English Undergraduate Courses

Spring 2026 courses, listed in numerical order.

English 115 American Experience (ALDU)

Lecture 1  MWF 11:15-12:05  Instructor: Abi Mbaye

This course explores the American experience through the lens of Black life, creativity, and struggle. We will study how African Americans have defined, challenged, and reimagined America from slavery to the present day. Through literature, film, photography, and music, we will examine themes of freedom, resistance, belonging, identity, and power. Our goal is to understand how the Black experience not only reflects but fundamentally shapes the idea of America itself.

English 115 American Experience (ALDU)

Lecture 2       MWF 10:10-11:00                Instructor: Jonathan Hoel

This course will explore the cultural landscape of the American experience through the lens of work and labor as a narrative focus. Our readings will vary widely and include novels, short stories, poetry, film, and theory. We will read both famous labor works (Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck) and lesser known, but important works (Muriel Rukeyser, Edith Wharton).

English 117 Ethnic American Literature (ALDU)

Lecture 1       MWF 10:10-11:00                Instructor: Alejandro Beas Murillo

We Are Still Here: Contemporary Puerto Rican Literature and Culture. In this course, we will explore how contemporary Puerto Rican literature, cinema, music, and fine arts reflect and shape the archipelago’s centuries-long struggle to become an independent nation. We will engage with texts that portray Puerto Rico’s freedom dreams and its anticolonial, pro-independence, and anti-patriarchal movements amidst the effects of U.S. colonialism, forced mass migrations, and environmental collapse. This course will pay attention both to the literature and art produced in the Puerto Rican archipelago as well as to its Diaspora in areas like New York, New England, Chicago, and Florida. Although our main focus will be to study how Puerto Rican artists offer decolonial and feminist critiques of the U.S. imperial project, we will also pay attention to how artists wrestle with the notion of Puerto Ricanness and expose the heteropatriarchal and white supremacy at the heart of many of Puerto Rico’s national myths and canonical texts. In doing so, we will ask: How do artists in the archipelago and the Diaspora understand Puerto Rican identity differently? How do Afro-Puerto Rican, queer, and women writers critique the constant erasure of Black, queer, and feminist histories and perspectives from the history of the archipelago? What is the role of culture and the arts in the creation of liberation movements?

English 131 Society & Literature (ALDG)

Lecture 1  Mon/Wed 9:05-9:55 + discussion  Instructor: Jenny Adams

“Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things with it.” – Chinua Achebe 

Just as societies produce literature, so, too, does literature produce society.  Fiction shapes the ways we imagine our world; informs our connections to each other; and opens space to imagine new connections, identities, and motivations. In this class, we will analyze ways literature has imagined past societies and the ways it continues to do so today.  We will start with one of the earliest literary imaginings of society, Thomas More’s Utopia, a text that gave birth to the very concept of utopianism. We will follow this to Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, where English utopianism both fuels and collides with its own colonial ambitions.  In the second half of the course, we will turn to Wole Soyinka’s play The Lion and the Jewel, Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Edwidge Danticat’s short story “Ghosts,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s short story (or is it a poem) “Girl.”  These writers not only respond to England’s colonial project and its utopian ambitions but also use literature to reimagine societies and the people who inhabit them. For Soyinka and Achebe, societal imagining is forged through the Nigerian Civil War and through their country's separation from England.  For Danticat and Kincaid, social formation is insular and offers a mirror that refracts England’s own island self-imagining.

• English 131, Discussion D01AA: Fri 9:05-9:55, TA: Nana Prempeh
• English 131, Discussion D01AB: Fri 10:10-11:00, TA: Nana Prempeh
• English 131, Discussion D01AC: Fri: 11:15-12:05, TA: Tyler Clark
• English 131, Discussion D01AD: Fri: 12:20-1:10, TA: Tyler Clark
• English 131, Discussion D01AE: Fri: 10:10-11:00, TA: S A M Raihanur Rahman
• English 131, Discussion D01AF: Fri: Fri 11:15-12:05, TA: S A M Raihanur Rahman

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature & Culture (ALDG)

Lecture 1   TuTh 10:00-11:15  Instructor: Rowshan Chowdhury

This course, ENGL 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature & Culture, is designed to introduce students to basic concepts of gender, sexuality, and identity through the lens of literary studies. We'll explore literary examples from diverse cultures and identities, and critically engage with various issues such as gender inequalities, sexuality, families, media images, queer issues, masculinity, reproductive rights, and history. Throughout the course, we'll analyze how experiences of gender and sexuality intersect with other social constructs of difference, such as race/ethnicity, class, and age. In addition to literary analysis, we'll pay attention to different historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political constructs and how they have impacted our lives, as well as some of the social movements at local, national, and transnational levels. Through various creative and critical assignments, we'll grapple with some of the challenging themes that drive the field. Our goal is to better understand the imposition and importance of difference and become more competent thinkers, writers, and activists, able to work as purveyors of an ever-evolving conversation.

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature & Culture (ALDG)

Lecture 2  MWF 10:10-11:00    Instructor: Christina Muoio

This course serves as an introduction to early modern drama through the lenses of gender, sexuality, and culture, focusing on how queerness, identity, and social norms were produced and subverted during the English Renaissance. Beginning chronologically, we will explore the ways in which queerness takes shape in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries (Lyly, Jonson, Dekker, and Middleton), analyzing how themes of cross-dressing, shifting and unstable identities, social transgression, and intersectionality develop within the broader cultural and political contexts of the period. Through our exploration, we will consider how these plays both interrogate and mirror the cultural dynamics of early modern society, revealing how constructions of gender, sexuality, and intersecting identities continue to inform contemporary discourse on identity and queer theory.

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature & Culture (ALDG)

Lecture 3  MWF 11:15-12:05    Instructor: Janell Tryon

Welcome to Inside Out: Queering the Home in Contemporary American Literature. English 132 is a general education course taught within the English Department. Together we will investigate the historical relationship between housing and gender/sexuality norms within the United States. In order to protect pathways to consumerism, capitalism has long perpetuated the insular single-family household as the ideal form of shelter. The notion of private property-as-private sphere insists upon the preservation of the nuclear family through the surveillance of gender, sexuality, and race. In this course, we will read fiction and theory, as well as engage other modes of media. Through these critical and literary texts, we will engage the histories of American imperialism, institutions, and homes, while paying equal attention to historical and fictive characters that invert and subvert American norms. By studying alternative modes of living and dwelling, this course will allow us to queer the public-private binary, challenge housing normativity, and imagine new ways of inhabiting shared space.

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature & Culture (ALDG)

Lecture 4   TuTh 1:00-2:15  Instructor: Mitia Nath

In this course, through an engagement with creative and critical works, we shall explore mother-figures who departed from idealized notions of motherhood, and risked being termed “bad mothers” for pursuing lives not completely aligned with the ideals of motherhood in the North American context. Our discussions will not only complicate the ideal mother-figure, but also examine how an interrogation of heteropatriarchal values of motherhood can stand to challenge unpaid care work, affective labor, and other “invisible” forms of work that inform the domestic/private sphere. Our focus on the “un-ideal” mom will thus aim to analyze the very foundations of the domestic/private sphere in our own contexts. Our novels and films will illuminate the struggles, hopes, and utopic possibilities that come with critiquing a fundamentalorganizational component of our social system.

English 140 Reading Fiction (AL)

Lecture 1  MWF 11:15-12:05   Instructor: Assemay Almazbekkyzy

Children’s Literature and the Making of Modern Childhood What is a children’s book—a book written for children, or a book that is writing children? Through close readings of picture books, fairy tales, comics, short stories, and novels, this course examines how children’s literature both reflects and reshapes the societies that produce it. Students will trace the evolution of the genre and consider where it is headed, globally and locally, within their own communities. Emphasis will be placed on the craft of fiction – structure, style, point of view, and theme – while situating our readings within broader cultural and historical contexts.

We will explore how fiction has imagined childhood across the twentieth century in Northern and Western Europe, the USSR, Japan, and the Americas, engaging with works originally written in and later translated into English. What does Finnish postwar children’s literature look like? How do the British and Soviet Winnie-the-Pooh differ in tone, politics, and purpose?

Course requirements include four response papers (5–7 pages) and one critical essay (7–10 pages). Students will also have the option to create original work inspired by the readings, reimagining what childhood can mean through literature and the worlds that continue to shape it.

English 150 Writing and Society (SBDU)

Lecture 1  MWF 11:15-12:05  Instructor: Rachel Smith Olson

In this course, students will investigate the field of “Writing Studies,” an interdisciplinary subject area at the intersection of literacy, communication, digital studies, education, and linguistics. This field examines “writing” as a mechanism through which we can better understand the operations of power in society. Throughout the semester, we will focus extensively on social, cultural, and political power relations as writing reflects, creates, or challenges them. Students will have the opportunity to examine this subject matter through writing assignments, including a literacy autoethnography and a research paper on literacy in community.

English 190N Environment, Climate Change, and the Humanities (ALDG)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1   MW 11:15-12:05     Instructor: Malcolm Sen

Are you anxious about escalating emergencies in a climate-change world? Do you want to be a part of the collective that will build a better and more sustainable future? If you seek to answer some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century, you will need to understand the intricacies that connect climate, capital, and culture.

Environment, Climate Change, and the Humanities (ENG 190), offered in Spring 2026, is a General Education Course with a DU designation. All UMass students are eligible to join this exciting, innovative, and hope-generating collective. For English Majors, this course counts towards your Environmental Humanities Specialization. The charge is challenging but your investment will be highly enriching and productive. We will confront and understand what climate change entails. It’s not only about the polar bears anymore! We will critique past stories of sustainability and create newer, actionable ones. Climate Change calls for a Culture Change. We attempt that change in this class.

• English 190N, Discussion D01AA: Fri 9:05-9:55, TA: Jade Yeen Onn
• English 190N, Discussion D01AB: Fri 10:10-11:00, TA: Jade Yeen Onn
• English 190N, Discussion D01AC: Fri: 11:15-12:05, TA: Satyaki Dutta
• English 190N, Discussion D01AD: Fri: 12:20-1:10, TA: Satyaki Dutta

English 200 Intro to Literary Studies (Introduction to the major)

Lecture 1   TuTh 11:30-12:45  Instructor: Jimmy Worthy

This course will introduce students to intense literary analysis, or the practice of reading literature critically and actively. Through the study of different literary genres—the short story, speech, novel, drama, poetry, and literary criticism—and literary devices and terms, you will hone your critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. As this is also an introduction to the major class, you will be asked to think seriously about what it means to read, discuss, and write about literature as an informed English major as well as complete assignments designed to help you maximize your experience as an important part of the English Department at UMass.

English 200 Intro to Literary Studies (Introduction to the major)

Lecture 2    TuTh 4:00-5:15   Instructor: Heidi Holder

Introduction to literary study, concentrating on close reading and analysis of texts, writing and revising critical essays, and discussion of the issues that underlie the study of literature. Prerequisite: ENGLWRIT 112 or equivalent.  This course is open to English majors and minors only.

English 200 Introduction Literary Studies (Introduction to major)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 3  MWF 1:25-2:15     Instructor: Malcolm Sen

Topic: Environmental Justice, Race, Indigeneity, and Literature. This class will introduce students to the practice of critical reading of literary texts. It will focus on themes of nature, ecology, ecological imperialism, and the role of global capital in these areas. Students will read a range of exciting texts from around the world and develop a firm understanding of literary genres. Introduction to multiple theoretical schools, including feminist, race, and postcolonial studies, and the environmental studies will be through deliberations on the conjoined aspects of empire and ecology. The aim of this course is to introduce methodologies of close reading and foster critical writing skills while being attuned to questions of climate, environment, and justice. Writing assignments will include analytical précis of theoretical texts, reviews of literary texts, and a critical essay of 8-10 pages.  This course counts towards your Environmental Humanities Specialization.

English 200 Intensive Literary Studies (Introduction to major)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 4  MWF 12:20-1:10   Instructor: Katherine O’Callaghan

Topic: The Ghosts of Literature  Introduction to literary study, concentrating on close reading and analysis of texts, writing and revising critical essays, and discussion of the issues that underlie the study of literature. In this course we will explore short stories, novels, poetry and drama from various theoretical perspectives. Each text will be examined on its own terms, but some general themes will emerge as the course progresses. In particular, students of "The Ghosts of Literature" are asked to construct the myriad ways in which the idea of haunting might be applied to a literary text. Literary heritage, intertextual influence, remnants of lost languages, ghost stories, and themes of absence, loss, and returns will all recur throughout the semester. Reading will include works by James Joyce, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Bharati Mukherjee, Conor McPherson and Henry James. Prerequisite: ENGLWRIT 112 or equivalent.  This course is open to English majors only.

English 203 Bible, Myth, Literature and Society (200 elective)

Lecture 1   TuTh 2:30-3:45   Instructor: David Toomey

The course will explore several of the most studied and influential books of the Old and New Testaments -- from the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) the books Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Ruth and Isaiah and (from the New Testament) the gospels Luke and John. Most class meetings, following Luther’s doctrine of sola scriptura (scripture alone) will involve collective efforts to derive coherent close readings of particularly provocative or problematic passages.  Where necessary, following the historical-critical type of exegesis called Higher Criticism, we will appeal to secondary sources.  Required text: Coogan, Michael D. (Editor) and Marc Zvi Brettler (Editor). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, 2018 (an electronic version is available through UMass Amherst Libraries).

English 204 Introduction to Asian American Literature (Anglophone/ethnic American or 200 elective)

Lecture 1   TuTh 1:00-2:15   Instructor: Asha Nadkarni

How does the category “Asian American” challenge and complicate the idea of America itself? This course will explore this question through a survey of the diverse terrain of Asian American literature. In doing so, it is intended to familiarize students with key critical issues that have shaped the study of Asian American writings, and to provide some sense of the historical conditions out of which those works have emerged. What are the histories of immigration, citizenship, racialization and colonialism that Asian American literature is writing within and against? Focusing on how particular texts give representational shape to the experiences they depict, we will pay special attention to the ways in which Asian American writers negotiate issues of race, class, gender and sexuality. Course readings may include texts by Carlos Bulosan, John Okada, Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Henry Hwang, Le Thi Diem Thuy, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

English 205 Intro to Post-Colonial Studies (Anglophone or 200 elective)(Environmental Studies)

Lecture 1   TuTh 1:00-2:15 PM   Instructor: Shakuntala Ray

This course surveys literatures written in English from South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.  In doing so it asks what unites the diverse literatures gathered under the rubric "postcolonial".  Is postcolonial simply a descriptive category, or does it suggest an oppositional or troubled stance towards colonialism and modernity?  To consider this question we will take up major issues and debates within postcolonial studies, namely: nationalism and nativism, subalternity, feminism, development, and globalization.  Throughout we will be concerned with questions of identity formation, representation, and literary form.

English 221 Shakespeare (British lit before 1700 or 200 elective)(AL) (Literature as History)

Lecture 1   MW 12:20-1:10 + discussion   Instructor: Jane Degenhardt

This course offers an introduction to Shakespeare’s dramatic works, including a sampling of comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances. Through careful reading and discussion, we will explore the language, themes, and performance dimensions of Shakespeare’s plays. We will seek to understand how they speak to a specific time and place in English history, as well as considering their present relevance and adaptation in recent films. By thinking critically about what it means to historicize, we will ask what Shakespeare’s plays can tell us about history and why this should matter. We will also seek to understand how his plays employ fiction to disrupt assumptions about history and to help shape the terms through which the present and future can be imagined. Attendance at lecture and robust participation in discussion sections required.

• English 221, Discussion D01AB: Fri 10:10-11:00, TA: Zan Maley
• English 221, Discussion D01AC: Fri 11:15-12:05, TA: Zan Maley
• English 221, Discussion D01AD: Fri: 12:20-1:10, TA: Delaney Sousa Gonzales
• English 221, Discussion D01AF: Fri: 11:15-12:05, TA: Delaney Sousa Gonzales

English 250 Intro to Writing and Rhetoric (WRLS)(TELA)

Lecture 1  MWF 10:10-11:00   Instructor: Rebecca Lorimer Leonard

This course introduces students to the broad field of writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies and serves as an entryway to the many courses and programs in the department focused on those disciplines. Using writing studies as a lens, the course will both investigate and invite participation in the diverse writing practices of contemporary life, including digital and multi-media writing, multi- and translingual writing, and writing for social justice. Rhetorical theory will be used to analyze and engage public discourse. And literacy studies will help us explore the language practices of school and community. From this multidisciplinary perspective, students will not only gain critical awareness of the role of writing, rhetoric, and literacy in everyday life; they will develop versatility as writers across a range of contexts; and they will learn about the many paths opened to them by such study and practice.

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (required intro to creative writing)(AL)

Lecture 1  MWF 11:15-12:05 Instructor: Carmen Moses

The Sentence is a Sacred Place: “The sentence,” writes author Garielle Lutz, “with its narrow topographical constraints, is a lonely place, the loneliest place for a writer.” Grammar and syntax can feel like shackles, sets of rules we must adhere to before the real work of invention can occur. And yet, the sentence is the starting point for creation and play. What is a good sentence? What does syntax do, and how can we harness it to meet our needs as emerging writers? In this class, we will explore what happens when we deeply explore language at the sentence level, examining those techniques and devices that make up what is often called “style” or “voice.” We will consider how we inherit and transfigure our cadences, vocabularies, and rhythms and learn new strategies by paying careful attention to the work of other writers working across a variety of times, geographies, genres, and contexts. Writing poems, stories, and short essays, we will investigate how to pattern language to heighten the musicality, muscularity, and depth of our language. We will build our pieces from the ground up, discovering how sentences and lines become the building blocks of macro-level aspects of craft like plot, narrative, structure, and form.

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (required intro to creative writing)(AL)

Lecture 2  MWF 11:15-12:05  Instructor: Montanna Harling

Worldbuilding Across Genres. The art of worldbuilding has long been associated with the genres of science fiction and fantasy, but worldbuilding is an essential skill for all creative writers—including writers of realistic fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. In this class, we will learn how to build vivid, visceral, and acutely real settings within our writing. We will utilize the art of careful worldbuilding as a way of more clearly accessing and refracting our own world, societies, cultures, and environments. By reading widely across the genres of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, we will explore how well-rendered, thoughtfully depicted worlds enrich stories’ plots, characters, thematic meanings, and overall impacts on readers. We will then hone our own ability to “worldbuild” across those modes—to create more immersive, compelling, and meaningful narratives. Over the course of the semester, we will each write and workshop up to 5 poems, 2 fiction stories (in any genre), and 2 essays. This course fulfills the General Education AL (literature) requirement.

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (required intro to creative writing)(AL)

Lecture 3   MWF 10:10-11:00    Instructor: Nickolas Hedtke

Always Writing.  In Always Writing, you will be learning how to see yourselves as writers both inside and outside of the classroom. Seeing the world as a writer doesn’t always mean putting pen to paper, it can simply mean appreciating the small details and artifacts of feeling that are all around us. In this multi-genre course you will write a hearty sample of poetry, creative non-fiction, and prose (short story). Through reading and discussion, you will find the models, ideas, and themes that are most exciting. We will learn from models, but crafting your own creative vision, evolving your instincts, and defining yourselves as artists is the main focus of this course. Always Writing will change how you see the world, and yourself. You’ll learn how to find magic in the details. Take this class, let’s have a blast.   

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (required intro to creative writing)(AL)

Lecture 4  MWF 12:20-1:10 Instructor: Hiya Chowdhury

Writing Beyond Form. Description: What does it mean to write ‘beyond’ a literary form? In this course, we will consider that literary forms are not immobile items with unbreakable shells: in fact, they can be diverse spaces that mutate freely across cultures and ideologies. Together, we will produce and workshop writing that flows effortlessly into and between forms. We will ask: how do we move ‘beyond’ ideas of form that feel culturally or ideologically narrow? We will read short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Helen DeWitt and Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, poems by Shakespeare, Agha Shahid Ali, Meena Kandasamy, and Rosmarie Waldrop, and creative nonfiction by James Baldwin and Sheila Heti. At the same time, we will read (and write in!) some experimental or localized genres such as folk tales, translations, and graphic fiction as a way to introduce ourselves to a world of literature that exists beyond the boundaries of ‘central’ time and topography. Ultimately, this course invites us to consider that there is no one definition of a good story, and to write energetically towards that consideration.

English 254H Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature honors (required intro to creative writing)(AL)

Lecture 1   TuTh 11:30-12:45   Instructor: Daniel Sack

This honors seminar focuses on the analysis of poetry, short fiction, drama, and creative non-fiction, and fosters an environment in which to explore different forms of response. Our focus will be on the fragment across written genres. Students will read and discuss texts by exemplary authors and by their classmates. Assignments include both analytical and creative writing.

English 269 American Literature and Culture after 1865 (American lit after 1865 or 200 elective)

Lecture 1   MW 2:30-3:45    Instructor: Brenna Casey

This course explores the definition and evolution of a national literary tradition in the United States from the end of the U.S. Civil War to the present. We will examine a variety of issues arising from the historical and cultural contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formal study of literature, and the competing constructions of American identity. Students will consider canonical texts, as well as those less frequently recognized as central to the American literary tradition in an effort to foster original insights into the definition, content, and the shape of literature in the United States.

English 272 American Romanticism (course in American lit before 1865 or 200 English elective)

Lecture 1    MW 4:00-5:15   Instructor: Hoang Phan

This course will focus on the relationships between the literature of American Romanticism and the broader cultural debates and social transformations of this period, identified historically as the Age of Revolution. With the politics of romance and revolution as guiding themes, the course will study a range of texts, by Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Throughout these readings we will examine the ways in which the literature of this period contributed to the imagined community of the United States, as well as contested and revised the dominant narratives of the nation.

English 273 American Realism (course in American lit after 1865 or 200 English elective) (Social Justice)

Lecture 1  TuTh 10:00-11:15  Instructor: Sarah Patterson

The American Worker. This class follows a representational trajectory of American workers in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novels and short stories. Our goal is to examine the concept of realism and to test the veracity of “an accurate depiction” with a focus on portrayals of the occupational conditions within which American women, men and child laborers participated. Novels like Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1854) present the social barriers that hinder a woman’s progress in her chosen field of work. Henry James’s The American (1877) offers an image of a self-made man, but wrestles with assumptions about success. We will study literature with extensive depictions of the interior spaces and inner workings of a variety of occupational industries. We will pay keen attention to the interior spaces of law offices, tenement buildings, the Underground Railroad, factories and street-based industries that employed child laborers. Many early American writers first achieved an authorial status by publishing fiction about workers in nineteenth-century magazines like Putnum’s Monthly, The Student and the Schoolmate and The Anglo-African Magazine. To enrich the learning experience, students will have opportunities to explore the pages of historical periodicals in which readings originally appeared. Course readings include works by the authors Fanny Fern, Henry James, Frances E. W. Harper, Herman Melville and Martin Delaney. 

English 279 Intro to American Studies (course in American lit after 1865 or 200 English elective)(American Studies)(ALDU)

Lecture 1   MW 2:30-3:45   Instructor: Hoang Phan

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies, which draws from a variety of intellectual traditions and disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Students will explore how American literature has contributed to individual and collective visions of American identity and the “American experiment.” Focusing on the role of literature in modern historical understanding, the course will study diverse and historically shifting definitions of American identity, and contested concepts such as democracy, equality, and sovereignty, as these were transformed by political debates and social movement struggles over nationhood and nationalism, slavery and freedom, immigration and citizenship, and by forms of social identification such as class, race, and gender.

English 298H Practicum: Teaching in the Writing Center (200+ English elective)(WRLS)(TELA)

Lecture 1  Thurs 4:00-5:15    Instructor: TBA

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 Tutoring Writing: Theory & Practice are eligible to enroll in this course.  This is a two-course series.  Open only to students who registered in 329H Fall 2023.

English 300 Junior Year Writing (Junior Year Writing)

Lecture 1 TuTh 1:00-2:15  Instructor: Stephen Harris

Topic: Tolkien Sources and World Building.  This course introduces you to some of the major sources of Tolkien's fantasy world. We will read about the divinities of Valhalla, the underground realms of fairies, the cattle raids of Ulster, and more. We will also learn a little about the languages and cultures of northern European that flourished alongside the Roman Empire. We will read Old Irish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old Saxon, and Middle High German poetry in English translation. Our aim is to explore how Tolkien put together Middle Earth and its languages from the literature he studied and taught.

English 300 Junior Year Writing (Junior Year Writing)(British literature after 1700)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 3    TuTh 2:30-3:45  Instructor: Jennifer Minnen

Topic: Victorian Environmental Fictions.  CStep into the fascinating world of nineteenth-century science and literature, where the rise of new inventions and ideas, from the first aquarium to groundbreaking fossil discoveries, reshapes the way people understand their world. In this course, we'll explore how Victorians’ obsession with natural history sparks some of the most creative and critical novels of the period. We’ll question how new scientific ideas about the environment push authors to challenge social norms, examine class divisions, and probe the politics of their time. From the impact of industrialization to debates about women’s rights, social reform, and colonialism, we’ll analyze how these themes are woven into novels by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and more (even Jane Austen!). Finally, we’ll also draw connections between the Victorian novel and today’s environmental fiction, looking at more contemporary voices like Bessie Head and Helon Habila.      

English 300H Junior Year Writing Honors (Junior Year Writing)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1    MW 2:30-3:45    Instructor: Jane Degenhardt

Topic: Dystopian Speculative Fiction.  This course on dystopian speculative fiction takes a transhistorical approach, beginning with Shakespeare’s theater and concluding with twentieth- and twenty-first century novelists such as Octavia Butler, Han Kang, and N.K. Jemisin. We will consider how these writers demonstrate new ways of theorizing fiction as a way of questioning the terms of reality and the methods by which we think we know the world. In other words, we will think about how these writers not only imagine new worlds but also how they explore new ways of knowing and being in the worlds that already exist. In particular, we will explore how speculative writers privilege different kinds of embodied perspectives that are shaped by gender, race, sexuality, and dis/ability, as well as how they blur the divisions between human and other ontologies. Our focus will be on close reading, with emphasis on the specific details of language and form. Writing assignments will be oriented around the skills of close reading and revision, and will feature a variety of (short) forms, including journal entries and personal reflections, highly focused critical analyses, creative criticism, and opportunities for creative writing. In addition to considering how speculative writers expand the scope of what fiction is and what it can do in the world, this course will also explore the boundaries of critical writing and invite students to experiment with their voices and with different forms for expressing their ideas and arguments. 

English 302 Studies in Textuality and New Media (300 English elective)(WRLS)(TELA)

Lecture 1   MW 2:30-3:45   Instructor: Jaclyn Ordway

This course is an introduction to digital culture and new media. We will explore how the internet and various platforms have shaped what writing (and being) online looks like, ethical issues involved in the circulation of digital writing, and the potential impacts that writing can have on individuals and society. Over the course of this class students will engage with topics such as corporations’ control over what circulates online, the effects of the personalization of individuals’ internet experiences, the impact of trend culture, what civic engagement and activism looks like online, and more.

English 343 English Epic Tradition (early British lit. or 300 English elective)

Lecture 1   TuTh 10:00-11:15     Instructor: Stephen Harris

Topic: Beowulf. This course introduces you to the epic poem Beowulf in its original language. Written between c. 750 and c.1000 AD, Beowulf is a poem of stunning artistry. It inspired J. R. R. Tolkien and Seamus Heaney and continues to inspire today. We will learn some Old English and read the poem extremely closely. As we do, we will put it into its historical and literary contexts, imagining medieval readers as well as modern ones. We will compare it to other epics and discuss myths, charms, proverbs, and the interactions between Latin and Germanic traditions. And there be dragons. Recommended for students who have completed ENGL 313, Old English. If you have not taken Old English, you can read the poem in translation. Course prerequisite: English 200 with a grade of "C" or better and 201, 202 or 221 with a qualifying grade of a C or better.

English 355 Creative Writing Fiction (300 elective)(creative writing)

Lecture 1   TuTh 2:30-3:45    Instructor: John Hennessy

In this course students will write and workshop short stories. They will also read widely in modern and contemporary fiction and complete a series of assignments intended to address specific aspects of fiction writing. Pre-requisite: English 254

English 355 Creative Writing Fiction (300 elective)(creative writing)

Lecture 2    TuTh 4:00-5:15   Instructor: Matthew Litman

All writers begin with a debut. In this generative fiction workshop, we will study the first works of several accomplished writers like Toni Morrison, Justin Torres, and Garth Greenwell and ask: What can we learn from these exemplary debuts in terms of crafting plot, complex characters and immersive scenes? What kinds of artistic flags did these works plant and how did they change their literary landscape? Along with critical essays, these first works will guide us as we think about the kind of work we want to make, as we make it. What kinds of literary traditions do we want to participate in or subvert? What kinds of stories still aren’t being told? And how can these debuts help us become better, more intentional, artists and readers?

Over the semester, we will workshop three short stories or chapters, produce one presentation about a favorite debut work, and do plenty of in-class writing. Supported by rigorous instructor and peer feedback, we will become more skilled writers, develop our stylistic DNA, and take our writing, and ourselves as artists, more seriously.

English 356 Creative Writing Poetry (300 elective)(creative writing)

Lecture 1    TuTh 4:00-5:15   Instructor: John Hennessy

English 356 is a poetry workshop. In addition to writing their own poems, students will read widely in contemporary poetry.  Pre-requisite: English 254

English 362 Modern Novel 1945-Present (Anglophone or 300 elective)(social justice)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1    MW 2:30-3:45   Instructor: Mazen Naous

Of Immigrants and Migration.  People from countries previously colonized by Great Britain find their way to British shores; people from countries affected by U.S. interventions find their way to the U.S. Some arrive as immigrants and some as migrants (we will consider the implications of these two terms). Both groups, however, endure forms of jingoism, racism, xenophobia, and violence at the social, cultural, economic, and political levels. Among other things, immigrants and migrants find that they are perceived as traitors, terrorists, criminals, and job snatchers. In relating the experiences of immigrants and migrants, our selected works employ a range of literary techniques. We will engage the relationship between aesthetics and politics in these textual interventions and consider the effect of this relationship on the representations and receptions of immigrants and migrants. This course examines works dealing with movement from South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Northern Ireland to Britain, and from East Asia, the Arab countries, and Mexico to the U.S. The course includes works by Ana Castillo, Omar El Akkad, John Okada, Caryl Phillips, and Zadie Smith. We will also watch and discuss two films. Critical essays and some theory will guide our readings and film viewings. 

This four-credit course fulfills the General Education curricular designation of Literature (AL). It demonstrates that novels do more than imitate life; they interpret and explain it. Furthermore, this course considers the function and aesthetic evaluation of novels in relation to the societies that produce them.

English 365 The Literature of Ireland (Anglophone or 200 elective)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1   MW 2:30-3:45    Instructor: Katherine O’Callaghan

Irish literature (poetry, drama, novels, short stories) from the Irish Literary Revival to the present. Topics include colonialism, gender, race, language, nationhood, and intermediality; a particular focus on the importance of the environment and climate in Irish literary texts. Will include works by James Joyce, J.M. Synge, Augusta Gregory, Claire Keegan, Kevin Barry, Caoilinn Hughes, and more  (Gen.Ed. AL)

English 371 African American literature (Anglophone/ethnic Amer lit or Amer lit after 1865 or 300 elective) (literature as history)

Lecture 1     TuTh 2:30-3:45   Instructor: Jimmy Worthy

This course will offer students an overview of the important literary works produced by African American authors throughout the twentieth-century. We will examine the ideas, concerns, and preoccupations of African American authors as expressed in various literary pronouncements. ENG 371 will also allow students to assess the values and aesthetics that are not only representative of African American literature of the twentieth-century, but that define the particular genre and historical context from which the literature emerges. Using this critical orientation and throughout this course, students will discuss and write about texts with respect to how these works address challenges to gender, racial, economic, and national identity in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. Furthermore, by focusing on African American literature since 1900, ENG 371 offers students the ability to chart the development of African American authors’ literary sensibilities across the twentieth-century and within multiple genres. Such endeavors will enable students to figure the literature produced by African Americans as indictive of a collective artistic imagination and representative of a process by which African Americans employed the written word in their demand for recognition and personhood. In essays and discussions, students are to consider the development of twentieth- century African American letters within the four specific literary areas we will encounter: Early Twentieth-Century and the Harlem Renaissance, The Realist/Modernist Movement, The Black Arts Era, and Literature Since 1975. In your writing, and discussion, make sure to engage these questions: What claims does African American literature make for itself given its political and aesthetic contexts? How ultimately does literary art function for the disenfranchised? 

English 372 Caribbean Literature: Sea is History (Anglophone or 300+ English elective)(Literature as History)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1     TuTh 1:00-2:15  Instructor: Rachel Mordecai

In this course we will read contemporary works from the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking literatures of the Caribbean (all texts will be read in English), comprising a mixture of "canonical" and emerging authors. Lectures (rare) and discussions (regular) will address central themes in Caribbean writing, as well as issues of form and style (including the interplay between creole and European languages).

Some of the themes that will preoccupy us are history and its marks upon the Caribbean present; racial identity and ambiguity; colonial and neo-colonial relationships among countries; gender and sexuality. Assignments will include an informal reading journal and three major papers of varying lengths; there may also be student presentations, small-group work, and in-class writing activities. Authors may include Maryse Condé, Tiphanie Yanique, Kei Miller, René Depestre, Dionne Brand and Mayra Santos-Febres.

English 378 American Women Writers (American lit before 1865 or 300 elective)(Social Justice)

Lecture 1    TuTh 11:30-12:45   Instructor: Sarah Patterson

Representations of American Womanhood. In this class, we will review American writers’ concepts of womanhood with women’s advocacy literature as a point of orientation. With a focus on nineteenth-century literature, we will examine novels, short stories, a social critique and one short autobiographical narrative that relate to perceptions of women's societal successes and shortcomings. From each reading, we will draw conclusions about the attributes associated with women and notions of femininity. Maria Cummins’ famous adventure novel The Lamplighter (1854) tackles the issue of a girl-waif living without a proper guardian in the urban North, and Charlotte Forten’s “Life on the Sea Islands” (1864) follows a woman’s daring excursion into the South. Differently, Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) identifies the social barriers that stunt women’s progress from within various contexts. In each case, we will trace a history of reformers’ answers to challenging social quandaries related to sources of financial independence, motherhood, charity and the freedom of movement. The primary goal of the course is for students to study representations in historical literature about women’s roles in society including in domestic, religious and work-related spheres of identify formation. Students will also identify the ways women’s artistic expression overlaps with professional authorship. Readings include works by Margaret Fuller, Frances E. W. Harper, Rebecca Harding Davis and Maria Cummins. 

English 381 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II (300 elective)(PWTC certificate)(WRLS)

Lecture 1   TuTh  2:30-3:45 Instructor: Janine Solberg

Extends the work of ENGL 380. Students will learn and apply principles of technical writing, information/page design, and web accessibility. The objectives of this course are to increase students' organizational and graphical sophistication as writers and information designers. Students can expect to produce portfolio-quality content using industry-standard software (such as MadCap Flare and Adobe Illustrator). Prerequisite: English 380. Junior or senior status and a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better.

English 382 Professional Writing and Technical Communication III (300 elective)(PWTC certificate)

Lecture 1    TuTh 11:30-12:45 Instructor: David Toomey

The course serves as the capstone to the Professional Writing and Technical Communication specialization.  It also fulfills the Integrative Experience (IE) requirement for English majors. With a view towards specialization, the course will provide directed opportunities to study in depth an issue related to technology and culture or to explore the theory and practice of particular kinds of writing and technology. With a view towards professionalization, the course will offer an opportunity to workshop professional portfolios, to learn about careers from working professionals.  With a view to lifelong learning, the course will ask students to reflect and record the manner in which they (personally) study a subject and/or develop a skill, and so come to a better understanding of their own learning strategies.  These three aims will be framed by our collective exploration of connections between technology, communication and culture through assigned reading.

English 391C Advanced Software for Professional Writers (300 elective)(PWTC certificate)(WRLS)

Lecture 1  MW 2:30-3:45       Instructor: Janine Solberg
Lecture 2   MW 4:00-5:15      Instructor: TBA

This course offers a beginner-level introduction to web design. It's designed with English and HFA majors in mind, but students from any major are welcome in the course. This is a hands-on course that meets in a computer classroom. Students will learn to create a website using HTML (hypertext markup language) and CSS (cascading style sheets), and we will cover basic best practices for accessibility in web design. You will come away from the course having created a personal website that you can use when applying for jobs or internships. 

No prior experience with web design or coding is required. Students should be comfortable managing files (naming, uploading, downloading, creating folders) and using a web browser. (Note: This course appears in Spire as "Advanced Software," which really just means that we're using tools more common in workplace/professional settings!) 

Prereq: Minimum 3.0 GPA. Non-majors, sophomores, or students who have not yet taken Engl 379 should contact Janine Solberg ([email protected]) to ask about being added into the course.

English 455 Creative Writing Fiction (400 creative writing elective)

Lecture 1  MW 4:00-5:15  Instructor: Oluwatoyin Okele

In this class, the group of burgeoning writers will study the art of fiction (both short stories and novels) through readings, discussions, and assignments. The first half of the course will be discussion and activity based, and focus on form, craft, process, and deciphering what we could call fiction’s several je ne sais quois. After spring break, we will switch into a more generative gear. Students will not only submit two pieces for workshop, they will practice thoughtfully critiquing their peers’ work (via close reading, productive discussions, and feedback letters) and develop into constructive members of a writing community.

English 456 Creative Writing Poetry (300 elective)(creative writing)

Lecture 2   Mon 1:00-3:30  Instructor: Martín Espada

This is an advanced poetry workshop. Students should commit themselves to active participation, producing poems independently for review in class and commenting on work submitted by others. This is a course designed to help the student define a distinct voice in the work and to reinforce the fundamental skills of writing poems through close reading, with a particular emphasis on the image as well as the musicality of language. The strengths of student writing will receive as much attention as those areas in need of improvement.

English 469 Victorian Monstrosity (400 elective or later British lit) (Literature as History)

Lecture 1    TuTh 10:00-11:15  Instructor: Suzanne Daly

Although the term “monstrosity” connotes fear and repulsion, many nineteenth-century writers were compelled by the idea of attraction between humans and not-quite human creatures such as demons, vampires, goblins, and ghosts. In exploring the aesthetic, political, economic, historical, and racial(ized) dimensions of these enchanted literary liaisons, we will consider their relationship to literary/cultural movements including medievalism, realism, and the gothic revival as well as to contemporary political debates over science, empire, immigration, masculinity, and the status of women. Primary texts may include poetry by Gottfried Bürger, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Mary Robinson, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Tennyson, and William Wordsworth, and prose by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Sheridan Le Fanu, Richard Marsh, Mary Shelley, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

ENG 491E Literature and Education (400 elective)(TELA)

Lecture 1  Tu/Th 11:30-12:45    Instructor: Jennifer Minnen

Teaching Middle and High School English.  This course introduces the core principles, challenges, and creative possibilities of teaching English literature in grades 5 to 12 with a strong focus on active learning and literacy. Through readings, collaborative assignments, and classroom simulations, students practice strategies that promote discussion, inquiry, and engaged learning. The course covers curriculum design, assessment, and culturally responsive teaching in diverse classrooms as we experiment with commonly taught literary works across multiple genres. By semester’s end, students will develop a practical teaching portfolio and gain confidence in leading interactive lessons that help middle and high school students think critically, read closely, and communicate effectively.  

491M Form and Theory of Poetry (Creative Writing)

Monday 10:45-1:15pm | Abigail Chabitnoy

Topic: Seminar: Writing Toward the Feminine Epic Tradition   What is deemed worthy of the term “epic”? What expectations and internal biases do we bring to such claims? What opportunities for reconceiving the landscape—historical, aesthetical, political, ecological—does the contemporary and specifically female approach to (or subversion of) the epic raise in the collapse of narrative and lyric? In this seminar we will read closely long and at times unwieldy texts in consideration of what such breadth and positioning of works under a singular title offers to the reader—and writer. To frame the contextual gesture of the long poem, we may also consider poetic works that, while broken into discreet titles, operate as a singular work, exploring how the work manipulates time, subverts plot, and reveals patterns of thought that challenge a Western patriarchal ideation of the form. Poets considered may include Anne Waldman, Lyn Hejinian, Diane di Prima, Alice Notley, H.D, Anne Carson, Bernadette Mayer, and others currently shaping the contemporary landscape of the extended lyric. While this class will demand much reading and in-class conversation, it will also facilitate practical engagement with the notion of the female epic as a form (i.e., writing toward an epic project). Note: this course is an undergrad/graduate dual enrollment course.

English 491R Advanced Creative Writing: Nonfiction (Creative Writing)

Lecture 1 Tu 1:00-3:30 PM  Instructor: Laura Furlan

A seminar in writing creative nonfiction for advanced creative writing students. Students read in contemporary creative nonfiction and in craft topics, write creative nonfiction essays regularly, and discuss one another's writing.

English 494JI Going to Jail: Incarceration in US literature and culture (Integrative Experience)(Anglophone/ethnic American)(Social Justice)

Lecture 1  TuTh 2:30-3:45 Instructor: Suzanne Daly

Why do we put people in cages? In what ways does the caging of humans impact those outside as well as inside? Writers have long used the prison as a space from which to ask questions about the nature and meaning of criminality and the rule of law, about human minds, bodies, and behavior, about economics, politics, race, and social class, and about how language makes and unmakes us as human beings. In this class, we will study US fiction, poetry, film, and nonfiction prose (print and digital) by prisoners, journalists, scholars, lawyers, and activists in order to consider these issues for ourselves. We will draw on the knowledge and critical skills you have gained from your gen ed coursework throughout. Assignments will include five short papers and two drafts of a longer final paper. Authors may include: Michelle Alexander, Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Martin Luther King, CeCe McDonald, David Oshinsky, Danielle Sered, Bryan Stevenson, Jerome Washington, and Malcolm X. Open only to senior English majors.

English 494SI Literature and Social Justice (IE)(Social Justice)(Environmental Humanities)

Lecture 1  TuTh 10:00-11:15    Instructor: Rachel Mordecai

"What is social justice?" might be the most pressing question of our contemporary moment, as humans confront multiple and overlapping ecological, political, economic and public-health crises, and come to very different ideas of what should be done. How do we know when we are pursuing social justice, and who is the "we" that knows? This class will explore that question through a particular focus on movements for environmental justice: literary representations of people acting to protect their homelands, texts that have prompted or furthered such action, and reflections on and by people who have thought deeply and acted courageously in pursuit of environmental justice. This course fulfils the University’s Integrative Experience requirement, the goals of which are to allow students to draw upon the breadth of their college learning and apply research, communication, and critical-thinking skills to pressing contemporary questions. Together we will read, think, talk and write about how the literature of environmental justice might inform our approach to living justly alongside other beings.

English 499D Foundations and Departures in Creative Writing: Fiction, Poetry, and Literary Non-fiction – 2^nd semester (400 elective)(creative writing)

Lecture 1    Wed 4:00-6:30  Instructor: John Hennessy

499D is the second semester of Foundations and Departures in Creative Writing: Fiction, Poetry, and Literary Non-Fiction, a multi-genre, two-semester course in creative writing designed to help students complete a Capstone project within the genre of their choice. Both a class in contemporary literature and a writing workshop, Foundations and Departures will offer students a wide variety of reading assignments and writing exercises from across all three genres. At the end of the first semester students will submit a portfolio of original work; in the second semester students will finish drafting and revising their Capstone projects. Textbooks will include _The Art of the Story_, a fiction anthology, novels by a variety of writers, including Mona Awad, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, and Teju Cole, memoir by Helene Cooper, non-fiction by Joan Didion, poetry collections by Nathan McClain, Denise Duhamel, and other contemporary poets (including the anthology The BreakBeat Poets​).

The University Without Walls (UWW) at UMass Amherst offers online courses and degree programs. For students taking classes on campus, you will need to request an enrollment appointment on Spire before you can enroll in UWW courses. To learn more about UWW and the online degree programs they offer, visit their website.

Winter 2026 English Online Courses

English 202 Later British Literature
(course in later British literature or 200 elective)
Instructor: Tyler Clark
Popular, Sensational, and Mass-Market Literature.

This course traces the development of the British “popular novel” from the 18th century until present day. As the novel developed as a widely circulated medium throughout Britain, various subgenres such as the Gothic or Sensation Fiction drove masses towards circulating libraries and serial print. Focusing on highly Popular fiction and “celebrity” authors, students will trace the origins of the Gothic novel, the Victorian three-volume novel, and Modernist romans à clef, as well as how these tropes shape the British novel today. Through critical readings of works by authors such as Jane Austen, Mary Seacole, Charlotte Bronte, E.F. Benson, and Helen Oyeyemi, this course investigates how popular fiction reflects social anxieties about gender, technological development, and race. Students will also read critical theorists such as Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to supplement their understanding of these social developments. 
 

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing
(creative writing)(200 English elective)
Instructor: Katia Bakhiyarova
The Ordinary World: Introduction to Creative Writing

What to write about? It’s a torture that no writer, seasoned or amateur, is exempt from. In this course, we will seek to answer this question by learning to pay special attention to the world around us. In doing so, we will learn that the basis for any great poem, story, or nonfiction creative essay can be found in the most ordinary of sources. A song you heard in the supermarket? That’s the soundtrack to your next poem. What about a conversation you overheard at lunch? That’s the first line of a new story. Writers can expect to receive a wide variety of writing prompts and a series of craft sessions oriented around fundamental principles such as point of view, plot development, structure, style, theme, and more. Writers will emerge with a practiced sense of writing across genre, an established writing routine, and a plethora of resources for publishing work.

English 339 Film and Literature
(300 English elective)
Instructor: Alejandro Beas Murillo
To Render a Black World: Contemporary Black Film and Fiction.

This course explores contemporary cinematic and literary representations of Black life, poesis, and worldmaking practices in North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Great Britain. Together, we will think through some of the following questions: How do these texts represent Black life, love, and joy while contending with the terror of antiblack, heteropatriarchal, and carceral violence? How do these texts make use of written and visual, cinematic language to represent Black worlds, bodies, and forms of knowledge? In some instances, we will compare film adaptations of famous texts written by authors such as Colson Whitehead and James Baldwin to explore the changes and continuities between the original literary source and its adaptation. As such, we will consider what is lost and gained in the transition from literary to cinematic representation. Other times, we will stage conversations between literary texts and films from different parts of the Black Diaspora; we will, for example, compare how Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat and French-Senegalese director Mati Diop represent the entanglements between colonialism, migration, and gender, or how motherhood, family, and sexuality are represented by authors Gwendolyn Brooks and Jamaica Kincaid and in short films by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Raven Jackson.

English 355 Creative Writing Fiction
(creative writing)(300 creative writing/English elective)
Instructor: Vika Mujumdar
WRITING INTO PLACE

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image,” writes Joan Didion in her essay collection The White Album. Taking this idea as our point of departure, how might we write into place? How do we make our fiction belong to a place? How do we understand our own belonging(s) to place and geography? This advanced fiction workshop considers the relationship between literature and place; we will read excerpts from writers including Dur e Aziz Amna, Elena Ferrante, Sabina Murray, Aria Aber, Chris Knapp, Jung Yun, and others to consider how writing place creates aftereffects that echo far after a book is published. Alongside reading craft essays and criticism, we will think through the relationships between geography and literature—how does intertextuality function in relation to place? What webs and networks, historical and temporal, are created through writing a place? Students will write and workshop two short stories during the semester.

English 391AJ Writing for a Living
(300 creative writing elective)
Instructor: Stefan Petrucha

You want to be a professional writer, but now what? Learn strategies and skills for presenting your book, your articles, your ideas, and yourself to editors and agents in a compelling and competitive manner. With a focus on writing and critiquing Queries (a one-page pitch) we’ll explore the history and rapidly changing world of publishing, including  e-books, self-publishing and a special look at AI and Writing.

Fall 2025 English Online Courses

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature and Culture
(GenEd: ALDG)
Instructor: Sarah Ahmad

In this course, we will study a range of texts and media to explore space (imagined and real) and text as sites where power is imposed as well as challenged. This premise arises from the tradition of feminist and queer utopias, asking us to think about how racial, gendered, and colonial projects are enacted and countered in literary representations of space - landscapes, borders, cities, houses, streets. How do differently-minoritized subjects write – and read – places that are ‘useless’ (such as a text) as places of survival and meaning-making?  We will work together to floor-plan the texts we encounter, paying attention to their historical contexts and their techniques of reimagining and inhabiting the world. 

English 319AG Writing Comics
(300 creative writing elective)
Instructor: Stefan Petrucha

A nuts-and-bolts look at comic books and graphic novels purely from the writer's side. With 'Making Comics' by Scott McCloud as the basic text, we'll look at panel descriptions that inspire visuals, character-driven dialogue, the seven types of relationship between words and pictures, the writer/artist relationship and more. In addition to various writing exercises, students will develop their own ideas from springboards into completed scripts. This is not a course about artwork, and requires no artistic skill. It is also not a course about superheroes, treating graphic novel as an open medium capable of engaging any type of literary effort from genre to poetry.

English 391AJ Writing for a Living
(300 creative writing elective)
Instructor: Stefan Petrucha

You want to be a professional writer, but now what? Learn strategies and skills for presenting your book, your articles, your ideas, and yourself to editors and agents in a compelling and competitive manner. With a focus on writing and critiquing Queries (a one-page pitch) we’ll explore the history and rapidly changing world of publishing, including  e-books, self-publishing and a special look at AI and Writing.

Summer Session 2026 Courses

English 131 Society and Literature
Writing the Queer/Trans Self
Instructor: Sam Davis 

How do queer and trans authors negotiate the written self amidst a culture which seeks to erase trans and non-binary realities, selves, and identities? In this class we will explore a handful of contemporary American literary texts written by queer and trans authors to explore how language is used, challenged, rejected, and reclaimed to constitute new literary selves and possibilities. For example, we will explore the reclamation of they/them pronouns, and the ways in which non-binary selves write themselves into binary colonial languages. The class will engage fundamental scholarship on race, gender, disability, and culture within the field of Trans studies.  (GenEds: ALDG)

U+ Summer 2025, Session 1 [May 19 - July 1]

English 254: Intro to Creative Writing
Writing as Practice
Instructor: Nathaniel Pinkham

How do I start writing? How do I keep it going? How do I end it?

These are the essential questions that we will explore through the semester. This class will be about the process of writing, how deliberate practice improves our ability to create gripping sentences, write intricate narratives, and form a compelling work. We will read across all genres, including fiction from Madeline ffitch and Haruki Murakami, poetry from Ocean Vuong and James Skyler, as well as creative nonfiction from David Foster Wallace and Joan Didion.

Through a workshop environment and collaboration with our peers, we will seek to make a community of writers that can engage with each other’s work openly and honestly. By the end of our time together, students will leave with a portfolio of five poems, two stories, and two nonfiction or hybrid texts, as well as narrative fragments that could become future stories, novels, poems, or works of creative nonfiction. More than anything, this course aims to encourage a writing habit that works for you, one that will help you inside this course and beyond it.

U+ Summer 2025, Session 2 [ July 7 - August 15]

English 132 Gender, Sexuality, Literature and Society
Contemporary Feminist Literature in Latin America and the Caribbean
Instructor: Alejandro Beas Murillo

This course examines literary responses to and representations of the contemporary feminist movements across the Caribbean and Latin America, whose cry for freedom and justice is best captured in the sentence “Ni una más” (“Not one more”). We will take the mid-1980s as our starting point and end by speculating on what the future of the Latin American and Caribbean feminist movements might offer in the face of ever-rising fascism, US and European interventionism, and the increased policing and violence against women and queer people that these entail.

Through literature, films and documentaries, and music, we will explore the struggle for abortion rights, the contributions of women writers and activists in the fight against colonial governments and dictatorships, the demands for social and state recognition, reparations, and protection against all forms of violence against women, and the disruption of race, gender, sexual, and familial roles. The authors we will discuss also interrogate the white supremacist and trans-exclusionary rhetorics of the Western feminist movements and find alternative models of feminism that can satisfy the needs and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and trans women. Together, we will think through the following questions: Why do Caribbean and Latin American women writers turn to magical realism, the gothic genre, the family saga, and the memoir to talk about violence against women? How do contemporary Caribbean and Latin American women writers portray and influence emancipatory movements throughout the region? What are the possibilities and alternative worlds that these texts envision and how can they be fulfilled? In a Caribbean and Latin American literary canon that has been historically dominated by men, how are women writers disordering and reinventing the literature of their regions? (Gen.Ed. AL, DG)

U+ Summer 2025, Session 2 [ July 7 - August 15]

English 190N Nature, Climate Change and Literature 
Instructor: Raihan Rahman

This course introduces you to the interdisciplinary field of the Environmental Humanities, which engages with the relationship between humanistic study and environmental concerns. You will be introduced to a range of literary, artistic, historical, and popular narratives from across the globe that interrogate the questions of nature/culture, environment, climate change, species extinction, and the Anthropocene. You will learn how categories of class, gender, race, and ethnicity and structures of domination like capitalism and imperialism complicate our understanding of those questions. You will read novels, poems, short stories, non-fictions and watch films and documentaries to explore the relationship between capital, empire, and climate change and to imagine alternative political possibilities for building emancipatory and flourishing futures.

U+ Summer 2025, Session 2 [ July 7 - August 15]

English 202 Later British Literature 
Reading the Desires and Anxieties of the Long 19th Century
(British literature after 1700)
Instructor: Helin Park

Bath's elegant ballrooms, Liverpool's bustling train stations, a chemical-smelling London flat, and the shadowy chambers of a country manor—who inhabits these spaces, and how are they connected? What happens within them, and what do these scenes reveal about a rapidly changing society?

The late 18th and 19th centuries marked Britain's global dominance, and seemingly separate spheres -- domestic and public, rural and urban, island and continent, traditional and modern, colony and empire -- became intricately interwoven. As industrialization, urban expansion, new technologies, and foreign objects were blended into daily life and social relations, literature captured the expectations, tensions, and anxieties of the time. With this context in mind, we will read works that explore them while featuring heroines who are naive, hysterical, or cunning about these changes. Whether driving the plot or serving as readers themselves, they offer insight into gender expectations, consumption, knowledge, reality, and detection.

Throughout the course, key themes will be: social class and mobility, appearance versus reality, domesticity and imperialism, and how women negotiated their place within—and against—the shifting forces of modern life. Readings will include both canonical authors and once-beloved Victorian writers now largely forgotten. Ultimately, we will ask how novels, or literature in a larger sense, offer not only entertainment but a way to learn, understand, and navigate the social reality of the modern world.

U+ Summer 2025, Session 2 [ July 7 - August 15]

English 356 : Creative Writing Poetry
Poetics of Space
Instructor: Lena Rubin

To locate oneself in space is a politically charged act, a practice against alienation and towards connection with the plants, animals, humans, buildings, relationships, communities, and weathers that populate the real landscapes in which we find ourselves writing. It’s also an aesthetic challenge. How can sunlight, summer air, the moon, a river, a city, or a room be reflected or refracted through a poem? In this course, we will look closely and listen deeply to the spaces that speak to us. A spirit of experimentation and play will guide us, alongside close reading of poets like Amiri Baraka, Basho, Anne Carson, Lisa Robertson, Joanne Kyger, and Gary Snyder. Taking inspiration from Lisa Robertson’s notion that “the movements of cities [are] echoed in the movements of bodies,” this course aims to foster a deeper sense of reciprocity between self and environment. This course helps you sharpen your skills at poetry craft and work toward completion of one or two poems. This asynchronous course will include lectures, writing exercises, and workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times).

U+ Summer 2025, Session 2 [ July 7 - August 15]

English 391AJ Writing for a Living
(300 creative writing elective)
Instructor: Stefan Petrucha

You want to be a professional writer, but now what? Learn strategies and skills for presenting your book, your articles, your ideas, and yourself to editors and agents in a compelling and competitive manner. With a focus on writing and critiquing Queries (a one-page pitch) we’ll explore the history and rapidly changing world of publishing, including  e-books, self-publishing and a special look at AI and Writing.

Spring 2026 courses organized by requirements in the major that they meet.

English 200 Intro to Literary Studies

English 200, Section 1
English 200, Section 2
English 200, Section 3
English 200, Section 4 

One course in British Literature and Culture before 1700

English 221 Shakespeare
English 343 English Epic Tradition (Topic Beowulf)
 

Survey Requirements (total 2 courses)

Two courses total: One course each in two of the following categories:

• Category 1: British Literature and Culture after 1700

• Category 2: American Literature and Culture before 1865

• Category 3: American Literature and Culture after 1865

English 204 Intro to Asian American Literature (category 3)
English 269 American Literature and Culture after 1865 (category 3)
English 272 American Romanticism (category 2)
English 273 American Realism (category 3)
English 279 Introduction to American Studies (category 3)
English 300 Junior Year Writing: Section 3: Victorian Environmental Fiction (category 1)
English 371 African American literature (category 3)
English 378 American Women Writers (category 2)
English 469 Victorian Monstrosity (category 1)

One course in global Anglophone or ethnic American literature, culture, or rhetorics 200+ level:

English 204 Intro to Asian American Literature
English 205 Intro to Post-Colonial Literature
English 362 Modern Novel: 1945-Present
English 365 Literature of Ireland
English 371 African American literature
English 372 Caribbean Literature

200-400+ English electives:

English 203 Bible/Myth/Literature
English 204 Intro to Asian American Literature
English 205 Intro to Post-Colonial Literature
English 221 Shakespeare
English 250 Intro to Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies
English 254H Intro to Creative Writing honors
English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (Sections 1-4)
English 269 American Literature and Culture after 1865
English 272 American Romanticism
English 273 American Realism
English 279 Introduction to American Studies
English 298H Writing/Teaching at the Writing Center
English 300 Junior Year Writing, Section 1: Tolkien Sources and Worldbuilding
English 300H Junior Year Writing honors: Section 2: Dystopian Speculative Fiction
English 300 Junior Year Writing: Section 3: Victorian Environmental Fiction
English 302 Studies/Textuality & New Media
English 343 English Epic Tradition (Topic Beowulf)
English 355 Creative Writing Fiction (Sections 1-2)
English 356 Creative Writing Poetry
English 362 Modern Novel: 1945-Present
English 365 Literature of Ireland
English 371 African American literature
English 372 Caribbean Literature
English 378 American Women Writers 
English 381 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II
English 382 Professional Writing and Technical Communication III
English 391C Advanced Software for Professional Writers (Sections 1-2)
English 455 Advanced Creative Writing Fiction
English 469 Victorian Monstrosity
English 491E Literature and Education
English 491M Form and Theory of Poetry
English 499D Honors Thesis: Foundations and Departures in Creative Writing: Fiction, Poetry and Literary Non-fiction.

Students may count English 398 (a graded, 3-credit internship) towards this requirement.

Junior Year Writing:

English 300 Junior Year Writing, Section 1: Tolkien Sources and Worldbuilding
English 300H Junior Year Writing honors: Section 2: Dystopian Speculative Fiction
English 300 Junior Year Writing: Section 3: Victorian Environmental Fiction

Second majors in English are not required to fulfill their junior year writing or integrative experience requirements in English as they will fulfill them in their primary major.

Integrative Experience:

English 494JI Going to Jail: Incarceration in US literature and culture
English 494SI Literature & Social Justice

Second majors in English are not required to fulfill their junior year writing or integrative experience requirements in English as they will fulfill them in their primary major.

Important Notes:

If you wish to apply 1 course toward 2 approved requirements, you must pick up 1 extra 300+ English elective and notify the English Undergraduate Office so that we can make the exception on your ARR. For instance, if you would like to count English 300 Junior Year Writing, Section 5 US Literature in a Global Context toward both the American literature before 1865 requirement and also toward Junior Year Writing, you must take one extra 300+ English elective. It can be a writing or literature course.

Dual degree 2nd majors must take junior year writing with us (but are still waived from the Integrative Experience)

We accept no more than three pre-approved transfer, exchange and/or five college courses toward our major requirements.

Contact:

Please contact Celeste ([email protected]) at the English Undergraduate office if you have any questions about the requirements or to get elective credit for an internship and/or transfer courses pre-approved.

Spring 2026 Courses sorted by specializations and certificate programs

American Studies

English 279 Intro to American Studies
English 371: African American Literature
English 378 American Women Writers

Creative Writing

English 254 Intro to Creative Writing (4 sections)
English 254H Intro to Creative Writing honors 
English 355 Creative Writing Fiction (2 sections) 
English 356 Creative Writing Poetry 
English 455 Creative Writing: Fiction
English 456 Creative Writing: Poetry

Environmental Humanities

English 190N Environment, Climate Change and the Humanities
English 200 Intro to Literary Studies, section 3, Environmental Justice, Race, Indigeneity, and Literature. 
English 200 Intro to Literary Studies, section 4, Ghosts of Literature
English 300H Junior Year Writing Honors: Dystopian Speculative Fiction
English 205 Intro to Post Colonial Studies 
English 362 Modern Novel 1945-Present
English 365 Literature of Ireland
English 372 Caribbean Literature
English 494SI Literature and Social Justice

Literature as History

English 221 Shakespeare
English 371 African American literature

Social Justice

English 273 American Realism
English 362 Modern Novel 1945-Present "Of Immigrants and Migration"
English 371 African American literature
English 378 American Women Writers
English 372 Caribbean Literature
English 494JI Going to Jail: Incarceration in US literature and culture
English 494SI Literature and Social Justice 

Teaching The English Language Arts (TELA)

English 250 Intro to Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy Studies
English 298H Practicum: Teaching in the Writing Center
English 302 Studies in Textuality and New Media

Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy Studies

English 250 Intro to Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy Studies
English 298H Practicum: Teaching in the Writing Center
English 302 Studies in Textuality and New Media
English 381 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II
English 391C Advanced Software for Professional Writers

Professional Writing and Technical Communication Certificate Program

(open only to juniors and seniors with a GPA of a 3.0 or higher)

English 381 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II
English 382 Professional Writing and Technical Communication III
English 391C Advanced Software for Professional Writers