Loyola University Chicago

Department of English

Fall 2020 Courses

UCRL 100E  Interpreting Literature
ENGL 210  Business Writing 
ENGL 211  Writing for Pre-Law Students
ENGL 220  Theory/Practice Tutoring
ENGL 271  Exploring Poetry
ENGL 272  Exploring Drama
ENGL 273  Exploring Fiction
ENGL 274  Exploring Shakespeare 
ENGL 282C  African-American Literature Post-1900
ENGL 283  Women in Literature
ENGL 288  Nature in Literature
ENGL 290  Human Values in Literature
ENGL 293  Advanced Writing
ENGL 317  The Writing of Poetry
ENGL 318  The Writing of Fiction
ENGL 319  Writing Creative Nonfiction
ENGL 325  British Literature: The Renaissance 
ENGL 326  Plays of Shakespeare
ENGL 335  British Literature: Romantic Period
ENGL 340  British Literature: Victorian Period
ENGL 354  Contemporary Critical Theory
ENGL 362c  Studies in Poetry Post-1900
ENGL 379c  Studies in American Literature Post-1900
ENGL 390  Advanced Seminar
ENGL 393  Teaching English to Adults
ENGL 394  Internship
ENGL 397  Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry
ENGL 399  Special Studies in Literature
 

UCRL 100E  Interpreting Literature

Section: 001 #3859
Instructor: J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15–9:05 AM LSC

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms; and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study, to help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner.

Our course focus will be literature about home/homes. Our readings will raise questions such as: How do we define “home”? What does home do for us, and what does it do to us? How can conceptions of home change? What happens when we leave one home for another? What is the relationship between notions of home and domestic space, and systems of oppression? Our course texts will be drawn primarily but not exclusively from multiethnic twentieth-century American literature. Among other things, we will study texts that focus on racial and gender inequality and on migration and immigration. I hope to be able to incorporate a field trip to see a play either on campus or in the larger area. Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, class participation, and written literary analysis.

Section: 002 #3860
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15–9:05 AM LSC

Section: 003 #3861
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours lecture
MWF 9:20–10:10 AM LSC

 

Section: 004 #3862
Instructor: A. Jochaniewicz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20–10:10 AM LSC

This course will survey a wide range of authors from different eras, places, and backgrounds, designed to offer students a greater understanding and appreciation of various forms of fiction, poetry, and drama. Arranged chronologically, students will be introduced to a spectrum of writers spanning (mostly) the past two hundred years, which not only helps students see similarities and differences across time and space but to also see the unique expression of each writer. This course will emphasize individual interpretations and practice slow and close reading, in both class exercises and formal essay assignments, and students will be introduced to key literary terms and core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This is a first tier, foundational course of literary studies and will be a prerequisite for all second tier literature courses, as designated by each department. 

Section: 005 #3863
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25–11:15 AM LSC

This is a Service and Faith Community course, which means that there are out of class activities outside of the classroom that you are required to attend and that this class will focus on the ideas of service and faith in literature. This is a foundational course that explores a variety of critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. In particular, we will be looking at the concepts of dying, death and grieving, how faith and service coincide with these ides, and discuss how these concepts are depicted in a number of different poems, plays and short stories. These topics are often difficult topics to discuss and yet, they are inevitable realities in each of our lives. Thus, we will use texts, by a number of different American authors, such as Jane Kenyon, Mary Oliver, Annie Proulx, Moises Kaufman, and more, to explore what dying, death and grieving might consist of, not only personally but also politically, and further, within the medical field itself. The method of assessment will include quizzes, papers, and classroom 

Section: 006 #3864
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25–11:15 AM LSC

 

Section: 007 #3865
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 AM–12:20 PM LSC

 

Section: 008 #3866
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 AM–12:20 PM LSC

Why should we care about literature?

We’ll start historically: who before us has cared about literature, and why? We’ll study the pressure texts put on their historical moment, and how they’re shaped by it in surprising ways: for example, our discussion of Shakespeare will start with the formation of “Shakespeare” as a figure, often at odds with the “evidence” of the poems, of canonical standards throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a program that affected even the spelling of his poems. We’ll read some authors who were white, male, and rich (and some who weren’t): how has literature been used to promote a series of questions and assumptions that they may have shared (sometimes called “the canon”), and how has it, even in these same authors, blown apart all the stereotypes and orthodoxies we’d expect to find? We’ll watch the invention not only of English (and then British) culture, but of the English language itself, its twists and triumphs, detours and degenerations—and most importantly, we’ll watch as language, especially literary language, is fashioned into the greatest vehicle of social and aesthetic contest.

We’ll read novels and poems, plays and pornography, ranging from 1600 to around 1900. We (well, you) will also write papers, take exams, and be flogged—the entire range of academic abjection, in one convenient course.

Section: 009 #3867
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35–1:25 PM LSC

Ecological Utopias and Dystopias

In this course, we will read, discuss and write about texts that explore how humans imagine utopias and dytopias, with a special focus on both environmental and social ecologies. We will be exploring science fiction novels, short stories and a film of Afro-futurism, ancient plays, and weird poetry. You will be introduced to multiple strategies to approach and interpret challenging texts, and writing original essays with your unique point of view using the material to prove your points. Materials include: short stories by Octavia Butler, the African film Pumzi, a novel by Richard Brautigan, and the poetry of CA Conrad, Khadijah Queen and other contemporary poets. There is a strong focus on race and gender in this course. 

Section: 010 #3868
Instructor: E. Weeks Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35–1:25 PM LSC

Women and the Home

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to closely read and carefully analyze a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms; and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study in order to help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner.

The theme of this course is women and the domestic sphere, or the home space. Through an examination of literary texts from a wide range of genres and periods, we will explore the varied and rich ways in which authors have represented women’s relationships with the home and its corollary, femininity. Texts covered will include Louisa May Alcott’s Behind a Mask, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and a selection of shorter pieces. Course requirements are (1) engaged reading of all assigned texts, demonstrated through annotation assignments and reading quizzes; (2) active class participation; (3) several short writing assignments; and (4) midterm and final exams.

Section: 011 #3869
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40–2:30 PM LSC

This is a Service and Faith Community course, which means that there are out of class activities outside of the classroom that you are required to attend and that this class will focus on the ideas of service and faith in literature. This is a foundational course that explores a variety of critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. In particular, we will be looking at the concepts of dying, death and grieving, how faith and service coincide with these ides, and discuss how these concepts are depicted in a number of different poems, plays and short stories. These topics are often difficult topics to discuss and yet, they are inevitable realities in each of our lives. Thus, we will use texts, by a number of different American authors, such as Jane Kenyon, Mary Oliver, Annie Proulx, Moises Kaufman, and more, to explore what dying, death and grieving might consist of, not only personally but also politically, and further, within the medical field itself. The method of assessment will include quizzes, papers, and classroom 

Section: 012  #3870
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40–2:30 PM LSC

 

Section: 013  #3871
Instructor: E. Weeks Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40–2:30 PM LSC

Women and the Home

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to closely read and carefully analyze a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms; and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study in order to help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner.

The theme of this course is women and the domestic sphere, or the home space. Through an examination of literary texts from a wide range of genres and periods, we will explore the varied and rich ways in which authors have represented women’s relationships with the home and its corollary, femininity. Texts covered will include Louisa May Alcott’s Behind a Mask, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and a selection of shorter pieces. Course requirements are (1) engaged reading of all assigned texts, demonstrated through annotation assignments and reading quizzes; (2) active class participation; (3) several short writing assignments; and (4) midterm and final exams. 

Section: 014  #3872
Instructor: M. Forajter
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40–2:30 PM LSC

The foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, and explore a variety of core critical approaches. Using the theme of outsiders (in all shapes & forms), this course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study. What is literature? Why does it matter? How do we envision the relationships among author, text, reader, culture? What is the difference between reading a literary work in its historical context and in the light of our own time? How are literary works related to culture and society and how do they reflect – and reflect on – questions of value and the diversity of human experience? Exploring these questions will help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature as a necessary and accessible art form. 

Section: 015  #3873
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45–3:35 PM LSC

 

Section: 016  #3874
Instructor: M. Forajter
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45–3:35 PM LSC

The foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, and explore a variety of core critical approaches. Using the theme of outsiders (in all shapes & forms), this course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study. What is literature? Why does it matter? How do we envision the relationships among author, text, reader, culture? What is the difference between reading a literary work in its historical context and in the light of our own time? How are literary works related to culture and society and how do they reflect – and reflect on – questions of value and the diversity of human experience? Exploring these questions will help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature as a necessary and accessible art form. 

Section: 017  #3875
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45–3:35 PM LSC

 

Section: 018  #3877
Instructor: R. Peters
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30–9:45 AM LSC

UCLR 100 is a foundational literary studies course at Loyola. This class will require students to closely read and analyze a variety of prose, poetry, and drama, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature and literary fiction. This course involves several short essay assignments, as well as a midterm and seminar essay. The theme for this section of UCLR 100 is Dystopian Fiction; students in this class will read texts that stretch across the 19th, 20th, and 21st Century. Course authors may include T.S. Eliot, Octavia Butler, Caryl Churchill, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, and others.

Section: 019  #3878
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30–9:45 AM LSC

 

Section: 020  #3879
Instructor: L. Le-Khac
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00–11:15 AM LSC

How to Reshape the World with Literature 

Literature can reshape the world. At key moments of political crisis, powerful works of literature have transformed the national conversation on a social issue and inspired social movements to organize for change. This course explores some astonishing and controversial literature that reshaped the course of U.S. history, from the abolitionist literature that contributed to the Civil War to the writings that give voice to the Black Lives Matter movement, from the literature that propelled the fight for women’s rights to the writing that opened the nation’s eyes to the AIDS crisis, from the stories that pled for the working-class during the Great Depression to the poetry that rallied the Black Power, Chicano, and Asian American movements. Literature’s world-shaping power comes from the way literature reshapes the world in a second way: by selecting materials from the world and crafting, distilling, and transforming these materials into art that can move people to see the world differently. In this course we’ll learn to read closely and grasp the special tools that poetry, prose, and drama offer for reshaping the world. We’ll walk away with a repertoire of strategies for impacting the world through writing. 

Section: 021  #3880
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00–11:15 AM LSC

 

Section: 022  #3881
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 AM–12:45 PM LSC

 

Section: 023  #3882
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00–2:15 PM LSC

Literary Ecologies

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and to interpret carefully a variety of literary genres, including poetry, short story, drama, novel, and nonfiction.  As we explore important questions about the nature of literature, I have organized our readings around nature as a theme.  How has literature from different time periods captured changing conceptions of ecology?  How do different authors and different cultures reflect – and reflect on – their environments?  How do these texts guide our sympathies, and what do they tell us about how literature works?  Exploring these questions will help students to develop the analytical skills needed to approach literature in a more complex manner.  The authors we will study include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Rachel Carson, Cherríe Moraga, Ursula LeGuin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Assignments will include regular written responses to the readings, in-class exercises, and two exams. 

This course satisfies the first tier of Loyola University’s core Knowledge Area requirement in “Literary Knowledge.”

Section: 024  #3883
Instructor: P. Randolph
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00–2:15 PM LSC

This is a core course that will teach the fundamentals about critical thinking, reading, and writing with multi-cultural texts. This year in UCLR we will be reading poetry, prose, and plays from a Norton Anthology. In addition, we will read some short stories from contemporary authors along with classics, such as William Faulkner’s Barn Burning. We will discuss the six essential elements of fiction: Plot, Narration and Point of View, Character, Setting, Symbolism, and Themes. Some of the authors we will read include: Sherman Alexie, William Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Jhumpa Lahiri, and many others. When you leave this class you will have mastered key literary terms and be equipped with multiple critical lenses.

Section: 025  #3884
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00–2:15 PM LSC

 

Section: 026  #4606
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30–3:45 PM LSC

 

Section: 027  #4607
Instructor: P. Randolph
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR  2:30–3:45 PM LSC

This is a core course that will teach the fundamentals about critical thinking, reading, and writing with multi-cultural texts. This year in UCLR we will be reading poetry, prose, and plays from a Norton Anthology. In addition, we will read some short stories from contemporary authors along with classics, such as William Faulkner’s Barn Burning. We will discuss the six essential elements of fiction: Plot, Narration and Point of View, Character, Setting, Symbolism, and Themes. Some of the authors we will read include: Sherman Alexie, William Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Jhumpa Lahiri, and many others. When you leave this class you will have mastered key literary terms and be equipped with multiple critical lenses.

Section: 600  #6473
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T  7:00–9:30 PM WTC

We will explore major critical approaches and apply them to a range of literary texts, with a focus on what comprises and compromises social class and wealth. Our course will help refine our critical thinking and analytic abilities. To that end, we will work on close reading, focused discussion, and effective writing. Each evening, we will discuss our readings in class. That gives you opportunities to share ideas and raise questions. Our selected genres will include fiction, poetry, and drama.

 

ENGL 210 Business Writing

Section: 20W  #1763
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30–3:45 PM WTC

ENGL 210-20W #1763 is a writing intensive class. 

Section: 60W  #2356
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00–9:30 PM WTC

ENGL 210-60W #2356 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 61W   #2793
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00–9:30 PM WTC

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on particular types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including press releases, reviews, proposals, letters, and resumes. There will be individual and collaborative projects; you will also give a group presentation. Our course is writing intensive. We will use a process approach to writing, emphasizing problem-solving, prewriting strategies, and editing and revision skills. Our class is a workshop. As such, much of our time will be devoted to small group discussions and exercises. You will plan and share some of your writing with your peers and with me in draft conferences.

Section: 62W   #3190
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00–9:30 PM WTC

ENGL 210-62W #3190 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 211 Writing for Pre-Law Students

Section: 60W #2987
Instructor: D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture 
M 7:00–9:30 PM WTC

In this course, students will learn to develop the writing skills used by law school students and attorneys to prepare case briefs, office memoranda, and pre-trial motions. Students will also learn how to answer essay examination questions of the type given in law school and on a state bar examination. In class, students will develop the verbal abilities necessary to take a legal position and defend it with statements of fact and conclusions of law. Realistic hypothetical fact patterns will be analyzed using the IRAC method: issue, rule, application, and conclusion. Learning how to cite to legal authorities is a central part of the course. Readings include judicial opinions, state and federal statutes, and law review articles. The course is taught by a practicing attorney, and assumes no prior legal studies by the students.

ENGL 211-60W #2987 is a writing intensive class.

  

ENGL 220 Theory/Practice Tutoring

Section: 1WE #2081
Instructor: A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR  2:30–3:45 PM LSC

English 220 is a seminar designed to prepare students to serve as tutors in the Loyola University Chicago Writing Center. This course is open to students from all majors who have a passion for clear written communication. We will explore the theory and practice of peer tutoring through reading and discussion of research as well as through practical experience. In this course you will learn how to help others become better writers while improving your own writing and critical thinking skills. You will become part of a community of fellow peer tutors and gain experience that will benefit you in a variety of careers. The service-learning component consists of approximately 20-25 hours of observation and tutoring in the Writing Center. The writing intensive component includes several short essays and a group research paper. Students who wish to be enrolled in this course must obtain a short recommendation from a faculty member who can speak to the student’s writing ability and interpersonal skills. Recommendations should be emailed to Amy Kessel (akessel@luc.edu). Those who excel in the course will be eligible to work as paid writing tutors. ENGL 220-1WE is a service learning, writing intensive class. This class satisfies the Engaged Learning requirement in the Service Learning category.

ENGL 220-1WE #2081 is a writing intensive service learning class.  Please see instructor for permission to take this class.

 

ENGL 271   Exploring Poetry

Section: 001   #4587
Instructor: J. Stayer
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30–3:45 PM LSC

This is a second-tier course, building on the interpretive moves learned in UCLR 100. Entirely devoted to the glorious genre of poetry, we will look at the tortured, agonized sonnets of John Donne, the sexually explicit poetry of Shakespeare, the fevered odes of Keats and Anna Barbauld, the love sonnets of Elizabeth Browning, the haunting work of T. S. Eliot, the high oratory of Dylan Thomas, the understated snark of Philip Larkin, and the charming felicity of W. H. Auden.

Instead of granting poems a special status beyond language or normal human communication, we will look at poems as instances of a rhetorical occasion: who is speaking, to whom, and to what purpose? Once we see how poems act like ordinary speech genres (curse, blessing, invitation, warning, cry, lament), we no longer need to fear poetry as an arcane game of hide-and-seek with meaning. How could you not sign up for this course?

Section: 01W   #4584
Instructor: W. Romero
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35–1:25 PM LSC

Jamila Woods writes in her poem “Blk Girl Art” that “poems are bullshit unless they are eyeglasses, honey.” I happen to agree. While all works of literature are a type of “eyeglasses” that give us a way into a different world, poems bring with them a unique set of challenges, both in their form and in their content, and invite us to think about how things might be different. In this course, we will be engaging with poems that help us see into lives other than our own. We will primarily focus on works by men and women of color, women writers, and LGBTQ poets, although some class time will be dedicated to learning about the history of poetic form. This course is writing intensive so there will be many informal and formal writing assignments, including reading responses, in-class writing, short papers, and a podcast project.

ENGL 271-01W #4584 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #4585
Instructor: P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40– 2:30 PM LSC

This course will act as an introduction to poetry in English, from the Romantic to the contemporary period. We will discuss the conventions and patterns poets often follow, and I will provide you with the standard terminology used to describe these conventions, such as line, stanza, measure, rhythm, lyric, etc. Perhaps more importantly, you will learn how to critically approach these texts. We will discuss how these poems work, what they might be arguing, what they suggest about the historical moment in which they were written, and how they relate to or comment on other texts. We will also examine the critical literature that surrounds these poems. Finally, our course’s theme is “Inside and Out.” These insides and outsides may relate to a poem’s content: dreamscapes, underworlds, and far-out spaces. Our theme will also feature in discussions of the interplay between the content and the form. In other words, we will investigate the relationships between a text’s surface expressions, its outer form, and its subterranean content, its inner meanings. These investigations will help us to better understand how poems contain, mask, or even occasionally abandon meaning altogether. Ultimately, we will excavate these poems’ contents; we will pull the inside out.

ENGL 271-02W #4585 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 20W   #4588
Instructor: N. Hoks
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR  1:00–2:15 PM LSC

Exploring Poetry introduces students to fundamental approaches to analyzing and appreciating poetry. The course’s emphasis will be on lyric poems, especially their development in the 20th and 21st centuries, though we’ll start with some canonical work. Many of the poems will challenge received notions of what a poem is and/or how it might operate, forcing us to develop innovative responses as readers. Following Paul Valéry’s assertion that “a poem is… a kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words,” we’ll approach our readings with open-mindedness, ready to plug in to each unique machine to see what happens and report back to each other.

ENGL 271-20W #4588 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 272   Exploring Drama

Section: 001  #4609
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR  2:30–3:45 PM LSC

This course surveys English, American, and Anglophone drama from the Middle Ages to the present, along with some plays and drama theory from beyond the Anglophone world that influenced writers in English. Special attention will be paid to literary, social, and historical innovations and conventions that have defined the genre, its performance, and its reception in various periods. The final grade will be based on class participation, essays, and mid-term and final exams.

Section: 02W  #5799
Instructor: B. Rebarchik
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   11:30 AM–12:45 PM LSC

This course surveys drama in English from the Middle Ages to the present, with special attention to literary, social, and historical influences and conventions that have defined the genre, its performance, and its reception in various periods. Assignments will include two essays, biweekly responses, and a final exam. 

ENGL 272-02W #5799 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 273    Exploring Fiction

Section: 001   #3892
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   11:30 AM–12:45 PM LSC

Why do people enjoy reading stories about made-up characters? This course will offer students an introduction to prose fiction as a mode of literary representation.  It will aim to acquaint students with the historical development of fictional characters, as well as the many techniques authors use to make fictional worlds, including the creation of perspectives, the description of setting, and the rules of genre. Most of our energy will be devoted to reading and discussing short stories and novels, but we will range across genres from realism to science fiction.

Section: 002  #5801
Instructor: J. Wexler
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00–2:15 PM LSC

Why Read Fiction?

Long-form serials on TV offer some of the pleasures of fiction: complex characters embedded in social networks, detailed settings, and extended plots. We will ask what, if anything, only fiction can do. To answer this question, we will study the formal elements of fiction. Texts include The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott and a variety of short stories and novels. Assignments include class presentations, short written responses, and essays.

Section: 01W  #3895
Instructor: J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours lecture
MWF 9:20–10:10 AM LSC 

Introduction to Asian American Fiction

Broadly, this course focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction. Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of fiction as a means of exploring human experience and to use the technical vocabulary necessary to effectively analyze works of fiction. More specifically, this section of ENGL 273 will serve as an introduction to Asian American fiction. We will explore questions such as, what does “Asian American” mean – what are the cultural and political entailments of this capacious term? How do works of Asian American literature give shape to the various but also related historical experiences of Asian Americans through authors’ choices of literary form and style? How has literary criticism sought to establish and interpret the importance of this literature? This class is Writing Intensive; therefore, in conjunction with our study of this literature, we will give significant attention to the writing process. Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, class participation and writing practice, and two literary analysis essays.

ENGL 273-01W #3895 is a multicultural and writing intensive class. 

Section: 02W   #4610
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR  10:00 AM–11:15 AM LSC

ENGL 273-02W #4610 is a writing intensive class. 

Section: 20W   #5800
Instructor: R. Kietzman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00–11:15 AM LSC

Secrets and Secrecy

“All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or kept from, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches — that’s what will be left at the end of it all.”

― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

A secret is a thing defined by a not-knowing. For a secret to exist, someone must be in the dark. In fiction, secrets can be sources of delight or of torturous suspense. This writing-intensive course will focus on novels and short fiction whose plots are driven by secrets. We will read works from the 19th century to the 21st, engage in literary analysis, and write several papers practicing those analytic skills.

ENGL 273-20W #5800 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 274    Exploring Shakespeare

Section: 01W   #2661
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30–3:45 PM LSC

ENGL 274-01W #2661 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 282C    African-American Literature Post-1900

Section: 001   #5803
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25-11:15 AM LSC

Introduction to African American Literature

Since the late 18th century, African American literature has been concerned with reflecting the unique experiences of black people in the United States. This course will focus on the ways that black writers have asserted their humanity, citizenship, and freedom in this country from the 1700s to the post-Civil Rights era. To complement our readings we will incorporate films, music, and visual art to demonstrate the multiple and diverse ways that black artistic culture has served as a means of political resistance, reflection and inspiration.

ENGL 282C-001 #5803 fulfills the multicultural course requirement and the post-1900 literature requirement.

Section: 02W   #6767
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 AM-12:20 PM LSC

Introduction to African American Literature

Since the late 18th century, African American literature has been concerned with reflecting the unique experiences of black people in the United States. This course will focus on the ways that black writers have asserted their humanity, citizenship, and freedom in this country from the 1700s to the post-Civil Rights era. To complement our readings we will incorporate films, music, and visual art to demonstrate the multiple and diverse ways that black artistic culture has served as a means of political resistance, reflection and inspiration.

ENGL 282C-001 #5803 fulfills the multicultural course requirement and the post-1900 literature requirement.

 

ENGL 283 Women in Literature

Section: 001   #4613
Instructor: B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 PM–2:15 PM LSC

“If women have learned many of the ways they interpret their lives from the narrative schemata of novels and stories,” writes Joanne Fry, “they can also gain from fiction new insights into the narrative processes of constructing meaning.”  Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 283 is designed to meet the “literary knowledge and experience” requirements of the Loyola Core.  Focusing on literature written by 20th-  and  21st-century women authors, this course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s lives and writings; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; to train them in the analysis of literature; and to teach them how to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments about literary texts. Analyzing representative works of fiction written by women authors, this course will investigate the important cultural and gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works read, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent coming of age, the female body, romantic love, mother-child relationships,  female friendships, and female aging in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and May Sarton.  There will be quizzes, oral reports, a midterm and a final exam. 

Section: 01W   #1872
Instructor: M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20–10:10 AM LSC

Deconstructing the Diva

This Writing Intensive section of ENGL 283: Women in Literature focuses on divas and diva culture. Revered and reviled, imitated and appropriated, divas are the most visible women in our culture. They are also the most misunderstood. On the one hand, the diva represents empowerment—she is loud, courageous, and often outrageous. But her power comes at a great cost: when she is consumed and absorbed into fans’ lives, she risks becoming the object of obsession. She also risks losing her identity, even as she serves as a vehicle for shaping others’.  This class uses fiction, drama, biography, autobiography, film, and performance theory to explore the paradoxes and problems of the “woman with a voice” and her place in contemporary conceptions of femininity.

ENGL 283-01W #1872 is a writing intensive class. 

Section: 02W #3973
Instructor: B Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00–11:15 AM LSC

“If women have learned many of the ways they interpret their lives from the narrative schemata of novels and stories,” writes Joanne Fry, “they can also gain from fiction new insights into the narrative processes of constructing meaning.”  Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 283 is a writing intensive Core literature course designed to meet the “literary knowledge and experience” requirements of the Loyola Core.  Focusing on literature written by 20th-  and  21st-century women authors, this course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s lives and writings; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; to train them in the analysis of literature; and to teach them how to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments about literary texts. Analyzing representative works of fiction written by women authors, this course will investigate the important cultural and gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works read, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent coming of age, the female body, romantic love, mother-child relationships,  female friendships, and female aging in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and May Sarton.  There will be quizzes, papers, a midterm and a final exam. 

ENGL 283-02W #3973 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 03W #5804
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   3:30–3:45 PM LSC

ENGL 283-03W #5804 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 288  Nature in Literature

Section: 01W  #3475
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF  11:30 AM–12:20 PM LSC

This is a writing intensive course. In this course we will use a number of different Ecocritical approaches, with a particular focus on Ecofeminism to explore and interpret pieces of fiction. Literature provides a vast account of how the natural world is represented, treated, understood, and further, misused or abused. In response to this, we will explore the question: is there is a direct correlation between the treatment of nature and the treatment of humans, and in particular, women and children? Therefore, this course will focus heavily on the connections between the treatment and abuse of women, children, and nature. Assignments in the semester will include writing papers, quizzes/in-class reflections, and classroom participation.

ENGL 288-01W #3475 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 20W   #6509
Instructor: J. Hawkins
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   2:30–3:45 PM WTC

This writing-intensive section of ENGL 288 aims to help students become stronger readers and writers, especially in the context of environmental care and animal studies. As readers, we will look to graphic novels, short stories, poems, films, and pop culture to understand ways that human animals have tried to connect with, control, or listen to the animals and ecosystems we share. Likely authors include Yann Martel, Jesmyn Ward, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

As writers, we will study creative nonfiction, including essays and nature writing, for insights into how we might incorporate a respect for ecology and non-human life into our academic, professional, and personal work. What does it mean to write ethically in response to the world around us? This course features demanding but flexible writing assignments that can be tailored to a wide variety of majors.

ENGL 288-20W #6509 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 290  Human Values in Literature

Section: 001  #3974
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   11:30 AM–12:45 PM LSC

ENGL 290-001 #3974 is a multicultural class. 

Section: 002  #5805
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00–2:15 PM LSC

Hoards and Other Stuff

Tablets, trinkets, pompoms, puzzle pieces, and plastic bags. We use objects to encode memories, reflect our identities, signal social status, provide haptic experience, and order our world. But we are also utterly overwhelmed by things: collections devolve into hoards, and the ocean spins trash through its currents. In order to better understand human values, tendencies, and systems, we will examine the many categories of object—relic, commodity, rubbish, keepsake, and fetish—as they appear in literature. The object has a critical place in literary history, from realism’s attempt to capture everyday life to the sensory pleasures of imagist poetry. We will discuss how we attribute meaning to things, but also how things escape our attempts at meaning-making. What do objects signify, if anything? How do things help us remember, and what do they allow us to forget? Why do we accumulate so much, and how has that tendency transferred into the digital age? Readings will include case studies of hoarders as well as Marie Kondo’s bestselling decluttering guide; the novels Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, and The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk; poetry by Christina Rossetti and Jorge Luis Borges; nonfiction by Brian Thill and Teju Cole; and the films Wall-E and Finding Vivian Maier.

ENGL 290-002 #5805 is a multicultural class.

  

ENGL 293  Advanced Writing

Section: 1WE  #3476
Instructor: E. Hopwood
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T   4:15–6:45 PM LSC

The focus of this Advanced Composition class will be Writing with/in New Media. We will practice writing in and across modalities and technologies that are both “old” and “new,” familiar and unfamiliar. We will consider how communication is mediated and remediated in the digital age, and we will draw connections between historical moments of print culture with that of contemporary technological advancement, considering, for instance, the many ways that technology has shaped the way we read and interpret (and, indeed, are ourselves read and interpreted). Some topics we will explore include emerging digital genres (websites, blogs, memes), digital storytelling, multimodal composition, and social media. This is a Writing-Intensive course and an Engaged Learning course. Students will have two options for Service Learning hours: either by volunteering with Loyola’s chapter of Girls Who Code, or mentoring through Illinois Science and Industry Institute.

ENGL 293-1WE #3476 is an Engaged Learning and writing intensive course.  It satisfies the Loyola University Chicago Engaged Learning requirement.

Section: 02W  #5807
Instructor: E. Weeks Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W  4:15–6:45 PM LSC

What Makes Great Academic Writing Happen

Great academic writing doesn’t just happen. It must be practiced, studied, learned, and taught. This advanced writing course will focus on the writing process (how a writer progresses from the blank page to a “finished” product) – how it works and what scholars have discovered and theorized about it. Course work will center around, first, students’ reconsiderations of their own writing processes and additions to their repertoire of strategies and, second, active reading and discussion of composition theory about the writing process. In other words, students will do a lot of practicing and reading about writing! Course requirements are still under consideration but are likely to include (1) reading all assigned materials; (2) actively participating in class; and (3) completing two reflective essays, two extensive essay writing processes, and multiple written responses to theoretical texts. 

 

ENGL 317 The Writing of Poetry

Section: 001   #1625
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Seminar
M 4:15–6:45 PM LSC

This course offers practice and instruction in the techniques and analysis of poetry through reading, writing, discussing, and revising poems. We will give particular attention to the unique challenges and opportunities facing beginning poets as we first seek to channel our ideas and life experiences into poetry, to find and then develop our own voices in relation to not only our own impulses but to "the tradition" and the aesthetically diverse and fascinating world of contemporary poetry. The poems you write will be carefully read and critiqued by both your classmates and the instructor. The culmination of the course will be to compile a portfolio of the work you have written over the term.

Section: 002    #2574
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

This course approaches the writing of poetry as both a study and craft that requires reading, exploration, practice, and sharing. We read a unique work of contemporary poetry each week as a framework for discussion, but the core of the course is student writing. The workshop element of the course is focused on experimentation with language to foster each student’s own creativity and delight in creating work both as a group and on their own. Our work includes in-class collective and collaborative writing experiments, prompts for writing in between sessions, and presentations of student poetry for review by the group. Students produce a final collection of poetry in a self-published chapbook and give a reading of their work for the final.

Section: 003   #4616
Instructor: P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Seminar
F 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

This course aligns poetry writing with the reading of poetry and the exploration of poetic practices both old and new. Through outside reading, students will question their relationships to contemporary modes and cultures. Thus, students will further develop their own voices, styles, and methods of production, and they will begin to situate their craft in the larger poetic world. Weekly class meetings will center on discussions and presentations of outside materials, in-class writing and writing experiments, discussions of student-generated poetry, and collaborative writing.  In addition to regular writing assignments and in-class presentations, students will develop a portfolio by semester’s end. 

 

ENGL 318   The Writing of Fiction

Section: 001   #2241
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Seminar
M 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

 

Section: 003   #4618
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

 

Section: 004   #5808
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Seminar
F 2:45-5:15 PM LSC

This is a workshop class in fiction. Students will learn to become better readers and writers of fiction by learning how to attend to structure, character, imagery, dialogue and other craft elements as we analyze how writers such as Jamaica Kincaid, Denis Johnson, Jhumpa Lahiri, and others create stories that resonate with the stories of our own lives. What makes a character stay with us? What makes a metaphor work? What makes dialogue sound believable? What is the difference between suspense and surprise?

Students will write three original short stories, and will learn how to critique each other’s stories in class as part of a supportive workshop environment. Class participation is emphasized. Fulfills a Core Expressive Arts Requirement.

 

Section: 600   #4617
Instructor: M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 7:00–9:30 PM LSC

This advanced writing workshop for fiction will explore traditional and contemporary flash fiction, short story, and novel (chapter) forms. Vocabulary, criticism, genre, and rhetoric will fuel a keen attention to the dynamics of both reading and writing fiction for personal and perhaps even artistic purposes. Character engagement, tone, and structural awareness will guide the development of each writer’s ‘voice’ through the development of creative writing designed to both explore and perform on the page. All students will write flash fiction and short story forms, but the novel start (or chapter) is optional. Old and new classics start the class off, but we shift very quickly to student writing and finish with attention to publication awareness and preparation. This workshop develops both new and experienced writers of fiction and satisfies the core expressive arts requirement!

 

 

ENGL 319 Writing Creative Nonfiction

Section: 001   #2873
Instructor: N. Kenney Johnstone
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

The Importance of the Personal Essay

Personal essays allow writers to share unique experiences while communicating universal truths. They also have the power to spark important conversations and foster awareness. In this class, students will study and write five different forms of the personal essay. By reading and analyzing contemporary published models, students will deepen their learning of traditional and innovative creative nonfiction methods. Students will then write creative nonfiction pieces and participate in workshops of their classmates' writing.​ 

Section: 002   #5809
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Seminar
R 2:30–5:00 PM LSC

This is a workshop course in creative nonfiction, the fastest growing genre in publishing. It’s thriving in personal essay columns in magazines and newspapers, in memoirs, and in new hybrid forms. We’ll focus on personal essay and memoir, learning how to write about moments, activities, and relationships in your lives that have given you pause, stayed with you, and left you with questions. Among other craft elements, you’ll learn the distinction between I-narrator and I-character, between exposition and scene, and how to move from the situation—the facts of what happened—to finding insight and meaning through story.

In class, we’ll read, analyze, and discuss the works of creative nonfiction writers as models for your own writing. This is a workshop, so you’ll hear from each other what’s working on the page in your own writing and what isn’t—which will help develop your ear as you read and your instincts as you write. You’ll also learn to offer thoughtful commentary on the work of your classmates. The goal is for you to become a better reader and writer of creative nonfiction.

 

ENGL 325 British Literature: The Renaissance 

Section: 001   #1626
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR  11:30 AM-12:45 PM LSC

This course examines the drama, poetry, and prose of the long sixteenth century, a period in which English culture was animated by advances in religion, education, exploration, science, and politics. The material is organized around literary representations of place: the royal court, the legal Inns of Court, the city, the country, legendary pasts and places, the new world, and no place (“Utopia”). These different locations were associated with different ways of life—with different personal, social, and political responsibilities, constraints, possibilities, and desires. We will read works by aristocratic courtiers who coded personal ambition and circumstances within poetic puns on the royal court and amorous courtship. We will read works by satirists who assessed the current condition of English society and morals through scathing critiques of London social types. The voices of shepherds will assert the pleasures of the simple life and nature in opposition to court intrigue and mercantile interests. Accounts of new colonies will refract xenophobia as well as admiration for the “noble savage.” Model societies will be mapped onto imaginary islands by writers such as Thomas More. We will examine not only the literary conventions that were adopted and adapted over the century to represent these locations, but also the reality and metaphor of travel, from voyages of discovery, to military campaigns, to John Donne’s comparison of the negotiation of the upper echelons of Elizabethan society to a fish gliding through water, perpetually in motion….

 

ENGL 326   Plays of Shakespeare

Section: 001   #1626
Instructor: J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MW  4:15–5:30 PM LSC

This course will focus on a selection of Shakespeare’s plays in all the major genres (comedy, history, tragedy, and romance). We will read the plays through a variety of critical approaches, taking into account the historical context in which they were produced. To emphasize the importance of drama as intended for theatrical performance, we will view recorded performances, and, if possible, attend a local theatrical performance. Over the course of the semester we will explore the development of drama in England, the material history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, and the political and cultural place of the theater in Shakespeare’s England. Plays may include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, Othello, King Lear, and Cymbeline. The primary text will be David Bevington’s edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. There will be papers, a midterm and a final.

 

ENGL 335   British Literature: Romantic Period

Section: 001   #5810
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF  10:25–11:15 AM LSC

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the most powerful earthly king was beheaded, the institution of monarchy annihilated, and a God who had been heretofore supposed “Almighty” overthrown.  “The French Revolution is,” conceded even Edmund Burke, its greatest British opponent, “all circumstances taken together … the most astonishing thing that has hitherto happened in the world.”  We’ll study this time of exuberance, dispute, and outburst, in which every inherited piety and orthodoxy seemed debatable. We’ll read poets and novelists, of course—but we’ll also read lunatics and prophets, opium addicts and slave traders, “blue-stocking” feminists and the “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Lord Byron. In William Wordsworth, we’ll find the first poetry created out of a “language really used by men”; in Mary Wollstonecraft, a fiery annunciation that “it is time to affect a revolution in female manners”; in John Keats, we’ll delight in verse dismissed as “mental masturbation.”  We’ll follow the rise of Napoleon, the fall of the Slave Trade, and the foundation of Australia—in newspapers and magazine articles, political pamphlets and diaries, as well as the parlors of Jane Austen.  Fulfills post-1700, pre-1900 requirement. Papers, exams, molecular gastronomy.

 

ENGL 340   British Literature: Victorian Period

Section: 001 #1628
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00–11:15 AM LSC

The nineteenth century was subject to major transformations: industrialization and urbanization, radical breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, innovations in transportation and communication technology that collapsed distances between people, the expansion of Britain’s imperial presence around the globe, and a rethinking of social relationships, across gender, class, race, geography, and age. In this survey of Victorian literature we will trace how these changes play out in the major literary works of the time—and how the Victorians have left their lingering traces in our culture today. Through readings of novels, poetry, and prose, we will examine the key sites of Victorian society: the home, the factory, the schoolroom, the city, and the empire. We will also identify the literary trends of the period, from the crystallization of the realist mode to the development of new genres like detective and science fiction. Texts will include: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and writings by Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, and others. Coursework includes research projects into esoteric aspects of Victorian culture like séances, spirit photography, the Great Exhibition. There is also an experiential research option to “live like a Victorian.” 

 

ENGL 354    Contemporary Critical Theory

Section: 001   #2575
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR   2:30–3:45 PM LSC

“The main effect of theory,” writes Jonathan Culler, “is the disputing of ‘common sense’” (Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, 4). Whether the topic is language or reality, sex or race, literature or authors, theory refuses to take such concepts at face value, as “givens.” Theory teaches us how to question what we often take for granted. If this course succeeds, then, it should produce a kind of crisis—a crisis of meaning, a crisis of confidence, a crisis of language—as we unlearn certain habitual ways of thinking. We will read theories from a range of disciplines (e.g., linguistics, literature, history, sociology, psychoanalysis, philosophy) and “schools” (e.g., formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, Marxism) from the 1960s through the present to understand how the study of theory has changed the study of literature and culture. We will also read literature, but not simply to “apply” the theory to a work; we will read literature as theory, just as we will “close read” theory as a type of literature. Requirements include two essays (4-5 and 7-8 pages), periodic quizzes, a reading notebook, and a final exam. We will also stage some in-class mock debates among various theo

 

ENGL 362c    Studies in Poetry Post-1900

Section: 001   #5811
Instructor: D. Chinitz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF  11:30– 12:20 AM LSC

We will focus on several distinctive voices in modern American and English poetry, ranging from the traditional to the experimental and from the late nineteenth century to nearly the present. Poets likely to appear on the syllabus include Emily Dickinson, A. E. Housman, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin, and Sharon Olds. We will focus on their writing techniques as well as on the historical-cultural contexts that shaped their ideas and aesthetics. Two essays, reading quizzes, midterm and final exams anticipated.

This course fulfills the post-1900 requirement.

 

ENGL 379c    Studies in American Literature Post-1900

Section: 001   #5812
Instructor: L. Le-Khac
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00– 2:15 PM LSC

The Many Voices of American Fiction from WWII to Today 

This course surveys the explosion of voices and styles that is American fiction since World War II. This literature pours out of a period when the borders of the nation became unfixed and new voices entered American letters. The glorious mess that resulted cannot be contained within any single literary history. Our goal: to map the divergent stories of American fiction over the last 80 years. We’ll examine how historical forces—the Cold War, Civil Rights and women's movements, and media transformations—shaped this literature. We’ll explore how fiction stretched to describe new vistas—the highway, the suburb, the linked globe—and gave voice to minority groups struggling for inclusion. But we’ll also attend to how American fiction followed its own aesthetic, human, and even posthuman concerns. What happens to the individual in a postmodern world? What are the limits of fiction? Does literature have a role in the world or is it a world unto itself? But it’s not all weighty questions. We’ll also delight in the playful mixing of genres from metafiction to comic books that characterize this period. Authors may include Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, Marilynne Robinson, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Foster Wallace, and Junot Díaz

This course fulfills the post-1900 requirement.

 

ENGL 390 Advanced Seminar

Section: 01W   #3340
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Seminar
M 2:45–5:15 PM LSC

Conspiracy Theories in American Literature and Culture

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” went a famous piece of graffiti in the 1970s. This course will trace the persistence of conspiracy theories in American culture from the Revolutionary War to the present. Our focus will be on political conspiracies and their meaning for American democracy.  The early national period saw widely publicized conspiracy theories about monarchical takeovers, Jacobin invasions, and slave revolts. These gave way in the twentieth century to beliefs that the American government itself had withheld crucial information from the public about communist infiltrations, presidential assassinations, and even extraterrestrial invasions. Throughout American history, conspiracy theories have offered an alternative way of thinking about politics that stands in stark contrast to the rational and fact-based debates that enable functioning democracy. With readings ranging from revolutionary-era newspaper articles, legal documents, and declassified files to poetry, fiction, and journalism, this course will assess the prospects of our republic in a world of conspiratorial thinking.

ENGL 390-01W #3340 is a writing intensive class.  This class requires department consent.  Please contact your English advisor for permission.

Section: 02W    #5814
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 4:15–5:30 PM LSC

Human, Animal, Goddess, Chemical, Machine

This advanced seminar will approach the meaning and status of the human from a variety of literary angles.  Might there be better alternatives to Humanism?  What lessons do marginalized cultures, in particular, have to tell us about humans and humanity?  Readings will include contemporary American novels, short stories, essays, memoirs, and graphic novels by Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Art Spiegelman, Gloria Anzaldúa, Donna Haraway, Salvador Plascencia, Octavia Butler, Susanne Antonetta, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Aurora Levins Morales, plus supplemental visual images and films.  Assignments will include regular in-class exercises, one class presentation, three brief papers, and a final research project.

ENGL 390-02W #5814 is a writing intensive class. This class requires department consent.  Please contact your English advisor for permission.

 

ENGL 393 Teaching English to Adults

Section: 01E #1629
Instructor: J. Heckman
1.0-3.0 credit hours Field Studies
MTWR 5:30–7:00 PM LSC

Engage with Jesuit values and meet our neighbors.  This course offers an excellent opportunity for service learning and practical experience in tutoring adults in written and spoken English at the Loyola Community Literacy Center, located in Loyola Hall, 1110 W. Loyola Avenue, 2nd floor conference room, across the street from Mertz.

While the Literacy Center offers community adults an opportunity to improve their skills, it also gives student-tutors the chance to serve their community and to engage with their Jesuit education.  One student tutor said, “The Literacy Center has taught me the true value of giving, and this is perhaps the most valuable lesson I’ve learned at Loyola.” 

No previous tutoring experience is necessary.  When taken for 3 credit hours, this course satisfies the Core Engaged Learning-Service Learning Internship requirement.  The course is open to second-semester freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, although incoming freshmen are always welcome to tutor as volunteers and take the course at a later date.

Students tutor adult learners, most of whom are immigrants, refugees, or international visitors whose skills in their native language range from their being highly educated professionals to being perhaps illiterate, even in their own language, and who may know some English or no English.  Students also tutor some native English speakers preparing for the GED or improving their literacy skills. 

The Center is open for tutoring M-Th evenings during the fall and spring semesters from 7-9:30 pm when the university is in session.  1 credit hour students tutor one evening per week; 2 and 3 credit hour students tutor two evenings a week.  In addition, there are 5 class meetings scheduled at 5:45 pm, just before tutoring hours; 3 credit Core students meet for a 6th session.

If students have never tutored at the Center, they must attend one evening of orientation.  Students keep a weekly journal to reflect on their experiences and respond to assigned readings; examine a textbook and journal articles concerned with literacy, language, and adult education; submit ten of their journals and five short papers throughout the semester; prepare a final paper or project; and, for 3 credit hour students, read and report on one additional text of their choice related to the work of the Center, to adult literacy, to the culture of their learners, or to any topic suggested by their tutoring experience. 

Students who have taken this course have found it to be a challenging and exciting experience, even life changing as they help neighborhood adults improve their skills.  Another student-tutor wrote,

"Tutoring at the Loyola University Community Literacy Center was easily one of the best experiences I have ever been granted at Loyola University. That is coming from a student who has studied abroad three times, has volunteered elsewhere, and has had a number of internships. Never have I felt so connected to my own values. Tutoring at the center reminded me of my passions and allowed me to help others and make friends in the process… I am truly privileged to have learned about my learners’ cultures and personal experiences. They’ve taught me to not judge cultures from an American standpoint and to instead take every culture at face value."

More information can be found at www.luc.edu/literacy.  Follow the links to "tutoring" and then "course credit tutoring" for a complete description of English 393/Honors 290. 

 

ENGL 394 Internship

Section: 01E #1630
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Field Studies
Time and location TBA

English 394 provides practical, on-the-job experience for English majors in adapting their writing and analytical skills to the needs of such fields as publishing, editing, and public relations.  Students must have completed six courses in English and must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher before applying for an internship. Qualified second semester juniors and seniors may apply to the program.  Interested students must arrange to meet with the Internship Director during the pre-registration period and must bring with them a copy of their Loyola transcripts, a detailed resume (which includes the names and phone numbers of at least two references), and at least three writing samples.  Students may be required to conduct part of their job search on-line and to go out on job interviews before the semester begins.  Course requirements include: completion of a minimum of 120 hours of work; periodic meetings with the Internship Director; a written evaluation of job performance by the site supervisor; a term paper, including samples of writing produced on the job.

This class requires department consent.  Please contact Dr. Cragwall at jcragwall@luc.edu or (773) 508-2259 for permission.

 

ENGL 397 Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry

Section: 01W #1718
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 2:45- 5:15 PM

In this advanced poetry workshop, we will seek to deepen our engagement with poetry as an art form—both as readers and writers. Through reading, writing, and workshopping, we will grow more familiar with the anatomy and texture of poetry: image, word, voice, syntactical configurations, rhetorical devices— stanza, line, punctuation, and page. Your work will be given a great deal of individual attention in our workshops, and you will be offered the opportunity to work very closely with the instructor as you write and revise your final project for the course—a portfolio of your best work.

ENGL 397-01W #1718 is a writing intensive class.

 

ENGL 399 Special Studies in Literature

Section: 001 #1632
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Supervision
Time and location TBA

Students arrange for this course on an individual basis by consulting a faculty member who agrees to supervise the independent study. When the student and the faculty member have agreed on the work to be done, the student submits the plan to the director of undergraduate programs for approval and registration. Usually students will work independently and produce a research paper, under the direction of the faculty member. 

This class requires department consent.  Please contact Dr. Cragwall at jcragwall@luc.edu or (773) 508-2259 for permission.