok, and Broadway -- and think carefully about how these connections matter in the narratives you publish and the narratives you collect. Additionally, you will learn practical digital literacy skills in preparation for the community sharing night, our culminating course event and public reception where you will share your work with members of the local community.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the US)
*This is a combined-section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt.
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style, and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the English Department Video Game Lab.
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Morgan Podraza
Study of sequential comics and graphic narrative and the formal elements of comics, how word and image compete and collaborate in comics to make meaning and how genre is activated and redeployed. Students analyze comics texts, articulate and defend interpretations of meaning and learn about archival research at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required.
GE: Visual and Performing Arts
3000-level
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 10 and 20 Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language; the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English, and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3271 (30): Structures of the English Language
Instructor: Galey Modan
This course is an introduction to English linguistics. You will gain the analytical tools to scientifically analyze any language, and apply those tools to English. We will learn about the basic characteristics of language: the sounds of English and how they’re put together; word formation processes; and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. While studying how the basic building blocks of language work, we will also investigate linguistic variation, accents of American English, and language and education. We’ll also consider how standard and non-standard varieties of English get evaluated in the US, and the implications of such evaluations in educational settings.
Guiding question(s): How do the systems of sound, word formation, meaning and grammar work in English? Where do attitudes about 'good' and 'bad,' 'proper' and 'broken' English come from, why are they generally unrelated to the inherent structure of English and how are they used to perpetuate discrimination?
Potential text(s): How English Works by Anne Curzan and Michael Adams
Potential assignments: Problem sets, slang journal, group discussions, quizzes, midterm and final
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Instructor: Staff
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization, and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Nathan Richards
Study of fictional and nonfictional narratives offering diverse perspectives on such medical issues as illness, aging, treatment, health and healing, and doctor-patient relationships.
GE: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture—Vampires
Instructor: Karen Winstead
We will investigate the representation of vampires in popular culture, from their folkloric roots and their classic 19th-century literary representations to their recent incarnations in TV, film, games and novels. What makes bloodsuckers so mesmerizing? How has their image shifted through the centuries and across cultures? How and why have they been used to explore issues as diverse as generational and class conflict, racial prejudice, environmental responsibility, changing gender roles? How can we use them to think about the issues that matter to us?
Potential text(s): Novel(las): Polidori, The Vampyre; Stoker, Dracula; Marryat, Blood of the Vampire; Gomez, The Gilda Stories; and Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things. Films: Alfredson, Let the Right One In; Amirpour, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night; and Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive.
Potential assignments: Weekly quizzes on the readings and lectures; informal writing assignments ("vampire diaries"); and a creative/analytical final project ("gallery of fear")
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3372 (10): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Time Travel
Instructor: Clare Simmons
Supposing you could travel to the future: Would it be an improvement on the world that we know, or is the future of the Earth something we’d rather not think about? And supposing you could go back in time: What would you want to see? What would you want to change? Could you in fact change the past, and if so, what would be the effect on our world now? In this course we will explore ideas about time travel old and new in variety of classic science fiction works.
Potential text(s): Texts will include works by William Morris, H.G Wells, Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Octavia Butler, and more; we will also view some movie and video ideas about time travel ranging from Dr. Who to The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Potential assignments: Assignments will include quizzes, a short paper, and a research report based on a novel or video of your choice.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (20): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Octavia Butler's Visions
Instructor: Molly Farrell
A president campaigns on a promise to "make America great again." Violent mobs inspired by this slogan terrorize anyone who stands in his way. Migrants head north and climate change devastates California. All the while, interest in Mars exploration grows despite budget cuts. All of this Octavia Butler envisioned in her startlingly prescient Parable novels from the 1990s, which have only grown in stature since her death in 2004. This class will dive into Butler's pathbreaking speculative fiction, from her time-bending novel Kindred about confronting the realities of enslavement to her lesser-known works that established her as a founder of Afro-Futurism. In addition, we will explore different editions of her works and the papers she left behind in the archive to learn more about how her ideas developed as she became a "genius" award-winning leader in a genre that had previously excluded Black women.
Potential assignments: Critical essays, research and creative responses, presentations, attendance and participation.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (40): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Environmental Science Fiction
Instructor: Thomas Davis
How do we imagine human futures on a warming, volatile Earth? In recent years, sci-fi and fantasy have begun directly addressing the crises of climate change, the sixth mass extinction and the uncertain prospects for human life on an altered planet. This class examines the ways environmental sci-fi/fantasy novels, short fiction and film narrate planetary change and what that means for human and nonhuman futures. Students will read from read and view a diverse set of sci-fi/fantasy fiction, ranging from intergalactic epics, Afrofuturism, weird fiction and the recent subgenre cli-fi. Students will also get a chance to build their own environmental sci-fi/fantasy worlds.
Potential text(s): Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, Jeff VanderMeer's Borne, Omar El Akkad's American War and N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. We may also explore video games and very likely a film.
Potential assignments: Short papers, a zine and a creative-critical world-building project.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (50): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Children's Fantasy Literature
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This class will survey some of the most important children's fantasy novelists of the 20th century, from E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien up through Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. LeGuin, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones and N.K. Jemisin. We will examine how these two genres—fantasy and children's lit—grew up together, and we will explore the varying influences on these writers, from myth and folklore to Christianity and Taoism and Existentialism to feminism and critical race theory.
Potential assignments: Course requirements include a paper, two responses, a final exam, quizzes and active participation in class discussions.
GE: Literature
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature—The Film and Literature of 1930s Hollywood
Instructor: Jared Gardner
After the introduction of sound film in 1927 and with the advent of the Great Depression in 1929, American film and literature faced new opportunities and new challenges. We will watch a range of films in the context of the development of film in the 1930s, alongside fiction that was the inspiration for Hollywood films of the period or was itself shaped by Hollywood. In our readings we will focus especially on authors who joined the caravan of writers seeking to capitalize on Hollywood’s new need for dialogue and, after the implementation of the Motion Picture Production Code of 1934, Hollywood’s desperation for writers who could address adult topics without spelling them out directly.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: John Jones
In English 3379, you will learn about the scholarly practices of researchers in writing, rhetoric and literacy (WRL) studies. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields of English studies by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. And you will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts—both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
Potential assignments: Students will complete projects in rhetoric, writing and literacy along with a final project.
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 10 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This course has two goals. First, the course will give you the tools you need to succeed as an English Major. We will work on fundamental skills such as close textual analysis; practice putting together essays and research projects; and learn some of the specialized vocabulary writers and scholars use to talk about literary works. Second, we will also think together about why literature is important, what it does for us and how we understand its place in the modern world.
Potential text(s): Mark Strand and Evan Boland, The Making of a Poem; James Joyce, Dubliners; Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Potential assignments: Students will write three short papers.
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 30 Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing. Required of English majors. Open to English majors only or others by dept permission.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This section of English 3398 combines exercises in analytical reading with formal and informal writing assignments. The emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and strengthening of skills required in many upper-division English courses. These skills include (a) the ability to objectify and articulate what we, as readers, bring to interpretation of a text; (b) the ability to “close read” for patterns and argue from them; (c) the ability to identify the conventions of various textual forms (genres) and the different kinds of critical engagement they encourage; and (d) the ability to conduct and effectively incorporate research into the historical backgrounds, reception or influence of authors and texts. These four emphases inform the four unit divisions of our class.
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Katie Pyontek
Section 30 Instructor: Macey Wright
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Neomi Chao
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Beverly Moss
English/CSTW 3467s focuses on theories and practices in tutoring writing. The aim of this course is to prepare undergraduates to work with writers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. This class provides a unique opportunity for its members to learn about composition theory and pedagogy, tutoring strategies and writing center theories and practices in order to put these theories and practices to work in classroom and writing center settings. Students will apprentice as writing consultants/tutors in the University Writing Center. Therefore, in addition to our regularly scheduled class time, each person enrolled in this course will spend approximately one hour per week in the Writing Center. In addition to your observations, you will be expected to complete a semester-long research project. This course is particularly helpful to those who are planning careers as teachers or who are enrolling in the professional writing minor (3467 is an elective for the writing minor).
Potential text(s): Fitzgerald and Ianetta, The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors
Potential assignments: Observations in the writing center; tutor journal; final project.
*This is a combined-section class. Cross listed in ArtsSci
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Louise Edwards
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Kortney Morrow
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Section 20 Instructor: Daniel Seward
Section 30 Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4514: Middle English Literature
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This course will look at some of the most exciting literature written in England during the Middle Ages, a period of social upheaval and rapid transformation. And a period of great stories. We'll look at stories of knightly adventure, philosophical rumination, and one of the earliest autobiographies ever written. We'll be reading these texts in Middle English, the language of the time, but no prior knowledge of the language will be assumed -- indeed, learning a little bit of it will be part of the fun.
Potential text(s): Geoffrey Chaucer, Dream Visions; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Sir Orfeo; Thomas Hoccleve, The Series.
Potential assignments: A midterm, final exam and paper.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Alan Farmer
This course will explore the formal, social, and political engagements of Shakespeare’s plays. It will pay particular attention to how his plays conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance, and to how they represent such issues as gender, sexuality, religion, race, and political power.
Potential text(s): In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will likely read some combination of the following plays: Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. I will order the New Oxford Shakespeare, gen. ed. Gary Taylor et al. (ISBN 9780198749721), but any modern edition with glosses, notes and line numbers of the above plays is fine. Good editions of single plays are published by Folger, Pelican, Cambridge, Norton, Oxford, Bedford, Arden, Bantam and Signet. Reputable one-volume Complete Shakespeares are published by Longman, Pelican, Riverside and Norton.
Potential assignments: Requirements include two essays, a performance review, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance and active participation.
English 4520.02: Special Topics in Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
We tend to think of Shakespeare as in a class by himself, and in some ways it’s true: he really was exceptional. And yet he never worked outside the context of the highly collaborative theater business; he was always closely attuned to changing audience tastes as to the work of contemporary playwrights. In this course we will read a few Shakespeare plays alongside others that influenced them or that they influenced. We may pair The Merchant of Venice, for example, with Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, The Tempest with Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, and Hamlet with Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. The plays in each of these pairings are each wonderful in their own right, but they become even more delightful when we begin to see the connections between them. Prior experience with Shakespeare is nice, but by no means necessary.
Potential text(s): Individual editions of several plays, and possibly a collected works of Shakespeare.
Potential assignments: Quizzes, response papers, one or two formal essays, and a collaborative project.
English 4521: Renaissance Drama—Ben Jonson
Instructor: Christopher Highley
Ben Jonson famously said of Shakespeare that he was "not for an age, but for all time." Yet ironically, it was Jonson and not his friend and rival Shakespeare who was the more celebrated dramatist in the later seventeenth century.
This course will introduce you to one of Renaissance England’s most flamboyant personalities and one of its greatest playwrights. Whereas Shakespeare left us few clues about his private life, Jonson left an abundance. It was a life full of danger: the young Jonson killed a man in a duel and narrowly escaped the death penalty; he later converted to Catholicism at a time when doing so put one’s life in danger; and in 1605, he got caught up in the Gunpowder plot to assassinate King James. Several of his plays caused political scandals and landed him in trouble. Yet Jonson also enjoyed the friendship of some of the age’s great intellectuals as well as the patronage of nobles and monarchs. He even considered himself England’s Poet Laureate.
Jonson wrote nearly twenty plays (most were comedies), but we will only be able to read a handful like The Alchemist in which a gang of rogues con their London neighbors during plague-time; Volpone in which a man pretends to be on his deathbed in order to extort his acquaintances; and Epicoene in which a nephew hatches an outrageous cross-dressing scheme in order to trick his miserly and noise-averse uncle. These comedies are uproariously LOL funny, politically edgy and endlessly discussable.
English 4551: Special Topics in 19th-Century U.S. Literature—Photography and Literature
Instructor: Susan Williams
"A picture is worth a thousand words." This adage first appeared in print in 1911, but it has a pre-history in the works of 19th-century American writers who explored the possibility that images could replace words. The 1839 invention of the daguerreotype—the first photographic method—and the technological innovation that followed created new understandings of the relationship between visual and verbal representation. In this course, we will examine 19th-century American texts that respond to photography as a new technology by using photographic portraits as a plot device, theme or image. We will also see how American writers used photographic portraits to help advertise and promote their writing, as well as how their writing helped establish key words for representing photography as a visual medium that is both hyper-realistic and uncanny. We will read works of poetry, fiction and drama in order to understand how different literary genres explored this new medium. We will also consider how the rise of photography intersected with abolitionist literature to make slavery visible in ways that we continue to reckon with today.
Guiding question(s): How did 19th-century American writers understand photographs in spiritual or magical terms on one hand, and scientific and realistic terms on the other? What stories do 19th-century photographs tell, and how do fictional, dramatic or poetic invocations of photographs help us understand the medium more fully? How does reading a photograph compare to reading a literary work? How does the history of photographic portraiture inform our use of selfies and social media today?
Potential text(s): Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon: A Play in Four Acts; Alexander Gardner, Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War (Dover) ISBN: 978-0486227313; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (Penguin) ISBN: 978-0140390056; short stories, poetry and essays by Charles Chesnutt, Rebecca Harding Davis, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman.
Potential assignments: Bi-weekly homework assignments (reflections; discussion posts; collaborative research page; archival assignments); two papers (one interpretive and one research); and occasional in-class exercises or quizzes. We will utilize Ohio State's libraries' acclaimed Rinhart collection of daguerreotypes as well as historical newspaper and periodical databases that will help us research literary uses of photography.
English 4559: Introduction to Narrative and Narrative Theory
Instructor: Brian McHale
“Narrative” is a current buzz-word and a catch-all term—everything is narrative nowadays! However, it is also one of the principle means of organizing experience in everyday life and conversation, popular culture and literary works. This course introduces students to the basic concepts and tools of “classical” narrative theory and analysis, in four general areas: the underlying structure of story; the reordering of story-events in the plot; the production of a story-world (narrative time and space); and the representation of selves (narrators, speakers, perceivers, minds). We will study a selection of classic essays in narrative theory, and we will read and analyze a variety of mainly literary narrative – fairy-tales, short-stories, novels, a graphic narrative, a film and an episode from a tv series. We will also survey some of the developments in “post-classical” narrative theory, including rhetorical narrative theory, feminist and queer narratology, cognitive narrative theory, and seriality and complexity in narrative TV.
Guiding question(s): 1) How do we make sense of stories? What makes them worth telling? What makes them intelligible and interesting? 2) How do stories produce worlds? How do they represent selves? 3) What do stories do? What can we do with them?
Potential text(s): Alison Bechdel, Fun Home; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; and Gabriel García-Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Other texts will be made available through CarmenCanvas.
Potential assignments: Five short papers and one longer final paper.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Lee Martin
This is an advanced fiction workshop. Our focus will be on original pieces of fiction submitted for workshop discussion. We'll be particularly interested in pieces that explore the complicated layers of characters, or what William Faulkner called "the verities and truths of the heart." Fiction exists to show us something about what it is to be human, and that's what we'll expect from the pieces submitted to the workshop. I'll ask students to give me a significant revision of one piece at the end of the semester. Over the course of our time together, we may read published pieces and participate in writing exercises intended to generate material and allow the practice of certain techniques of fiction.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Marcus Jackson
Advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. This is a class for serious students of creative writing. Admission is by portfolio submission to the instructor.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Zoë Brigley Thompson
This is the advanced creative writing workshop in creative nonfiction. Admission is limited to creative writing concentrators who have taken English 2268 and to other students who have successfully completed English 2268 with permission of the instructor by portfolio submission.
Potential text(s): No textbook will be required. Various essays and craft texts will be provided via Carmen. The bulk of students’ reading will consist of their peers’ workshop essays.
Potential assignments: Workshop essay, peer responses, writing exercises and brief reading responses.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: John Jones
In this course, students will explore how digital culture enables physical objects to argue. From smart speakers to fitness trackers, digital technologies are enabling new forms of communication, both in the production of new genres of written text and in their interactions with people and the environment. Students will use the programable Arduino platform to explore the rhetorical possibilities of interactive digital objects, paying particular attention to the new forms of digital creativity they are enabling. In this way, students will not only analyze digital objects but become makers themselves, thinking about new relations between people and the physical world that are enabled by our devices and the new forms of writing they can support.
Potential text(s): Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform, 3rd edition
Additional materials: Arduino starter kit
Potential assignments: Students will create multiple interactive design projects, write a short paper and take occasional quizzes.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
An examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4573.01: Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Instructor: James Fredal
If you've ever been moved by a poem or film, angered by a tweet, laughed at YouTube video, pondered an essay or learned something new from a newspaper article or textbook, then you've experienced rhetoric. To study rhetoric is to learn about how texts work on people cognitively, emotionally, imaginatively, morally, even physically. It is to learn to be a better reader and perhaps a better writer. We'll study rhetoric through theory—learning new terms and concepts for talking about texts—and we'll do it through analysis—examining classic texts to see how they work. You'll write eight or so short papers on the texts we analyze, and then two or three longer unit papers that build on the short ones. We'll start with texts that we work on as a class, then you'll be encouraged to find your own texts, to show us how they work and what is interesting about them. This will be a hands-on course: expect lots of discussion and in-class analysis.
Guiding question(s): How do texts work? How do they create meaning and effects in their audiences? And how do audiences perceive and construct these effects?
Potential text(s): Sonja Foss's Rhetorical Criticism, plus a range of classic works in poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, broadcast and digital, graphics and video, and games.
Potential assignments: Several short papers and two to three longer unit papers.
English 4573.02: Rhetoric and Social Action—Health, Illness and Wellness Activism
Instructor: Margaret Price
This course investigates sites of social action including public speech, demonstrations, social-media communications and art/activism (“artivism”) that relate to questions of health, illness and wellness. We’ll study the rhetorical and discursive work that circulates around contemporary social-action movements such as the Movement for Black Lives, the Me Too movement and Disability Justice. We’ll engage questions such as these: How does activism around questions of health, illness and wellness get started? How is it sustained, and who benefits (or is harmed) in various ways? How do health, illness and wellness intersect with other categories, such as race, gender, sexuality, class and geography? What are the implications when health/illness activism moves globally?
Potential texts: Potential texts will include Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; Building Access by Aimi Hamraie; "The Care and Feeding of 911 Infrastructure" by Elizabeth Ellcessor; "Small Change" by Malcolm Gladwell; "Publics and Counterpublics" by Michael Warner.
Potential assignments: Students will complete weekly short assignments, including discussion posts, short reading responses and reading quizzes. Longer assignments will include analyses of readings and a multi-media project.
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes
Instructor: Angus Fletcher
In this course, you'll learn to write like your favorite author, in any genre or any medium, from poetry to comics, film to fiction, essays to television, memoir to mashup, ancient or modern. You'll start by learning the secret to uncovering your favorite author's creative blueprint, identifying the formal elements that your author uses like nobody else. Maybe the element is a unique style, or a special recipe for character, or an innovative use of plot, or storyworld, or voice, or atmosphere. Then you'll incorporate that blueprint into your own writing. So you'll create your own original piece of writing that sounds just like your favorite author--while also sounding just like you.
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film—Crying, Screaming, ****ing: Film's Body Genres
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Why and how does film affect our bodies, marshalling its technical and formal apparatus to make viewers weep, or gasp in terror, or feel desire? To a certain extent, as a visual and aural medium capturing real bodies moving in space and time, all films require and solicit bodily responsiveness. But the so-called "body genres"—melodrama, horror and pornography—are unique in their singular devotion to responsiveness, and to soliciting a particular *kind* of response. In this class we will attempt to come to terms with the history and logic of each of the genres separately; with what they might have in common; and what they reveal about the role of the body in film more generally.
Potential texts: Films might include: Way Down East; Within Our Gates; Stella Dallas; Letter From an Unknown Woman; Imitation of Life; The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant; Dancer in the Dark; The Cabinet of Dr. Calligari; Cat People; What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?; Rosemary's Baby; Don't Look Now; Us; Teeth; In The Realm of the Senses; Romance XX; Love; Stranger by the Lake; and Shame. Occasional readings in film theory.
Potential assignments: Possible assignments include discussion posts, a paper, a mid-term exam, a genre tree and a final project.
Additional materials: Course may require occasional film rentals.
English 4578 (30): Special Topics in Film—Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Nolan
Instructor: Sean O'Sullivan
Think of an Anglo-American director whose career has been defined by popular entertainments--loosely categorized as "suspense thrillers"--and who has achieved wide-spread success both at the box office and among movie critics. You might be thinking of Alfred Hitchcock; but you might be thinking of Christopher Nolan. This course will juxtapose two filmmakers who explore similar territories, particularly in the relationship between psychology and narrative, and between individuality and genre. But these filmmakers also represent two very different moments in cinema history: the "classical" Hollywood from the middle of the 20th century, and the blockbuster/independent era of the early 21st century. We will look closely at some of Hitchcock's and Nolan's signature films, paying attention to them as distinct works of art, but we will simultaneously consider how those works of art reflect conventions and innovations of movie storytelling as a practice, and as a cultural touchstone.
Guiding question(s): How do we assess the intersections of artistic ambition and popular success? Why does our sense of a director's career matter to how we watch individual films? When do we care about character, and when do we care about plot? What happens when character is plot, and plot is character?
Potential text(s): The 39 Steps; The Lady Vanishes; Vertigo; North by Northwest; Psycho; The Birds; Memento; The Prestige; The Dark Knight; Inception; and Tenet. We will likely read 1-2 articles or book chapters per week.
Potential assignments: Two shorter essays; final project; regular quizzes; in-class writing; active engagement in the course. Creative options for the final project will be available.
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures—Race and Indigeneity in Visual Culture
Instructor: Jian Chen
This course focuses on representations and economies of race and indigeneity in visual culture, including film and video, performance, digital media and literature. How do different cultural technologies and genres visualize race and indigeneity? How do these visual representations reproduce, mediate, resist and/or reshape histories of white supremacy, settler colonialism and racial capitalism? We will engage with materials that show and discuss the visual dimensions of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and Arab/Middle Eastern racialization and racial identity, especially as they intersect with gender, sexuality, migration, socio-economic class and dis/ability.
Potential text(s): Assigned course materials may include work by Stuart Hall, Kim Tallbear, Leticia Alvarado, Ella Shohat, Lisa Nakamura, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Sydney Freedland, Mindy Kaling, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Ava DuVernay.
Potential assignments: Assignments may include short written exercises and an exploratory final project.
English 4586: Studies in American Indian Literature and Culture
Instructor: Elissa Washuta
This course is devoted to the study of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by Native/Indigenous writers since 1970. In reading and analyzing these texts, students will consider the ways in which Native writers construct representations, build worlds, hold stories in forms and enact kinship. Through writing and discussion, students will engage in literary analysis while considering authors’ refusals of settler colonialism and their commitments to Indigenous futures, and in doing this work, students will have opportunities to engage with Indigenous works as living pieces of a vital field.
Potential text(s): Laura Da’, Tributaries; Daniel Heath Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter; Tommy Pico, Nature Poem; Billy-Ray Belcourt, This Wound is a World; Louise Erdrich, Tracks; Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth; Tommy Orange, There There; eds. Elissa Washuta & Theresa Warburton, Shapes of Native Nonfiction.
Potential assignments: Book reviews; a take-home, fully open-book exam; weekly short reading responses; and a presentation.
English 4587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture—Reckoning with the Racial Present
Instructor: Martin Joseph Ponce
Asian Americans occupy a fraught racial position in the current moment—alternately cast as the “yellow peril” during the global pandemic (*China virus*, *kung flu*) which has incited anti-Asian harassment and violence, on the one hand, and as the “model minority” (*high-achieving*, *honorary white*) during the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement which has been used to quell calls for racial justice, on the other. Asian American literature, visual culture, activism and scholarship has much to teach us about the histories of these stereotypes, the possibilities for challenging them and the aesthetic conundrums that arise when addressing colonial, imperial and racial oppression. By engaging with such topics as the Asian American Movement, Afro-Asian connections, the “Black Pacific,” the post-9/11 “war on terror” and speculations on a post-pandemic apocalypse, this courses aims to shift commonplace understandings of Asian Americans and bring greater awareness to the complexities of their literary, artistic and activist practices.
Guiding question(s): How and why have Asian Americans been racially positioned as the "yellow peril" and the "model minority" in specific historical circumstances? In what ways have Asian American literature, visual culture, activism and scholarship contended with those stereotypes? What alternative forms of knowledge about Asian American racialization and culture have they put forth?
Potential text(s): Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters (1990); Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007); Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (2020); Ling Ma, Severance (2018); Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (1996); Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (2010).
Potential assignments: Several informal writing responses, two mini-research annotations with accompanying presentations, a midterm paper and a final project.
English 4590.04H: Seminar in Romanticism—Romanticism and Revolutionary Experience
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” In a dozen famous words, Charles Dickens captured the paradox of the French Revolution. In its early days, self-empowered citizens stormed the Bastille and passed the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” Idealistic poets proclaimed that human nature had been “born again.” But four years later, while blood from the guillotine filled the streets, the Reign of Terror had eclipsed any promise of revolutionary change. In this course, we will examine a group of British writers for whom the Revolution was—in Shelley’s terms—“the master theme of the epoch in which we live.” Readings (novels, poetry and political pamphlets) will include work by Edmund Burke, Charlotte Smith, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Helen Maria Williams, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and others. In the final weeks of the course, we will turn our attention to how the literature and rhetoric surrounding the French Revolution continues to inform the way we imagine, depict and discuss “revolution”—from the Russian Revolution in 1917 (George Orwell, Animal Farm) to the countercultural revolution of the 1950s and 60s (Alan Ginsberg and Beat poetry).
Potential text(s): Romanticism & Revolution, A Reader (Wiley-Blackwell, ed. Mee and Fallon); Wordsworth, Wordsworth’s Poetry and Prose (Norton, ed. Halmi); Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Dover Fine Art); Blake, Songs of Innocence & Experience (Oxford Paperbacks); Williams, Letters Written in France (Broadview, ed. Fraistat & Lanser); Godwin, Caleb Williams (Oxford, ed. Clemitt); Inchbald, Nature and Art (Broadview, ed. Maurer); Orwell, Animal Farm (Signet Classics).
English 4592 (10): Special Topics in Women and Literature—Gender and Empire
Instructor: Molly Farrell
The colonization of the Americas has usually been told as a "boy story," with pirates or explorers, shipwrecks or frontiers, as its characters and settings. This class asks what would happen if we put girls and women, homes and domestic spaces, at the center of that story instead. Focusing on literature from and about early America, we will look at the ways sex, gender and families intersect with enslavement and empire. Potential text(s): Readings may include Toni Morrison's A Mercy and Playing in the Dark; early novellas about shipwrecks on deserted islands; and novels about sex scandals from pre-"Bridgerton" New England and Jamaica.
Potential assignments: Two critical essays, presentations, response papers, reading quizzes, attendance and participation.
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women and Literature
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
Using feminist perspectives, students will learn to analyze literature and other cultural works (film, television, digital media) written by or about women. Time period and topic vary.
English 4595: Literature and Law
Instructor: Clare Simmons
“Literature and Law” is a course in the representation of law in literature and the literary analysis of legal discourse; it is not a course in the study of law, but should be of interest to anyone who wants to engage with the role of law in culture; the legal and literary representation of human rights; and how law uses language. "Literature and Law" can be applied towards the English major and Human Rights minor; many students from other departments also take it to fulfill upper-level course requirements, so the course provides an excellent opportunity to meet students from a wide variety of fields who are interested in law and perhaps thinking about law school. We will read both some legal materials and some literature that represents law in action. The special topic of this course is “The Outsider in the Court Room,” so we will read some actual cases and also a variety of fictional representations of law in action, and consider how the rights of outsiders are protected, or sometimes forgotten, by the law. We will also practice some court-room procedures of our own in mock-trials.
Guiding question(s): What is the relationship between law and justice?
Potential text(s): Readings will include a 2,000-year-old murder trial; some medieval animal trials; Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; the Amistad trial; Wilkie Collins’s novel The Law and the Lady; Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men; and a collection of famous trials available online.
Potential assignments: Students will be responsible for regular attendance and participation, including in group mock-trials; three short case briefs; a longer research paper; and discussion questions.
English 4597.01: Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor: Sona Hill
This course is designed in a way that Disability Studies attempts to take up disability in the context of settler- and neo-colonialism as well as global- and regional-imperialism(s). We will query the seemingly irresistible urge toward research entitlement in health and disability studies in the global context, and interrogate locations of settler/imperial power and privilege. As well, this course will focus on the gender, race, and class dimensions of population movement, global class relations, and forced migration. The course will pay careful attention to competing theoretical analyses of the relationship between disability, gender, race, and class in the context of neocolonialism and imperialism. We will discuss disability theories, critical feminist and race theories, Marxist feminist analysis, transnational, diaspora, mobility and cultural studies, adult education, and theorizations of learning.
Guiding question(s): What is the relationship between disability, race, capitalist economy, geopolitics, forced migration, dispossession, and displacement? This course aims at fostering a critical conversation among social justice studies, transnationalism (or global studies) and disability studies.
Potential text(s): Readings, viewings, and listenings will be made available via Carmen in PDF format. There are no books to purchase; however, you should ensure you have a reliable digital device (e.g., laptop or a pc) to complete assignments.
Potential assignments: 1-2 papers, 1-2 creative assignments, and one group project
5000-level
English 5710: Introduction to Old English
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course teaches students to read and declaim Old English, which was the spoken language of the English people in the early Middle Ages (up to ca. 1150), and the original language of evocative poems including Beowulf and The Wanderer. In the first half of the semester, we will learn declensions, conjugations, and vocabulary; in the second half, we will translate works of Old English prose and poetry. No prior knowledge of Old English or other languages is required.
Guiding question(s): What did English look and sound like in the centuries before Chaucer, and long before Shakespeare? How is classical Old English poetry radically different in form from any other English poetry since the age of Chaucer? How did non-literate poets compose their poems, and how were poems passed down in manuscripts when printing was not yet available?
Potential text(s): Mitchell and Robinson's A Guide to Old English.
Potential assignments: Students are graded on their preparation for each class meeting, eight quizzes, three written translation assignments and a final exam.
English 5720: Shakespeare's Dramaturgy
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This course for graduate students and advanced undergraduates will examine Shakespeare’s stagecraft and consider both his playwrighting techniques and the way his practices responded to the ever-changing circumstances of the theatrical ecosystem in which he worked. We will ask (and try to answer) questions about matters like properties (“How spectacular is a severed head?”), juxtaposition (“How do repeated entries train audiences to see patterns?”), character (“Who gets to speak soliloquies?”), structure (“Why do plays often begin with figures we never see again?”), pace (“How much time elapses between scenes?”), genre (“Why are the comedies set in foreign countries?”) and the way that such choices affect the relationship between actors and an audience.
Guiding question(s): How does Shakespeare...DO THAT?
Potential text(s): Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, Henry IV, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale.
Potential assignments: Students will be evaluated by short writing assignments, a minor presentation and a long paper.
1000-level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
2000-level
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Shaun Russell
Shakespeare is everywhere. Though the title of this course is "Introduction to Shakespeare," the truth is that almost everyone has been introduced to Shakespeare in some form or another, whether in a high school English course, in a local theatre production, through one of the many film adaptations or just through sheer cultural osmosis. So what does an "introduction to Shakespeare" actually mean? In this course, you will be reacquainted with some of Shakespeare's more familiar dramatic works in new ways, and you will be introduced to some of Shakespeare's lesser-known dramatic works in such a way that you'll probably wonder why they're not more popular. You won't need to have any prior training in Shakespeare, as this course will build upon what you already know about the acclaimed playwright and help to develop that knowledge into a deeper understanding. Through it all you'll learn about Shakespeare's life and the world he lived in, as well as some key formal considerations such as style and genre. As this is a full-term, in-person summer course, we will read five or six plays. Assignments will include small weekly reading quizzes, two essays and a midterm exam, as well as the expectation of regular participation via class discussion.
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Jack Rooney
“All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821)
Poetry is infinite because, as English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley tells us, it must be rediscovered and even recreated by each generation. In this course, we will read and rediscover poetry in English of the past five centuries, from the English Renaissance to the present day, by focusing on the short lyric, a form both concise and inexhaustible. Along the way, we will see the lyric in many forms, including the sonnet, the ode, the ballad, the villanelle and even free verse. We will also explore lyric’s many moods and modes: the mournfulness of elegy, the wit and humor of satire and epigram, the reverence of the hymn, the natural beauty of the pastoral, and the passion of love poetry. We will try to understand what makes these poems work, as we investigate meter, rhyme, word choice and figures of speech. But, at the same time, we will also be deeply invested in attempting to realize what they make us feel, and enable us to know. We will read many poets, including William Shakespeare, John Donne, Katherine Philips, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Smith, John Keats, Emily Brontë, Alfred Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, Claude McKay and Louise Glück, among others.
Requirements include engaged reading, short responses, a “commonplace” journal, occasional quizzes and a final paper/project.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 instructor (6-week session 1): Antonio Ferraro
Section 30 instructor (4-week session 1): Jesse Schotter
Section 40 instructor (6-week session 2): Meghean Pachay
Examination of the elements of fiction—plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc.—and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
6-week session 2
Instructor: Nick Bollinger
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
Cross-listed in Comp Studies
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
6-week session 1
Instructor: Katie Pyontek
This introductory fiction workshop will cover the fundamentals of craft and composition. We will read and discuss published short stories, write our own short stories and offer feedback and support to each other on drafts shared in workshop. Prompts and writing exercises will be provided. No prior workshop experience is necessary. Readings will include stories by beloved writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Xuan Juliana Wang, Percival Everett, Jim Shepard, Grace Paley and others.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
6-week session 1
Instructor: Maya McOmie
The purpose of this class is to introduce you to writing as an artistic practice. We will begin by approaching each genre (creative nonfiction, poetry and fiction) as readers, analyzing a wide range of styles and forms to better situate ourselves within the current state of contemporary literature. From these texts, we will uncover tricks and tools that will help in the development of your own unique voice. In addition to poems, essays and short stories, we will be reading several craft pieces, or instructional texts on the art of writing. Our reading list is diverse and challenging, and I ask and expect you to read with an open mind. Some possible authors include: Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier, Solmaz Sharif, Ocean Vuong, Kaveh Akbar, Tracy K. Smith, Leslie Jamison, Lia Purpura, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Alexander Chee, Eula Biss, Diane Cook, Miranda July, Jhumpa Lahiri and Carmen Maria Machado.
The rest of our time together will be a workshop. This means that you will read your peers' writing closely, offering sincere and engaged feedback in the form of both written responses and in-class discussion. You will also share your own writing with the class and get the chance to see your work from the perspective of a committed, generous, detail-oriented readership. Each student will workshop several poems, a short essay or a short story over the course of the term. Through this, you will expand your range of writing skills—pushing yourself to be curious, fearless and voracious—as a way of getting closer to understanding both who you already are as a writer, and who you might want to become.
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Jamie Utphall
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 10 instructor (8-week session 2): Arielle Irizarry
Section 20 instructor (8-week session 1): Staff
Section 20 instructor (8-week session 2): Carlos Kelly
Section 40 instructor (8-week session 1): Liz Miller
Section 50 instructor (8-week session 1): Staff
Extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
GE: Writing & Communication—Level 2
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Section 10 instructor (8-week session 1): Kayode Odumboni
Section 20 instructor (8-week session 2): Kelsey Mason
Section 30 instructor (8-week session 1): Amelia Matthews-Pett
Discussion and practice of the conventions, practices and expectations of scholarly reading of literature and expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GE: Writing & Communication—Level 2
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
GE: Literature (BS only)
3000-level
English 3372 (10): Science Fiction and Fantasy—The Fairy Tale and Reality
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
6-week session 1
This course examines the history and uses of the most influential narrative formula in the modern Western world: the fairy tale. While most of us associate the fairy tale with magic and fantasy, here we consider the many ways in which fairy tales call us back to the "real" world. Fairy tales stage the choices of underlings as they seek to survive in a world where the rules are both imposed from above and unreliable. Poor people told competing versions of common stories as they debated the balance of luck, virtue, brains and opportunism required to get off the farm. Their oral stories were reworked in print and successor media for a variety of commercial and ideological purposes, creating prominent models of selfhood and success along the way. Simultaneously, a fairytale counterculture has continually pushed the subversive undertones of the tales to denaturalize, even break dominant cultural scripts. All of these transformations point us to the tension inherent in all fantasy and especially visible in formula fiction: does it help us to accept reality, to reflect on reality and change it or to escape reality altogether?
Monday and Wednesday meetings will be online synchronous; Fridays asynchronous.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (30): Science Fiction and Fantasy: "New Wave" Science Fiction of the 60s and 70s
Instructor: Evan Van Tassell
6-week session 2
In this class, we will explore the so-called “New Wave” movement in American science fiction that arose during the 1960s and 70s. Authors of this era turned away from the optimism and aesthetics of earlier sci-fi and began writing stories that were more experimental, more political, and more interested in social issues. Primarily through short stories, we will examine some of the major figures of this period and consider how their writing changed the genre of science fiction in ways that are still recognizable today. Along the way, we'll see how these changes reflected and influenced discussions of diversity, social justice, and inequality that were taking place in American society at large. We will read a wide range of authors that may include Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, James Tiptree Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon), and Frank Herbert.
GE: Literature
English 3372: Science Fiction and Fantasy
Section 20 instructor (4-week session 1): Brian McHale
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GE: Literature
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
6-week session 2
Instructor: Macey Phillips
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
4000-level
English 4189: Professional Writing Capstone
Instructor: Lindsay Martin
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
1000-level
English 1109: Intensive Writing and Reading
Instructor: Staff
Provides intensive practice in integrating academic reading and writing.
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.03: First-Year English Composition—Selling More Than Just a Film: Movie Posters as Cultural Lenses
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
We don’t often look at physical movie posters, but they merit a second glance. Their composition and visual details work together to sell a story to audiences. At the same time, these advertisements offer important insights into the society that creates them, including a culture’s views on race, class, gender, love, power, wealth, anxiety, age, war, globalization, childhood, life and death. In this course we will analyze movie posters for the messages they contain and for the ways in which these messages reflect, reveal, promote and/or challenge larger issues in their culture.
Guiding questions: How do I speak and write with confidence in a collegiate academic setting? How do I analyze texts and conduct nuanced research? How do I become an effective peer reviewer and how do I revise my own work? How do I find and use university resources such as the Writing Center and the library?
Text: David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, Writing Analytically, 7th edition.
Potential assignments: Essays, responses to readings, reflections and presentations.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
This is a co-curricular course. To be enrolled in this class, you must also be enrolled in 1193. English 1193 is a 1-credit course that is graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. For this course, you will visit the Writing Center three times during the semester to work on major assignments for English 1110.03 and document these visits in post-conference memos.
2000-level
English 2201H: Selected Works of British Literature—Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course introduces students to some of the major British literary texts written from the early Middle Ages through the late eighteenth century, including Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko. Our approach to the literature will emphasize close reading, form and genre, and historical context. Students will develop their research skills by means of a researched essay or creative project. Other requirements include response papers and a final exam.
Texts: Broadview Anthology of English Literature, Concise Edition, Volume A; other materials posted on Carmen
Assignments: Response papers, final research paper or creative project, reading quizzes, final exam
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2202: Selected Works of British Literature—1800 to Present
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
At a moment in which borders are closed and travel is suspended, sign on for a great grand tour of British literature from the French Revolution to the Brexit referendum. Over the semester, we’ll take stock of two centuries worth of tumultuous change, paying particular attention to the way in which a diverse set of writers transformed literary forms and conventions in an attempt to accommodate the ever-evolving world around them. In this course, we’ll read and discuss writers like Jane Austen, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Sam Selvon, Philip Larkin and Zadie Smith as they attempt to make sense of industrialization, urbanization, shifting conceptions of gender, the collapse of an empire, a sequence of brutal wars, environmental devastation, wide-scale immigration and Britain’s changing relation to the rest of the world. We’ll also have occasion to think about how literature can alert us to new accounts of human psychology, changing structures of belief and even a ghost or two along the way.
In its pandemic mode, this course will consist of lively prerecorded lectures that you can watch on your own schedule, as well as weekly recitation sections for engaged discussion. Optional socially-distanced or online events will be scheduled to work against the impersonality of a large, online class. English 2202 is a foundational course for English majors as well as a rewarding experience for anyone curious about literature and history.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2202H: Selected Works of British Literature: 1800 to Present
Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth
This course examines the work of selected British authors from the Romantic period to the present. During this period Britain gained, and lost, a position of huge influence in the world, as rapid and far-reaching industrial and technological change transformed human life and people's sense of how it should be lived, creating a cultural and intellectual legacy which still informs current ideas and debates. A central concern will be the way in which texts offer literary responses to these changing historical and cultural conditions, influencing notions of personal experience, class, gender and power. We will examine concepts of Romanticism, Victorianism and Modernism, and students will be instructed in techniques of close textual analysis and discussion. In addition to developing writing and critical thinking abilities, the course will provide understanding of the continuing importance and power of works from this period among its readers and beyond.
Texts: Wolfson and Manning (Eds.), Masters of British Literature, Volume B (Longman); Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Penguin); Ian McEwan, Atonement (Anchor)
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220 (10): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructors
Section 10: Jennifer Higginbotham
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220 (20): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Christopher Highley
This course introduces students to Shakespeare through the careful study of seven plays chosen from different genres and phases of his career. Even as we read carefully and pay attention to Shakespeare's language, we will discuss the nature of the the Early Modern theater as well as the political, social and cultural conditions that helped to shape Shakespeare's imagination.
Guiding questions: How do we read a Shakespeare play? What are the major themes and questions his plays explore? How are the plays related to the time in which they were written?
Texts: Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night; Measure for Measure; Hamlet; Macbeth; Anthony and Cleopatra; The Tempest.
Assignments: Two in-class midterms with IDs and essay; final research paper; online quizzes.
English 2220 (40): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
In this introduction to Shakespeare, we will read five or six plays representing some of Shakespeare’s range, including some of the most canonical and some that are less well known. Our focus will be on close analysis of the texts themselves, but we’ll also pay attention to the social and political milieu in which the plays were composed and first performed. Possible plays include: The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Pericles, Two Noble Kinsmen, and The Winter’s Tale.
Guiding Questions: What's so great about Shakespeare? Why all the fuss? What does Shakespeare mean for us today? What was it like attending a play in Shakespeare's time?
Texts: The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Greenblatt, third edition, in two volumes (Early Plays and Later Plays).
Assignments: One or two formal essays; frequent short response papers; a performance-related group project; a critical articles review; and (conditions permitting) an exam.
English 2220 (50): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
For four centuries now, William Shakespeare has been widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He’s certainly the most influential. More has been written about Shakespeare than any other writer in the history of the world, no joke. His plays have been adapted into countless other plays, novels, poems, music, paintings, films, TV shows and comics, and not only in English but in German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and Yoruba. We will read a sampling of Shakespeare’s plays in a variety of genres and over the course of his career. We’ll think about how his plays work as theater; how he adapts and transforms the source material on which so many of his plays depend; how Shakespeare can be such an “original” when he borrows so much from other writers; how he can create such deep and realistic characters; and how it is that Shakespeare can accomplish all of the above (and more) through language. What we’ll discover is that, as one critic put it, “the remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
Texts: We will read five plays, including some familiar ones (Twelfth Night and Macbeth) and some unfamiliar (King John and Pericles), as well as his blockbuster Hamlet and some non-dramatic poems.
Assignments: Assignments will include a close reading, a critical essay, a midterm test and a final exam.
Guiding Questions: We'll think about the nature of drama and dramatic genres, but the plays themselves address love, gender and sexuality; political power and legitimacy; family dysfunctions and inherited guilt; crime and punishment; and the problems and possibilities of human happiness.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Christopher Highley
This course introduces students to Shakespeare through the careful study of seven plays chosen from different genres and phases of his career. Even as we read Shakespeare's language carefully, we will discuss the nature of the the Early Modern theater as well as the political, social and cultural conditions that helped to shape his imagination.
Guiding questions: How should we approach Shakespeare? Why study his plays? What do they offer readers and viewers?
Texts: Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night; Measure for Measure; Hamlet; Macbeth; Anthony and Cleopatra; The Tempest.
Assignments: Short essays; midterms; quizzes; in-class reports.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course introduces students to strategies for understanding and enjoying poetry in English, from Old English elegies through Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyrics to the musical Hamilton. We will learn about the sounds of poetry in the ear and the shapes of poetry on the page; we will discuss social and political uses of poetry; and we will delve into the techniques by which poets imbue their words with multiple layers of meaning.
Texts: Shira Wolosky, The Art of Poetry; poems posted on Carmen; access to the film Hamilton
Guiding Questions: What is poetry supposed to do? How can we describe what we observe in poetry in a way that transcends individual taste?
GE: Literature
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
"Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul."
— Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up In Blue”
How can poems written hundreds of years ago still resonate with our experiences of love, grief, anxiety, ecstasy and apprehension? This course will serve as an introduction and grand tour of classic and contemporary British and American poetry. It will also be a course where we think about how poetry intersects with ordinary human life. Over the course of the semester, we will consider the major themes, forms, contexts and innovations that have shaped the evolution of poetry. How has love poetry changed over the four centuries that separate Shakespeare from Seamus Heaney? What can poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Rita Dove and Danez Smith tell us about our changing conception childhood? What (if anything) does poetry have to do with politics?
This is a hybrid course. Our Tuesday, we’ll meet in person; on Thursday, we’ll hold a synchronous online session via Zoom. We will read a great deal of poetry, from Shakespeare to current US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. No prior familiarity with poetry is necessary!
GE: Literature
English 2260 (40): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Abigail Greff
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE: Literature
English 2260H: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Zoë Brigley Thompson
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Instructors
Section 10: Katelyn Hartke
Section 30: Preeti Singh
GE: Literature
English 2261 (20 and 90): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Koritha Mitchell
This introduction to fiction course will focus on authors from the United States who have a variety of backgrounds. That is, not every writer studied will be white. Likely authors include Frances E.W. Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, and Kate Chopin. The selected works will help us examine elements of fiction, such as point of view, setting, character, theme, tone, style and diction. Expect examinations that include being given a passage and needing to identify the author, the work, and other distinguishing features discussed in class.
GE: Literature
English 2261 (70): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
English 2261 will be taught this semester as an introduction to twentieth-century fiction. We will discuss the elements of fiction (plot, narrative, progression, imagery, symbolism, theme, setting, tone, point of view and more), as we read broadly in the genre of the short story and the novel.
This class is not officially a “D” (diversity) course, but I will teach it that way. The interest in diversity is especially prevalent in literature and art of the contemporary period (1945 to the present). But I argue here that diversity has always been a subject for Twentieth-Century authors. Such “canonical” works (those texts deemed to be part of the “great” tradition) have always treated the theme of diversity. Thus, such writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, Chopin and Fitzgerald (modern writers), Morrison and Ellison (contemporary writers) all address the diverse nature of life in the twentieth century and beyond. This semester we’ll see some of the following: ethnic diversity (African American, Native American, and Jewish); literature about disabilities (like blindness, depression or alcoholism); the insane and the temporarily insane; the victims of racism, prejudice and violence. Many works also consider traditionally denigrated groups, like women, African Americans, and homosexuals. The conclusion here is that such diversity in literature (as in life) calls for a good deal of tolerance and compassion, and it exercises our capacity for empathy and understanding.
Course Requirements: Attendance, participation n discussions, two exams (midterm and final, and at least two short essays (5 pages each).
English 2261 (80): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Kelsey Mason
When was the last time you heard the term “dystopia?” Was it doomscrolling and seeing an offhanded tweet about how, “We’re living in a dystopia”? Or having a conversation about online learning and a friend says, “Proctorio is totally dystopian”? What has this term come to mean when used more colloquially? How about “utopia?” Do we mostly hear “utopia” when it’s applied to unrealistic fantasies?
In this class, we’ll start with contemporary applications of the terms “dystopia” and “utopia.” What do these terms mean in their modern usage in political and social events? We’ll survey twentieth and twenty-first century dystopian texts and break down their component parts: character development, narrative structures, themes, authorship and historical context. Then, we will jump back and look at nineteenth-century utopian and dystopian literature, these genres’ origins, and ways that authors articulated visions of the future and critiques of their present.
Together, we’ll complicate “utopia” and “dystopia,” and address ways in which they are not just literary genres, but also influence nineteenth-century lifestyles and sociopolitical theories. Novels and short stories will be from diverse global contexts, and students will be encouraged as part of our course discussions and assignments to address texts according to their interests.
This is an online course with a variety of ways to participate. Materials will be available via Carmen. Synchronous classes will be held via Zoom and recorded for asynchronous participation.
GE: Literature
English 2261 (100): Introduction to Fiction
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Alternative facts, fake news, the return of authoritarian politics, a global pandemic, ecological breakdown, a reckoning with the historical and contemporary realities of racial injustice: our current political climate feels unique and without precedent. And yet it spurred enough interest in Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 that the publisher reported a 9500% increase in sales since the 2016 presidential inauguration, leading some outlets like Amazon to sell out completely. Journalists and commentators continue returning to it in 2020 to make sense of contemporary politics. Why would a novel published in 1948 appear relevant today? Is the renewed popularity of political fiction a sign of its explanatory power? Does it speak to a broader mood of political paranoia? And how might contemporary fiction engage with urgent political issues? This class will start with 1984 to tease out how fiction engages in political thinking and examine the ways political interests have employed fiction and the arts to achieve their ends. We will examine 1984 in its post-WWII historical context and track how it has been used over the last 60 years. We will then turn our attention to a range of genres and forms that political fiction has taken over the last 40 or so years, including utopic fiction, speculative fiction, magical realism, the gothic and a pandemic novel that should strongly resonate with our current predicament.
Texts: Readings include Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, Ling Ma’s Severance and Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award-winning Sing, Unburied, Sing.
Assignments: Students will write a few short papers, engage in synchronous discussions once a week, and have significant latitude on the shape of their final project.
GE: Literature
English 2262: Introduction to Drama
Instructor: Sarah Neville
Dramatic works combine the storytelling art of narrative and the lyrical art of poetry with live performance in front of a group of viewers. Because drama involves both elements of social ritual as well as public entertainment, this art form serves to build communities by uniting, inciting, and/or inspiring audiences in interpretive critical activity. This class will explore selected dramatic works from Ancient Greece to the present day, considering plays’ political and social import as well as their effects on a modern-day audience. Students will attend a live Zoom play as part of their work for the course and learn the art of reading – and writing – a performance review. Evaluation will include short writing assignments and a final take-home exam.
Texts: Norton Anthology of Drama, Shorter 3rd Ed. Angels in America; Oedipus the King; A Raisin in the Sun; The Cherry Orchard; Snow in Midsummer; Trifles; The America Play; Waiting for Godot; Everyman; The Good Woman of Setzuan
GE: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course offers an introduction to the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, communicate complex ideas, and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Throughout the term, we will focus on detailed analysis of films, analyzing closely the ways in which the multiple elements of moviemaking come together to make, and complicate, meaning.Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product. We will learn how to take films and put them back together so as to better understand the choices made—in terms of lighting, music, sound, composition, acting, cinematography, editing and more—and their effects these choices have on our experience and understanding of the final film. Finally, we will take the set of tools and terms we have developed throughout the course and put it to work in learning how to share our insights about movies through writing. Along the way we will watch and discuss some amazing films by directors such as Agnes Varda, Spike Lee, Francis Ford Coppola, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, and more.
Assignments: The class will have roughly 7 quizzes, a final exam, and 2 short writing projects.
GE: VPA
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Instructors
Section 10: Robert Barry
Section 20: Frank DiPiero
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas.
This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in CompStd.
English 2265 (10): Introductory Fiction Writing
Instructors
Section 10: Mohan Fitzgerald
Section 30: Morgan Fox
Section 40: Adam Luhta
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition; practice in the writing of fiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published stories by masters of the genre.
English 2265 (50): Introductory Fiction Writing
Instructor: Katie Pyontek
This introductory fiction workshop will cover the fundamentals of craft and composition. We will read and study published short stories, write our own short stories, and offer feedback and support to each other on drafts shared in workshop. Prompts and writing exercises will be provided. No prior workshop experience is necessary. Readings will include stories by beloved writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Laura van den Berg, Xuan Juliana Wang, Toni Cade Bambara, Garth Greenwell, Grace Paley and others.
English 2266 (10): Introductory Poetry Writing
Instructor: Maya McOmie
In this introduction to poetry course, we will explore various elements of poetic craft and the ways poets convey meaning and expression through craft elements such as meter, rhyme, form, repetition, syntax variation, musicality of the line, lineation, white space, metaphor, image, etc. Throughout the semester, we will discuss the following questions: What is the purpose of poetry? How is a poem built? What elements enhance or subvert a poem's essence? How do we recognize various elements within a poem? What is being conveyed, and in what way? By the end of the semester, students will have a firm grasp on the fundamental elements of reading, interpreting and creating poetry as well as how to respond and provide constructive criticism to their peers.
English 2266 (20): Introductory Poetry Writing
Instructor: Neomi Chao
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition and prosody; practice in the writing of poetry; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published poems by established poets.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Daniel Barnum-Swett
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elizabeth Lawson
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition; practice in the writing of creative nonfiction; and analysis and discussion of student work as well as published essays by masters of the many forms of creative nonfiction.
English 2269 (10): Digital Media Composing
Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE: VPA
English 2269 (40): Digital Media Composing—Audionarratology
Instructor: D'Arcee Charington Neal
If you’re a fan of Audible, Serial or NPR, then you already know that they all come from soap operas, and historic radio shows of the past, like H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, produced in 1938. However, audio stories died down as New Media (television, computers and the Internet) took over, replacing our past times with new entertainment. But with the rise of smartphones, fanfiction and computer technology more powerful than ever before, they’re coming back in a big way. Part podcast and part creative writing, audionarratology has been secretly growing for the past 10 years in the underground world of digital audio, and for good reason. More immersive than a traditional book, with the portability and ease of digital music, it allows listeners the freedom to get lost in worlds that they can hear, while giving composers a whole new way of expressing themselves. In this specific section of 2269, through digital media production, it’s part creative writing, part audio producer. You’ll learn about the basics of building an audionarrative: creating a good story (while learning other ways to tell one), and how to produce and find high quality audio clips. Later, you’ll learn how to combine that knowledge with the three foundational tools of rhetoric, and in a series of structured workshops, craft and showcase your stories for your peers and your own digital portfolio.
Assignments: Creative digital work with a short final assignment paper. We will be using Adobe Audition to produce all work (available through Ohio State and the Creative Suite).
Guiding Questions: How can audio create unique ways of telling a story? How do the foundational ideas of rhetoric work in digital composition?
GE: VPA
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Sarah Craycraft
Folklore theory and methods explored through engagement with primary sources: folktale, legend, jokes, folksong, festival, belief, art. Folklore Minor course.
GE: Cultures and Ideas.
This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in CompStd.
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
Folklore is the culture that people make for themselves. Not all of us are specialists, but all of us tell stories and cultivate communities. This class explores everyday expressive forms including stories, customs, objects and digital forms shared in informal contexts. We will consider various interpretive approaches to these examples of folklore and folklife, and we will investigate the history of folklore studies. Recurring central issues will include the dynamics of tradition, the nature of creativity and artistic expression, and the construction of group identities. Folklore theory and methods will be explored through readings and an independent collecting project in which students will gather folklore from the wild, document it and interpret it for meaning.
Guiding questions: How do people express themselves in traditional forms? How are social concerns articulated in stories, jokes, memes and other genres? How does human creativity burble up in everyday life?
Texts: Lynn McNeill, Folklore Rules.
Assignments: Discussion forum posts, short analytical papers and an original collection of examples of folklore.
GE: Cultures and Ideas.
This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in CompStd.
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Instructor: James Fredal
This class will introduce students to the art of persuasion through rhetorical history, theory and criticism. We’ll examine two important periods in rhetoric—ancient Greek and modern American—through a selection of classic primary and secondary sources. From these works we will develop a set of rhetorical terms and concepts, and we’ll practice using these terms and concepts to think about how people are persuaded and how they should be persuaded, about the relationships between knowledge and opinion, reality and appearance, ethics and ideals, politics, aesthetics and action, and we’ll use these same concepts to analyze a wide range of texts to better understand how they work. Class periods will be divided between lecture, class discussion and occasional group work. You’ll also have several opportunities to present our work in spoken and written form to the rest of the class.
Guiding questions: How do people persuade?
Texts: A few works on rhetorical theory, from Plato and Aristotle to Kenneth Burke and Judith Butler, and a few persuasive texts, from ancient legal speeches to Ida B. Wells' anti-lynching campaign, war protest songs and recent internet memes.
Assignments: We'll have several short informal response papers and a few more formal unit papers, but no exams or quizzes.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructor: Kelsey Mason
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2280: The English Bible
Instructor: James Fredal
In this class, we will read the Bible as a work of literature, which is to say, as a secular rather than a sacred text. We will explore the Bible through various methods of literary and historical criticism and ask questions about its authorship, its cultural context, its relationship to other ancient literatures, its composition process, its many literary genres and styles, its history and development, its rhetorical purposes and goals, and of course, its meaning. By taking this class you should 1) become familiar with the Bible narrative, its times, places and scenes, and with its structure, its central themes and characters 2) gain experience identifying and interpreting the different genres and literary and rhetorical forms and styles that make up the books of the Bible, 3) understand some of the processes of Biblical composition, transmission, canon formation, redaction and translation, as well as some of the reasons for and consequences of these processes, and 4) practice some basic types of Biblical criticism and analysis so that you can continue to read, question and learn from Biblical study into the future.
Texts: The NRSV Bible.
Assignments: We'll have several quizzes, a midterm exam and a final exam.
Guiding Questions: What does the Bible say and how can I interpret it?
GE: Literature
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructors: Jian Chen, Katherine Ritter
This course explores queer cultural and political practices that attempt to reimagine and transform sexual, gender, racial and colonial social orders in the US. It tracks diverging moments of self-defined queer emergence by the late 1960s through their adaptation and expansion in response to changing state, social and historical conditions in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. As a derogatory term turned back against those using it, queer has been claimed as a perversely “negative” descriptive that rejects common-sense heterosexual (and sometimes gender) conventions, while creating different ways of desiring, relating and being in the world. The term continues to be used in various ways as a coalitional term bringing together lesbian, gay, bisexual and sometimes also transgender identities and communities and as a term that resists efforts to define and assimilate non-heterosexual sexual (and sometimes gender) practices based on dominant “normal” standards. Rather than treating transgender identities as new appearances, we will situate transgender practices as part of the past, present and future of queer-ness. The course will engage with the histories and experiences of indigenous communities and communities of color and the analysis of race and racism, settler colonialism, and empire as vital to understanding sexuality and gender in the US.
Texts: Literature, film and scholarship by Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Daniel Heath Justice, Bushra Rehman, Michael Bronski, Tee Franklin, Jenni Livingston, Craig Womack
Assignments: Weekly discussion comments, short written exercises, exploratory final project
Guiding Questions: How have lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) social identities and desires developed historically over time? How have LGBTQ people defined themselves and mobilized around their concerns culturally and politically? What is "queer" about LGBT identities and practices?
GE: Cultures and Ideas
GE: Diversity: Social Diversity in the U.S.
This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
English 2290: Colonial and US Literature to 1865
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
In this course, we will consider the relationship between literature and nationalism: how is literature used to establish national identity? What happens when the laws and practices of the nation contradict the stories told about it? What happens to national stories when citizens disagree? Can people who are not afforded citizenship help write national myths? We will approach these and other questions by reading work from before the United States was a nation until its division during the Civil War. We will explore how essayists, politicians, novelists and poets addressed a broad array of historical, cultural and literary concerns, including settlement, revolution, slavery, diversity, religion, equality and others.
Potential Texts: Authors we will read include: Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson and numerous others.
GE: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.01 (150): Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Scott DeWitt
English 2367.01, Language, Culture and Identity in the U.S. Experience, is an intermediate composition course that extends and refines skills in critical reading and expository writing through analysis of written texts, video and documentaries. This section of English 2367.01 will take up the study of documentary work and storytelling and its intersection with personal narrative, the complicated process of identifying, gathering, interpreting and telling nonfiction stories. Our class will begin with a study of documentary as a text form, an art form and as a genre. We will study mostly documentary film and sound, but we'll also explore a variety of creative nonfiction forms. We will look at the relationship among the subject, the audience and the composer while trying to better understand the concept of "craft." Our work will focus on rhetorical analysis, the “how” and “why” of documentary work in relationship to content. This is a writing class, so we will produce print texts as well as digital media texts. This course is structured mostly as a studio class where we will be working together in one of the English department's digital media classrooms. I will teach you a number of digital media technologies, and you will be able to create your work in the spaces these technologies afford you.
Materials: You will not be asked to purchase a textbook for this class. You will have access to cameras, audio recorders and computers from The Digital Media Project. We will talk about media storage options on the first day of class.
Assignments: You will produce print texts (academic essays) as well as digital media texts.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Discussion and practice of the conventions, practices and expectations of scholarly reading of literature and expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
GE: Literature
English 2367.03: Documentary in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Sean O'Sullivan
It's often argued that we're currently living in a moment of documentary resurgence--visible through the profusion of films on streaming platforms, and a revived interest in how we tell cinematic stories about the world around us. This course provides an overview of defining practices and questions of documentary filmmaking and the documentary "spirit" in non-cinematic media. We will consider the indexical (the representation of reality), the structural and the narrative—and issues of character and representation in non-fiction cinema. Our primary materials will include some foundational films of the documentary tradition, along with more recent examples and experiments in non-fiction and quasi-non-fiction cinema, and podcasts. Throughout, we will consider style and form, exploring the relevance of aesthetics (image, composition, sound, voice) to documentary. Materials may include Grizzly Man, Cameraperson, Serial (podcast), Stories We Tell, The Thin Blue Line, Senna, United 93 and Gimme Shelter.
Potential Texts: Patricia Aufderheide, Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. Additional readings will be posted on Carmen.
Potential Assignments: Short analytical responses, quizzes, essays. Creative work will definitely be an option.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Melissa Guadron
Extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games
Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Joshua Zirl
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style and theory. No background in video game play is necessary.
GE: VPA
3000-level
English 3271 (10 and 30): Structures of the English Language
Instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language: the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes, and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3271 (20): Structures of the English Language
Instructor: Lauren Squires
This class is an introduction to the linguistic structure of the English language: its systems of sounds, words and sentences, and how these systems differ across dialects, contexts and periods in history. We first will work to acquire the analytical tools needed to scientifically analyze any language, and apply these to the structure of English. We will then move to understanding patterns of English in its conversational and social contexts, exploring how English is used in interaction, how its dialects and styles vary across individuals and groups, how the language we now think of as “English” came to be and what its future holds.
Texts: Anne Curzan and Michael Adams, How English Works (3rd edition)
English 3273: Modernist Thought and Culture, 1880-1945
Instructors: Brian McHale and Stephen Kern
This course explores what is arguably the most creative period in the entirety of Western cultural history, roughly 1890-1930, which witnessed a spectrum of revolutionary developments in physics, philosophy, psychiatry, visual art, architecture, music, dance, cinema and literature. This dynamic period also ironically straddles one of the most destructive wars in history, World War I (1914-1918). The team-teaching format ensures that students will be exposed to a dialogue of different disciplinary methods and approaches between a cultural historian (Stephen Kern) and a literary scholar (Brian McHale).
The pillars of the course are three of the period's major thinkers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Sartre. In the first weeks we will approach imperialism through Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In the middle weeks we will read, view or listen to avant-gardists such as the Surrealists, Franz Kafka, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. The final weeks will address the effects of the Great War dramatized in Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, W.B. Yeats's short lyric "The Second Coming," and T.S. Eliot's long poem "The Waste Land," which address the hunger for wholeness and repair in postwar European society, shell shock, the practice of psychiatry, new gender roles and feminism, colonization and empire, the Armenian massacre, the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the growing secularization of high culture.
Texts: Books: Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons; Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis; and Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. Short readings and selections on Carmen: William Butler Yeats, selected poems; Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (selections); T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"; Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (selections); and Jorge-Luis Borges, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Films available from Secured Media Library: Luis Bu'uel and Salvador Dali, An Andalusian Dog.
Potential assignments: Students will write four papers of four pages (1200 words) each on assigned topics based on the readings, lectures and class discussions.
This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in History
English 3304: Business Writing
Instructors
Section 10: Rebecca Hudgins
Section 20: Amelia Lawson
Section 30: Evan Van Tassell
Section 40: Addison Koneval
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Instructors
Section 10: Jason Collins
Section 20: Daniel Seward
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This class will teach you to think about thinking. We will take a step back from what usually happens in classes about literature (and art) and ask some of the big questions about why people study these things in the first place. Why is literature a good thing? How is the experience of art important and what does it have to teach us that is different from the experience of the real world? How are different kinds of art (literature, music, film) like each other and how do they present different worlds and different possibilities? Readings will include a wide selection of thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Blake. The course should be very exciting for anyone interested in the connections between literature and philosophy–or anyone interested in honing their abilities in critical thinking.
Assignments: This course will have a midterm, final exam and final paper.
English 3361: Narrative Medicine
Instructor: Joey Ferraro
Illness generates stories. Whether from patients, caregivers or loved ones, stories of illness are everywhere, informing our sense of what it means to suffer, to adjust to altered and disabled bodies, to respond to a global pandemic and to seek comfort and relief. In this class we'll explore, through close examinations of novels, essays, films and other media, the many ways illness narratives intervene in our shared and individual conceptions of illness. We’ll investigate how narrative can allow us to better understand complicated topics such as how metaphors of mental health can combat or contribute to well-being; who “owns” a story of illness; and how storytelling can influence our recognition of the political dimensions of various health disparities. Further, by drawing on our different personal and academic experiences, we'll explore how improving our narrative competencies, or the different ways we respond to and create narratives, can inform our medical competencies, or the ways we give and receive health care.
Texts: Nemesis by Philip Roth; The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde; Hereditary by Ari Aster
Assignments: Critical analyses, response papers, persona narratives
GE: Literature
English 3372 (20): Special Topics in Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Feminism in Science Fiction
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
Since Mary Shelley birthed Frankenstein's monster, science fiction has been devoted to issues that are crucial to the history of feminism: alterity and equity. The imagination of other worlds, other places, other species, other laws has the unique ability to make the familiarities of sexism strange. In this class, we will read some of the canonical texts of science fiction focused on issues involving sexuality, gender, reproduction and corporeality, including Mary Shelley, Ursula LeGuin, Margaret Atwood, James Tiptree, Jr., Samuel Delany, Judith Merril and Octavia Butler.
Texts: We will read numerous short stories and some novels (by Shelley, Butler and Atwood). We will also read the comic Bitch Planet.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (30): Special Topics in Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Environmental Science Fiction
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Science fiction and fantasy often take us to places with weird environments, including future Earths, bizarre dreamscapes and other planets. In recent years, sci-fi and fantasy have begun addressing the crises of climate change, mass extinction, global pandemics and the uncertain prospects for human life on an altered planet. This class examines the ways environmental sci-fi/fantasy literature and film narrates these changes and what they mean for human and nonhuman futures. Students will read and view a diverse set of sci-fi/fantasy fiction, ranging from intergalactic epics, Afrofuturism, weird fiction, outbreak narratives and the recent subgenre cli-fi. Students will also get a chance to build their own environmental sci-fi/fantasy worlds.
Texts: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine; Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed; Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower; Jeff VanderMeer, Borne; Alex DiFrancesco, All City; The Girl With All The Gifts. Our class will also be visited by Alex DiFrancesco.
Assignments: Requirements include short papers; synchronous discussion once a week; and a final project.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (40): Special Topics in Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—How Magic Works
Instructor: David Brewer
The most fundamental mark of fantasy is that it features stories in which magic works. The magic may be front and center (Harry Potter) or kept largely in the background (Game of Thrones); it may be an instrument of strong good or evil or merely a morally neutral tool. But regardless of the form it takes, in the vast majority of fantasy, magic is real, which means that to the extent that we buy into these stories and the worlds in which they're set, we are temporarily accepting the existence of magic (or at least suspending our disbelief in its existence). This course will investigate how that process works, and what it might be able to tell us about the workings of literature more generally. We'll also consider how fantasy's open embrace of magic has contributed to its (traditionally low, but recently rising) cultural status.
Texts: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Rachel Aaron, The Spirit Thief; Benedict Jacka, Veiled; Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire; Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows; Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea; John Bellairs, The Face in the Frost; and Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Assignments: A weekly reading and viewing journal; a recommendation, in the form of a slide show, of a magic system that we are not reading or watching together, posted to Carmen for your colleagues' consideration; a short response to one of your colleagues' recommendations; a short essay connecting one of the magic systems we're exploring to the other tools of world-building employed in that narrative; active participation in our discussions; and a significant contribution to a group project in which you collectively devise a new magic system and explain how it would help construct a fictional world.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (60): Special Topics in Science Fiction and/or Fantasy
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This class will survey some of the most important children's fantasy novelists of the 20th century, from E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien up through Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. LeGuin, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones and N.K. Jemisin. We will examine how these two genres—fantasy and children's lit—grew up together, and we will explore the varying influences on these writers, from myth and folklore to Christianity, Taoism and Existentialism to feminism and critical race theory.
Texts: E. Nesbit, Five Children and It; J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit; C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; N.K. Jemisin, "Stone Hunger"; Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer; Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising; Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea; Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle; Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch.
Assignments: Course requirements include a paper, two responses, a final exam, viewing video lectures, active participation in online discussions and reading all discussion threads.
GE: Literature
English 3379 (10): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
In English 3379, you will learn about writing, rhetoric and literacy studies by studying what researchers in these subfields of English Studies study and do. You will learn how to write effective research-based arguments in these subfields by practicing methods of data collection and analysis, developing research questions, working with genres of research writing and revising your writing for clarity and purpose. You will understand how to transfer what you learn to new contexts—both other courses in the English major and contexts outside the university.
Guiding questions: What is Rhetoric? What is Writing Studies? What is Literacy? How do researchers study and write about Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy?
Texts: Course materials were developed through an Affordable Learning Exchange grant. All materials are available at no cost to students.
Assignments: Short research exercises and discussion prompts that build to a longer paper.
English 3379 (20): Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Susan Lang
This course will introduce students to a continuum of research methods used by scholars in such fields as writing, rhetoric, literacy studies, composition studies and technical communication. We will focus primarily on empirical research methods. You will learn techniques of these various methods and apply them to a series of activities throughout the semester. During the last month, we will shift focus to writing research in writing, rhetoric and literacy studies. In addition to active class participation, students will complete three unit projects (one each in writing studies, rhetoric and literacy) and a final project. By the end of this course, students will: identify and understand common empirical research methods used by scholars in such fields as writing, rhetoric, literacy studies, composition studies and technical communications; learn techniques of these various methods and apply them to a series of activities throughout the semester; and gain practice in writing common research genres (conference abstracts, peer reviews, research proposals) to writing, rhetoric and literacy studies.
English 3398 (20): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course is designed to strengthen skills in interpretive reading and writing. It will help students with English major courses and with analyzing texts generally, both within and beyond the classroom. Our focus will be on reading with an eye for fine detail and constructing logical, well-evidenced arguments. The syllabus will cover several major genres ranging from the traditional to the recent or popular—novel, short story, poetry, drama, film, memoir and podcast. Our readings will range from the classic to the contemporary. A very tentative, partial author list includes Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, J.D. Salinger, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Justin Torres, Carmen Machado and Trevor Noah. In class meetings, I will be providing guidance and a critical framework, but most meetings will be run as active discussions. Tentative assignments: two exercises, three to five pages each; three papers, five to seven pages each; regular reading quizzes; and engaged class participation.
English 3398 (30): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
The purpose of this course is to read broadly in the history of American and British literature with the goal of improving reading and writing skills. All key genres of literature will be considered (fiction, drama and poetry). We will devote a significant portion of the class to the various theories used to analyze literature ("critical theory"). This will be a writing-intensive course.
Text: A Little Literature, eds. Barnet, Burto and Cain (or a comparable anthology). Other texts may be assigned later.
English 3398 (60): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This section of English 3398 combines exercises in analytical reading with formal and informal writing assignments. Emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and strengthening of skills required in many upper-division English courses. These skills include (a) the ability to objectify and articulate what we, as readers, bring to interpretation of a text; (b) the ability to “close read” for patterns and argue from them; (c) the ability to identify the conventions of various textual forms (genres) and the different kinds of theoretical engagement they invite; and (d) the ability to conduct and effectively incorporate research into the historical backgrounds, reception or influence of authors and texts.
Texts: Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower; Jhumpa Lahiri, selected stories; E.M. Forster, Howard's End
Assignments: 4 critical essays (including 1 required revision/resubmission), occasional quizzes, regular discussion participation
English 3405: Special Topics in Professional Communication—Writing (about) Science
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
This course will prepare students to approach professional writing tasks that engage scientific discourses, such as accommodating science for non-specialists and editing technical scientific prose. Knowledge of or proficiency in science is not required.
Students will complete assignments in which they (1) edit technical prose, (2) accommodate science for different audiences, (3) develop metaphors and analogies, (4) create explanatory visuals, and (5) analyze technical and popular science publications. These projects might include editorial responses to technical documents, science policy memos, magazine-style pieces and museum materials.
English 3465 (10): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Instructor: Macey Phillips
Eudora Welty says, "In fiction, while we do not necessarily write about ourselves, we write out of ourselves, using ourselves." In this course, students will learn how to write complex, complicated and honest characters. We will examine authorial voice and character-building in a variety of shorts stories, flash fiction pieces, and novel excerpts from a diverse group of authors. By the end of the semester, students will produce and workshop 1-2 substantial pieces of writing. This is a hybrid class and will have both in-person and online components.
English 3465 (30): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Instructor: Mark Ramsay
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Kamal Kimball
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Yanar Hashlamon
English/CSTW 3467s is an interdisciplinary course on the issues, methods and history of tutoring writing. As a class, we’ll consider questions about why and how writers engage in collaborative writing support. Who is imagined as a writing tutor? Who is imagined as needing writing tutoring? What ways of thinking and writing have been prioritized in writing center studies and to what end? These questions cut to the core of Writing Centers’ role in both upholding and challenging certain institutional norms in university education along lines of race, class, disability, gender, sexuality and citizenship.
The class includes virtual observations of writing tutoring at the Ohio State Writing Center and options for weekly synchronous and asynchronous discussions of critical texts from writing center studies. The course will engage with writing tutoring as both theory and practice, preparing students to work in the Writing Center itself, or to work in broader contexts of writing education such as classroom teaching and community literacy programs. This class is a prerequisite for any undergraduate student to apply for a tutoring position at the university Writing Center, though many students take the class to learn more about the practices and politics of writing education in and beyond the classroom.
Cross-listed in ArtsSci
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Louise Edwards
This class will explore the personal essay and its relationship to narrative, research, lyric/poetry, visual art, music etc. The readings will emphasize diverse voices, especially people of color, the LGBTQ community, women and those with an intersection of marginalized identities. We'll also, of course, spend much of the class workshopping your own writing. For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored. The class will be taught synchronously online via Zoom.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructors
Section 10: Alyssa Froehling
Section 20: Zoe Mays
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructors
Section 40: Daniel Seward
Section 50: Jennifer Patton
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4150 (30): Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructor: Christiane Buuck
This class will explore a range of types of workplace writing. Many of our course assignments are designed to help you compile a writing portfolio that will be useful if you apply to the Professional Writing Minor, and/or in future job searches. Additionally, you will interview two professionals in your field of interest. You will hone your editing skills by practicing AP style, reviewing common usage mistakes and how to avoid them, giving and receiving feedback in peer review, practicing repurposing content and drafting for different audiences and revising for clean, professional copy in every deliverable. Throughout the term, you will work individually and collaboratively to explore a professional writing field of your choice, culminating in an engaging group presentation and panel discussion.
Assignments: Professional writing portfolio assignments, editing exercises and presentations
Guiding Questions: What do want to do when you graduate? What does professionalism and professional writing look like in different fields?
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor Capstone Internship
Instructors
Section 10: Jennifer Patton
Section 20: Lindsay Martin
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Sarah Neville
This class will approach a selection of Shakespeare's plays through several methods, examining them not only as historical artifacts rooted in the time and place of their creation, but also as spectacles created to be continuously performed and re-adapted right through to our modern age. In order to better enable us to consider the ways that staged properties, blocking, special effects and audience engagement are crucial parts of Shakespeare's stagecraft, this section of 4520.01 is especially interested in the practical means by which Shakespeare's plays resonate with both historical and contemporary audiences. Through exercises, assignments and class discussions in costuming, casting, producing and directing, we will seek to answer questions like: "How was the English stage of 1592 different from a typical American stage of 2020"; "How does a production create the suspension of disbelief when the audience is in the same light as the actors?"; "When you don't have modern technologies, how do you create special effects?"; and "What did Elizabethans think a Roman or medieval battle looked like?" Students in this class will develop the capacity for discriminating judgment based on aesthetic and historical appreciation of Shakespeare through reading, discussion and informed critical written interpretation of the texts. Through this process students will also learn to appraise and evaluate both the social values of Shakespeare's cultural moment as well as their own. Students will be evaluated by short writing assignments, a virtual group presentation and midterm/final exams.
Texts: New Oxford Shakespeare (Ed. Taylor, Jowett, Bourus, Egan, 2016)
English 4523: Special Topics in Renaissance Literature and Culture—John Donne and Ben Jonson
Instructor: Luke Wilson
This course focuses on two turn of the century poets whose importance and influence are second only to that of their contemporary William Shakespeare. John Donne is the one who wrote: "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." But he's also the one who wrote a poem comparing the sex act to a flea sucking blood, and, in an age that considered suicide a mortal sin, he wrote a learned defense of suicide. Ben Jonson, for his part, begins his scurrilous, fast-paced play, The Alchemist, with the line "Thy worst! I fart at thee!"; and it's all downhill from there. Both wrote in an unusually wide range of verse modes and genres, but their literary output extended far beyond poetry, and in this course we'll read plays and prose texts as well. Jonson was enormously self-promoting, and masterminded one of the most important literary publications of early modern England, his Workes of 1616. In contrast, few of Donne's poems were published before his death, but they did circulate widely in manuscript among a literary cognoscenti among whom he was hugely popular. Both attracted eager followings, were deeply responsive to the politics of the time and were sometime Catholics navigating a deeply Protestant culture.
Assignments: Requirements will include class participation, frequent short response papers, a short essay and a longer, research-oriented final essay.
English 4533: The Early British Novel—Origins to 1830
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Features the variety of novel forms emerging from 1660 to 1830, as well as relevant historical and contemporary theories of the novel, marketplace, reading or interpretation.
English 4559: Introduction to Narrative and Narrative Theory
Instructor: Amy Shuman
Stories give shape to our everyday life experiences. We tell stories about ourselves, about others, about trivial interactions that fade from memory and about life changing events. In this course we explore who tells stories to whom and in what contexts and how they tell them. We’ll examine narrative form, genre, performance, repertoire and interaction. For the final project, students will work with narratives of their choice, whether from print, web-sources, interviews or daily life, and will describe those narratives in terms of one or more of the narrative dimensions discussed in class.
Assignments: Seven comments on the readings throughout the course of the semester; midterm take-home exam; final project
English 4564.02: Major Author in 18th- and 19th-Century British Literature—Bleak Houses: Dickens, Satire, Modern Gothic
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will center around one masterpiece novel by Charles Dickens, Bleak House (serialized 1852-53). Our discussions will involve three main aims: (1) to close-read a celebrated nineteenth-century work; (2) to think about literary genres as instruments of social critique—then and now; and (3) to consider how studying the literary/cultural past helps us to think about the present. Bleak House is a work of satire: it uses humor to make biting observations about contemporary society. At the same time (as the title hints), it borrows from the Gothic, also for social criticism. Ominous secrets and settings help Dickens to comment on Victorian problems, including urban poverty, inadequate legal systems, and constraining gender norms. Ultimately we’ll turn to a few related texts: Hannah Crafts’ The Bondwoman’s Narrative, a nineteenth-century American slave narrative that draws on Bleak House; and recent films containing some form of the Gothic and/or satire (TBA; some possibilities: It Follows (2014), Mudbound (2017), Get Out (2017), Sorry to Bother You (2018), and Parasite (2019)). Through this juxtaposition, we’ll ask how socially critical fictions change over time, and how they deploy genre in different ways. What new objects of cultural horror do modern Gothic stories unearth? How does satire today differ from nineteenth-century satire, reflecting new priorities, values, injustices, etc.? Tentative requirements: engaged participation; frequent reading quizzes; five or six short analytical response papers (one to two pages each); and one longer term paper (five to seven pages).
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Lee Martin
This is an advanced writing workshop that asks you to think about how short stories are made with a special emphasis on the art of characterization. Stories show us something about the complexity of human existence by concentrating on characters and their conflicting wants, needs, fears, hopes, etc. I don’t mean to suggest that these types of stories are without plots. Plenty happens, but what happens externally is less important than what happens internally to the characters involved and what it means for the rest of their lives. In other words, events occur because of the types of people characters are, and the plots that unfold always reveal something new about the inner lives of those characters. We might put it this way: characters create plots, and plots reveal characters. The stories that we’ll read will invite us to think more deeply about the technical choices writers make and the effects these choices have on the process of storytelling. Reading and analyzing from a writer’s perspective gives us a chance to think about how stories are made and also an opportunity to build our own technical repertoire when it comes to constructing narratives.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Kathy Fagan Grandinetti
This is a workshop designed for poetry students who are either in the Creative Writing concentration or those who have made enough significant progress in previous undergraduate poetry workshops to audition for admission. The focus of this course is your poems. I will offer weekly prompts and sample texts for discussion.
Guiding questions: What makes a poem memorable, and how do we talk about poetry to each other?
Potential texts: Other texts TBA but will not exceed two books totaling $35.
Assignments: Seven original poems minimum and some close readings of "model" poems
English 4567S: Rhetoric and Community Service
Instructor: Beverly J. Moss
English 4567s, Rhetoric and Community Service, is an undergraduate service learning seminar that, through coursework and on-the-ground (virtual) experience, introduces you to the rhetorical expectations of non-profit organizations. All class meetings and community partner work will be delivered virtually in spring 2021. Along with meeting virtually one day/week in class, you will be assigned to assist a community partner with the writing demands of the organization. Writing assignments will vary according to the needs of your community partner—requests may include (but certainly aren’t limited to) writing social media posts, composing website copy, creating brochures, writing donor letters, or assisting with grant writing.
You will examine how rhetoric (and writing) can affect (both positively and negatively) social change in local organizations, and will gain experience writing in the non-profit world. Community partners this spring range from education-based non-profits to a community non-profit focused on girls and women. Our main goals this semester are to make you a better rhetor through service to a nonprofit organization and to support the communication needs of the organization.
Guiding questions: What is the relationship between rhetoric, social action and community service?
Assignments: Short papers; group presentations; writing for community partner
English 4568: Advanced Workshop in Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Michelle Herman
The study and practice of literary nonfiction writing, including the many subgenres of this capacious form: the personal essay, memoir, portraiture, science writing, music writing, lyric essays, adventures in "fraudulent artifacts," and many (many) other kinds of narratives.
Texts: All readings will be in the form of PDFs and links to exemplary essays.
Assignments: Reading, short writing assignments, two complete essays, revisions.
English 4569: Digital Media and English Studies
Instructor: Scott DeWitt
This course will take up the study of digital media and its relationship to messaging and storytelling. Students from across areas in the Department of English or in majors outside of English will work on a series of short-form digital projects using rich media (video, audio, data). The most significant part of this course focuses on the “P” word: production. This course is structured mostly as a studio class, where we will be working together in one of the Digital Media Project’s classroom. Some of you may have experience with the technologies we will compose with. For those of you new to these technologies, I will teach you more than you need to know to be successful in this class. Please do not let your lack of experience with technology intimidate you. This class can be used to fulfill the digital media requirement in the writing, rhetoric and literacy concentration for the English major.
Materials: You will not be asked to purchase a textbook for this class. You will have access to cameras, audio recorders and computers from The Digital Media Project. You are also free to use your own technology. We will take about media storage options on the first day of class.
Assignments: Short-form media projects, creative opportunities
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
You will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences. You will become familiar with the concepts and patterns of grammar from a linguistic—a scientific—perspective. We will seek to understand the linguistic principles that underlie all speaking and writing in English. Importantly, this is not a writing course, an editing course or a course designed to teach people how to speak/write in English. However, our enhanced understanding of how English grammar is structured will ultimately equip you with the skills to more critically understand speaking and writing styles, including effective writing and products designed to encourage it, such as usage handbooks and language-learning pedagogical materials.
English 4574: History and Theories of Writing—From Clay Tablets to Twitter Bots
Instructor: Christa Teston
This class will explore how writing has evolved since premodern times to contemporary cultural practices.
Assignments: Reading responses, midterm exam, discourse community ethnography project
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes—Protesting Injustices and the Novel of 1790s
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
How and why did the eighteenth-century novel in English become a form associated with protest of the status quo and hospitable to giving voice to marginalized characters such as serving girls, rebellious slaves, and a variety of other persecuted figures? One answer lies in genre, the fact that unlike drama on the London stage, which was performed in front of a live and therefore potentially dangerous audience, the novel, a new consumer item of the eighteenth century, was considered private, and was not censored for its incendiary content. Another answer lies in the novel's expansive form: it was able to give voice and compelling plot to characters who were usually unheard and uncared about because they were criminalized, uneducated or otherwise marginal to public life.
We will study the novel in regard to form and content, authors and readership, in its critical engagement with eighteenth-century protest of profound social ills, which came to a head in the 1790s during the era of the French Revolution. The real social ills that were novelized include human trafficking and slavery (the 1780s were the height of the British slave trade in African people mainly to the Americas); unearned privileges of race and rank (about 150 families owned 20% percent of England and along with lesser landowners "legally" appropriated six million acres of land over the eighteenth century); unlawful incarceration of women and the laboring ranks; and sexual victimization of female servants. Not infrequently, these social ills were understood as connected to each other in this era. We will feature the sometimes surprising ways in which feminist, anti-racist, Marxist and other scholars have engaged with this literary history of radical writing and the politics of representation then and now.
Potential texts: Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; or The Royal Slave (1688); Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded (1740); William Godwin, Things as They Are; or The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794); Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria; or The Wrongs of Woman (1798); Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (1800); William Earle, Obi; or The History of Three-Fingered Jack (1800); Anonymous, The Woman of Colour (1808)
English 4577.01: Folklore and Human Rights—Cultural and Climate Sustainability, Disability and Refugees
Instructor: Amy Shuman
By working with local cultural groups with their particular environmental challenges, folklorists have engaged in questions about questions about how people both experience exclusion and how they have created resources for survival. Most of this folklore research is what is called participatory research, based on collaborations with community members. For this class, we will be reading documents (including films, websites, stories) produced by those communities. Students’ responsibilities include reading/viewing these documents, participating in class discussions, and collaborating on a project.
Guiding questions: How do people work collectively in their communities in the face of human rights violations related to cultural sustainability, disability, immigrant status or other issues?
Assignments: Students will identify examples of local community cultural practices related to human rights and post these to Carmen three times during the semester. Students will post comments on the readings every week and these will count as both the midterm and final exam. Students will work in groups to produce a collaborative project related to one of the central themes.
English 4578 (20): Special Topics in Film—Film and American Society After World War II
Instructor: Ryan Friedman
This course examines the history of the American cinema in the years immediately following the Second World War, covering the period from 1945 to 1960. We will view and discuss significant Hollywood films from a variety of genres (e.g., comedy, musical, film noir, western, melodrama, social problem film), contextualizing them by reading articles and excerpts published in a variety of venues (e.g., popular magazines, film-trade publications, books of sociology and psychology) during the era in which these films were produced and exhibited.
Films: The Best Years of Our Lives, Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, A Raisin in the Sun
Assignments: Papers and an exam
English 4578 (30): Special Topics in Film—Re-imagining the Half Hour: Contemporary Television Comedy
Instructor: Sean O'Sullivan
The televisual revolution of the first decade of the 21st century focused on shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Breaking Bad–sprawling serial empires that reshaped the default format of storytelling seriousness, the hour-long drama. But the last ten years have seen a shift of critical and viewer attention to the half-hour comedy, in terms of what kinds of stories are told, who gets to be in the stories, and who gets to tell the stories. This course will consider a range of series, from Fleabag to Insecure to Russian Doll, that have cracked open the ancient conventions of the sitcom, and of comic design more broadly, to think across the spectrum of narrative invention and representational inclusion. Throughout the semester, we will analyze how aesthetic and formal choices orient, and often disorient, our expectations of comedy as a televisual genre. One recurrent thread in our syllabus will be shows created by and starring women, actively bringing previously-marginalized voices, perspectives and bodies to the small screen. In addition to Fleabag, Insecure and Russian Doll, our roster may include Girls; Transparent; GLOW; Atlanta; Broad City; Barry; and What We Do in the Shadows.
Texts: Articles, book chapters, and other materials related to contemporary television, narrative studies, and comedy.
Assignments: Analytic essays and creative work will both be on the agenda. Quizzes each class meeting. No exams.
Guiding Questions: What storytelling and aesthetic possibilities are available to makers of the contemporary half-hour television series? Which genres, audience expectations, performance styles, and connections to comedy's past have been foregrounded? Where is television going as an art form in the 21st century?
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures—How Race Works: Legacies of Colonialism, Slavery and Empire
Instructor: Pranav Jani
In September 2020, US President Trump aimed to turn back the clock, arguing that Critical Race Theory, historians like Howard Zinn, and critiques of whiteness have led people to diminish Americans' greatness. But Ethnic Studies and related fields, in explaining why racism and white supremacy have such a strong hold in US society, push in the opposite direction, building on past criticisms of racism to expand our understanding of it.
How can we grasp the different but linked experiences and histories of Black, Native, Latinx, Asian, Arab peoples in the US? How do the legacies of settler colonialism in the Americas, the enslavement of Africans, and colonialism in Asia and elsewhere shape BIPOC lives in the US? How do gender, sexuality and the family interact with race?
From novels, short stories, essays and films by and about different peoples of color in the US, we will examine how they/we have survived and struggled in racialized spaces that are very much products of US history. Part of this history, as we will see, is the effort to articulate these stories in the face of dominant forces that would rather ignore them.
Guiding questions: How is race tied to history? How are people of color differently racialized? How can literature and culture show points of solidarity and difference?
Texts: Texts include Gyasi, Homegoing; Nguyen, The Sympathizer; Aldama, Long Stories Cut Short; Shamsie, Burnt Shadows; Kincaid, A Small Place; and Jarrar, A Map of Home. Films include Reluctant Fundamentalist and Mississippi Masala.
Potential assignments: Discussion posts; a short paper; annotated bibliography; research project
English 4582: Special Topics in African American Literature—Race, Gender, Class: Studying Intersectionality
Instructor: Pranav Jani
In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Black feminist and legal scholar, coined the term “intersectionality” to address the specific subordination of Black women in the law. Today, this concept, grounded in generations of Black knowledge and experience, has become so widely used and applied that its meaning can be confusing.
In this class, we will study Crenshaw’s original use of intersectionality and her establishment of the #SayHerName movement to get a handle on the term. We will also examine African American writing from different eras, including novels, essays, a play and an autobiography, to see how they have portrayed the connections between race, gender and class, whether or not they used the word. We hope to achieve an understanding and appreciation of the concept, and its deep roots in Black thought.
Guiding questions: What is intersectionality in its original meaning? How have Black literary texts linked race, gender and class in the past? What can literature and culture teach us about the present moment?
Texts: Larsen, Passing; Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; Morrison, Sula; Combahee River Collective statement; Mock, Redefining Realness; Gyasi, Homegoing; essays by Crenshaw, Davis and Lorde.
Assignments: Discussion posts; a short paper; annotated bibliography; research project
English 4590.01H: Honors Seminar—Medieval Literature
Instructor: Christopher Jones
This course considers selected works of English literature written during the "medieval period" (c. 500-1450). Along with better-known texts such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Everyman and selections from Chaucer, we will explore some less well-known sources, such as popular romances, religious exempla, folklore and law, that help contextualize and complicate our modern perceptions of the "English Middle Ages." A running theme of our course will also be to examine the uses (and often misuses) of the European Middle Ages for modern aesthetic and political purposes.
Guiding questions: What are the most recognizable features of medieval literature? How have modern perceptions of "medieval" culture shaped both academic study and popular representations of the Middle Ages?
Assignments: Discussion-leading and discussion response (both in-person and online); occasional quizzes; and short response papers, plus two longer essays
English 4590.05H: Honors Seminar—The Later 19th Century: Freedom and Literature in the 19th Century
Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
Is freedom possible in modern societies, even though such societies depend upon individuals performing routinized work, acting in politically predictable ways, and placing primary emphasis on money-making? Does nature provide a retreat from such modern pressures – or does it offer an irresponsible, possibly meaningless escape from our social responsibilities? Is family life a place where we find the comfort and emotional richness that is absent from capitalist society – or is it a space of stifling conformity? In this course, we will read nineteenth-century British works by such authors as Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte and Alfred Tennyson that address these questions along alongside examples of utopian and dystopian texts that more explicitly outline some characteristically Victorian ways of imagining freedom, social reform, and the difficulties inherent in industrial capitalism.
Potential texts: Readings will include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, News from Nowhere by William Morris, A Crystal Age by W. H. Hudson and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, as well as short works by John Stuart Mill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens.
English 4591.01H: Special Topics in Creative Writing—"Blood, Sweat, Tears": The Art and Craft of Horror
Instructor: Nick White
Writers, beware: There will be no happy endings in this class. Here, I expect you to learn an appreciation for the shocking art and bewitching craft that is horror. For those of you daring enough to face the abyss with me, I can teach you how to bedevil the minds and entangle the senses of your readers with the demonically-willed word. Stephen King has said that “we make up horrors to help us cope with real ones.” In that spirit, the kind of horror literature we will study and write in this workshop will not be interested cheap thrills and schlocky gore alone, but in plumbing the depths of what frightens us to better understand ourselves and each other.
Potential texts: We will read some current and classic masters of the form, which might include Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream, Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians, Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country—and more.
Potential assignments: Assignments will include short flash pieces from specific prompts (as modeled in the new anthology Tiny Nightmares), and one longer story (15 to 25 pages) to be workshopped by the class.
English 4592 (10): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture: Women and the Black Atlantic
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
The literature and culture of the eighteenth-century Black Atlantic is now illuminated by visual, sound and historical archives available online; at once drawing from Africa, Britain, the Americas, especially the Caribbean, the paradigm-changing conceptual term of the Black Atlantic will anchor our reading of the cultures and literatures of slavery as they featured white, Black and brown women. This course will highlight British fiction and non-fiction about women and slavery, including slave narratives and journals of historical people living in slave-based colonies. We will study texts written by and about women in the Black Atlantic during the height of slavery and the trade in enslaved Africans. Our goal will be to use fiction and non-fiction to illuminate each other and to study the ways that women shaped and were shaped by slavery in England and the Caribbean slave colonies.
We will examine feminist issues, including the fraught politics of sisterhood across class and race difference, the long term criticism of patriarchy, property and capitalism, and the way the novel and poetry differently offered ways to dramatize historically pressing issues for women writers and characters concerned about slavery before liberalism and democracy.
Texts: Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall (1767); Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery [Thomas Thistlewood diaries] (1750-86)]; Abolitionist poetry selections (1780-1800); Lady Nugent’s Journal [of her residence in Jamaica 1801-05]; Amelia Opie, Adeline Mowbray; or the Mother and Daughter (1805); Anonymous, The Woman of Colour, A Tale (1808); Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814); Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince (1831); Companion readings in feminist, critical race, and postcolonial literary theory.
Assignments: Likely two research papers and an exam.
English 4592 (20): Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Using feminist perspectives, students will learn to analyze literature and other cultural works (film, television, digital media) written by or about women. Time period and topic vary.
English 4595: Literature and Law—The Outsider in the Courtroom
Instructor: Clare Simmons
Literature and Law is a course in the representation of law in literature and literary analysis of legal discourse; it is not a course in the study of law, but should be of interest to anyone who wants to engage with the role of law in culture; the legal and literary representation of human rights; and how law uses language. Literature and Law can be applied towards the English major and Human Rights minor; many students from other departments also take it to fulfill upper-level course requirements, so the course provides an excellent opportunity to meet students from a wide variety of fields who are interested in law and perhaps thinking about law school. We will read both some legal materials and some literature that represents law in action.
The special topic of this course is "The Outsider in the Courtroom," so we will read some actual cases and also a variety of fictional representations of law in action, and consider how the rights of outsiders are protected, or sometimes forgotten, by the law. We will also practice some court-room procedures of our own in mock-trials.
Guiding questions: How do we feel about the law? How much does law depend on culture? Is it applied equally to everyone?
Potential texts: Readings will include a 2000-year-old murder trial; some medieval animal trials; Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice; the Amistad trial; Wilkie Collins's novel The Law and the Lady; Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men; and a collection of famous trials available online.
Potential assignments: Students will be responsible for regular attendance and participation, including in group mock-trials; three short case briefs; a longer research paper; and reading questions.
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World—Hidden Lives: Studies in Visible/Not Hidden v. Invisible/Hidden
Instructor: Cathy Ryan
This 4000-level course in Disability Studies fulfills both GE and Math and English Integrated Major requirement. The course incorporates introduction to key terms and campus-community partnerships, texts, research and critical analysis, journaling, multimodal learning, small group activities, discussion board and poster session.
Content: Investigation into Hidden Lives (unseen disabilities, micro-aggressions, implicit bias, and unknown or marginalized voices) culminating in a community poster session (“Hidden Figures”), “Lives in the Balance” (fragility, (in)visibility, canceling, mental health and wellness), Campus Advocacy (e.g., SLDS, TOPS mentors/IDD), Community Art and Invention (including social theory, graphic medicine), Accessible Design (spaces and places), and Campus-Community Partnership. Students will have the opportunity to take part in an Ohio State University sensitivity training initiative (Campus Accessibility Ambassadors, SP/SU21).
GE: Cross-Disciplinary Seminar
5000-level
English 5189S: Ohio Field School
Instructor: Cassie Patterson and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
The Ohio Field School Course provides an introduction to ethnographic field methods (participant-observation, writing field notes, photographic documentation, audio-interviewing), archiving and the public exhibition of research for both undergraduates and graduate students. Students will contribute to a team-based, immersive research project designed to document the ways that diverse communities express and preserve a sense of place in the face of economic, environmental and cultural change. Research projects will be centered around the requests of partnering organizations. The semester-long, experientially-based course will consist of the following:
- Introduction to fieldwork: A Zoom-accessible class on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon (slightly shorter time than listed in the schedule). The class will involve both discussion of existing literature and reflection on our own practice.
- Lab (approximately three hours per week) in the Folklore Archives with appropriate social distancing in place. During these hours student teams will be involved in preparatory research, remote fieldwork, accessioning and the preparation of a public-facing project, designed in consultation with community partners.
As becomes possible, we hope to offer voluntary opportunities to visit Southern Perry County and environs (hiking, participation in outdoor community events, self-guided road tours) and outdoor gatherings of our entire research group, but these plans are contingent upon public health recommendations and pandemic conditions in spring 2021.
Throughout the semester, students will practice all of the skills necessary to construct a permanent record of local expressive culture that will be accessible to future researchers and community members.
To enroll students must first attend an information session and apply for the course. Information sessions will be on October 28 at 10am and November 10 at 4pm via Zoom. To register for the info sessions and receive a zoom link, please follow this link.
*Cross-listed in CompStd.
English 5612: History of the Book in Modernity
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will explore books from the past two centuries as physical objects and consider what difference that makes for our understanding of the texts they bear and the uses to which they've been put. We will range widely in terms of genre, language and price point, drawing extensively on the holdings of The Ohio State University's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (in ways that are safe for the age of COVID). By the end of the course you'll understand not only why judging books by their covers is impossible to avoid, but also why it's actually a good thing: how it can help us make sense of the many ways in which books work in (and on) the world. And you'll be able to share your newfound knowledge with the world by collectively acting as the curators for an online exhibition in which you select, research, arrange and showcase objects from our collections.
Potential assignments: A weekly object journal; a few short, informal presentations of objects from Ohio State's collections; a midterm scavenger hunt; active participation in discussions; and substantial contribution to a collectively curated online exhibit
English 5664: Studies in Graphic Narrative—Comics Before the Comic Book, 1660-1930
Instructor: Jared Gardner
As a field, comics studies in the U.S. has devoted much of its energy to studying a relatively small body of work, most of it produced in the last 30 years with relatively little devoted to the long history of comics and cartooning before the rise of the comic book form in the late 1930s. One result of this is that the field has cut itself off from the insights that might be gained from this rich and understudied history before formats like the comic book and graphic novel were devised as solutions to historically specific challenges. This class will study the history of what was originally termed "caricature" until the middle of the 19th century when the newer terms "cartooning" and "comics" entered common usage. While the class will focus primarily on Anglophone texts, comics in the West was from the start an international form, involving much exchange and "borrowing." We will begin with the development of popular caricature in Bologna in the late 17th century, before following the migration of the new art to England where it will shape the graphic narrative work of William Hogarth and other 18th-century artists, culminating in the rise in the 1830s and 40s of the first periodicals devoted to comics and cartooning. This new medium—the illustrated periodical of the 19th century—will ultimately give way to the rise of the newspaper comics supplement at century's end, which will provide our final unit of focus. Along the way we will study changes in print history, including the tools and techniques of making and reproducing graphic images, as well as methods for engaging with both traditional and online archives dedicated to recovering and preserving this history.
English 5722.01/02: Graduate Studies in Renaissance Poetry—John Milton's Paradise Lost
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
John Milton’s epic prequel to the Bible, Paradise Lost, is one of the greatest works of literature in English. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, if a person had three books on their shelf, one would be the King James Bible, and another Paradise Lost. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Milton invented Satan, at least as he’s been understood for the past several centuries. Romantic writers all wrote under Milton’s shadow, and his influence is obvious in Blake’s "Milton," Wordsworth’s "The Prelude," Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Keats’ "Hyperion" and Byron’s "Don Juan." Percy Shelley wrote that “nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan in Paradise Lost.” Malcolm X read Paradise Lost in prison, like Shelley sympathizing deeply with the rebel Satan. Charles Darwin took the poem with him on The Beagle. Paradise Lost is at the heart of Melville’s Moby Dick, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and Toni Morrison’s A Mercy. It was the basis for Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, and has influenced songs by Nick Cave, Eminem, David Gilmour, Marilyn Manson and Mumford and Sons. Film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein called Paradise Lost a “first rate school in which to study montage and audio-visual relationships.” Twelve-year-old Helen Keller read Paradise Lost on a train ride, and she named the John Milton Society for the Blind after the poet, who was blind before he wrote his greatest poems. Popular versions of Paradise Lost shaped the liturgies of early Mormonism, and marathon readings of the poem have become a ritual at colleges and universities across the United States.
Potential texts: Paradise Lost in any standard edition, as well as some shorter works by Milton and others, and a selection of critical essays available on Carmen
Potential assignments: A close reading, a seminar presentation and a substantial critical essay
1000-level
English 1109: Intensive Writing and Reading
Instructor: Staff
Provides intensive practice in integrating academic reading and writing.
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers.
*Traditional and online sections available
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Instructor: Staff
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing and in the essays of professional writers. Taught with an emphasis on literary texts.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1110.03 (10): First-Year English Composition
Instructors
Sections 10 and 20 instructor: Christiane Buuck
Section 30 instructor: Mira Kafantaris
Intensive practice in fundamentals of expository writing illustrated in the student's own writing and essays of professional writers; offered in a small class setting and linked with an individual tutoring component in its concurrent course, 1193. This course is available for EM credit only through the AP program.
GE: Writing and Communication—Level 1
English 1193: Individual Studies
Instructor: Martha Sims
Intensive practice in the fundamentals of expository writing.
2000-level
English 2150: Career Preparation for English and Related Majors
Instructor: Jenny Patton
This course is designed for English and humanities students interested in exploring and preparing for their post-graduation career options. We will begin by reflecting on individual students' strengths and preferences and thinking about job activities and careers that might complement these. We also will examine specific work environments (e.g., corporations and nonprofits); the value of attending graduate or professional school; and the role that internships, undergraduate research and networking play in career development and advancement. In addition, we will look at how to organize and manage an internship/job search; how to put together strong resumes, cover letters and portfolios; and how to interview well over the phone, via Skype and in person.
English 2201: Selected Works of British Literature — Medieval through 1800
Instructor: Karen Winstead and Staff
This survey will introduce students to the vibrant minds and culture that produced the masterpieces of our British literary heritage. Students will sample the writings of poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and Johnson. Students will get to know the worlds they inhabited, the issues they cared about and how they may have thought about themselves as artists and human beings. While exploring the past, students will find surprising precedents for popular genres of our own day, including horror, romance and graphic narrative.
English 2201 is a foundational course for English majors but it is also a rewarding experience for anyone seeking an appreciation of our literary heritage. Lectures will sketch out the contours of literary history and weekly recitations will provide opportunities for group close reading and discussion. Requirements include a final exam, a journal of responses to the readings and weekly online quizzes on the lectures.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2201H: Selected Works of British Literature — Medieval through 1800
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will offer an introduction to the most exciting and memorable literature written in English prior to 1800, which is to say, prior to the invention of most of our standard ideas about literature. We will use the often unusual and provocative perspectives opened up by our engagement with this material both to think about how it worked in its own time and how it has shaped the world we now inhabit. In so doing, we will focus both upon the words themselves and the physical objects through which they have come down to us, drawing extensively on the holdings of our Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Likely readings include portions of The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Paradise Lost, Evelina, several darkly comic plays and some of the most moving poetry ever written. Course requirements will include a weekly reading journal, several short written exercises and active participation in both our discussions and our work with the collections of Rare Books. This course is open to non-honors students who are interested in deeply engaging with this literature and how it continues to work in the world.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2202H: Selected Works of British Literature — 1800 to Present
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course will introduce you to major British literary trends of the last two centuries. Class meetings will include both lecture and lots of discussion. Our texts will cover the Romantic, Victorian, modern and postcolonial periods, as well a bit of the twenty-first century. We'll talk about many major forms and movements - for example, the lyric, the Gothic, the dramatic monologue, aestheticism, the Bildungsroman and modernism. We'll also cover the cultural and historical phenomena that inform our texts, including the French Revolution, slavery and abolitionism, industrialization, imperialism, debates over gender roles, the rise of scientific values, the two world wars and decolonization. Finally, besides teaching you literary and cultural history, English 2202H will help you to become a better critical reader and literary analyst, either for future classes or for your own enjoyment. You'll practice reading texts with an eye for fine detail (a.k.a. close-reading or explicating) in order to construct logical, complex interpretations based on textual evidence. Some of our authors (tentative): William Blake, Mary Kingsley, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Charlotte Bronte, Olive Schreiner, Oscar Wilde, Wilfred Owen, Virginia Woolf, Una Marson, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Kazuo Ishiguro. Graded requirements (also tentative): regular and enthusiastic participation, three or four short response papers (1-2 pp. each), a term paper (5-7 pp.) and two exams.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220 (10): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructors: Hannibal Hamlin
For four centuries now, William Shakespeare has been widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He’s certainly the most influential. More has been written about Shakespeare than any other writer in the history of the world, no joke. His plays have been adapted into countless other plays, novels, poems, music, paintings, films, TV shows and comics, and not only in English but in German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and Yoruba. We will read a sampling of Shakespeare’s plays in a variety of genres and over the course of his career. We’ll think about how his plays work as theater; how he adapts and transforms the source material on which so many of his plays depend; how Shakespeare can be such an “original” when he borrows so much from other writers; how he can create such deep and realistic characters; and how it is that Shakespeare can accomplish all of the above (and more) through language. What we’ll discover is that, as one critic put it, “the remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
We will read 4-5 plays, including some familiar ones (Twelfth Night and Macbeth) and some unfamiliar (King John and Pericles), as well as some non-dramatic poems. Assignments will include two short critical papers, a midterm test and a final exam.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220 (30): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructors: Alan Farmer
In this course we will read several plays written by Shakespeare and consider how they both conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history and romance. Looking at the plays as works to be both performed and read, we will pay particular attention to the politics of gender, religion and kingship in the plays, topics that Shakespeare returned to again and again and that were vitally important, and indeed controversial, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will read some combination of the following plays: Henry V, Two Gentlemen of Verona, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest and The Winter's Tale. Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two essays (one shorter, one longer), regular attendance and active participation.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220 (50): Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructors: Luke Wilson
Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2220H: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
In late sixteenth-century London, on the south bank of the Thames, amongst bear-baiting rings and brothels stood a round wooden theater that brought together people from all walks of life—aristocrats and merchants, cobblers and tailors, seamstresses and fishwives. It was for this space and for these people that William Shakespeare first wrote his influential plays, and in this course, we'll be imagining what it was like to stand with them and watch Shakespeare's theater in action. This particular honors section of Introduction to Shakespeare will be experimenting with cutting-edge techniques for facilitating embodied learning through the combination of rehearsal room techniques modeled on professional theater companies with close textual analysis of Shakespeare's language. Our in-depth exploration will include selected comedies and tragedies, a few poems and a lot of fun along the way.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Global Studies)
English 2260 (20): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Zoe Thompson
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE: Literature
English 2260 (30): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Dylan Thomas said that poetry was what made his toenails twinkle, Carl Sandburg that a poem was an echo asking a shadow dancer to be a partner, and Marianne Moore that poems were imaginary gardens with real toads in them. What are poems really, how do they work, and how should we read them? This GE literature course will focus on short, lyric poems in English from the middle ages to the present, exploring the different things poems do, the different forms they take and sounds they make and the experience of reading them. We’ll also work on talking and writing about them. We’ll discuss forms like sonnets, ballads, sestinas, villanelles and pantoums, as well as the peculiar thing known as “free verse.” We’ll read elegies, pastorals, hymns, satires, epistles and odes. And we’ll encounter many poets, including William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and a crowd of others.
GE: Literature
English 2260 (40): Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Clare Simmons
This course, which fulfills the General Education literature requirement, will provide an introduction to the types and forms of poetry in English, with a particular emphasis on the ways that poems represent the variety and diversity of human experience. Students will have the opportunity to read a wide selection of poems and to practice skills in close reading, analyzing, discussing and writing about literary works. The main texts will be a selection of classic poems available through Carmen; and The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Students will be responsible for regular attendance and participation in classroom discussion and group activities; a reading journal; a final portfolio project developed from the reading journal; quizzes; and mid-term and final exams.
GE: Literature
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Instructors: Staff
Examination of the elements of fiction—plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc.—and their various interrelations. Comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2261 (Session 2): Introduction to Fiction — Game of Thrones as Literature
Instructors: Elizabeth Renker
This class, for which all class sessions will be conducted via Zoom during our scheduled class period, celebrates the conclusion to a beloved HBO series. Even the most dedicated fans might not realize that Game of Thrones is also a skilled and complex work of literature. This class will train you in core analytical methods that will enable newcomers to the series as well as longstanding fans to understand Game of Thrones at a deeper level of richness and pleasure. You will learn the core skills of literary interpretation without a lot of heavy reading assignments, and you will see very quickly how meaningful and helpful they are in achieving a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones. All students are required to watch the entire series before our class begins. Our class sessions will focus on the first two seasons, but it will also presume knowledge of the entire series. (We will not read or discuss the books by George R.R. Martin.) You will re-watch, and read the transcript for, one episode per class period. During our class meetings, we will discuss the day’s episode and I will guide you through applying the analytical method we are learning. Components of your grade: daily attendance for class; preparation of daily homework questions; short daily quizzes about the homework; high-participation activities in class; and three exams conducted on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Textbooks: an HBO subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
GE: Literature
English 2261H: Introduction to Fiction
Instructors: Zoe Thompson
Examination of the elements of fiction—plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc.—and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
GE: Literature
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Ryan Friedman and Staff
This course familiarizes students with the basic building blocks of film, the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, communicate complex ideas and dramatize social conflicts. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Our primary goal in Introduction to Film is to become skilled at thinking, talking and writing critically about movies and, in the process, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the film medium.
GE: VPA
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Culture Studies
Instructors
Section 10 instructor: Joanna Toy
Section 20 instructor: Staff
Introduction to the analysis of popular culture texts.
GE: Cultures and Ideas.
*This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in CompStd.
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Instructor: Macey Phillips
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition of fiction writing. We will write short stories and provide feedback in the form of biweekly workshops during which we will analyze and discuss student work. We will also study published stories by well-regarded authors.
English 2266 (20): Introductory Poetry Writing
Instructor: Neomi Chao
An introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft, composition and practice in the writing of poetry. In this course, we’ll read and analyze poems by various established poets and discuss student work as well. No prior experience needed.
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing—3 Genre
Instructor: Maya McOmie
An introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Analysis and discussion of student work, with reference to the general methods and scope of all three genres.
The purpose of this class is to introduce you to writing as an artistic practice. We will be establishing a foundation in three genres: creative nonfiction, poetry and fiction. We will begin by approaching each genre as readers, analyzing works by great writers to figure out exactly what they’re doing and how they do it. The aim is not to imitate these writers and try to sound like them, but rather to uncover tricks and tools you can learn from, use, borrow and steal to help you sound more like yourself.
The rest of the time, our class will be a workshop. This means you will read your peers’ writing closely, offering sincere and engaged feedback in the form of both written responses and in-class discussion. Likewise, you’ll share your own writing with the class and get the chance to see your work from the perspective of a committed, generous, keen-eyed readership.
The goal of this class is to go broad in order to get narrow: you will expand your range of skills across multiple genres—pushing yourself to be curious, fearless and voracious—as a way of getting closer to understanding both who you already are as a writer, and who you might want to become.
English 2268 : Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Louise Edwards
Creative nonfiction is one of the broadest literary classifications, encompassing forms such as the personal essay, memoir, literary journalism, travel writing, historical narrative and the lyric essay. What does unite the diverse manifestations of this genre is the presence of the writer on the page — exploring, asking questions and framing subject matter for the reader.
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of technique, craft and composition of creative nonfiction. You’ll write creative nonfiction, discuss and analyze your own work and your classmate’s work in a workshop format and read a variety of essays and works by published authors of creative nonfiction. Readings will emphasize a wide variety of voices in particular people of color, voices from the LGBTQ community, women and those who come from an intersection of marginalized identities.
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Instructor: Staff
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE: VPA
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Staff
Folklore theory and methods explored through engagement with primary sources: folktale, legend, jokes, folksong, festival, belief, art.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Katherine Borland
This class explores forms of traditional, vernacular culture—including verbal art, custom and material culture—shared by people from a number of regional, ethnic, religious and occupational groups. We will consider various interpretive, theoretical approaches to examples of folklore and folklife, and we will investigate the history of folklore studies. Recurring central issues will include the dynamics of tradition, the nature of creativity and artistic expression and the construction of group identities. Folklore theory and methods will be explored through readings and an independent collecting project, where students will gather folklore from their home town or the college campus. Students will interview people for stories and other oral forms, and will document cultural practices through photographs, drawings and fieldnotes. Final collecting projects will be accessioned in the Student Ethnographic Collection at the Center for Folklore Studies Archives. Make your mark documenting the expressive culture you know most intimately and that you value most and expand the consultable record of human experience.
*This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in CompStd
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Instructors
Section 10 instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 20 (*online section*) instructor: Jessie Male
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 2281: Introduction to African American Literature
Instructor: Staff
A study of representative literary works by African American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE: Literature
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
*This is a combined section class. Cross-listed in AfAmASt
English 2291: U.S. Literature: 1865 to Present
Instructors: Brian McHale and Staff
This course provides a broad survey of American literature over more than a century and a half, from the aftermath of the Civil War to the new millennium. Examining a wide range of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, the course studies literary engagements with such historical and cultural phenomena as post-Civil War Reconstruction; the expanding social, economic and cultural networks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; immigration and internal migration; race and regional identity; the two World Wars and other armed conflicts of the twentieth century; and the increasingly rapid pace of social and technological changes over the last 75 years. Our investigation of literary responses and influences will include attention to such literary genres, trends and movements as the short story, the emergence of new forms of poetry, realism and its variants, modernism and postmodernism.
GE: Literature
English 2367.01: Language, Identity and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Instructors: Staff
Extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.02: Literature in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
Discussion and practice of the conventions, practices and expectations of scholarly reading of literature and expository writing on issues relating to diversity within the U.S. experience.
GE: Literature
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
English 2367.03: Documentary in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Staff
An intermediate course that extends and refines skills in critical reading and expository writing through analysis of written texts, video and documentaries.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2367.05: The U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Staff
Concepts of American folklore and ethnography; folk groups, tradition and fieldwork methodology; how these contribute to the development of critical reading, writing and thinking skills.
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2367.06: Composing Disability in the U.S.
Instructor: Staff
Extends and refines expository writing and analytical reading skills, emphasizing recognition of intertextuality and reflection on compositional strategies on topics pertaining to education and pop culture in America.
Only one decimal subdivision of English 2367 may be taken for credit.
GE: Diversity (Social Diversity in the U.S.)
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing about Video Games
Instructor: Staff
Emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision and composing in various forms and media. Focusing on digital literacy, development of critical thinking skills and skill in producing analytical prose, students explore key conversations in the field of game studies and analyze a variety of types of video game writing. No prior knowledge of video games or game studies is required.
GE: Writing and Communication (Level Two)
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Staff
An introduction to humanities-based methods of analyzing and interpreting video games in terms of form, genre, style and theory. No background in video game play is necessary. All students will have regular opportunities for hands-on experience with different game types and genres in both the computer-based classroom and the Department of English Video Game Lab.
GE: VPA
English 2464: Introduction to Comics Studies
Instructor: Frederick Aldama
We will learn the language of comics from around the world and the concepts for their study. We will discover comics as a storytelling form grown within specific nationally identified geographic regions with their own styles (U.S. alternative and mainstream as well as manga, for instance) as well as to show how they exist within a world system of comics that includes cross-pollinations and influences with fine arts, films, TV and alphabetic narrative. Along the way, we will ask questions such as: Why tell this story in comics form? What can comics as a storytelling form do that, say, a film or novel can't do? We will learn how to analyze comics and learn about archival research at Ohio State's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. No background in comics is required. Requirements will include reading/viewing of comics, 3 papers (5-7pp each) and discussion.
GE: VPA
3000-level
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Instructors
Sections 10 and 20 instructor: Clarissa Surek-Clark
Section 30 (*online section*) instructor: Gabriella Modan
Students learn basic characteristics of English linguistics focusing on the basic building blocks of language: the sounds of English and how they are put together, word formation processes and rules for combining words into utterances/sentences. Students investigate and explore linguistic variation, accents of American English and the implications of language evaluation in educational settings.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Instructor: Staff
Study of principles and practices of technical writing. Emphasis on the style, organization and conventions of technical and research reports, proposals, memoranda, professional correspondence, etc.
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
In this course we will think theoretically about the relationship between human and non-human Beings/beings. What grounds the difference between one kind of existence and another? What distinguishes the human body from that of other animals? What distinguishes organic bodies from other forms of organized matter—crystals, puddings, viruses, statues, robots, penknives? For some thinkers, the answer to the first question has been that humans are a “higher” form of animal because of our cognitive abilities—our capacity for language and memory, for making tools and art. But research increasingly suggests that Neanderthals used tools and made art, and that primates use tools and language. Moreover, other creatures clearly communicate amongst themselves and even with us, though we don’t tend to call this “language.” If language is merely a shared system of signs, however, why isn’t the family dog using language when she sits when we ask her to? What is a parrot doing when she is saying she wants a cracker? What are we doing when we say we want one? The law has increasingly been willing to grant certain kinds of non-human animals the status of legal persons, endowed with rights and protections. What about trees? Should we not protect these natural objects on which the human species depends for breath and shelter? If corporations have rights, why not water systems? We live in a world organized on the one hand around a pervasive interface of human and machine, and on the other around a growing understanding of the human as a geologic force. How might contemporary developments in robotics, climate change, genetic engineering and animal rights require us to rethink the special status of the human animal? We will pursue this question through a range of theoretical, philosophical, scientific, historical and aesthetic accounts of the human from the eighteenth century to the present. This would be a great course for those interested in science fiction, environmental humanities and human rights, along with anyone needing to fulfill a critical theory requirement.
Possible theoretical texts include selections from Rene Descartes’ Treatise on Man (1664), Julien Offray de la Mettrie’s Machine Man (1747), Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1874); Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920); Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things (1966); Elizabeth Anscombe’s “The First Person” (1974) and “Were You a Zygote” (1984); Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975); Donna Haraway’s Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields (1976) and Primate Visions (1989); David Chalmers’ “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness” (1995); Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social (2005); Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2009); and Christine Korsgaard’s Fellow Creatures (2018). Possible literary texts include J. M. Coetzee’s Slow Man (2005), Sigrid Nunez’ The Friend (2018), a selection of georgic poetry, Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049, Robert Bresson’s film Au Hazard Balthazar (1966), and paintings by Jean-Siméon Chardin, Anne Valleyer-Coster, J.M. Turner, John Constable, Piet Mondrian, Agnes Martin and Cindy Wright.
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Antonio Ferraro
Illness generates stories. Whether from patients, caregivers or loved one, stories of illness are everywhere, informing our sense of what it means to suffer, to adjust to altered and disabled bodies, and to seek comfort and relief. In this class we'll explore, through close examinations of novels, essays, films, poems and other media, the many ways illness narratives intervene in our shared and individual conceptions of illness. Further, by drawing on our different personal and academic experiences, we'll explore how improving our narrative competencies, or the different ways we respond to and create narratives, can inform our medical competencies, or the ways we give and receive health care.
GE: Literature
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture
Instructor: Jared Gardner
This course will study the long and varied tradition of true crime narratives, from early gallows confessions through ballads, novels, comics, memoirs, radio, podcasts and film. Beginning with tales of witches and violence that so captivated their seventeenth-century audiences, to Victorian serial murderers like Jack the Ripper, to modern celebrity crimes and criminals, we will ask why writers and readers so often turn to blood, violence and malfeasance as the stuff of art, entertainment and cultural criticism.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3372 (10): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Children's Fantasy Novels
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
This class will survey some of the most important children's fantasy novelists of the 20th century, from E. Nesbit and C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien up through Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. LeGuin, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and N.K. Jemisin. We will examine how these two genres--fantasy and children's lit--grew up together, and will explore the varying influences on these writers, from myth and folklore to Christianity and Taoism and Existentialism to feminism and critical race theory.
*This is an online section
GE: Literature
English 3372 (20): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy
Instructor: Staff
Introduction to the tradition and practice of speculative writing. Provides students the opportunity to examine and compare works of science fiction and/or fantasy.
GE: Literature
English 3372 (40): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy
Instructor: Brian McHale
If you regularly read science fiction and watch sf films and consider yourself a knowledgeable fan, or if you only occasionally read or watch sf, or if you never read sf and seldom watch sf films—whichever of these categories you belong to, this course is for you! Its purpose is to give you tools for thinking, speaking and writing about sf. Our primary concern won't be sf's history, its marketing and readership, or even its ideas—though all of these things will come into the picture, of course. Our main focus, however, will be on how sf is made—its form. We'll explore questions such as, what distinguishes science fiction from other types of fiction, including fantasy? How are science fiction novels (and films) constructed? How do we get from sentences on a page (or shots in a film) to worlds in the imagination? Specific topics will include the future, the alien and world-building. What does it mean to imagine the future? When we try to do so, are we really just imagining versions of the present? What about aliens? Are they really just versions of ourselves, after all, ourselves in a funhouse mirror, or can we imagine something that is genuinely, radically not-us? What is involved in building a world? Why go to the trouble of building one, when there is a well-made and perfectly usable one all around us? Readings: classic sf short stories from The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (available in print and e-book); screenings of sf films. Assignments: 6 in-class quizzes, 6 brief response papers (2-3 pages each), one longer paper (5-8 pages)
GE: Literature
English 3372 (50): Science Fiction and/or Fantasy—Environmental Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Science Fiction and fantasy often take us to places with weird environments, including future Earths, bizarre dreamscapes, and other planets. In recent years, sci-fi and fantasy works have begun directly addressing the crises of climate change, the sixth mass extinction and the uncertain prospects for human life on an altered planet. This class examines the ways environmental sci-fi/fantasy novels, short fiction and film narrate planetary change and what that means for human and nonhuman futures. Students will read from read and view a diverse set of sci-fi/fantasy fiction, ranging from intergalactic epics, Afrofuturism, weird fiction and the recent subgenre cli-fi. Students will also get a chance to build their own environmental sci-fi/fantasy worlds. Texts and films may include: H.G. Wells The Time Machine; Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed; Octavia Butler The Parable of the Sower; Jeff VanderMeer Borne; China Mieville Three Moments of an Explosion (selected stories); Louise Erdrich Future Home of the Living God; Alex DiFrancesco All City; Emmi Itäranta Memory of Water; Omar El Akkad American War; Mad Max; Snowpiercer.
GE: Literature
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature—Film and Comics: Race, Class, Sexuality and Differently Abled
Instructor: Frederick Aldama
Have you ever wondered why you love watching superhero movies or reading comics? Why do we pay money to go see something that we know is clearly not real? This course examines the art of film and comics storytelling and, simultaneously, the emotion and cognitive responses that they trigger. We will focus on the contemporary period to see how filmmakers and comic book creators build their storyworlds as well as audience consumption. We will also explore the cross-pollination of devices used to give shape to filmic and comic book storytelling modes. We will acquire theoretical concepts and tools to understand better how our set of films and comics are built and how they might make (or not) new our perception, thought and feeling concerning issues of racism, ableism, misogyny, homophobia and the like.
We will view and analyze: Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman (2017); Jon Favreau's Iron Man (2008); Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012); M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (2000); Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013); Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002); James Mangold's Logan (2017); Zack Snyder's Justice League (2017); Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (2018); Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok (2017); Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010); Bob Persichetti et al.: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018); Jill Thompson's Wonder Woman: The True Amazon (2016); George Miller et al.: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015); Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Vol. 1 (2004); Steve Niles's 28 Days Later: Aftermath; Travis Beacham's Pacific Rim: Tales from the Drift (2016); Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther & the Crew (2017).
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature—Shakespeare's Tragedies on Film
Instructor: Luke Wilson
This course will study four or five tragedies by Shakespeare in conjunction with important film versions. Possible plays: Hamlet; Othello; Titus Andronicus; King Lear; Romeo and Juliet; Coriolanus.
GE: Cultures and Ideas
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructors
Section 10 instructor: James Fredal
Section 20 instructor: John Jones
Introduction to the interrelated fields of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy, familiarizing students with key concepts that underlie work in these interrelated fields and to the scholarly methods of WRL. Together, this discipline studies the ways people use language and other symbols to convey messages, persuade audiences and create meaning, and how these practices are learned and taught.
English 3398 (10): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course is designed to strengthen skills in interpretive reading and writing. It will help students with English major courses and also with analyzing texts generally, beyond the classroom. Our focus will be on reading with an eye for fine detail and constructing logical, well-evidenced arguments. The syllabus will cover the major genres—novel, short story, poetry, performance (drama and film), and possibly memoir—and will range from the classic to the contemporary. A very tentative and partial author list includes Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Raymond Carver, Octavia Butler, Justin Torres, Carmen Machado and Trevor Noah. In class, I will be providing guidance, terminology and a critical framework, but most meetings will be run as active discussions. Tentative assignments: two papers, 3-5 pages each; two papers, 5-7 pages each; a critical research exercise; regular reading quizzes; and engaged class participation.
English 3398 (30): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Susan Williams
What is literature? How does it work? How do we read and make sense of it? How do we talk and write about it? This course will focus on the close reading of a variety of different kinds of literature, considering especially matters of literary history, genre and form, as well as the interconnected roles of authors, texts and readers, and exploring all the many ways in which novels, poems and plays make meaning. This will not be “How to read literature like a professor,” but how to read literature like a really good reader, and perhaps also, how to read literature like a writer, from the inside out. Literary works will include Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, the poems of Elizabeth Bishop and Anne Carson’s weird whatever-it-is The Autobiography of Red. We will also read a variety of critical essays on these works, representing different theoretical and methodological perspectives. Evaluation will be based on participation in discussion, short assignments and four essays.
English 3398 (70): Methods for the Study of Literature
Instructor: Roxann Wheeler
Serves as the "Methods" course for the Literature and Creative Writing concentrations within the English major. Its purpose is to familiarize students with literary studies in such a way as to prepare them for advanced courses in all literary fields and the genres of Creative Writing. Required of English majors. Open to English majors only or others by dept permission.
English 3465 (30): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing—Writing Against Convention
Instructor: Adam Luhta
Literature is considered a storytelling medium, but what sets it apart from other forms of artistic expression is the capacity to render consciousness through voice. In this course, students will examine and hone their individual authorial voices through discussion of short stories, novel excerpts and flash fiction by a diverse set of classic and contemporary writers. Students will also produce and workshop 1-2 substantial pieces of writing. Readings will be drawn from the work of Lucia Berlin, E.M. Forster, Marlon James, Diane Williams, Toni Morrison, Vi Khi Nao, Flannery O'Connor, Kurt Vonnegut and others.
English 3465 (20): Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing—Writing Against Convention
Instructor: Michelle Herman
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing fiction. This section's special topic will be characterization (and motivation, which goes hand in hand with it). We'll focus on in-depth practice in creating fully believable, three-dimensional characters.
English 3466: Special Topics in Intermediate Poetry Writing
Instructor: Alyssa Froehling
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing poetry. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Instructor: Beverly Moss
English/CSTW 3467s focuses on theories and practices in tutoring writing. The aim of this course is to prepare undergraduates to work with writers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. This class provides a unique opportunity for its members to learn about composition theory and pedagogy, tutoring strategies and writing center theories and practices in order to put these theories and practices to work in classroom and writing center settings. Students will apprentice as writing consultants/tutors in the University Writing Center. Therefore, in addition to our regularly scheduled class time, each person enrolled in this course will spend approximately one hour per week in the Writing Center. In addition to your observations, you will be expected to complete a semester-long research project. This course is particularly helpful to those who are planning careers as teachers or who are enrolling in the professional writing minor (3467 is an elective for the writing minor).
*Cross-listed in ArtsSci
English 3468: Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
For students who have experience with the basic elements of writing creative nonfiction. Special topics focus on particular aspects of the genre; advanced techniques are explored.
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Kamal Kimball
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Instructors
Section 10 instructor: Jennifer Patton
Section 20 instructor: Daniel Seward
Section 30 instructor: Christiane Buuck
Examine writing in various workplaces. Analyze writing discourse that shapes professional organizations. Explore ongoing technological and cultural shifts required of workplace writers and the role of digital media.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor—Capstone Internship
Instructor: Jennifer Patton
Students work on-site in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4515: Chaucer
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
The aim of this course will be to introduce students to the poetry of one of the greatest of English writers, Geoffrey Chaucer, starting with his early works and leading up to a reading of large sections of his most famous poem, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's poetry offers a window onto an usually exciting moment of political, cultural and philosophical transformations, and we will read these poems with close attention to the society and culture in which they were produced. Students will also acquire a familiarity with Chaucer's Middle English.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
This course will explore the formal, social and political engagements of Shakespeare's plays. It will pay particular attention to how his plays conform to and work against the genres of comedy, tragedy, history and romance, and to how they represent such issues as gender, sexuality, religion, race and political power. In addition to some critical and historical essays on the early modern theater and culture, we will likely read some combination of the following plays: Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, The Winter and Pericles. Requirements include two essays, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance and active participation.
Assigned texts: I will order a selection of modern editions of the plays on the syllabus. Any modern edition you purchase must have line numbers, glosses of difficult words and longer explanatory notes. Good editions of single plays are published by Cambridge, Oxford and Arden, as well as by Folger, Pelican, Norton, Bedford, Bantam and Signet. Reputable one-volume editions of all of Shakespeare's plays are published by Longman, Pelican, Riverside, Norton and Oxford.
English 4520.02: Shakespeare—Q1 Hamlet: Shakespeare, Criticism and Performance (Synchronous Online)
Instructor: Sarah Neville
Did you know there are three texts of Hamlet? This Special Topics course is designed to give students an opportunity to explore the relationship between literary texts, criticism and performance through a deep investigation into one of the most discussed – and controversial – texts in the English language. Students in this course will study the theatrical and critical history of the 1603 text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which famously has Hamlet uttering not, “To be or not to be, that is the question”, but “To be or not to be – ay, there’s the point.” In figuring out how this early version of Shakespeare’s play could have been displaced by the later but better-known version of 1604-5, students in 4520.02 will explore topics like Renaissance books in print, theories of textual transmission, performance criticism, theatre reviewing and Shakespeare’s use of popular and historical sources. Our weekly class work will be a mix of synchronous and asynchronous discussion, short writing assignments, and guided discovery. Approximately 65% of the class will be conducted synchronously during the assigned class time.
Complementing these traditional classroom activities, Lord Denney’s Players, the theatre company of the English department, is producing a documentary film about the three texts of Hamlet in November 2020, and students in 4520.02 will form the film’s production team. All work on the film will be completed remotely to conform with safe social distancing guidelines. As part of their class assessment, students will work to explain central textual and performance variants between the Hamlet texts as part of an “act” of the documentary. In consultation with the professor, student groups will direct their act’s initial concept and script development, conduct and film interviews, adapt relevant illustrative scenes, determine those scenes’ casting, costumes, lighting and sound design and explain how these choices fit into their act’s overall dramaturgy. The combination of the LDP documentary and students’ individual work in the class will serve as a joint “laboratory” to test some of the claims Shakespeare critics have made about the performability of Shakespeare’s 1603 Hamlet text, providing a lasting resource for other students and scholars of Shakespeare. All students in ENGL 4520.02 will take part in (and receive credit for) the making of the Hamlet film but they may choose whether or not they ultimately appear onscreen in the finished product.
English 4540: Nineteenth-Century British Poetry
Instructor: Jacob Risinger
Set down on a darkling plain, Romantic and Victorian poets raged against the dying of the light. In this course, we will explore poets who tried to make sense of the nineteenth century and its tumultuous changes. Poets ranging from Wordsworth to Oscar Wilde were some of the first writers to grapple with the modern world as we know it. Their century was rocked by the invention of the train, the telegraph, the photograph and the bicycle. The industrial revolution gave rise to a broad but unpredictable social realignment and Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis disrupted religious convictions and comfortable visions of nature. Revolutionary political ideas prompted the reconsideration of tradition, custom and order. As the British Empire expanded to cover a quarter of the globe, both the Romantics and the Victorians confronted an increasing disjunction between local culture and a globalized world. Over the course of the semester, we will think about how these developments resulted in the formal and thematic transformation of British poetry.
English 4543: 20th-Century British Fiction—Fiction and Politics at the End of the British World System
Instructor: Thomas Davis
This course examines a wide range of fiction produced from locations that made up the British world system: the British Isles, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. We will be concerned primarily with the way literary texts register historical and political tensions and, sometimes, get marshaled directly for political ends. Our readings will take us through the various ways literature engages questions of empire, racism, gender and sexuality, fascism, war, and immigration. To address the relationship of aesthetics and politics, we will consider the formal dimensions of texts—figural language, emplotment, characterization, perspective, generic fidelity and infidelity—as encryptions of the multiple historical antagonisms that led to Britain's slow descent from atop the world-system over the course of the twentieth century. Texts may include: Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway; Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin; Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover and Other Stories; George Orwell's 1984; Samuel Selvon's The Lonely Londoners; J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World; Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing; Ali Smith's Autumn.
English 4550: Special Topics in Colonial and Early National Literature of the U.S.—Alexander Hamilton's World
Instructor: Elizabeth Hewitt
The popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton has turned the "ten dollar founding father" into something of a household name. This class will use Hamilton's life—as immigrant, soldier, revolutionary, architect of American finance and husband—as a lens to view various stories told about the early United States. We will consider the interdisciplinary relationships between economic, political and imaginative writing in the eighteenth century (a relationship that is also crucial to Miranda’s musical). And we will study the partisan divides (especially over Federal authority, slavery and public finance) that shaped the first decade of the nation. We will read novels, essays, autobiographies, poetry and political treatises by authors including: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Phillis Wheatley, Susanna Rowson, Olaudah Equiano, James Madison, Charles Brockden Brown, Judith Sargent Murray, Quobna Ottobah Cuguono and Royall Tyler.
English 4555: Rhetoric and Legal Argumentation
Instructor: James Fredal
Examines legal argumentation as a specialized type of rhetorical discourse; considers the relationship between rhetoric and legal discourse from historical, theoretical and practical perspectives; covers key concepts in rhetorical theory and explores their relevance for analyzing and producing legal arguments; students apply theory in analysis and production of spoken and written legal arguments.
English 4563: Contemporary Literature—Literature 1945 to the Present
Instructor: Jessica Prinz
We will read broadly in the area of 20th and 21st Century fiction, focusing on the theme of science.
Although "science fiction" is a genre devoted to science and its fusion with literature, we will be looking at other genres as well, as we explore some of the central concerns of the period.
Among works that may be considered are: Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; Zadie Smith, White Teeth; Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad; Delillo, White Noise; Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler; Eggers, The Circle; Lightman, Einstein's Dreams; Benedict, The Other Einstein. No prior knowledge of contemporary science or literature is required.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Nick White
This is the advanced creative writing workshop in fiction. Admission is limited to creative writing concentrators who have taken English 2265, and to other students who have successfully completed English 2265 with permission of the instructor by portfolio submission.
English 4566: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Marcus Jackson
Each meeting, we will workshop your poems. In addition, we will be reading and discussing the aesthetic choices made in selections of published poetry (distributed via handouts and our Carmen page). Also, we will make efforts to become familiar with the poets and books that are guiding our current writing, thereby giving us more informed perspectives from which to critique weekly drafts.
English 4568: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Elissa Washuta
This is the advanced creative writing workshop in creative nonfiction. Admission is limited to creative writing concentrators who have taken English 2268, and to other students who have successfully completed English 2268 with permission of the instructor by portfolio submission.
English 4569: Digital Media in English Studies: Digital Protest and Online Activism
Instructor: John Jones
Critical examination of the intersections between specific areas or problems in English studies and the emergent technologies used to acquire and create knowledge in the discipline.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
An examination of terminology and structures traditionally associated with the study of English grammar and usage rules, especially problematic ones, governing edited written American English.
English 4573.02: Rhetoric and Social Action
Instructor: Staff
Examination of persuasive strategies in social interaction, such as social movements, political protests, cultural trends, rituals and ceremonies and everyday practices.
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes
Instructors: Angus Fletcher
In this course, you will learn to write like your favorite author, in any genre or any medium, from poetry to comics, film to fiction, essays to television, memoir to mashup, ancient or modern. You will start by learning the secret to uncovering your favorite author's creative blueprint, identifying the formal elements that your author uses like nobody else. Maybe the element is a unique style, or a special recipe for character, or an innovative use of plot, or storyworld, or voice or atmosphere. Then you'll incorporate that blueprint into your own writing. So you will create your own original piece of writing that sounds just like your favorite author—while also sounding just like you.
English 4577.02: Folklore II—Genres, Form, Meaning and Use
Instructors: Merrill Kaplan
LEGEND has classically been defined as a genre of prose narrative, an objectively false story told by people who ignorantly believe it is true. Almost everything about this definition is wrong. This course explores legend, rumor, superstition and folk belief in places and times from 19th-century Scandinavia to the 21st-century Internet. We’ll get to know the structure and subject matter of legend, the relationship between legend, belief and personal experience, and the nature of legend as contested truth. We’ll learn about the history of the collection of legends and become acquainted with the work of major scholars. By the end of the course, students will understand some of the difficulties posed by attempts to define legend as a genre and have learned strategies for interpreting legend and rumor as meaningful expression.
English 4578: Special Topics in Film—Disney(Plus)
Instructors: Jared Gardner
This course will study the history of Disney from its founding in 1923 as a small animation studio in a Hollywood dominated by major studios to its emergence in the twenty-first century as the world's most profitable global media conglomerate. Along with analysis of film, television and other media texts, the course will engage heavily with film history (including studio and industry history), media history and popular culture studies from 1920s-2020, considering not only Disney's own theatrical output but also the wide range of media that the company has acquired and developed, including Pixar, the Star Wars franchise and of course the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The launching of the new Disney+ streaming platform will also provide us with an occasion to consider the state (and future) of transmedia storytelling and media circulation in the new age of the horizontally integrated "studio."
English 4578: Special Topics in Film—Musicals
Instructors: David Brewer
This course will investigate what is perhaps simultaneously the most beloved and the most mocked of all film genres: the musical. We'll explore the enduring appeal of characters bursting into song and dance when their emotions swell. And we'll consider why such an inherently ridiculous form should persist, despite all of the changes to both society and t