Introductory Creative Writing
The study of the basic craft concepts of poetry and fiction.
Learn more about this courseFall 2020 Courses
Discovering Literature
This course will explore American literary culture through the lens of novels and other types of writing which have sold extraordinary well in the United States over the past two centuries.
Learn more about this courseIntroduction to Fiction
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72), and Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1998).
Learn more about this courseThe Poetics of Rap
This course will explore the most popular version of poetry in America right now: rap music. We will look at the different ways emcees use traditional poetics to better understand contemporary American poetry and the place (if any) rap has in the poetic conversation. Our study of the history of rap music will be extensive and will include a range of eras, poetic styles, and emcees including Gil Scott Heron, Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest, Lauren Hill, Lil Wayne, and Kendrick Lamar among many others.
Learn more about this courseLiterary Masterpieces 1
In this class, we'll tackle perhaps the most legendary work in all of American literature, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Nominally about a voyage to track down the infamous white whale, Melville's bizarre, hilarious, intense, wonderful novel is also about nearly everything else under the sun: friendship, philosophy, obsession, demagoguery, capitalism, the human fascination with the sea... The list goes on. We'll give the leviathan-sized book the attention it deserves over seven weeks. Join us!
Learn more about this courseWhy Shakespeare?
Shakespeare! What is all the fuss about? Why do we continue to read and see Shakespeare's plays, and what is it about them that makes his work so meaningful after four-hundred-plus years? What do we mean when we say that something -- a situation, a play, a movie, a novel, a set of emotions, an event -- is "Shakespearean"? Was Shakespeare the "mass media" of his day, and if so, how and why? Given that Shakespeare wrote his plays during the Renaissance in England, what was it about that era that produced or contributed to his sensibility? What was and remains unique about the way he challenged his own time and continues to challenge ours? We will pursue these questions through intensive in-depth reading and discussion of six plays that arguably represent what is most Shakespearean about Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Othello, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Requirements: three take-home essay exams and a final exam. Attendance and participation will count for 20% of your course grade.
Learn more about this courseIntro to World Literature in English
This class will examine the worldwide popularity of the mystery/crime fiction literary genre through the lens of the BBC radio program “Foreign Bodies.” Through paired readings of novels, critical sources, and the BBC podcasts, we will trace how the police procedural/detective drama genre conventions stay the same across continents even as writers adapt key elements of the narrative conventions to better suit their legal systems and cultural contexts.
Learn more about this courseThe Galactic Club: The Evoluation of Science Fiction
How the genre links developments in science, technology and society.
Learn more about this courseStudies in Gender and Sexuality: Binaries and Beyond
This course will examine the ways in which gender and sexual categories in literature challenge and interrogate social norms.
Learn more about this courseIntroduction to the Advanced Study of Literature: Nightlife
In the stretch between sunset and sunrise, whole worlds come into being.
Learn more about this courseIntroduction to the Advanced Study of Literature: Landscapes of Trauma and Conquest
In this course, we will examine first how literary landscapes are represented by the colonizer and the colonized and explore how these landscapes of conquest can also be site of trauma.
Learn more about this courseIntroduction to the Advanced Study of Literature: Classic and Revision
Introduction to a range of sophisticated strategies for analyzing and interpreting literature.
Learn more about this coursePleasure and Revenge: American Film Culture in the Age of Terrorism, Economic Instability, Rising Authoritarianism, and Climate Change
The study of the concepts of revenge and pleasure.
Learn more about this courseArgumentation and Public Advocacy: Bring U.S. Together
As we learn about different kinds of advocacy you will have the chance to develop your own sense of how you would like to use argumentation as a citizen concerned about the common good.
Learn more about this courseProfessional Writing Skills
This course is designed to help students, in any field develop writing and research skills which will be useful in the professional world and any future writing project.
Learn more about this courseCommunity Service Writing: Going Public - Promoting Wellbeing in our Communities Through Stories
This is an opportunity to serve with a local community organization and to advocate for its mission, events, and/or initiatives through storytelling.
Learn more about this courseCollaborative Digital Writing
We will partner with a local nonprofit on a real-world case to develop the integrated set of teamwork, writing, and digital skills you need to become an ace collaborator.
Learn more about this courseLiterary History 1
Major works in English literature from Beowulf up to the 17th-century.
Learn more about this courseLiterary History 2
A broad overview of British and American literature in the 18th- and 19th-centuries - an era of empire, industry, and revolution, which produced modern democratic states and modern notions of self-hood.
Learn more about this courseLiterary History 3: Modern Times
The course surveys major works in 20th- and 21st-century Anglophone literatures.
Learn more about this courseTwentieth-Century British Fiction, 1945-2000
A survey of English prose in the second half of the 20th-century.
Learn more about this courseLiterature of the Bible
Literary qualities of the Bible's own stories, poems, proverbs, etc.
Learn more about this courseCritical Practices: Marx, Nietzsche, Frued, Saussure and THEIR Legacies
The focus of this course will be on how to read theory with emphasis on four important thinkers: Marx, Freud, Saussure, and Nietzsche.
Learn more about this courseFeminisms In and Out of Time
In “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde writes that “there are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves – along with the renewed courage to try them out.” This semester, we will have the courage to try out these ideas – including the fact that black and queer women have been at the heart of feminism from its inception. We’ll read 17th century romance, works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, feminist accounts of Eve’s superiority, and contemporary scholarship. 2 short papers and a research project.
Learn more about this courseRace and Ethnicity in the American Graphic Novel
We will consider how Jewish, African American, Latino, and Asian American visual narratives have portrayed race and ethnicity.
Learn more about this courseWelcome to the Terrordome: Black Art in Contemporary America
Exploring music, visual art, film, and literary fiction, we will interrogate the various ways that contemporary African American artists have responded to political events.
Learn more about this courseFreedom of Speech
This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the background, context, interpretations, and implications of the right and practice of free speech in the US.
Learn more about this courseRhetoric of Social Movements: Democracy in U.S. Movement Rhetoric
This course will compare the tactics of several movements to see how their approach to democracy influences their rhetoric.
Learn more about this coursePublic Memory in Communication and Culture
This class studies what public/collective memory is and how it works persuasively in society.
Learn more about this courseWriting Fiction
We'll read fiction by those considered masters of the short story genre. I will expect you to put your analytical skills to use in reading like a writr and stories apart according to their craft elements. You'll write short creative assignments, and an analytical essay in addition to two stories to share in workshop.
Learn more about this courseWriting Fiction
This intermediate fiction workshop class offers a sampling of short stories, self-contained novel excerpts, and basic fiction theory focused specifically on understanding story mechanics and learning how to “read actively.”
Learn more about this courseWriting Poetry
In this class, we will be analyzing poetry by breaking it down into basic elements.
Learn more about this courseWriting Creative Nonfiction: Essay and Error
In this workshop we will embrace the possibilities of error.
Learn more about this courseVisual Literacy and Document Design
How does the design of a document - the material shaping of text on a page - contribute to its effectiveness in chieving its purposes?
Learn more about this courseThe Craft of Poetry
This is a class for emerging poets and for anyone that wishes to explore the "oldest art."
Learn more about this courseHerman Melville
We'll spend the whale's share of our time in this class with Melville's masterpiece, but we'll also dip into some of his excellent shorter fiction and look at some of the scholarship his work has inspired.
Learn more about this courseJ.R.R. Tolien and the Roots of Modern Fantasy
In “On Fairy Stories,” John Ronald Reuel Tolkien sets out his thoughts on Fantasy, which he believes to be a “high form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.” This is a surprisingly bold statement from an Oxford professor holding one of the most important named chairs in Old English studies. And yet, most of the world remembers Tolkien not for his contributions to the study of Beowulf or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but as the “father” of modern fantasy. The imaginative intricacies of his Middle-Earth legendarium and enduring legacy of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have shaped a burgeoning contemporary genre and greatly influenced modern popular culture. In this course, we will study the works of Tolkien—particularly his most well known—in great detail, immersing ourselves in his feat of “sub-creation,” marveling over every intricate leaf. This will, in turn, allow us to reflect back on Tolkien’s twentieth-century concerns (some conscious, some less so) and think more broadly about fantasy and whether it is, indeed, the most nearly pure form of Art known to humankind.
Learn more about this courseDevils and Democracy: Milton and the American Revolution
This seminar will feature the writings of John Milton.
Learn more about this courseAdvanced Fiction Writing
In this course, we will attempt to write a novel -- either three beginning novel chapters or a short novella (between 40 and 50 pages) that can either stand on its own or serve as a condensed version of a longer novel that you can then work on in the future.
Learn more about this courseAdvanced Poetry Writing
This course is an advanced undergraduate writing workshop in writing poetry.
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The College of Arts