Loyola University Chicago

Department of English

Spring 2019 Courses

English Department

Interpreting Literature (UCLR 100E)

Section: 001 #5905
Instructor:  A. Jochaniewicz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 - 9:05 AM LSC

This is a first tier, foundational course of literary studies designed to offer students a greater understanding and appreciation of various forms of canonical literature, including fiction, poetry, and drama.  This course will concentrate on the ethical and ideological implications of the literature and will emphasize individual interpretations arrived at through a slow and close reading.  Students will also be introduced to key literary terms and core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This class will be a prerequisite for all second tier literature courses, as designated by each department.

How To Do Things With Texts

Section: 002 #5906
Instructor:  A. Welch
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM LSC

This course is about how to do things with texts, and about how texts can do things with us. We will learn 1) to ask literary questions of texts, 2) to understand and make meaning out of difficult texts, 3) to strengthen and critique the understandings we develop, and 4) to come to terms with the questions and problems that literature poses to us.

By exploring short fiction, poetry, and drama, we’ll become familiar with some of the traditions and conventions that texts draw upon in order to create meaning. Reading, in this sense, is not only about running our eyes over the page; reading includes the thinking, writing, and speaking that surrounds and synthesizes the process of looking at a sequence of words. Accordingly, writing and discussion will feature centrally in this course. These processes will allow us to give shape to our reading and thinking, and thereby to sharpen and refine our reading and thinking into argument.

Readings will include Lydia Davis, Ayad Akhtar, John Keats, Ken Liu, Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, David Foster Wallace, Ocean Vuong, Harryette Mullen, Annie Baker, and Sophocles.

Section: 003 #5907
Instructor:  E. Sharrett
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM LSC

This foundational course in literary studies will explore representations of nature in prose, poetry, and drama dating from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century. We will study the historical contexts in which these stories, poems, and plays were written, and we will explore the implications of such literary works’ definitions of nature and so-called “natural bodies.” Students will gain experience applying fundamental literary and critical terms and practicing introductory interpretative methods.

Section: 004 #5908
Instructor:  P. Randolph
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM 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: 005 #5909
Instructor:  W. Craig
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15 AM LSC

As a foundational literature course, UCLR aims to instruct students in the core conventions of literary studies, introducing them to key literary and critical terms, analytical skills, and literatures. This specific section of UCLR will examine ghosts in poetry, fiction, and drama from the modern period, spanning from writers as early as Emily Dickinson to 2017’s National Book Award winner, George Saunders. Specifically, this course will prompt students to question what “work” ghosts, hauntings, and specters do in literature. As a class, we will try to understand why ghosts continue to haunt literature in the modern period, especially in light of modernity’s skepticism of the supernatural and the inexplicable. The literature will include works by Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Toni Kushner, Sandra Cisneros, as well as at least one film.

Section: 006 #5910
Instructor:  D. Richards
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15 AM LSC

What makes great literature? Who gets to decide? In this foundational literature course, we'll approach some of the great fiction writers, poets, and playwrights of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and their cultural moments with an eye for authority and aesthetic style. By investigating authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Adrienne Rich, Henrik Ibsen, Louise Erdrich, David Foster Wallace, and James Joyce, among others, we will uncover the ways literature helps us understand language, the world around us, and our own critical agendas.

Through our discussion, we will make important decisions about the validity and accuracy of particular readings of a text by calling into question textual evidence, authorial intention, and cultural perception. By investigating literature in this way, we will not only gain critical reading skills necessary for analysis and argument, but also reveal the mysterious and subtle ways literature can speak to us in our own cultural moment.

Section: 007 #5911
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

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 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 Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Raymond Carver, 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 participation. 

Section: 008 #5912
Instructor:  J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM 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.

To do this, this course examines literature about an essential aspect of human experience: work.  While work it is often a source of pleasure and satisfaction, it has predominantly been a site of exploitation.  Thus, literature about work often addresses the nature and effects of oppressive work conditions, the larger forces at play, and how workers respond to oppression.  It engages deeply in a range of factors affecting people’s lives, including race, class, gender, and immigration and migration, as well as various connections among these.  Finally, this literature raises important questions tying literary form and aesthetics to social function: How can literature represent the conditions and experiences of work?  How can it engage the audience in the interests of economic and social justice?  How can it help us consider the future of work?  We will address such questions as we examine a variety of works of poetry, drama, and fiction.  Texts will be drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from twentieth-century American literature, including authors such as Ann Petry, Milton Murayama, and Helena Maria Viramontes.  Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, and class participation; two close reading analysis essays; and midterm and final assessments.  This course is linked to the Multicultural Learning Community and will also include required and optional activities related to that.

Section: 009 #5913
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

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: Aristophanes’ The Birds, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, short stories by Octavia Butler, the African film Pumzi, and the poetry of W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, CA Conrad and other contemporary poets. There is a strong focus on race and gender in this course.

Section: 010 #5914
Instructor:  P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

Over the course of the semester, we will be exploring three principal literary genres: fiction, poetry, and drama. We will emphasize the historical contexts in which these stories, poems, and plays were written, and we will examine a variety of critical postures with which to interpret these texts. Students will also be asked to establish their own claims by way of shorter responses and longer formal essays. As we read, we will always ask why literature matters: Why do we choose to read? What can stories or lyrics teach us? How does literature participate in the building of our cultural and individual points of view? Our class’s theme will be “Remembering/ Dismembering.” We will read works—such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Raúl Zurita’s Purgatory—that suggest the links between truth, memory, forgetfulness, and our bodies. We will explore how literature can act as a form of remembering, a way to reassemble ourselves. Ultimately, we will investigate how literature puts us together and takes us apart.

Section: 011 #5915
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

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 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 Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Raymond Carver, 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 participation. 

Section: 012 #5916
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

Reading can be fun.  Close reading can make the experience even more enjoyable.  In this introductory course we will explore how writers tease the reader with multilayered texts, rich in imagery, clever word choices, and interesting insights into human behavior.  During this course we will cover works of poetry, prose and drama from at least two different time periods; pre-modern and modern. Texts will include works from Ireland, England and the U.S.A.

Section: 013 #5917
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 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.

Modes of Being Awake: Altered States of the Body, Mind and Spirit

Section: 014 #5918
Instructor: D. Scheier
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

In this interdisciplinary course, we will spend the semester exploring various forms of media that deal with the concept of transcending from one physical, spiritual or emotional state to another, and how these states challenge one’s morality and ethics. We will explore interconnecting themes of good and evil, love and rebellion and their relationship to philosophical and some theological principles. We will be examining characters with flexible moral codes and downright misfits, and seeing how they deal with altered perceptual states of consciousness – not just states brought about by alcohol or drugs, but also intensely emotional experiences and spiritual awakenings. We will delve into authors like Mary Gaitskill, Bret Easton Ellis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Anthony Burgess, and many more. We will ask the questions: How do these characters experiencing transformations and how do they navigate a new world based on these transformations? What does the study of transcendence in fiction teach us about ourselves? We will also examine how the act of reading and writing challenge modes of individuation.

In addition to engaging in a multitude of media, students will learn fundamental literary and critical terms, and explore diverse approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. Students will write several short creative pieces that borrow from the course materials alongside short review essays, and essays investigating a significant author and their publications.

Section: 015 #5919
Instructor: J. Wapinski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

What is the evidence of literary knowledge? What exactly do we do when we study literature? Through close reading and analysis of a variety of poetry, prose, and drama from the Renaissance to the present day, this course will examine these pressing questions and explore a variety of foundational critical approaches to the interpretation of literature. Course assignments include reading and vocabulary quizzes, brief response papers, and a final examination.

Section: 016 #5920
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

Section: 017 #5921
Instructor: J. Eighan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

In this course, we will read and analyze works of fiction, poetry, and drama to gain a better understanding of what constitutes literature.  We will observe how authors utilize literary techniques, which will serve as the basis of our analyses of the texts.  While we will read a variety of different works, our course will fundamentally explore “the Monster” in literature.  In particular, we will examine character psychology, and consider how themes of identity and the “monstrous body” contribute to our overall understanding of these texts. 

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. What is literature? Why does it matter?  How has it been conceived in different times and places?  How do we envision the relationships among author, text, and reader or audience?  What is the difference between reading a literary work in its historical context and in the light of our own contemporary time? Where does meaning come from in literature? What is literary interpretation and what role does it have in the production of literary meaning? 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 in a sophisticated manner. 

Section: 018 #5924
Instructor: A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

In this course we will read and closely analyze fiction, poetry, and drama, with the aim of mastering basic terms of literary analysis and critical approaches to the interpretation of literature.  The common theme for all the works we will study this semester will be the art and practice of medicine. While medicine and the fields commonly associated with it are sciences, much literature has been written about illness, healing, and the art of medicine. In fact many great writers were themselves health care providers. We will be learning about literature by reading and discussing fiction, poetry, and drama written by and about doctors, nurses, caregivers, and patients from a wide span of times and culture. Course requirements: Close reading and preparation, active class participation, short response papers, midterm, final.

Section: 019 #5925
Instructor: J. Hastings
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 AM LSC

This course takes as its focus satire as a lens through which to explore the relationship between literature and the cultures that create, transmit, and receive it.  The course will also introduce students to the critical vocabulary necessary for literary interpretation.  The works we will cover include Lysistrata, the Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii, Judith, The Miller’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, The Convent of Pleasure, The Rape of the Lock, Passing, and Nutshell

Section: 020 #5926
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 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: 021 #5927
Instructor: J. Hinkson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM 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. What is literature? Why does it matter? How has it been conceived in different times and places? How do we envision the relationships among author, text, and reader or audience? What is the difference between reading a literary work in its historical context and in the light of our own contemporary time? Where does meaning come from in literature? What is literary interpretation and what role does it have in the production of literary meaning? 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 in a sophisticated manner.

Section: 022 #5928
Instructor: A. Warren
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

Whether you were told them as you fell asleep at night or you watched and re-watched every Disney film version until you knew them by heart, you have probably been reading and interpreting fairy tales most of your life. In this foundational course, we will closely read a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the interpretation of literature through constructing and de-constructing various iterations of numerous fairy tales. Together, we will explore, analyze and reflect upon a variety of important conceptual questions about the intentions and impacts of literature through critical and creative modalities, and (perhaps) live happily ever after as well. 

Hauntings in American Literature

Section: 023 #5929
Instructor: V. Bell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

The foundational course of literary studies requires students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of literary texts, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature.  This section explores the interpretation of American literary works that are “haunted” by the past.  The essays, novels, memoir, and poems that we will interpret speak in the voices of real or imagined Americans in history, or at least obsessively struggle to represent those voices and earlier events.  The works also focus on complex and uncomfortable, even taboo, American problems—racial conflict, sexual abuse, violence, political upheaval, etc.—but they also explore opportunities for change and for the expansion of freedom.  Course authors include George Saunders, Jesmyn Ward, Maggie Nelson, Erika L. Sanchez, and Cathy Park Hong, among others.  Course requirements include 2 midterm exams and 1 final exam, 2 critical essays, and active class participation.

Section: 024 #5930
Instructor: J. Hastings
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

This course takes as its focus satire as a lens through which to explore the relationship between literature and the cultures that create, transmit, and receive it.  The course will also introduce students to the critical vocabulary necessary for literary interpretation.  The works we will cover include Lysistrata, the Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii, Judith, The Miller’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, The Convent of Pleasure, The Rape of the Lock, Passing, and Nutshell

Section: 025 #5931
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

Children’s Literature (ENGL 206)

Section: 001 #1544
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA

Section: 002 #3998
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA

Advanced Writing: Business (ENGL 210)

Section: 20W #1660
Instructor:  T. Kim
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM WTC

This course provides training and practice in various forms of writing (such as cover letters, résumés, e-mails, investment memos, proposals, group presentations and team reports) relevant to students who are considering careers in business.  In order to practice the art of business writing, this course will utilize a diverse range of materials from case studies on not-for-profit organizations, Fortune 500 companies, tech startups, ESG/SR investment mandates, artificial intelligence, investment banking, financial analysis and organizational behavior.  

Learning Outcome: Students will demonstrate familiarity with genres and styles of writing commonly used in business, with the stages of the writing process, and with individual and collaborative methods of composition.

This course is writing-intensive.

Section: 21W #5932
Instructor:  D. Davoudi
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM WTC

This course is writing-intensive.

Section: 60W #2492
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 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 memos, 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. That gives you a chance to exchange ideas, get assistance, participate in peer editing, and receive feedback on your work. We will discuss our readings and projects in class.

Section: 61W #5933
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 PM – 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 memos, 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. That gives you a chance to exchange ideas, get assistance, participate in peer editing, and receive feedback on your work. We will discuss our readings and projects in class.

Writing for Pre-Law Students (ENGL 211)

Section: 62W #1662
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 facts 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.

Section: 63W #3236
Instructor:  D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 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 facts 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.

Theory/Practice Tutoring (ENGL 220)

Section: 1WE #2493
Instructor: G. Pregent
3.0 credit hours Lecture
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 vibrant 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 journal writing, three response papers, and a group research paper."

ENGL 220-1WE is a writing intensive class.

Exploring Poetry (ENGL 271)

Section: 001 #3460
Instructor:  A. Galus
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 – 9:45 AM LSC

In Exploring Poetry, students will strengthen their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills through the study of a variety of poetic forms. We will read poems from a wide range of periods, places, and authors, in addition to developing a vocabulary for the understanding of poetic forms and effective tools for their analysis. We will question what poetry is by exploring a selection of poems from the Western canon, from Beowulf through contemporary popular poetry and rap. At its core, this course will encourage students to think more deeply about how they interact with language and with the world around them. Course requirements will include active in-class participation, reading quizzes, a midterm exam, and two papers.

Section: 01W #3461
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

This class will provide an introduction to the understanding and analysis of poetry through the study of a wide range of poems in English.  We will consider various motives for writing and reading poetry, and various methods of reading it.    Because this course is writing intensive, there will be frequent brief writing assignments, both in and out of class.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, and a final.

Section: 02W #3462
Instructor: J. Jacobs
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

Section: 03W #4509
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

This class will provide an introduction to the understanding and analysis of poetry through the study of a wide range of poems in English.  We will consider various motives for writing and reading poetry, and various methods of reading it.    Because this course is writing intensive, there will be frequent brief writing assignments, both in and out of class.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, and a final.

Exploring Drama (ENGL 272)

Section: 04W #3463
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

This course of studies will include texts that actively critique the importance of religion on the creative imagination, in particular Catholicism. The quest for meaning, whether religious or secular, can lead to some interesting works of drama. Modernist theater, for instance, with its quest for newness, has sought to dramatize the problems associated with religious faith (Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot). While the depictions can sometimes be sympathetic, sometimes skeptical, there is an underlying affirmation, and legitimization of the immense influence religion has had on forming our understanding of life. In this class we will also explore the movement away from the classical form of drama towards what Brecht calls ‘epic theatre’.

Intro. to Drama covers literature from 20th Century and 21st Century

Exploring Fiction (ENGL 273)

Section: 002 #3465
Instructor: E. Hopwood
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

Exploring Fiction focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction. In this section, Food and Literature (ENGL 273-002), we will interrogate the familiar adage that “you are what you eat” by asking how food operates in critical relation to gender, identity, colonialism, and imperialism. Through course readings, written responses, and class discussion, students will develop skills in literary criticism to both consider and complicate what representations of food and the processes that surround it (growth, trade, preparation, presentation, consumption) might reveal about the formation of social relations and personal identities. Course readings may include works by Herman Melville, Jhumpa Lahiri, Monica Truong, and Harriet Wilson.

Class Tensions in the Victorian Novel

Section: 003 #4510
Instructor:  L. Craig
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

After Great Britain triumphed in the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), the British began to expand their colonial empire at a faster rate, no longer threatened by invasion from France’s military or massive global competition from its merchants. However, fears persisted of France’s revolutionary ideals infecting the discontented British poor at home and causing them to rebel against the middle and upper classes, who represented the pinnacle of a social hierarchy intended to maintain national order. Running parallel to and commenting on political events such as the Corn Laws (1815-1846), widespread food shortage, and harsh living and labor conditions, literature from the period, particularly that written in novel form, attempted both to control the poor and to urge society to abandon or alter outdated views on class and human worth. This course will examine several Victorian novels from the period 1830-1900 that explore and challenge the concepts of a social structure built on class status, engage with the potential of social mobility, and depict love occurring across class boundaries. Besides enabling students to study the political, economic, and personal manifestations of class in a society during a historical period, this course will also focus on professional communication, research, and writing skills. Assignments will include several response papers, two oral presentations, peer review activities, a final research paper, and a final exam.

Section: 05W #3877
Instructor:  J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM 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: 06W #5934
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1!:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

This course examines works by important U.S. novelists from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Class discussions will address formal and thematic features of these writings. Based on these discussions, students will write papers that draw upon the readings to support original and consequential interpretations. Since this is a writing-intensive course, students’ weekly response papers will engage in the practice of “close reading,” which will provide a foundation for the mode of analytical writing practiced in students’ longer papers for the course.

Section: 07W #5935
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

This course examines works by important U.S. novelists from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Class discussions will address formal and thematic features of these writings. Based on these discussions, students will write papers that draw upon the readings to support original and consequential interpretations. Since this is a writing-intensive course, students’ weekly response papers will engage in the practice of “close reading,” which will provide a foundation for the mode of analytical writing practiced in students’ longer papers for the course.

Exploring Shakespeare (ENGL 274)

Section: 004 #4511
Instructor: M. Lutze
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

This course is designed to assist students in learning how to read Shakespearean drama and to better understand the personal, political, and theatrical world in which William Shakespeare lived and worked. In line with the university’s academic outcomes for this course, students will be introduced to plays of Shakespeare that fall into the genres of tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, and history. By the end of the semester, students should be able to demonstrate understanding of the work of Shakespeare as well as fundamental dramatic elements and terminology. 

In order to achieve these ends, we will be working with plays that complement the theme “Shakespeare’s Bodies,” exploring the ways in which Shakespeare’s portrayals of non-normate bodies is a broader reflection of the cultural imagination of early modern England, or England of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Along these lines, lectures will routinely incorporate crucial information relating to Shakespeare himself, the early modern period, dramatic theory, and disability studies, among other relevant contexts. Keeping in mind that Shakespeare wrote for the stage (and not simply for the page), we will devote a considerable amount of class time to looking at scenes from the plays on video and talking about issues related to dramatic performance. Readings will likely include the plays Titus Andronicus, Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest.

African-American Literature Post-1900 (ENGL 282)

Section: 026 #3878
Instructor: F. Staidum
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

While the activist movement, Black Lives Matter, has garnered national attention since its inception in 2013, African American literature has been concerned with asserting the value of black lives since the late 18thcentury.  African and African descendant peoples in the US have long used the written word to express their desires for freedom and its iterations (i.e., equality, citizenship, self-determination, justice) and to represent the full humanity and beauty of Black peoples and their cultures.  This course surveys this diverse tradition of autobiographies, pamphlets, essays, short stories, novels, poetry, and plays.  We will explore important works and their artistic and socio-political context for what they reveal about the ever-changing status of the Black condition and Blackness within the United States.

Women in Literature (ENGL 283)

Monsters, Madwomen, and Mistresses

Section: 005 #5937
Instructor: E. Datskou
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

Medusa, the Salem Witch Trials, Jane Eyre’s Bertha, Cleopatra, Hester Prynne, and the mother in Psycho.

Throughout literature, women have commonly been depicted as monsters, madwomen, and mistresses. In this course, we will look at how these three common representations of women have been produced in literature from the 19th century through today and why these representations remain so prevalent. Within these discussions, we will explore a variety of theoretical and critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of gender, sexuality, and literature.

Cross-listed with WSGS, English 283 is designed to meet the "literary knowledge and experience" requirements of the Loyola Core. By examining these three depictions of women in literature, students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the representations of gender and women in various periods of literary history and diverse cultural contexts.

Readings may include Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Stephen King’s Carrie, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Course requirements may include formal and informal writing assignments and presentations, reading quizzes, in-class discussion, and an exam.

Transwomen in Literature

Section: 006 #5938
Instructor:  P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This is an Engaged Learning course, approved for the Undergraduate Research category, and thus satisfies the Loyola University Chicago Engaged Learning requirement."

In this engaged learning course, students will study transgender literature and history of the early 20th century and will assist in producing a digital scholarly edition and archive of one such narrative: Man into Woman, the life narrative of Lili Elbe, one of the first persons to undergo a surgical change in sex in 1930. (If you have seen the 2015 film, “The Danish Girl,” you have a sense of her life.) The primary work will be supplemented by essays on transgender history and on digital humanities; case studies by sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and early 20th century novels, such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928). Students will immerse themselves in this history to better understand and work with the primary text. In addition, all students will be trained in how to encode materials according to TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standards, and how to collate editions.

Requirements: In addition to the readings, quizzes, and class discussions, students will:

1. Participate in the production of the digital edition and archive, working approximately 10 hours per week on assigned tasks that they select in conjunction with the professor and the project manager. Tasks may include encoding materials in TEI mark-up; proofing materials; collating editions; transcribing materials for the archive; and researching specific events and names mentioned in the narrative and supplemental materials;

2. Learn TEI mark-up language and practice encoding materials;

2. Track their hours and their progress on assignments weekly in a google spreadsheet monitored by the project manager; and,

4. Write blog posts reflecting on the work they did on the edition and what they learned from that process. Students will share these reflections as well as their final product (e.g., an encoded text, a sample collation, a glossary or index) in a project team meeting and at the Undergraduate Research Symposium in April.

NOTE: This work requires close attention to detail, meeting firm deadlines, and working cooperatively with others.

Topic: Gender and Illness

Section: 09W #3879
Instructor:  S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

I have chosen the topic of illness since it is a frequent motif in literature and since it highlights several important themes for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies.  Illness is often stigmatized as a sign of weakness or invoked as contagion to justify fears of outsiders. Our experiences of illness are shaped by cultural expectations, gender norms, eroticism, and spiritual beliefs. Women have a particular relationship to illness through their stereotypical roles as sufferers and caregivers.  We will explore these themes, among others, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, Virginia Grise’s Your Healing Is Killing Me, Nancy Mairs’s Carnal Acts, Aurora Levins Morales’s Kindling, and Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight.  Assignments will include three papers, one paper revision, regular in-class exercises, and an in-class presentation.

This writing intensive section is cross-listed with Women’s Studies and Gender Studies.

Section: 10W #5338
Instructor:  J. 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 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.

Section: 11W #5936
Instructor:  S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

Memoir, as a literary genre, has garnered much critical attention in the last decade (both positive and negative). But what exactly is memoir? What characteristics does it have that are different than fiction? Do these genres ever intersect? If an author is writing from memory, and oftentimes memory is hazy, or at least subjective, what is the “truth” in memoir? These are some of the general questions we will address during the semester while reading a selection of creative non-fiction memoirs by a wide range of contemporary female writers. In terms of content, we will specifically consider how societal attitudes towards gender roles and expectations relate to the taboo nature and cultural silencing of women’s voices in regards to sexuality and reproductive issues. Authors will include Maxine Hong Kingston, bell hooks, Allison Bechdel, Jeanette Winterson,  Kathryn Harrison, Anne Fessler, and Alice Sebold. 

Cross-listed 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 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. This course counts towards the multicultural requirement for the English major. ENGL 283-12W is a writing intensive class.

Religion and Literature (ENGL 287)

Section: 007 #3882
Instructor:  M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course will introduce students to works of literature about religious experience and the Holy. Because students will hold a wide variety of views, the course is designed to encourage discussion and the exchange of ideas. Assignments will consist of a mid-term, term paper, and final examination, as well as several short writing assignments designed to give practice in the essential elements of good writing and literary analysis. Our primary text will be Shadow and Light, but the course will also include readings from the Bible, Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone (1868), and a film to be chosen by the students.         

Nature in Literature (ENGL 288)

Section: 12W #3466
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

In this course we will use a number of different Ecocritical approaches to explore and interpret different 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 there can be a direct correlation as to how people and animals are also written about and represented. Assignments in the semester will include writing papers, quizzes/in-class reflections, and classroom participation.

Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290)

Non-Western Voices
Section: 008 #3883
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

Adopting an international and cross-disciplinary perspective, this section of English 290 will examine the portrayal of human values in modern and contemporary works by selected non-western writers from Africa, the West Indies, South Asia, and USA. Our main aim will be to examine the extent to which the societies under study (and the individuals who constitute them) share universal values and the extent to which these societies and their values are predicated upon culture specific norms and expectations. To this end, we will consider the role of nationalism, tradition, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and class/caste in the conception and practice of such values. In addition, we will analyze the cultural bases of contributing literary techniques, including structure, language, narrative focus, and characterization among others, to arrive at comparative assessments of the portrayal of human values in modern world literature.

 This course satisfies 3 credits of the Core Curriculum Tier-II requirement in Literary Knowledge & Experience; counts as a 200-level elective for both the English major and minor; and meets the 3-credit multicultural requirement of the English major.

Hoards and Other Stuff

Section: 13W #2494
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

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. 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? In this writing-intensive course, students will write “object narratives,” craft close readings, and grapple with theoretical texts. Readings will include case studies of hoarders as well 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.

Section: 22W #3884
Instructor: T. Kim
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

The stories we tell about money and finance are replete with the joys of success and the dangers of excess.  Yet, a careful look into American capitalism in both its economic and cultural aspects reveals a more elaborate process of how money traffics between the realms of pure finance and societal beliefs and customs.  This sequence of Loyola University’s Human Values in Literature will closely examine the relationship between the history of finance (from the mid-1980’s onward) and the narratives that circulate to “make sense” of capital as we know it.  We will review financial topics such as leverage, valuations, behavioral economics, and alternative investments along with the cultural translations of these events that appear in the form of cautionary tales, visions of utopia/dystopia, the sublime, and the confessional, among others.  This course will cover not only the fictions of contemporary finance (including works by Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, Don DeLillo, and J.C. Chandor) but some of the best non-fiction produced on this topic in the past three decades (including works by Michael Lewis, James Stewart, Bryan Burrough, Robert Shiller, Richard Thaler, Roger Lowenstein, and Sheelah Kolhatkar).

Advanced Writing (ENGL 293)

Section: 14W #4512
Instructor: M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 4:00 – 5:15 PM LSC

This advanced writing course explores the dynamic forms and structures of composition beyond the classroom toward the purposes of professional publication and presentation. Composition offers a wide array of exciting forms, styles and structures beyond the academic essay, and this course develops an appreciation and capability for students’ choices of essay types in creating several for personal, professional and hybrid writing, and the accompanying professional documents necessary for the publication or presentation process. As a community of writers we research, draft, comment and prepare for submission together. We will explore relevant readings from composition theory and pedagogy to inform our writing projects, as well as how we conceive of the writing process. Engaging, supportive and challenging, this course is ideal for writers in any discipline who wish to become better writers and to enjoy the process as they do so.

Grammar: Principles & Pedagogy (ENGL 303)

Section: 009 #2033
Instructor: E. Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

In a sense our language is something we already know, but do we understand how it really works? The goal of this course is to analyze the structure of the English language, to unlock the secrets behind the meaning we produce innately. We will explore English grammar not only as a list of rules and regulations that govern linguistic behavior but also as a means of clearly conveying ideas in speech and writing. This course will examine all elements of English grammar from parts of speech and how they function in a sentence to punctuation and how it enhances clear and precise prose. Course requirements include reading all assigned material, doing all assigned exercises, taking regular quizzes and tests, and giving a short teaching presentation. This course is required for students planning to teach high school English, but it is open to others and recommended for anyone who studies texts written in English.

S. Latina/o Literature (ENGL 311)

Section: 010 #5940
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

In this course, students will study texts by U.S. Latina and Latino writers and develop analytical tools, culturally-specific terms, and critical questions to help them to interpret and to write about this literature.  I have chosen texts with very different styles, different political perspectives, and different representations of Latina and Latino identity in order to emphasize diversity rather than a single (inherent or ideal) way of being “Latino.”  We will study Chicanx, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Dominican American writers José Antonio Villarreal, Arturo Islas, Gloria Anzaldúa, Piri Thomas, Aurora Levins Morales, Achy Obejas, H.G. Carrillo, Junot Díaz, and Daisy Hernández.  Assignments will include four blog-style essays, two exams, and regular in-class exercises.  

This course fulfills the post-1900 period requirement and the multicultural requirement for the English major.  It is also cross-listed with Latin American and Latino Studies. 

The Writing of Poetry (ENGL 317)

Section: 011 #1368
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 - 5:00 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: 012 #1369
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
F 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: 602 #2495
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 - 9:30 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.

The Writing of Fiction (ENGL 318)

Section: 013 #1370
Instructor: V. Popa
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

This course explores the art and techniques of writing fiction; how and why it succeeds in capturing the imagination of readers, and how those skills can be channeled successfully to craft new and original work. This introductory course will include a combination of craft lessons and workshop critique. We will investigate the output of a diverse cast of authors, from Francois Rabelais and Laurence Sterne to Denis Johnson and Danyial Mueenuddin. From these works, we will then distill valuable lessons about the writing of fiction, such as character development, dialogue, plot, and tension, which students will then apply to their own compositions. Assignments include two original works of short fiction (either short stories or novel excerpts) and a final portfolio (which will include revisions of workshopped assignments).      

Course Goals:

This introductory Creative Writing course requires you to develop the following skills:

Section: 014 #2496
Instructor: V. Popa
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 2:45 PM – 5:15 PM LSC

This course explores the art and techniques of writing fiction; how and why it succeeds in capturing the imagination of readers, and how those skills can be channeled successfully to craft new and original work. This introductory course will include a combination of craft lessons and workshop critique. We will investigate the output of a diverse cast of authors, from Francois Rabelais and Laurence Sterne to Denis Johnson and Danyial Mueenuddin. From these works, we will then distill valuable lessons about the writing of fiction, such as character development, dialogue, plot, and tension, which students will then apply to their own compositions. Assignments include two original works of short fiction (either short stories or novel excerpts) and a final portfolio (which will include revisions of workshopped assignments).      

Course Goals:

This introductory Creative Writing course requires you to develop the following skills:

  • Using a variety of techniques to craft original drafts of short fiction;
  • Critiquing your own and other’s work in the workshop setting;
  • Performing close readings of published and unpublished fiction;
  • Engaging with the process of writing as an ongoing and plastic development

Section: 603 #2497
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30 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, Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce 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.

Writing Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 319)

Section: 015 #2034
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
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.  Indeed, perhaps the only way to define creative nonfiction is to identify its constitutive elements: facts and subjectivity.  Nonfiction means the given facts of the work are true—not courtroom testimony-level true, but fairly reliably-accurate true—and subjectivity means that the writer is using those facts to get at more than the facts, to take a personally distinctive look at a topic, or issue, or period of her life, and often, whether explicitly or not, at some larger underlying question. 

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 learn about narrative distance, scene and exposition, and various elements of craft, with a focus on voice and diction.  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.   

Studies in Medieval Literature (ENGL 323)

Uses of the Supernatural in Medieval Literature

Section: 016 #5950
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

This course will examine romances and related literature of medieval England in which writers deploy supernatural forces or characters. We will analyze these texts in their social and historical contexts in order to elucidate the cultural work of various forms of supernaturalism in the Middle Ages. Readings will include the Lais of Marie de France, some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other anonymous romances in verse. Some readings will be in modern English translations, and others will be in the original Middle English with vocabulary glosses to aid comprehension. The final grade will be based on class participation, weekly reading responses, an oral report with an annotated bibliography, a Middle English pronunciation exam, two essays, and a final exam. 

Plays of Shakespeare (ENGL 326)

Section: 017 #1373
Instructor: J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM 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.  Throughout the course of the semester we will focus on 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: Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Richard II, Henry V, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale. The primary text will be David Bevington’s edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. There will be papers, a midterm and a final.

Studies in Renaissance (ENGL 328)

Section: 018 #1774
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 AM LSC

This course will examine how high and low culture, or elite and popular cultural, were constructed and defined in the Early Modern or Renaissance period.  Through readings in various literary genres (poems, ballads, plays, prose fiction), as well as in material not traditionally considered literary, we will take up such questions as: how "high" and "low" culture, or elite and popular culture, have been defined, separated, and combined; how canonical literary texts incorporate elements of popular culture; what functions literature performed within Renaissance culture; and why texts of various kinds have been excluded from the literary canon.

Requirements will include papers, a midterm, and a final.  This course counts toward the pre-1700 requirement for the English major.

Studies in Romantic Period (ENGL 338)

Section: 019 #5951
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

After Edward Austen-Leigh lost a few chapters of his unfinished novel, his aunt consoled him—and disowned the theft. “What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow,” wrote the finest prose stylist in English, when her own works were just a “little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?” In this course, we’ll read the novels of Jane Austen, and think through the terms of this self-depreciation: her mastery is often miniature, luminous in a stolen glance, an arched brow, the turn of a subordinate clause. But we’ll also think through the ways she carves the volcanic fissures of early nineteenth-century Britain onto her ivory—war, revolution, economic collapse and chattel slavery shade the wit of her parlors. We’ll read Austen’s works in and against their historical moment; along with the major novels, we’ll read Catherine Morland’s beloved Gothic stories, so full of murder, blasphemy, and ghostly terror; along with Anne Elliot’s romance with a naval officer in Persuasion, we’ll read Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander, a story of sea warfare, espionage, and male adventure that’s the most perfectly Austenian novel she never wrote. Most of all, we’ll read some of the most pleasurable fiction the world has ever known. Exams, papers, and copious portions of Mr. Darcy.

Satisfies the department’s pre-1900 and/or 1700-1900 requirement.

Victorian Period Studies (ENGL 343)

The Novel and Its Secrets
Section: 020 #4515
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

The novel is a house of secrets. Blackmail plots, illicit love affairs, hidden identities, and stolen inheritances lurk in its pages, waiting to be deployed. In this course we will peek into the guilty heart of the nineteenth century, discussing how Victorian literature grapples with the compromises of imperialism, the effects of urbanization on class society, the legal realities of marriage and accompanying fear of bigamy, and the evolution of a modern concept of privacy. We will read the earliest detective stories and the sensation novels which would eventually crystallize into the now-familiar detective genre. In the second half of the semester, we will move away from explicit detection plots to canonical works of 19th century fiction, in which secrets continue to play a pivotal role. Indeed, this course treats the secret as the defining unit of the novel, the tinderbox from which narrative springs. Secrets of course abound in detective tales and ghost stories. But it is also the task of every narrative—even works of domestic realism—to encode, circulate, and store information. Considering the literary techniques of suspense, misdirection, and revelation, we will explore how the novel draws the reader into its secrets—and how, sometimes, it keeps its secrets to itself. Texts will include Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and a few famous Sherlock Holmes stories from Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 354)

Section: 021 #2035
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

In this course students will become familiar with the wide range of questions that critics bring to bear on literary works when writing literary criticism.  Students will learn to read and understand the philosophical and historical bases of certain theoretical questions, to recognize these questions underlying the literary criticism they read, and to compose literary analyses with these theories serving as a foundation for their work.

Lit: Writer’s Perspective (ENGL 357)

Section: 022 #1376
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Flannery O’Connor said that stories have a beginning, middle, and end—though not necessarily in that order.  This course will explore some of the “disordered”, unusual, disjunctive, eccentric ways that fiction writers have told their stories.  And not just chronological discontinuity (although that’s one way we’ll examine), but through other narrative means as well; e.g., a variety of voices for a single character, alternate versions of a single story, different literary genres within a single story, etc.  We will read fiction by writers such as Marguerite Duras, Paul Auster, Susan Sontag, D.M. Thomas, Michael Ondaatje, and Alain Robbe-Grillet, and will also see some relevant films.  Written work will partially consist of student-written fiction in representative eccentric modes; therefore, the prior taking of English 318, Introduction to Fiction Writing, is highly desirable and highly recommended.

Studies in Fiction Post-1900 (ENGL 372C)

Section: 15W #5315
Instructor: J. B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 AM LSC

English 372C—Studies in Fiction-Shame in Literature will focus on the depiction of shame in selected works by 20th-  and  21st-century authors.  Often referred to by affect theorists as the “master emotion,” shame is “a multidimensional, multilayered experience,” observes Gershen Kaufman.  “While first of all an individual phenomenon experienced in some form and to some degree by every person, shame is equally a family phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon.  It is reproduced within families, and each culture has its own distinct sources as well as targets of shame.”  This course will provide students with a brief introduction to and overview of shame theory, including psychological accounts of shame and its related feeling states (such as embarrassment, humiliation, and lowered self-esteem) and the classic defenses against shame (such as contempt or arrogance or shamelessness).  The authors we will read include Kafka, Bellow, Morrison, Moore, Mairs, and Sarton. There will be oral presentations, quizzes, papers, and exams.

This course fulfills the post-1900 period requirement of the English major.

Studies in American Culture (ENGL 382)

Cults in American Literature and History

Section: 023 #5952
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

America grants citizens religious liberty, but one paradox of that liberty is it includes the right to renounce our civic freedoms for religious pursuits. This course will consider literary representations of cults, communes, and collectives in American history and culture. A radically separatist expression of American spirituality, cults are the ultimate embodiment of freedom of religion. Yet throughout American history they have also been viewed with deep suspicion, as a form of brainwashing and loss of autonomy and a threat to a free citizenry. This course will pursue fictional and nonfictional readings about cults, considering topics such as the limits of religious freedom, the conflicts between religiosity and American ideals of citizenship, and the ways unorthodox forms of religion have become targets of attack and flashpoints for broader social and cultural anxieties. Over the semester, we will follow stories of demonic leaders, messianic gurus, and charismatic conmen from the earliest decades of settlement until the present. Our readings will range from the Salem witchcraft trials to nineteenth-century utopian communes and twentieth–century global cults. Yet even as we span across centuries and even different parts of the world, we will return to one central theme: cults as a living embodiment of American contradictions between religious and civil liberties.   

Advanced African-American Lit Post-1900 (ENGL 384C)

Section: 024 #5953
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 -11:15 AM LSC

In “The Power and Provocation of Black Panther,” writer Van Newkirk poses an important question: “What if the Transatlantic children of the mother continent had been allowed to remain, building their empires with the bounties of the cradle of civilization?” (The Atlantic, Feb. 14, 2018) The rupture produced by the transatlantic slave trade resulted in a sense of loss, non-belonging, and “homelessness” that resonate in the works of late 20th and 21st century African-descended artists. This course will explore, through literary and visual means, the efforts of African-descended people to forge a relationship with an imagined “homeland.”

Some of the central concerns for this course are: the representation of black (geographic and ideological) utopias, travel beyond the Middle Passage (migration, expatriation, heritage tourism),  and the future of an African diaspora. We will examine a diverse range of contemporary African/American writers and artists, including Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion, the film “Black Panther,” and essays by photographer/writer Teju Cole. Students should expect to participate in class discussions, complete short response papers, and write a short critical essay (roughly 5 pages). There will be a mid-term exam and final exam for this course. This course fulfills the post-1900 and multicultural literature requirements.

Advanced Seminar: (ENGL 390)

Queer Modernity

Section: 16W #2294
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 111:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

“The twentieth century is often called ‘the century of sex’.”[1] In the early decades, the birth control movement, the suffrage movement, increasing advocacy for homosexuals, and the new science of sexology all contributed to this moniker. Sex became more and more central to identity and to scientific research. The modernist era (roughly, 1890-1940) witnessed tremendous change in concepts of sexual and gender identity. Disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sexology, endocrinology, and anthropology; the phenomenon of the “modern girl” who cut her hair, wore pants, smoked in public, and rode the subway; organizations such as the World League for Sexual Reform; periodicals such as The Freewoman and Urania; and literary works such as Sherwood Anderson's “The Man Who Became a Woman” and James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness and Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), and Djuana Barnes's Nightwood (1936)—all were challenging the 19th-century sacrosanct belief in sexual dimorphism.

This is the historical context for this senior seminar on Queer Modernity. We will read primary works, fiction and nonfiction, from the early 1900s through the 1930s, along with secondary scholarship in modernist and queer studies. Readings include works by sexologists, such as Edward Carpenter, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld; novels by Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, and Christopher Isherwood; and scholarship by historians such as Robert Beachy and Alison Oram.  Students will give one oral presentation with a written component and produce a final research project to be tailored to the student’s interests.

9/11, the War on Terror, and “Other” Voices

Section: 17W #3885
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Following a spate of hate crimes, including murder, against Sikh-Americans and Muslim-Americans after September 11, 2001, filmmaker and civil rights activist Valarie Kaur chronicled the violence in her 2006 award-winning documentary film Divided We Fall, revealingly subtitled Americans in the Aftermath. And since the November 2016 election, with the sharp increase in xenophobic political rhetoric and policy, assaults against Muslims, Sikhs, Arabs, and other South Asians in America have accelerated sharply as well, so much so that, as Kaur notes, “The current surge is the most dangerous we have seen, because it is fueled by [government-backed] profiling and bigotry in words and actions”; “we are five times more likely today to be targets of hate than before 9/11.” 

To offset the silence in mainstream literary-cultural representations about such domestic civil and human rights abuses and about human rights violations in the War on Terror, this seminar will study texts written chiefly by Muslim-, Sikh-, Arab-, and South Asian-American writers and commentators so as to foreground the perspectives of these minoritized and targeted western others. In addition to analyzing Kaur’s documentary, we will read oral histories (Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice, edited by Alia Malek, and Mahvish Rukhsana Khan’s My Guantánamo Diary:  The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me), novels (Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows, and Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden), and autoethnographic essays (by Natasha Behl). And we will frame the texts above with selected theoretical readings from Arundhati Roy’s The End of Imagination, Judith Butler’s Precarious Life and Frames of War, and Tzvetan Todorov’s Torture and the War on Terror

This course meets the multicultural and post-1900 requirements of the English major.

Advanced Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 392)

Section: 18W #4520
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
F 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

In this advanced workshop in creative nonfiction, we’ll develop a keen sense of craft by reading each other’s work and the work of some of the finest writers in the genre, including Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, Teju Cole, Meghan Daum, and Leslie Jamison.  We’ll pay particular attention to questions of voice, narrative distance, narrative immediacy, personal research, hybrids, concept essays, dialogue, and story.  We’ll also have Skype visits from established authors working in the field, who will be willing to answer your questions about everything from writing habits to publishing.  Through writing, reading, and workshopping, we’ll work to build a common vocabulary and orientation in the genre, and you’ll also be working to develop your own individual orientation, so that you become more comfortable and innovative as a writer. 

Teaching English to Adults (ENGL 393)

Section: 01E #1404
Instructor: J. Heckman
1, 2, or 3 credit hours Lecture
MTWR 5:30 PM – 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 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. 

Internship (ENGL 394)

Section: 02E #1406
Instructor: J. Cragwall

Honors Tutorial: (ENGL 395)

Gender, Colony, and Captivity in Early American Literature

Section: 19W #3467
Instructor: F. Staidum
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Gender, Colony, and Captivity in Early American Literature is a study of the literature produced by various authors writing across the North American landscape from the seventeenth-century through the early national period (c. 1830s).  By accentuating the concepts of colony and captivity inasmuch as they involve matters of collective identity, race, and sexuality, we will engage selected works by early American writers and question how these texts represent colonialism, slavery, and marriage.  In other words, the course interrogates the literary constructions of highly consequential social binaries in the slow, ad hoc making of “America”—husband/wife, freedom/enslavement, christian/savage, and loyalist/revolutionary.  The course interrogates the writings of the colonial, revolutionary, and early national periods in order to recognize the many shifts in the representation of America and to assess the complicated role of gendered, raced, and postcolonial consciousnesses in the development of a national literary tradition.

Advanced Writing: Fiction (ENGL 398)

Section: 21W #1408
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM LSC

This is a fiction writing workshop for those who have already taken English 318 (a prerequisite) which builds upon concepts of fictional art and craft studied there. Students will write original stories which will be discussed and critiqued by the instructor and by one's fellow writers in a supportive workshop environment. Students will also read and discuss the craft of master fiction writers, such as Steven Milhauser, Junot Diaz, Joy Williams, Richard Ford, Aimee Bender, and others. Class participation is emphasized.

Special Studies in Literature (ENGL 399)

Section: 025 #5957
Instructor: J. Cragwall