English Courses

NOTE: Complete undergraduate and graduate catalogs can be found here.

ENGL 100 (3)
Composition
A study of the process of writing with practice in a variety of forms, emphasizing the development of composition skills. Offered every year in the fall semester.

ENGL 104 (3)
Thought and Expression
A workshop-based course that develops more effective reading and writing skills. It uses the process of revision to help students clarify their prose and to construct cogent arguments and analyses. Developing research skills and incorporating secondary sources into student work are also emphasized. This course is one of the required writing intensive courses in the College's General Education Program. FYW

ENGL 106 (3)
Introduction to Creative Writing
An introductory course in the writing of fiction and poetry. The course may include other genres such as creative nonfiction or drama. IIIW, V6

ENGL 108 (3)
Women and Literature
A study of women characters and women writers in English, American and foreign literature. This course may be counted as an adjunct course for the minor in Women and Gender Studies. IIIW, V2,V

ENGL 109 (3)
The Origins of Fairy Tales
Magic mirrors, sleeping thorns, elves, ogres, and talking animals - though commonplace in modern animated films and children's stories, the trapping of fairy tales find many of their roots in the medieval imagination. This course will explore fairy stories from medieval Celtic and Germanic literatures, investigating the cultural beliefs that inspired them and tracing their development and enduring popularity into the modern era. Offered alternate years. FYW, IIIW,V

ENGL 110 (3)
Writing Across Worlds
This course focuses on selected works by acclaimed international writers, emphasizing historical and cultural contexts and exploring cross-cultural connections. For Fall 2008, readings include works by Azar Nafisi, Yiyun Li, Zakes Mda, and Chimamanda Adichie, who will be participating in the College's 2008-09 International Writers Series. All works will be read in English. IIIO, V

ENGL 112 (3)
Literature of the South
A study of such 20th-century Southern authors as Faulkner, Warren, Wolfe, Wright, Porter, Welty, McCullers, O'Connor, Williams, Bambara, Walker and Tyler. Topics will include the Southern Renaissance, narrative experimentation, women's writing and Southern authors' interest in their characters' storytelling. V2

ENGL 116 (3)
American Fiction
This course examines distinctive contributions made to the art of fiction by selected 20th-century American writers, such as Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Welty, Morrison, Hong Kingston, Erdrich, DeLillo, and Diaz. We will also consider how the geographical, historical, social, and psychological landscapes depicted in these works shape our understanding of America today. FYW, IIIW,V

ENGL 120 (3)
Russan Lit in Translation
A reading of significant works - drama, fiction and autobiography - of the 19th and 20th centuries by such writers as Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Solzhenitzyn.

ENGL 124 (3)
Myth, Legend and Their Retelling
A study of myths and legends from biblical, classical, and medieval sources, and of their modern retellings in both literature and film. Works to be examined will include the story of Samson from the Book of Judges and Milton's "Samson Agonistes," "The Odyssey" and the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," "Beowulf" and John Gardner's "Grendel." Offered alternate years. V2

ENGL 126 (3)
Forbidden Love
From Renaissance poems bemoaning chastity to modern novels confessing illicit rendezvous, literature has both shaped and reflected our understanding of love and sexuality. Most notably, forms of desire disdained by society have found expression in the imaginative space of literature. This course will investigate literary and filmic representations of these forbidden loves, with particular attention to the works' literary and social ramifications. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V2,V

ENGL 132 (3)
What's Love Got to Do with It?: Romantic Comedy through the Ages
Reading works by Shakespeare, Austen, Wilde, and Shaw and viewing films such as "Bringing Up Baby," "Love Actually," and "Sex and the City," we will explore the genre of romantic comedy over time. We will study the relationship between gender, genre, and the social and examine comedy's fascination with the creation of fantasy worlds and disguise. V2

ENGL 136 (3)
Something Wicked
From Beowulf's murderous Grendel to modern horror films, people have always been fascinated by the monstrous. This course will cover a variety of texts that incorporate both "real" monsters and characters demonstrating monstrous behavior, examining how the definition of what is monstrous has changed over the years and the social commentary implicit in the distinction between what is human and what is not. Offered alternate years. V2

ENGL 138 (3)
The Art of Poetry
Emily Dickinson wrote that poetry made her "feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off." In this introductory course, students will cultivate an appreciation of poetry by reading both classic and contemporary poems, with attention to language, form, and literary context. Our goal will be to share Dickinson's sense of wonder, pleasure, and intellectual satisfaction as we ourselves practice the art of reading poetry. Offered alternate years.

ENGL 140 (3)
Jane Austin and Bronte Sisters
This course examines the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontes in their historical and cultural context. It explores Austen's reimagining of plots for the novel from "Pride and Prejudice" to "Persuasion." It studies the Brontes' incorporation of both gothic and realistic plots in their novels and considers how the confluence of gender and genre reinvented the form and plots of the nineteenth- century novel. Students cannot receive credit for this course if they have credit for ENGL 134, Jane Austen in Context.

ENGL 143 (3)
Introduction to Shakespeare
This course is an overview of Shakespeare's plays, narrative poems, and sonnets. No prior experience of Shakespeare is necessary. We will proceed slowly, learning how to read and take enjoyment in Shakespeare's pyrotechnical wordplay. Works studied may include "Romeo and Juliet," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," "The Sonnets," "The Rape of Lucrece," and others. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option. FYW, IIIW,V

ENGL 145 (3)
The Other Victorians
We normally associate the Victorian period with domesticity, family values, and propriety. In this course we will explore the dark side of Victorian literature focusing on secrets, detection, urban violence and prostitution, sexuality, and vampires. Works to be studied may include the Sherlock Holmes stories, accounts of Jack the Ripper, "Tess," "Dracula," "The Picture of Dorian Gray," "The Woman in White," and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

ENGL 149 (3)
Introduction to Film Studies
Students will become familiar with the aesthetic elements of cinema (visual style, sound, narrative and formal structure), the terminology of film production and film theories relating to formalism, psychoanalysis and feminism. Films will be discussed from aesthetic, historical and social perspectives. IIIW, V6

ENGL 150 (3)
Introduction to Film History
This course will introduce students to the history and analysis of film. Students will learn the technical and critical vocabularies of film studies and analyze films representing a variety of styles and genres. The global and historical scope of this course will lead us to consider films from America, Italy, France, Germany and Japan and from the silent period to the present. Offered alternate years. V6a

ENGL 201 (3)
Fiction Workshop
A course in which students will submit original fiction to be discussed in class and in individual conferences with the instuctor. This course may be repeated once for credit. IIIO, IIIW,V6

ENGL 203 (3)
Major British Writers I
A study of important works by and critical approaches to writers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton. Close reading, various interpretive strategies and research skills will be stressed. IIIW, V

ENGL 204 (3)
Major British Writers II
A study of the poets and novelists of England and Ireland after the English Renaissance. Writers may include satirists like Pope and Austen, innovators like Wordsworth and Joyce, romantics like Emily Bronte, and realists like Dickens. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. IIIW, V

ENGL 205 (3)
Business Writing
In this course, students will study and practice various forms of business writing, including reports, letters, memoranda, proposals, and other documents. Assignments will replicate typical business cases, scenarios, and cultures. Selected readings introduce students to business discourse. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option. IIIW

ENGL 206 (3)
Technical Writing
In this course, students will study and practice various forms of technical writing, including formal and informal reports, technical papers, lab reports, proposals, physical and process descriptions, instructions, and technical correspondence. Students will develop flexible problem- solving skills and a clear style for communicating technical information to a range of readers in various professional and organizational contexts. This course cannot be taken on a P/CR/NC grading option.

ENGL 207 (3)
Poetry Workshop
A course in which students will be given writing assignments with particular emphasis on craft and will submit original poems to be discussed in class. This course may be repeated once for credit. IIIO, IIIW,V6

ENGL 211 (3)
Print/Electronic Journalism I
Introductory course in researching, reporting, and writing stories for both print and electronic media. The course covers investigative reporting, arts criticism, and general event reporting. IIIW, V6

ENGL 217 (3)
Special Topics in Literature II
Topic will vary by semester. Close reading, various interpretive strategies and research skills will be stressed. Topic for Spring 2008: "Imagining Ireland." This course focuses on competing visions of Ireland and of what it means to be "Irish" today. First, we will consider major postwar writers and their troubled relations with the Irish Free State. Then, we will discuss current Irish writers and the resurgence of Irish cinema in relation to an increasingly globalized and multicultural Ireland. This course may be counted toward the transnational requirement for the majors in English and English and creative writing. IIIO, V

ENGL 218 (3)
Special Topics in Literature II
Topic will vary by semester. Close reading, various interpretive strategies and research skills will be stressed. Topic for Spring 2009: "Writing Lives." A study of selected autobiographies, memoirs, and autobiographical fiction. Issues to be explored include the transformations that occur when experience is represented in story, the nature of autobiographical "truth," the varied purposes of culturally-determined forms, as well as their potential as art forms and as social critique. This course may be counted toward the major requirement of a course in literatures other than U.S. or British. IIIW, V

ENGL 221 (3)
Loveliness Extreme: Women Poets as Visionary Inheritors
How does poetry help people to live their lives and, in Adrienne Rich's phrase, to ask the world's questions? In particular, how do women poets engage the past, challenge received ideas, and shape live traditions for future generations? We will consider many kinds and styles of poems in their inner workings and cultural contexts as we explore these and related questions. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. IIIW, V2,V

ENGL 226 (1)
Tutoring Writing:Thry/Practice

ENGL 228 (3)
The Art of the Essay
The study and writing of advanced expository prose that goes beyond the academic essay and pays attention to concerns such as audience, point of view, metaphor and tone. The readings for the course will be essays by current and former students of this course as well as by well-known writers such as Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, E.B. White, James Baldwin and Joan Didion. This course counts as a 200-level workshop in creative writing. IIIW, V6

ENGL 233 (3)
Special Topics in Creative Writing
Topics will vary semester. Topic for Spring 2010: "The Writer as Public Intellectual." Writers' creative lives address the ethics and outcomes of political life and cultural norms. How do they express these conflicts, and when do they step out of their genre? We will examine writers' responses, both creative and rhetorical, to social issues; students will write and critique their own poems, stories, and essays that build on these models. Readings include visiting writer DA Powell, James Baldwin, Robert Penn Warren, Leslie Marmon Silko, Josef Brodsky, and Adrienne Rich. IIIW, V6

ENGL 237 (3)
The Bible in English Literature
An introduction to the use of Biblical stories, images and themes by writers in English. Selections from the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament will be read together with works by a variety of writers including Shakespeare, Milton, S.Y. Agnon and Flannery O'Connor. V2

ENGL 243 (3)
Stardom and Hollywood Cinema
Why are film stars so fascinating to us and what are the pleasures we get from them? In this course we will study the Hollywood star system and the relationship between performance and stardom. We will examine issues such as the star as commodity, the star as text, and the star as an object of desire. Films to be considered are: "The Godfather," "Gone with the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Some Like it Hot." V6a

ENGL 244 (3)
Women in the Renaissance
During the time of Shakespeare, the social position of women was both paradoxical and precarious. A woman ruled England, yet women were considered "naturally" inferior to men. In this course, we will examine early modern literature written by women-as well as literature written by men about women- that explores women's various roles in both personal and public Renaissance settings. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in gender studies. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V2,V

ENGL 253 (3)
Banned Books
We will read banned books from a range of historical periods and will work to understand society's ethical ambivalence towards these texts. We will investigate whether literature's treatment of topics like religion, violence, race, and sexuality is dangerous or even harmful, ask how society should react to potentially disruptive literature, and work to determine the social value of these works. IIIO, V2,V

ENGL 256 (3)
New Writing from Ireland/Scot
This course introduces students to the extraordinary vitality of the contemporary Irish and Scottish literary scenes. We will focus on competing visions of Ireland and Scotland and what it means to be "Irish" or "Scottish" today, the growing dialogue between the two cultures, and the role of literature in responding to, and at times promoting, social and political change. All works will be read in English. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed.

ENGL 258 (3)
Native American Literature
Native American life and texts are bicultural products which combine, sometimes uneasily, tribal concepts and narrative forms with "Western" ones. This course will examine some of the literary effects of such intersections and issues such as gender constructions in the works. The class will introduce students to a variety of significant native writers and cultural traditions. Works studied can include fiction. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. IIIW, V

ENGL 261 (1)
Directed Study
Study at an introductory level of selected topics in literature or writing to be pursued by individual students under the immediate supervision of a department member.

ENGL 282 (3)
Modern American Authors
Works in different genres by selected modern and contemporary American authors will be studied in relation to larger literary, social, and cultural developments. Writers may include Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Robert Frost, Sterling Brown, Richard Wright, Carson McCullers, Lorraine Hansberry, Allen Ginsberg, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Anna Deveare Smith, and Li-Young Lee. Close reading, various interpretive strategies, and research skills will be stressed. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V

ENGL 301 (3)
Hollywood Genres
Focusing on the historical forms of Hollywood genres (film noir, gangster, western, horror, melodrama, romantic comedy and musical) from the classical period of the studio system in the 1930s to the present, we will consider the following questions: Are genre films inherently conservative because they are based on familiar aesthetic conventions or do they persist because of the ways in which they expose social contradictions? How do generic transformations over time reflect changes in the social relationships of race, class, gender and sexuality? We will look at two examples of each genre, a film from the studio period and a contemporary example. V6a

ENGL 302 (3)
The Fiction of William Faulkner
Topic will vary by semester. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic is different. Topic for Fall 2006: "The Fiction of William Faulkner." This course will explore the fiction of William Faulker, often regarded as America's most important writer of the 20th century. The course will trace the intellectual, social, and literary influences that inform his fiction and will place Faulkner in the context of his time and place. Students will read several short stories and six of the major novels. May be counted towards the 20th-century literature requirement for the majors and minors in English and English and creative writing. V2

ENGL 308 (3)
Advanced Poetry Workshop
An advanced course in which students will be given writing assignments with particular emphasis on craft and will submit original poems to be discussed in class. This course may be repeated once for credit. IIIW, V6

ENGL 311 (3)
Print/Electronic Journalism II
This course builds on concepts developed in ENGL 211. More kinds of journalistic writing are covered, including political reporting, business reporting, and feature writing. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V6

ENGL 312 (3)
Advanced Fiction Workshop
An advanced course in which students will submit original fiction to be discussed in class and in individual conferences with the instructor. This course may be repeated once for credit. IIIW, V6

ENGL 314 (3)
Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop
An advanced course in which students will submit original nonfiction to be discussed in class and in individual conferences with the instructor. Students will also read and discuss published texts of creative nonfiction. This course may be repeated once for credit. IIIW, V6

ENGL 315 (3)
Gndr Pol in Med Heroic Epic
Though medieval heroic epics focus on (and are often named for) their male heroes, they also include female characters of subtle but essential significance. This course will examine representations of gender and gender roles in medieval heroic literature and how those representations change over time and across cultures, assessing the extent to which the heroes of this genre owe their fame and fates to the unacknowledged heroines with whom they interact. V2, V

ENGL 317 (3)
History of the English Language
A study of the continuing development of English words, grammar and syntax, including sources of vocabulary and changes of form, sound and meaning. Offered alternate years. V1

ENGL 319 (3)
Chaucer
A reading of Chaucer's early dream visions (The Book of the Duchess and The Parlement of Foules) and The Canterbury Tales. Offered alternate years. IIIO, V

ENGL 322 (3)
Romance and Renewal: Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
An examination of English Renaissance drama before 1603, including early works by Shakespeare and plays by his Elizabethan contemporaries such as Lyly, Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, and Dekker. We will study the increasing secularization professionalization of theater, the development of comedy and pastoral, and the emergence of revenge tragedy. Both textual analysis and dramaturgy will be emphasized. Plays studied in ENGL 325 are general excluded from this course. Offered alternate years. V2, V6

ENGL 324 (3)
Revenge and Ravishment: Shakespeare and Jacobean Drama
An examination of English Renaissance drama after 1603, including late works by Shakespeare and plays by his Jacobean contemporaries such as Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and Ford. We will study the drama's increasing use of sensationalistic plots and characters, as well as the theater's challenge to traditional understandings of governance, family, sexuality, race, and gender. Both textual analysis and dramaturgy will be emphasized. Plays studied in ENGL 325 are generally excluded from this course. Offered alternate years. V2, V6

ENGL 325 (3)
Shakespeare: Ten Plays
A study of selected comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances by William Shakespeare with attention to the plays' cultural and literary context. Topic for Spring 2009: "Brawling Love and Loving Hate." In Shakespeare's plays, the line separating desire and affection from repulsion and violence is rarely clear. This semester, we will pay particular attention to the complex relationship between love and hate in the Shakespearean canon. V1, V

ENGL 329 (3)
American Romanticism
Study of works of 19th-century American Romantic writers or those strongly influenced by them. Emphasis on writers such as Alcott, Douglass, Emerson, Fern, Fuller, Whitman, Dickinson, Hawthorne, Melville, Phelps, Thoreau, and Chopin. Offered alternate years in the fall semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in women and gender studies. IIIO, V

ENGL 330 (3)
African-American Literature
A study of 20th- and 21st-century African-American writers, with emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance and more contemporary works. Topics may include models of identity and sexuality, the effects of primitivism, folk materials, and dominant cultural values on literary forms. Writers such as Dubois, Toomer, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Larsen, Morrison, and Walker will be included. Offered alternate years in the spring semester. May be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in women and gender studies. V2, V

ENGL 331 (3)
The 19th-Century American Novel
Topics can include the movements toward modernism and realism as well as the re-evaluation of women and minorities in American life. Offered alternate years in the fall. This course may be counted as an adjunct course toward the minor in women and gender studies. IIIW, V

ENGL 332 (3)
Modern and Contemporary Women Writers
A study of a cross section of 20th- and 21st-century American and international women's works in relation to the following literary and thematic issues: narrative experimentation, ethnic or cultural identity, and the relation between individual aspiration and cultural expectation. Offered alternate years. May be counted as a core course toward the minor in women and gender studies. V2, V

ENGL 340 (3)
The English Renaissance
This course is a survey of literature, especially poetry, in the age of Shakespeare. Emphasis will be put on Renaissance literature's relationship to its cultural and political contexts. Topics to be considered include: humanism, the court, the Protestant Reformation, colonialism, Puritanism, and the English Civil War. Authors include Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney, Donne, and Milton. Offered alternate years. V1, V

ENGL 343 (3)
Gothic Worlds
We will study gothic literature in England during the nineteenth century in texts by Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde and then examine gothic returns in three films: "Let the Right One In," "Sin City," and "The Dark Knight." We will explore historical, social, and psychological reasons for the appearance of gothic literature as we read critical works on gothic theory. Offered alternate years.

ENGL 361 (1)
Special Study
Study at an intermediate level of selected topics in literature or writing to be pursued by individual students under the immediate supervision of a department member.

ENGL 367 (3)
The Age of Romanticism
This course explores Romantic poets and Gothic novelists, focusing on key Romantic ideas such as the artist as hero, the sublime, nature and the imagination, the irrational, and revolution. It will then study parallel developments in painting through the examples of Constable, Delacroix, and Turner, and in music through the examples of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Berlioz. Offered alternate years. V1, V

ENGL 377 (1)
Internship

ENGL 380 (3)
Classics of Modern Drama
A study of the major western playwrights, dramatic theories, and theatrical styles of the 20th century. The dramatists studied will include Ibsen, Chekov, Synge, Pirandello, O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Beckett, Ionesco, Hansberry, Pinter and Wilson. Offered alternate years. V2, V6

ENGL 382 (3)
Contemporary Intl Fiction
This course is designed to suggest the range, variety, and possibilities of the novel today. Readings will come from all across the English-speaking world. Their diversity will itself be a central theme. Since these works also register deep responses to social changes and historical crises, discussions will often focus on relations between literary texts and their wider contexts. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V

ENGL 386 (3)
Death & Sex in 19th Cen Novel
This course will study the conjunction between sex and death in the nineteenth-century novel. It will explore the relationship between prostitution and death, criminality and death, and carnal love and death in the novels of Flaubert, Zola, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Mary Shelley. Theoretical works to be studied are those of Foucault, Freud, and Darwin. Offered alternate years. V2

ENGL 393 (3)
Modern Poetry I
This course focuses on the poetry of Yeats, Lawrence, Eliot, Stein, Millay and Hughes. We will study their distinctive poetic achievements in relation to relevant traditions and contexts. In particular, we will examine how their poetry reflects or contests modern ideas about the self, the nature of language, the significance of poetic forms and the purpose of poetry. Offered alternate years. This course may be counted as an adjunct course for the minor in Women and Gender Studies. IIIO, V

ENGL 394 (3)
Modern Poetry II
A study of a wide range of poetry in English from the mid-20th century to the present. Poets may include Auden, Larkin, Bishop, Lowell, Sexton, Plath, Brooks, Rich, Heaney, and Walcott. We will focus on questions of form, technique and interpretation while relating these works to relevant movements and traditions as well as to the writers' lives and times. Offered alternate years. This course may be counted as an adjunct course for the minor in Women and Gender Studies. IIIO, V

ENGL 397 (3)
Modern Fiction
A seminar focusing on 20th-century novels that helped to shape modern literature as well as our sense of what it means to be 'modern.' Readings may include works by American, British, Irish, and European writers (in translation). Topics include the rise of mass culture and new technologies, crises of war and empire, and changing representations of the self, the unconscious, gender, and sexuality. Offered alternate years. IIIW, V1,V

ENGL 452 (1)
Senior Exercise
An independent research project developed in conjunction with a 300-level literature course or a 200-level course with permission of the instructor. (See description of senior exercise under major requirements. Workload in accompanying course will be adjusted to reflect the work done for this project.) Required of all English and English and Creative Writing majors.

ENGL 454 (1)
Portfolio Preparation
This project is required of all English and Creative Writing majors, normally during their senior year. This course is offered on a P/CR/NC grading option only.

ENGL 461 (1)
Independent Study
Study at an advanced level of special topics in literature, writing or drama to be pursued by individual students under supervision of a department member.

ENGL 470 (3)
Junior Honors Research

ENGL 472 (3)
Senior Honors Thesis

ENGL 661 (1)
Independent Study