ENGL - English
ENGL101 Academic Writing (3 Credits)
An introductory course in expository writing.
Additional Information: Students must complete this course with a minimum grade of C- in order to fulfill the General Education Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
ENGL120 Acting Human: Shakespeare and the Drama of Identity (3 Credits)
Shakespeare's ideas of dramatic realism studied through close examination of literary and dramatic techniques. How Shakespeare generates the fiction of a living, thinking person in the space of five acts, and how readers participate in the making of that fiction. Some attention to Shakespeare on film and what the playwright can teach us about different media.
ENGL121 The Power of Song: Renaissance Lyric and Its Afterlives (3 Credits)
Examines the power that song has over its audiences. Drawing on literary, performance, and sound studies, we will investigate how song takes hold of its listeners in uniquely moving ways. We will examine the special appeal of song in early modern England, including works by William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Byrd. And we will compare the song culture of the English Renaissance to the power of song in contemporary life, from Kendrick Lamar to CocoRosie.
ENGL125 Why Poetry Matters (3 Credits)
Introduction to the formal fundamentals of poetry and exploration of the role poetry plays in how we think about the human condition; what constitutes knowledge and wisdom, interior subjectivity and communal identity; and how this knowledge is to be used in confronting new challenges and the perennial questions: how to live with oneself, and as oneself; in time, and with others; here, where we reside; and elsewhere, where we imagine ourselves going.
ENGL126 Why Fiction Matters (3 Credits)
Consider how short stories, novellas, and novels are vital to understanding our world and ourselves. Read and analyze a diverse range of twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction, and apply the techniques of form and craft to your own experiments in fiction writing. Use critical analysis and hands-on creative experimentation to explore how fiction helps us understand the past, engage in the present, and build a better future.
ENGL130 Race and the Cultural Politics of Blood: A Historical Perspective (3 Credits)
Exploration of race, as term and concept, at three different historical times and from three different perspectives, through the reading of three stories: William Shakespeare's drama Othello, Aphra Behn's novella Oroonoko, and the short story Benito Cereno by Herman Melville. Exploration of the importance of context in interpretation. Study of how a concept for rationalizing human difference appears and adapts, fuses and fades away, relocates and is repurposed. How understanding of the particular situation of the concept, its context, changes our reading of the story.
ENGL132 Aliens, Exiles, and Immigrants (3 Credits)
Exploration of ideas, beliefs, and aspirations that immigrants carry from one nation to another. Different ways of understanding national and cultural identities, and ways the experiences of immigration have changed significantly over time. Readings examine historical and contemporary immigrant writing, including post-9/11 poetry and fiction; memoirs of nineteenth-century British emigrants to South Africa, Australia, and Canada; literature by emigrants from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America now living in the United States; and writing by individuals displaced by war, famine, and political conflict. Politics of immigration and citizenship; historical and contemporary arguments for and against immigration and assimilation.
ENGL134 The Rites of Discovery: Science, Law, and Literature, 1492-1992 (3 Credits)
History of idea of "discovery" from sixteenth-century debate about European "rights of discovery" to 500th anniversary, in 1992, of Columbus' landfall in New World. Evolution of modern concept of discovery, both as part of history of science and in legal context of history of European colonialism and cultural encounter with Native peoples of Americas, Africa, and Asia. Exploration of primary and secondary sources relating to international law, science, and literature.
ENGL140 American Fictions: U.S. Literature, History, Politics, and Constitutional Law (3 Credits)
Works of American literature explored in the context of major texts and developments of U.S. history, culture, politics, and constitutional law. We begin with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and survey the course of American literature and history, from 1776 to the present, in relation to defining political and constitutional issues. Readings of canonical works like "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Grapes of Wrath" coupled with special attention to minority authors and issues, and horizons of constitutional contemplation opened up by minority, immigrant, and women's voices and experiences. Key historical and political issues include human rights; equal protection; religious tolerance; democratic principles; republican structures of government; independence; revolution; slavery; removal; immigration; free speech; labor rights; civil rights; feminism; environmentalism; international law and flows of people; economic globalization; technology and digital innovation; and the role that literature and the humanities play in fostering various forms of civil society, multiculturalism, and a globally accountable citizenship.
ENGL142 Literary Maryland (3 Credits)
What does the literature of Maryland teach us about our state's past, present, and future? "Literary Maryland" explores this question by taking students on a tour of our state's prose, poetry, and drama from colonization to the present. In addition to reading fascinating writing and visiting interesting places, you'll learn how the Chesapeake was formed; why nobody sings the entire national anthem; and what led Baltimore to name its football team after a poem written by a Virginian.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL142 or ENGL289M.
Formerly: ENGL289M.
ENGL143 Visualizing Knowledge: From Data to Images (3 Credits)
Explores how technology and people shape our current age of information through the various forms of visually representing information. Visualizations do not show us things that are evident--visualizations make things evident. We will thus examine the history of visualization practices, the theories of image-making that guide their production, and the current state of the art. Students will engage critically with a wide range of information visualization practices to gain an understanding of the work involved in producing them and their histories. Students will also seek out contemporary visualizations, interact with the practitioners who produce them, and produce their own visualization as a response or critique.
ENGL146 Seeing the Present: Graphic Storytelling in the Age of Social Media (3 Credits)
We increasingly live in a world dominated by digital images: graphic narratives, data visualizations, tweets, GIFs, and computer animation. Students will learn how to critically analyze this digital visual rhetoric and how to become a skilled user of visual discourse. By examining a range of science fiction, graphic novels, photography, and films, we will develop a critical vocabulary for understanding the possibilities and perils of our digital image culture. We will apply this vocabulary to analyzing visual representations of contemporary political questions including: climate change, criminal justice, bio-technological transformations of the human, and the incorporation of algorithm-based platforms into everyday life.
ENGL152 What is Justice?: Literature and the Invention of Ethical Imagination (3 Credits)
Exploration of literature's unique ability to animate human passions underlying ethical dilemmas. How literary texts shape understanding of justice; how plays, novels, and films define, critique, challenge, and even alter society's comprehension of equity and inequity, crime and punishment, pardon and torture, and ideas about civil liberties and human rights. Attention to how writers have described just and unjust within their historical moment; crucial role of imagination in formation of ethical citizens across time.
ENGL154 Race, Children's Television, and the Legacies of Jim Henson (3 Credits)
How do children form ideas about race from television? We will approach this question by studying representations of race in children's television from the founding of the animation industry in the 1910s to educational programming epitomized by Sesame Street and the work of Jim Henson. We will also explore representations of race in the "Saturday Morning Cartoon Lineup" and in the subsequent proliferation of computer-generated images, gifs, and memes. Students will visit archives on campus pertaining to Jim Henson's work and reflect on what they find. Assignments will include a paper focused on critical analysis and self-reflection, and students will have the option of completing a multimedia project featuring video production, puppet making, or another creative means of producing a lesson for children.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL154 or ENGL439J.
Formerly: ENGL439J.
ENGL181 English Grammar (1 Credit)
The basic structure of formal written English, including parts of speech, sentence patterns, standard punctuation, diction, and usage.
ENGL201 Inventing Western Literature: Ancient and Medieval Traditions (3 Credits)
Wide range of texts, genres, and themes from ancient and medieval Western traditions. Study of cultural, historical, and artistic forces shaping traditions, and the influence and relevance of those traditions to life in twenty-first century.
ENGL202 Inventing Western Literature: Renaissance to Modern (3 Credits)
Wide range of texts from the Renaissance to the 21st century. Themes and literary techniques in the evolution of Western literature. Print publication, industrialization, questioning of religious, political, intellectual, and cultural authority.
ENGL211 English Literature: Beginnings to 1800 (3 Credits)
Surveys medieval and early modern literary works written in England. Readings may include Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser, Mary Wroth, Milton; eighteenth-century satire, drama, novels.
ENGL212 English Literature: 1800 to the Present (3 Credits)
Surveys the major literary movements of the period, from Romantic to Victorian to Modern. Such authors as Wordsworth, Keats, Bronte, Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Joyce, Woolf.
ENGL221 American Literature: Beginning to 1865 (3 Credits)
Surveys American writing from the founding of the colonies through the Civil War. Authors such as Taylor, Cooper, Poe, Dickinson.
ENGL222 American Literature(s) (3 Credits)
Explore American literary traditions in a variety of poetic and narrative forms and in diverse historical contexts, ranging from colonization to the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. Genres examined in this course might include lyric poems, travel narratives, gothic short fiction, slave narratives, and science fiction. Emphasis on developing skills of literary interpretation and critical writing, while attending to the place of race, class, gender, and sexuality in American literary culture. Authors may include Phillis Wheatley, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, among others.
ENGL233 Introduction to Asian American Literature (3 Credits)
A survey of Asian American literature with an emphasis on recurrent themes and historical context.Cross-listed with: AAST233.
ENGL234 African-American Literature and Culture (3 Credits)
An exploration of the stories black authors tell about themselves, their communities, and the nation as informed by time and place, gender, sexuality, and class. African American perspective themes such as art, childhood, sexuality, marriage, alienation and mortality, as well as representations of slavery, Reconstruction, racial violence and the Nadir, legalized racism and segregation, black patriotism and black ex-patriots, the optimism of integration, and the prospects of a post-racial America.Cross-listed with: AASP298L.
ENGL235 U.S. Latinx Literature and Culture (3 Credits)
Examines the poetry, prose, and theater of Latinx communities in the United States from their origins in the Spanish colonization of North America to their ongoing development in the 21st century. Considers how authors use literary form to gain insight into human experience, including mortality, religious belief, gender and sexuality, war and peace, family, language use, scientific inquiry, cultural tradition, ecology, and labor. Also studies how Latinx literary traditions have shaped and been shaped by broader currents in American literature, as well as what connections exist between Latinx literature and social and artistic developments in other parts of the world, particularly Latin America and the Caribbean. Authors may include Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Eulalia Perez, Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Jose Marti, Arthur A. Schomburg, Jesus Colon, Julia de Burgos, Cesar Chavez, Ariel Dorfman, Gloria Anzaldua, Junot Diaz, and Cristina Garcia.Cross-listed with: AMST298Q.
ENGL240 Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (3 Credits)
Readings in the novel, short story, poetry and drama.
ENGL241 What the Novel Does (3 Credits)
An exploration of what the novel does that cannot be done by film, by television, by cell-phone screens, by any stream of images, or by textual excerpts pulled up for a quick read. The different ways of the novel, with particular focus on the process of thinking and the developed consciousness. The novel as a machine to think with and an irreplaceable model of complex human thought. Study of how thought is presented in radically different ways in novels that cross lines of class, gender, chronology, and nationality.
ENGL243 What is Poetry? (3 Credits)
An exploration of arguably the most complex, profound, and ubiquitous expression of human experience. Study through close reading of significant forms and conventions of Western poetic tradition. Poetry's roots in oral and folk traditions and connections to popular song forms.
ENGL244 The Play's the Thing (3 Credits)
Exploration of drama through a consideration of plot, narrative flow, analytical flow, staging, performance, manuscript and printing history, text and textual change over time, and interpretation. Plays will be approached as public attempts to understand what it means to be alive.
ENGL245 Film Form and Culture (3 Credits)
Introduction to film as art form and how films create meaning. Basic film terminology; fundamental principles of film form, film narrative, and film history. Examination of film technique and style over past one hundred years. Social and economic functions of film within broader institutional, economic, and cultural contexts.Cross-listed with: CINE245.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL245, CINE245 or FILM245.
Formerly: FILM245.
ENGL246 Introduction to the Short Story (3 Credits)
A survey of the genre, with a focus on significant elements, such as plot, character, description, style, and theme. Readings will be drawn from a range of cultures and communities.
ENGL250 Reading Women Writing (3 Credits)
Explores literary and cultural expressions by women and their receptions within a range of historical periods and genres. Topics such as what does a woman need in order to write, what role does gender play in the production, consumption, and interpretation of texts, and to what extent do women comprise a distinct literary subculture. Interpretation of texts will be guided by feminist and gender theory, ways of reading that have emerged as important to literary studies over the last four decades.Cross-listed with: WGSS255.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL250, WMST255 or WGSS255.
Formerly: WMST255.
ENGL254 Introduction to Humanities, Health, and Medicine (3 Credits)
An overview of the historical, cultural, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of medicine, human health, disease, and death from the points of view of various humanistic disciplines.
Restriction: Permission of ARHU-English Department. Cross-listed with: ARHU230, HIST219N, WGSS230.
Credit Only Granted for: ARHU230 , ENGL289C, ENGL254, ARHU298A, HIST219N, or WGSS230.
ENGL255 Literature of Science and Technology (3 Credits)
Examines science and technology through the lens of British and American literature, primarily between 1800 and the present. Readings from early natural and experimental philosophers of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment. How literary works represent the ethics of science and technology; beneficial developments of science, and also heavy toll of industrialization. Writers studied may include Francis Bacon, Mary Shelley, Charles Darwin, H.G. Wells, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Richard Feynman, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Michael Frayn, and Tom Stoppard.
ENGL256 Fantasy Literature (3 Credits)
How fantasy employs alternate forms of representation, such as the fantastical, estranging, or impossible, which other genres would not allow. Through novels, short stories, graphic novels, and film, traces fantasy's roots in mythology and folklore, then explores how modern texts build upon or challenge these origins. Examination of literary strategies texts use to represent the world through speculative modes. How to distinguish fantasy from, and relate it to, other genres such as science fiction, horror, fairly tales, and magical realism. Fantasy's investment in world-building, history, tradition, and categories of identity such as race, class, and gender. How fantasy, as a genre, form, and world-view, is well-suited to our contemporary reality.
ENGL257 Children's Literature (3 Credits)
Literature of the nineteenth through the twenty-first century concerned with, and written for, children and young adults. How such narratives speak to themes of changing social, religious, political, and personal identity. Through poetry, novels, graphic novels, and film, explores how children's tales encapsulate and reflect on human existence, while pushing boundaries of what constitutes "children's literature" and what exactly defines the "child." Considers questions of literary classification through investigation of political and religious issues, gender politics, animal rights, social justice, race, war, and what it means to "grow up."
ENGL262 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (3 Credits)
Origins of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), with attention to literary formations, archaeology, and social-political settings. Explorations of major questions, including who wrote the Bible, and when; relationships of the biblical tradition to the mythology and religious structures of ancient Israel's near eastern neighbors; and dynamics of politics, religious leadership, and law.Cross-listed with: JWST262, HEBR298B.
ENGL265 LGBTQ+ Literatures and Media (3 Credits)
A study of literary and cultural expressions of queer and trans identities, positionalities, and analytics through an exploration of literature, art, and media. We will examine historical and political power relations by considering the intersections of sexuality and gender with race, class, nation, and disability. Topics include the social construction and regulation of sexuality and gender, performance and performativity, intersectionality, and the relationship between aesthetic forms and queer/ trans subjectivity. Our interpretations will be informed by queer and trans theories.
Restriction: Must not have completed LGBT265. Cross-listed with: LGBT265.
ENGL269 Special Topics in Study Abroad II (1-6 Credits)
Special topics course taken as part of an approved study abroad program.
Repeatable to: 15 credits if content differs.
ENGL269M Morocco: In the Footsteps of the Beat Generation (3 Credits)
Educates students about the history, culture and socio-political situation in Morocco through the reading of fiction related to this country. The focus will be on the intersection of American and Moroccan culture and will cover film, music and literature. The American perception of the "orient" has historically been channeled through the French characterization of Arab societies in North Africa. This course aims to disentangle this western mythology from reality in Morocco. Some of the themes addressed will be globalization, colonialism, racism, orientalism, and women's oppressionCross-listed with: ARHU269A.
ENGL271 Writing Poems and Stories: An Introductory Workshop (3 Credits)
Introduction to theory and practice of writing fiction and poetry. Emphasis on critical reading of literary models. Exercises and workshop discussions with continual reference to modeling, drafting, and revising as necessary stages in a creative process.
ENGL272 Writing Fiction: A Beginning Workshop (3 Credits)
Introduction to theory and practice of writing fiction. Emphasis on critical reading of literary models. Exercises and workshop discussions with continual reference to modeling, drafting, and revising as necessary stages in a creative process.
ENGL273 Writing Poetry: A Beginning Workshop (3 Credits)
Introduction to theory and practice of writing poetry. Emphasis on critical reading of literary models. Exercises and workshop discussions with continual reference to modeling, drafting, and revising as necessary stages in a creative process.
ENGL274 Creative Writing Through The Eyes of African Americans: A Beginning Workshop (3 Credits)
Introduction to theory and practice of writing fiction, drama and poetry, with an emphasis on African American literary models. Critical reading, exercises and workshop discussions with continual reference to modeling, drafting, and revising as necessary stages in a creative process.
Restriction: Must not have completed ENGL271, ENGL274, ENGL294,or AASP274. Cross-listed with AASP274.
ENGL275 Scriptwriting for Theater, Film, and Television (3 Credits)
Introduction to the theory and practice of scriptwriting with an opportunity to read, view, evaluate, write, and revise texts meant to be performed. Students will practice writing for the stage, film, and television and also examine selected scripts, performances, and film and television clips as models for their own creative work. Students will complete frequent writing exercises, participate in workshops, and learn to apply scholarship to the analysis and critique of scripts.Cross-listed with: ARHU275.
ENGL278 Special Topics in Literature (3 Credits)
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL280 The English Language (3 Credits)
Introduction to the structure of English and its historical development, with a focus on techniques of linguistic analysis. Major topics include the sound systems of English and its patterns of word formation and sentence structure, and the ways these have changed over time and vary around the world.
ENGL281 Standard English Grammar, Usage, and Diction (3 Credits)
Study of the structures and patterns of English grammar. The focus is on the standard dialect and contemporary usage, but we will also explore variation over time and across dialects. Includes word formation, sentence elements and structures, and conventions of punctuation, as well as the social aspects of grammatical choices.
ENGL282 How Rhetoric Works: Persuasive Power and Strategies (3 Credits)
Examines how persuasion functions and influences our lives and perception, focusing on a variety of contexts: business, politics, media, law, and entertainment. Students learn persuasive and argumentative principles to understand what rhetoric is, how it works, and what it does, and to apply the knowledge to produce effective communication appropriate for their purpose, audience, and context. A wide range of persuasive media, genres, and forms will be studied to help students sharpen how they interpret and practice persuasion.
ENGL289 Special Topics in English (3 Credits)
Introduces students to notable themes and approaches in English studies. Topics vary by section and semester.
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL290 Introduction to Digital Studies (3 Credits)
Introductory course in digital studies. Surveys contemporary humanities work in digital technologies, including the web and social media and their historical antecedents. Explores design and making as analytical tools alongside reading and writing. Situates digital media within power and politics and develops critical awareness of how media shape society and ethics. Interdisciplinary approaches to creativity, analysis, and technology. While the course will include hands-on practice, no prior experience of programming, designing, or making required other than a willingness to experiment and play.
ENGL291 Writing, Revising, Persuading (3 Credits)
Intermediate-level, writing-intensive course for students who have successfully satisfied the Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement but wish to hone skills in analyzing and producing rhetorically attuned, well-styled prose. Deeper study of rhetorical theory and its application to a wide variety of arguments and situations. Additional writing practice, techniques of revision, study of effect of stylistic choices. Topics may include argumentation theory, visual rhetoric, stylistic theory, and writing theory.
Prerequisite: Must have satisfied Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
ENGL292 Writing for Change (3 Credits)
Service learning in collaboration with students at area high schools. Explores how writing can be a tool for social change. Participants serve as mentors, create a performance event concerning a pressing social issue, and compose reflections, literacy narratives, publicity materials, and a multimodal project. Focus on developing critical self-awareness.
Prerequisite: Permission of ARHU-English department.
Recommended: ENGL101.
Restriction: Requires application and references. Jointly offered with: ENGL388C.
ENGL293 Writing in the Wireless World (3 Credits)
A hands-on exploration of writing at the intersection of technology and rhetoric. Students will learn to read, analyze, and compose the kinds of multimodal documents--documents combining text, image, and sound--that constitute communication in our digital world.
Recommended: ENGL101.
ENGL294 Persuasion and Cleverness in Social Media (3 Credits)
Exploration of various persuasive media encountered in daily life through the lens of rhetorical and critical theories. Principles of rhetoric and analysis of how persuasion functions across media. Invention of effective multimedia works appropriate to purpose, audience, and context. Concepts from cultural studies used to develop critical awareness about power and ideology and how they influence the way people produce and understand messages. By integration of technology, rhetoric, and cultural studies, students become more critically-rhetorically informed thinkers, authors, and audiences of arguments and culture in the digital age. Writing intensive course. No prior multimedia experience is expected.
Prerequisite: Must have satisfied Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
ENGL295 Introduction to Digital Storytelling and Poetics (3 Credits)
What is the thread weaving through an animated visualization of economic data in a popular newspaper, an indie text-based videogame, a saucy twitter bot spitting out haikus, and an interactive digital essay? Storytelling--using whatever is at hand to communicate with audiences in evocative and connected ways. Combining technical and textual analysis with their own experiments in digital composition, students will learn to use new media techniques for the interpretation, creation, and dissemination of both critical and imaginative writing. From branching narratives to hypertext media and video games, to more recent developments in machine-generated poetry, XR, and embodied and location-based narrative, the methods and materials in this introductory course link creative expression and analysis of texts to contemporary conversations about social difference, representation, interface, and computation.
ENGL296 Reading and Writing Disability (3 Credits)
Locates and analyzes disability in various settings, modes, and texts. Investigates the material and cultural effects of the language, stories, and myths of disability. Explores the many definitions and frameworks of disability: as dynamic lived experiences, as a political identity, as a rich culture, as socially constructed barriers, and as an oppressed minority group. Examines how disability is portrayed, controlled, stereotyped, and celebrated across social, medical, political, cultural, and personal networks.
ENGL297 Research and Writing in the Workplace (3 Credits)
Introduction to the rhetorical principles and professional practices of professional writing, particularly the research, writing, communication, analytical, and technological skills needed for the Professional Writing minor. How culture and technology relate to the work of professional writing; design principles and rhetorical moves; digital tools, research skills, and writing strategies of professional writers. Develops skills needed to publish a writing portfolio that showcases students' professional writing competencies and projects their professional writer identities.
Prerequisite: ENGL101.
ENGL301 This is English: Fields and Methods (3 Credits)
"English" means a lot of things. Are you looking for literature, or linguistics? For writing--creative, critical, or professional? For theater, or debate? For film, or even videogames? This gateway course for the English major introduces you to all of these areas and more, as well as to our discipline's unique resources for studying and enjoying them. The English discipline includes three main interpretive fields: Literary and Cultural Studies; Language, Writing, and Rhetoric; and Media Studies. This course brings together the fundamental concepts and methods for reading, viewing, and researching practiced in these fields, launching you into English studies and and helping you to choose the major track that is right for you.
Restriction: Must be in English Language and Literature program; or must be in Secondary Educ: English Language Arts program.
ENGL302 Medieval Literature in Translation (3 Credits)
Surveys major works of English and continental Middle Ages. Readings may include romance, lyric and drama, Germanic epic, works of Dante, Chretien de Troyes, Jean de Meun, Christine de Pisan, Malory, English and continental mystics.
ENGL305 Early Drama (3 Credits)
Explore medieval and Renaissance drama and performance, placing the Shakespearean stage in its cultural and historical contexts.
ENGL308 Special Topics in Shakespeare (3 Credits)
A topical exploration of William Shakespeare's plays and poems as well as their cultural contexts, performance history, and the roles they play in modern and contemporary culture
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL310 Medieval and Renaissance British Literature (3 Credits)
Detailed study of selected major medieval and Renaissance works written in England. Cultural attitudes and historical contexts. May include Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon lyric, drama, sonnets; works of women writers, Chaucer, Spenser, Sidney. Some readings in Middle English.
ENGL311 British Literature from 1600 to 1800 (3 Credits)
The culture of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Britain seen through detailed study of selected major texts. Drama, poetry, political writings, and early novels by men and women. Authors may include Donne, Milton, Jonson, Behn, Swift, Pope, Montagu, and Wollstonecraft.
ENGL312 Romantic to Modern British Literature (3 Credits)
Detailed study of selected major texts from the 19th and 20th centuries. Transitions from Romanticism to Victorian age to Modernism. Historical, social, literary contexts. Issues such as rise of democracy; industrial revolution; the "woman question"; revolutions in literary form. Authors might include Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Arnold, T.S. Eliot, and Woolf.
ENGL313 American Literature (3 Credits)
A detailed study of selected major texts of American literature from the 17th century to the 20th century. Issues such as race, gender, and regionalism. Authors such as Franklin, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Hemingway, and Morrison.
ENGL316 Native American Literature (3 Credits)
Examines literature that explores the experiences and cultures of America's Indigenous peoples from the sixteenth century to the contemporary moment. We will analyze poetry, historical accounts, oral narratives, short stories, and novels by Native American writers in order to explore key concerns in Native American Studies, such as dilemmas of Indigenous sovereignty, settler colonialism, the settler state, stolen land, and the natural environment.
ENGL317 African American Literature (3 Credits)
Consideration of key texts in African American literature that explore the experiences of people of African descent in America from the mid-nineteenth century to the contemporary moment. Relationship between literary texts, historical events and cultural formations. Examines a range of texts and genres (autobiography, slave narrative, travel narrative, poetry, essays, fiction), and their contribution to national literary tradition.
ENGL318 Special Topics in Digital and New Media Studies (3 Credits)
Explore digital and new media culture, narrative, poetics, and rhetoric. Topics may include creative expression in new media platforms and analytical approaches to electronic literature, social media, interactive fiction, literary datasets, digital writing, and artificial intelligence.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL319 Special Topics in Science, Literature, and Media (3 Credits)
A topical investigation of the ways that science, art, and technology provoke ideas and innovation across their disciplinary boundaries within specific historical moments and locations.
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL321 Comics and the Graphic Novel (3 Credits)
Comics has become one of the most globally popular art forms of the twenty-first century, but it also has a rich history that stretches back to the eighteenth century, and arguably much earlier. This course will introduce students to the unique formal properties of comics and will survey the history of comics across national traditions, including texts drawn from the American, Franco-Belgian, and Japanese traditions. We will read across a range of genres and cultural registers--including newspaper strips, superhero comics, Underground comix, manga, the graphic memoir, and alternative comics. You will learn to analyze and write about the form and history of the medium.
ENGL327 The Suburbs in American Literature and Film (3 Credits)
Explores through written expression and through cinema the diverse and changing world of US suburbia. Premised on two arguments: (1) the suburbs embody many of the contours and contradictions of American life; and (2) the suburbs are far more racially, ethnically, culturally, sexually, economically diverse than mass media suggests. Investigation via prose, poetry, drama, and cinema, as well as secondary sources in sociology, women's studies, ethnic studies, history, cultural studies, psychology, anthropology, and the history of science and technology.
ENGL329 Special Topics in Film Studies (3 Credits)
Studies in various periods and genres of film.
Prerequisite: ENGL245, FILM245, FILM283, or SLLC283; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL331 American Jewish Literature (3 Credits)
An exploration of the role played by literature in the development of American Jewish ethnic identity. Primary materials include essays, poetry, plays, short stories, novels, films and music.Cross-listed with JWST341.
ENGL334 The Bible as Literature (3 Credits)
The Bible as a major source of contemporary Western religious symbolism and culture. Exploration of how this literary legacy appears in our own cultural experience. Historical critical and literary critical method and theory introduced and applied to the texts.
ENGL344 Nineteenth-Century Fiction (3 Credits)
Major British, American, and other fiction writers of the nineteenth century studied in the context of the broad global, intellectual, and artistic interests of the century.
ENGL345 Twentieth Century Poetry (3 Credits)
Major British and American poets of the twentieth century.
Restriction: Must not have completed ENGL446 or ENGL445.
ENGL346 Twentieth Century Fiction (3 Credits)
Major British, American, and other fiction writers of the twentieth century studied in the context of the broad global, intellectual, and artistic interests of the century.
ENGL348 Literary Works by Women (3 Credits)
The context, form, style and meaning of literary works by women.
Prerequisite: Must have completed at least one lower-level English literature course and one other lower-level English course; or Permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Repeatable to: 6 credits if content differs. Cross-listed with: WGSS348.
Formerly: WMST348.
ENGL349 Asian American Literatures (3 Credits)
Study of selected writers, particular themes, or genres in Asian American literatures.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL352 Intermediate Fiction Workshop (3 Credits)
A class in the making of fiction. Intensive discussion of students' own fiction. Readings include both fiction and essays about fiction by practicing writers. Writing short critical papers, responding to works of fiction, and the fiction of colleagues, in-class writing exercises, intensive reading, and thinking about literature, in equal parts, and attendance at readings.
Prerequisite: Minimum grade of A- in ENGL271 or ENGL272; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL353 Intermediate Poetry Workshop (3 Credits)
A class in the making of poetry. Intensive discussion of students' own poems. Readings in both poetry and essays about poetry by practicing poets. Writing short critical prose pieces, responding critically to colleagues' poems, in-class and outside writing exercises, memorization, and attendance at poetry readings.
Prerequisite: Minimum grade of A- in ENGL271 or ENGL273; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL354 Intermediate Scriptwriting for Theater, Film, and Television (3 Credits)
Demystifies the art of dramatic writing. Students will come to understand that a play or screenplay is never a lecture, and that we write scripts to find out something about ourselves and the subjects we tackle. Students will analyze plays and screenplays, as well as workshop each others' scripts, to help them produce their own successful plays and screenplays written for the stage, screen, or box.
Prerequisite: 1 course with a minimum grade of A- from (ENGL275, ARHU375, THET340).
ENGL355 Digital Fictions (3 Credits)
Explores literary fiction composed and delivered in digital forms from the origins of computers in the mid-twentieth century to the present day. The course places equal emphasis on a historical survey of the intersection between the digital and the literary; on the enterprise of digital fiction as a dynamic and living form with new work appearing online almost every day; and on offering students the opportunity to experiment with digital platforms for fiction writing of their own. No technical expertise (or experience in creative writing) is expected or assumed.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL355 or ENGL378C.
Formerly: ENGL378C.
ENGL358 Special Topics in U.S. Latinx Literature (3 Credits)
Topical study of selected works by U.S. Latinx writers.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL359 Special Topics in LGBTQ+ Literatures and Media (3 Credits)
Selected study of a topic pertinent to literary and cultural expressions of LGBTQ+ identities, positionalities, and analytics through an exploration of literature, art, and/or media.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs. Cross-listed with: LGBT359.
ENGL359F Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film and Video (3 Credits)
Comparative analysis of forms, themes, and the politics of representation in film and video by and/or about LGBT people.
Restriction: Junior standing or higher. Cross-listed with: LGBT327.
ENGL360 African, Indian and Caribbean Writers (3 Credits)
Selected writers from countries formerly colonies of Britain, France, Denmark, etc. Attention to ways regions have developed distinctive political and aesthetic values resulting from indigenous traditions and foreign influences.
ENGL361 Recovering Oral Histories (3 Credits)
Service-learning course that gives students an opportunity to develop writing, interviewing, and communication skills as they contribute to the work of a community organization. In the classroom, students will reflect on the process and do background research to understand the particular context of the organization's work. In the field, students will interview (or have informal discussions with) young people helped by the organization in order to construct a narrative about their lives, their perceptions of themselves, and their experiences.
Prerequisite: Students must have completed one course in English, Latin American Studies, or Education.
ENGL362 Caribbean Literature in English (3 Credits)
Political and literary traditions that intersect in the fiction, poetry, and drama written in English by Caribbean writers, primarily during the 20th century.Cross-listed with: LACS348E.
ENGL368 Special Topics in African American, African, and African Diaspora Literatures (3 Credits)
Topical study of selected literature by African American and Black Diaspora writers from Africa, the Caribbean, North and South America, and beyond.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL369 Special Topics in Study Abroad III (1-6 Credits)
Special topics course taken as part of an approved study abroad program.
Repeatable to: 15 credits if content differs.
ENGL369D Australian Literature and Culture (3 Credits)
An immersion into Australian culture and history, this course will explore the literature, music, theater, and arts of Indigenous and contemporary Australia. Students will engage directly with matters of political and social concern, developing both awareness of cultural issues important to modern-day Australians and the skills needed to navigate those issues. Along the way, we will look back to the colonial founding of Australia as a British outpost and consider how modern Australia has emerged from a mixing of Western and Indigenous cultures.
Additional Information: This is an Education Abroad course.
ENGL369N New Zealand Literature and Culture (3 Credits)
An immersion into the literature, history, and culture of New Zealand, this course will look back to the colonial founding of New Zealand as a British outpost, and to the strong Maori culture the British encountered when they arrived. Students will engage directly with matters of political and social concern, developing both awareness of cultural issues important to modern-day New Zealanders and the skills needed to navigate those issues. Along the way, we will consider how modern New Zealand has emerged from a mixing of Western and Indigenous cultures.
Additional Information: This is an Education Abroad course.
ENGL370 Junior Honors Conference (1 Credit)
Preparation for writing the senior honors project.
Restriction: Candidacy for honors in English.
ENGL373 Senior Honors Project (2 Credits)
Research and writing of senior honors project. Strongly recommended for students planning graduate work.
Prerequisite: ENGL370.
Restriction: Must be in English Language and Literature program.
ENGL375 J.R.R. Tolkien: Middle-earth and Beyond (3 Credits)
An in-depth look at major themes and ideas spanning Tolkien's well-known and lesser-known works across a variety of genres and styles. We will study "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" in connection with Tolkien's back-story mythology expressed in "The Silmarillion." We will also consider film adaptations and other popular fantasy influenced by Tolkien. And we will explore lesser-known works such as "Farmer Giles of Ham," and Tolkien's essays on fairy stories and on "Beowulf.
ENGL376 The Speculative Imagination: Science Fiction on Page and Screen (3 Credits)
Examines a global cross-section of science fiction in literature, film, television, comics, and other media. Studies the unique formal qualities of science fiction and traces its history from its origin in the eighteenth century to the present. Explores how the twenty-first century has brought new prominence to science fiction by creators of color, women creators, and queer creators, as well as intersections of these. Considers how science fiction addresses a range of phenomena--from environmental destruction to surveillance to imperialism and militarism. Students learn how to analyze and write about the formal and historical dimensions of the genre.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL379Y or ENGL376.
Formerly: ENGL379Y.
ENGL377 Medieval Myth and Modern Narrative (3 Credits)
Literary patterns characteristic of medieval myth, epic, and romance; their continuing vitality in modern works; and links between Medieval works like "The Prose Edda", "Beowulf", "The Morte D'Arthur", "The Volsunga Saga", and "Grettis Saga" and modern narratives like Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings".
ENGL378 Special Topics in English (3 Credits)
Offers sustained attention to notable current themes and approaches in English studies. Topics vary by section and semester.
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL379 Special Topics in Literature (3 Credits)
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL381 MGA Legislative Seminar (3 Credits)
Prepares students to intern for the Maryland General Assembly. Introduces standard legislative genres and assigns extended practice in researching legislative issues.
Prerequisite: Students who have taken courses with comparable content may contact the department; or ENGL101.
Restriction: Permission of ARHU-English department. Cross-listed with: HONR368A.
Credit Only Granted for: HONR368A or ENGL381.
Additional Information: Application required. Contact english@umd.edu for more information.
ENGL383 Language in Its Social Contexts (3 Credits)
Exploration of the social and political aspects of language use, including interactional behavior, the structure of conversation, persuasive uses of language, social dialects, language use within speech communities, and language and identity. We will examine and compare analytical approaches to pragmatics and discourse analysis.
ENGL384 Concepts of Grammar (3 Credits)
Introduction to the basic units of grammatical description; motivation for and nature of constituent structure and syntactic categories; fundamental grammatical concepts employed in the teaching and learning of languages.
ENGL385 English Semantics (3 Credits)
The study of meaning in language and language use. Examines how the senses of words and other linguistic constructions are mentally represented, and how they contribute to the construction of meanings in linguistic communication.
ENGL386 Experiential Learning (3-6 Credits)
Prerequisite: Learning Proposal approved by the Office of Experiential Learning Programs, faculty sponsor, and student's internship sponsor.
Restriction: Junior standing or higher.
ENGL387 Visual Rhetoric (3 Credits)
Investigation of the persuasive power of visuals based on how they construct and communicate their content and predispose viewers to an interpretation or attitude. "Iconic" images and other modes of visual representation including diagrams, graphs, and page or screen design. Most attention given to a grammar and rhetoric of visuals. Also the elements of images and their arrangement and consideration of historical and generic contexts and the "affordances" of various media. Not a course in "high art" or in video, TV, or film. Emphasis on visuals that accompany or replace verbal texts.
ENGL388 Writing, Research, and Media Internships (1-6 Credits)
Field work in English studies.
Restriction: Permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 12 credits.
ENGL388C Writing for Change (3 Credits)
Service learning in collaboration with students at area high schools. Explores how writing can be a tool for social change. Participants serve as mentors, create a performance event concerning a pressing social issue, and compose reflections, literacy narratives, and publicity materials. Students also design individual projects that link course content and students' own professional interests.
Prerequisite: Permission of ARHU-English Department .
Recommended: ENGL101.
Restriction: Requires application and references. Jointly offered with: ENGL292.
ENGL388M Maryland General Assembly Writing Internship (6 Credits)
Experiential learning at the Maryland General Assembly (early January through early April). Interns participate in standard office tasks, research legislative issues, and draft legislative texts such as constituent letters, notes on bills, newsletters, policy memos, and testimony. Specific assignments vary according to the host legislator's needs and the intern's schedule.
Prerequisite: ENGL381 or HONR368A.
Restriction: Minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0; and must have earned a minimum of 60 credits; and must be admitted to the MGA program. Cross-listed with: HONR379W.
ENGL388P English Careers Internship (1-6 Credits)
Students receive credit for an internship of their choice that focuses at least half of its work on core English skills such as writing, editing, and research. Students secure their own internship placements. Course assignments include, for instance, an activity log, reflection papers, a supervisor evaluation, and a final portfolio of work.
Prerequisite: Permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
Additional Information: Each enrolled credit equals 45 hours of on-site internship work.
ENGL388V Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in English (1-6 Credits)
A weekly teaching practicum and concurrent internship as an undergraduate teaching assistant in an English course. Students will explore the theories and best practices of teaching and learning in the various fields of the English discipline, particularly writing and literary studies. The emphasis is on creating inclusive classrooms and working with diverse learners and is grounded in theories of critical pedagogy. Students will apply principles of learning theory to develop and facilitate learner-centered lessons and discussions. They will also study composition pedagogy in preparation for responding to student writing in the course for which they are an assistant.
Prerequisite: Permission of the ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 12 credits.
Additional Information: Students should consult with the UTA Coordinator to determine the number of enrollment credits.
ENGL388W Writing Center Internship (1-6 Credits)
Examines face-to-face and online writing center theory and practice through readings, exercises, and supervised tutoring. Students investigate the writing process and help other writers to negotiate it.
Prerequisite: Permission of the Writing Center (1205 Tawes Hall).
Repeatable to: 12 credits. Cross-listed with: SPAN388W.
ENGL390 Science Writing (3 Credits)
Specifically designed for students interested in further study in the physical and biological sciences. Exposes students to the conventions of scientific prose in the genres of research articles and proposals. Students also learn to accommodate scientific information to general audiences.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits; and junior standing or higher.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL390 or ENGL393S.
Formerly: ENGL393S.
ENGL391 Advanced Composition (3 Credits)
An advanced composition course which emphasizes constructing written arguments accommodated to real audiences.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL392 Legal Writing (3 Credits)
Conventions of legal writing and research. Students learn how to read and write about cases, statutes, or other legislation; how to apply legal principles to fact scenarios; and how to present a written analysis for readers in the legal profession. Assignments may include the law-school application essay, case briefs, legal memos, and client letters.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL393 Technical Writing (3 Credits)
Focuses on the writing of technical papers and reports.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL394 Business Writing (3 Credits)
Intensive practice in the forms of written communication common in the business world: letters, memos, short reports, and proposals. Focus on the principles of rhetoric and effective style.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL395 Writing for Health Professions (3 Credits)
Focus on accommodating health-related technical material and empirical studies to lay audiences, and helping writers to achieve stylistic flexibility and correctness.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398 Topics in Professional Writing (3 Credits)
Professional writing courses that focus on the audiences, conventions, and genres of particular disciplines, professions, or organizations. Examples include writing for the arts, writing case studies and investigative reports, writing about economics, and writing for non-profit organizations.
Prerequisite: ENGL101; or students who have taken courses with comparable content may contact the department.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits; and junior standing or higher.
Repeatable to: 6 credits if content differs.
ENGL398A Writing for the Arts (3 Credits)
Examines the situations and genres in which working professionals (practitioners, advocates, administrators, and educators) write about art, culture, and artists. The course covers the complex process that writers need to learn, including how to accommodate information to specific audiences, how to use stylistic and visual devices to make information more accessible, and how to edit their own work as well as that of their peers. Assignments parallel the writing demands that students will face in the workplace, including analyzing and composing artist statements, an arts manifesto, art education guides, press releases about artists and their work, critical reviews of exhibits and performances, and proposals to funding agencies and foundations.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398B Writing for Social Entrepreneurship (3 Credits)
Designed for students who want to develop the skills needed to start a successful social venture--a start-up business with a social mission or a new nonprofit program. The course centers on a major writing project such as a business plan, a website design plan, a fundraising proposal, or a concept paper for a new nonprofit organization. Students produce other communication projects that social entrepreneurs use to develop their businesses and nonprofits, such as presentations or pitches to prospective investors/donors, marketing materials, and a job announcement. Students will learn from local social entrepreneurs who share their experiences of using writing to succeed in the field.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398C Writing Case Studies and Investigative Reports (3 Credits)
Designed for students interested in becoming police investigators, educators, case workers, insurance adjusters, nurses, or program evaluators, or in entering branches of the social sciences that investigate cases and value reports based on accurate descriptions and compelling narratives. Such reports must be factual and yet useful to decision makers, unbiased and yet focused. Students study genres and language skills from careful summarizing to convincing storytelling.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398E Writing About Economics (3 Credits)
Examines the characteristic genres of writing in modern economics, including theoretical and empirically based journal articles, reports for government and commercial clients, and economic information presented to a variety of non-professional audiences, such as citizen-oriented and public policy organizations. Students learn how to analyze these documents rhetorically and how to communicate economic information using the content, arrangement, style, and visual graphics best suited to the purposes and standards of particular audiences. Core assignments include a genre-based journal and document analysis, presentations on economics-related topics for both economists and non-professional audiences, and a major research-based writing project for an audience outside of the classroom.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398L Scholarly Writing in the Humanities (3 Credits)
Examines scholarship in the humanities as a genre of professional writing and investigates the norms and procedures of advanced academic writing. Assignments parallel the writing demands that students will face in the academic workplace, including a graduate school application essay, a genre review, an annotated bibliography, a journal article, and an oral presentation of article subject matter.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398N Writing for Non-Profit Organizations (3 Credits)
Examines professional writing and communication work in the non-profit sector. Students will analyze the audiences and document genres that they may encounter in real-world non-profit work and will learn how to compose many of these documents, from press releases and other public relations material to position papers, reports, and grant proposals. Students may also have the opportunity to add a service-learning component to the course by working with and for an area non-profit.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398R Writing Non-Fictional Narratives (3 Credits)
Approaches nonfiction narrative-a kind of writing influenced by fiction, magazine journalism, memoir, and personal essay--as a form of professional writing used in publishing and a range of careers involving proposal writing, work documentation, lobbying, social marketing, and political commentary, among others. Students learn to use many of the same tools as fiction writers, such as dialogue, vivid description, developing characters, nonlinear structure, and shifts in tense, time, and points of view. They also learn how to edit their own work as well as that of their peers, doing multiple revisions of the major assignments for a final portfolio. Major assignments include essays targeted to specific publications, query letters, audience analysis, and a publisher analysis.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL398V Writing About the Environment (3 Credits)
Designed for those aspiring to work in a variety of fields that influence and are influenced by environmental science, including public policy, advocacy, science, and industry. Students learn to apply principles of technical writing to a range of scenarios and issues particular to the intersection of scientific knowledge and environmental policy. Writing audiences range from the public to decision-makers. The course emphasizes writing both within and across disciplines to enlist research for practical contexts.
Prerequisite: Must have fulfilled the Academic Writing (FSAW) requirement.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL402 Chaucer (3 Credits)
Works read in Middle English. Readings may include Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, dream visions, lyrics.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL403 Shakespeare: The Early Works (3 Credits)
Close study of selected works from the first half of Shakespeare's career. Generic issues of early histories, comedies, tragedies. Language, theme, dramatic technique, sources, and early modern English social-historical context.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL404 Shakespeare: The Later Works (3 Credits)
Close study of selected plays from the second half of Shakespeare's career. Generic issues of later tragedies, later comedies, romances. Language, theme, dramatic technique, sources, and early modern English social-historical context.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL408 Literature by Women Before 1800 (3 Credits)
Selected writings by women in the medieval and early modern era.
Prerequisite: Must have completed two English courses in literature; or permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs. Cross-listed with: WGSS408.
Formerly: WMST408.
ENGL409 Study Abroad Special Topics IV (1-6 Credits)
Special topics course taken as part of an approved study abroad program.
Repeatable to: 15 credits if content differs.
ENGL410 Edmund Spenser (3 Credits)
Selected works of Edmund Spenser in their literary, social, and historical contexts. Special attention to The Faerie Queene; also sonnets and lyric poetry.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL412 Literature of the Seventeenth Century, 1600-1660 (3 Credits)
Works from early Stuart through Interregnum period. Major literary genres in historical contexts. Writers such as Donne, Jonson, Mary Wroth, Bacon, Browne, and Marvell.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL414 Milton (3 Credits)
Poetry and major prose in their social, political, and literary-historical contexts. Special attention to Paradise Lost. Other works may include Samson Agonistes and shorter poems.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL416 Literature of the Eighteenth Century, 1700-1750 (3 Credits)
British literary traditions, including the poetry of Pope, the prose of Swift, the correspondence of Montagu, the drama of Gay, and early novels by Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL420 English Romantic Literature (3 Credits)
British poetry, drama, fiction, and criticism c.1790 to c.1830, a period of dramatic social change and revolution in literature, philosophy, the arts, industry, and politics. Authors include Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Percy, and Mary Shelley.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL422 English Victorian Literature (3 Credits)
A survey of English literature of the Victorian period. Writers may include Arnold, Browning, Tennyson, Dickens, George Eliot, Carlyle, Ruskin, Newman, and Wilde.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL425 Modern British Literature (3 Credits)
Major Modernist writers in English prose and poetry since 1900. Such writers as Eliot, Larkin, Forster, Burgess, Durrell, Henry Green, Golding, Auden, Malcolm Lowry, Joyce, and Yeats.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL428 Seminar in Language and Literature (3 Credits)
Topics will vary each semester. The course will provide a seminar experience in material or methodologies not otherwise available to the major.
Restriction: Junior standing or higher; and must be in the English Honors program or gain permission from the department.
Repeatable to: 12 credits if content differs.
ENGL429 Independent Research in English (1-6 Credits)
An advanced independent research project for qualified students, supervised by an English faculty member, on a topic not ordinarily covered in available courses.
Prerequisite: ENGL301; and two English courses (excluding fundamental studies requirement); and permission of ARHU-English department.
Restriction: Sophomore standing or higher.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL430 Literature of the Americas from First Contact to Revolution (3 Credits)
Examines the literature of the cultural encounters, colonialisms, empires, and independence movements in the early Americas from 1492 through the eighteenth century. Writers typically include Christopher Columbus, John Smith, Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, William Byrd, Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, and Benjamin Franklin.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL431 American Literature: Revolution to Civil War (3 Credits)
An examination of nationalism, sentimentalism, and romanticism, with writings focusing on such topics as slavery and democracy during the 1770s to 1860s. Authors typically include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL432 American Literature: 1865 to 1914, Realism and Naturalism (3 Credits)
Reconstruction, Realism, Naturalism. Representative writers such as Dickinson, James, Dreiser.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL433 American Literature: 1914 to the Present, the Modern Period (3 Credits)
Modernism, Postmodernism. Writers such as Stevens, Stein, Ellison.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL435 American Poetry: Beginning to the Present (3 Credits)
Selections of American poetry, from Bradstreet to contemporary free verse. Authors such as Whitman, Dickinson, Bishop, Hughes, Rich, and Frost.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL437 Contemporary American Literature (3 Credits)
Prose, poetry, drama of living American writers. Current cultural and social issues.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL438 Selected Topics in Media Studies (3 Credits)
Advanced study of a topic pertinent to how the material production, technologies, and cultural practices of diverse types of media shape meaning.
Prerequisite: Two English courses beyond Fundamental Studies; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Recommended: At least one prior course in Media Studies.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL439 Spotlight on Major Writers (3 Credits)
An intensive study of a single writer, or a handful of writers, to understand the shifts in the writer's craft and cultural influence, both past and present.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL440 The Novel in America to 1914 (3 Credits)
Survey of the American novel to World War I. Cultural and philosophical contexts; technical developments in the genre. Authors such as Melville, Wells Brown, James, Sedgwick, Chopin.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL444 Feminist Critical Theory (3 Credits)
Issues in contemporary feminist thought that have particular relevance to textual studies, such as theories of language, literature, culture, interpretation, and identity.
Prerequisite: WMST200, WGSS200, WMST250, WGSS250, or ENGL250. Cross-listed with: WGSS444.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL444, WMST444 or WGSS444.
Formerly: WMST444.
ENGL446 Post-Modern British and American Poetry (3 Credits)
British and American poets from the 1930s to the present. Such poets as Auden, Williams, Plath, Brooks, Lowell, Wolcott, Ted Hughes, Bishop, Larkin, Jarrell, and Berryman.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL448 Literature by Women of Color (3 Credits)
Literature by women of color in the United States, Britain, and in colonial and post-colonial countries.
Prerequisite: Must complete two English courses in literature; or permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs. Cross-listed with: WGSS448.
Formerly: WMST448.
ENGL449 Selected Topics in U.S. Latinx Literature (3 Credits)
Advanced study of selected works by U.S. Latinx writers.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL451 Renaissance Drama II (3 Credits)
Drama in early decades of the seventeenth century. Playwrights include Jonson, Middleton, Marston, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher. Tragedy, city comedy, tragicomedy, satire, masque. Pre-Civil War theatrical, political, and religious contexts.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL452 English Drama From 1660 to 1800 (3 Credits)
Restoration and eighteenth-century drama, with special attention to theater history, cultural influences, concepts of tragedy, comedy, farce, parody, and burlesque, as well as dramatic and verbal wit.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL453 Critical Theory in English Studies (3 Credits)
Examines our assumptions about literature, language, media, and culture by exploring how people have theorized key concepts and relations like language, materiality, meaning, representation, identity, and power. We will focus both on learning the history, arguments, and vocabularies of these theories and on evaluating their usefulness for helping us to understand the many kinds of texts (visual, aural, etc.) we study in English. Theoretical thinking will aid us in analyzing the forms texts take; the ideas texts record, challenge, or reinvent; and how texts make us think or feel about ourselves, others, and the world in which we live.
Prerequisite: Two English courses (excluding Fundamental Studies requirement); or permission of ARHU-English Department.
ENGL454 Modern Drama (3 Credits)
The history of modern British drama, from its roots in Chekhov and Ibsen, through the modernisms of Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht, through the Angry Young Men of the 1950s, and right up to the present. Most plays will be from the last 40 years, by writers such as David Hare, Tom Stoppard, Lucy Kirkwood, Caryl Churchill, Roy Williams, Lucy Prebble, Alan Bennett, Brian Friel, Terrence Rattigan, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Sarah Kane, and Alice Birch. We will also look at how class, money, immigration, and the end of the Empire changed British plays over time. And we will consider modern theater architecture and production design as well as the directing instincts of, for instance, Peter Brook, Katie Mitchell, Marianne Elliott, and Nicholas Hytner.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL455 The Eighteenth-Century English Novel (3 Credits)
The origins and development of the British novel, from the late seventeenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth. Questions about what novels were, who wrote them, and who read them. Authors such as Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, Burney, Radcliffe, and Austen.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL456 The Nineteenth-Century English Novel (3 Credits)
Surveys major novels of the period. Attention to narrative form and realism; representations of gender and class; social contexts for reading, writing and publishing. Authors such as Austen, Bronte, Dickens, George Eliot, Trollope.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL457 The Modern Novel (3 Credits)
Modernism in the novel of the twentieth century. Such writers as Joyce, Lawrence, Murdoch, James, Forster, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ellison, Welty, Nabokov and Malamud.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL458 Literature by Women After 1800 (3 Credits)
Selected writings by women after 1800.
Prerequisite: Must have completed two English courses in literature; or permission of Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs. Cross-listed with: WGSS458.
Formerly: WMST458.
ENGL459 Selected Topics in LGBTQ+ Literatures and Media (3 Credits)
Advanced study of a topic pertinent to literary and cultural expressions of LGBTQ+ identities, positionalities, and analytics through an exploration of literature, art, and/or media.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL460 Archival Research Methods in English Studies (3 Credits)
Introduces approaches for doing archival research in English studies, exploring how researchers develop their scope and practices of study and how they access and use archival materials electronically and on site to further their research questions. Investigates a historical period, genre, or theme through the lens of manuscripts, ephemera, and other artifacts. Case studies vary by semester.
Prerequisite: Two English courses beyond the Fundamental Studies courses; or permission of ARHU-English Department.
ENGL461 Researching Literacy and Language (3 Credits)
Gain practical research experience as you learn to do qualitative research in literacy, writing, and language studies. Study reading, writing, and composing in a variety of contexts (for example, social media and other digital spaces, classrooms, writing centers, churches, workplaces or other community sites). Learn to design and conduct ethical, responsible research studies. Learn to collect data through methods such as interview, observation, and survey and to analyze that data through a variety of methods. Finally, learn to present your research through genres such as reports, posters, and/or presentations.
Prerequisite: Students must have satisfied Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL488R or ENGL461.
Formerly: ENGL488R.
ENGL462 Folksong and Ballad (3 Credits)
A cross-section of American folk and popular songs in their cultural contexts; artists from Bill Monroe to Robert Johnson.
ENGL463 Narrative Analysis Methods in English Studies (3 Credits)
Approaches to literary narrative analysis. Explores narrative theory as a research method for studying the fundamental categories of literary narrative--such as the narrator, character, plot, closure, and frames, as well as the nature of fictionality and the role of the reader--and for interpreting their deployment in individual literary works. We will use this method to examine particularly unusual and even radical fiction, so we can understand the meaning-making work accomplished by narrative form.
Prerequisite: Two English courses beyond Fundamental Studies; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL466 Arthurian Legend (3 Credits)
Development of Arthurian legend in English and continental literature from Middle Ages to twentieth century. All readings in modern English.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL467 Creative Approaches to Digital Textuality (3 Credits)
Examines electronic literature and other aspects of the literary world online with a focus on experimental writing with computers. Topics may include digital fiction and storytelling, bots, book hacking, flash fiction, narrative in games, and artificial-intelligence-generated fiction, poetry, and art. No programming experience required.
Prerequisite: One English course beyond Fundamental Studies; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL468 Selected Topics in Film Studies (3-9 Credits)
Advanced studies in various periods and genres of film.
Prerequisite: ENGL245, FILM245, CINE245, FILM283, or SLLC283; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Recommended: ENGL329, CMLT280, and ENGL245.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL469 The Craft of Literature: Creative Form and Theory (3 Credits)
Examines various forms of poetry and/or fiction, emphasizing the practice of making literary art and the aesthetic and theoretical approaches that define it. Students will practice the elements of literary craft, producing and experimenting with a wide range of forms and conventions in poetry and/or fiction. They will also produce critical work that articulates and contextualizes theoretical approaches to the making of literary art.
Prerequisite: 2 ENGL courses in literature or creative writing; and have completed a 200-level creative writing workshop in ENGL. Or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL470 African-American Literature: From Slavery to Freedom (3 Credits)
Examines African-American literature from its beginnings to the early twentieth century, including genres ranging from slave narratives, pamphlets, essays, and oratory, to poetry and fiction. Our emphasis is on the interaction between literature and literary forms, on the one hand, and historical and political developments in the push toward emancipation, on the other.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL471 African-American Literature: 1910-1945 (3 Credits)
Emergence of modernism in African-American writing including debates over the definition of unique African-American aesthetics, with emphasis on conditions surrounding the production of African-American literatures.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL472 African-American Literature: 1945 to Present (3 Credits)
Transformation of African-American literatures into modern and postmodern forms. Influenced by World War II and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, this literature is characterized by conscious attempts to reconnect literary and folk forms, the emergence of women writers, and highly experimental fiction.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL475 Postmodern Literature (3 Credits)
The origins and ongoing development of postmodern literature. Aspects of the "postmodern condition," such as the collapse of identity, the erasure of cultural and aesthetic boundaries, and the dissolution of life into textuality. The novel and other genres and media.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL477 BookLab (3 Credits)
Historical, imaginative, and experiential introduction to different elements of books and bookmaking, including letterpress printing with traditional lead and wood (movable) type, different techniques for bindings, 3D printing, zines, making altered and treated books, and so on. Class-time will be a mix of discussion and hands-on activity. The course will culminate in each student designing and creating their own book object, which might take the form of an artist's book, chapbook, zine, an altered or treated book, or something else entirely. Taught with the resources and facilities available in the English department's BookLab.
Prerequisite: Two English courses; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL428M, ENGL438P, ENGL479P, or ENGL477.
Formerly: ENGL428M, ENGL438P, ENGL479P.
ENGL478 Selected Topics in Literature before 1800 (3 Credits)
Advanced study of key topics in literary works from earlier historical periods.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL479 Selected Topics in Literature after 1800 (3 Credits)
Advanced study of key topics in literary works from later historical periods.
Prerequisite: Two English courses in literature; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL482 History of the English Language (3 Credits)
Examines the origins and development of the English language.
Prerequisite: ENGL280, LING200, or HESP120; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL483 American English(es) (3 Credits)
Examines the diversity of dialects, registers, and jargons of English found in the United States, as well as their origins, structures, and functions in society.
Prerequisite: LING200, ENGL280, or HESP120; or permission of ARHU-English department.
ENGL484 Style and Grammar in Written English (3 Credits)
The linguistic analysis of written texts. Examines grammatical and discursive constructions above the level of the sentence and their functions in literary and non-literary texts. We will study narrative structure, authorial voice, genre, register, stance, viewpoint, empathy, surprise, and humor in language.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL484 or LING402.
ENGL487 Principles and Practices of Rhetoric (3 Credits)
A seminar examining foundational concepts and approaches in the theory and practice of rhetoric in civic, professional, academic, and interpersonal settings; focusing on key issues in persuasion, argumentation, and eloquence in historical and contemporary contexts.
ENGL488 Topics in Advanced Writing (3 Credits)
Different genres of technical and professional writing including proposal writing, computer documentation, technical report writing, instruction manuals, etc. Students will analyze models of a genre, produce their own versions, test, edit and revise them.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL489 Special Topics in Language and Rhetoric (3 Credits)
Special topics in language and rhetoric, such as discourse analysis, semantics, or cognitive linguistics; comparative rhetoric and rhetorical theory, digital rhetorics, women's and minority rhetorics, or the history of rhetoric.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
ENGL491 Digital Rhetoric (3 Credits)
Examines the social significance of the ways digital texts are composed and circulated. Explores why it matters how the web is written and who does the writing, understanding the Internet as rhetorical from its content and communities to the code, protocols, and policies that control digital distribution. Includes active experimentation with digital tools so students can expand their theoretical understanding through critical making.
Prerequisite: Students must have satisfied the Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
Credit Only Granted for: ENGL489J, or ENGL491.
Formerly: ENGL489J.
ENGL492 Graphic Design and Rhetoric (3 Credits)
An exploration of the visual dimensions of texts and the skills involved in designing them well. Considers graphic design theory and history from a rhetorical perspective, working to understand and practice the use of symbol systems to express, inform, and advocate. Includes direct experimentation with the principles and techniques of graphic design.
Prerequisite: Students must have satisfied Fundamental Studies Academic Writing requirement.
ENGL493 Writing Genres as Social Action (3 Credits)
A rhetorical genre studies approach to understanding the work that texts do in the world. Examines issues of identity, power, and medium as they relate to writing in various contexts. Students analyze the texts, context(s), and social significance of a public, professional, digital, and/or advanced academic genre and produce writing that meets, modifies, and subverts expectations.
Recommended: Satisfactory completion of the professional writing requirement (FSPW).
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL494 Editing and Document Design (3 Credits)
Principles of general editing for clarity, precision and correctness. Applications of the conventions of grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage, and organization for logic and accuracy. Working knowledge of the professional vocabulary of editing applied throughout the course.
Prerequisite: ENGL393 or ENGL391; or students who have taken courses with comparable content may contact the department.
ENGL495 Independent Study in Honors (1-3 Credits)
Completion and presentation of the senior honors project.
Prerequisite: ENGL373 and ENGL370.
Restriction: Must be in English Language and Literature program; and candidacy for honors in English.
ENGL497 English at Work (3 Credits)
Examines how English majors put their academic knowledge and skills to work in professional workplaces after graduation. Students learn strategies to research careers, and they shadow a person in a career of interest for a day. Students learn to compose different professional genres to write and speak about and for professional development and advancement, including inquiry letters, technical descriptions, professional portfolios, and elevator pitches. Students will critically examine the learning they have done in their undergraduate coursework and compose a vision for bringing that learning to life in their future work.
Prerequisite: ENGL301; and an ENGL course at the 300-level or higher.
Restriction: Must have earned a minimum of 60 credits.
ENGL498 Advanced Fiction Workshop (3 Credits)
An advanced class in the making of fiction. Intensive discussion of students' own fiction. Readings include both fiction and essays about fiction by practicing writers. Writing short critical papers, responding to works of fiction, and to colleagues' fiction, in-class writing exercises, intensive reading, and thinking about literature, in equal parts, and attendance at readings.
Prerequisite: ENGL352; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits if content differs.
Formerly: ENGL496.
ENGL499 Advanced Poetry Workshop (3 Credits)
An advanced class in the making of poetry. Intensive discussion of students' own poems. Readings include both poetry and essays about poetry by practicing poets. Writing short critical prose pieces, responding critically to colleagues' poems, in-class and outside writing exercises, and attendance at poetry readings.
Prerequisite: ENGL353; or permission of ARHU-English department.
Repeatable to: 9 credits.
Formerly: ENGL497.