English Course Offerings

The English Department's course offerings vary by semester. We offer 100-level composition courses, 200-level introductory courses, 300-level intermediate courses, 400-level advanced courses, and 500-level graduate courses.

▼ SPRING 2024: Themed Literature Surveys (200 LEVEL)

Spring 2024 Themed Literature Surveys

Hillyer (215.104 or EH 215.112; MWF 11:15-12:05 or MWF 9:05-9:55)
Patterns of Virtue and Vice

We will study representative works of British literature produced before 1785, or dating across about a thousand years, and including masterpieces by some of the greatest writers of any time or place: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton. More particularly, we will focus on patterns of virtue and vice, as traced on both a larger and smaller scale: across dramatically changing historical conditions, but also within particular individuals presented as exemplary. We will also examine some ambiguous cases: embodiments of virtue and (or) vice.

O'Berry (216.107; TR 12:30-1:45)
The Anatomy of the Human Condition

This course will examine the social construction of the human body in a range of texts concerning the past 200 years of English literature. From Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, and Seamus Heaney, this survey will explore the various ways in which the human body is made culturally meaningful by exploring how multiple texts engage in the production of that meaning and isolate the body as a site of both aesthetic pleasure and social power. The course will consider how the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern periods present the body as natural and unnatural, manipulable and resistant, colonized, fetishized, surveilled, and policed, and how it becomes a site of desire. Such representations, as is evident in the case of political and medical discourse about bodies, ultimately not only represent their physicality but also determine and inform it.

Frye (216.101; MWF 1:25-2:15)
Monstrous Bodies

This section of EH 216 will focus on how British literature after 1785 addresses how texts approach monstrous bodies. We will examine how authors from the Romantic to the current era define what makes a body monstrous. This class will focus on discussions of how authors from these eras use the human body as a tool to provide commentary on the social, cultural, and historical issues of their own time. Although monstrous bodies in literature will be the focal point of the class, we will also look at how what becomes defined as a monstrous body can be inextricably tied to all parts of our world, including gender, race, class, empire, and religion.

Harrington (216.102; TR 9:30-10:45)
Doubles and Imposters

Interested in the idea of a monstrous double—or individuals who are not what they seem to be? This Survey of British Literature after 1785 considers interesting pairings from the horrific to the humorous in British literature from the Romantic period to the present. We will use these doubles and imposters to investigate race and gender, nation and empire, guilt and innocence, and memory and identity in a sampling of texts ranging from Frankenstein to Monty Python and beyond.

Tallent (215.105; TR 2:00-3:15)
Heroes and Heroines

The idea of what constitutes heroism is an ephemeral thing that changes with the ages, and through these changes, the greatest triumphs and failures of an epoch are distilled into perpetual windows that allow us an unparalleled view of the past and its peoples. In this section of EH 215, we will track the evolution of heroes and heroines across the foundational texts of early British literature beginning with epic warriors, such as mighty Beowulf and Grendel's deadly mother, to chivalrous Sir Guyon and virtuous Britomart before ending with the likes of beautiful Belinda and the roguish Baron.

McLaughlin (225.101; MWF 11:15-12:05)
American Fanatics and Heretics

The story we tell ourselves about our Puritan forebearers is one in which a courageous band of faithful Christians create a "city upon a hill" as a beacon of religious tolerance and good will. But, in fact, from the 17th century's three "crime waves"—the Antinomian Controversy, the Quaker Persecutions, and the Salem Witch Trials—to the three Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries, religious controversy and intolerance have been the order of the day. This course examines the highs and the lows of our spotted religious history and their impact on American literature.

Cesarini (225.104; MWF 2:30-3:20)
Working the Dream in America

From its beginnings, the thing that became the United States has been driven and divided by clashes between idealists and pragmatists, dreamers and workers, maniacs and normies. In this section of EH 225 we will read the classics that conceptualize these divisions, from Puritans to Deists, Slavers to Escape-Artists, with appearances by Mad Scientists, Penny-Pinchers, Sojourners, Layabouts, Catatonics, and Opium-Eaters.

Cowley (225.113; TR 12:30-1:45)
Economic Crisis

Hard Times! Panic! Going Bust! Collapse! Crisis! Down with Machines! Revolution! Workers Unite!—this course examines the birth of American capitalism and its historical discontents as represented in literary work from revolutionary period to the Civil War. We will investigate how the industrial revolution, bourgeois culture, and market crisis transformed American society on both the level of the individual and the social, and how American authors both celebrated and criticized these historical transformations.

Vrana (226.105 - H; TR 2:00-3:15)
Race and Memory

How did we get to our current moment, when it seems American life and politics are so dominated by disagreements about race and racism? It turns out that these debates have always raged just as fiercely. And American literature since 1865 has played a key role in shaping those conversations, whether resulting from the Civil War or from more recent historical events. This section of EH226 will focus on how post-1865 American authors of all types and identities have engaged in—or sometimes tried to ignore—questions about the role of race in remembering our nation's past and forging its future.

Owsley (226.101 or 226.103; MWF 11:15-12:05 or MWF 9:05-9:55)
2021: A Space Odyssey

This course is inspired by the expansive genre of speculative fiction, work that imagines—even reimagines—our past, present, and future. Speculative fiction is intentionally undefinable; it's a shape-shifting genre that seeks to challenge our worldviews by reconfiguring our conceptions of place, space, and time. Science fiction, utopias, dystopias, the supernatural, and Afrofuturism are particularly useful for contemplating who we are, by displacing where we are. We will utilize speculative fiction to investigate how American authors envision an inclusive and diverse national identity through the creation of mythical, but recognizable, landscapes.

Roddy (235.105; MWF 1:25-2:15)
Body Language

Bodies can be sources of strength, points of punishment, and repositories of shame. They connect us, make us vulnerable, and bring us pleasure. They age—and finally fail—leading universally to death. The joys and pains of corporal existence, as universal human experiences across time and space, are ripe for connection and exploration. In this collaborative section, loosely themed in conjunction with the English Department's speaker series on bodies, we will read and analyze defining texts of early world literature, pausing frequently to consider various depictions of the potential and limitations of our life in flesh.

Dail (235.106; MWF 10:10-11:00)
The Human Experience

What does it mean to be human? Since the first conceptualization of the modern human, our species has explored the human experience through writing. Through the "paper trail" that has been weaved through the centuries by our ancestors, our understanding of what it means to be human has both progressed, but has also remained the same in many ways. Most of our ideas on the dawning of the world and humankind, the cycle of life and death, and the search for meaning through religion and philosophy still have no solid answers. In this course we will step back in time to the very beginnings, when the world was being fashioned, to see how humanity has weaved its tale through writing and literature. We'll explore how ancient humans from various cultures connect to each other and to modern humans in the most basic ways: through birth, life, death, and all the human emotions, desires, and experiences had in between.

Peterson (236.104; TR 12:30-1:45)
Social Justice through Writing

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Not he [or she] is great who can alter matter, but he [or she] who can alter my state of mind." How do great authors enlighten us to their way of thinking, and what genre of writing has the greatest power to do so? We will study many genres: satires, dramas, mock epics, essays, animal fables, and novels to make our determinations as to how writing enacts change in the past and today. Some of the impactful works we will study are: Jean de la Fontaine's animal fables, Jonathan Swifts' Gulliver's Travels and "Modest Proposal," Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock" and "Essay on Man," and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

▼ SPRING 2024: Upper-Division Courses (300/400 LEVEL)

Spring 2024 Upper-Division Courses

EH 300 - Introduction to Literary Study | Harrington
TR 12:30-1:45

The Introduction to Literary Study class allows us to discuss literature in depth while reviewing the tools and fundamentals of reading literature, exploring critical interpretations of literary texts, and using textual and scholarly evidence to make an argument. In a class loosely organized around various versions of the femme fatale, we will develop persuasive and engaging critical arguments on texts ranging from Austen to noir and consider the broader importance of this kind of work outside of the classroom.

EH 320 - Poetry: Critical Reading and Analysis | Hillyer
TR 1:25-2:15

We will begin with intensive study of the limerick as a form, before turning to other kinds of light verse. Then we will work our way through Timothy Steele's offputtingly-titled but otherwise excellent guide All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification. We will conclude by focusing on several volumes of verse by Vikram Seth—a contemporary Anglo-Indian poet, novelist, and translator who keeps finding fresh uses for the traditional resources of meter and rhyme.

EH 334 - American Poetry to 1900 | Cesarini
MWF 10:10-11:00

You will read longer selections by literary champs Walter ("Barbaric Yawp") Whitman and Emily ("Heavenly Hurt") Dickinson, interspersed with shorter rounds. You will consider questions like "When Is a Poet More Powerful than a Locomotive?" and "What Was Worse: the Civil War, or Civil War Poetry?" You will do lots of counting to ten (more or less), following tenors to their vehicles, getting rhythm, pursuing words to their roots. And you will put it all together in several sharp, bright, elegantly-written essays.

EH 365 - British Novel since 1945 | St. Clair
MWF 12:20-1:10

By popular demand, the syllabus has been shortened! Less reading! More fun! Maybe even a few YA novels! [Okay, I'm kidding about that last part. No YA novels. I haven't taken leave of my senses.] Readings will include John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (1984), Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989), Ali Smith's How to Be Both (2014), and Salman Rushdie's Quichotte (2019).

EH 371 - Approaches to English Grammar | Beason
MWF 1:25-2:15

So what is a dangling participle anyway? EH 371 offers students a valuable intellectual and practical skill: the ability to analyze and describe in technical terms how a given sentence is structured (beyond just saying it does or doesn't "flow"). While the course was originally developed for students planning to teach English courses at the secondary level, EH 371 is useful for just about anyone wanting to edit, write, analyze literary texts, teach non-native speakers of English, practice law, or learn more about the English language. EH 371 is also a W-course and can help fulfill the W-course requirement for English majors and many other students.

EH 372 - Technical Writing (W) | Amare
Online

The course is designed to help you to accomplish the following:

Understand and analyze writing situations and technologies and invoke the roles and strategies necessary to produce effective writing in localized and globalized contexts.
Improve your understanding of how writing practices and genres (memos, email, proposals, reports, and websites) function within and across organizations, including how various readers read, where readers look for information, and what multiple purposes documents serve inside and outside particular situations.
Produce more effective visual, textual, and multimedia documents.

EH 372 - Technical Writing (W) | Guzy
MWF 9:05-9:55 or 11:15-12:05

The purpose of this course is to train students in the kinds of written reports required of practicing professionals, aiming to improve mastery of the whole process of report writing from conceptual stage through editing stage. This course will introduce you to types of written and oral communication used in workplace settings, with a focus on technical reporting and editing. Through several document cycles, you will develop skills in managing the organization, development, style, and visual format of various documents.

EH 380 - Science Fiction | Beason
MWF 2:30-3:20

Not intended for mere "fans," EH 380 enables us to better define, analyze, and interpret science fiction. Our focus will be modern short stories, along with a few films and novels. Questions we will explore include the following. Why does science fiction express both our love and fear of technology? Is religion a counterpart or antithesis to science? How does science fiction both complicate and sustain conventional notions of gender? And what do these stories suggest about being "fully human" and "good" in an impersonal technological era?

EH 390 - The Spirituals | Jackson
TR 11:00-12:15

Explore the aesthetic of the spirituals! Course discussion will engage common themes in the "sorrow songs" known traditionally as "Negro Spirituals." We will examine both texts and recordings then contemplate how the same aesthetic principles are continued in the work of modern artists including Zora Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. This course meets the historical requirement for coursework in twentieth-century literature and provides a thoughtful reflection on a prominent element of contemporary American culture, enhancing your ability to interpret meaning in modern applications of the aesthetic specific to Negro Spirituals.

EH 391 - Fiction Writing | Johnson
TR 2:00-3:15

This course will introduce students to elements required to make strong short fiction—observation, plot, setting, characterization, surprise, economy, point of view, and so on. By reading contemporary examples of short fiction written in a variety of styles and modes, students will begin organizing their own craft toolboxes, which they'll then use to build original stories they share with their peers. After all, as the writer George Saunders said, "To study the way we read is to study the way the mind works: the way it evaluates a statement for truth, the way it behaves in relation to another mind (i.e. the writer's) across space and time." In doing so, students will question what makes interesting short fiction, consider why they feel an urge to tell a particular story, and analyze how to shape said urge into a surprising, immensely readable work of art.

EH 402 - Rhetoric: Ancient and Modern (W) | Shaw
TR 12:30-1:45

Beginning with the early sophists of Periclean Athens and ending in the twenty-first century, this course examines and compares various movements in the history of rhetoric, with particular emphasis on the relationship between rhetorical strategy and one's image of human beings. The course aims to increase the scope of students' understanding of rhetoric and help them apply this knowledge to their own communication and to their evaluation of the communications of others.

EH 470 - Medieval Literature | Halbrooks
TR 3:30-4:45

This course will focus on Medieval Ecologies from Beowulf to Tolkien. We will study literary representations of travel, landscape, and ecology from the Middle Ages of northwestern Europe (primarily the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Iceland), as well as how these representations have interacted with modern literature and ideas. In addition to our medieval and modern primary texts, we will read from the growing body of medievalist ecocriticism.

EH 477 - Young Adult Fiction | Guzy
MWF 1:25-2:15

This course is designed for students who plan to teach secondary English Language Arts, write YA literature, pursue a career in library science or publishing, or simply gain a deeper appreciation for YA literature. Throughout this semester, students will (1) survey the history of YA literature; (2) establish a list of resources to aid in teaching, writing, publishing, and curating YA literature, including professional organizations, publishers, major awards, and advocacy groups; (3) perform close reading of select award-winning and frequently challenged YA texts; and (4) engage critically with the material in oral and written assignments.

EH 478 - Studies in Film: The Corporeal Image | McLaughlin
MW 5-6:15, M 6:30-9

The body has always had the potential to unsettle us with its strange demands and desires, exigencies and suppurations, and thus throughout the ages, it has been a subject of interest and, more emphatically, of obsession. When you are dealing with the body, you never know where it will take you. What you can be sure of, however, is that it will take you somewhere fascinating as you will see in this class, the focus of which is the body as represented in film. Over the course of the semester, we will watch and discuss films on the body and aging, beauty, disability, gender, illness, race, science, and sexuality. Because of the visual medium (film) and the subject matter (the human body), I do not recommend this class for those who are uncomfortable watching frank depictions of sex or violence.

EH 481 - Composition and Rhetoric (W) | Beason
MWF 11:15-12:05

Been feeling programmed, controlled, and indoctrinated? Our world is full of messages designed to persuade you — even when the author thinks s/he is providing objective information. Should we not realize what these messages are — and whether they are manipulative, benign, or "good"? To answer such questions, this course will draw on varied rhetorical approaches that analyze texts and put theory into practice.

EH 487 - Screenwriting for Film | Prince
R 6:00-8:30

This class focuses on the fundamentals of screenwriting for film. We will study character development, conflict, structure, formatting, and so on as we explore how to write screenplays. Our focus will be as expansive as possible, covering drama, comedy, and action genres. Students will write at least one close analysis of a screenplay in addition to extensive work in beginning two original screenplays. Screenplays will be workshopped in class and revised accordingly.

EH 497 - Literary Journalism | Tucker
TR 11:00-12:15

The course will examine works of journalism that employ the ingredients literary writing — character, plot, theme, etc. — which, for the journalist, as compared to the fiction writer, are discovered rather than invented. Among the books included will be John Hersey's Hiroshima and Isabel Wilkerson's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Warmth of Other Suns. Other writers will range from James Baldwin to Ronan Farrow. Students will be asked to write their own literary nonfiction essays.

▼ SPRING 2024: Graduate Courses (500 LEVEL)

Spring 2024 Graduate Courses

EH 501 - Introduction to Critical Theory | Vrana
R 6:00-8:30

EH 501 provides an introduction to some of the most essential debates within and approaches to critical theory and literary criticism. We will read excerpts by important theorists grouped topically and focus on effective methods of bringing these wide-ranging lenses to two primary texts of contemporary African American literature. Discussion, written responses, presentations and two papers will develop students' facility and comfort with engaging theory going forward, regardless of the particular object of analysis.

EH 508 - Workplace Writing Contexts | Amare
W 6:00-8:30

Students in EH 508 will examine theories, practices, and historical foundations of professional writing within modern AI contexts.* We will

trace the historical development of professional writing from classical rhetoric to current workplace practices
explore AI in contemporary professional writing: automated content generation, chatbots, and relevant AI-driven applications
assess critically the impact and ethical concerns of AI on content creation and distribution.

*This course description was developed with chat.openai.com.

EH 570 - Studies in Medieval Literature | Halbrooks
W 2:30-5:00

EH 573 - Contemporary Fiction | St. Clair
M 6:00-8:30

EH 588 - Writing and Diversity | Johnson
T 6:00-8:30

This course will interrogate a lack of diversity at the core of published fiction in America, as well as how we teach and write stories in academic settings. After all, as Matthew Salesses says in his book Craft in the Real World, "When we write fiction, we write the world." Students in this course will be expected to engage in conversations about appropriation and representation from a craft-based perspective. In doing so, they will form personal ethics and aesthetics to inform decisions they make on the page.

EH 591 - Screenwriting for Film | Prince
R 6:00-8:30

A full listing of all courses in the departmental catalog is available via the University Bulletin. For a listing of courses offered in a given semester, please visit the University's Schedule of Classes. (Select "Dynamic Schedule" > "Browse Classes," enter the catalog term you wish to search, and select "English" as the subject.)