The foundational course in literary studies will require students to read and analyze a variety of texts and explore core critical approaches. Using the theme of outsiders, 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.

Section: 003 #3933
Instructor: P. Warren
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:10–9:00 AM

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.

Section: 004 #3934
Instructor: P. Warren
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:30–10:20 AM

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.

Section: 005 #3935
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:50–11:40 AM

Sometimes it is hard to hope. Authors have attempted to during times of great challenge and have offered up their ways of finding hope in difficult times. In this class we will be looking at the different ways hope is written about and described in pieces of poetry, literature, and drama. We will look at authors such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin,

Section: 006 #3936
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:50–11:40 AM

Section: 007 #3937
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10 –1:00 PM

Character and Environment in 20th and 21st Century American Literature

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, novel, drama, graphic novel, and nonfiction. As we explore important questions about how literature works, I have organized our readings around the relationship between characters and their environments. How does a character’s place shape their identity, their actions, and their opportunities? What lessons does literature have to teach us about adapting to or transforming our ecosystems? Exploring these questions will help students to develop the skills needed to analyze literature in an engaged and complex manner. The authors we will study include Carl Sandburg, Willa Cather, Cherríe Moraga, Octavia Butler, Allison Bechdel, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and José Antonio Vargas. Assignments will include regular written responses to the readings, creative exercises, and two exams.

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

Section: 008 #3938
Instructor: J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10–1:00 PM

Home

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. 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 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. Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, class participation, written literary analysis, and a take-home final exam. The primary mode of instruction for this class will be synchronous, with some class days asynchronous.

Section: 009 #3939
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:30–2:20 PM

Utopias and Dystopias

In this course, we will read, discuss and write about texts and film that explore how the creation of utopias and dytopias form astute social commentary on the present state of the world. With units in the course such as Afrofuturism, White Utopias, and Capitalist dystopias, there is a special focus on social ecologies based in racial and gendered hierarchies in the material and our discussions. We will be reading short stories, novels, plays and poetry as well as viewing films. You will be introduced to multiple strategies to approach and interpret challenging texts through lectures, class discussions, group work and short responses. Materials include: short stories by Octavia Butler, the African film Pumzi, a novel by Richard Brautigan, and the poetry of W.B. Yeats, Harryette Mullen, Douglas Kearney and Khadijah Queen.

Section: 010 #3940
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:50–3:40 PM

Section: 016 #3946
Instructor: J. Eighan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:00–9:15 AM

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: 017 #3947
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 9:45–11:00 AM

In this foundational course students will encounter established works as well as more recent writings in the genres of prose fiction, drama, and poetry. Texts will be drawn from different periods in order to establish how these forms were both responsive to their historical moments as well as recognizably persistent over time.

Section: 019 #3949
Instructor: E. Hopwood
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 AM–12:45 PM

Murder, Mystery, and Misfits: Reading Crime

In this foundational core course in literary studies, we will investigate representations of crimes and criminals in prose, fiction, poetry, and drama from the 19th century to today. How does race, gender, class, and culture inform how we demarcate between the “guilty” and the “innocent”? How has criminality been constructed and legislated? And why are we so attracted to reading/watching/listening to accounts of true crime, mystery, murder, and detectives?

We will read authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Agatha Christie, Oyinkan Braithwaite, and Carmen Machado, as well as (virtually) investigate sites like the Eastern State Penitentiary and Alcatraz. Students will be introduced to key literary terms and critical approaches to close reading and analysis. Course objectives include foundational knowledge in literary studies and communicating insights about each text through writing, digital storytelling, and in-class discussion.

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

Section: 021 #3951
Instructor: E. Sharrett
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

In this foundational course of literary studies, we will read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama. Students will become familiar with key literary and critical terms, as well as explore a variety of critical approaches used to analyze and interpret literature. To achieve these objectives, we will study works that consider the elements and ethics of revenge. Authors may include William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Browning, Langston Hughes, Gillian Flynn, Louise Glück, Mohsin Hamid, and Stieg Larsson. Assignments will permit students to hone their critical thinking skills while investigating how various tales comment on the adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Section: 022 #3952
Instructor: J. Chamberlin
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

Form and Transformation: What Makes Us Human?

What makes us human? And what makes someone—or something—inhuman? In this course, students will investigate these questions through compelling works of literature. Drawing from a diverse body of writers from across time periods, we will read texts ranging from medieval poetry about werewolves to a short story about a woman transforming into a horse.

This class will also explore the ways in which our understanding of humanity is complicated by race, gender, disability, and animality in a variety of different literary forms including poetry, drama, and fiction. We’ll solve Old English riddles, encounter the absurd in the play Rhinoceros, and imagine a world in which the nature and humanity are at odds in N.K. Jemisin’s novel The Fifth Season. We will ask questions such as: What does language and our identities as readers, writers, and speakers have to do with being human? How does transformation complicate what we understand to be the human form? Students will complete four major assessments—a midterm, a final, and two papers—in addition to short assignments such as reading responses and collaborative quizzes.

Section: 023 #3953
Instructor: J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

Whatever you do, don’t take this class. Studying literature is pointless; it won’t get you a job. That’s what they say, right? But who are they, anyway, and do they know how to read, think, and write? Is science really “hard” and the humanities “soft”? And if literature is so useless, why do they need to warn you to stay away? This foundational course will focus on the interpretive skills you need to explore such questions. Though studying literature may be useless when compared to learning how to use a hammer, it can illuminate why language and narrative are the most complex media we rely on to make sense of human experience. We will examine the representation of this experience in works from a variety of historical periods in an array of literary genres (poetry, drama, prose fiction). Assignments will include quizzes, short papers, as well as a mid-term and final exam. We will not learn how to use a hammer.

Section: 024 #3954
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

In this foundational course students will encounter established works as well as more recent writings in the genres of prose fiction, drama, and poetry. Texts will be drawn from different periods in order to establish how these forms were both responsive to their historical moments as well as recognizably persistent over time.

ENGL 210 Business Writing

Section: 20W #1511
Instructor: M. Mangoubi
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MW 2:30–3:45 PM

ENGL 210 –20W Business Writing is awriting-intensive course thatmirrorsa “real world” work environment. Wefocus on writing, critical thinking, organization, and oral communication skillswhile role playing.Like the businessworld, you’llwork alone andas part of a team to create various business documents. Theformat of thiscourse is a workshop.

Engl 210-20W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 21W #3956
Instructor: J. Chamberlin
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

Business Writing will train you to approach any professional writing task by first assessing the rhetorical situation. You will learn to analyze genres and styles of writing commonly used in business (such as job ads, memos, letters, proposals, reports, and instruction) and compose your own documents based on your assessment of audience and persuasive goals. Collaboration and working effectively in groups are essentials skill to mastering professional communication; assignments and class activities therefore will text your ability to incorporate and respond to your peers’ ideas and work in class.

Engl 210-21W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 60W #2183
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 5:30–8:00 PM

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on specific types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including press releases, customer reviews, and resumes.

Our course is writing intensive. We will use a process approach to writing, emphasizing problem-solving, prewriting strategies, and editing and revision skills. You will plan and share some of your writing with me in draft conferences. That gives you a chance to raise ideas, ask questions, get assistance, and receive feedback on your work.

Engl 210-60W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 61W #3957
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 5:30–8:00 PM

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on specific types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including press releases, customer reviews, and resumes.

Our course is writing intensive. We will use a process approach to writing, emphasizing problem-solving, prewriting strategies, and editing and revision skills. You will plan and share some of your writing with me in draft conferences. That gives you a chance to raise ideas, ask questions, get assistance, and receive feedback on your work.

Engl 210-60W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 211 Writing for Pre-Law Students

Section: 60W #1512
Instructor: D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 5:30–8:00 PM

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 is a writing intensive class.

Section: 61W #2706
Instructor: D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 5:30–8:00 PM

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 211-61W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 220 Theory/Practice Tutoring

Section: 01E #2184
Instructor: B. Molby
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

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 who can speak to the student’s writing ability and interpersonal skills. Recommendations should be emailed to Brandiann Molby (bmolby@luc.edu). Those who excel in the course will be eligible to work as paid writing tutors.

ENGL 220-1WE #2184 is a writing intensive service learning class. Please contact instructor bmolby@luc.edu for permission to take this class.
This class satisfies the Engaged Learning requirement in the Service Learning category.

ENGL 271 Exploring Poetry

Section: 003 #5118
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

Why does anybody read, write, study, or even (imagine this!) love poetry? In an era when film, television, music, and social media dominate the cultural landscape, what relevance does poetry still have? In this class, as we familiarize ourselves with the history of poetry and some of its most significant works, we will also attempt to ask and answer a very fundamental question: why does this artform even exist? What are its roots in human psychology? Why has it persisted for thousands of years? Why do we turn to it in times of crisis? When we're in love? When we grieve? How might poetry help us to understand the world and ourselves in deeper and more essential ways? In this class you'll read, discuss, analyze, and even write poems.

Section: 004 #6689
Instructor: I. Cornelius
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 9:45–11:00 AM

The word “poetry” derives from a Greek word meaning “to make.” English and Scottish poets were once called “makers.” Language is the poet’s material and poets are sometimes called weavers of words because they create intricate patterns from a seemingly simple material (“text”, “texture”, and “textile” all share the same root, meaning “to weave”). Yet poets would be the first to point out that language is not simple. Language is a many-sided thing and poets are among the sharpest observers of its qualities and potential. In this course we read a selection of narrative and lyric poetry in English, with a focus on its material—language. We develop vocabularies for describing the sounds of the English language and the shapes of words and sentences, and we explore the ways that poets create their art through deliberate selection, arrangement, and shaping of the English language. Assessment is by midterm and final exams, quizzes, and short assignments.

Section: 01W #5119
Instructor: P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:30–2:40 PM

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 271-01W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #5120
Instructor: V. Bell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:50–3:40 PM

In the poetry of attention, the poet comes to his senses. Beginning in the senses, imagination senses farther, senses more. A poem’s trajectory is an eyebeam, not an outline.

–Donald Revell

Taking inspiration from Donald Revell’s definition of poetry as “the art of attention,” this course is about you, about exploring what details in a poem call out for your attention, and then how to write persuasively about your reactions. To be able to discuss and write about poetry, you will read critical essays and learn basic terms that describe the formal properties of poetry as well as aspects of poetic content. Authors include William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fatimah Asghar, Richard Blanco, A.E. Stallings, Cornelius Eady, Cathy Park Hong, Sarah Carson, and more.

The course is discussion-based and everyone is expected to participate by sharing reactions, raising questions, working in groups, and experimenting with writing a few poems of your own. The course is also writing-intensive; requirements include midterm and final exams (short answer), several short papers, peer workshops, one longer argument paper, and attending a live poetry reading (virtual/Zoom).

ENGL 271-02W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 272 Exploring Drama

Section: 01W #2836
Instructor: R. Peters
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

English 272 focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of drama; extensive readings and several critical analyses are required in this class. This section of English 272 offers a rigorous study of numerous significant 20th and 21st Century dramas. Course texts will include works from Tennessee Williams, Margaret Edson, Tony Kushner, August Wilson, Lynn Nottage, and several others.

ENGL 272-01W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #4438
Instructor: B. Rebarchik
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10–1:00 PM

This class will explore canonical dramatic texts and their adaptations. We will look at a range of different plays (from ancient Greece through modern times) and study how they have been adapted by other cultures and time periods on stage, page, and screen. The class will study different adaptation theories in order to understand why plays are changed or altered. In this vein, we will examine how authors take familiar texts and use them as a vehicle for new ideas and social commentary.

ENGL 272-02W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 273 Exploring Fiction

Section: 001 #4452
Instructor: L. Le-Khac
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:00 PM

Growing Up “Different”: Coming-of-Age Stories in a Diversifying America

This course explores fiction centered on young people of color finding their places in America and changing the nation in the process. We’ll examine the diversity of American coming-of-age stories from 1960 to today, a period when many minority groups struggled to claim their places in the nation. We’ll follow extraordinary writers of color as they narrate the possibilities for young people of different backgrounds to develop in contemporary America. And we’ll equip you with the analytical tools you’ll need to appreciate their artistry in fiction.

ENGL 273-001 is a multicultural class.

Section: 002 #4456
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

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: 01W #4451
Instructor: J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:30–2:20 PM

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 literary analysis essays. The primary mode of instruction for this class will be synchronous, with some class days asynchronous.

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

Section: 02W #4789
Instructor: R. Kietzman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:00–9:15 AM

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 these analytic skills.

ENGL 273-02W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 03W #4790
Instructor: A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 AM–12:45 PM

Horror Fiction

Most of us have experienced the pleasure that can be derived from a good scary story. We love to feel spine-tingling chills while sitting in the comfort of familiar surroundings. We might wonder, especially in recent times, why such stories bring us pleasure in a world that seems to have more than enough real disquietude, horror, and terror in it. In this course we will explore some of the best horror fiction and consider why the exciting and pleasurable effects of these stories are so enduring. We will read short and longer works spanning the history of this genre, beginning with a chapter from Homer’s Odyssey and some Grimm’s fairy tales, traveling through the gothic traditions represented by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and others. We will also read some short critical works to help us think about the psychological and literary mechanisms behind the dreadful pleasures of the scary story. Course requirements: consistent attendance and participation on Zoom and five brief discussion forums, three short response papers, and a final exam.

ENGL 273-03W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 600 #4457
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 5:30–8:00 PM

We will explore major critical approaches and apply them to a range of literary texts, including novels and short stories, with a focus on what comprises and compromises social class and wealth. These critical approaches will include psychology, race, social class, and gender. 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.

ENGL 274 Exploring Shakespeare

Section: 01W #5121
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:50–3:40 PM

In numerous works, Shakespeare probed the major cultural and political topics of his day, from the nature of love and friendship to the nature of political leadership. We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. Shakespeare’s plays and poems represent a so-called common heritage, and yet they are utterly “foreign to us all,” distant from us in “time, language, and thought.” My assignments are designed to help students (1) overcome historical and linguistic barriers to comprehension, and (2) come to terms with material that resists simplification and assimilation. I present historical difference as an intellectual challenge and ultimately as an opportunity to reimagine the norms of current culture that can otherwise appear natural or inevitable.  

ENGL 274-01W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #5195
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10–1:00 PM

In numerous works, Shakespeare probed the major cultural and political topics of his day, from the nature of love and friendship to the nature of political leadership. We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. Shakespeare’s plays and poems represent a so-called common heritage, and yet they are utterly “foreign to us all,” distant from us in “time, language, and thought.” My assignments are designed to help students (1) overcome historical and linguistic barriers to comprehension, and (2) come to terms with material that resists simplification and assimilation. I present historical difference as an intellectual challenge and ultimately as an opportunity to reimagine the norms of current culture that can otherwise appear natural or inevitable.  

ENGL 274-02W is a writing intensive class

ENGL 282 African-American Literature

Section: 01W #6609
Instructor: L. Romero
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 4:10–5:00 PM

Even though the Black Lives Matter organization has only been around since 2013, African American literature has been concerned with the inherent dignity, beauty, and value of Black Lives since its inception in the 18th Century. This course will examine works of fiction, drama, and poetry written by African Americans from the Harlem Renaissance up to the current moment. By the end of this course, you will be able to talk about different literary movements within the African American literary tradition, analyze texts from myriad genres, and articulate how African American literature served and continues to serve as a site of resistance, inspiration, and respite. Possible writers include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Octavia E. Butler, and Danez Smith.

ENGL 282-01W is a writing intensive and multicultural class.

ENGL 283 Women in Literature

Section: 001 #4458
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:50–11:40 AM

Section: 01W #5123
Instructor: J. Hawkins
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:10–9:00 AM

Women and Animals

This course will look to fiction, poetry, film, and creative nonfiction for sites in which women and non-human animals share space on the page, stakes in the story, or close relational bonds. This emphasis on the representation of women and animals together offers dynamic but ambivalent political potential: in the search for liberating models of power and relationship, the place where women and animals meet in literature provides a meaningful site for imagination and critique. At the same time, the alignment of women and animals has often been used to reinforce oppressive structures, especially in the contexts of race and class.

Together, we will listen to and ask questions of a wide variety of voices.

Likely authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Emily Dickinson, and Jesmyn Ward.

ENGL 283-01W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #5124
Instructor: S. Sleevi
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:30–2:20 PM

This Writing Intensive course will focus on the representation of women in literature, as explored through a variety of literary works. We will read texts that range from the nineteenth century to the present, looking closely at how their thematic content and formal features work to construct, perpetuate, and challenge certain representations of women across various historical periods and cultures. In order to achieve the Writing Intensive aspect of the course, we will also dedicate time and attention to the writing process itself and write regularly as a means of thinking through course material. ENGL 283-02W will meet synchronously (via Zoom) on Mondays and Wednesdays during the scheduled class period and asynchronously (via assignments on Sakai) each Friday. Assignments for the course will include regular short writing assignments and discussion forums, three response papers, and a final paper.

ENGL 283-02W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 03W #5125
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

This course focuses on the feminist avant-garde, women writers and artists of the early to mid twentieth-century who produced experimental works and challenged conventional notions of gender. Our purpose will be (1) to learn to read texts (verbal and visual) in relation to their social and historical context, especially contemporaneous notions of gender, and (2) to analyze literature in terms of its narrative techniques. How do we read women’s literature that doesn’t provide a linear plot, stable characters, or positive images of women? What effect do these artworks have on our notions of ourselves as gendered subjects? What are the political implications of such radical texts? We will read Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and Djuna Barnes from the first half of the century, and Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson and Harryette Mullen from the second half. We will also read Nella Larsen, a more conventional novelist whose writing was indebted to Stein and has radical implications for our understanding of gender, race and class. And we will discuss visual artists as well. This course makes a case for why aesthetically difficult writers and artists like those considered “avant-garde” still matter.

The writing-intensive course combines informal lectures with class discussions. Frequent writing will encourage us to think critically as well as personally about the assignments and will help to initiate class discussion. A series of structured writing assignments will focus on specific skills (such as summary and argument) and specific elements of writing about literature (such as close reading and comparison). We will share our writing in class periodically and will comment on one another’s papers in workshops.

ENGL 283-03W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 288 Nature in Literature

Section: 01W #2837
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10–1:00 PM

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, reading reflections, peer review, and participation.

ENGL 288-01W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 02W #5126
Instructor: E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:50–3:40 PM

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, reading reflections, peer review, and participation.

ENGL 288-02W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 290 Human Values in Literature

Section: 001 #4462
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 9:45–11:00 AM

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. For English majors, the course counts as a 200-level elective for both the major and minor and also meets the 3-credit multicultural requirement.

Section: 002 #5142
Instructor: A. Mitchell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 5:30–6:45 PM

Reckoning: it can be a process of determining value, but also a form of avenging the ills of the past. It is not always easy for individuals, let alone an entire country, to reckon with the past – this is why we often turn to darker tales and stories in literature, to grapple with what we can’t always face head-on. In this course, we will enter the world of American literature, specifically classic and contemporary tales of the gothic and of ghosts, to reckon with our present values in the framework of historic experiences. We will focus especially on African-American, indigenous (Native-American), and immigrant literature, as well as classic pieces from the American gothic tradition. We will analyze and discuss language, structure, characterization, and narrative focus, among other techniques and theories, to examine more deeply the role of the “scary” story as a particular form of reckoning for reader and society alike.

ENGL 290-002 is a multicultural class.

Section: 01W #4463
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

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. For English majors, the course counts as a 200-level elective for both the major and minor and also meets the 3-credit multicultural requirement.

ENGL 290-01W is a writing intensive and multicultural class.

Section: 20W #4465
Instructor: A. Shoplik
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:30–10:20 AM

The Outsider in American Literature

In this course, we’ll trace the evolution of the “outsider” figure through American literary history. We’ll pay special attention to authors who deploy genre, character, and form to confront “insiders,” making those in positions of power question their own expectations about how American society should be ordered. Course texts will direct us to think about how these authors manage and subvert dominant culture’s assumptions about race, class, gender, and immigration — and the fact that we’ll be taking a long view of American literature will put us in a good position to observe how these aesthetic strategies transform over historical time. Some of the key questions we’ll be exploring: How have American culture’s values impacted the way that “outsiders” and “insiders” are constructed? What does it mean to be an “outsider,” and what exactly makes “outsiders” a threat? Tensions between the individual and the community will be of special interest to us and will prompt questions about how communities are composed. Do communities rely on “outsiders” for inner coherence? Some of the authors who will help us to answer these questions: Toni Morrison, Herman Melville, Langston Hughes, Flannery O’Connor, and Leslie Marmon Silko. 

ENGL 290-20W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 293 Advanced Composition

Section: 01W #3362
Instructor: S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 5:30–6:45 PM

Feminist Rhetoric in Personal, Political, and Public Persuasion

In this course we will explore contemporary feminist rhetoric in writing for academic, personal, and public audiences. We’ll ask questions about whose voices are heard and whose have been silenced or left out, and we'll discuss how voice, style, and rhetorical choices affect our understanding of what is personally, politically, and publicly persuasive.

We'll read feminist rhetorical theory (Andrea Lunsford, Cheryl Glenn, Foss & Griffith, bell hooks, Chimamanda Adichie), some writing process and composition theory (Donald Murray, Peter Elbow, Chris Anson), and a range of texts and articles by feminist writers, thinkers, and activists.

Students will write a variety of essays, projects, and pieces for a range of audiences as they interact with course content. Assignments may include project proposals, annotated bibliographies, researched arguments, Op-Ed pieces, personal and/or journalistic essays, podcasts, short film/documentary, blogs, and social media. Students will participate in peer review and draft workshops throughout the course to support the writing process and advanced development of their personal, academic, and public writing skills.

ENGL 293-01W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 303 English Grammar: Principles and Pedagogy

Section: 001 #1812
Instructor: E. Weeks Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 4:10–5:00 PM

We use the English language every day, but do we really understand how it works? The goal of this course is to analyze the structure of the English language, to learn and appreciate its intricacies, quirks, and demands. We will explore English grammar not only as a list of rules and regulations that govern language use but also as a means of clearly conveying meaning. 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.

ENGL 311 Latinx Literature

Section: 001 #5127
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:50–11:40 AM

In this course, students will study texts by U.S. Latinx 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 and different perspectives in order to emphasize divergent forms of identity, politics, and aesthetics. We will pay particular attention to the role of race, gender, and sexuality in our readings from Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Dominican American, and Cuban American writers like Gloria Anzaldúa, Arturo Islas, Salvador Plascencia, Piri Thomas, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Aurora Levins Morales, Junot Díaz, Daisy Hernandez, and Carmen María Machado. Assignments will include weekly responses to the readings, creative projects, and two exams designed to synthesize our course materials.

This course fulfills the Multicultural Requirement for the English major and is cross-listed with Latin American and Latinx Studies.

ENGL 317 The Writing of Poetry

Section: 001 #1312
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 5:30–8:00 PM

In this class, we will give a great deal of 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 #1313
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 5:30–8:00 PM

Basic (Experimental) Poetry Workshop

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 #4466
Instructor: P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Seminar
R 5:30–8:00 PM

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 #1314
Instructor: K. Wisel
3.0 credit hours Seminar
M 5:30–8:00 PM

This is a workshop class in fiction. This course emphasizes the interrelated connections of reading, writing, listening, oral storytelling, sense of personal voice, imaginative seeing, and structure. Students will develop perceptive, technical and imaginative abilities that will enable them to write successful short stories. Our class will be focused on experimentation and process. We will question the tradition of storytelling, what makes a story, how stories are told, and why stories are necessary. We will discuss how published material by authors such as Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Jennifer Egan, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin and others employ craft elements. The bulk of the class will be focused on generating and paying attention to the patterns of your own writing, as well as critiquing and discussing the work of your peers. Students will submit one piece of flash fiction and two short stories to be constructively critiqued. Class participation is emphasized.

Section: 002 #2185
Instructor: V. Popa
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 5:30–8:00 PM

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).

Section: 600 #2186
Instructor: M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 5:30–8:00 PM

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 #1813
Instructor: M. Hawkins
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 5:30–8:00 PM

This writing workshop will focus on the personal essay. Students will draw from their lives and their observations of the world to craft short, thoughtful, carefully composed works that not only tell true stories but also raise questions and possibly (but not necessarily) draw conclusions. One meaning of essay is to try; the purpose of a personal essay is not merely to report facts or to so say what happened but to try to understand it. How does your personal experience link to larger themes? Ideally, you will discover what you think about your chosen topics as you write. You may surprise yourself.

In addition to writing polished, finished essays, students will read each other’s work and discuss it in class. Weekly assigned readings of both classic and experimental essays will provide wide-ranging examples of this literary form at its highest level.

Section: 600 #5128
Instructor: N. Kenney Johnstone
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 5:30–8:00 PM

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 four 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.

ENGL 327 Studies in Shakespeare

Section: 001 #4471
Instructor: J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 5:30–6:45 PM

Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries England was known throughout Europe for its public theater. While we now know this period as the one that gave the world Shakespeare, the “bard” was only one among many prolific playwrights of the era. This course will examine some of Shakespeare’s plays alongside the works of other playwrights of the time. We will read Shakespeare alongside plays by his contemporaries Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and Thomas Middleton among others. Assignments will include short reading responses, a mid-term and final exam, and a longer research project.

ENGL 328 Studies in the Renaissance

Section: 001 #1589
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:30–2:20 PM

This course takes a deep dive into the habits of thought that were simultaneously sources of inspiration and critique within English Renaissance literature. Students will be introduced to the history of the methods of close reading and critical thinking that were cultivated in the period through humanism and other intellectual trends. Known throughout the twentieth century for its innovative drama and poetry, this course carves out a space as well for the power and influence of rhetorical and narrative prose. We begin with Thomas Moore’s Utopia and Castiglioni’s The Courtier and end with Dryden’s verse translation of The Aeneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

ENGL 338 Studies in the Romantic

Section: 001 #3963
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 3:00–4:15 PM

Jane Austen’s Ivory

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.

ENGL 343 Studies in the Victorian Period

Section: 001 #3364
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 AM–12:45 PM

The Novel and Its Secrets

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 detective, sensation, and Gothic fiction built around the unfolding of mysteries, as well as traditionally realist novel 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. 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.

ENGL 345 British Literature: 20th Century

Section: 001 #5129
Instructor: J. Stayer
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:10–1:00 PM

Modernist Literature

By the end of the nineteenth century, the small islands of Great Britain had extended their rule over a quarter of the globe: self-assured Victorians used to brag that the sun never set on the British Empire. But with the advent of the Great War, British influence began to crumble, and modern uncertainty replaced Victorian earnestness. As a complex of artistic movements (e.g., futurism, vorticism, primitivism, Imagism, neo-classicism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism, Symbolism), “modernism” is the umbrella term given to the anxieties and exuberances that attended early twentieth-century dynamics in the arts.

This course in British modernism is the study of how these social, political, cultural, religious, gender, and sexual anxieties played themselves out in literature. As received notions of beauty and the default aesthetic of the nineteenth century fell apart, artists had not only to create art, but to argue for its place. It was a great era of sloganeering and pamphleteering to polemically defend one’s turf: all of those “-isms” listed above had their proponents and their enemies. And Great Britain—as the dominant-if-crumbling world power at the time—offers a perfect vantage point for watching the fireworks of this global phenomenon.

Using the rough timeframe of the first half of the twentieth century, we will look at many authors whose birthplace or ethnic identities fall outside English borders but whose influence mattered within the British Isles. Critics have noted the irony that British modernism was led mainly by the non-English: Ezra Pound (American); T. S. Eliot (American); James Joyce (Irish), Dylan Thomas (Welsh), W. B. Yeats (Irish), David Jones (Welsh heritage); Hugh MacDiarmid (Scottish); Katherine Mansfield (New Zealander); Joseph Conrad (Polish); Wyndham Lewis (Canadian born); Claude McKay (Jamaican). Of course, a number of modernist authors, major and minor, were English: E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, Mina Loy, Edith Sitwell.

ENGL 354 Contemporary Critical Theory

Section: 001 #5130
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 9:45–11:00 AM

“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; instead, we will read literature as theory, just as we will “close read” theory as a type of literature. Requirements include periodic quizzes, a reading journal, discussion forums, and a final exam. ENGL 354 is required for English majors. Required means “officially compulsory,” but also “indispensable”!

ENGL 375 American Literature to 1865

Section: 001 #5131
Instructor: M. Werner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MW 5:30–6:45 PM

Illocality: Deep Mapping the American Land-Mind-Scape

“It’s not down in any map; true places never are.” —Herman Melville

“How can one both move and carry along with one the fermenting depths which are also, at every point, influenced by the pressure of events around them? And how can one possibly do this so that the result is readale? —Hugh Trevor-Roper

Deep maps go beyond the documentation of topography to include and interweave natural history, myth, archaeology, narrative, autobiography, memory, emotion, and weather. Sometimes it is even possible for a deep map to connect the corporeal and immaterial worlds. This spring we will attempt to compose many-layered maps —necessarily rough around the edges, forever changing and incomplete — of our imagination of America by plumbing the archive of its surviving textual productions and related cultural materials. While many of the textual witnesses that will serve as our points of departure are now part of a standard canon — Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World, Rowlandson’s Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration, Brockden-Brown’s Somnambulism, Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Douglass’s Narrative, Melville’s “Benito Cereno”, Poe’s and Hawthorne’s tales, Thoreau’s Walden, Whitman’s Song of Myself, and Dickinson’s poems and letters — the maps we make of and with them will destabilize, complicate, and enlarge our understanding of the multiple cultural forces that shape them and the claims they (still) have on us. Our maps will vary in form—some will be texual or narrative, others visual or digital—and in scale, from the seemingly very small—e.g., the coordinates of a single fascicle by Emily Dickinson—to the unimaginably vast—the breadth of an ocean crossed by captives of the transatlantic slave trade. Often they will touch on social spaces and open hidden ones. Some maps will be dream maps, and some will be ghost maps. Ultimately, our maps—and the process of making them—will allow us a more deeply embodied experience of our textual inheritance.

ENGL 376 American Literature: 1865–1914

Section: 001 #5132
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

This course examines the work of selected U.S. writers from the Civil War to the First World War, paying particular attention to theories of Realism, to associated Regional forms, to literary Naturalism, and to the contribution of literary works to emerging notions of "the modern."

ENGL 390 Advanced Seminar

Section: 01W #2012
Instructor: J. Stayer
3.0 credit hours Seminar
MW 5:30–6:45 PM

The Meeting of Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin

This seminar will offer a deep dive into the life and works of two major American artists: Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin. Aside from being Southern writers, these two artists could not have been more different from each other. O’Connor came from a strong family, was straight, middle-class, devout Catholic, politically conservative; she was a white woman, a reluctant lecturer, a sickly homebody, and a specialist in the form of short story. Baldwin came from a dysfunctional family, was poor, gay, politically progressive, agnostic; he was an African American man, a skilled debater, an itinerant activist, and was equally accomplished in multiple genres of short story, novel, essay, and lecture. With American history, critical biography and race theory as context, we will engage the themes O’Connor and Baldwin explored in their work, subjects that still vex and inspire us today: salvation, pride, self-deception, race, religion, sexuality, and justice.

ENGL 390-01W is a writing intensive.

Section: 02W #5133
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 1:15–2:30 PM

The Devil's Party

This is a course on the cultural history of Satan in England, from 1650 to 1830. We’ll start with a sustained reading of the most glorious poem in English, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, along with some of Milton’s most symptomatic prose. But our subsequent interest will be in the early nineteenth century, when his Satan towered over respectable poetry, reinvented by radical thinkers as a model for righteous rebellion, rational anarchy, and a transcendent moral authority that confounded God and his Christianity. In 1790, for example, William Blake argued that “Milton was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it,” and we’ll follow Blake’s sounding of “The Voice the Devil” across his illuminated books, climaxing in his astonishing epic, Milton. We’ll read plenty of prose, as well as poetry: in The Monk, we’ll encounter blood magic, zombie nuns, and a Catholic abbot who sells his soul to purchase the pleasures of incest; in The Confessions of a Justified Sinner, we’ll watch a devoted Presbyterian transform into a serial killer after befriending Satan, who might also be himself; and in Frankenstein, we’ll find devilry and enthusiastic madness summoned, rather than banished, by secular science. We’ll also read eighteenth and nineteenth-century theologians grappling with the problem of evil and the persona of Satan, as well as people for whom the Devil wasn’t a poetic fiction or theological abstraction, but intimate reality: people like Joanna Southcott, who (seriously) had the Devil over for tea, even though he greeted her as “Thou infamous Bitch!” Southcott’s language was earthy, but as Lord Byron remarked, as his own very different Cain was successfully prosecuted for blasphemy, how else was “the first rebel and the first murderer” to talk? Papers, presentations, completely legitimate contracts with unusual strangers smelling of brimstone. If you’re in the English Departmental Honors program, this 390 can fulfill either the before 1700, or 1700-1900 requirement historical requirement, at your convenience.

ENGL 390-02W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 392 Advanced Writing: Creative Nonfiction

Section: 01W #3365
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Seminar
M 5:30–8:00 PM

ENGL 392-01W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 393 Teaching English to Adults

Section: 01E #1338
Instructor: J. Heckman
1.0-3.0 credit hours Field Studies
MTWR 5:30–8:00 PM

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 with the Loyola Community Literacy Center. We were located in Loyola Hall, 1110 W. Loyola Avenue, but we are fully online in the 2020-2021 academic year.

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. 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 online 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 an online 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.

This class satisfies the Engaged Learning requirement in the Service Learning and Internship categories.
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ENGL 394 Internship

Section: 01E #1340
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Field Studies
TBA

Please contact the Undergraduate Programs Director in English for consent (773) 508-2259.

This class satisfies the Engaged Learning requirement in the Internship category.

ENGL 398 Advanced Writing: Fiction

Section: 01W #1342
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 5:30–8:00 PM

Prerequisite for ENGL 398 is ENGL 318.
ENGL 398-01W is a writing intensive class.

ENGL 399 Special Studies in Literature

Section: 001 #3965
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Supervision
TBA

Department consent needed. Please contact Dr. Jack Cragwall for permission at jcragwall@luc.edu or (773) 508-2259.

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Department of English · Crown Center for the Humanities 1032 W. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60660 · 773.508.2240