We offer approximately 150 to 200 sections of English courses each long semester and a handful of courses over the summer. All of our courses emphasize analytical reading, critical thinking, effective communication, and the development of various writing styles and skills. Our writing-oriented courses cover a variety of skills and degree requirements for students across the university including Core Curriculum courses, Writing Intensive courses, creative writing, and technical business writing. Our literature courses span across genres, time periods, and areas of study including such topics as: health humanities, digital humanities, linguistics, cultural studies, LGBTQ+ literatures, Latinx literatures, rhetoric, literature and film, African-American literatures, surveys of literary periods, and young adult/children's literature.
For a full listing of English courses and brief descriptions, visit the university’s undergraduate catalog.
Below you will find detailed course descriptions for some of our classes being offered during the Spring 2026 semester. While this list is not exhaustive, it is meant to aid students in selecting courses that meet their interests, particularly for our special topics courses which change from semester to semester. Please use the Class Search function in Howdy to see a full list of English and Linguistics classes being offered in Spring 2026.
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Taught by: Dr. Matt McKinney
Course Description: This course will focus on graphic novels and manga as a medium, and their literary and historical evolution across the 20th and 21st centuries. During the semester we will examine the history of this increasingly influential form of storytelling in the literary tradition, its various transformations, the relationship between its visual and written elements, and the material culture that has contributed to its formation. We will analyze a number of graphic narratives (primarily from the United States and Japan) in terms of their structure, and their focus on themes of alienation, heroism, violence, culture, and sexuality.
Proposed Readings:
Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
Saga, Brian Vaughan
Watchmen, Alan Moore
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Full Metal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa
Vagabond, Takahiko Inoue
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Taught by: Dr. Katayoun Torabi
Course Description: This course provides a historical study of the English language, beginning with a discussion of its Indo-European origins and continuing on to the present day. Students will learn about phonological, grammatical, and lexical changes within the language over time, and will examine the social and political conditions related to such changes. The course will focus on the English language in its social context and will ask students to think about language as a dynamic system that changes when it comes into contact with other cultures through migration, war, colonialization, and technological advancements. Students will explore such changes through various literary works in Old, Middle, and Modern English, including passages from Beowulf, Malory, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. This course is addressed to all students interested in the English language, literature, linguistics, history, and cultural studies. The course does not assume any background in language or linguistics; all necessary terms and concepts are taught in the course. Class activities will include lecture, discussion, and group work. This class is cross-listed with Linguistics 310.
Proposed Readings:
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Taught by: Dr. Altay "Al" Ozkul
Course Description: This course offers an introduction to the work of William Shakespeare. We'll begin by getting a handle on Shakespearean language, partly by studying his sonnets, before proceeding scene by scene through two major tragedies he wrote around the middle of his career: 'Othello' and 'King Lear'. Interspersed between this close study will be consideration of the many different ways we might think about Shakespeare: in terms, for example, of theatre history, adaptation, historical biography, world cinema, textual bibliography, etc... (Honors students will be required to undertake additional readings and assignments.)
Proposed Readings:
Malone, E. A., Rothschild, J., & Cunningham, D. H. (2020). Technical Editing: An Introduction to Editing in the Workplace. Oxford University Press. (Required textbook)
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Taught by: Dr. Katayoun Torabi
Course Description: In this class, students will examine the Bible as both a collection of disparate texts and as a unified whole, with a particular focus on how the rhetorical strategies of its many authors, narrative structures, and character development in the Bible have all influenced various readings of the text through time. Through guided in-class exercises and small and large group discussions students will examine ethical issues surrounding politics, religion, nationhood, and ethnicity in the Bible and understand them in their own historical and cultural moments. Students will also think about how their own responses to Biblical narratives are rooted in their personal understanding of religion and culture, and to reflect on the wider implications of how they and others approach this foundational text. Materials for this course include written texts and such visual and audio representations as paintings, video clips, films, poetry readings, and music.
Proposed Readings:
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Taught by: Dr. Grace Heneks
Course Description: This course explores the American novel through the lens of speculation—as imaginative projection, political warning, science fictional experiment, and cultural critique. Across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, writers have used speculative fiction not only to envision the future, but to reimagine gender, race, power, and authorship. We’ll examine how these narratives challenge literary conventions and engage with the social and political realities of their time through utopias and dystopias, authoritarian regimes, temporal displacements, and metafictional play.
Together, we’ll ask: What can speculation reveal about the U.S. as it is—and as it could be? Through our readings, we’ll consider how the speculative form invites us to rethink identity, memory, and belonging, and to imagine otherwise.Proposed Readings:
Herland- Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
It Can’t Happen Here- Sinclair Lewis (1935)
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury (1953)
Kindred- Octavia Butler (1979)
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe- Charles Yu (2010)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (2025)