Undergraduate Courses
(Last updated: 10/23/2009)

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit Lit Pre-1700), it means the course fulfills the British literature pre-1700 with some coverage of Medieval requirement for English majors. Such courses offered this semester include: ENGL 201 British Writers I

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit lit 1700-1900), it means the course fulfills the British literature 1700-1900 requirement for English majors. Such courses offered this semester include: ENGL 358 The Romantic Poets, ENGL 359 Victorian Imagination, ENGL 469 Victorian Monstrosity, ENGL 491KK 18th-Century Institution & Revolution.

Please note that when a course is marked (2nd Am Lit), it means the course fulfills the second American Literature English major requirement. Such courses offered this semester include: ENGL 272 American Romanticism, ENGL 279 Introduction to American Studies, ENGL 300-L2 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Race, Literacy & the American Dream, ENGL 300-L3 Junior-YEar Seminar in English Studies: Hawthorne & Melville, ENGL 376 American Fiction, ENGL 491OO The National Imaginary: Literature & Politics in the Early Republic.

Please note that when a course is marked (Jr-Yr Writing), it means the course fulfills the Writing & Criticism/Junior-Year Writing requirement for English majors. Such courses offered this semester are: ENGL 300-L1 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: To Read a City: London in the 20th Century, ENGL 300-L2 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Race, Literacy, & the American Dream, ENGL 300-L3 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Hawthorne & Melville, ENGL 300H-L1 Honors Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Introduction to Transnational Literature, ENGL 419H Honors Games Thinkers Play.

THE SPRING 2010 CLASSES OFFERED THAT MEET ENGLISH REQUIREMENTS

Please click on link in read above for a quick-to-hand quide of the fall 2009 classes and the English requirements they fulfill.

Spring 2010 List of English Courses:

English 115 American Experience (ALU) 55362
Lecture 1 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor R. Nurick

English 115 American Experience (ALU) 55363
Lecture 2 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor R. Lahti

English 115 American Experience (ALU) 57302
Lecture 3 MWF 11:15 am – 12:05 pm Instructor E. Fortier

English 117 Ethnic American Literature (ALU) 55275
Lecture 1 MWF 11:15 am-12:05 pm Instructor D. Fraser
American literature written by and about ethnic minorities, from the earliest immigrants through the cultural representations in modern American writing.

English 117 Ethnic American Literature (ALU) 55405
Lecture 2 MWF 8:00-8:50 am Instructor G. Coleman

English 120 English Composition 55276
Lecture 1 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: L. Bradley
Stockbridge students only. English 120 is the writing requirement for undergraduates in the Stockbridge School . It gives practice in the persuasive techniques of expository writing and shows their usefulness in both academic and business contexts.

English 120 English Composition 55277
Lecture 2 MWF 11:15 am-12:05 pm Instructor: L. Bradley
Stockbridge students only.

English 120 English Composition 55278
Lecture 3 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor: L. Bradley
Stockbridge students only.

English 120 English Composition 55279
Lecture 4 MWF 12:20-1:10 pm Instructor: L. Bradley
Stockbridge students only.

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 55280
Lecture 1 MWF 9:05-9:55 am Instructor: J. Mason
This course investigates images of men and women in poetry, drama, and fiction. It aims at appreciating the literature itself, with increasing awareness of the ways in which men and women grow up, seek identity, mature, love, marry, and during different historical times, relate in families, classes, races, ethnic groups, societies, cultures. What are the conventional perspectives and relationships of “Man” and “Woman”? How does literature accept or question these conventions? What alternative perspectives and relationships are imagined in literature?

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 55358
Lecture 2 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor: J. Burrell
Southwest RAP students only. In this course, we will examine what it means to “be a man” and “act like a lady.” We'll look at how femininity and masculinity are created from the outside in.  That is, we'll be reading texts about how and why the traditional male/female gender categories don't always fit.  Our texts place those usually on the margins of gender—transgendered, transsexual, and intersexed people—in the center. We'll use these novels and plays to explore how gender is created through such signposts like colors (blue, pink) and clothes (pants, dresses), but also more subtle ways. Some of the questions that will guide our semester's exploration are: How is gender created by actions in everyday performance? What are the underlying assumptions about gender? How are notions of gender subverted, revised, or transformed in the books we're reading?  How does queerness and sexuality come into questions of gender?  How does race complicate thinking about gender? Texts may include the following (a complete list of texts will be provided in the syllabus): Giovanni's Room , James Baldwin, Middlesex , Jeffrey Eugenides, M. Butterfly , David Henry Hwang, Orlando , Virginia Woolf, I Am My Own Wife , Doug Wright.

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 55359
Lecture 3 MWF 2:30-3:20 pm Instructor: C. Bondus
Orchard Hill Central RAP students only.

English 140 Reading Fiction (AL) 57305
Lecture 1 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor: L. Phelan
No course description on file.

English 141 Reading Poetry (AL) 55324
Lecture 1 MW 4:40-5:30 pm Instructor: M. O'Brien
Poetry is an ancient art. For centuries it has been composed, written, sung, recited, read. And for centuries poetry enjoyed a central place in societies all over the world. Yet, there is a popular sense here and now that poetry is bewildering and difficult, weighed down by rules and practices unknown to even sophisticated readers, often those who relish prose. It's true that mystery is the heart of poetry; but mystification is not. The purpose of this course is to make poetry available to all who are willing to invest the time to ponder and enjoy it. The one rule that pertains, as far as appreciating poetry is concerned, is that it requires us to slow down. It often demands the opposite of the cognitive skills honed by the computer age: less quick reflexes and linear thinking than meditation and lateral association. On the other hand, poetry is almost always playful and can work like quick silver on the mind. In terms of sheer numbers of words, this course will appear to require the least reading in your college career; but don't be fooled. Multiply the numbers of words in a short poem by ten or even twenty and you come closer to the real demand on you. You will be expected to read, re-read, and re-read over and over again the same language. You will be asked to read with your senses, read with your logical mind, read with your sense of humor, read with your instinct for beauty, and then try to combine these and many more approaches into a synthetic whole, knowing all the time this too is only a partial reading. You'll also be urged to consider the specific time, place, and the individual life from which a poem has sprung and speculate how these circumstances have influenced the poem's making and possible meaning. Most of all, you'll be encouraged to open your hearts to the range of emotions, everything from anger to awe, love to despair, that poetry can stir.

English 142 Reading Drama (AL) 57318
Lecture 1 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor: A. Garner
An introduction to themes and techniques of drama through a reading of selected plays. Emphasis on such matters as structure, style, staging, and tragic and comic modes.

English 144 World Literature in English (ALG) 55364
Lecture 1 MWF 11:15 am-12:05 pm Instructor: T. Watt
A selected survey of literature written in English from countries around the world, focusing primarily on countries in Africa and south-east Asia .  Texts may include short stories, novels, and plays, as well as some critical essays.

English 196 Independent Study 55281
Lecture 1 TBA Instructor: TBA
Contact department to add course.

English 200 Seminar in Literary Studies 55282
Lecture 1 TuTh 1:00-2:15 pm Instructor: H. Holder
English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. This course will provide students with the skills and terminology necessary for literary analysis. Genres studied include the essay, poem, novel, short story, and drama. Students will acquire a basic understanding of a range of critical and theoretical approaches to texts. Requirements: regular short “discussion papers” (1 page), two short essays (3-4 pages), one longer essay (6-8 pages), and participation in class discussions. Students must receive a grade of "B-" or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

English 200 Seminar in Literary Studies 55283
Lecture 2 T/TH 11:15 am – 12:30 pm Instructor: T. Russworm
This is the required, introductory, course to majoring in English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It is designed to introduce you to the basic critical thinking and writing skills that are needed for succeeding in the major. During this semester you will become familiar with key terms for literary studies, literary conventions, and various genres and forms. This is also a writing-intensive course that will give you ample opportunity to hone your close analytical skills while assisting with and preparing you for writing your very best academic arguments. We will read fiction, short fiction, poetry, drama, science fiction, and graphic novels from Flannery O'Connor, Al Young, Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Sherman Alexie, Octavia Butler, and Jessica Abel. Multiple short writing assignments, close reading reflection logs, two papers, and active class participation and discussion will be required. A final grade of B- in English 200 is a pre-requisite for subsequent English major courses and is required for progress in the major.

English 200 Seminar in Literary Studies 55284
Lecture 3 T/TH 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: E. Gallo
English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. College Writing with a grade of ‘ B ' or better better (students who received a waiver for College Writing, please contact department to add course). Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to proceed in the English major.

English 200 Seminar in Literary Studies 55285
Lecture 4 T/TH 8:00-9:15 am Instructor: J. Freeman
Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. College Writing with a grade of ‘ B ' or better better (students who received a waiver for College Writing, please contact department to add course). We will begin by studying poetry and then move on to short fiction. Much discussion, close reading of works, and papers. Possible reading list: a booklet of love poetry; lives of medieval saints; Boccaccio, Decameron ; Poe tales; Sherlock Holmes adventures; Hemingway short stories. Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to proceed in the English major.

English 200 Seminar in Literary Studies 55401
Lecture 5 T/Th 11:15 am-12:30 pm Instructor: R. Mordecai
English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. College Writing. Our focus in this course will be on developing the critical thinking, speaking and writing skills that are needed for success in the English major. You will become familiar with key literary conventions, literary terms, and critical approaches. We will read selections of contemporary fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction from the Americas. You will write a lot, in class and out of it, producing one paper for each genre, plus shorter informal writing assignments.

English 200H Honors Seminar in Literary Studies 57319
Lecture 1 T/TH 11:15 am-12:05 pm Instructor: H. Holder
English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. This course will provide students with the skills and terminology necessary for literary analysis. Genres studied include the essay, poem, novel, short story, and drama. Students will acquire a basic understanding of a range of critical and theoretical approaches to texts. Requirements: regular short “discussion papers” (1 page), two short essays (3-4 pages), one longer essay (6-8 pages), and participation in class discussions.

English 201 Major British Writers I 55313
Lecture 1 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: J. Black
English majors only.  Prerequisite: English 200 or 200H with a grade of B- or better. Chaucer, Spenser, Milton.  This class focuses on three of the most influential and richly challenging works of English literature: The Canterbury Tales (substantial selections), The Faerie Queene (all of Book One), and Paradise Lost (in its entirety).  We will immerse ourselves in these books and use them to explore a wide range of literary and cultural issues, including the intersection of literature and history, the dialogue between literary convention and textual story, and literary representations of heroism, social relations, and gender roles.  Three medium-length papers and two tests.

English 201 Major British Writers I 55314
Lecture 2 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: J. Black
English TAP students only.

English 202H Honors Major British Writers II 57320
Lecture 1 T/TH 11:15 am-12:30 pm Instructor: J. Freeman
English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. Many of our current ideas about individuals, society and art began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The works we read explore these new questions about people:  what forms them, what is sanity, how unconventional can they be, what roles should they perform, how can they live in harmony with their unique imaginations?  Readings *may include* Pope's Rape of the Lock, Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," the best poems of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Tennyson and Browning. Much discussion, some lecturing, short exercises, weekly e-mail responses required.

English 204 Introduction to Asian-American Studies (UI) 57321
Lecture 1 T/TH 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: J. Degenhardt
What does it mean to be an Asian American? In this course we'll look at the differing ways that Asian American writers have approached this question from the early twentieth century to the present time. We'll consider how Asian American identity was shaped by the histories of immigration, labor, citizenship, internment, colonialism, and transracial adoption. And we'll think about how Asian American writers responded to and reimagined these histories in highly individual ways. Particular subjects of interest will include the relationship between narrative form and memory; gender and sexual identity; and interracial encounters. Readings in fiction, poetry, and film will include such authors as Sui Sin Far, Hisaye Yamamoto, David Henry Hwang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Andrew Lam, Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Fae Ng , and Don Lee. Course requirements: active participation, one short essay emphasizing close reading, a midterm exam, and final research paper.

English 221 Shakespeare (AL) 55286
Lecture 1 T/TH 2:30-3:20 pm Instructor: A. Kinney
The power of poetry of Shakespeare's plays derives in large part from the cultural concerns of his day that are similar to our own. This class will explore the ways in which Shakespeare's plays represented and interacted with the cultural environment in which they were created. We'll ask how Shakespeare's plays approach issues of social class, gender, politics, religion, and war, and how we may apply what we learn to modern notions of identity. The goal of the course will be to familiarize students with Shakespeare's language, techniques, and context to understand better the range of his imagination and influence. The course requirements include two short papers, a midterm and a final.  Discussion section required.

English 254 Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 55291
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: L. Bloomfield
Analysis of issues of form, elements of genre, style, and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts.

English 254 Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 55292
Lecture 2 MWF 11:15am-12:015 pm Instructor: R. McLean

English 254H Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 57322
Lecture 1 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: C. Ward
This course will employ workshop models that engender openness and experimentation. Through books, photocopies, CD's and other media we will find out what is possible and then write from that tender, precarious place. The course will be peppered with presentations, readings and performances that will aid our creative writing and reading of fiction and poetry. We will find effective ways to discuss and interpret your work as well as course texts and wild card elements. Astute preparation? Lively participation? Yes!

English 270 American Identities (AL) 55293
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: T. Russworm
What has it meant to be an American, for a variety of groups and individuals who make up the collective body, at key moments in our national cultural history? This class will use primarily literature (novels, short stories, plays, graphic novels, pulp fiction) but also some film, television and advertising campaigns to introduce some of the central themes and issues articulated in contemporary American culture and letters. Some of the themes that we will track include: desire, democracy, alienation, existentialism, regionalism, and loss. Assignments will include a combination of papers and exams. Lecture and discussion.
Discussion section required.

English 272 American Romantism 55365
Lecture 1 T/TH 1:00-2:15 pm Instructor: M. Lowance
It fulfills the requirement for the English major for one American Literature course. Course requirements include: short analytical essay, approximately 5 pages; longer term paper, approximately 12 pages; take-home final examination. The format of the course will be a seminar in American literature from 1820-1865. The content will be organized chronologically but will also be examined thematically. In addition to the "canonized" authors of this period (Hawthorne and Melville, Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman and Dickinson), we will also consider some of the writers who exerted tremendous social and political impact on antebellum American culture, including the slave narrators Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, the feminist critics Margaret Fuller and Angelica Grimke Weld, the reformers and abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and the most widely read author of the entire period, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin galvanized sentiment against slavery through sales of 5 million copies in a reading population of 15 million by 1860. Aesthetic, literary, biographical, cultural, social, and political approaches to these authors will all be considered.

English 273 American Realism 57323
Lecture 1 MW 4:40-5:55 pm Instructor: H. Phan
American Realism is the name for a set of innovations in form and style in American prose fiction.  As a period of literary history, American Realism corresponds to the historical period between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century. In this course we will study various aspects of realism and naturalism, focusing on these related topics of literary representation and historical transformation. Reading a range of realist and naturalist novels, we'll study how these texts responded to the social and political upheavals of their historical moment; and how they continue to mediate our own understanding of that history. Authors to be read will include: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Charles Chesnutt, and Henry James.

English 296 Independent Study 55294
Lecture 1 TBA Instructor: TBA
Contact department to add course.

English 297BC Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 TH 4:00-6:30 pm Instructor: D. Bartone & J. Downey
In Rare Forms: Collaborative Writing for the Eventful . Mandatory Pass/Fail. Vows, toasts, and eulogies. Live-event blogs, renga, and travel journals. Blurbs, letters-to-the-editor, and manifestos. In this course we will experiment with rare-sometimes once in a lifetime-occasions for writing. We will study poetic, literary, and social histories of these forms, and we will call into question assumptions about the role of collaboration. How do certain situations incite us to be more responsive? How is creativity connected to feedback? Our emphasis will be the texts we produce together.

English 297BD Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 TH 2:00-4:30 pm Instructor: A. Bello
Moving Text Off the Page: Composing (for) Museums. Mandatory Pass/Fail. Using museum exhibits as a starting point, we'll explore how moving text off the page opens up new possibilities for writing. We'll explore local museums, experiment with our own texts, and ultimately create an exhibit for the Writing Program's Celebration of Writing as we take our writing out into the world.

English 297TT Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 W 4:40-7:10 pm Instructor: A. Lawlor & M. Lynn
Queer Writing/Queer Texts/Queer Rhetoric. Mandatory Pass/Fail. In this course, we will explore the intersection of queer writing, queer identity, and queer rhetorical action. As an exciting mix of critical and experimental writing, we will look at how queer writers have subverted or ruptured genre and also play with and produce our own alternative texts.

English 297BE Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 TU 4:00-6:30 pm Instructor: L. Malinowski & J. Christian
Writing in the Zone. Mandatory Pass/Fail. As an athlete plays at sport, so, too does a writer play at language. In this course we will consider how sports and writing inform one another. Through observation, reading, and experimental writing practices we will endeavor to go into the zone of sports and bring back evocative writing.

English 297BF Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 TH 4:00-6:30 pm Instructor: A. Philips & J. Larson
Less is More: Exploring the Creative Potential of Constraints. Mandatory Pass/Fail. In this course, we will explore the creative potential of constraints at the level of language, content, and form. Throughout we'll be attempting to answer some important questions: What is a constraint? Why write with constraints? Why write without constraints? What do we lose and gain by working with and without constraints? Exploring multiple genres is encouraged.

English 297BG Experimental Writing Workshop
Lecture 1 TU 4:00-6:30 pm Instructor: P. Woods
Intersections: Cross Genre, Cross Topic, Cross Form. Mandatory Pass/Fail. Poetic essays? A fictional cookbook? Romance and economics? We tend to think of different genres of writing (creative writing and academic writing), different topics (humanities and science) and different forms (cookbooks and computer manuals) as separate things that don't mix. But what happens when the elements of creative writing mix with the elements of academic writing? When the form of the short story mixes with the computer manual? When seemingly separate fields meet? We'll begin at these intersections and explore where our writing takes us.

English 298A Practicum: Shakespeare on Film 55340
Lecture 1 W 6:30-9:00 pm Instructor: A. Kinney
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. One film each week. 1 credit. This course is a one-credit practicum whose sole purpose is to introduce you to Shakespearean cinema. Some of these films are modern adaptations. There is no discussion component of this course and no written work.  The only requirement is that you attend the screenings, and that you enjoy!

Attendance will be taken at each screening. If you miss more than one screening, you will not get credit for this practicum.

English 298C Practicum: World Cinema 55342
Lecture 1 M 6:30-9:00 pm Instructor: K. Farrell
Mandatory Pass/Fail course.  One film each week.  1 credit.  Comedy.  This series begins with a play of Oscar Wilde's, visits the inventive geniuses of Buster Keaton, Chaplin, and Preston Sturges,  then looks at American and international films that offer a wide range of comic visions. Films will include The Importance of Being Earnest , Our Hospitality & Sherlock Junior , Modern Times , Eating Raoul , How to Get Ahead in Advertising , What Happened Was... , Love Serenade , A Taxing Woman , Brazil , Mifune , Secrets and Lies , High Heels , Baxter , Stolen Children , and Talk to Her .  Requirements: 1 credit, pass/fail, one unexcused absence.

English 298D Careers for English Majors 55367
Lecture 1 Th 4:00- 5:15 pm Instructor: J. Greve
Mandatory Pass/Fail course.  2 credits.  For students who wish to be pro-active in paving the road to employment both during and after the completion of their degree in English, this course introduces a range of career options, including graduate school as a route to a career.  Students will practice job search skills and receive individualized guidance in creating a cover letter and résumé of immediate use. Guest panels will feature local, enthusiastic professionals from a range of careers relevant to a background in English.  In addition to the cover letter and résumé, assignments are likely to include an interview with a professional from a field the student is interested in, an interview essay, and a short essay researching a particular field. Attendance at all meetings and completion of assignments are mandatory. Motivation and curiosity are a must; the workload for the course is manageable, but interested students should be forewarned that the course's pass/fail status does not render it an "easy" two credits.

English 298H Honors Practicum: Teaching in the Writing Center
Lecture 1 TH 4:00-5:15 PM Instructor: L. Storey
Practicum consists of four hours per week tutoring in the Writing Center and one-hour weekly meetings to discuss tutorials and supplementary readings, to write, and to work on committee projects.  Students who have successfully completed English 329H Honors Tutoring Writing: Theory & Practice are eligible to enroll in this course.

English 300 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies – Junior Year Writing 55351
Lecture 1 T/Th 1:00-2:15 pm Instructor: R. Mordecai
Senior and Junior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad .  In this course we will study women writers whose work spans the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking literatures of the Caribbean (all texts will be read in English), as well as addressing immigrant experiences in North America. The core group of texts, and some related critical/theoretical essays, will ground our explorations of race, gender, culture and immigration; we will also discuss the writers' differing evocations of home, family, belonging, love, and work.  In our conversations, we will address racism, sexism, cultural imperialism and other expressions of relations between the empowered and the disempowered, both in the postcolonial contexts of the Caribbean, and in the metropolitan “North.” While some better-known authors (such as Jamaica Kincaid) may appear on the reading list, this course also gives students the chance to discover such lesser-known writers as Nalo Hopkinson, Dionne Brand, Patricia Powell, and Gisèle Pineau. This is a writing-intensive course: come prepared to write a lot (in class and out), to share your written work, and to revise based on feedback.

English 300 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies – Junior Year Writing 55352
Lecture 2 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: R. Welburn
Senior and Junior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better.  Momaday and Silko . This course will offer a critical exploration of two major contemporary Native American authors whose works attained for them places in the canon of general American and world literatures. N. Scott Momaday's 1968 novel, House Made of Dawn, won the Pulitzer Prize and initiated a renaissance in American Indian literature; Leslie Marmon Silko, author of the enigmatic novel, Ceremony (1977), is a principal writer inspired by Momaday's example. Both authors works have attracted an astonishing amount of critical examination and interpretation. The course will introduce students to interpretive tools drawn from Kiowa and Laguna cultures, special research and critical strategies that assist scholars in the study of Native American writing; approaches about the role landscape plays in their works and as catalyst for their vision and imaginations; and their literary responses to American social, historical, and political attitudes that affect Native Americans.

We will read, by Momaday, House Made of Dawn ; The Way To Rainy Mountain ; the essay “The Man Made of Words”; In the Presence of the Sun, Stories and Poems ; The Ancient Child ; and The Names ; and by Silko, Ceremony ; Almanac of the Dead ; the story “Yellow Woman,” and essays “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective” and “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination.”

Assignments will be series of essays based upon close text readings and discussion; classroom presentations, and library and web research for writing essays and developing annotated bibliographies. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement

English 300 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies – Junior Year Writing 57324 Lecture 3 T/TH 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: L. Furlan
Senior and Junior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. Growing Up Ethnic. This course will focus on ethnic American coming-of-age stories, examining how they narrate the experience of assimilation, the construction of identity, the liminal state between childhood and adulthood, and the crossing of boundaries. Themes pertinent to our discussion include the influences of nation, family, class, sexuality, violence, memory, and history in the maturation process of ethnic protagonists. We will discuss issues of representation, authenticity, and cultural tourism in multicultural writing. We will also theorize about the reworking of the bildungsroman, or novel of development, in twentieth-century multicultural literature. Authors will include James Baldwin, Sherman Alexie, Sandra Cisneros, and Lan Cao, among others. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement

English 300H Honors Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies– Junior Year Writing 55353
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: S. Daly
Senior and Junior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. Fictions of British India . In the nineteenth century, England greatly expanded its territory in and political control over India. Popular understanding of the Raj, or British rule, was shaped largely by print journalism, but a number of influential novels also purported to depict India realistically. We will read these novels alongside diaries, contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, and historical accounts in order to think through the role of literature in disseminating ideas about the nature and purpose of British imperialism. We will also consider the purposes to which the novel form specifically is put: for example, what happens when imperialism is given a plot? How are values and ideologies conveyed by novels as opposed to other kinds of writing? Finally, what can or should we learn from nineteenth-century novels? To what degree should we regard them as aesthetic objects, cultural documents, and/or historical and sociological evidence? Depending upon availability, texts may include Victoria Cross, Anna Lombard ; Sara Jeannette Duncan, Set in Authority ; Emily Eden, Up the Country ; Rudyard Kipling, Kim ; Flora Annie Steele, On the Face of the Waters ; Philip Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug ; and Charlotte Yonge, The Clever Woman of the Family .

English 313 Introduction to Old English Poetry 57325
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: S. Harris
Old English is the language spoken by Germanic peoples in Britain from the early 400s to just after the Norman Conquest in 1066. In this course, you will learn it. We will read the oldest English poetry in the original language, including "Caedmon's Hymn," "The Seafarer," "The Wanderer," "Dream of the Rood," "The Battle of Maldon," and the epic of Judith, the warrior maiden who leads her army to heroic conquest ("Sloh tha wundenlocc thone feondsceathan fagum mece ..."). A working knowledge of English grammar is recommended.

English 338 Restoration & 18 th C. Literature
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: J. Bartolomeo
English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. We will read and discuss poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and criticism by a wide variety of authors writing in the period from 1660-1789, an era that saw the emergence of modern publishing and of a large and diverse audience for literature and other writing.  The issues that we will consider include: the nature and limits of satire, both personal and political; the significance of gender and the roles of women as writers and readers; the implications of colonization, slavery, and empire; the "cult" and culture of sensibility; the distinctions and connections between the "literary" and the popular.  There will be two papers and a take-home final exam.

English 354 Creative Writing: Introduction Poetry 55296
Lecture 1 MWF 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: Z. Savich
To make sense means to make sensation: this class will investigate poetic ways of making complex, expressive, daring, meaningful sense. How can you get the full capacity of language, world, imagination, observation, emotion, body, and intelligence into your poems? How can we use words and the things of the world to help us think about things we have no words for? Is the subject of all poems, as Wallace Stevens says, always Reality? How is the heart struck, arrested, touched, and moved through artifice, sound, and the stammering liveliness of I'm-lonely-what-rhymes-with-tourniquet-is-that-a-cardinal-when's-lunch? Do you prefer salve, salvage, or salvation? Is it easier to make a lion out of a rug or a sandwich?

Taking inspiration from traditional and contemporary poetry, we will investigate such questions through original poetic experiments in nonsense, song, proverb, epistle, curse, classical rhetoric, jokes, elegy, meter, description, and varieties of fragmentation and coherence. The real goal is to generate lots of writing and lots of productive, bold thinking about writing. In addition to making many original poems, poetic experiments, and creative responses to one another's work, students will memorize poems, keep an observation journal, and produce a final project that uses poetic methods to explore a personal interest. You will learn a lot about each other and each other's writing. Poetry, like love, begins in delight and ends in wisdom, says Robert Frost. We'll try to have this class do that, too.

Course texts will feature poets such as Frank O'Hara, Rosmarie Waldrop, Carrie Olivia Adams, James Wright, Henri Michaux, Louise Gluck, Mina Loy, Mark Yakich, Andre Breton, and William Butler Yeats.

English 354 Creative Writing: Introduction Fiction 55297
Lecture 2 T/Th 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: C. Crutchfield
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. In this class, we will explore fiction writing by completing in-class exercises, reading works by contemporary writers, and—most importantly--participating in workshops focused on your original work.

English 354 Creative Writing: Introduction Fiction 57326
Lecture 3 MWF 1:25-2:15 pm Instructor: J. Hennessy
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Introduction to Fiction . No course description on file. English 354 is a multi-genre (poetry, fiction, non-fiction) writing workshop. This course will integrate weekly writing assignments and a vigorous and diverse reading component to introduce students to three creative writing genres.  Class time will be divided between workshops, discussion of the weekly readings, and enjoyable, informal writing assignments.

English 355 Creative Writing Fiction
Lecture 1 T/Th 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: J. Habel
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of ‘B' or better.

This course is an investigation of the craft and process of fiction writing. Students will complete craft papers and writing exercises, as well as two stories to be discussed in workshop. Students will also read and discuss a number of contemporary stories, paying particular attention to the choices writers make and the effects of those choices. Regular attendance and active participation are required.

Admission by permissionof Professor. Students should submit 5-10 pages of fiction plus a 1-2 page statement about their interest in studying fiction writing and the writers they like to read in Professor Habel's mailbox. Include name, email, and student ID number.  Students should submit their writing and contact information by November 15th and instructor will notify students about their status by December 15th.  Registration after this date will be possible, but priority will be given to students who meet the November 15 th deadline.

English 356 Creative Writing: Poetry 55298
Lecture 1 MW 4:40- 5:55 pm Instructor: M. Espada
English majors , BDIC, or UWW students only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of 'B' or better. Admission by permission of professor.   Students should submit a portfolio of three poems with name, student ID number and contact information to Professor Espada's mailbox outside the main English Office, Bartlett 170 by November 15th , and he will notify students about their status (invited, not invited, or wait-listed) by December 15 th . R egistration after this date will be possible, but priority will be given to students who meet the November 15th deadline.

This is an advanced undergraduate poetry workshop. Students produce poems independently for review in class, review work submitted by others, and engage in writing exercises. There are two major objectives: 1) finding a voice, i.e. a distinct identity in terms of language and subject; and 2) reinforcing the fundamentals of writing poetry, with a particular emphasis on the image. The various strengths of student poems receive as much attention as those areas requiring improvement. The course text is Poetry Like Bread , an anthology providing models for class discussion and writing.

English 356 Creative Writing: Poetry 55394
Lecture 2 MWF 2:30-3:20 pm Instructor: J. Hennessy
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of 'B' or better.  To add course, students should send 1) a brief (1-2 pages) personal statement (why would you like to take this course? address your reading preferences and writing/work habits) and 2) a writing sample of 3 poems with name and student id number to Professor Hennessy at jjhennes@english.umass.edu.

Applications received before November 15th will receive priority attention. English 356 is a poetry writing workshop. This course will integrate in-class writing exercises and weekly poetry assignments with an introduction to traditional lyric forms as well as "experimental" departures. We will read complete collections by a diverse group of contemporary poets in addition to our anthology selections. Class time will be divided between workshops, discussion of the weekly readings, and enjoyable, informal writing assignments.  Pre-requisites may be waived with instructor's permission.

English 358 The Romantic Poets 55354
Lecture 1 T/TH 11:15 am-12:30 pm Instructor: J. Almeida-Beveridge
English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. In her preface to Percy Shelley's drama,   Prometheus Unbound , his wife Mary Shelley writes that he “believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none.” The transformative ethos in which Shelley placed such faith animates the literary period that we have come to know as Romanticism. In this course, we will examine major Romantic poets and their contemporaries. Alongside the canonical poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and Shelley, we will also consider the works of women Romantic writers like Mary Shelley and Felicia Hemans, and relative newcomers to the Romantic canon like Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. We will explore questions such as: How do Romantic poets transform poetic form and language? How do they define poetry and the role of the poet? What is the Romantic writer's relationship to nature and place? How do Romantic poets define the role of the imagination in the creative process? What is their take on the defining events of their time (and our own modernity) like the French Revolution or the anti-slavery debate? How do women writers envision authorship? Our discussions will engage a variety of critical approaches, including formalism, feminism, post-colonialism, and new historicism.

English 359 Victorian Imagination
Lecture 1 T/Th 11:15 am -12:30 pm Instructor: TBD
Pre-requisite: B- or better in English 200, 200H or E200 exemption. No description on file.

English 369 Studies in Modern (20th Century) Fiction (AL) 55299
Lecture 1 MW 10:10-11:00 am Instructor: S. Clingman
This course will survey major trends in twentieth century fiction by taking as its theme the idea of ‘writing at the frontiers'. We'll understand this in various ways, ranging from the frontiers of form in the work of some of the century's foremost writers, to the literal frontiers that many of them have faced: of geography, culture, race, gender, politics, and—in the broadest sense—history. We will begin with the cultural phenomenon of modernism—that complex of literary, artistic and philosophical developments which defined a specific shift in modern intellectual consciousness between about 1880 and 1930. In exploring works by Conrad, Forster, and the transitional writer, Jean Rhys, we'll see how they came to terms with some of these specific issues and registered them in their fiction. In going on to read writers such as Ishiguro, Coetzee, Achebe, and Zadie Smith, we'll see how these issues were sustained and transformed in the second half of the century. Our novels will be set in a variety of countries and cultures in Britain , Africa, India , and the Caribbean , and move from the modern to the postmodern, the colonial to the postcolonial. All the way through, traveling in both space and time, fiction will be our guide to some of the twentieth century's most significant developments. The course will be comprised of lectures and section discussions, and will require two essays, quizzes, a presentation, and a final exam. Discussion section is required.

English 374 20 th Century American Literature 57328
Lecture 1 M 4:40-7:10 pm Instructor: K. Farrell
The course uses six novels and related documentary and dramatic films to explore American culture through the 1920s, the Great Depression, and post-WW 2. Focus on the way imaginations have adapted to the conflicts, catastrophes, and opportunities of the 20th century as a prelude to the troubled mood of the present. We'll use history, anthropology, and psychology  to explore the impact of modernism. The material requires that you master some particular new ideas and critical terms. This is not a conventional lit course and it's unwise to sign up for it unless you're willing to make that commitment. We'll be reading: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby ; West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933); Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929); Himes, If He Hollers (1947); Nabokov, Lolita (1955); Barth, The End of the Road (1958). Also: Howard Zinn's People's History of the U.S. (excerpts); Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth ; and (recommended) Kirshner, The Modern Novel . The required weekly lab session for films includes documentaries about the Great Depression, Nazi ideology, mental illness, and the U.S. prison system; King Vidor's The Crowd (1929); Chaplin's Modern Times (1936); Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five ; Disney's Beauty and the Beast . Required: regular attendance; 1-2 page responses to three novels plus three 5-page essays. No exams. Independent Study credits available for lab section. Lab section required.

374 Lab 1 W 7:30-10:00 pm Instructor: K. Farrell 57329
English 378 American Women Writers 57330
Lecture 1 T/TH 11:15-12:30 Instructor: D. Carlin
While it is difficult and perhaps even distorting to posit “a” or “the” tradition in American women's writing—owing to its multiplicity of different and differing viewpoints across class, across region, and across race and ethnicity—it is also true, as Virginia Woolf reminds us in A Room of One's Own , that “Books continue each other,” that they, in effect, engage in dialogue across centuries and circumstances on similar tropes and themes. This course will focus on fiction produced by North American women in the late-19 th and 20 th centuries, paying particular attention to how each of these texts represents the experience of female lives, aspirations, education, work, family, and sexualities. Our primary texts will likely include the following texts: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Story of Avis ; Kate Chopin , The Awakening ; Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth ; Willa Cather, Song of the Lark ; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God ; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye ; Joy Kogawa, Obasan ; Linda Hogan, Solar Storms . Requirements: Active and engaged class participation in discussion, reading quizzes on each novel, one 5-7 pp. essay, and one 8-10 pp. essay. Because this course involves extensive reading, students are urged to get a head start over winter break; all texts will be available at Food for Thought Books in Amherst. Prerequisites : English 112 and English 200. Students would also benefit enormously by having taken English 270 before they enroll in this course, though it is not a requirement.

English 381 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II 55315
Lecture 1 T/Th 11:15 am-12:30 pm Instructor: D. Toomey
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380. Continues and extends the work of ENGL 380. Students will learn and apply principles of software documentation, information design, typography, and page design.  The objectives of this course are to increase students' writing, organizational, and graphical sophistication and to enable them to produce portfolio-quality documentation that introduces an audience to industry-standard software (typically, Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe FrameMaker ).

English 382 Professional Writing and Technical Communication III 55300
Lecture 1 T/Th 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: D. Toomey
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380. ENGL 382 serves as the capstone course for the Professional Writing and Technical Communication Certificate.  As such, the course has two aims: professionalization and specialization.  Students will participate in mock interviews, workshop their professional portfolios, and learn about careers in technical writing and information technology from working professionals.  The course will also provide students with directed opportunities to explore the theory and practice of particular kinds of writing and technology (e.g., report writing, grant proposals, speechwriting, voiceovers, integration with video and film, web site development).  Each student will present a significant report on a topic related to technology, communication, and culture.

English 391C Advanced Software Professional Writing 55301
Lecture 1 T/TH 9:30-10:45 am Instructor: C. Pulver
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380 or permission of the instructor.

English 393F Race and Slavery 57378
Lecture 1 T/TH 2:30-3:45 pm Instructor: M. Lowance
The course will examine the literature of the antebellum slavery debates in nineteenth-century America in A House Divided: The Antebellum Slavery Debates in America, 1776-1865 (Princeton, 2003) and through the voices of the slave narrators Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs. Biblical proslavery and antislavery arguments, economic discourse, the conflict of writers and essayists like Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman and Lowell, James Kirke Paulding, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mary Eastman combine with scientific arguments and Acts of Congress relating to slavery to provide the historical background for examinations of the issues surrounding slavery. The seminar will also examine the abolitionist writings of William Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, and the New York Abolitionists Arthur and Lewis Tappan and Gerrit Smith. Four literary works will be studied in detail: Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin , Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson , and Morrison's Beloved , all of which represent approaches to the legacy of slavery. We will consider minstrel stereotyping, the sentimental novel as a vehicle for abolitionist arguments, and the rhetorical strategies of each of theses texts.

English 393G American Indian Autobiography 57383
Lecture 1 T/TH 11:15-12:30 am Instructor: L. Furlan
This course is a study of American Indian autobiography, a contested and controversial genre within the larger field of American Indian literature. We will be exploring a variety of historical and contemporary texts, including visual or pictorial autobiography, collaborative or *as told to* autobiographies, memoirs, experimental autobiographies, and autobiographical *fiction.* We will consider the critical issues particular to this genre, including the notion of authorship, modes of production, questions of authenticity, and the role of the editor and/or translator. Authors will include Samson Occum, William Apess, Zitkala-Sa, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Delphine Red Shirt, Peter Razor, among others. Assignments will include two essays, a midterm, and a final exam.

English 396 Independent Study 55302
Lecture 1 TBA Instructor: TBA
Contact department to add course.

English 416 Chaucer 57331
Lecture 1 T/Th 11:15 am-12:30 pm Instructor: S. Harris
John Dryden called Chaucer "the father of English poetry," and equated him to Homer and Virgil. Chaucer, said Dryden, "is a perpetual fountain of good sense." This course introduces you to one of the most  influential story collections of English literary history, The Canterbury Tales. Bawdy, profound, rude, and beautiful—Chaucer's tales  continue to inspire, delight, confuse, and awe their readers. We will  read his tales in their original Middle English. We may also read  works by Chaucer's English, French, and Italian contemporaries in order to contextualize his tales. No previous knowledge of Middle English is required. Translations, short paper, and a take-home final exam.

English 419H Honors Games Thinkers Play – Junior Year Writing 57332
Lecture 1 TU 5:00-7:30 pm Instructor: E. Gallo
Junior and Senior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of ‘B-' or better. Subject matter: the act of interpretation. Most texts are ambivalent and support a wide range of interpretation—even contradictory interpretations. From this fairly obvious fact certain less obvious consequences arise. We interpret certain texts in order to see how their language behaves and just where ambivalence resides. We then examine other critics' interpretations of texts in order to decide how persuasive these interpretations are.

Language is ambivalent and reason is often uncertain: does it follow that its meaning is forever unrecoverable? We examine postmodern claims that even the language of the hard sciences is ambivalent, that all of our knowledge is no more than an inflated myth-making. We consider the possible ways in which an interpretation can be grounded on fact--the facts of the author's intention, historical background, and--in a few cases--well supported scientific theory. There are no predetermined answers to the questions we will consider.

Nine short papers and four exercises (done in class).

Texts include Burke (on Keats' " Ode on a Grecian Urn "); selections from the Presocratic poet-philosophers; Kenneth Burke (dramatism); Lévi-Strauss (structuralism); Joseph Campbell (Jungian analysis); Derrida and J. Hillis Miller (deconstruction); E. O. Wilson (evolutionary basis of culture); and others. This class fulfills the Junior Year Requirement.

English 419H Honors Games Thinkers Play – Junior Year Writing
Lecture 2 TH 5:00-7:30 pm Instructor: E. Gallo

English 491A Neruda in Translation 55326
Lecture 1 M 6:30-9:00 pm Instructor: M. Espada
Junior and Senior students, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only.

English 492D Children's Literature 57334
Lecture 1 T/Th 1:00-2:15 pm Instructor: TBA
No course description on file.

English 496 Independent Study 55303
Lecture 1 TBA Instructor: TBA
Contact department to add course.

English 592M: Margaret Atwood: Contemporary Critical Approaches
Lecture 1 Mon 1:00-3:30 PM Instructor: D. Carlin
Prerequisite: open only to English majors or Graduate English students. A seminar on the major works of this important and influential contemporary North American writer, the course will emphasize different critical approaches to Atwood's work (including, but not limited to, feminism, psychology and narrative theory), and will highlight her major fictions, including:  The Edible Woman, Bodily Harm, The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake.  We will also examine some of Atwood's own critical writing, including selections from
< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Words:_Selected_Critical_P
rose&action=edit> Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_literature > 1982) and
< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Negotiating_with_the_Dead:_A_Writ
er_on_Writing&action=edit> Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_in_literature > 2002).  Throughout the course we will examine the important questions and dilemmas Atwood explores in her fiction, including: the social construction of feminine myths, female sexual, social and economic exploitation, the psychology of gender, the threat of totalitarian fundamentalism, environmental concerns, unchecked biotechnology, the construction of historical truth, and the representation of women's bodies in art.  Requirements: Active participation in the seminar; willingness to engage with contemporary critical essays on Atwood's work; two 5-7 pp. essays, and a final 10-15 pp. essay.  The books for this course will be ordered from and available at Food for Thought Books in Amherst.

English Courses From The Five Colleges (Spring 2010)

Please note that when a course is marked (Engl 200), it means the course fulfills the pre-major requirement English 200: Seminar in Literary Studies for Pre-English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit Lit Pre-1700), it means the course fulfills the British literature pre-1700 with some coverage of Medieval requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit lit 1700-1900), it means the course fulfills the British literature 1700-1900 requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Engl 221/222), it means the course fulfills the British literature Shakespeare English 221/222 requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (2nd Am Lit), it means the course fulfills the second American Literature requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Upper-level elective), it means the course fulfills an Upper-Level 300 or 400 level requirement for English majors.

 

AMHERST COLLEGE

(Hampshire College English Courses Spring 2010)

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE

(Mount Holyoke College English Courses Spring 2010)

SMITH COLLEGE

(Smith College English Courses Spring 2010)

(Click here to see a list of undergraduate courses from Spring 2009)
(Click here to see a list of undergraduate courses from Fall 2008)