English
Academic Programs
The study of English fosters critical thought and imaginative insight. It also heightens an awareness and appreciation of the power, beauty, and passion of the written word. Through close reading of texts and engaging class discussions, we invite you, in Thoreau’s words, to “live deliberately.”
The mission of the Division of English is to offer instruction in canonical and non-canonical British and American Literature, integrating these studies with creative writing courses in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and playwriting. We are dedicated to the teaching of analysis, critical reflection and creative thought, problem solving, and communication within the context of a liberal arts education in order to meet the complex needs of a diverse university community.
We encourage students to recognize the intellectual, social, and historical contexts of human experience, demonstrating how we might question and articulate the values, ideologies, and assumptions inherent in any human enterprise. We are also committed to teaching all university students to read with greater purpose and attention and to write with greater clarity, insight, and humanity.
English majors graduate to pursue careers in teaching, writing, advertising, public relations, publishing, college administration, business, and related fields, or they go on to graduate schools in literature, writing, communications, journalism, library science, law, and business.
We encourage students to assume responsibility for the direction of their education by developing a course of study based on their goals. All courses used to complete the major must have grades of "C" or better.
Upon completion of this program a student is able to:
- Articulate in discussion and on paper how texts communicate more than their surface-level meanings
- Identify dominant themes and concerns in the literature
- Use historical, literary, and critical contexts to analyze texts
- Recognize conventions associated with different genres and explain the significance of those conventions
- Effectively support analytical claims with textual evidence
- Put texts in dialogue, finding their shared assumptions and points of departure
- Use writing to discover (not just report) what they think.
Courses
COMM 303: AI & Digital Literacies
Credits 4In this course; we will explore the shift from print to digital cultures; along with the development of generative AI; and their impacts on how we write; learn; work; interact with others; and know things about the world. Students will gain the skills to responsibly leverage digital composition and generative tools for a variety of writing situations. (Every other spring)
COMM 323: Alphadelphian
Credits 2Students will work together to produce the annual newsletter of the Women’s and Gender Studies program. Along the way; we will analyze media representation of feminist issues; brainstorm topics; conduct research; and write feature articles; formulate questions; conduct interviews; and write profiles; workshop; copyedit; and proofread; and reflect on what it means to be part of the WGST community.
ENGL 101: Writing I
Credits 4Study and application of the basic principles of written communication: correctness; clarity; concreteness; effective organization; and accepted forms of documentation.
ENGL 102: Writing II
Credits 4This course offers intensive experience in essay writing. Through the close reading of literature and the practical experience of writing; students explore rhetorical strategies; learn accepted forms of documentation; develop a sense of voice; and deepen their responses to the written word. (ENGL 102 is prerequisite to 300 and 400-level studies in English.)
ENGL 103: Business Writing
Credits 4In this course; we’ll focus on writing to persuade; decide; and get things done. We’ll cover the basic principles of writing effectively in professional contexts in order to prepare both for more advanced coursework and for doing business in the real world.
ENGL 200: Special Topics in Writing
Credits 2 4A series of introductory writing courses; each being a study of a subject not covered in other 200-level courses. Topics may include feature writing; magazine writing; or writing in other specialized areas.
ENGL 202: Fiction Workshop
Credits 4For beginning prose writers; a course on the elements; styles; and techniques of contemporary fiction and narrative. Students experiment with subject and voice with an emphasis on creating characters. Portfolio exam.
ENGL 205: Playmaking: From Writing to Devising For the New Era
Credits 4In this course; students will learn various approaches to dramatic storytelling ranging from narrative play writing; devising; and improvisational techniques to create story. We will explore what it means to dramatically tell a story and the different approaches taken in the 21st century to adapt to a constantly changing art form. We will explore development of character; plot; and action. Using various techniques and approaches to dramatic writing; students will have created a 10-min play or 10-performance upon the completion of this course. (Cross-listed as THEA 205)
ENGL 206: Poetry Workshop
Credits 4A beginning writing course in poetry with an emphasis on originality and freshness of language and a basic understanding of poetic form. Required work includes extensive reading of contemporary poets; weekly writing; peer review; and a final portfolio of revised poems.
ENGL 213: Introduction to Poetry
Credits 2 4This course introduces students to the main traditions of English verse and the fundamentals of poetic form. Selections include the major poets of the English language; as well as contemporary British; Irish; and American poets.
ENGL 214: Literature in Action: Drama Self & Society
Credits 2 4An exploration of how plays express the struggle humans face in relation to their community; to their history; and to the languages—literary; political; cultural; personal—that make up those conflicts. We will read plays from different eras and a series of innovative modern plays.
ENGL 217: Blood Guts and Alphabets: The Gory Truth about Children's Literature
Credits 4Blood; Guts and Alphabets explores the gritty truth about children's literature. From picture books and fairy tales; to intermediate and YA fiction; we'll think about what it means to be a child; and what it means to be human; what children's literature is for; and how it reflects many of the difficult truths and injustices of the actual world we live in. Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? We aren't. (Offered on demand)
ENGL 218: Beyond Enchantment: Fairy Tales as Literature
Credits 4For many; if not most of us; the phrase “fairy tales conjures up images of Disney Princesses; of castles; and magic; and talking animals; and happily ever after. But fairy tales in the Western literary tradition have always been far from innocent. They are instead a complex literary and story-based mirror of the cultures from which they originated; both reinforcing and rebelling against gender; class; and social norms. We will read multiple versions of the tales from the earliest known versions to versions in the present day; learning to approach them from a literary; historical; sociological; psychanalytic; and feminist point of view.
ENGL 220: Special Topics in Literature
Credits 2 4A series of introductory courses; each being a study of literature not covered in other 200-level courses.
ENGL 222: The Harlem Renaissance
Credits 4In this course students explore the literature and music of African-Americans produced in and around Harlem in New York City in the 1920s to the 1940s. Central to such exploration will be the contemporary cultural and political issues that faced the Afro-American artist.
ENGL 225: Shakespeare and Cinema
Credits 2 4This course explores some of Shakespeare's most popular plays and their film adaptations. Students focus on the literary analyses of character; theme; and language in the written texts. We also compare the cultural contexts of representative comedies; tragedies; and histories; with their contemporary film settings.
ENGL 226: The Holocaust and Literature
Credits 4In this course students examine the Nazi destruction of the European Jews through diaries; survivors' memoirs; novels; poetry and drama. Additionally; representations of the Holocaust in art; recorded testimony; public memorials; film and music are explored.
ENGL 230: Special Topics in Film
Credits 2 4A series of introductory courses; each being a study of film not covered in other 200-level film courses.
ENGL 243: Lunatics Lovers and Poets: Southern Storytellers
Credits 2 4Southerners don't hide their skeletons in closets; they invite them into the living room to entertain at tea. This course focuses on works which examine what Flannery O'Connor defined as the Southern grotesque-individuals forced to meet the extremes of their own nature. Exploring the world created when tragic merges with comic; other writers might include Faulkner; Williams; Welty; Percy; Crews; Dickey; and Tyler.
ENGL 254: Women Writers
Credits 2 4A course that examines issues of language; gender; and culture portrayed through the lens of the woman writer. Texts may include novels; stories; autobiographies; essays; letters; and poetry.
ENGL 256: Multicultural American Literature
Credits 4This course explores the rich diversity of American literature; raising questions like What does it mean to be or become American? What is gained; what is lost; what can be protected or preserved? What is the meaning of the past; of roots; of traditions? Students examine how this body of literature reimagines the dominant American culture and reflect on their own multicultural competence.
ENGL 261: Utopian and Dystopian Literature
Credits 4One person’s perfect world is someone else’s nightmare. This course will study fictional representations of alternate timelines and universes. Which literary upheavals or catastrophes seem all too plausible in real life? Which differences in social constructions; including race; gender; and class; have the power to change the world as we know it?
ENGL 271: Trauma and Creativity
Credits 4Trauma causes pain—grief; anger; and withdrawal—yet there are those who respond with creativity—with acts and art of expression; originality; connection; and transcendence. This course studies that process; and representative works of literature that reveal it.
ENGL 272: Mysticism
Credits 4Mysticism is the word given to the recognition—across cultures; centuries; and continents—that everything is ultimately One. Some name this God…others; Truth…many call it Love. Although the intensity and depth of mystical vision is consistently described as inexpressible; an extensive; beautiful body of literature has been created by those who have travelled the “via mystica;” experienced Union as absolute reality; and shared their experiences. This course will study the characteristics of mysticism; and the ways various writers have translated their revelations; Love; and “peace beyond understanding” into art.
ENGL 281: Literature and Science
Credits 2 4Three quarks for Muster Mark (James Joyce). This course will explore and challenge the boundaries separating disciplines. Fictional representations of emerging technologies; medical nightmares; and futuristic utopias and dystopias are all possibilities for discussion.
ENGL 292: Tales of Terror
Credits 2 4Only the perverse fantasy can save us (Goethe). If you like women in white; gray castles; and dark secrets; this course is for you. An exploration of the conventions and tropes in Gothic literature.
ENGL 293: Writers Gone Wild: Literature and the Environment
Credits 4We explore representations of the natural world in literary texts; asking questions like does my dog really love me or am I anthropomorphizing? Is gardening an act of love; ownership; creativity; or something else entirely? Are we really leading lives of quiet desperation; and how can hoeing beans help?
ENGL 303: AI & Digital Literacies
Credits 4In this course; we will explore the shift from print to digital cultures; along with the development of generative AI; and their impacts on how we write; learn; work; interact with others; and know things about the world. Students will gain the skills to responsibly leverage digital composition and generative tools for a variety of writing situations. (Alternating Spring)
ENGL 323: Alphadelphian
Credits 2Students will work together to produce the annual newsletter of the Women’s and Gender Studies program. Along the way; we will analyze media representation of feminist issues; brainstorm topics; conduct research; and write feature articles; formulate questions; conduct interviews; and write profiles; workshop; copyedit; and proofread; and reflect on what it means to be part of the WGST community.
ENGL 325: Survey of British Literature I
Credits 3This course provides an overview of early British literature: from Beowulf to Milton; it also includes Chaucer; 16th and 17th Century Poetry and Drama; Shakespeare and the Jacobeans.
ENGL 326: Survey of British Literature II
Credits 3This course provides an overview of British literature after 1660: from the Restoration to the Modernists; it also includes 18th-Century Poetry; Drama; and Prose; 19th and 20th-Century Novels; Romantic; Victorian; and 20th-Century Poetry.
ENGL 327: Survey of American Literature
Credits 4This course introduces students to American literature in cultural context; with particular attention to constructs of Americanness as they appear in or are challenged by literary texts.
ENGL 328: The Language of Literary Art
Credits 4This course introduces students to the elements of literary art. Through a sequence of readings and problems; students gain an understanding of diction; figuration; genre; point of view; and context as shaping components of literary form.
ENGL 400: Topics in Literature
Credits 1 4Advanced study of a topic in literature not covered by other 400-level courses.
ENGL 401: Topics in Writing
Credits 1 4Advanced study of a topic in writing not covered by other 400-level courses.
ENGL 402: British Gothic Fiction
Credits 4Through fiction and film; we'll examine two-and-a-half centuries of haunted castles; murderous monsters; and dark mysteries. We'll explore the evolving literary; cultural; and historical forces that made these works of terror so popular.
ENGL 406: A Medieval Bookshelf
Credits 4This course introduces students to the connections between medieval English literature; its classical sources; and medieval European literatures.
ENGL 407: Chaucer
Credits 4This course introduces students to Chaucer's works. All readings are in Middle English; and students will gain competence in reading and pronouncing Chaucer's English. Readings include The Book of the Duchess; excerpts from The Legend of Good Women; Troilus and Criseyde; and excerpts from The Canterbury Tales.
ENGL 408: Women Writers in the Middle Ages
Credits 4This course examines the writings of medieval women - abbesses; merchants; wives; mothers; and mystics - to explore the challenges female writers such as Heloise; Margery Kempe; Julian of Norwich; and Christine de Pizan presented to orthodox Christianity; to gender stereotypes; and to medieval political and social structures.
ENGL 409: American Realism: Race/Class/Gender/Place
Credits 4Realism claims to offer life as it is actually lived; to offer not the Truth but the truths of human experience. Through both classic and new-canonical works of realism; naturalism; and regionalism; this course explores how individuals are located in social and geographic places.
ENGL 410: English Renaissance Literature
Credits 4This course focuses on the poetry and drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Elizabethan; the metaphysical; and the classical traditions of poetry are represented by Spenser; Shakespeare; Donne; Jonson; and Milton; the Elizabethan-Jacobean drama is presented by such dramatists as Marlowe; Jonson; and Webster.
ENGL 411: Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories
Credits 4This course introduces theories of comedy and explores Shakespeare's development as a comic dramatist as students read the festive and romantic comedies; comparing his early efforts with his mature plays. It also examines Shakespeare's dramatization of English and Roman history; the genre of the history play; and the playwright's adaptation of history to the comic and tragic modes.
ENGL 412: Shakespeare's Tragedies
Credits 4This course focuses on Shakespeare as a tragic artist. It introduces theories of tragedy; explores the playwright's experimentation with the genre; comparing his early efforts with his mature accomplishments; and examines some tragi-comedies.
ENGL 413: The Eighteenth Century
Credits 4This course explores the works of such authors as Jane Austen; Oliver Goldsmith; Matthew Lewis; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and Jonathan Swift against the background of eighteenth-century values and ideas. Genres include the novel; drama; and poetry.
ENGL 414: English Romantic Movement
Credits 4This course focuses on the well-known works of Blake; Wordsworth; Coleridge; Byron; Shelley; and Keats as well as on the less well known but important works of writers such as Anna Barbauld; Mary Robinson; and John Clare. Poems will be supplemented by works of fiction associated with British Romanticism such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
ENGL 415: Victorian Literature
Credits 4This course focuses on major Victorian poets and novelists such as Alfred Lord Tennyson; Matthew Arnold; Robert Browning; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Christina Rossetti; Gerard Manley Hopkins; Charles Dickens; the Brontes; Thomas Hardy; and Oscar Wilde.
ENGL 422: Irish Literature: 1690-Present
Credits 4A nation rich in song and story; Ireland has produced a distinctive national literature. This course explores three centuries of Irish writing. Genres include narrative; drama; and poetry. Selections include Swift; O'Rathaille; O'Bruadair; Mangan; Wilde; Shaw; Pearse; Yeats; Joyce; Heaney; and Kavanagh.
ENGL 424: Life and Art of James Joyce
Credits 4This course focuses on Joyce's fiction; including Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses; and selections from Finnegans Wake. Biographical readings will accompany the literature; and Homer's Odyssey will be studied in parallel with Joyce's Ulysses.
ENGL 431: 19th Century American Literature
Credits 4This course explores the diverse literary experiments of a nation striving toward cultural and aesthetic independence. Readings and critical perspectives vary according to instructors.
ENGL 432: 20th Century American Visions
Credits 4This course examines modern and postmodern literary experiments as manifested in American culture. Readings and critical treatments vary according to instructors.
ENGL 433: British and American Poetry
Credits 4The experience of each new age requires a new confession; and the world seems always waiting for its poet (Emerson). Selected readings introduce representative poetic voices throughout each British and American age; from the Middle Ages to the present; from Beowulf to Prufrock.
ENGL 434: African-American Literature
Credits 4This course traces the directions of African-American literature from the slave narrative through the Harlem Renaissance to contemporary fiction; drama; and poetry. Writers such as Frederick Douglass; Jean Toomer; Zora Neale Hurston; Langston Hughes; Richard Wright; Ralph Ellison; Lorraine Hansberry; James Baldwin; Alice Walker; and Toni Morrison are included.
ENGL 442: Modern and Contemporary Drama
Credits 2 4This course begins with the birth of the modern play in the late 19th century; then traces the evolution of dramatic literature to the present time. Readings selected from such playwrights as Ibsen; Strindberg; Chekhov; Shaw; O'Neill; Williams; Miller; Ionesco; Albee; Baraka; Pinter; Stoppard; Shepard; Shaffer; Norman; and Mamet.
ENGL 445: Modernism
Credits 4An examination of innovative poetry; fiction and drama produced in the first half of the twentieth century in England; Ireland; and America; with selected texts in translation when appropriate.
ENGL 450: Independent Study
Credits 1 4Academic inquiry into an area not covered in any established course; and carried on outside the usual instructor/ classroom setting. Approved Plan of Study required.
ENGL 451: Publishing Practicum
Credits 4Students work through all aspects of the process to publish an edition of an out-of-copyright text: conducting market research; selecting and editing the primary text; researching and writing an introduction; creating appropriate timelines and appendices; laying out the book using InDesign; designing the cover; procuring ISBN and Library of Congress numbers; submitting the text to the printer; and publishing the book using a print-on-demand model.
ENGL 459: Literary Criticism and Theory
Credits 2 4This course examines how literature has been approached and understood from the time of Plato to the present day. Readings are selected from those critical and theoretical statements which have most profoundly influenced literary response and even literature itself.
ENGL 460: Major Figures in Literature
Credits 2 4Seminar course. Detailed examination of the work produced by a single major writer (or of two writers linked by genre; period; topic; or other context).
ENGL 461: Special Topics Seminar-Literature
Credits 1 4A series of courses; each being an advanced study of a subject not covered in detail by other 400-level courses.
ENGL 472: Dramatis Personae
Credits 4An advanced poetry writing course for students interested in exploring character dynamics through the vehicle of the persona. Each student is expected to invent several personae and to write in the voices of those characters. The primary focus of the course is the writers' workshop.
ENGL 474: Writing the Short Story
Credits 4This course is an intensive writing workshop with an emphasis on the dynamics of the short story. Students are encouraged to experiment with form while learning the techniques of the well-crafted story. Portfolio exam. (May be repeated one time for credit.)
ENGL 475: Writing Formal Poetry
Credits 4This advanced creative writing course focuses on the appreciation and craft of formal poetry. Students will learn to write in iambic meters; and will learn definitions and read examples of traditional forms such as blank verse; sonnets; sestinas; villanelles; triolets; and ghazals. The primary focus on the course will be the writers' workshop; in which students compose and critique poems written in traditional forms.
ENGL 476: Writing the Long Poem or Poetic Sequence
Credits 4This creative writing course explores long poems and poetic sequences by reading and analyzing examples; then using those models to create our own poems. Through workshop and revision; students will write either a long poem or sequence of shorter poems.
ENGL 481: International Women Writers
Credits 4In this course we explore literature written by contemporary women from different cultures. Study focuses on voice; content; and style; with some attention to the conditions in which the work was produced and to its reception.
ENGL 485: Internship in English
Credits 1 4An off-campus independent study project under the direction of a faculty sponsor. Students gain exposure to possible careers related to English studies. Requirements for this project include a journal; job evaluations; and a final report. May be taken during the summer or semester abroad.
ENGL 496: English Honors Thesis
Credits 2To graduate with Honors in English; students must attain a cumulative GPA of 3.30 in their major; successfully complete this senior project; and pass an oral examination. Eligible seniors should discuss their project plans with the Division Chair before registering for ENGL 496.
ESL 101: English Skills for Multilingual Students
Credits 4This course focuses on building skills in listening; speaking; grammar and writing for students whose first language is not English.
ESL 102: Reading and Vocabulary Development for Multilingual Students
Credits 2This course focuses on developing English language reading skills in four crucial areas: extensive reading; vocabulary development; comprehension; and reading fluency. Students will gain practice in each area; allowing them to tackle their academic reading load more effectively.
ESL 401: Speaking and Listening
Credits 2This course will help non-native English speakers improve their speaking and listening skills. Students will work on pronunciation; oral presentation; and extracting meaning from conversations and other kinds of extended discourse.
GLBS 221: Pop Culture Goes Global
Credits 4This course examines U.S. popular culture and the media and their sociological; economic and political influence on cultures at home and abroad. It offers students a deeper understanding of globalization and its effect on their lives. (Fall)
WGST 408: Women Writers in the Middle Ages
Credits 4This course examines the writings of medieval women - abbesses; merchants; wives; mothers; and mystics - to explore the challenges female writers such as Heloise; Margery Kempe; Julian of Norwich; and Christine de Pizan presented to orthodox Christianity; to gender stereotypes; and to medieval political and social structures.
WGST 481: International Women Writers
Credits 4In this course we explore literature written by contemporary women from different cultures. Study focuses on voice; content; and style; with some attention to the conditions in which the work was produced and to its reception.