English (ENGL)

Authors through the centuries have used the interdependent skills of reading and writing to discover and engage with ideas across a range of complex topics and subject matter. Students learn techniques to read, critique, and interpret a variety of texts, and apply narrative, expository, and evidence-based rhetorical strategies to convey their ideas in written work.

With their strong portraits of family, society, religion and place, Southern authors interpret the rich heritage of the region through vivid and memorable prose. In this course, students analyze Southern literature to explore the themes and challenges of gender, class and race particular to the region’s history. Through the works of writers such as Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor, students learn differing styles and approaches to capturing the Southern experience.

The works of William Shakespeare have captivated audiences for centuries, leaving an indelible impression on the English language and culture. Students delve into the world of the Bard through close examination of texts within the historical and cultural contexts that inspired his representation of the human condition. From the earliest interpretations to contemporary adaptations, this course celebrates one of the most influential authors of the Western canon.

The Romantic writers of the 18th and 19th centuries confronted contemporary readers with unflinching depictions of the primitive, instinctual, supernatural, macabre and deviant. Works as divergent as Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein revolutionized conceptions of societal and cultural norms. Students immerse themselves in this paradigm-shifting literature through analysis of structural, theoretical and thematic qualities of representative texts.

Arthurian legend forms an exquisite backdrop for creative expression. Students explore Arthurian traditions over time and across genres by reading medieval texts and modern revisions, tracing themes such as quest, kingdom and courtly love, and evaluating why and how the traditions remain vital. Students also encounter visual and musical adaptations of the material.

Humans are storytellers. In this course, students answer questions about how stories work across genres and mediums, focusing on the universal qualities all good narratives share. Students read classic and modern fairy tales, examples of the epic tradition, fictions, plays, various archetypal approaches to narrative, and the writings of Joseph Campbell and others. Students apply narrative conventions to produce an original story of their own making.

Literary masterpieces transcend cultural boundaries and transport readers to lands and times distinct from their own. In this exploration of literary masterpieces from around the globe, students discover connections among diverse cultures and learn to appreciate the shared experience of narrative expression. Poetry, drama and prose are analyzed within relevant cultural, historical and geographic contexts.

Women have forged a powerful voice in the literary world — from Virginia Woolf and bell hooks to Angela Carter and Jamaica Kincaid. Through critical analysis of captivating narratives that challenge patriarchy and celebrate empowerment, students explore the historical and cultural trends surrounding women’s ongoing pursuit for equality and agency.

Through the study of modern and contemporary poetics, students explore the various genres and functions of poetry. Through literary interpretations of poetry, students examine the influence of traditional works on the contemporary poems and social culture of today. Students demonstrate their knowledgeable of modern and postmodern poetry through critical analysis and evaluation of written works.

From its origins in the African diaspora, African-American literature chronicles the struggle of a people to find voice in a new world and explore what it means to be African-American in the United States. Students witness the beauty and endurance of the human spirit and the contemporary quest for equality and justice as they investigate and analyze a range literary works by notable African-American authors.

This course examines writers’ responses to nature, urbanization and the Industrial Revolution by analyzing the changing view of human nature during these years. The study of Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson introduces students to the great American fiction writers, poets and essayists of the second half of the 19th century.

Innovative. Rebellious. Skeptical. Authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker disrupted traditional literary form and style in the first half of the 20th Century. Based on an understanding of historical and contemporary aesthetic theories and practices, students in this course analyze the defining qualities of cultural production and investigate the significance of select American modern literary texts.

In the struggle to redefine reality following World War II, a generation of authors emerged ready to challenge social norms and inspire new ways of thinking about and creating literature. Through analysis of fiction, drama and poetry written after 1945, students in this course delve into the vibrant and unconventional literary scene of the contemporary world.

For as long as humans have been telling stories, humor has served as a means to evoke sympathy, to elicit reactions, and to say what otherwise could not be said. In this course, students study various functions and theories of humor through a range of media such as theater, written works, film, and more. Students demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of literary humor through oral presentations and written assignments.

From tales of the underworld to the great flood, human beings use myths to find meaning in their origins, environments, lives and ultimate destinies. These mythologies — captured in the works of artists and authors — explain the origination of some of humanity’s most cherished beliefs. Students in this course examine mythological traditions and discover common narrative elements across diverse world cultures.

From deep sea voyages and dystopic nightmares to alien invasions to transhuman takeovers, science fiction explores questions about the origination, state and future of humanity. Through the study of classic science fiction texts and films, students investigate literature that pushes the boundaries of space and time and continues to inspire technological and scientific discovery today.

Students read and discuss some of the greatest writers in the history of literature, such as Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal and more, where jealousy means treason, love meets death, and frustration leads to madness. These great works show us the deepest darkness and the greatest triumph of what it means to be human.

Students study the evolution of the Latin American short story through the 21st century, with readings and class discussions focused on the close connection of political thought and literary movements in Latin America. Students read major Spanish-American writers, among them Nobel Prize winners Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Octavio Paz, exploring fantastic literary terrain where the supernatural erupts into reality.

Through the exploration of literary movements, key themes and techniques associated with pioneering Spanish-American female poets, essayists and fiction writers from the 20th century, students gain insight into the lived experiences of Spanish Americans. This course also discusses how the feminine and/or feminist ideas shape the writing and the dynamic cosmovision of Spanish-American women.

Through multidimensional characters and cultural juxtapositions, Asian-American authors represent the complexity of merging traditional beliefs with more liberal cultural norms. The fragile balance of individuality, family, honor, prosperity and other characteristics of the Asian-American experience are investigated through works by representative authors.

Through the analysis and discussion of literary texts, students explore diverse representations of maleness and masculinities. Using literary and rhetorical devices, students investigate varied constructions of masculine identities and social roles in a range of cultural and historical contexts. Prominent topics include sexual identity, body image and changing gender relations. Depictions of masculinities in film, popular media and sports are also analyzed.

The Harry Potter series revolutionized not only children's and adolescent literature through captivating narratives, but it also set new creative standards for the writing industry. In this course, students expand their knowledge of these novels by exploring key narrative elements, while redefining their perspectives of storytelling and their significance within their respective industries.

The arrangement of the texts for this course, including poetry, short fiction and essays, provides students with a sense of literary development in China. Important historical and literary background is covered in lectures. Great importance is placed on class discussion and on creating a dialogue of interpretations about the texts. Students learn about the development of Chinese literature and a number of its important contemporary texts. They evaluate literary texts using critical thinking and reading and writing skills while also using these skills to create imitations of their own.

While "adaptation" is most often associated with movies based on novels or comics, this course embraces a cross-media phenomenon and vehicle by which stories travel. Looking to representative forms such as illustration, maps, novelization and pop-up books, this course reveals the importance of adaptation and storytelling to our culture and examines the specific elements that go into effective adaptation and storytelling, regardless of media.

This course focuses on the genre of the detective narrative and traces its history by examining important examples from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Students read work by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Walter Mosley and Ed McBain, and study films, television and radio programs, comic books, graphic novels and games in order to develop a fuller understanding of fictional detectives and crime detection.

This course invites students of all faiths and worldviews to explore the Bible as a literary artifact. By investigating this central text of Western culture and history, students explore how the books of the Old and New Testaments were constructed and how the literary forms of the Bible have influenced popular culture in films, music, literature, superhero narratives, video games and more.

This course invites students to explore what many consider the defining literary genre of our time: memoir. Students read some of the funniest and strangest memoirs of the recent and distant past, investigating how writers "remember" details so vividly, how memories are shaped into stories, and how life can be made into art. Students also learn to turn their own memories into stories that reveal something true about what it means to be human.

For Greek society in the 5th century B.C., theater was the pulse of culture and entertainment -- a forum where gods took human form to portray epic narratives of a rich mythology. Through an analysis of works by Greek playwrights, students in this course examine the origins of theatrical conventions and the classic dramatic themes that continue to drive entertainment and storytelling today.

Inhibited by the constraints of her assigned gender, Lady Macbeth's bold cry, "Unsex me here," maintains contemporary relevance. As notions of gender, sex and sexuality undergo continual scrutiny and metamorphosis, Shakespearean scholars use critical approaches to reveal a deeper understanding of how these constructs have evolved through centuries. In this course, students explore Shakespeare's presentations of gender, sex and sexuality to examine his subversion of conventional perceptions.

Course readings focus on major writers who originated noir conventions such as the suspense-thriller plot, the femme fatale and the immobilized hero. Analyses of representative texts explore how the aesthetic arrangements of noir fiction engage contemporary social issues and offer incisive depictions of moral ambiguity, civic disorder and class conflict.

Through close reading of selected writers, students investigate the history of rhetoric, exploring diverse definitions of rhetoric(s) and studying the theoretical practices in several contexts that include public and academic spaces. A sampling of rhetoricians could include Gloria Anzaldua, Aristotle, Mary Astell, James Berlin, Kenneth Burke, Edward P.J. Corbett, Jacques Derrida, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Michel Foucault, Margaret Fuller, Susan Jarratt, Fredrich Nietzsche, Sojourner Truth, Giambattista Vico and Richard Weaver.