Undergraduate Courses
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 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.
Autumn 2026
1000-Level
English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition
Practice in the fundamentals of expository writing, as illustrated in the student's own writing & in the essays of professional writers. May be available as a service learning course with five hours community service required at the Lima campus only.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
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 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Luke Wilson
Course Description: Study of selected plays designed to give an understanding of drama as theatrical art and as an interpretation of fundamental human experience.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2221: Introduction to Shakespeare, Race, and Gender
Instructor: Alan Farmer
Course Description: 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, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; (2) the plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello; (3) and modern adaptations of the plays on stage, in film, and in literature. Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two critical essays, regular attendance, and active participation.
Texts: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Staff
Course Description: Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 0020 and 0030 Instructor and Title: Elizabeth Renker - Game of Thrones as Literature
Course Description: 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 MAX series, this class will train you in core analytical and literary 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.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of Game of Thrones. Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the MAX series before second session begins in mid-October; 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 for each episode; listen carefully to lecture; take three exams on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Required materials: a MAX subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Texts: The first two seasons of the HBO MAX series.
Section 0040 Instructor: Staff
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jared Gardner
Course Description: This course introduces the language and aesthetics of cinema, familiarizing students with the basic building blocks of film and the forms that movies use to tell stories, move viewers emotionally, and communicate complex ideas. It also introduces students to significant developments in film history and ways of approaching film interpretation. Each week, we will focus on a new aspect of filmmaking in dialogue with a different movie, building the tools that will allow us to reverse-engineer movie magic and be able to describe the meanings buried within.
Texts: The class uses a free online textbook developed specifically for the class.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Staff
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: MaryKatherine Ramsey
Section 0020 Instructor: Zoë Brigley
Section 0030 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Course Description: 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.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Michelle Zeitouny
Section 0020 Instructor: Aidan Aragon
Course Description: 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.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2267: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Ruotong Wu
Course Description: 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.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2268: Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Meredith Whitaker
Course Description: 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.
GE Categories:
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2269: Digital Media Composing
Section 0010 Instructor: Jonathan Thomas
Section 0040 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Course Description: A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Section 0010 Instructor: Ciara Bernal
Section 0020 Instructor: Zahra Abedinezhadmehrabadi
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2270H: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Mintzi Martinez-Rivera
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 20 Instructor: Wendy Hesford
Course Description: This course introduces students to a broad range of rhetorical principles to help analyze the rhetorical power of images and social media to set political agendas and to force contentious issues onto the US national and international stage. Students will be introduced to various rhetorical methods, including visual rhetoric, fantasy-theme criticism, iconographic tracking, ideographic analysis, identification as a form of persuasion, and narrative and metaphorical analysis
Section 40 Instructor & title: Daniel Seward - Rhetoric
Course Description: Rhetoric–– usually considered THE art of persuasion–– has both positive and negative connotations, depending on how the art is being used. These conflicting assessments are complicated even more once we recognize that there is not a single art of rhetoric, but many. Across the globe and for at least two dozen centuries, individuals have found it useful, sometimes necessary, to understand, refine, and systematize persuasive communication for a range of public and private purposes. While students and teachers of these arts may base their understandings on some fundamental human needs, such as social status, emotional connection, or reasoned action, the richly varied cultures and institutions where persuasion takes place have produced a multitude of rhetorics. In this class, we will explore a variety of traditional and modern rhetorical techniques and situations, considering both how and why particular techniques developed within their particular cultural settings and whether and when the techniques might be applicable (or already applied) in our milieu, especially for the purposes of cultivating civic values like justice, inclusion, diversity, and duty.
Potential Assignments: Two short "persuasive practice" pieces (400-600 wds) wherein you will test out persuasive principles with classmates; three analytical projects in various formats; and a variety of weekly engagement activities to encourage discussion and reflection, but also document participation.
Mode of Delivery: Online asynchronous with optional weekly synchronous sessions. (i.e. Participants can either attend the sync session "live" OR view the session as a recording and complete a follow-up async participation post; the regular day and time of the live session will be based on a poll of enrolled students taken during the first week of class.)
Texts: Lundberg and Keith, An Essential Guide to Rhetoric (2018); Martin Luther King, A Time to Break Silence (2013); Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Communicating (2014). These are available in print or electronic formats. Other readings, including short examples for analysis and recorded video lessons, will be distributed on Carmen.
Section 10 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
Section 30 Instructor: James Fredal
Section 40 Instructor: Dan Seward
Course Description: Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Section 0010 Instructor: Sabrina Durso
Section 0030 Instructor: Michelle Gabay
Course Description: Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
GE Categories:
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. We will read a substantial 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 address 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, seemingly anomalous books like Job, Ecclesiastes, and The Song of Songs, 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 far as time permits, we will also explore the astonishingly diverse history of biblical interpretation, literary and artistic responses to the Bible, and its impact on global cultures over several millennia. NOTE THAT THOUGH THIS COURSE WILL OBVIOUSLY DISCUSS RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES, NONE OF THESE WILL BE PRIVILEGED OR PRESUMED TO BE “TRUE”. STUDENTS OF ALL FAITHS, OR NONE, ARE WELCOME.
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation - Literature, Visual and Performing Arts
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Shannon Winnubst
Course Description: Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GE Categories:
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: U.S. Literature: 1865 to Present
Instructor: Thomas Davis
Course Description: What does it mean to be American — and who gets to decide? This course tracks American literature from the wreckage of the Civil War to the present day. We will witness how writers have grappled with the forces that have made and remade the country over the last 150 years: industrial capitalism, global war, empire, racial violence, shifting ideas gender and sexuality, and the relentless churn of technological change. Along the way, you'll see how literary form — the shape of a sentence, the fragmentation of narrative perspective, the manipulation of breath by a poem — enacts ways of thinking through history that escape the reach of other representational modes. From realism to modernism to postmodernism and contemporary sci-fi, this is a course about how American writers have tried to tell the truth about a country that has always been contested, contradictory, and always consequential.
Texts: Passing by Nella Larsen, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, short fiction from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and selections from W.E.B. Du Bois.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 0010 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 0020 Instructor: Hannah Locher
Section 0030 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 0040 Instructor: Nathan Richards
Section 0050 Instructor: Hallie Hofherr
Section 0060 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0070 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 0080 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Section 0090 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Section 0100 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Section 0110 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0120 Instructor: Soyoo Park
Section 0130 Instructor: Courtney Felle
Section 0140 Instructor: Shaun Russell
Section 0150 Instructor: Shaun Russell
Section 0160 Instructor: Lila Wright
Section 0170 Instructor: Njoki Mwangi
Section 0180 Instructor: Marwan Almuhaysh
Section 0190 Instructor: Marwan Almuhaysh
Course Description: 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 0020 Instructor and Title: Faye Halpern - Unreliable Narrators
Course Description: In this class, the focus will be on unreliable narrators. How can you tell an unreliable narrator from a trustworthy one? How does unreliable narration work in fiction versus film? We will also explore some of the ethical questions that unreliable narration raises: how does unreliable narration help or hinder our connection to characters whose subjective experiences might otherwise be difficult to imagine, as in the case of a person with a severe mental illness?
Texts: My Year of Rest and Relaxation, A Beautiful Mind
Section 0070 Instructor: Susan Williams
Course Description: In this course, we will talk and write about American literature in relation to four key topics: medicine, law, art, and place. In doing so, we will think about how literature gives a window into the American experience in heathcare, legal practices, creativity, and local communities. Students will gain practice in writing about literature, particularly with regard to using and understanding literary quotations and allusions; working with digital databases; and thinking about how literature applies to and illuminates the real world of everyday life.
Texts: Edson, Wit: Ng, LIttle Fires Everywhere; Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. McCullers, Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Section 0010 Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
Section 0030 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
Section 0040 Instructor: Jessica Crabtree
Section 0050 Instructor: Domenic Cregan
Section 0060 Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
Section 80 Instructor: Caleb Hays
Course Description: 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 decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.06: Writing about Disability
Instructor: Zaira Girala Muñoz
Course Description: Students will critically examine writing about disability, health, and wellness from a variety of genres (scholarly essays, personal essays, documentaries, comics, music, film) and use their findings to produce creative, scholarly, and professional documents appealing to multiple audiences and rhetorical situations.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2367.07S: Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus
Instructor: Brittany Halley
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GEN: HIP: Service Learning
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 0010 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 0020 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 0030 Instructor: Kienna Whitman
Section 0050 Instructor: William Guy Spriggs
Section 0060 Instructor: Samantha Tonkins
Section 0070 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 0080 Instructor: Kelsey Paige Mason
Course Description: Our course will address theories in game studies, with the focus of our analysis being tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and video games. Students will analyze character development and creators, plot and story, non-player characters 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 or podcasts, and actual play performances. Students will be guided through and encouraged to create a research project built out of their own interests. Research projects will be scaffolded, where students will revise and add to their previous work through their close-reading analysis, annotated bibliography, peer review workshops, and creative, multimodal writing. No previous experience with games required!
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Instructor: Joshua Cornelius
Course Description: 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
3000 Level
English 3011.01: Digital Activism
Instructor: Staff
Course Description: This course is both critical and creative. Students will tinker with digital media tools and think about digital media and social change and citizenship within a rich and safe environment, investigating and experimenting with the consequences of humans' relationships with digital media; studio days will afford hands-on guidance in mobilizing digital media for the purpose of protest and activism.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3020: Writing About Sustainability
Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Course Description: 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: Elena Kalodner-Martin
Course Description: 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
Section 0010 Instructor and Title: Martin Joseph Ponce - Citizenship and Its Others
Course Description: This course examines the category of U.S. citizenship from the vantage point of post-Civil Rights American literary and cultural production. As scholars of the concept have often noted, citizenship operates as a marker of privilege and protection for some that depends on the exclusion and precarity of others. We will thus focus our attention on texts that remember and represent the formal citizen’s constitutive and diverse ''others'': enslaved African/Americans; colonized Indigenous peoples; Arab/Muslim/South Asian ''terrorists''; undocumented migrants, refugees, and LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers; survivors of sexual coercion and assault; ''denationalized'' trans people; contemporary Asian American scapegoats; and Black Americans subject to mundane and spectacular forms of racial violence. What alternative modes of social belonging and justice have contemporary minoritized writers and artists imagined and enacted when legal and national citizenship have proven to be problematic or inadequate?
Texts: Potential texts: Toni Morrison, Beloved; Tommy Orange, There There; Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts
Section 0020 Instructor: Alan Farmer
Course Description: Works of literature have long been an essential medium through which discourses of citizenship are developed, constructed, refined, and debated. And within that cultural process, the plays of Shakespeare have had an outsized role in shaping the understanding of citizenship. In this course, we will examine how Shakespeare's plays engage with important questions related to citizenship, justice, and diversity: Who belongs to a community and is considered a citizen? How can the law be used to achieve justice but also to perpetuate injustice? How can citizens and non-citizens respond to abuses of political power? Readings are likely to include Richard II, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest, but we will also study important historical and contemporary productions of Shakespeare as we consider how his plays have been used to reinforce and challenge understandings of citizenship at different moments in history. Requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, two critical essays, regular attendance, and active participation.
Texts: Richard II, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3260: Poetry and Transformation
Section 0010 Instructor: Hannibal Hamlin
Course Description: In his elegy for W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden wrote that ''poet makes nothing happen.'' This course will explore whether this is really true. No poem is likely to cure cancer or bring about world peace, but even when we read poems, something happens, though it may not be visible to others, or even to ourselves. Poems generate emotion and thought, they teach us things, and in ways impossible to track they surely stimulate actions and guide behavior, at least for those who read or hear them. More obviously, poems influence and shape other poems, sometimes spawning entire poetic traditions, and they impact other kinds of writing too. If poems don’t cause world-changing events, they can respond to them and in so doing sway our interpretation of history. In this course we will read a lot of poems of different kinds from different periods, traditions, and cultures. We’ll cast a wide net, drawing in nursery rhymes, mnemonics, children’s books, ballads, hymns, elegies, and poems of love, celebration, introspection, condemnation, and speculation. We’ll think about words, sounds, rhythms, forms, argument, narrative, dialogue, and play. And we’ll see whether all this can make something happen.
Texts: Everything from ''Thirty Days Hath September,'' ''Twinkle, twinkle,'' and ''Goodnight Moon'' to ''Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day,'' ''Amazing Grace,'' ''Ode to a Nightingale,'' ''The Waste Land,'' to ''All Along the Watchtower'' and ''Gangsta's Paradise.''
Section 0020 Instructor: David Brewer
Course Description: This course will consider poetry and poetic thinking as a technology (in the root sense of techne) that offers a particular way of engaging with both the self and the world that’s markedly different—and often far richer—than those provided by other forms of spoken and written communication. You will explore a broad range of poetry across multiple media and consider how it has transformed the lives of its writers, readers, and performers and how that, in turn, has helped create a special status for poetry as a form of language credited with working in particularly complex, compressed, and powerful ways across time and space. We’ll also try our hands at various kinds of poetry to see what we can learn from writing verse (however roughly), rather than just studying verse written by others.
Texts: We will be reading a wide range of poetry and listening to a number of songs.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations
English 3261: Fiction, Then and Now
Section 0010 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
Section 0020 Instructor: Jill Galvan
Section 0030 Instructor: Ryan Friedman
Section 0040 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
Course Description: This course examines the transformative power of fiction, its significant social functions, its establishment of and challenge to literary traditions, and its ability to reshape the world.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 0020 Instructor: Karen Winstead
Course Description: 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. In this course, you will explore how films and novels about ghosts, vampires, and body snatchers created from the 1950s into the 2020s joined debates about mental health, social justice, and national and/or personal responsibility.
Texts: Texts will include The Shining (King's novel and Kubrick's movie) and I Am Legend (Matheson's novella and Lawrence's movie)
Section 0030 Instructor and Title: Christopher Jones - The Literary Vampire
Course Description: Race. Gender. Sexuality. Class. Capitalism. Empire. National identity. What do these have to do with monsters, you ask? Everything. As students will learn in this class, monsters and the supernatural have a grip on our social imaginations because of how they help define Self and Other, human and ''monstrous,'' insider and outsider. Rereading classic novels and examining 21th century fiction and film that flips the script, ''Monsters and the Other'' will raise fundamental questions about citizenship, justice, peace, and freedom.
Texts: Stoker’s Dracula (1897); Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954); Rice, Interview With the Vampire (1977); Jones, Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025)
Section 0040 Instructor and Title: Pranav Jani - Monsters and the Other
Course Description: 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 about communal and individual identities and the notions of justice that support them? Addressing such questions, this section of English 3264 will focus on the evolving figure of the vampire in stories, novels, and films from the early 1800s to our own time.
Texts: Sample texts: Frankenstein (many versions); Dracula; Get Out (film); Mexican Gothic
Sections 0110 and 0120 Instructor and Title: Frank Donoghue - Monsters Within: Psychopaths
Course Description: When we think of a monster, we most likely think of a cryptid like Bigfoot or an extraterrestrial like the tripod creatures in War of the Worlds. In this course, we’re going to examine the concept of a monster through the potentially monstrous behavior of the psychopath. There are many fictional representations of psychopaths- Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, for example. But most fictional psychopaths bear little resemblance to real life psychopaths. To help us understand the reality of psychopathy we’ll read selections from Dr. Robert Hare’s Without Conscience. Using the information we’ll gain from Dr. Hare’s work, we’ll then analyze three representations of psychopathy in fiction: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, and Apt Pupil by Stephen King. In addition, we’ll watch the film Gone Girl directed by David Fincher. We’ll examine the roles of personal and parental responsibility and the idea of nature vs nurture, as well as attempting to come up with our own answers for the question of what we, as a society, should do with a person that is a risk of becoming a dangerous person, even if they haven’t done anything yet.
Texts: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver; Apt Pupil by Stephen King; The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith; Gone Girl directed by David Fincher
Section 0010 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Section 0040 Instructor: Pranav Jani
Section 0050 Instructor: Molly Farrell
Section 0060 Instructor: Seonoh Kim
Section 0070 Instructor: Molly Farrell
Section 0080 Instructor: Tallon Kennedy
Section 0090 Instructor: William Guy Spriggs
Section 0100 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Section 0130 Instructor: Sam Risak
Course Description: 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 3265: Fictions of Creation: Robots, Androids, AIs, and Clones
Instructor: Karen Winstead
Course Description: For centuries humans have dreamed of creating beings who will serve them, inform them, entertain them, and even love them. Stories told about such creations are not only technological fantasies but also registers of the human fears, hopes, and anxieties that have coalesced around them: what promise, and what threat, do they hold for our individual and collective wellbeing? Non-human creations may also be metaphors for those whose humanity has not been fully acknowledged, and their stories may explore social, political, class, gender, ethnic, and racial issues. Today, as creatures that humans once only dreamed of creating—robots, AIs, androids, and clones—are becoming part of our reality, those fictions have acquired a new urgency. This course will explore stories of human-made creatures, old and new, and examine how they challenge us to think of issues surrounding justice, community, citizenship, structures of power, and humanity.
Texts: Ex Machina; Echo Wife; Companion
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3271: Structure of the English Language
Section 0010 and 0040 Instructor: Gabriella Modan
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Staff
Section 090 Instructor: Christa Teston
Course Description: The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 0020 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 0030 Instructor: Nathan Richards
Section 0040 Instructor: Godfred Nana Kruentsi Ogoe
Section 0050 Instructor: Nathan Richards
Section 0060 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 0070 Instructor: Marwan Almuhaysh
Section 0080 Instructor: Louisa Gambah
Section 0090 Instructor: Staff
Section 100 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 110 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 120 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 130 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 140 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 150 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 160 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 170 Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 180 Instructor: Kerry Ulm
Section 190 Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 200 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 210 Instructor: Kelsey Stratman
Section 0220 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 0230 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
Section 0240 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
Section 0250 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
Section 250 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
Section 0260 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
Section 0270 Instructor: Staff
Section 280 Instructor: Marwan Almuhaysh
Course Description: The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Elena Kalodner-Martin
Course Description: Technical Writing (English 3305) helps students strengthen their communication skills and prepare for a wide range of professional contexts. The course is especially useful for (1) STEM majors preparing for careers where communication is integral to their professional responsibilities, (2) humanities majors interested in technical communication careers such as user experience, documentation writing, editing, or instructional design, and (3) students of any major who want to build confidence in communicating about specialized or technical subject matter. Through exploring a diverse array of genres and professional contexts, this course will give you experience in project planning, organizational design, written and visual communication, reviewing, editing, and more.
Texts: Carolyn Miller’s ''A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing''; Miles Kimball’s ''The Golden Age of Technical Communication''
Section 30 Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Section 50 Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
Section 60 Instructor: John Jones
Course Description: 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 3306: Reviewing, Editing, and Testing Technical Documents
Instructor: Christa Teston
Course Description: This course focuses on the following technical communication practices: reviewing, editing, and testing. Students will learn about larger research issues in technical editing, what technical editors do, and what skills technical editors need to possess. This class will give students a chance to practice reviewing and/versus editing; editing at various levels.
English 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Course Description: In this class, we will take a step back from what usually happens in classes about literature and ask some of the big philosophical 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. To give shape to such a wide survey, the course will focus on four historical moments: first, the rise of literary theory in Greek antiquity; second, experiments with allegorical reading in the Middle Ages; third, the beginning of modern criticism in neoclassicism and enlightenment thought; and fourth, the movement that largely set the terms for our own understanding of literature, Romanticism.
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Susan Williams
Course Description: 'There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced—of passion, of hunger, of love—bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracks, and heartbeats.'' In this course, we will consider how literary narratives can help bridge the gap between the ''language of life'' and the language of science and thereby facilitate communication between medical providers and patients in a health care setting. How might telling, listening to, and analyzing stories help mediate and improve caregiver-patient interactions and outcomes? How do the disciplines of literary and narrative study and medical practice intersect with and inform each other? To explore these questions, we will read memoirs by both patients and caregivers. We will also read a range of literary texts, from the nineteenth century to the present, that highlight the human as well as scientific dimensions of health care. In addition, we will examine how narrative principles and techniques are adapted in film and television.
Texts: Alcott, Hospital Sketches; Kalanithi, When Breath Beomes Air; Brockmeier, The Illumination
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 0010 Instructor: Emily Eikost
Section 0020 Instructor: Zoë Brigley
Section 0040 Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Course Description: 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:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature
Instructor: Luke Wilson
Course Description: Focuses on the relationship between film and literature; topics may include adaptation, cross-media themes and modes, influence of cinema on literature and vice versa.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379: Methods for the Study of Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
Course Description: 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.
English 3395: Literature and Leadership
Instructor: Andrea Williams
Course Description: Literature, like life, can inspire us to be the best of ourselves and lead others to join us. That’s why this class turns to fiction, poetry, drama and autobiography to learn more about what makes a good leader. But there’s no single answer: people across time have debated how to lead change, innovation, progress and resistance, whether focused on settings of family life and work or countries and the world. Through a range of readings, discussion and written reflections, you can identify models for your own leadership growth.
Texts: Potential texts include fairy tales and children’s literature; Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography; Dominique Morisseau’s play Skeleton Crew, set in a Detroit auto factory; and other readings that raise questions about moral dilemmas, character, decision-making, power, and leaders’ impact.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 0010 Instructor: Andrea Williams
Course Description: To prepare you to succeed in upper-level English courses, ENGL 3398 equips you with the skills of close reading, argumentation, critical thinking, research, and writing. You'll gain feedback from your peers and instructor throughout your process of reading, thinking, and writing about multiple literary genres, including poetry, fiction, and drama.
Texts: Potential texts include F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Arthur Miller, The Death of a Salesman, and selected poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Section 0020 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Course Description: 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.
Section 0030 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
Course Description: This course is designed to give you the tools you will need in upper level English courses here at OSU. It has two objectives. On the one hand this course will provide an opportunity to work on your writing with an eye towards the particular expectations involved in literary analysis. One of your goals for this course should be understanding the conventions of writing in literary analysis and working to develop your ability to write well within that context. On the other hand, this course is also meant to provide some exposure to three of the major forms of cultural activity that are studied in the English Department: poetry, fiction, and drama.
Texts: Shakespeare, Hamlet; Ishuguro, Klara and the Sun
English 3465: Special topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Elana Marcus
Section 0030 Instructor: Qurrat Ul Ain Nejeeb Jamal
Section 0040 Instructor: Jake Nevrla
Course Description: 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: Maya Kompella
Course Description: 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
Course Description: 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: Sunny Wu
Course Description: 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
Section 0010 Instructor: Sandra MacPherson
Section 0020 Instructor: Simone Drake
Course Description: 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).
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Instructor: Risë Collins
Course Description: An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Christiane Buuck
Course Description: Have you ever wondered how to answer the question, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" --Or, do you love to write, but you're not sure how your writing skills will translate to the "real" world? Do you wonder about finding a job as technology transforms the workplace? Would you like a supportive environment where you can take a structured dive into a field of work that interests you? Good news, this class is for you.
Build your professional writing portfolio with three writing projects based on your own interests. Improve the precision, concision, and mechanics of your writing. Learn about AP Style. Conduct informational interviews with working professionals. Come and explore how your experience and curiosity, your major and your innate talent really are preparing you for the world after college.
Section 0030 Instructor: Kelsey Paige Mason
Course Description: What does ''cultures of professional writing'' mean? Corporate culture? Writing for a business? Conventional practices in writing? In our class, we will consider and critically question the meanings of culture and writing within different professional spaces. We will practice rhetorically responsive writing and learn how small changes in the rhetorical situation require significant change in our writing. In our course, you will have the opportunity to investigate writing produced in varied careers, study how writing and communications operate internally and externally in organizations, and explore the work and experiences of industry professionals. By the end of the semester, students will have created three technical, promotional, and professional writing projects for their digital portfolios and professional applications. You will revise your projects in response to peer and instructor feedback, thus demonstrating your ability to engage in composing as an ongoing act of critical re-thinking. English 4150 is also one of the required courses for the Minor in Professional Writing. Please see the MPW webpage for more information.
English 4189: Professional Writing Minor: Capstone Internship
Instructor: Kelsey Paige Mason
Course Description: The Professional Writing Minor capstone course is the concluding professional and academic learning experience for the minor. After completing the minor’s coursework, internship application, and placement process, students will be enrolled in this course, which will supplement and support their work at their professional writing internships. Students will discuss their work experiences with their colleagues and instructor in class, with each student benefiting from the learning, growth, and community shared with their fellow interns at other workplace sites. Through weekly reflections and in-class activities, students will develop a record of their skills, tasks, and writing projects to carry into future professional experiences and applications. Instructor-guided discussions and activities will respond to student experiences and address topics such as workplace culture, writing conventions and ethics, transfer of professional skills, and career preparedness. English 4189 is also one of the required courses for the Minor in Professional Writing. Please see the MPW webpage for more information. This course is graded S/U.
English 4513: Introduction to Medieval Literature
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
Course Description: Take a fast-moving tour of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean: strange legends of saints in North Africa and Ireland; philosophers in post-Roman Italy; monsters and bold warriors in England and Iceland; intellectual exchanges between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Spain; dashing knights and swooning maidens in France. All foreign-language readings will be read in translation. Written assignments will include response papers, scholarly research, and creative work. This class is your passport to the thrilling and fantastic worlds of the European Middle Ages!
Texts: Our syllabus is likely to include Augustine, Confessions; Anonymous, Njal's Saga; Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval
English 4523: Special Topics in Renaissance Literature and Culture
Instructor and Title: Hannibal Hamlin - The Invention of Love
Course Description: What is love? I can love my mother, my cat, a gorgeous sunset, a nice sharp cheddar, my God, myself, and my sexual partner. Do these feelings have something in common, or is the English language incapable of describing so many different emotions? And do we humans love – whatever the objects of our love – in the same way? Or do we use the same word for very different affections and desires? Is our love biologically hard-wired or culturally conditioned? Do we write love songs, passionate poems, and romantic comedies to express our emotions, or do these cultural creations and traditions condition our sentiments and behaviors in ways of which we may not be aware? This course will explore literature expressing, representing, and exploring love in all, or at least some, of its variety from Classical Greece and Rome and the European Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Texts: We will read lyric poems by Sappho, Catullus, Ovid, Petrarch, Philip Sidney, and John Donne, the adventures of the Knight of Chastity from Spenser’s Faerie Queene, as well as Plato’s dialogue on love, Symposium, and plays by Shakespeare and John Ford.
English 4542: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Instructor: Jill Galvan
Course Description: This course will look at novels written between 1800 and 1900, a major period for the rise of this form of literature. We’ll read 5-6 novels and consider several important genres during the period, including the marriage plot, the bildungsroman, the gothic, the sensation novel, and naturalism. Students will also learn about significant social and historical developments that help to shape our novels—class dynamics, imperialism, ideas of race, debates about gender roles, evolutionary and other major scientific discoveries, explorations of sexuality, and the nineteenth-century interchange of ideas between Britain and the US. Course requirements (tentative): regular attendance, active class participation, reading quizzes, midterm and final exams, and a final written project (5-7pp.).
Texts (tentative): Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
English 4553: 20th-Century U.S. Fiction
Instructor and Title:Thomas Davis - Fiction and Forms of Attention
Course Description: What does it mean to pay attention and who, or what, is trying to capture yours? This course reads twentieth-century American fiction as a series of responses to that question. We will trace how writers from the modernists to the present have made literary form itself into an instrument of perception. The fragmented city novel, stream of consciousness, austere minimalism, the single day novel — these are stylistic choices as well as acts of resistance and reinvention. They are attempts to find new ways of seeing in the face of urban overstimulation, racial violence, war, ecological crisis, and the rising noise of mass media and technofeudalism. As we make our way through experimentally ambitious fiction, we will see how these works train us to notice. Along the way, we will take seriously the historical and philosophical dimensions of attention itself, from William James's foundational thinking about the wandering mind to contemporary critics of our media ecology that thrives on turning our attention into something to be extracted, managed, and sold.
Texts: John Dos Passos - Manhattan Transfer, Nella Larsen - Passing, Christopher Isherwood - A Single Man, and Octavia Butler - The Parable of the Sower.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
Course Description: 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
Course Description: 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 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
Course Description: In this class we will shift our attitudes about grammar from paranoia to curiosity. Rather than worrying about what is 'right' or 'wrong' usage in English grammar, we will learn how the system of English grammar works, from the ground up. We use a scientific, linguistic approach for describing language structure. We start with how English words are formed, then move through how words combine to make phrases, and up to how phrases combine to make sentences. Along the way we will explore how English grammar varies across communities, regions, and points in history. We will see fun, interesting examples and learn to apply grammatical concepts to everyday life and everyday language. You will leave the class having mastered crucial terminology for describing, discussing, teaching, and editing grammar.
Texts: English Linguistics Learning Modules (free online textbook)
English 4575: Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes
Instructor and Title:Allison Pitinii Davis - Memoir + Investigation: New Journalism and Autotheory
Course Description: In this workshop, we will read and write nonfiction that uses personal experience to investigate topics and ideas. New Journalism blends memoir with reporting, and autotheory blends memoir with critical theory. Authors we might read include Sarah Ahmed, Gloria Anzaldúa, Brian Blanchfled, Amy Butcher, Joan Didion, Saidiya Hartman, Bhanu Kapil, Audre Lorde, Maggie Nelson, Hunter S. Thompson, and Claire Vaye Watkins. We will also discuss the relationship between autotheory and autofiction. Students will compose, workshop, and revise their own creative nonfiction based on the course topic.
Texts: Sarah Ahmed, Gloria Anzaldúa, Brian Blanchfled, Amy Butcher, Joan Didion, Saidiya Hartman, Bhanu Kapil, Audre Lorde, Maggie Nelson, Hunter S. Thompson, and/or Claire Vaye Watkins
English 4578: Special Topics in Film
Instructor and Title:Ryan Friedman - African American Independent Cinema After the Transition to Sound
Course Description: During the 1930s and 40s, independent film companies, often headed by African American writers and producers, created what the African American press of the time frequently referred to as a thriving ''Black Hollywood,'' releasing films in a wide array of genres (including comedy, western, musical, horror, and gangster/crime drama), films that, while being made on limited budgets, often attain a high level of technical quality and frequently give prominent roles to popular musical artists. As we will see, these films range widely in their approach to representation, sometimes addressing social issues of specific concerns to African American audiences, other times simply creating all-African American social worlds where issues of social power and oppression could be set aside; in many cases, they were exhibited to general audiences.
Texts: Readings and films will be available electronically (at no cost) through the course's Carmen site. Assigned films will include: The Exile, The Duke Is Tops, and Spirit of Youth.
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literatures and Cultures
Instructor and Title:Martin Joseph Ponce - Worlding Queer and Trans Literature and Theory
Course Description: This course takes the insights of queer of color and queer diasporic critique as its points of departure for examining how ''queer'' sexualities and genders have been constituted through the racial divisions produced by Euro-American (settler) colonialism, transatlantic chattel slavery, global labor migrations, and modern nationalisms. We will read 20th and 21st-century literature in various genres that engages with these historical forces and their ongoing legacies. In doing so, the course acknowledges, while also provincializes, Euro-American industrial capitalism, liberalism, and sexology as the key drivers in the emergence of modern (homo)sexuality. In short, this course asks, what do ''queer'' and ''trans'' literature, theory, and politics look like when approached through global and intersectional frameworks?
Texts: Potential texts: Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (1996); Lawrence Chua, Gold by the Inch (1998); Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017)
English 4582: Special Topics in African-American Literature
Instructor and Title:Simone Drake - Black Women Writers and Trans-Atlantic Imagining
Course Description: This course examines how Black women writers in the Americas imagine and craft stories that are trans-Atlantic musings on ''elsewhere.'' We will read these stories closely, analyzing narrative conventions while placing the novels, poems, and short stories in historical, social, political, and cultural context of their respective time period and place of production. This course centers Black feminist theory as a methodology that will be used for analyzing the texts as we consider the intersections of various social and cultural identities.
Texts: Ayana Gray, I, Medusa Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon Toni Morrison, Paradise Andrea Lee, Sarah Phillips Michelle Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven Hopkins, Of One Blood Oonya Kempadoo, Buxton Spice Grace Nichols, poetry Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space (documentary) Zora Neale Hurston, ''Under the Bridge''
English 4584: Special Topics in Literacy Studies
Instructor: Beverly Moss
Course Description: 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. 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?
Texts: Tentative texts: Campano, Ghiso, and Welch. Partnering with Immigrant Communities: Action through Literacy; Henry and Stahl (Eds), Literacy across the Community: Research, Praxis, and Trends
English 4590.07H: Literature in English after 1945
Instructor and Title:Bradley Dubos - Black and Indigenous Soundscapes
Course Description: What does Afro-Indigenous solidarity sound like? And how might we ''hear'' these soundscapes through literature? This course considers how Native American and African American literatures have augmented, remixed, and resisted the various soundscapes inhabited by authors and their communities. Studying poetry, fiction, music, and film by Black and Native writers, students will trace the ''call and response'' between Black and Native spheres of expression in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Together we will listen for a range of literary soundscapes where Black and Native voices intersect—including performative soundscapes (e.g., the acoustic experience of performing a ''choreopoem'' or collaborating on music) as well as the diegetic soundscapes built within the worlds of novels and lyric poems—exploring how they have intervened in the national soundscape by resounding calls for sovereignty and justice. We will address questions about the gaps and silences in the archives of Black and Indigenous writing while also attending to the ways contemporary authors invoke and respond to literary genealogies of Afro-Indigenous resistance.
Texts: Authors may include Ntozake Shange, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Natasha Trethewey, Claudia Rankine, Layli Long Soldier, Shonda Buchanan, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Tommy Orange, Rebecca Pelky, and others.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Instructor and Title: Elizabeth Sheehan - Feminism and contemporary literature
Course Description: The current moment has been described as one of resurgent feminist art and activism as well as forceful anti-feminist backlash. At the same time, the meaning and aims of feminism remain contested. This course introduces students to different histories and key terms of feminism as we read a series of contemporary literary texts that reflect, reimagine, and defy those traditions and ideas. We will read poetry, short stories, and novels that spur questions about what feminism is, does, and might become.
Texts: Toni Morrison, Sula; Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties; Layli Long Soldier, Whereas
English 4597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor and Title: Paige Mason
Course Description: In English 4597.01, we learn about disability studies as both an academic discipline and a site of community. We will discuss questions such as, "What does it mean to 'see' disability?" and "How do we build more accessible futures?" In class, we will study theories and concepts within disability studies and apply our understanding to media and built environments. Together, we will analyze examples of disability representation and accessible design in literature, film, games, physical and digital spaces, objects, and many other categories. We will use these examples as jumping-off points for our discussions and activities.
Prior experience with disability studies is not required, and students are encouraged to pursue projects within their own related interests. Over the course of the semester, students create three projects, which will contribute to their own professional, academic, or artistic portfolios.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cross-Disciplinary Seminar
5000-level
English 5710: Introduction to Old English Language and Literature
Instructor: Christopher A. Jones
Course Description: Students will learn how to pronounce and read Old English, the oldest surviving form of the English Language, used in the great epic Beowulf and other fascinating texts.
Texts: Peter Baker, Introduction to Old English, 3rd edition
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 & in the essays of professional writers. May be available as a service learning course with five hours community service required at the Lima campus only.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 1
GEN: Foundation: Writing and Information Literacy
English 1110.02: First-Year English Composition
Section 0010 Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth
Section 0020 Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin
Section 0040 Instructor: Tallon Kennedy
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
Section 0010 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. 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. Besides teaching you literary and cultural history, English 2202 will help you to become a better critical reader, either for future classes or for your own enjoyment. You’ll practice coming up with logical, complex interpretations based on textual evidence. Main course requirements (tentative): regular attendance and participation, two exams (midterm and final), three short response papers, and a final written project (4-5 pp.).
Texts: We’ll read poets (for example, Charlotte Smith, Robert Browning, Toru Dutt, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and Una Marson); nonfiction by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Prince, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and others; and two novels, probably Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2220: Introduction to Shakespeare
Section 0010 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.
Section 0020 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.'' Assignments will include two short critical papers, a midterm test, and a final exam.
Texts: We will read 4-5 plays, including Henry IV, Part 1, Hamlet, and The Winter’s Tale, as well as some non-dramatic poems.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
This course will sharpen your understanding and enjoyment of 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.
Texts: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton; Shira Wolosky, The Art of Poetry; assorted short poems
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 0010 Instructor: Jesse Schotter
An introduction to the basic elements of fiction—plot, character, symbolism, point of view—and to the skills of literary analysis. We will analyze, interpret, and critique a diverse group of works of fiction, looking at the choices writers make, at the differing ways in which they seek to represent the voices and the conflicts of their characters. We will examine the varieties of storytelling and of storytelling techniques, seeking to build a vocabulary for describing how narratives shape our everyday lives.
Texts: Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried; Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Herman Melville, ''Bartleby the Scrivener''
Section 0020 Instructor: Frank Donoghue
Section 0030 Instructor: Frank Donoghue
Examination of the elements of fiction -- plot, character, setting, narrative, perspective, theme, etc. -- and their various interrelations; comparisons with nonfictional narrative may be included.
Section 0040 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 MAX series, this second-session class will train you in core analytical and literary 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.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of ''Game of Thrones.'' Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the HBO MAX 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 MAX subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
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.
Texts: The course will use a free, open-access textbook. Assigned films will likely include: In the Mood for Love, North by Northwest, and Zodiac.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Umut Mert Gurses
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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 0010 Instructor: Elana Marcus
Section 0030 Instructor: Porter Yelton
Section 0040 Instructor: Mikayla Schutte
Section 0050 Instructor: Spencer Newsad
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 0010 Instructor: Connor Beeman
Section 0020 Instructor: Aidan Aragon
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: Evann Zuckerman
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: Divya Alamuri
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: John Jones
Section 40 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:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 0010 Instructor: Elizabeth Velasquez
Section 0030 Instructor: Kelsey Stratman
Section 0040 Instructor: Daniel Seward
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 2277: Introduction to Disability Studies
Section 0010 Instructor: Zaira Girala Muñoz
Foundational concepts and issues in disability studies; introduction to the sociopolitical models of disability.
Section 0020 Instructor: Paige Mason
In this introductory course, we will study foundational theories within the interdisciplinary field of disability studies. We will investigate historical, fictional, and contemporary representations of disability and apply our learning of the discipline’s concepts to analyses of media. We will also translate theory into practice through accessible, anticipatory design, advocacy, and activism. Students will demonstrate their learning in open-note exams and collaborate with their colleagues on a final project. Throughout the semester, students will participate in informal writing assignments and activities which supplement and support their learning. Prereq: English 1110.xx; or GE foundation writing and info literacy course. GE cultures and ideas course. GE theme health and well-being course. English 2277 is also one of the required courses for the Disability Studies Minor. Please see the Disability Studies program page for more information.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Martin Joseph Ponce
This course introduces students to key concepts and debates that LGBTQ+ studies has grappled with since the 1980s. We will focus especially on intersectional frameworks and expressive forms that foreground how ''queer'' (nonnormative) sexualities and genders in the U.S. have emerged within the contexts of settler colonialism, chattel slavery, immigration policy, overseas imperialism, sexology, and nationalism. Students will thus have opportunities to examine how LGBTQ+ scholars, writers, activists, and artists have redefined and reimagined the meanings of ''queer'' by addressing the convergences of sexuality and gender with social differences such as race, Indigeneity, class, citizenship, disability, age, and location.
Texts: Possible texts: Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981, excerpts); Deborah A. Miranda, ''Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California'' (2010); Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2018)
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2290: Colonial and U.S. Literature to 1865
Instructor and Title: Bradley Dubos - Early America after Dark
This course explores the real and imagined fears haunting early American literatures as reflections of the spooky underbelly of early American life. When the days turned to dusk, what kept families in early America wide awake? What supernatural nightmares, gothic horrors, and forbidden desires lurked in the shadows of their imagination? Surveying major writers and texts from colonial and U.S. literary traditions, we will read works that register an array of social and political anxieties: fears of destruction and displacement that gripped Native communities in their encounters with European settlers; terrors of sin, madness, and pagan ''wilderness'' that spread like wildfire throughout white colonial settlements; unspeakable horrors whispered through the networks of the transatlantic slave trade. Engaging with these and other chilling accounts, we will consider how and why fears about race, darkness, human nature, and the unknown saturate early American writing—and continue to haunt us in the present.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 10th edition, Volumes A and B; Charles Brocken Brown, Edgar Huntly, or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker; and additional readings available on Carmen.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 0010 Instructor: Sam Risak
Section 0020 Instructor: Tori Dikeman
Section 0030 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 0040 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0050 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 0060 Instructor: Jack Rooney
Section 0070 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0080 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0090 Instructor: Abigail Greff
Section 0140 Instructor: Njoki Mwangi
Section 0150 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 0160 Instructor: Jessica Vazquez Hernandez
Section 0170 Instructor: Caleb Hays
Section 0190 Instructor: Patrick McCabe
Section 0200 Instructor: Erin Jamieson
Section 0210 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 & 90 Instructor and Title: Elizabeth Sheehan - Nation, Race, and Gender
This course explores how literature shapes and is shaped by ideas and experiences of nation, race, and gender in the 20th and 21st century U.S. We will study how the nation—or parts of it—are imagined, especially in relation to race and gender. After all, while laws, policies, borders, and infrastructure (like roads, buildings, and power systems) make up the U.S., all of those elements are intertwined with beliefs, fantasies, and stories about what the nation is and does, for whom, and why. For example, poems and novels can enforce and challenge beliefs about what kinds of people should be part of the U.S., who should have power, and whose voices and lives matter, especially based on race and gender. Categories of race and gender also depend on beliefs and narratives. For these reasons—and as you will find through your reading, writing, and research—literature is a powerful medium for depicting and shifting ideas and feelings about the nation, race, and gender.
Texts: Willa Cather, O Pioneers; Zitkala-Sa, ''The Soft-Hearted Sioux''; poems and essays by Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria Anzaldúa.
Section 0020 Instructor and Title: James Phelan - Course Theme: Fictionality and Nonfictionality
While most of us think that fiction is found only in such familar genres as the short story, the novel, the graphic novel, and the fiction film, some weirdos--like me!-view these genres as just subsets of the macrogenre of fictionality. In this view, fictionality includes all communicative acts in which someone uses imaginative invention to influence an audience. When Barack Obama was running for president and his opponent, Mitt Romney, attacked his record, Obama responded by saying, ''he must be suffering from Romnesia.'' In other words, Obama resorted to fictionality to blunt Romney's attack and playfully make one of his own. This view of fictionality has two main consequences: (1) we can recognize that fictionality is everywhere; and (2) we negotiate the differences between fictionality and nonfictionality (the macrogenre concerned with referring to the way things are, e.g., ''Obama won the election'') easily. This course will explore this view of fictionality and its implications for how we read all kinds of texts--and for how we write our own. More generally, the course will use this exploration as a way into instruction in writing about literature and other academic (and some nonacademic) subjects.
Texts: George Saunders, Love Letter (fiction); Alice Walker, Beauty--When the Other Dancer Is the Self (nonfiction); Joseph Williams, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
Section 0030 Instructor: Jessica Crabtree
Section 0040 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
Section 0050 Instructor: Tin Yan Grace Lee
Section 0070 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 0100 Instructor: Luke Wilson
Section 0110 Instructor: Domenic Cregan
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 decimal subdivision may be taken for credit.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.04: Technology and Science in the U.S. Experience
Instructor: Brittany Halley
Explores how technological changes impact our culture & relationships; students build & expand skills in rhetorical analysis & composition through experimentation with new forms of communicating.
GE Categories:
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
English 2367.06: Writing about Disability
Instructor: Olivia Rowland
Students will critically examine writing about disability, health, and wellness from a variety of genres (scholarly essays, personal essays, documentaries, comics, music, film) and use their findings to produce creative, scholarly, and professional documents appealing to multiple audiences and rhetorical situations.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 0010 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 0020 Instructor: Karen Asto
Section 0030 Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 0040 Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 0050 Instructor: William ''Guy'' Spriggs
Section 0060 Instructor: William ''Guy'' Spriggs
Section 0070 Instructor: Samantha Tonkins
Section 0080 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
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
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
English 2463: Introduction to Video Games Analysis
Section 0010 Instructor: Josh Mishaw
Section 0020 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: 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:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
3000 Level
English 3000: Writing for Social Change
Instructor: Jack Van Dine
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 3262: Adaptation and Literature
Instructor: Luke Wilson
In this course, we will be concerned with the evolution of stories through time, across cultures, and from one medium to another. You might be surprised by how many novels, films, poems, video games, graphic novels, and popular music, are themselves adaptations or have generated adaptations, or – often enough – both. Probably the most common and culturally influential adaptations in contemporary culture involve movements from literature to film. We will study several such cases: Percival Everett’s novel Erasure (2001) into the 2023 film American Fiction; Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (written 1891) into Claire Denis’s film Beau Travail (1999); the graphic novel Ghost World into the film of the same name. We’ll also read Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1600) and watch two film versions as well as video game adaptations. We’ll also consider an example or two of literary texts transformed into musical theater or ballet: graphic novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, turned into a Broadway musical, or the Pygmalion story, originating in Greek myth, and its many retellings in different media (poem, painting, short story, opera). Yet another form of adaptation involves the transformation of historical events into fictional form; our example will be The Act of Killing, a film in which the original perpetrators are persuaded to recreate on film the murders they committed in 1960s Indonesia. Stretching the boundaries of what constitutes literary adaptation, we’ll do a unit on the “cover song” in popular music, in which you will present your own examples of covers and/or originals that you like; and a unit in which we look at contemporary adaptations of Manet’s famous painting “Le Dejeuner sur L’herbe (1862). All this we’ll frame with readings in adaptation theory. Several written exercises; quizzes; a final exam; possibly a project in which you devise your own adaptation of a work of your choice.
Texts: Erasure; American Fiction; Billy Budd; Beau Travail; Hamlet; Haider; Fun Home
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 10 Instructor and Title: 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, history, 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, queer gothic, southern gothic, new black gothic, and Mexican gothic. This class will include a regular live-session component. This will allow us to discuss class concepts and analyze stories together. Students will have the option of either attending the session or watching a recording and doing a follow-up post. Graded requirements: regular knowledge checks, weekly informed discussion posts, three tests.
Texts: Novels (tentatively): Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. We'll juxtapose these with short stories, poetry, and a few films, including (tentatively) Lake Mungo, It Follows, and Sinners.
Section 20 Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
Through this semester, we will analyze how monsters in literature and film might help us understand threats of social collapse and psychological dissolution at various points in England’s and America’s history. We will start from the assumption that such threats will differ depending on the cultural moment: what seems “monstrous” at one time and place will seem ordinary at another. Yet as we move from the early to late 1800s in England and from the mid-20th century to the early 21st in America, we will see not just differences but also continuities in how monsters are portrayed and what they represent: each sinister force embodies an aspect of humanity that stands against conventional ways we make sense of the world.
Texts: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Dracula by Bram Stoker; Invasion of the Body Snatchers; The Shining by Stephen King
Section 30 Instructor and Title: Clare Simmons - 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 our own time that show that monsters might be with us—or even be us. Through looking at some classic monster forms—werewolves, vampires, dragons—we will explore emotional and cultural responses to forms that seem ''unnatural.'' We will also read texts in which ''monstrous'' may be a means of describing behavior that goes against our understanding of how humans should treat one another. Most of the readings are fairly short, so please always come to class have read and thought about them and ready to discuss your ideas.
Texts: Stories and poems by Marie de France, John Keats, Angela Carter, James Hogg, Oscar Wilde, Victor LaValle, and others.
Section 40 Instructor and Title: Thomas Davis - Human and Inhuman Monsters
The ''monster'' is often a designation of something beyond or antithetical to the human: it is evil, grotesque, violent, or incomprehensibly other. We will trace out a cultural genealogy where the line between human/monster, humanity/inhumanity, begins to blur and raise a set of difficult and sometimes unresolvable questions. We will start with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic doppelganger tale ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' before moving to more contemporary fictions such as Ling Ma's ''Severance'' and Kazuo Ishiguro's ''Never Let Me Go,'' both of which trouble any clear distinction between humans and monsters. We will also consider works such as the film ''Zone of Interest'' where monstrosity is rendered ordinary. We will also draw from works of philosophy and cultural theory to grapple with who and how something becomes monstrous.
Texts: Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Ling Ma, Severance; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Section 60 Instructor and Title: Pranav Jani - Monsters and the Other
Race. Gender. Sexuality. Class. Capitalism. Empire. National identity. What do these have to do with monsters, you ask? Everything. As students will learn in this class, monsters and the supernatural have a grip on our social imaginations because of how they help define Self and Other, human and ''monstrous,'' insider and outsider. Rereading classic novels and examining 21th century fiction and film that flips the script, ''Monsters and the Other'' will raise fundamental questions about citizenship, justice, peace, and freedom.
Texts: 'Frankenstein'' (many versions); Maus (graphic novel); Get Out (film)
Section 70 Instructor and Title: Christopher Jones - Monsters Without and Within: 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, or about group identities and the concepts that support them? Addressing such questions, this section of English 3264 will focus on the evolving figure of the vampire in literary works from the early 1800s to our own time. There will be frequent reading quizzes, a take-home midterm exercise, discussion-leading tasks, and a final research or creative project.
Texts: Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954), Rice’s Interview With the Vampire (1977)
Section 120 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
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.
Texts: Frankenstein; The Haar
Section 50 Instructor: Faye Halpern
Section 70 Instructor: Christopher Jones
Section 80 Instructor: Seonoh Kim
Section 90 Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Section 100 Instructor: Emily Eikost
Section 110 Instructor: Faye Halpern
Section 130 Instructor: Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
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 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 20, 170 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
Section 30 Instructor: Adrian Salgado
Section 40 Instructor: Katelyn Roth
Section 50, 60, 200, 210 Instructor: Marwan Almuhaysh
Section 70, 80, 90, 180 Instructor: Nathan Richards
Section 100, 190 Instructor: William ''Guy'' Spriggs
Section 110, 120, 150, 160 Instructor: Thomas Pickering
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 20, 40 Instructor: Elena Kalodner-Martin
Technical Writing (English 3305) helps students strengthen their communication skills and prepare for a wide range of professional contexts. The course is especially useful for (1) STEM majors preparing for careers where communication is integral to their professional responsibilities, (2) humanities majors interested in technical communication careers such as user experience, documentation writing, editing, or instructional design, and (3) students of any major who want to build confidence in communicating about specialized or technical subject matter. Technical communication involves using written, verbal, and visual strategies to convey complex or specialized information in accessible ways. It is goal-oriented and audience-specific, often collaborative, and makes use of digital technologies to expand the circulation and accessibility of information across fields such as computer science, health and medicine, and business. Through exploring a diverse array of genres and professional contexts, this course will give you experience in the Society of Technical Communications nine core competencies: • Project Planning • Project Analysis • Content Development • Organizational Design • Written Communication • Visual Communication • Reviewing and Editing • Content Management • Production and Delivery
Texts: Carolyn Miller’s ''A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing''; Miles Kimball’s ''The Golden Age of Technical Communication''
Section 10 Instructor: Susan Lang
Section 30, 50 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 3331: Thinking Theoretically
Instructor: Ethan Knapp
In this class, we will take a step back from what usually happens in classes about literature and ask some of the big philosophical 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. To give shape to such a wide survey, the course will focus on four historical moments: first, the rise of literary theory in Greek antiquity; second, experiments with allegorical reading in the Middle Ages; third, the beginning of modern criticism in neoclassicism and enlightenment thought; and fourth, the movement that largely set the terms for our own understanding of literature, Romanticism.
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, technology, 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 Museum of Biological Diversity. 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.
Texts: Jeff Vandermeer, Borne; William Cronon, ''The Trouble WIth WIlderness''; Robin Wall Kimmerer ''The Grammar of Animacy''
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Sustainability
English 3350: Time & Space Travel in Science Fiction
Instructor and Title: Clare Simmons - A Brief History of Time Travel
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. The focus is on texts that create contrasts by representing travel from one moment in time to another, whether through suspended animation, time machines, or some kind of magical process. The course can be used toowards the GE's ''Lived Environments'' category.
Texts: Stories by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Edward Bellamy, H.G.Wells, Olivia Butler, and others.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
English 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Susan Williams
'Reading and writing poetry brought together everything that had been important to me,'' writes cancer survivor Lucy Grealy in Autobiography of a Face. ''I could still dwell in the realm of the senses, but now I had a discipline, a form for them.'' In this course, we will consider how narrative form and language can help communicate the experiences of medical providers and patients in a health care setting. How might telling, listening to, and analyzing stories help mediate and improve caregiver-patient interactions and outcomes? How do the disciplines of literary and narrative study and medical practice intersect with and inform each other? To explore these questions, we will read memoirs by both patients and caregivers. We will also read a range of literary texts, from the nineteenth century to the present, that highlight the human as well as scientific dimensions of health care. In addition, we will examine how narrative principles and techniques are adapted in film and television.
Texts: Kevin Brockmeier, The Illumination; Margaret Edson, Wit; Paul Kalanthi, When Breath Becomes Air
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 20, 30 Instructor: Zoë Brigley Thompson
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:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3378: Special Topics in Film and Literature
Instructor and Title: Alan Farmer - Shakespeare and Film
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, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, 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. Requirements will include two essays, several quizzes, a midterm exam, a final exam, regular attendance, and active participation. 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 GE.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3379: 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. By the end of this course, students should successfully be able to: • Demonstrate an understanding of key concepts related to the field(s) of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies (WRL) • Analyze texts and contexts using concepts, methods, terminology, and lines of inquiry common to WRL scholarship • Identify and work with materials typically used in WRL scholarship (e.g., library resources, archives, scholarly and trade journals, and internet databases) • Produce arguments that demonstrate an awareness of the conventions common to the work done in WRL
English 3395: Literature and Leadership
Instructor: Shaun Russell
Leadership is an intrinsic part of the human condition, and is often seen as a defining character trait. Someone can be a so-called 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 nothing 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 general idea focuses 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 so-called good leadership easily transition to another? Can a group of people in a terrible predicament be a sort of leadership collective? Can traditional leadership roles persist in an ever-globalizing world? 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.
Texts: Orson Scott Card, ''Ender's Game''; Chinua Achebe, ''Things Fall Apart''; Shakespeare, ''Macbeth'' (and others)
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3398: Methods for the Study of Literature
Section 20 Instructor: Ethan Knapp
This course is designed to give you the tools you will need in upper level English courses here at OSU. It has two objectives. On the one hand this course will provide an opportunity to work on your writing with an eye towards the particular expectations involved in literary analysis. One of your goals for this course should be understanding the conventions of writing in literary analysis and working to develop your ability to write well within that context. On the other hand, this course is also meant to provide some exposure to three of the major forms of cultural activity that are studied in the English Department: poetry, fiction, and drama.
Texts: X. J. Kennedy, An Introduction to Poetry; Kazuo Ishigura, Klara and the Sun
Section 30 Instructor and Title: Christopher Highley - Representing Shakespeare the Man
This version of 3398 is organized around the theme of ''Representing Shakespeare the Man.'' Our central question will be: how have authors from Shakespeare’s own time to the present depicted Shakespeare as an individual? Since few facts about Shakespeare’s life are known, writers have been forced to recreate his life imaginatively, filling in the blanks with their own visions of Shakespeare the man. We will begin by reading Shakespeare’s sonnets—a source that many believe contains important clues to Shakespeare’s biography. Then we will study later representations of Shakespeare in works like Anthony Burgess’s novel, Nothing Like the Sun, Edward Bond’s play, Bingo, and the movie, Shakespeare in Love. The course’s primary goal is to help students become more perceptive readers of literature and more accomplished writers of critical essays about literature. Students must be willing to have their preconceptions about reading and writing challenged and to accept constructive criticism of their prose. Students will write several critical papers, each longer and more ambitious than the last. Class time will be devoted to discussing the primary texts, assessing criticism, and learning how to construct effective critical arguments.
Texts: Shakespeare, selected Sonnets; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun
English 3398: 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, 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. Evaluation will be based on participation in discussion, short assignments, and four essays.
Texts: George Eliot, Middlemarch; Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman; Tomson Highway, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing; poems by Oliver Goldsmith, Tony Harrison.
English 3405: Special Topics in Professional Communication
Instructor and Title: Jonathan Buehl - Automation and Professional Communication
In this section of English 3405, you will learn about and practice using technologies that automate different aspects of professional communication. After initial discussions of theories and methods for approaching communication and technology, we will explore how to automate writing through different composing tools—including desktop publishing platforms, XML editors, and generative AI. Major assignments will be project-based and will culminate in a portfolio of samples that demonstrate your ability to automate writing effectively and ethically for different contexts. By the end of this course, students should successfully be able to:
- Understand the history, core concepts, and principles of automation in professional communication.
- Apply various theories of communication and technology to mediated workplace communication.
- Apply automation tools (e.g., routines, macros, scripting) to enhance efficiency in desktop publishing environments such as Microsoft Word.
- Understand the structure and function of XML and leverage it for content generation and automation.
- Analyze the potential and limitations of AI in automating communication tasks and designing engaging user experiences.
- Evaluate and respond to the practical and ethical affordances, constraints and potential pitfalls of established, evolving, and emerging technologies.
- Develop effective communication strategies in an increasingly automated professional world.
English 3465: Special topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Fengyuan Liu
Section 30 Instructor: Chinasa Menakaya
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: Schyler Butler
What makes a poem confessional? Is it how the poem is arranged? The nature of its content? The way the poet uses metaphor or voice? Or something else entirely?
Confessional poetry, a label credited to critic M.L. Rosenthal, is often a first-person account of something deeply personal, an intimate telling of details that allows the reader to discover a hidden state of being actually alive in many.
In this intermediate-level workshop, students will engage with work written by their peers and by poets from the 1960s to present day. In addition to analyzing what literary elements aid in the creation of confessional-style poems, students will participate in class discussions and writing exercises intertwined with workshops where we help one another perfect poems that confess.
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: Lindsay Gerano
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 and Title: Jack Rooney - Black Letters: Law, Custom, and Gothic
The Gothic is a notoriously unruly genre. Gothic is, by every account, excess, disorder, outlawry, misrule. Perhaps because it seems so unlawful, Gothic literature lies at an underexplored intersection of the burgeoning law and literature movement. This course will seek to demonstrate the ways in which new possibilities for reading the legal elements of literary texts emerge precisely where this tension is most pronounced: that is, at the strained fit between the Gothic and the law. And, moreover, examining this intersection is a great deal of fun! Who knew that the idea of the haunted house that we have inherited, almost unchanged, from Victorian ghost stories is laden with radical critiques of modern economies? Or that our natural assumption of the governing authority of enacted law over unwritten custom and tradition was once anything but natural? Or, still more broadly, that the same century that gave shape to so many modern literary genres, from the Gothic tale to the realist novel to the journalistic account, also defined the legal frameworks in which we still live our everyday lives? In this class, we will try to understand the ways in which the Gothic and the law influence and disrupt each other over the course of the long nineteenth century. If Gothic might naturally be assumed an enemy of the law, its unruly expressions can in fact become home to a surprising number of legal forms, ideas, and procedures. As we explore literary texts ranging from Gothic novellas to Victorian ghost stories and realist novels, we will also investigate the emergence of modern legal structures and cultures—of negligence and liability, property and inheritance, crime and punishment—from the murky Gothic abyss of ancient custom, inscrutable lore, and unbelievable legend. We will discover how law’s black letter, a source of certainty, is strangely akin to Gothic’s art of darkness, a source of mystery.
Texts: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3662: An Introduction to Literary Publishing
Section 0010 Instructor: Risë Collins
Section 0020 Instructor: Maya Kompella
An introduction to the theory and practice of editing and publishing literature.
4000-level
English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing
Section 20 Instructor: Paige Mason
What does ''cultures of professional writing'' mean? Corporate culture? Writing for a business? Conventional practices in writing? In our class, we will consider and critically question the meanings of culture and writing within different professional spaces. We will practice rhetorically responsive writing and learn how small changes in the rhetorical situation require significant change in our writing. In our course, you will have the opportunity to investigate writing produced in varied careers, study how writing and communications operate internally and externally in organizations, and explore the work and experiences of industry professionals. By the end of the semester, students will have created three technical, promotional, and professional writing projects for their digital portfolios and professional applications. You will revise your projects in response to peer and instructor feedback, thus demonstrating your ability to engage in composing as an ongoing act of critical re-thinking. Prereq: 1110 and any 2367. Not open to students with credit for HumCol 450.01, 450.02, 450.03, or CSTW 4150. English 4150 is also one of the required courses for the Minor in Professional Writing. Please see the MPW webpage for more information.
Section 10 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
Section 10 Instructor: Paige Mason
The Professional Writing Minor capstone course is the concluding professional and academic learning experience for the minor. After completing the minor’s coursework, internship application, and placement process, students will be enrolled in this course, which will supplement and support their work at their professional writing internships. Students will discuss their work experiences with their colleagues and instructor in class, with each student benefiting from the learning, growth, and community shared with their fellow interns at other workplace sites. Through weekly reflections and in-class activities, students will develop a record of their skills, tasks, and writing projects to carry into future professional experiences and applications. Instructor-guided discussions and activities will respond to student experiences and address topics such as workplace culture, writing conventions and ethics, transfer of professional skills, and career preparedness. Prereq: 4150 or CSTW 4150, and 2 courses in Professional Writing minor. Not open to students with more than 6 cr hrs of CSTW 4191. Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. This course is graded S/U. English 4189 is also one of the required courses for the Minor in Professional Writing. Please see the MPW webpage for more information.
Section 20 Instructor: Yanar Hashlamon
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4521: Renaissance Drama
Section 10 Instructor and Title: Alan Farmer - The Dangerous Dramas of Christopher Marlowe
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 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. Requirements include critical essays, research exercises, quizzes, an exam, and active participation.
English 4551: Special Topics in 19th-Century U.S. Literature
Instructor and 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 small, discussion-focused class will explore the complex social conflicts of the age through short readings from the public conversations of the time. Much of our assigned reading will be short poems, which helps to keep the number of pages of homework reading 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. Requirements: attendance, active participation every day, daily in-class quizzes about the homework questions, in-class short writing assignments, and exams (3 exams; the highest two scores will count). If you do the work expected, you will finish the class with significantly improved analytical skills. This is a no-phones class.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Amber Wardzala
In this course, we will read short stories in a variety of genres and from a diverse group of authors at various stages in their career with the purpose to further our understanding of how to craft unforgettable fiction. Every student will get the opportunity to have their writing workshopped as well. We will work to deepen your understanding of the elements of fiction, hone our ability to read as a writer, polish our capacity to offer and receive critique, and improve the skills necessary to revise our own writing. Revision is one of the most important weapons a writer needs so we will be learning to wield it more effectively.
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: Allison Pitinii Davis
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 and Title: Scott DeWitt - Process and Production
This course is about digital media production—the process of making digital texts and objects. This course is structured mostly as a studio class where we will be working together in the Digital Media Project. The success of a studio course depends on your willingness to use class time to invent, create, play, and critique. 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. As a student in enrolled in this class, you will have access to a number of technologies located in the Digital Media Project. We will also be the first class to use the Digital Media Project’s new audio and video recording studio. Together we will discover how this space can be used and what kind of work can/will emerge from it.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lauren Squires
In this class you will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences. You will become familiar with grammar from a linguistic—a scientific—perspective. We will seek to understand the linguistic patterns that underlie all speaking and writing in English, and 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. 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: English Language Learning Modules by Lauren Squires (free online textbook)
English 4573.01: Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Instructor: James Fredal
Reading isn’t the same in rhetoric as in everyday life. We look for features in the text like arguments and narratives, form and style, metaphors and hypotaxis. We also look for features beyond the text like subjects and personas, myths, and ideologies, situations and silences. All of this analysis is informed by theory that tries to explain what texts do and how they work in the world: from Aristotle to Judith Butler. In 4573.01, we’ll get a sweeping introduction to what it means to use rhetorical theory to learn how to read rhetorically. Theory and analysis will be complemented with primary texts--examples of rhetoric--including those supplied by you, the students.
English 4578: Special Topics in Film
Instructor and Title: Ryan Friedman - African American Independent Cinema After the Transition to Sound
During the 30s and 40s independent film companies, often headed by African American writers and producers, created what the African American press of the time frequently referred to as a thriving ''Black Hollywood,'' releasing films in a wide array of genres (including comedy, western, musical, horror, and gangster/crime drama), films that, while being made on limited budgets, often attain a high level of technical quality and frequently give prominent roles to popular musical artists. As we will see, these films range widely in their approach to representation, sometimes addressing social issues of specific concerns to African American audiences, other times simply creating all-African American social worlds where issues of social power and oppression could be set aside; in many cases, they were exhibited to general audiences.
Texts: Readings and films will be available electronically (at no cost) through the course's Carmen site. Assigned films will include: The Exile, The Duke Is Tops, and Spirit of Youth.
English 4583: Special Topics in World Literature in English
Instructor and Title: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́ - Afropolitans & Afropolitanism
This discussion and lecture class will study selected Anglophone fiction, poetry, film, music, and video produced by artists who came onto their own as culture leaders in the 21st century and among whom a small, forceful, segment has termed the group’s outlook on the world as Afropolitan. Unlike their predecessors, the Afropolitan group references and claims wherever work or pleasure takes them as theirs. Their music, stories, films, and poems traverse Lagos, Accra, Harare, London, Kampala, Addis Ababa, Detroit, Kingston, Johannesburg, Busan, Brussels, and Nairobi. In the texts, occupying many time zones, sometimes simultaneously, is real and not magical. Fluency in several registers of English is simply assumed by the characters. Why then, we shall be asking, does the need to locate a ''home'' somewhere in Africa haunt all the texts, although it is clear that the satisfaction of arriving at such a place is almost always fleeting?
Texts: J. P. Clark, America, their America (1962); Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears (2007); Teju Cole, Open City (2011); NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (2013); Taiye Selasi, Ghana Must Go (2013); Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2014); Nicole Armateifio, ''An African City'' (2014); Shailja Patel, Migritude, (2008); (Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon (2014); Ryan Coogler, ''Black Panther'' (2018);
English 4586: Studies in American Indian Literature and Culture
Instructor and Title: Bradley Dubos - Mapping Native and Indigenous Literatures
When we view North America as Native space, what sort of map emerges? How might Indigenous literatures offer keys to interpreting such a map or help plot out its major points? This course surveys a diverse range of Native and Indigenous authors through the lens of place. Students will investigate the ways texts from various tribal nations and time periods cluster around meaningful shared sites, from Anishinaabe islands and Haudenosaunee longhouses to Indian boarding schools and intertribal powwows. We will look closely at how works in multiple genres (stories, poems, petitions, novels, video games, and more) both emerge out of specific locations and remap those places by disrupting colonial narratives that erase Indigenous histories and presence. Along the way, students will develop skills in analyzing Native literary texts, experiment with place-based digital tools, and become familiar with key terms from Native American and Indigenous studies.
Texts: Authors may include William Apess, Laura Da’, Cherie Dimaline, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Samson Occom, Tommy Orange, Rebecca Pelky, Simon Pokagon, Susan Power, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Zitkala-Ša, and others.
English 4587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture
Instructor and Title: Pranav Jani - Immigration and Empire: We are Here Because You Were There
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. We will also take on Asian American racialization in broader contexts, and how Asians have been used, consistently, in order to justify ideologies about white supremacy even while being regarded as outsiders to the US experience.
Texts: Pachinko (novel), The Refugees (short stories), Him, Mississippi Masala (film)
English 4588: Studies in Latino/a Literature and Culture
Instructor and Title: Paloma Martinez-Cruz - Studies in Latinx Literature and Culture
What are the crucial questions dealing with Latinx cultural production in the United States? Why are the opinions and attitudes in our Ohio communities so important to Latinx circumstances? 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 analysis to be submitted for publication 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.
Texts: Cristina Costantini and Kareem Tabsch, Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (Netflix); Julio Torres, The Problemista; Tomás Rivera, …and the Earth Did Not Devour Him
English 4590.05H: The Later 19th Century
Instructor and Title: Amanpal Garcha - Fictions of Tradition and Transgression: The Brontë Sisters
This course will focus on four novels: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë; Jane Eyre and Shirley by Charlotte Brontë; and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. We will see how the Brontës transformed English readers’ conception of what kinds of stories novels could tell and how those stories could be told. The Brontës depict violent, intense passion while also emphasizing values of moderation and self-control; they include surreal, dream-like elements within narratives often focused on mundane details of daily life and work; they each make claims for the independent intellectual, artistic, and emotional power of female characters while often having those characters obey traditional ideas of femininity; and they each uneasily balance an artistic commitment to exploring the interior lives of complex, often difficult-to-like characters with an interest in political, social, and economic changes taking place outside individuals’ minds. In addition to reading these four novels, we will also cover some details about historical changes the Brontës witnessed in the nineteenth century; explore the narrative techniques and structures each sister employed; and we will discuss how ideas about gender, nationalism, class, and family life inform the Brontës’ fiction. Students will have to complete periodic reading quizzes; an oral midterm exam; a few short papers; and a final exam.
Texts: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; Jane Eyre and Shirley by Charlotte Bronte; and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Section 10 Instructor and Title: Karen Winstead - Medieval Women
Medieval women: They weren’t the denizens of some fantastical ''Dark Ages,'' or the passive victims of a malign patriarchy. They were human beings doing their best to negotiate the far from perfect worlds they were born into—much like us. Explore their worlds through their words and their books. Think about them and with them. In thinking about them, think about us. This wholly online course has a ''choose your own learning adventure'' structure, which allows you to choose which women to study. After spending two weeks learning about the fifteenth-century scholar of women’s history, Christine de Pizan, you will begin your own investigation of women from the past. Each week you will select a different woman to ''meet.'' Your choices include poets, dramatists, musicians, visionaries, warriors, matrons, rulers, travelers, entrepreneurs, and more!
Section 20 Instructor and Title: Susan Williams - Artists and Artistry in the United States
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.
Texts: Alcott, Little Women; Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring; Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
5000-level
English 5612: The History of the Book in Modernity
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will investigate books and the uses to which they were put (not all of which involved reading) from the advent of mechanized printing and paper manufacture in the early nineteenth century to the present. We’ll range widely in terms of genre, language, and price point and will pay close attention to books both as material objects to be collected, displayed, passed from hand to hand, or destroyed and as bearers of beautiful, stirring, useful, or scandalous texts. The course will be entirely embedded in the collections of OSU’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, which means that you’ll have the chance to examine and work with hundreds of books over the course of the semester, ranging from zines, political ephemera, and self-help books to now monumental (and very expensive) first editions of canonical literature, science, and visual art. And at the close of the semester, you and your colleagues will collectively curate a pop-up exhibition of material from the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library that will be open to the public (and so give you the opportunity to engage in a more public-facing form of the humanities than most classes provide). Other course requirements include weekly journal installments, two careful descriptions of what we can learn about a specific book by considering it as both an object and a bearer of text, and active and ''game'' participation in our discussions.
Texts: The collections of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library will form our principal objects of study. Supplementary reading and viewing will be available through Carmen.
English 5664: Studies in Graphic Narrative
Instructor and Title: James Phelan - Narrative Theory, Comics Theory, and Comics
What can narrative theory and comics do for each other? How does narrative theory, including existing comics theory, illuminate the complex art of comics? How does that complex art, especially in the hands (!) of practitioners such as Art Spiegelman and Roz Chast, require revisions or extensions of existing theory? We'll explore these questions in relation to a range of graphic narratives, both fictional and nonfictional.
Texts: Art Spiegelman, Maus; Miriam Engelberg, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person; Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth
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 10 & 20 Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth
Section 30 & 40 Instructor: John Rooney
Section 50 & 60 Instructor: William Broughton
Section 70 Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin
Section 140 & 150 Instructor: Matthew Cariello
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
An introductory critical study of the works of major British writers from 800 to 1800.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2220: 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: 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.
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.” Assignments will include two short critical papers, a midterm test, and a final exam.
Texts: We will read 4-5 plays, including some familiar ones (Romeo and Juliet and Othello) and some unfamiliar (King John and Pericles), as well as some non-dramatic poems.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Global Studies
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2260: Introduction to Poetry
Instructor: Kayla Probeyahn
Designed to help students understand and appreciate poetry through an intensive study of a representative group of poems.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2266: Introductory Poetry Writing
Instructor: Schyler Butler
This introductory course offers a foundation in the art and craft of poetry. Students will explore essential elements such as Form, Imagery, and Sound in published poems and craft essays as well as in the work of their classmates. Through writing exercises, workshops, and discussion, students will also create, revise, and analyze their own original poems. Emphasis will be placed on developing a deeper understanding of what makes a poem by writing poems.
Texts:
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2261: Introduction to Fiction
Section 20 & 30 Instructor & 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 MAX series, this class will train you in core analytical and literary 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.) You will see very quickly how literary analysis unlocks a deeper understanding of Game of Throne. Requirements: watch all eight seasons of the MAX series before second session begins in mid-October; 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 for each episode; listen carefully to lecture; take three exams on Carmen, of which the two highest grades will count. Required materials: a MAX subscription; additional readings posted on Carmen.
Section 40 Instructor: Rachel McCoy
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:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2262: Introduction to Drama
Instructor: Shaun Russell
In this introductory survey course, we will be exploring the nature of drama, with a special focus on tragedy. Tragedy is a household word, regularly used to express sorrow over everything from high casualty events like natural disasters, to the very mundane: How tragic! you might exclaim as the Buckeyes miss a crucial field goal that would give them the win over Michigan. Yet tragedy began with specific parameters around 2500 years ago, and while those parameters have evolved and have been redefined over several eras, we can still pinpoint what makes something tragic...in drama, at least, even if the term is used more casually in our daily lives. In this course, we will look at tragedy across three distinct eras: Ancient Greece, Renaissance England, and 20th century America. In the process, we will explore several varieties of tragedy, and perhaps spend time considering exactly HOW such a meaningful term has evolved to be applied to almost any vaguely sad circumstance.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2263: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Jesse Schotter
Introduction to methods of reading film texts by analyzing cinema as technique, as system, and as cultural product.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2264: Introduction to Popular Cultures
Instructor: Umut Gurses
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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2265: Introductory Fiction Writing
Section 10, 20, & 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 & 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 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 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: Elizabeth Velasquez
Section 40 Instructor: Jonathan Thomas
A composition course in which students analyze and compose digital media texts while studying complex forms and practices of textual production.
GE Categories:
GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Zahra Abedinezhadmehrabadi
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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2276: Arts of Persuasion
Section 10 Instructor: Joshua Cornelius
Section 20 Instructor: Shalini Abayasekara
Section 30 Instructor: James Fredal
Introduces students to the study and practice of rhetoric and how arguments are shaped by technology, media, and cultural contexts.
Section 40 Instructor: Daniel Seward
"Rhetoric"—usually considered THE art of persuasion—has both positive and negative connotations, depending on how the art is being used. These conflicting assessments are complicated even more once we recognize that there is not a single art of rhetoric, but many. Across the globe and for at least two dozen centuries, individuals have found it useful, sometimes necessary, to understand, refine, and systematize persuasive communication. While students and teachers of these arts may base their understandings on some fundamental human needs, such as social status, emotional connection, or reasoned action, the richly varied cultures and institutions where persuasion takes place have produced a multitude of rhetorics. In this class, we will explore a variety of traditional and modern rhetorical techniques and situations, examining both how and why particular techniques developed within their particular cultural settings and whether and when the techniques might be applicable in our times and for our purposes.
Texts: Lundberg and Keith’s “An Essential Guide to Rhetoric” (2nd Edition, 2018), Martin Luther King’s “A Time to Break Silence” (Beacon Press, 2013), Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Art of Communicating” (HarperOne, 2014). Other readings will be provided through free online resources.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
GEL: 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 Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2281: Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Elizabeth Sheehan
A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEN: Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
English 2282: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Shannon Winnubst
Introduces and problematizes foundational concepts of the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, highlighting the intersections of sexuality with race, class, and nationality.
GE Categories:
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: 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 contexts 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, empire making, and the material and psychological impact of two world wars; America's economic rise and turbulence; shifting ideas of American identity; 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. We will read broadly, covering multiple genres and literary movements.
Texts: Possible novels include Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, Ling Ma's Severance, or Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. Other poems, stories, and nonfiction selections will be available via Carmen.
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 2367.01: Language, Identity, and Culture in the U.S. Experience
Section 220 & 230 Instructor: Shaun Russell
The theme of this course is Meaningful Music: The American Experience in Song. We will be exploring the theme of music, particularly how music engages with the American experience (broadly defined) to convey meaningful ideas and to challenge the apparent status quo, especially with regard to social diversity and civil rights. We will be listening to and reading about a wide range of music across genres and eras, and you will have a lot of latitude for your assignments in choosing diverse music-related topics that you feel strongly about. Some examples of questions we may engage with are: how did the proliferation of protest songs affect the popular perception of the Vietnam War? How did the emergence of genres such as jazz, gospel, and hip hop help give Black Americans a voice in 20th century America? Can powerful and pointed music videos by artists like Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, and Lil Baby actually bring about change? How about a song like We are the World, created by American musicians to help address the famine in Africa? Can impassioned anthems by Lady Gaga or Chappell Roan truly move the needle on LGBTQ issues in this country? These questions merely scratch the surface of territory that we may cover in terms of the impact of song in the American experience, and you will be encouraged to think critically, creatively, and diversely to uncover unique angles to engage with our theme.
Section 10 Instructor: Charles-Anthony Athanasopoulos
Section 20 Instructor: Eduardo Mabilog
Section 30 Instructor: Rachel Jurasevich
Section 40 Instructor: Staff
Section 60 Instructor: Njoki Mwangi
Section 70 & 120 Instructor: Adeleke Adeeko
Section 80 Instructor: Samantha Risak
Section 90 Instructor: Brittany Halley
Section 130 Instructor: Rebecca Thacker
Section 190 Instructor: Soyoo Park
Section 220 & 230 Instructor: Shaun Russell
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 & 70 Instructor and Title: Faye Halpern - Unreliable Narrators
Ask people what makes a narrator unreliable and most will respond ''they lie.'' But the phenomenon of unreliable narration is actually much more complex and interesting. In this course, we'll study different kinds of unreliable narrators and ask such questions as ''Are unreliable narrators meant to trick the audience? How can you tell an unreliable narrator from a trustworthy one? How does unreliable narration work differently in fiction and film?'' Unreliable narration will also provide us an occasion to understand some of the hidden ways fictional texts work and increase our trust in our skills as a (reliable) academic writer.
Section 20 Instructor: Kayla Goldblatt
Section 30 Instructor: Caleb Hays
Section 40 Instructor: Jack Van Dine
Section 50 Instructor: Tin Lee
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 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 2367.06: Writing about Disability
Instructor: Kelsey Mason
Students will critically examine writing about disability, health, and wellness from a variety of genres (scholarly essays, personal essays, documentaries, comics, music, film) and use their findings to produce creative, scholarly, and professional documents appealing to multiple audiences and rhetorical situations.
GE Categories:
GEL: Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
GEL: Writing and Communication: Level 2
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 2367.08: The U.S. Experience: Writing About Video Games and Virtual Worlds
Section 10 & 40 Instructor: Ryan Helterbrand
Section 20 Instructor: Karen Aston
Section 30 & 50 Instructor: Elizabeth Miller
Section 60 & 80 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 70 Instructor: Samantha Tonkins
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
GEN: Theme: Lived Environments
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
3000-Level
English 3011.01: Digital Activism
Instructor: Christa Teston
Because of their networked nature and participatory potential, digital media can be powerful actors in affecting social change. We tag, tweet, retweet, reblog, reshare, 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. This course, then, is critical and creative. We will both think about and tinker with digital media. Class discussions will provide a rich and safe environment for you to explore and experiment with the consequences of humans’ relationships with digital media, while studio days will afford hands-on guidance in leveraging digital media for the purpose of protest and activism.
I also anticipate that events in the world will go on happening as they did before this class ever existed. So while the course has overarching learning objectives how those objectives are achieved may be modified in response to uprisings, disasters, attacks, and other events of social consequence yet to occur.
Texts: Alexander, Jarratt, & Welch’s (2018) Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics; Roberts-Miller’s (2017) Demagoguery & Democracy
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3020: Writing About Sustainability
Instructor: John Seabloom-Dunne
This course asks 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. Throughout the semester, we will use rhetorical theory as a lens for asking and investigating answers to some of the following questions: How do we interact with the natural world, and how does our human-made environment interact with the natural environment? How unequal are these encounters? Which groups in society have access to a natural environment that is safe vs. dangerous, polluted vs. unpolluted, wild vs. built, sustainable vs. unsustainable? How has and could writing about such questions affect meaningful change?
Texts: "They Say / I Say" - The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Sustainability
English 3031: Rhetorics of Health, Illness, and Wellness
Instructor: Elena Kalodner-Martin
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: Martin Ponce
This course examines the category of U.S. citizenship from the vantage point of post-Civil Rights American literary and cultural production. Insofar as citizenship operates as a marker of privilege and protection for some that depends on the exclusion and precarity of others, we will focus on texts that remember and represent the formal citizen’s constitutive and diverse “others”: enslaved African/Americans; colonized Indigenous peoples; Arab/Muslim/South Asian “terrorists”; undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers; contemporary Asian American scapegoats; and “denationalized” trans people. What alternative modes of social belonging and justice have contemporary minoritized writers and artists sought to imagine and enact when legal and national citizenship have proven to be exclusionary or inadequate?
Texts: Toni Morrison, Beloved; Tommy Orange, There There; Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3260: Poetry and Transformation
Instructor: David Brewer
This course will investigate poetry and poetic thinking as a technology (in the root sense of techne) that offers a particular way of engaging with both the self and the world that’s markedly different—and often far richer—than those provided by other forms of spoken and written communication. We will explore a broad range of poetry (including song lyrics) across multiple media and consider how it has transformed the lives of its writers, readers, and reciters and how that, in turn, has helped create a special status for poetry as a form of language credited with working in particularly complex, compressed, and powerful ways across time and space and both within and between cultures. The course will also consider who, at various moments, has been able to claim the mantle of ‘Poet’ and how access to that status has been shaped by both demographic factors and institutions, including universities. And we’ll repeatedly try our hands at various kinds and techniques of poetry to see what we can learn about its capacity to change and connect us from writing verse (however roughly), rather than just studying it.
Texts: We will read and listen to a broad range of lyric poetry and songs, some of which will be selected by the students in the course.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
English 3262: Adaptation and Literature
Instructor: Luke Wilson
In evolutionary biology, adaptation refers to the process by which organisms evolve across generations to adapt to changing environments. In this course, we will be concerned with how stories evolve through time and across different media: oral myth, written literature, film, graphic novel, video game, podcast, popular music. How do stories change in this process of adaptation? Among the kinds of adaptations we’re likely to study: graphic novel to film (Harvey’s Pekar’s American Splendor to the film of the same name); drama to film and video game (Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the Indian film Haider, to the Finnish film Hamlet Goes Business, and to Grand Theft Hamlet, a film about an attempt to adapt the play to the video game format); novel to film (Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness to the film Apocalypse Now; Percival Everett’s novel Erasure to the 2024 film American Fiction); the phenomenon of the musical cover (June Carter and Mele Kilgore’s “Ring of Fire” and cover versions by The Animals, Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, Social Distortion, Debby Harry, DragonForce and so on). We’ll also do some reading in theories of adaptation, including excerpts from Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation. Several exercises in the practice of adaptation and its analysis; research on an adaptation of your choice and not covered by the class as a whole; a class presentation; quizzes; possibly a final paper.
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations
English 3264: Monsters Without and Within
Section 20 Instructor: Karen Winstead
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 two classic horror novels and their film or TV adaptations use monsters to explore fundamental issues of wellbeing and citizenship: Frankenstein (Mary Shelley/James Whale/Chris Carter/Bomani Story/) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson/Rouben Mamoulian). These texts join debates about race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, justice, and social and personal responsibility. We challenge you to think about how these monster classics might be adapted to address issues that engage you in the 2020s.
Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde
Section 40 Instructor & Title: Clare Simmons - Monsters Among Us
English 3264 can be used as an upper-level course on the English major or minor, or an upper-level elective on other majors. Alternatively, it can be used to fulfill General Education requirements in ‘Citizenship for a Just and Diverse World’ or ‘Health and Wellbeing.’ The loose topic for this course is ‘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. Through looking at some classic monster forms—werewolves, vampires, dragons—as represented in poetry and fiction we will explore emotional and cultural responses to forms that seem ‘unnatural.’ We will also read works in which ‘monstrous’ may be a means of describing behavior that goes against our understanding of how humans should treat one another. The main requirements are careful reading in advance and active participation in class; reading response questions; a report on a monster movie; an ‘International Monster’ presentation; and a final essay related to the GE themes.
Texts: Readings will include stories in verse by Marie de France, Letitia Elizabeth Landon and John Keats; short stories by Saki and Angela Carter; and short novels by James Hogg, Oscar Wilde, and C.S. Lewis.
Section 60 Instructor and Title: Christopher Jones - Vampires in Literature
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 identities and the notions of justice that support them? Addressing such questions, this section of English 3264 will focus on the evolving figure of the vampire in stories, novels, and films from the early 1800s to our own time. After a preliminary consideration of vampire legends from folkloric and scientific perspectives, we will focus on representations of the vampire across a series of literary texts.
Texts: 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.
Section 50 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.
Texts: We'll read four novels, as well as a few short stories and excerpts. The novels (tentatively): Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Bondwoman's Narrative, and Mexican Gothic. We'll juxtapose these with a few films, including Lake Mungo, It Follows, Get Out, and Barbarian.
Section 10 Instructor: Amanpal Garcha
Through this semester, we will analyze how monsters in literature and film might help us understand threats of social collapse and psychological dissolution at various points in England’s and America’s history. We will start from the assumption that such threats will differ depending on the cultural moment: what seems “monstrous” at one time and place will seem ordinary at another. At the same time, as we move from the early to late 1800s in England and from the mid-20th century to the early 21st in America, we will also see continuities in how monsters are portrayed and what they represent – as each threatening being or sinister force embodies an aspect of humanity that stands against conventional ways we make sense of the world. Mary Shelley will help us think about the dangers of individualism and imagination, Bram Stoker will leads us through England’s troubled attempts at accepting new ways of imagining sexuality, monetary gain, and technological change; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers will show us America’s attempts at defending and defining itself after its triumph in World War II; Stephen King will provide us with a sense of how the United States tried to reckon with feelings of decline and powerlessness; and The Cabin in the Woods will provide both a retrospective of some conventions of monstrosity while giving us a glimpse of what horror means at a moment of intense media manipulation and saturation.
As we develop our knowledge of what and how monsters mean, students will receive instruction in literary and film analysis; will learn some important political, cultural, and scientific history; and will gain a deeper understanding of the individual texts and films on the syllabus.
Section 30 Instructor: Pranav Jani
Section 70 Instructor: Seonoh Kim
Section 80 Instructor: Rachel Stewart
Section 90 Instructor: Calvin Olsen
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
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:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3304: Business and Professional Writing
Section 10, 70 & 200 Instructor: Erin Bistline
Section 20 Instructor: Olivia Rowland
Section 40 Instructor: Adrian Salgado
Section 80 Instructor: Kelsey Stratman
Section 90 Instructor: Zaira Girala Munoz
Section 100 & 110 Instructor: William Spriggs
Section 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, 210 Instructor: Staff
The study of principles and practices of business and professional writing.
English 3305: Technical Writing
Section 10 Instructor: Jonathan Buehl
Section 20 Instructor: Esther Gabay
Section 30 Instructor: Susan Lang
Section 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 3361: Narrative and Medicine
Instructor: Susan Williams
'Reading and writing poetry brought together everything that had been important to me,” writes cancer survivor Lucy Grealy in Autobiography of a Face. “I could still dwell in the realm of the senses, but now I had a discipline, a form for them.” In this course, we will consider how literary form and language can help communicate the experiences of medical providers and patients in a health care setting. How might telling, listening to, and analyzing stories help mediate and improve caregiver-patient interactions and outcomes? How do the disciplines of literary study and medical practice intersect with and inform each other? To explore these questions, we will read memoirs by both patients and caregivers. We will also read a range of literary texts that highlight the human as well as scientific dimensions of health care. These texts will include short historical works by Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, and Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as contemporary fiction. We will also look at how narrative principles and techniques are adapted for the stage and in television medical procedurals/dramas.
Texts: Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches; Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face; Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Theme: Health and Well-being
English 3364: Special Topics in Popular Culture
Instructor and Title: Lauren Squires - Bad Words
What are ''bad words''? And who decides? This class will explore judgments around language use such as swearing, ''controversial'' speech, and other forms of language considered taboo, off-limits, or inappropriate. We will examine ''bad'' language across domains of speech, from the private and interpersonal to the public and institutional. Some of the language considered offensive in American society even two decades ago is now considered utterly mundane--and the reverse is also true. We will explore how social and cultural norms, situational expectations, political interests, and individual preferences shape language practices across time and communities. The goal of this class is to use ''bad words'' as an interesting and useful lens through which to learn about human beings and the language they use. We will therefore approach ''bad words'' from the viewpoint of multiple disciplines that concern themselves with the study of language. These include linguistics, anthropology, American studies, psychology, literature, rhetoric, the law, and more. You should not take this course is you are offended by the discussion of taboo language, or if you are only interested in the ''shock value'' of taboo language. You should take this course if you think language is interesting and want to learn more about it; if you are ready for frank and mature discussions about sometimes-controversial topics; and if you are open to reconsidering your ideas about language and society.
Texts: Eggert, Randall. 2011. This book is taboo: An introduction to linguistics through swearing.
Rosewarne, Lauren. 2013. American Taboo: The forbidden words, unspoken rules, and secret morality of popular culture.
GE Categories:
GEL: Cultures and Ideas
GEN: Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies
English 3372: Special Topics in Science Fiction or Fantasy
Section 10 & 20 Instructor: Zoe Thompson
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:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
English 3372: Special Topics in Sci Fi/Fantasy Literature: “Not Quite Human: Exploring Human Nature Through the Fae"
Section 30 Instructor: Emily Eikost
Mischievous tricksters, alluring lovers, terrifying abductors—fairies have haunted the edges of human imagination for centuries. This course delves into the rich mythology of the fey, tracing their evolution from the enchanting yet dangerous figures of medieval literature (Sir Lanval, Sir Orfeo) to their modern reimaginings in The Cruel Prince, Legendborn, and The Elfstones of Shannara as well as the Maleficent movies. Through the lens of fantasy conventions, we will examine how these not-quite-human beings challenge societal norms, reflect human fears and desires, and force us to question what it truly means to be human. Engaging with both historical texts and contemporary fantasy, students will explore how fairies continue to shape our stories—and our understanding of ourselves.
Texts:
The Cruel Prince
Legendborn
The Elfstones of Shannara
GE Categories:
GEL: Literature
GEN: Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
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: Calvin Olsen
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: Clare Simmons
English 3398 is a course where participants can work on their skills in reading, analyzing, discussing, researching, and writing about literature in order to be successful in advanced-level English classes. That might sound like a scary combination of goals, so it seems appropriate that a loose theme for this class is ‘scary stuff.’ We will read some short stories and poems of a ghostly nature; Shakespeare’s Macbeth; and Bram Stoker’s Dracula along with some of the novel’s critical contexts. To help us through the scares we will also be using A Pocket Style Manual 10th edition, by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers. Main requirements are reading response questions, three shorter essays, and a final research paper. We will spend some class time on workshopping and revising student work, so regular attendance, careful preparation in advance, and active participation are also important requirements.
Texts: Bram Stoker, Dracula; Shakespeare, Macbeth; Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, A Pocket Style Manual
Section 70 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. Evaluation will be based on participation in discussion, short assignments, and four essays.
Texts: Works will include Shakespeare’s existential tragedy King Lear, Melville’s Moby Dick, a regular candidate for greatest novel of all time, the dazzling poems of A.E. Stallings, an American poet currently the Oxford Professor of Poetry. We will also read critical essays on these works, representing different theoretical and methodological perspectives.
Section 10 Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham
This is a course about what we read, why we read, and how we read. As an introduction to the critical study of literature, this class aims to help students gain the skills necessary to succeed as English majors and minors, including close reading, understanding genre, working with poetry, and writing English essays.
Texts: Writers studied will include Nadine Gordimer, Jorge Luis Borges, John Donne, Janelle Monae, Marilyn Nelson, William Shakespeare, and Zadie Smith.
English 3465: Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Section 40 Instructor: Mikayla Schutte
Speculative Fiction is a fluid term, encompassing a wide range of genres including science fiction, fabulism, magical realism, and more. At its heart, it is fiction that speculates—about the future, social issues, impossible scenarios, or fantastical beings. It is fiction that imagines new, unfamiliar worlds that usually have something to say about our own. In this class, you will choose a speculative novel to read from a list that includes Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, George Orwell’s 1984, Margaret Atwoods’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and more. Alongside your reading, we will engage in class discussion and writing exercises all designed to help you create a speculative short story or novel opening, and we will spend the latter half of the class workshopping the pieces you’ve written.
Section 10 Instructor: Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
Section 30 Instructor: Porter Yelton
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: 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 3467S: Issues and Methods in Tutoring Writing
Section 10 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. We will discuss research on writing center theories and pedagogies that help us think about best practices, including tutoring writing across disciplines, inclusive and anti-racist tutoring practices, tutoring online, to name a few.
English 3467S is designated as a service-learning course (that’s what the “s” stands for) which means that there is a major experiential-based component of the course. To fulfill the experiential component, you will apprentice in the University Writing. 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 observing experienced consultants.
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 3595: Literature and Law
Section 10 Instructor: Simone Drake
This course focuses on the law as narrative as we study the stories that unfold in legal texts (case law and legislation). We will juxtapose the non-fiction legal narratives with their representation in literature, film, and television. This course focuses specifically on various moments through history when the notion of colorblind justice failed African Americans. Beginning with Bacon’s Rebellion and legal definitions of blackness and its associated rights or lack thereof, we will move through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, studying criminal, torts, Constitutional, and copyright case law and creative texts that reflect those real-life experiences. Assignments will include: robust participation; two in-class writing assignments (expository & analytical papers); a group debate project; and weekly reading quizzes.
Texts: Kate Chopin, ''Desiree’s Baby'' (short story); Douglas Sirk, Imitation of Life (film); Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun (play); Fast Color (film); Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy (film and book); Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand (novel); Gilded Age (TV); Blackish (TV); Claudine (film); The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (book)
GE Categories:
GEN: Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
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: Kelsey Mason
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: Kelsey Mason
Students work onsite in an organization doing writing-related work and meet weekly to discuss related topics.
English 4520.01: Shakespeare
Instructor: Christopher Highley
English 4520 examines the plays, life, and theater of the world’s greatest writer. Students learn how to read Shakespeare’s language, understand his plots, and explore his major themes. Time will be given to the practice of close-reading selected passages, to discussion of dramatic form and genre, and to contextualizing Shakespeare’s dramatic works in their historical moment. We will read some of the plays alongside plays on similar themes by Shakespeare’s fellow playwrights. Thus, we will juxtapose The Merchant of Venice with Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, and read The Tempest as part of a conversation with Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. Students will be examined through a combination of quizzes, in-class or take-home examinations, in-class presentations, and research papers.
Texts:
Merchant of Venice
Hamlet
The Tempest
English 4523: Special Topics in Renaissance Literature and Culture
Instructor & Title: Luke Wilson - John Donne and Ben Jonson
John (“No man is an island”) Donne, and Ben (“I fart at thee”) Jonson, Shakespeare’s two most important literary contemporaries, wrote of issues immediate to their lives and times but also universal to all of us: death, sex, illness, greed, friendship, love, suicide, food, money, reincarnation, flatulence, and God. Read Jonson’s scurrilous, fast-paced plays, his intricate and decorous poems, and his elaborate court masques. Read Donne’s famously witty love poems, his equally famous religious writings, and his biting and topical satires of London life. Although central to the literary culture of the time, both writers also struggled to find their place. At a time when choice of religion could be a matter of life and death, both had trouble deciding whether they were Catholic or Protestant. And both fell afoul of the law: Jonson was convicted for killing a man in a duel (he got off on a technicality but with an M for “manslayer” burnt onto his thumb), and he was thrown in prison for “lewd and mutinous behavior” for his work on a play that offended the authorities. For his part, Donne was imprisoned because he married the wrong woman (Anne More) without the queen’s permission, prompting his famous epigram: “John Donne – Anne Donne – Undone.” Emphasis on in-class work including a class presentation, but with some written assignments too: short responses and exercises, quizzes, a final paper.
Texts: Readings to include: selections from Jonson’s poetry, two of his plays, probably The Alchemist and Volpone, and one of his court masques. Donne’s poetry, including his love poems, his satires, his religious sonnets, and his crazy poem about the transmigration of souls; also excerpts from Donne’s sermons and his treatise on suicide.
English 4540: Nineteenth-Century British Poetry
Instructor: Jill Galvan
This course covers British poetry written from around the 1780s to 1900, 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. We'll focus on styles and thematic concerns and read poetry as both an art form and as a form of historical voice. Some historical/cultural touchstones: the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution, slavery, nature and the sublime, gendered “separate spheres,” major scientific discoveries, challenges to religious faith, imperialism, anti-imperialism, and sexuality and its oppressions. Finally, we'll also study how our poets used or innovated important genres (e.g., the sonnet, the mock epic, the dramatic monologue) and literary modes and movements (e.g., the Gothic, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Aestheticism).
Texts: Some of our Romantic poets: William Blake, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Charlotte Smith, Henry Derozio, Lord Byron, John Keats, Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Some of our Victorian poets: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, Toru Dutt, Oscar Wilde.
English 4563: Contemporary Literature
Instructor and Title: Thomas Davis - Contemporary Fiction
What is the relevance of literature in our contemporary moment? How do literary texts think through what has been called our “polycrisis,” a term that pulls together climate change, eroding liberal democracies, the rise of AI and other powerful technologies, irregular forms of warfare and violence, the weight of history on our present, shifting ideas of work, and evolving notions of intimacy and relationships, among other things? This class will work through some theories of aesthetic relevance and read across fiction, poetry, and non-fiction of the last 15-20 years. We will explore how literature thinks through, or mediates, aspects of our polycrisis while sharpening our skills of close, attentive reading, critical-creative writing, and cultural critique.
Texts: Readings may include: Ling Ma's Severance; W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn; Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun; Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower; Omar El Akkad's One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This; poetry by Ross Gay, Camille Dungy, Ada Limón, and others.
English 4565: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Staff
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: Staff
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: 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 two. The 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.
English 4572: English Grammar and Usage
Section 10 Instructor: Daniel Seward
Students learn the basic patterns of English grammar from a linguistic, scientific perspective. They acquire the necessary terminology and framework of analysis for describing English words, phrases, and sentences. This is not a writing, editing, or speaking course; but, students will equip themselves to more fully appreciate writing style guides, usage handbooks, and language-learning materials.
Section 20 Instructor: Lauren Squires
Get ready to learn all the things about grammar you always wanted to know, and to be surprised at how interesting and fun grammar can be! In this class you will learn to describe and analyze the structure of English sentences. You will become familiar with grammar from a linguistic—a scientific—perspective. This means we will explore English grammar with curiosity; with an interest in dialect variation, language history, and grammatical quirks; and without social judgment. We will seek to understand the linguistic patterns that underlie all speaking and writing in English, and 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. 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: Online textbook (free and open-source): English Linguistics Learning Modules, written by Lauren Squires the instructor.
English 4573.02: Rhetoric and Social Action
Instructor: Wendy S. Hesford
This course will cover a broad range of rhetorical perspectives and principles, including analyzing the rhetorical power of images and social media to set political agendas and to force contentious issues onto the national and international stage. Students are required to write two essays of rhetorical criticism and to create a visualization project. Active participation expected.
Texts: Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action
English 4578: Special Topics in Film
Instructor and Title: Jesse Schotter - Bad Reviews
“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.
Texts: The Empire Strikes Back, Schindler's List, Celine and Julie Go Boating
English 4580: Special Topics in LGBTQ Literatures and Cultures
Instructor: Martin Ponce
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. We will begin by recognizing the centrality of reading practices to the construction of lesbian, gay, and queer identities and communities. We will then move beyond queer theory’s “single-issue” focus on sexuality alone and consider 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; Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House: A Memoir; Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
English 4581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literatures
Instructor and Title: Pranav Jani - How Race Works: Legacies of Colonialism, Slavery, and Empire
With attention to state- and federal-level suppression of diversity initiatives and anti-racist curricula, English 4581 draws attention to core questions about how race and racialization work. How can we grasp the different but linked experiences and histories of Black, Native, Latinx, Arab, and Asian 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 the lives of those 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—and silence them for good.
Texts: Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (2016), Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988), Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home (2009) or short stories, Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Refugees (2017) or a novel by Nguyen, Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows (2009) or another text by Shamsie, Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle
English 4591.02H: Special Topics in Rhetoric
Instructor and Title: James Fredal - Conspiracy Theories, True and False
In 1774, an anonymous pamphlet appeared accusing the British of conspiring to reduce the colonies to slavery, and in 1863 Lincoln accused the south of conspiring to bring slavery to Northern states. Conspiracy theories are very old and very powerful and, it seems, more popular now than ever. Why is this? What makes them so appealing, so convincing, and so popular? In this class, we’ll read several conspiracies, conspiracy fiction, and research from a range of disciplines: students will finish by researching on a conspiracy of their own choosing.
Texts: The Paranoid Style, Conspiracy Theories, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, They Dare not call it Conspiracy
English 4592: Special Topics in Women in Literature and Culture
Instructor & Title: Karen Winstead - Medieval Women
Medieval women: They weren’t the denizens of some fantastical ‘Dark Ages,’ or the passive victims of a malign patriarchy. They were human beings doing their best to negotiate the far from perfect worlds they were born into—much like us. Explore their worlds through their words and their books. Think about them and with them. In thinking about them, think about us.
Texts: Our readings will include the Romance of Silence, Lays of Marie de France, and extracts from the Book of Margery Kempe, the Paston Letters, the Trial of Joan of Arc, and the writings of Christine de Pizan.
Instructor & Title: Elizabeth Sheehan - Contemporary Feminism
The current moment has been described as one of resurgent feminist art and activism as well as forceful anti-feminist backlash. Yet the meaning and aims of feminism remain contested, and critiques of anti-liberatory versions of “feminism”—including white, carceral, and trans-exclusionary radical feminisms—abound. This course examines contemporary feminist art and activism with an emphasis (but not an exclusive focus) on the U.S. and on literary texts. It does so by reading recent literature alongside works of feminist criticism and histories of feminist art and activism. In the process, it considers how literature—as a mode of cultural expression that can embrace ambiguity and contradiction, reveal connections between mundane experiences and systems and structures, and fuel political commitment—is a realm for considering what feminism is, does, and might be. Literary texts include work by Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Torrey Peters, Carmen Maria Machado, and Sarah Thankam Mathews, among others.
5000-Level
English 5191: Internship in English Studies
Section 10 Instructor: Yanar Hashlamon
Section 20, 30, & 40 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 5193: Tactical Writing
Instructor: Ashleigh Hardin and Christa Teston
The goal of this course is to develop your skills in applied written and oral communication (e.g., legal briefs, crisis communications, internal memos, etc.). You will receive personalized guidance when developing tactics for writing in specific disciplinary domains and within particular genres. We emphasize short-form, tactical writing that solves problems in specific communicative contexts, which you will encounter during your experience with the Mershon Center's required two-day National Security Simulation (October 24-25, 2025).
English 5710: Introduction to Old English Language and Literature
Instructor: Leslie Lockett
Introduction to Old English language, followed by selected readings in Anglo-Saxon prose and verse texts.
English 5722: Graduate Studies in Renaissance Poetry
Instructor: Sarah Neville
Study of topics, themes, and problems in advanced studies of English poetry from the early sixteenth century to 1660.
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: Literature
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:
GEL: Literature
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.
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
Section 40 Instructor: Joshua Alexander Mishaw
This course will introduce students to the study of fiction.
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, 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), Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style (1947/1981), 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?