This course will approach the topic of Gender, Sexualty, Literature, & Culture through a case study in a subsect of women’s fiction known as “Chick Lit.” Students will explore the intersectionalities of gender, sex, and sexuality in and through a collection of texts from a variety of women’s perspectives from across the 20th century and into the 21st. We’ll put pressure on the boundaries of “women’s fiction,” “low/middle brow literature,” “girlhood,” “female friendship,” and “literary canon” all while practicing critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. (Gen.Ed. AL, DG)

English 202 Later British literature and culture (British literature after 1700 or 200 elective)
Instructor: Shewtha Chandraskhar

The development of British literature from the Enlightenment of the 18th century through the Romaticism and Realism of the 19th century to the Modernism of the early 20th century; literary response to scientific and industrial changes, political revolution and the technical and social reordering of British society.  Open only to English majors, and those studying at the University on international or domestic exchange.

English 339 Film and Literature (300 elective)
Instructor: Thakshala Tissera

Film-works as extensions, continuations, syntheses, and reconstitutions of cultural and artistic traditions. The historical, formal, and aesthetic relationships between literature and the cinema. Emphasis on problems raised in literary aesthetics as a result of film.

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

Learn strategies and skills for presenting your book, your articles, your ideas, and yourself in a compelling and competitive manner to potential readers and buyers. Focusing on the rapidly changing world of publishing, will explore creative writing concepts that apply equally in creating job applications and business proposals.

Fall 2023 Semester English Course Listing:

Sept 5th - December 8th

English 132 Gender Sexuality, Literary & Culture (ALDG)
Intructor: Sam Davis

In ENG 132, we will explore five fundamental theoretical concepts in the Humanities and apply them to a handful of 20th-21st century literary texts written by authors of color. These fundamental concepts include scholarship on Race, Gender, Disability, Class, and Culture itself. We will read core scholars such as Robert McRuer, Devon Carbado, Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Jennifer Morgan, and Kevin Quashie. Each theoretical text will accompany a literary text including James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Lena Nsomeka-Gomes’s “When I Was A Little Girl,” Cameron Awkward-Rich’s Sympathetic Little Monster, as well as a film, Paris Is Burning, and one episode from the television series Pose. 

The goal of this class is to take complex theoretical concepts and simplify them. In this spirit, the final assignment of the class is to create a digital collection of TikTok videos in which each student takes a theoretical concept and boils it down for a general audience. These videos will be created on a weekly basis wherein each student tackles a particular concept and posts their video on the Moodle. These TikToks then serve as asynchronous weekly material that assists students in their understanding of these difficult concepts. The two skills we work to develop in this class are close reading of dense theoretical texts, and then the ability to explain and describe complex ideas to others, outside of an academic context.

English 254 Introduction to Creative Writing (AL)(200 elective)(creative writing)
Instructor: Ide Thompson

Analysis of problems of form, elements of genre, style and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts. Lecture, discussion, 5 poems, 2 stories, 2 essays. (Gen. Ed. AL)

English 339 Film and Literature (300 elective)
Instructor: Jon Hoel

This course will engage the process of adaptation, the curious dynamic of cinema and literature, a compelling and complex relationship that continues to produce some of the most interesting texts, year after year. We will challenge preexisting ideas of cinema, of adaptation, and of what makes for an interesting film by questioning cinematic narratives and genre conventions and see how far we can push our textual analysis with cinema. We will read film theory, look at some scripts, and watch some video essays on recent developments in movies. 

The course will engage all kinds of films including but not limited to:
Diary of a Country Priest – dir. Robert Bresson (1951)
The Ascent – dir. Larisa Shepitko (1977)
Solaris & Stalker – dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (1972 & 1979)
Adaptation – dir. Charlie Kaufmann (2002)
First Reformed – dir. Paul Schrader (2017)
Stars at Noon – dir. Claire Denis (2022)

English 385 Creative Writing Nonfiction (300 elective)(creative writing)
Instructor: Connie Griffin

The popular genre of Creative Nonfiction incorporates literary techniques such as character development and complication, setting and scene, imagery, and symbolic usage. The genre directs a reader’s awareness toward narrative persona and thematic resonance as well as scene and situation. Because it’s such a broad term, identifying subgenres helps in defining it. These include, among others: biography, autobiography, memoir, essays, literary journalism. Experimentations include nonlinear narrative techniques such as stream of consciousness, flashbacks, and episodic vignettes. In addition to becoming informed about creative nonfiction subgenres and literary techniques, we will focus on writing as a process, approach readings (including peers’ writings) as writers, and apply innovative, as well as traditional research methods, to our writing projects. Although students will experiment with the subgenres of creative nonfiction listed above, you are free to choose your own topics, structural devices, and thematic goals. We will engage in a creative community process of discussion, peer review, and revision.  

English 391AG Writing the Graphic Novel (300 elective)(creative writing)
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 elective)(creative writing)
Instructor Sefan Petrucha

Learn strategies and skills for presenting your book, your articles, your ideas, and yourself in a compelling and competitive manner to potential readers and buyers. Focusing on the rapidly changing world of publishing, will explore creative writing concepts that apply equally in creating job applications and business proposals.