Section Descriptions for Upcoming Courses

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.

ENGL 203-515: Writing About Literature: Revolution

Taught by: Dr. Alexandra E. LaGrand

Section Description:

2026 marks 250 years since the writing of the Declaration of Independence, wherein the United States declared independence from Great Britain. This was a key moment in the history of the American Revolution and inspires our course theme of “Revolution.” In this course, we will use “Revolution” as our guiding concept to explore how authors depict and motivate revolutions throughout history and consider how revolution is reported. This is an introductory course to the reading and writing practices and, accordingly, will feature reading and writing assignments that teach the skillset of close reading, literary analysis, writing and editing, persuasive and clear argumentation, oral and visual communication, and collaboration. Though inspired by the American Revolution, we will also read works about other historical revolutions across cultures and time, including the Haitian Revolution and the French Revolution, but also revolutions depicted in fiction works.

Proposed Readings:

Course readings will span multiple genres, with some potential examples including primary writings about the Haitian Revolution, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), Phillis Wheatley’s “His Excellency General Washington” (1773), Thomas Paine’s “Liberty Tree” (1775), Percy Shelley’s “The Masque of Anarchy” (1819), Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Emily Dickinson’s “Revolution is the pod (33)” (pub. 1929), Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables (1980), Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire (2009), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (2015), and more.

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Taught by: Dr. Alexandra E. LaGrand

Section Description:

2026 marks 250 years since the writing of the Declaration of Independence, wherein the United States declared independence from Great Britain. This was a key moment in the history of the American Revolution and inspires our course theme of “Revolution.” In this course, we will use “Revolution” as our guiding concept to explore how authors depict and motivate revolutions throughout history and consider how revolution is reported. This is an introductory course to the reading and writing practices and, accordingly, will feature reading and writing assignments that teach the skillset of close reading, literary analysis, writing and editing, persuasive and clear argumentation, oral and visual communication, and collaboration. Though inspired by the American Revolution, we will also read works about other historical revolutions across cultures and time, including the Haitian Revolution and the French Revolution, but also revolutions depicted in fiction works.

Proposed Readings:

Course readings will span multiple genres, with some potential examples including primary writings about the Haitian Revolution, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), Phillis Wheatley’s “His Excellency General Washington” (1773), Thomas Paine’s “Liberty Tree” (1775), Percy Shelley’s “The Masque of Anarchy” (1819), Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Emily Dickinson’s “Revolution is the pod (33)” (pub. 1929), Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables (1980), Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire (2009), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (2015), and more.

ENGL 203-529: Writing About Literature

Taught by: Dr. Olivia (Hye In) Song

Section Description:

Why do we love a period piece so much, especially one with a mad scientist, a middle of the night elopement, or other tropes from the Victorian era? This course uses Victorian and neo-Victorian--or pieces written in the 20th and 21st century that play with ideas and tropes from the Victorian era--literature to help students learn about the process of writing about literature. We will practice close reading, analyze characters, and observe and write about the literary elements and scholarly works published about these works of literature. Students will have the opportunity to engage themselves in these works and also to distance by perceiving with a bird’s eye view to understand the themes, motifs, and messages that can be applied to life today; by looking at both historical and more modern works, they will also come to understand how to think and write about how literature plays with its own history. Students will learn how to write a literary essay through reading, research, and forming a strong thesis statement in order to develop as writers and communicators.

Proposed Readings:

Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) & Valerie Martin's Mary Reilly (1990)

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ENGL 203-582: Writing About Literature-Transnational Narratives

Taught by: Dr. Urnisa Karmakar

Section Description:

How do stories travel across borders, languages, and cultures? How do migration, exile, race, gender, and memory shape the way literature is written and read, and how can we learn to use writing to better understand the ways that these stories are told? This section of ENGL 203 introduces students to the craft of writing about literature through the study of transnational narratives — texts that move national boundaries and explore belonging in a globalized world. By looking at genres such as short stories, hybrid poetic memoir/performance poetry, film, and graphic novels, we will consider how to write and think critically about a range of genres and texts.

Because ENGL 203 is a course about the practice of writing, you will learn to perform close reading, craft arguable claims about texts, organize essays around textual evidence, and revise through workshops and feedback. You will also practice literary research: finding and evaluating secondary scholarship, integrating it into your writing, and documenting sources in MLA format. Class meetings will combine discussion, writing workshops, peer review, and short lectures on literary and cultural analysis.

Proposed Readings:

Readings may include works such as:

•Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (selected short stories).

•Migritude by Shailja Patel (Hybrid poetic memoir / Performance poetry).

•Mississippi Masala by Mira Nair (Film).

•Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Graphic memoir).

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Taught by: Dr. Urnisa Karmakar

Section Description:

How do stories travel across borders, languages, and cultures? How do migration, exile, race, gender, and memory shape the way literature is written and read, and how can we learn to use writing to better understand the ways that these stories are told? This section of ENGL 203 introduces students to the craft of writing about literature through the study of transnational narratives — texts that move national boundaries and explore belonging in a globalized world. By looking at genres such as short stories, hybrid poetic memoir/performance poetry, film, and graphic novels, we will consider how to write and think critically about a range of genres and texts.

Because ENGL 203 is a course about the practice of writing, you will learn to perform close reading, craft arguable claims about texts, organize essays around textual evidence, and revise through workshops and feedback. You will also practice literary research: finding and evaluating secondary scholarship, integrating it into your writing, and documenting sources in MLA format. Class meetings will combine discussion, writing workshops, peer review, and short lectures on literary and cultural analysis.

Proposed Readings:

Readings may include works such as:

•Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (selected short stories).

•Migritude by Shailja Patel (Hybrid poetic memoir / Performance poetry).

•Mississippi Masala by Mira Nair (Film).

•Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Graphic memoir).

ENGL 207: Human Thinking and Digital Culture

Taught by: Dr. Tyler Shoemaker

Section Description:

This course is about the collision of data and culture. While it is hardly an understatement to say that data now suffuses most of everyday life, what are the consequences of treating culture as data? What does this transformation suggestion about our current media environment? Our cultural politics? And if culture is data, are data culture? If so, how? As we consider these questions, we will cover a range of topics, from consumer analytics and algorithmic bias to the new AI.

Proposed Readings:

Readings may include work by Tom Comitta, Helen DeWitt, Lisa Gitelman and Virginia Jackson, Orit Halpern, Lauren Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio, Stanislaw Lem, Claude Shannon, Edward Tufte, Shoshana Zuboff

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ENGL 203 sections 510 & 511: Writing About Literature

Taught by: Dr. Dorothy Todd

Section Description:

This section of ENGL 203 will focus on writing about literature through the framework of adaptation, specifically looking at how ideas and texts reverberate across genre and time. Beginning with a single play by William Shakespeare, we will examine a series of texts to critically consider how poets, novelists, directors, game designers, and even users of social media draw from and speak to the same work across time and through a wide range of genres. Through this examination, students will gain experience and practice in skills such as literary analysis, close reading, interpretation, and information literacy as they develop as writers.

Proposed Readings:

· William Shakespeare, Macbeth

· Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood

· Billy Morrissette, Scotland, PA

· Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

· Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

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ENGL 210: Technical and Professional Writing

Taught by: Dr. Jason Crider

Section Description:

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. (ENGL 2311) Technical and Professional Writing. Focus on writing for technical and professional rhetorical situations with an emphasis on document design, audience awareness, clarity of communication, and collaborative teamwork; also taught at Galveston and Qatar campuses. Instructors teaching this class will choose texts, assessments, and approaches that represent current scholarship and satisfy course learning objectives.

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ENGL 220: Graphic Novels

Taught by: Dr. Matt McKinney

Section Description:

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. An exploration of origins and development of the graphic novel.

This course will examine the graphic novel’s development in international contexts (primarily the United States and Japan), with texts representative of the medium in terms of critical acclaim and/or its potential for storytelling and artistic expression.

Our first graphic novel will trace the historical origins of graphic novels and comics with this international focus, and subsequent novels will emphasize how the graphic novel’s development challenges our perceptions of what the medium can accomplish, including our conceptions of what constitutes art and literature, its expansion of our understanding of genre and genre conventions, its ability to adapt stories from other mediums, and its experimentation with narrative structure.

As such, course readings will primarily center on adult audiences with correspondingly mature artwork and themes (including alienation, heroism, violence, culture, and sexuality), and their contributions to the medium’s development will be analyzed with established critical lenses in rhetorical studies.

Proposed Readings:

McCloud, Understanding Comics
Arakawa, Full Metal Alchemist
Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen
Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Vaughan and Staples, Saga
Satrapi, Persepolis
Inoue, Vagabond

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ENGL 221: Early World Literature

Taught by: Dr. Michaela Baca

Section Description:

Step into a time machine built from words. This course takes you on a journey across centruies and continents, exploring the voices that shaped the world's great stories from the ancient world through the sixteenth century.

You'll encounter epic heroes, mystics, philosophers, and poets--voices that rose from temples, marketplaces, courts, and battlefields. Together, we'll read texts drawn from diverse traditions and genres, uncovering not just their artistry, but also the historical and cultural worlds that gave them life.

From myths that explained the stars to plays that questioned power, from sacred texts to love poems, this survey of world literature invites you to see how humanity has wrestled with meaning, beauty, and truth across time.

Proposed Readings:

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Georgics

Folktales from Japan, Greece, and the Jewish tradition

Selections from 1001 Arabian Nights

Beowulf

The Inferno

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ENGL 227: American Literature: The Beginnings to Civil War

Taught by: Dr. Ray Leonard

Section Description:

Analyze the "invention of America" through early American literary culture, with an emphasis on representative writers, genres and movements of the period."

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ENGL 231: Survey of English Literature I

Taught by: Dr. Katie Adkison

Section Description:

Literature of England from Anglo-Saxon times through the 18th century. This semester, our course will organize its study through four thematic units. First, we will explore medieval literature via ideas of the divine and supernatural; next, we will examine the role of print, politics, and power in literature of the 16th century; then, we will trace idea of faith, friendship, and fidelity in 17th-century texts; and finally, we will conclude by considering the relationship between empire and enlightenment in the early 18th century.

Proposed Readings:

Readings will likely include (but are not limited to): early Anglo-Saxon poetry, such as "The Dream of the Rood"; excerpts from Geoffrey of Monmouth, Marie de France, Margery Kempe, the Gawain poet, and Chaucer; poetry from Tottel's Miscellany, sonnet sequences, and plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare; poetry by Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, John Donne, George Herbert, Katherine Philips, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish; prose and poetry by Aphra Behn, Phillis Wheatley, and Olaudah Equiano.

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ENGL 303: Approaches to English Studies

Taught by: Dr. Jessica Howell

Section Description:

Bildungsroman Innovations
This class explores the foundations of the bildungsroman, traditionally a novel that follows the “development of the hero or heroine from childhood or adolescence into adulthood, through a troubled quest for identity” (Baldick 2015). We then think about innovative versions of development narratives, by examining prose-poems and graphic novels, for example. We also examine how authors have used their works to creatively comment upon or challenge conventions of this literary genre. Readings include works by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Virginia Woolf, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Michael Ondaatje. We use the framework of the bildungsroman to think about our approach to English Studies: grounding our conversation in Bloomsbury’s Introducing English Studies, we will think about the opportunities for growth in the subfields of our discipline.

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ENGL 306-500: Transnational Literature and Culture

Taught by: Dr. Christopher Manes

Section Description:

This course is an advanced study of topics in literary and cultural works that cross national borders. Students will read texts from, and conduct research on different national or cultural origins, recognizing the way cultural texts articulate global perspectives and diverse histories. The course may cover colonialism, economics, globalization, race, and refugees.

Proposed Readings:

Readings may include: Transnational Literature: The Basics (Routledge, 2021) by Paul Jay (online), excerpts from Mapping World Literature: International Canonization and Transnational Literatures (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2008) by Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (online), The Imaginary and Its Worlds : American Studies after the Transnational Turn by Laura Bieger, Ramón Saldívar, Johannes Voelz, and Ramón Saldívar (University Press of New England, 2013) (online), and selected authors including but not limited to Sally Mao, Jorie Graham, Adrienne Rich, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Stephen Miller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe, Octavia Butler, Shirley Jackson, and Joy Harjo.

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ENGL 308: History of Literary Criticism

Taught by: Dr. Tyler Shoemaker

Section Description:

This course surveys the history of literary theory and criticism from antiquity to the present. Our overarching concern will be the problem of representation: What is the nature of representation? How does it differ from the real? What is it for? How do we assess what a representation represents? After posing these questions in the context of classical and renaissance texts, we will make multiple passes through the last 150 years of critical thought, tracing the dynamics of representation across art, language, culture, politics, psychic life, and subjectivity.

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ENGL 310: History of the English Language

Taught by: Dr. Katayoun Torabi

Section 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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ENGL 315: Seventeenth-Century Literature

Taught by: Dr. Whitney Sperrazza

Section Description:

This course will introduce you to the literary works of 17th-century England—drama, poetry, and prose. Part of what’s known as England’s “Renaissance” or “Early Modern” period, the 17th century was a time of technological and scientific innovation (the invention and development of the printing press, telescope, and microscope); religious and political contention (a period of English civil wars, the beheading of a king, the continued upheaval of the Protestant Reformation,); geographic expansion (the early British Empire and expanding global commerce network); and literary and artistic achievement. Our focus will be on literary texts, but our aim is to explore how these texts were shaped by and helped to shape the cultural, social, and political circumstances of their moment.

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ENGL 317: Early British Drama

Taught by: Dr. Kevin O'Sullivan

Section Description:

This course will provide an overview of British drama from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Discussions will begin with a contextual overview of dramatic forms and theatrical history relevant to the late medieval period through the ‘golden age’ of early modern drama during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Throughout the semester, students will critically respond to canonical as well as lesser-known texts representing a wide array of dramatic genres—the morality play, chivalric fantasy, city comedy, revenge tragedy, closet drama, and villain play among them—and investigate how these respond artistically to the social and political issues of the day.

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ENGL 320: Technical and Professional Editing

Taught by: Dr. Altay "Al" Ozkul

Section Description:

What is technical editing? Is it just fixing grammar or rearranging paragraphs? Does it overlap with writing? The truth is, it’s much more than these. Technical editing is about making complex information clear, accurate, and usable. These are the skills that employers value across every industry. Whether you’re dealing with medical guidelines, legal documents, software manuals, workplace policies, or research papers, the ability to edit effectively ensures that information is not only accurate but also easy for the intended audience to understand. And while AI can handle more routine, surface-level editing tasks, it can’t replace the higher-level thinking and judgment that technical editors bring to the table.

This course will give you hands-on practice with real-world editing challenges. You’ll learn how to improve clarity, consistency, and accuracy in technical documents, use traditional and contemporary copyediting tools, manage collaborative editing projects, and translate specialized knowledge for diverse audiences. You will also have the opportunity to learn a bit of English grammar and develop the metalanguage required to talk about your editorial work. By the end of the semester, you’ll have developed editorial skills that transfer to many careers—editing, writing, law, HR, PR, management, design, and more. Beyond editing, if you want to sharpen your writing, expand your professional toolkit, and stand out in a job market where strong communication skills are always in demand, this course is for you.

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. Altay "Al" Ozkul

Section Description:

What is technical editing? Is it just fixing grammar or rearranging paragraphs? Does it overlap with writing? The truth is, it’s much more than these. Technical editing is about making complex information clear, accurate, and usable. These are the skills that employers value across every industry. Whether you’re dealing with medical guidelines, legal documents, software manuals, workplace policies, or research papers, the ability to edit effectively ensures that information is not only accurate but also easy for the intended audience to understand. And while AI can handle more routine, surface-level editing tasks, it can’t replace the higher-level thinking and judgment that technical editors bring to the table.

This course will give you hands-on practice with real-world editing challenges. You’ll learn how to improve clarity, consistency, and accuracy in technical documents, use traditional and contemporary copyediting tools, manage collaborative editing projects, and translate specialized knowledge for diverse audiences. You will also have the opportunity to learn a bit of English grammar and develop the metalanguage required to talk about your editorial work. By the end of the semester, you’ll have developed editorial skills that transfer to many careers—editing, writing, law, HR, PR, management, design, and more. Beyond editing, if you want to sharpen your writing, expand your professional toolkit, and stand out in a job market where strong communication skills are always in demand, this course is for you.

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)

ENGL 323: American Renaissance

Taught by: Dr. Ira Dworkin

Section Description:

When F.O. Matthiessen defined the “American Renaissance,” he sought to characterize American literature of the period from 1830 to 1860, specifically writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. This era of cultural production was, in fact, even more vibrant than Matthiessen’s characterization indicates. Beyond these five men, a much wider multiracial array of literary figures was both explicitly and implicitly part of the same conversations that dominated that era, and sought to engage questions of reform, resistance, colonialism, slavery, gender, and revolution. This course will consider the full breadth of U.S. literary production in the decades leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

Much literature of this period engages with questions of Native and territorial sovereignty, and this class will include a sustained consideration of the literature of Cherokee removal. As part of our reading and discussion, it is useful to keep in mind that Texas A&M University is situated on the land of multiple Native nations, past and present, including the Tonkawa, Tawakoni, Hueco, Sana, Wichita, and Coahuiltecan peoples. These original homelands are the territory of Indigenous peoples who were largely dispossessed and removed.

Proposed Readings:

In addition to writings by Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Melville, we will also read works by Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller, David Walker, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Victor Séjour, Theodore Winthrop, Harriet Jacobs, and others.

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Taught by: Dr. Ira Dworkin

Section Description:

When F.O. Matthiessen defined the “American Renaissance,” he sought to characterize American literature of the period from 1830 to 1860, specifically writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. This era of cultural production was, in fact, even more vibrant than Matthiessen’s characterization indicates. Beyond these five men, a much wider multiracial array of literary figures was both explicitly and implicitly part of the same conversations that dominated that era, and sought to engage questions of reform, resistance, colonialism, slavery, gender, and revolution. This course will consider the full breadth of U.S. literary production in the decades leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

Much literature of this period engages with questions of Native and territorial sovereignty, and this class will include a sustained consideration of the literature of Cherokee removal. As part of our reading and discussion, it is useful to keep in mind that Texas A&M University is situated on the land of multiple Native nations, past and present, including the Tonkawa, Tawakoni, Hueco, Sana, Wichita, and Coahuiltecan peoples. These original homelands are the territory of Indigenous peoples who were largely dispossessed and removed.

Proposed Readings:

In addition to writings by Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Melville, we will also read works by Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller, David Walker, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Victor Séjour, Theodore Winthrop, Harriet Jacobs, and others.

ENGL 324: Science Fiction and Film

Taught by: Dr. James Francis

Section Description:

The course seeks to explore a brief history of science-fiction cinema in an examination of foundational genre aesthetics, philosophies and concepts, movements and subgenres, and narrative content along with representative authorship. We seek to answer questions concerning what and/or how this particular genre teaches us about humanity via genre staples such as science and technology, time, concepts of life (human, alien, transhuman), and exploration. Film theory, criticism, and scholarship will aid discussions and further knowledge of analysis and research. The end-goal is to work toward informed responses to the questions: What are the hallmarks of science fiction cinema? How does the genre develop over time in style and narrative content? What do we learn from its concepts in their applications and presentations within science fiction cinema and historically outside the fiction?

Students contemplating and enrolling in ENGL/FILM 324 will help shape course materials and assessment practices via the following anonymous survey: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wZHmBtKtvuIhXo (accessible now—
enrolled students will be reminded of survey access during open registration in late November 2025)

By providing pre-semester comments and feedback, enrollees will help foster a student-centered approach to course design, establish an accountable community of peers, and strengthen a level of commitment to academic success to class objectives and learning outcomes.

Proposed Readings:

The Forbidden Planet
The Time Machine
Ghost in the Shell
Strange Days
Starship Troopers
The Island
A.I., Artificial Intelligence
Predestination
Under the Skin
Black Mirror
Explorers
Barbarella
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Alien
Dark City
Her
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Thing
Solaris
Brazil
Children of Men
Sunshine
The War of the Worlds
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Fly
Minority Report
Deep Impact

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Taught by: Dr. James Francis

Section Description:

The course seeks to explore a brief history of science-fiction cinema in an examination of foundational genre aesthetics, philosophies and concepts, movements and subgenres, and narrative content along with representative authorship. We seek to answer questions concerning what and/or how this particular genre teaches us about humanity via genre staples such as science and technology, time, concepts of life (human, alien, transhuman), and exploration. Film theory, criticism, and scholarship will aid discussions and further knowledge of analysis and research. The end-goal is to work toward informed responses to the questions: What are the hallmarks of science fiction cinema? How does the genre develop over time in style and narrative content? What do we learn from its concepts in their applications and presentations within science fiction cinema and historically outside the fiction?

Students contemplating and enrolling in ENGL/FILM 324 will help shape course materials and assessment practices via the following anonymous survey: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wZHmBtKtvuIhXo (accessible now—
enrolled students will be reminded of survey access during open registration in late November 2025)

By providing pre-semester comments and feedback, enrollees will help foster a student-centered approach to course design, establish an accountable community of peers, and strengthen a level of commitment to academic success to class objectives and learning outcomes.

Proposed Readings:

The Forbidden Planet
The Time Machine
Ghost in the Shell
Strange Days
Starship Troopers
The Island
A.I., Artificial Intelligence
Predestination
Under the Skin
Black Mirror
Explorers
Barbarella
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Alien
Dark City
Her
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Thing
Solaris
Brazil
Children of Men
Sunshine
The War of the Worlds
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Fly
Minority Report
Deep Impact

ENGL 337: Life and Literature of the American South

Taught by: Dr. Avery Blankenship

Section Description:

What is the American South? Is it a cuisine? A region? A culture? A feeling? Marcie Ferris, scholar of Southern food culture argues that “Southerners know who we are, in part, by the foods we eat and those we don’t.” Renowned Southern food writer and chef, Edna Lewis, writes that “Southern is an early spring morning shrouded in a thick mist.” In this course, we will define the South as a series of hauntings—themes, ideas, images, and motifs that linger in the literature of the South and which define this region’s body of work.

In this course, we will primarily be investigating the theme of Southern hauntings through the lens of the Southern gothic and its representative authors. Through ghost stories, murder mysteries, and vampire fiction, writers grapple with Southern culture, history, and trauma through the macabre and supernatural. We will turn to iconic Southern gothic writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Conner, and Anne Rice to explore why it is that Southern writers are so drawn to this genre. By focusing on the gothic, this course will zoom in on a central question: What is haunting the American South?

Proposed Readings:

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Collected Works of Flannery O’Conner
Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Le Mulâtre (The Mulatto) by Victor Séjour
Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

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Taught by: Dr. Avery Blankenship

Section Description:

What is the American South? Is it a cuisine? A region? A culture? A feeling? Marcie Ferris, scholar of Southern food culture argues that “Southerners know who we are, in part, by the foods we eat and those we don’t.” Renowned Southern food writer and chef, Edna Lewis, writes that “Southern is an early spring morning shrouded in a thick mist.” In this course, we will define the South as a series of hauntings—themes, ideas, images, and motifs that linger in the literature of the South and which define this region’s body of work.

In this course, we will primarily be investigating the theme of Southern hauntings through the lens of the Southern gothic and its representative authors. Through ghost stories, murder mysteries, and vampire fiction, writers grapple with Southern culture, history, and trauma through the macabre and supernatural. We will turn to iconic Southern gothic writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Conner, and Anne Rice to explore why it is that Southern writers are so drawn to this genre. By focusing on the gothic, this course will zoom in on a central question: What is haunting the American South?

Proposed Readings:

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Collected Works of Flannery O’Conner
Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Le Mulâtre (The Mulatto) by Victor Séjour
Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

ENGL 338: American Ethnic Literature

Taught by: Dr. Michael Collins

Section Description:

Multi-ethnic study of American literature, including writings of Black Americans, American Indians, Jewish Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other ethnic groups, from perspectives that reflect current scholarly and other debates about the nature of ethnicity, race, literary achievement, immigration, and related issues.

Proposed Readings:

Possible readings include Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Richard Rodriguez's Brown, Richard Wright's Uncle Tom's Children, Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was Puerto Rican, and Joy Harjo's Crazy Brave.

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ENGL 345: Writer's Studies: Prose

Taught by: Dr. Jason Harris

Section Description:

Uncanny, Disquieting, Weird, and Dreadful Tales:

Students will read and write prose that engages with the development of the genre of weird and uncanny fiction. Our readings--from exemplar writers past and present--will include stories of the weird, horror, magical realism, uncanny folklore, and the literary fantastic, as well as theories on the craft and analysis of weird fiction. Your written work will be workshopped in peer reviews and then culminate in a portfolio of three revised stories.

Prerequisites: ENGL 235: Junior or Senior classification

Proposed Readings:

Joshi, S. T. Ed. American Supernatural Tales. Penguin, 2007.

Murakami, Haruki. The Strange Library. Knopf, 2014.

Vandermeer Jeff and Ann, The Weird. TOR, 2011.

*Additional stories will include “North American Lake Monsters” by Nathan Ballingrud, “Water Machine” by Michael Cisco, “The Puppet Hotel” by Gemma Files, “The Paperhanger” by William Gay, “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, the novella “Nadelman’s God” by T. E. D. Klein, “The Clown Puppet” by Thomas Ligotti, and “The White People” by Arthur Machen.

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ENGL 348-500: Writer's Workshop: Poetry

Taught by: Dr. Michael Collins

Section Description:

This course aims to encourage and clarify the practice of poetry writing by giving developing writers the opportunity to critique and try out various forms, styles and conventions of poetry writing. Each week we will analyze a poem or group of poems that exemplifies a certain technique or strategy, or a certain philosophical approach to writing poetry, or to writing about subjects ranging from grief to fishing to love.. A part or all of some classes will be devoted to workshop discussions of poems class members write.

Proposed Readings:

Possible readings include Robin Behn's The Practice of Writing Poetry and Rita Dove's The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry.

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ENGL 350: Twentieth-Century Literature to WWII

Taught by: Dr. Shawna Ross

Section Description:

We will explore Anglophone literature of the twentieth century before World War II: that is,transatlantic modernism. The term modernism refers not only to a time period, but also to a literary style that both responded to and played an active part in the historical process of modernization. Under modernization, a variety of historical shifts—including improvements in communications and transportation technologies, demographic upheavals, political challenges like suffragism and the labor movement, the rise of mass consumer culture, the intensification of industrial capitalism, concepts developed by Darwin, Marx, and Freud, and the development of world war—resulted in profound changes in the texture of everyday life, in social standards governing morality and sociability, in the function of art within society, and in beliefs about what it means to be human. We will follow a rigorous and ambitious reading list, which includes experimental novels, a handful of exciting short stories, and a few unforgettable poems.

Proposed Readings:

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Nella Larsen, Passing; E. M. Forster, A Passage to India; Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable; short stories by Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and William Faulkner; poems by Marianne Moore, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, and Ezra Pound.

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ENGL 354: Modern Rhetorical Theory

Taught by: Dr. Jason Crider

Section Description:

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Study of 20th and 21st century rhetorical theories and theorists; focus on relationships among rhetoric and culture, such as philosophy of language, theories of the public, public discourse, theories of media, and/or rhetoric’s relationship to embodiment, identity, and/or community. Prerequisite: Junior or senior classification. Instructors teaching this class will choose texts, assessments, and approaches that represent current scholarship and satisfy course learning objectives.

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ENGL 357: Native American Rhetoric and Literature

Taught by: Dr. Ray Leonard

Section Description:

This section puts less emphasis on the "rhetorics" and more emphasis on the "literatures" of Native Americans. A strong focus is the way contemporary Indigenous American authors translate traditional forms of storytelling and narrative into the novel form, with some foundational texts from the 18th and 19th centuries, We will also discuss how literature from a Native American perspective challenges some of the dominant mythologies of New World colonialism and American exceptionalism.

Proposed Readings:

There, There - Tommy Orange, Eulogy for King Phillip - William Apess, Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich

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ENGL 365/ RELS 360: The Bible as Literature

Taught by: Dr. Katayoun Torabi

Section 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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ENGL/FILM 366: Horror Studies

Taught by: Dr. James Francis

Section Description:

The full exploration of horror studies examines the development of the genre (Gothic literary tradition to modern film), notable authors (writers and filmmakers); theory, criticism, and scholarship; and intertextuality with other genres and representative texts. Outside of the written and visual narratives, we must also consider historical events, social movements, and cultural practices to locate how shared constructions of fear, anxiety, and dread inform and perpetuate horror storytelling. Our course represents an investigation into horror narratives—classic and contemporary, written and filmic—to engage with and form intellectual arguments within the field of horror studies. Questions we seek to respond to include: What attracts audiences (readers and viewers) to horror content and aesthetics? How does horror reflect sociocultural anxieties over time domestically and internationally? What impact do horror artifacts contribute to the arts and humanities?

Students contemplating and enrolling in ENGL/FILM 366 will help shape course materials and assessment practices via the following anonymous survey: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5uniDlhC3Xcrq3s (accessible now—
enrolled students will be reminded of survey access during open registration in late November 2025)

By providing pre-semester comments and feedback, enrollees will help foster a student-centered approach to course design, establish an accountable community of peers, and strengthen a level of commitment to academic success to class objectives and learning outcomes.

Proposed Readings:

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
“The Vampyre”
“Dagon”
“The Screwfly Solution”
“The Lottery”
“The Jaunt”
The Evil Dead
Candyman
The Blair Witch Project
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Ghostwatch
Nightbreed
Phantasm
An American Werewolf in London
Alien
The Thing
Jacob’s Ladder
The Loved Ones
Pet Semetary
Freaks
Dawn of the Dead
Poltergeist
Peeping Tom
Scream
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Rosemary's Baby
The Wolf House
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

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Taught by: Dr. James Francis

Section Description:

The full exploration of horror studies examines the development of the genre (Gothic literary tradition to modern film), notable authors (writers and filmmakers); theory, criticism, and scholarship; and intertextuality with other genres and representative texts. Outside of the written and visual narratives, we must also consider historical events, social movements, and cultural practices to locate how shared constructions of fear, anxiety, and dread inform and perpetuate horror storytelling. Our course represents an investigation into horror narratives—classic and contemporary, written and filmic—to engage with and form intellectual arguments within the field of horror studies. Questions we seek to respond to include: What attracts audiences (readers and viewers) to horror content and aesthetics? How does horror reflect sociocultural anxieties over time domestically and internationally? What impact do horror artifacts contribute to the arts and humanities?

Students contemplating and enrolling in ENGL/FILM 366 will help shape course materials and assessment practices via the following anonymous survey: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5uniDlhC3Xcrq3s (accessible now—
enrolled students will be reminded of survey access during open registration in late November 2025)

By providing pre-semester comments and feedback, enrollees will help foster a student-centered approach to course design, establish an accountable community of peers, and strengthen a level of commitment to academic success to class objectives and learning outcomes.

Proposed Readings:

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
“The Vampyre”
“Dagon”
“The Screwfly Solution”
“The Lottery”
“The Jaunt”
The Evil Dead
Candyman
The Blair Witch Project
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Ghostwatch
Nightbreed
Phantasm
An American Werewolf in London
Alien
The Thing
Jacob’s Ladder
The Loved Ones
Pet Semetary
Freaks
Dawn of the Dead
Poltergeist
Peeping Tom
Scream
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Rosemary's Baby
The Wolf House
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

ENGL 375: 19th Century American Novel

Taught by: Dr. Avery Blankenship

Section Description:

Writing and words cannot be separated from the material and social contexts in which they exist. This is especially true in the nineteenth century where printing technology made reading affordable and ideas about what readers consume and when they consume it expanded dramatically. The idea of reading, and especially novel reading, as both a private and leisure activity was new in the nineteenth century and we see this reflected in the literature of the period itself. Novels are written to speak to this new private reading audience and reflect many of the social and cultural concerns of the moment, literature offering nineteenth-century readers a lens through which to view and understand their rapidly changing world.

In this course, we will be exploring key examples of nineteenth-century American novels which respond to and reflect the social concerns of their time. We will explore both the social worlds of the novels and their authors as well as address the novel’s circulation and reception by different groups of readers. To unpack this body of literature, we will be learning about nineteenth-century novels as both social lenses and material objects in order to investigate the importance of the novel to nineteenth-century American society and culture.

Proposed Readings:

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Clotel by William Wells Brown
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

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Taught by: Dr. Avery Blankenship

Section Description:

Writing and words cannot be separated from the material and social contexts in which they exist. This is especially true in the nineteenth century where printing technology made reading affordable and ideas about what readers consume and when they consume it expanded dramatically. The idea of reading, and especially novel reading, as both a private and leisure activity was new in the nineteenth century and we see this reflected in the literature of the period itself. Novels are written to speak to this new private reading audience and reflect many of the social and cultural concerns of the moment, literature offering nineteenth-century readers a lens through which to view and understand their rapidly changing world.

In this course, we will be exploring key examples of nineteenth-century American novels which respond to and reflect the social concerns of their time. We will explore both the social worlds of the novels and their authors as well as address the novel’s circulation and reception by different groups of readers. To unpack this body of literature, we will be learning about nineteenth-century novels as both social lenses and material objects in order to investigate the importance of the novel to nineteenth-century American society and culture.

Proposed Readings:

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Clotel by William Wells Brown
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

ENGL 376: The American Novel Since 1900

Taught by: Dr. Grace Heneks

Section 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)

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ENGL 377: The English Novel, Beginning to 1870

Taught by: Dr. Mary Ann O'Farrell

Section Description:

Our class will focus on the history and development of the British novel and on the many pleasures to be taken in reading it. We will also consider some preoccupations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as these are developed in the novels we read. Some of our interests in class discussion and as readers will include: money and marriage, manners and style, publishing and reading practices, bodies and things, majority and minority of character, business and politics, spinsters and bachelors, ways of knowing, work and words, laughter and blushes and tears.

Proposed Readings:

Our readings will include works by Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens.

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ENGL 378: The British Novel, 1870 to the Present

Taught by: Dr. Mary Ann O'Farrell

Section Description:

In this course on the history and development of the British novel from the late nineteenth century to the present, we will read works from a range of writers and in a range of subgenres. During this period, writers responded in their works to social and cultural changes, and we will pay attention to the way the novels we are reading participated in debates about such issues as the consequences of British colonialism in England and abroad, the question of what constitutes community, changing understandings of the bases for forming identity, and what it means to understand ourselves as human. We will also examine how the novelists’ whose works we are reading thought about the capacity of novels to represent culture and how they put their ideas about representation into practice.

Proposed Readings:

The reading list will include works by such authors as Bram Stoker, E.M. Forster, Sarah Waters, and Kazuo Ishiguro, among others.

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ENGL/RELS 392: Studies in Literature, Religion and Culture

Taught by: Dr. Curry Kennedy

Section Description:

Writing has long been used as a practice for soul-shaping and self-fashioning. This class explores the roles that writing can play in spiritual exercise, identity formation, self-understanding, and religious practice. Students will keep personal journals, write short personal narratives, and analyze the ways that writers have articulated their identities and elaborated their religious commitments in text. This section focuses on the practices of Marcus Aurelius, Vibia Perpetua, Augustine of Hippo, Theresa of Avila, Michel de Montaigne, and Olaudah Equiano, among others.

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ENGL 395: Topics in Literature and Medicine

Taught by: Dr. Jessica Howell

Section Description:

This course explores the topic of age and memory within literature and medicine studies. We will discuss social and cultural contexts of aging including agism, intergenerational memory, and community. Our readings include poetry, drama, memoir, and fiction: selections include The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope, The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit, and Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir Tangles. We will discuss how writers use literary form to re-imagine the process of memory and forgetting, or to satirize or subvert stereotypes about aging. This course will also examine scholarship regarding dementia narratives, caregiving, memory and autobiography, and aging in literature. We will discuss the ethics of storytelling in the context of aging and dementia (i.e. who gets to tell stories for whom) and the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in this field.

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ENGL 396: Studies in American Literature

Taught by: Dr. Sarah LeMire

Section Description:

Starting with Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story,” this class will read a variety of American literature texts focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Readings may include such texts as The Yellow Birds (Powers), Redeployment (Klay), Love My Rifle More than You (Williams), and Restrepo (Hetherington & Junger). Texts will be analyzed through the lens of the military-civilian divide as students explore the unique ways that war literature attempted (and failed) to bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan home to the US civilian population. In addition to analysis of literature, students will engage in primary source research related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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ENGL 412: Studies in Shakespeare

Taught by: Dr. Katie Adkison

Section Description:

This course pursues advanced study of a significant topic in Shakespeare. This semester, our topic is “Shakespeare and Sovereignty.” A key idea in law and political theory, sovereignty is usually taken to describe the person or institution that has the final say, the absolute authority, to make decisions. In contemporary global politics, the notion has its roots in the 17th Century; established by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the idea of a nation-state’s right to self-determination is a legal precedent that still holds in international law.
But the notion of sovereignty is not solely legal or political, either, for self-determination is also a crucial construct for any number of philosophical, psychological, and sociological concerns: how we understand the formation of the self and its relationship to social forms of identity (gender, race, sexuality, religion, class, nationality, etc.); how we know what and why we desire; how relationships (with parents, friends, enemies, lovers, etc.) influence who we are and what we wish to be; how we determine what we owe to others and what they owe to us; what to do when two claims of ostensibly-paramount needs or rights are in conflict – all these concerns and more are concerns about sovereignty. This class will trace the way that Shakespeare explores sovereignty in myriad forms from the beginning to the end of his playwriting career.

Proposed Readings:

Richard II, Twelfth Night, King Lear, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale; secondary criticism on each play; structuring readings on sovereignty from both early modern and contemporary philosophers.

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Taught by: Dr. Katie Adkison

Section Description:

This course pursues advanced study of a significant topic in Shakespeare. This semester, our topic is “Shakespeare and Sovereignty.” A key idea in law and political theory, sovereignty is usually taken to describe the person or institution that has the final say, the absolute authority, to make decisions. In contemporary global politics, the notion has its roots in the 17th Century; established by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the idea of a nation-state’s right to self-determination is a legal precedent that still holds in international law.
But the notion of sovereignty is not solely legal or political, either, for self-determination is also a crucial construct for any number of philosophical, psychological, and sociological concerns: how we understand the formation of the self and its relationship to social forms of identity (gender, race, sexuality, religion, class, nationality, etc.); how we know what and why we desire; how relationships (with parents, friends, enemies, lovers, etc.) influence who we are and what we wish to be; how we determine what we owe to others and what they owe to us; what to do when two claims of ostensibly-paramount needs or rights are in conflict – all these concerns and more are concerns about sovereignty. This class will trace the way that Shakespeare explores sovereignty in myriad forms from the beginning to the end of his playwriting career.

Proposed Readings:

Richard II, Twelfth Night, King Lear, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale; secondary criticism on each play; structuring readings on sovereignty from both early modern and contemporary philosophers.

ENGL 434: Advanced Studies in Science Fiction and Fantasy: The Visionary Worlds of Philip K. Dick

Taught by: Dr. Apostolos Vasilakis

Section Description:

In this course we will analyze and explore the work of one of the most important science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick. During the semester we will follow Dick’s progression and evolution as a writer, examine some of his most important novels, short stories, and essays, and see how his narratives constantly address questions of what constitutes reality, and authentic life in a world that is saturated by technology and artificiality. In addition, students will be immersed in Dick’s work and his engagement with dystopian thinking and will gain an understanding of the author’s narrative strategies and techniques. Students will come to understand how science fiction, as a genre, deploys alternative worlds in order to grapple with issues of their own historical time.

Proposed Readings:

The Man in the High Castle
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
A Scanner Darkly

Films:
Blade Runner
Total Recall
Minority Report

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ENGL 460: Digital Authoring Practices

Taught by: Dr. Sarah Potvin

Section Description:

How has the shift from print to electronic publication changed our understanding of authorship and our experience as readers? How do emerging AI technologies further challenge our assumptions about the practices that produce texts? This course approaches digital authoring practices through historically and theoretically informed reflection, experimentation, and building. We will explore the work of textual production through creative engagement with digital publication and critical inquiry into the tools and platforms that shape our experiences as authors, editors, and readers.

The course aims to increase digital literacy and does not require or anticipate advanced knowledge of digital technologies; beginners are welcome.

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ENGL 481: Senior Seminar: Archives: Print to Digital

Taught by: Dr. Amy Earhart

Section Description:

Print to Digital traces the collection and use of archives, print and digital, in literary scholarship. Focusing on theory and practice the course will trace the ways that print collections have developed with particular attention to ways that categorization systems have impacted the archives we collect and use. We will be particularly attentive to ways that gender and race have impacted the development of archives. We then will turn to the ways the digital archives represent possibilities while also reinscribing some of the biases found in print archives.

Central to the class are activities that deepen student understanding of key ideas in the class readings. For example, we will be investigating the way that Cushing library has built print collections, using the critical lens of information studies theory. Further, the class will feature a hands-on project in digital archival development with work in the Rudder Archives at Cushing. This class will appeal to students interested in pursuing work in libraries, publishing and those who are interested in advanced literary study.

Proposed Readings:

Berry, Dorothy. 2021. “The House Archives Built.” Up/Root (blog). June 22, 2021. https://www.uproot.space/features/the-house-archives-built.

Christen, Kimberly. 2015. “Tribal Archives, Traditional Knowledge, and Local Contexts: Why the ‘s’ Matter.” Journal of Western Archives 6 (1): 1–19.

Drake, Jarrett M. 2016. “#ArchivesForBlackLives: Building a Community Archives of Police Violence in Cleveland.” On Archivy (blog). April 22, 2016. https://medium.com/on-archivy/archivesforblacklives-building-a-community-archives-of-police-violence-in-cleveland-93615d777289.

Farmer, Ashley. 2018. “Archiving While Black.” Chronicle of Higher Education, July. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Archiving-While-Black/243981/#.W1iclD9pD6Q.email.

Gallon, Kim. 2014. “The Price Is NOT Right: Selling Black Press Archives.” Bprc: Black Press Research Collective (blog). November 30, 2014. http://blackpressresearchcollective.org/2014/11/30/new-york-amsterdam-news-photo-archive-is-at-cornell-university-library/.

Klein, Lauren F. 2013. “The Image of Absence: Archival Silence, Data Visualization, and James Hemings.” American Literature 85 (4): 661–88.

Marcum, Deanna. 2001. “The Library and the Scholar: A New Imperative for Partnership.” American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper 48.

Schomburg, Arthur A. 1925. “The Negro Digs Up His Past.” Survey Graphic, 670–72.

Senier, Siobhan. 2018. “What Indigenous Literature Can Bring to Electronic Archives.” B20: The Online Community of the Boundary 2 Editorial Collective, August. http://www.boundary2.org/2018/08/senier/.

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Taught by: Dr. Amy Earhart

Section Description:

Print to Digital traces the collection and use of archives, print and digital, in literary scholarship. Focusing on theory and practice the course will trace the ways that print collections have developed with particular attention to ways that categorization systems have impacted the archives we collect and use. We will be particularly attentive to ways that gender and race have impacted the development of archives. We then will turn to the ways the digital archives represent possibilities while also reinscribing some of the biases found in print archives.

Central to the class are activities that deepen student understanding of key ideas in the class readings. For example, we will be investigating the way that Cushing library has built print collections, using the critical lens of information studies theory. Further, the class will feature a hands-on project in digital archival development with work in the Rudder Archives at Cushing. This class will appeal to students interested in pursuing work in libraries, publishing and those who are interested in advanced literary study.

Proposed Readings:

Berry, Dorothy. 2021. “The House Archives Built.” Up/Root (blog). June 22, 2021. https://www.uproot.space/features/the-house-archives-built.

Christen, Kimberly. 2015. “Tribal Archives, Traditional Knowledge, and Local Contexts: Why the ‘s’ Matter.” Journal of Western Archives 6 (1): 1–19.

Drake, Jarrett M. 2016. “#ArchivesForBlackLives: Building a Community Archives of Police Violence in Cleveland.” On Archivy (blog). April 22, 2016. https://medium.com/on-archivy/archivesforblacklives-building-a-community-archives-of-police-violence-in-cleveland-93615d777289.

Farmer, Ashley. 2018. “Archiving While Black.” Chronicle of Higher Education, July. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Archiving-While-Black/243981/#.W1iclD9pD6Q.email.

Gallon, Kim. 2014. “The Price Is NOT Right: Selling Black Press Archives.” Bprc: Black Press Research Collective (blog). November 30, 2014. http://blackpressresearchcollective.org/2014/11/30/new-york-amsterdam-news-photo-archive-is-at-cornell-university-library/.

Klein, Lauren F. 2013. “The Image of Absence: Archival Silence, Data Visualization, and James Hemings.” American Literature 85 (4): 661–88.

Marcum, Deanna. 2001. “The Library and the Scholar: A New Imperative for Partnership.” American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper 48.

Schomburg, Arthur A. 1925. “The Negro Digs Up His Past.” Survey Graphic, 670–72.

Senier, Siobhan. 2018. “What Indigenous Literature Can Bring to Electronic Archives.” B20: The Online Community of the Boundary 2 Editorial Collective, August. http://www.boundary2.org/2018/08/senier/.

ENGL 481: Senior Seminar: Visualizing Knowledge

Taught by: Dr. Laura Mandell

Section Description:

Visualizing Knowledge

In this class, we will examine the explosion of “big data” and explore techniques for understanding it. We will discern the most important components of data literacy as well as techniques for visualizing data. We will ask, what is the relationship between elements of our cultural heritage (literatures of the past and present) and “data”? What is the relationship between AI and data? Bias and knowledge work? How does the knowledge we have as English majors help us to “read” data visualizations? Assignments will include responses to the readings and a final paper that involves creating or analyzing a knowledge visualization graph.

This course exposes English majors to the workings of the digital world enabling critical thinking about digital globalization as well as instilling comfort with the tools used in 21st-century workplaces (working in teams with designers and programmers, for example, and working with AI).

Proposed Readings:

Readings include Donna Haraway, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Johanna Drucker, Sofiya Noble, Ruha Benjamin, Timnit Gebru, and more.

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ENGL 481: Senior Seminar: The Rhetoric of Space Travel

Taught by: Dr. Joshua DiCaglio

Section Description:

At one point, getting to the moon was very figure of the impossible. And yet, within only a short time period, that fantasy became a dream then a goal then a technical feat then an accomplishment. While this was an incredible technical feat, it was also an incredible rhetorical feat and transformation that reconceptualized the Earth, resituated humanity in relation to the Cosmos, and refigured questions about what humans can do and what we prioritize.

This capstone course takes the Space Race as a central moment that we can use for advanced study of rhetoric and literature. The amount of attention, effort, and narratives generated for and by this transformation make the Space Race an excellent case study in how and why we need more careful and extensive understanding of language and culture. Just as Vietnam was the first televised war, the Space Race was the first coordinated and on-going experiment in the cooperation between science, public relations, and mass market media, which led to a widespread conversation on the value of modern technology, the goals of man, and the direction of society. All this rhetoric and effort occurred alongside the Cold War, fears of Nuclear annihilation, Vietnam, the first indications of ecological crisis, and increasing impatience with racial disparities highlighted by the Civil Rights movement. Now corporations speak of a future of on Mars and making humanity an “interplanetary species,” while we now have an actual Space Force and working shuttles run by independent parties. It is difficult to understand this current moment without first examining the original rhetoric and narratives that made space travel possible and a goal worth pursuing.

In this course we will look at the rhetoric around space in order to reopen these political, personal, and social questions as they manifested in the 1960s, as well as their legacy for today. We will consider some of the cultural and rhetorical artifacts that set the stage for thinking about space then spend some time looking at the media events and reactions of the actual Space Race, both in their original form and in more recent representations of them. We will then turn to reflections on the value of Space travel, which will lead us to the current rhetoric around NASA, the trip to Mars, and space photographs.

Proposed Readings:

Cicero, “Dream of Scipio
Lucian, “A true Story”
Verne, From the Earth to the Moon,
Washington Post's Moonrise podcast
Stapeldon, Starmaker
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
Apollo space program coverage
From the Earth to the Moon (HBO Docuseries)
Contact (film)
Interstellar (film)
The Martian (film)
Hidden Figures (film)
Other documents and speeches on the Space Race

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Taught by: Dr. Joshua DiCaglio

Section Description:

At one point, getting to the moon was very figure of the impossible. And yet, within only a short time period, that fantasy became a dream then a goal then a technical feat then an accomplishment. While this was an incredible technical feat, it was also an incredible rhetorical feat and transformation that reconceptualized the Earth, resituated humanity in relation to the Cosmos, and refigured questions about what humans can do and what we prioritize.

This capstone course takes the Space Race as a central moment that we can use for advanced study of rhetoric and literature. The amount of attention, effort, and narratives generated for and by this transformation make the Space Race an excellent case study in how and why we need more careful and extensive understanding of language and culture. Just as Vietnam was the first televised war, the Space Race was the first coordinated and on-going experiment in the cooperation between science, public relations, and mass market media, which led to a widespread conversation on the value of modern technology, the goals of man, and the direction of society. All this rhetoric and effort occurred alongside the Cold War, fears of Nuclear annihilation, Vietnam, the first indications of ecological crisis, and increasing impatience with racial disparities highlighted by the Civil Rights movement. Now corporations speak of a future of on Mars and making humanity an “interplanetary species,” while we now have an actual Space Force and working shuttles run by independent parties. It is difficult to understand this current moment without first examining the original rhetoric and narratives that made space travel possible and a goal worth pursuing.

In this course we will look at the rhetoric around space in order to reopen these political, personal, and social questions as they manifested in the 1960s, as well as their legacy for today. We will consider some of the cultural and rhetorical artifacts that set the stage for thinking about space then spend some time looking at the media events and reactions of the actual Space Race, both in their original form and in more recent representations of them. We will then turn to reflections on the value of Space travel, which will lead us to the current rhetoric around NASA, the trip to Mars, and space photographs.

Proposed Readings:

Cicero, “Dream of Scipio
Lucian, “A true Story”
Verne, From the Earth to the Moon,
Washington Post's Moonrise podcast
Stapeldon, Starmaker
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
Apollo space program coverage
From the Earth to the Moon (HBO Docuseries)
Contact (film)
Interstellar (film)
The Martian (film)
Hidden Figures (film)
Other documents and speeches on the Space Race

ENGL 481: Senior Seminar: Landscape, Nation, Empire

Taught by: Dr. Susan Egenolf

Section Description:

This course will pair works written by British, Irish and anglophone authors in the 18th and 19th centuries to those produced in the 20th and 21st centuries. The central topic of this course is the representation of British colonial and postcolonial “natural” worlds, including people, in poetry, the novel, travel writing and in material culture (paintings, gardens, ceramics, etc.), as well as the development of an aesthetics for representing landscape. Our objective is to understand the historical, cultural, ecological and literary contexts in which these authors, artists and landscape gardeners produced their works. A fundamental goal is for students to understand that in discussions of landscape, nature and art were tightly entangled—the “natural” world does not exist in verbal or visual representations but is constructed. An issue central to the course is the relationship between landscape and power, to understand that geographic depictions by colonial authors also functioned as economic and ethnographic depictions of cultures in the service of empire. We will also trace the development of human relations to the more-than-human world. The course will attend to visual representations of the natural world (such as painting) and material culture (particularly collecting). The course will introduce Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as an alternative to European systems for knowing the world.

Proposed Readings:

A smaller selection of works like these and representative scholarly works:
Aphra Behn. Oroonoko (1688)
William Bartram. Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country (1791)
Charles Darwin. The Voyage of the Beagle (1839)
Maria Callcott Graham. Journal of a Residence in Chile (1824)
Kerri ní Dochartaigh. Thin Places: a Natural History of Healing and Home (2021)
Alexander von Humboldt. Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of America (1810 and 1814).
David Malouf. Remembering Babylon (1993)
George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (1936)
Mary Prince. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831)
Anna Seward. “Colebrookdale” (c. 1790)
Charlotte Smith. Beachy Head (1807) and Conversations Introducing Poetry to Young Persons (1804)
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Unca Eliza Winkfield, The Female American (1767)
Dorothy Wordsworth. Grasmere Journals.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800)
Writings on Slavery and Abolition: Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano, Anne Yearsley, Hannah More, Eaglesfield Smith, Robert Southey, David George.

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Taught by: Dr. Susan Egenolf

Section Description:

This course will pair works written by British, Irish and anglophone authors in the 18th and 19th centuries to those produced in the 20th and 21st centuries. The central topic of this course is the representation of British colonial and postcolonial “natural” worlds, including people, in poetry, the novel, travel writing and in material culture (paintings, gardens, ceramics, etc.), as well as the development of an aesthetics for representing landscape. Our objective is to understand the historical, cultural, ecological and literary contexts in which these authors, artists and landscape gardeners produced their works. A fundamental goal is for students to understand that in discussions of landscape, nature and art were tightly entangled—the “natural” world does not exist in verbal or visual representations but is constructed. An issue central to the course is the relationship between landscape and power, to understand that geographic depictions by colonial authors also functioned as economic and ethnographic depictions of cultures in the service of empire. We will also trace the development of human relations to the more-than-human world. The course will attend to visual representations of the natural world (such as painting) and material culture (particularly collecting). The course will introduce Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as an alternative to European systems for knowing the world.

Proposed Readings:

A smaller selection of works like these and representative scholarly works:
Aphra Behn. Oroonoko (1688)
William Bartram. Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country (1791)
Charles Darwin. The Voyage of the Beagle (1839)
Maria Callcott Graham. Journal of a Residence in Chile (1824)
Kerri ní Dochartaigh. Thin Places: a Natural History of Healing and Home (2021)
Alexander von Humboldt. Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of America (1810 and 1814).
David Malouf. Remembering Babylon (1993)
George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (1936)
Mary Prince. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831)
Anna Seward. “Colebrookdale” (c. 1790)
Charlotte Smith. Beachy Head (1807) and Conversations Introducing Poetry to Young Persons (1804)
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Unca Eliza Winkfield, The Female American (1767)
Dorothy Wordsworth. Grasmere Journals.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800)
Writings on Slavery and Abolition: Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano, Anne Yearsley, Hannah More, Eaglesfield Smith, Robert Southey, David George.