Undergraduate Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences
Website: https://english.fsu.edu
Chair and Robert O. Lawton Professor: Gary Taylor; Robert O. Lawton Professors: S. E. Gontarski, David Kirby, Maxine Montgomery; Krafft Professors: Robert Olen Butler; Janet Burroway Professor: Mark Winegardner; George Mills Harper Professor: Judith Pascoe; Frances Cushing Ervin Professor: Aaron Jaffe; University Distinguished Writer and Professor: Diane Roberts; Professors: Bourus, Caputi, Edwards, Epstein, Faulk, Fleckenstein, Fumo, Goodman, Johnson, Kimbrell, McGregory, Okonkwo, Stuckey-French, Suarez, Ward; Timothy Gannon Associate Professor: Alisha Gaines; Associate Professors: Dominguez Barajas, Graban, Horack, Kennedy, Kilgore, Lathan, Neal, Parker-Flynn, Stilling, Weise; Assistant Professors: Al-Khateeb, Browdy, Della Gatta, Eckert, Fiscus-Cannady, Howard, Mariano, Maurette, Ribó, Sperling, Tran, Wilson; Distinguished University Scholar and Senior Lecturers: Barbara Hamby; Associate Lecturers: Franklin, Hand, Howell; Professors Emeriti: Berry, Bickley, Boehrer, Burke, Burroway, Coldiron, Crook, Fenstermaker, Gants, Lhamon, McElrath, O'Rourke, Ortiz-Taylor, Rowe, Walker, Yancey
The Department of English offers students a curriculum that is central to the modern liberal arts education. One of the largest degree programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, the undergraduate major in English allows students to emphasize literature, media, and culture; creative writing; or editing, writing, and media. Students may also pursue other specialized programs such as honors in the major, an English major with an emphasis in business, or Directed Independent Studies. In addition to its primary benefits to intellectual growth, the English major also offers practical preparation for professional careers in teaching, professional writing, law, business, religious affairs, and all levels of government service: local, state, and federal.
The study of literature, media, and culture includes not only contemporary texts but also all the historical periods of British, American, and other literature. In addition to familiar period or major authors courses such as the Victorian novel or Chaucer, students will also find courses in related subjects such as linguistics, popular culture, gender studies, multiethnic literature, folklore, postcolonial literature, modern European fiction, and literary theory. Courses will endeavor as well to broaden students' conceptualization of the close relationship between literary texts as cultural artifacts to include other forms of writing and media.
The study of creative writing allows students to work not only in the familiar genres of poetry, fiction, drama, and the essay, but also to study related subjects such as rhetoric and composition theory. Students may also study the editorial and publishing process and take up internships in editing and publishing in a variety of settings.
The study of editing, writing, and media engages students in the history, theories, and practices of textual formation. It provides writing-intensive courses focusing on the practical aspects of new media and print composition. Students also study the history of textuality as well as hands-on courses in visual rhetoric, editing, and publishing.
The English honors program, traditionally the largest in the University, invites the very best students to supplement regular major work with specialized seminars and independent thesis work.
A variety of activities and facilities are available to all majors. Two literary magazines, Kudzu Review and The Southeast Review, are published in the department. Many students gain journalistic experience by writing for the independent campus newspaper, the FSView & Florida Flambeau. The department sponsors a year-long visiting writers series that brings twelve to fourteen writers and scholars to campus each year. The English department, in conjunction with the campus-wide Opening Nights arts program, also promotes headline writers, such as John Updike and Amy Tan. There are two computer classrooms that house computer-assisted writing instruction, and seminar rooms that are equipped with smartboards. The English Department also hosts the Reading-Writing Center, an inclusive resource for FSU students of all majors, programs, and backgrounds, as well as the Digital Studio, which facilitates the development of digital project content and design. All majors with a GPA above 3.0 are eligible to apply for membership in Sigma Tau Delta, the local chapter of a national literary honor society, which sponsors a variety of social events and career programs.
The department annually recognizes outstanding achievement with the following awards and honors: the Fred L. Standley Award for Undergraduate Excellence in English, the George Harper Award for Outstanding Essay Writing, the Betty Corry Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Creative Writing, the Cody Harris Allen Undergraduate Writing Award, the John MacKay Shaw Academy of American Poets Award, the George Yost Essay Award, and the Mart P. and Louis Hill English Honors Thesis Award.
Computer Skills Competency
All undergraduates at Florida State University must demonstrate basic computer skills competency prior to graduation. As necessary computer competency skills vary from discipline to discipline, each major determines the courses needed to satisfy this requirement. Undergraduate majors in English satisfy this requirement by earning a grade of "C–" or higher in CGS 2060, CGS 2100, CGS 2518, or EME 2040.
State of Florida Common Program Prerequisites for English
The Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) houses the statewide, internet-based catalog of distance learning courses, degree programs, and resources offered by Florida's public colleges and universities, and they have developed operational procedures and technical guidelines for the catalog that all institutions must follow. The statute governing this policy can be reviewed by visiting https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2021/1006.73.
FLVC has identified common program prerequisites for the degree program in English. To obtain the most up-to-date, state-approved prerequisites for this degree, visit: https://cpm.flvc.org/programs/331/275.
Specific prerequisites are required for admission into the upper-division program and must be completed by the student at either a community college or a state university prior to being admitted to this program. Students may be admitted into the University without completing the prerequisites but may not be admitted into the program.
College Requirements
Please review all college-wide degree requirements summarized in the "College of Arts and Sciences" chapter of this General Bulletin.
Prerequisites for the Major
In order to satisfy prerequisites for the English major, students must accomplish the following:
- Completion of at least fifty-two semester hours of acceptable college credit with an overall GPA of at least 2.0
- Satisfactory completion ("C–" or better) of all courses necessary for the writing requirement (State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030).
Requirements for a Major in English
General Requirements: Thirty-six semester hours of English in courses at the 2000 level and above. At least twenty-one semester hours must be in courses at the 3000 and 4000 levels, including at least nine semester hours at the 4000 level. Honors thesis hours may be applied toward the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, but only three semester hours will be accepted for major credit. One English course used to satisfy the humanities requirement for liberal studies may be counted as part of the major. All courses counted toward the major must carry the grade of "C–" or better. A minor in another department is also required; all courses counted toward the minor also must carry the grade of "C–" or better.
Each student will choose one of the following areas:
- Concentration in Literature, Media, and Culture
- Twelve semester hours in four core courses: ENG 2012 Introduction to English Studies; LIT 3112 History I; LIT 3124 History II; and ENG 3014 Understanding Theory and Criticism (must be taken before student reaches ninety semester hours)
- Twelve semester hours of Distribution Electives: Six hours of Diversity courses; three hours of Pre-1800 courses; and three hours of Understanding Genres
- Electives: Nine semester hours in other English courses at the 2000 level and above
- Literature Capstone: Three semester hours in ENG 4934 Senior Literature Seminar (must be taken after student reaches ninety semester hours)
- Concentration in Creative Writing
- Twelve semester hours in four core Writing Courses: ENG 2012 Introduction to English Studies; ENC 3310 Article and Essay Technique; CRW 3110 Fiction Technique; CRW 3311 Poetic Technique
- Advanced Writing Workshops: Six hours of Advanced Writing Workshops, any combination of two (six hours) required. ENC 4311 Advanced Article and Essay Workshop; CRW 4120 Advanced Fiction Workshop; CRW 4320 Advanced Poetry Workshop. Advanced workshops are repeatable for up to nine credit hours.
- Literature Courses: Fifteen semester hours of literature, of which at least three semester hours shall be in British literature before 1900 at the 3000 or 4000 level
- Electives: Three semester hours in other English courses at the 2000 level and above
- Concentration in Editing, Writing, and Media
- Twelve semester hours in four core courses: ENG 2012 Introduction to English Studies; ENC 3021 Rhetoric; ENC 3416 Writing and Editing in Print and Online; ENG 3803 History of Text Technologies
- Nine semester hours of advanced courses.
- ENC 4218: Visual Rhetoric
- ENG 4834: Issues in Publishing
- ENC 4212: Editing: Manuscripts, Documents, Reports
- ENG 4020: Rhetorical Theory and Practice
- ENG 3804: History of Illustrated Texts
- ENC 4404: Advanced Writing and Editing
- ENG 4615: Media: Innovation, Theory, and Practice
- ENG 4815: What is a Text?
- Three hours Internship in Editing (ENC 4942)
- Twelve credit hours of completed core courses are required to apply and register for ENC 4942.
- Twelve hours English electives, at the 3000 or 4000 level
Transient Students
Students may take a maximum of three courses (maximum of nine credit hours) in the major at another institution, excluding foreign language. Applicable to electives only.
Honors in the Major
The Department of English offers honors in the major to encourage talented students to undertake independent research through two special seminars (or one special seminar and one honors course in the major) and two semesters of thesis work. For requirements and other information, see the "University Honors Office and Honor Societies" chapter of this General Bulletin and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in English. Contact English-Advising@fsu.edu.
Requirements for a Minor in English
At least twelve semester hours in English courses numbered above 1999. Students must have at least a "C–" average in the minor.
Definition of Prefixes
AML—American Literature
CRW—Creative Writing
ENC—English Composition
ENG—English: General
ENL—English Literature
HUM—Humanities
IDH—Interdisciplinary Honors
IDS—Interdisciplinary Studies
LAE—Language Arts and English Education
LIN—Linguistics
LIT—Literature
REA—Reading
Undergraduate Courses
AML 2010. American Authors to 1875 (3). This course covers important writings by representative American authors from the colonial period through the post-Civil War era. Typically included are Franklin, Irving, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Douglass, and Emily Dickinson.
AML 2600. Introduction to African-American Literature (3). This course offers a survey of the canonical works of African-Americans, typically including Douglass, Chesnutt, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Morrison, and Walker.
AML 3041. American Authors Since 1875 (3). This course covers significant works by representative Realists, Literary Naturalists, Modernists, and contemporary writers. Authors typically covered include Twain, James, Crane, Chopin, Eliot, Hemingway, Frost, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Wright, Baldwin, Morrison, and O'Connor.
AML 3311. Major Figures in American Literature (3). This course examines selected works of major American writers.
AML 3630. Latino/a Literature in English (3). This course offers an introduction to landmark Latino/a works written in English.
AML 3673. Asian American Literature (3). This course introduces students to selected works of Asian American literature, focusing on Asian Indian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, and Vietnamese American writers. Common topics include issues of diaspora, dislocation, and cross-culturality.
AML 3682. American Multi-Ethnic Literature (3). This course introduces cross-cultural literary traditions, looking at historical rationales and interconnections among communities as well as vital differences.
AML 4111. The 19th-Century American Novel (3). This course covers from Brown and Cooper to Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and Crane.
AML 4121. The 20th-Century American Novel (3). This course typically covers Dreiser, Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow, and Wright.
AML 4213. Early American Literature and Culture before 1800 (3). Suggested prerequisite: AML 2010. This course focuses on varying topics in pre-1800 American literature and culture, such as exploration and captivity narratives, Native American literature, the Puritan tradition, the enlightenment and revolutionary eras in America, the trans- and circum-Atlantic world, the slave trade, early-American print culture (including the novel), gender studies, and/or selected authors.
AML 4261. Literature of the South (3). This course offers a survey from Colonial times to the present, including Byrd, Poe, Simms, Cable, Faulkner, Warren, O'Connor, and others.
AML 4604. The African-American Literary Tradition (3). This course examines selected works by African-American writers in their social, historical, and cultural contexts.
AML 4680r. Studies in Ethnic Literature (3). This course is an advanced study offering a survey of a particular ethnic literary tradition and adopting a cultural studies model. May be repeated up to a maximum of twenty-four semester hours.
CRW 3110. Fiction Technique (3). This course is an analysis of and exercises in the elements of fiction: point of view, conflict, characterization, tone, and image.
CRW 3311. Poetic Technique (3). This course is for aspiring poets and critics. The course studies the elements of poetry with some practice in writing poetry.
CRW 3410. Dramatic Technique (3). This course is an introduction to playwriting, with emphasis on the relation of the written drama to production. Both published plays and student work are analyzed.
CRW 4120r. Fiction Workshop (3). Prerequisite: CRW 3310. This course enables practice in short story, novella, or novel. Students are expected to work toward submission and publication of manuscripts. May be repeated to a maximum of nine credit hours.
CRW 4320r. Poetry Workshop (3). Prerequisite: CRW 3311. This course is for poets who approach excellence and aspire toward publication. May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.
CRW 4420r. Drama Workshop (3). Prerequisite: Instructor permission. This course allows students to write, revise, and prepare for submission a one to three-act play; playing time: not less than one hour. May be repeated to a maximum of twenty-four semester hours.
ENC 1101. Freshman Composition and Rhetoric (3). This course stresses the importance of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills, as well as the importance of using writing as a recursive process involving invention, drafting, collaboration, revision, rereading, and editing to clearly and effectively communicate ideas for specific purposes, occasions, and audiences. No auditors.
ENC 1102. Freshman Writing, Reading, and Research (3). Prerequisite: ENC 1101 or ENC 1149. This course includes reading, research, drafting, and writing of essays and a journal for a total of 7,000 words. No auditors.
ENC 1121. Freshman Composition and Rhetoric: Honors (3). This accelerated course is designed for honors students. Therefore, their level of performance is expected to exceed the level attained by students in ENC 1101. Enrollment through the honors program.
ENC 1122. Freshman Writing About Literature: Honors (3). This course, as a literature-based composition course, draws essay topics from selected short stories, drama, and poetry. This accelerated course is designed for honors students; thus, their level of performance is expected to exceed the level attained by students in ENC 1102. Enrollment through the honors program.
ENC 1142. Freshman Imaginative Writing Workshop (3). Prerequisite: ENC 1101 or ENC 1149. This course includes freshman-level creative writing with some critical analysis of literature; emphasizes workshop atmosphere with class participation. Workshops offered in both poetry and fiction. Written work totals 7,000 words. Should not be taken by students with final grades below "C" in ENC 1101. No auditors.
ENC 1144. Freshman Article and Essay Workshop (3). Prerequisite: ENC 1101 or ENC 1149. This course is designed to help students attain a level of competency in nonfiction prose beyond that attained in ENC 1101. Emphasizes workshop atmosphere with class participation. Written work totals 7,000 words. No auditors.
ENC 1145. Freshman Special Topics in Composition (3). Prerequisite: ENC 1101 or ENC 1149. This course includes freshman-level nonfiction prose writing on selected subjects for a total of 7,000 words. Topics vary. No auditors.
ENC 1905r. Improving College-Level Writing (1–3). (S/U grade only.) This course is an individualized program of instruction in writing, including CLAS skills. Open to students from all levels and major areas. May be repeated to a maximum of three semester hours.
ENC 2135. Research, Genre, and Context (3). Prerequisite: ENC 1101. This course emphasizes writing as a recursive process involving invention, drafting, collaboration, rereading, revision, and editing to compose in a variety of genres clearly and effectively for specific contexts, purposes, occasions, and audiences. The course teaches research skills that allow students to effectively incorporate outside sources in their writing.
ENC 3021. Rhetoric (3). This course introduces students to key concepts in the study of rhetoric: to frameworks useful for the analysis of texts, events, communication, and other phenomena, and to the principles of rhetoric in the contexts of many media and cultures.
ENC 3310. Article and Essay Technique (3). This course introduces students to the study and writing of nonfiction prose in a variety of modes, with emphasis on studying the elements of nonfiction prose and practice in the craft of writing.
ENC 3416. Writing and Editing in Print and Online (3). This course focuses on the principles of composing, especially across different composing spaces. Students create works in several different media, including (1) in print, (2) on the screen, and (3) for the network, while also learning how to edit the works deployed in each medium appropriately. In addition, students repurpose at least one of these works for another medium. Students conclude the course by creating a digital portfolio.
ENC 3493. Peer Tutoring in the Reading-Writing Center and Digital Studio (3). This course explores acts of reading, writing, and composing: the people who do it, how they do it, and how to help others do it. Students are trained to tutor in the Reading-Writing Center and/or Digital Studio and actively work in those spaces. Completion of the course allows students to apply for openings in the RWC/DS staff.
ENC 4212. Editing: Manuscripts, Documents, Reports (3). This course involves the actual editing of another's work, synthesizing another's ideas and data, structuring and clarifying.
ENC 4218. Visual Rhetoric (3). This course introduces students to the principles of visual rhetoric, especially as it is enacted across diverse media, shaped by multiple genres, and designed to achieve different goals with different audiences. Students will learn to analyze the rhetorical function of imagery, to use images to respond to and organize arguments, and to create images that operate rhetorically.
ENC 4311r. Advanced Article and Essay Workshop (3). Prerequisite: ENC 3310. This course covers the craft and art of creative nonfiction writing. Course content is mainly practical and craft-based, and explores where authors wish to go with a particular draft, and how readers and writers engaged in a common cause might help the author get there. May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.
ENC 4352. Editing Workshop (3). This course explores the newsletter genre through analysis and production. Students read, respond to, and analyze a range of newsletter samples before engaging in the process of collaboratively designing, writing, and editing a newsletter that is disseminated digitally to its intended audience.
ENC 4404. Advanced Writing and Editing (3). This course provides advanced level work in diverse forms of writing and editing. Students read, write, and theorize about what it means to compose in multiple contexts: handwriting, print, and on the Web. Students compose and edit a diversity of texts to be shared with a wide range of audiences, the academic as well as the public.
ENC 4500. Theories of Composition (3). Prerequisites: ENC 3310 and instructor permission. This course is an examination of topics in the teaching of composition, including theories of the composing process, invention, revision, assigning, and evaluating student writing, and the relationship between writing and reading.
ENC 4942r. Internship in Editing (1–6). (S/U grade only.) Recommended prerequisite: ENC 4212. This course provides practical experience in editing, public relations, and other forms of written communications. May be repeated to a maximum of six semester hours; only three hours apply to majors.
ENG 2012. Introduction to English Studies (3). This course prepares students to be English majors, shows how English studies can be used both in college and in the students' career choices, and exposes students to the pleasure of reading, writing, and using language to its best effect.
ENG 2610. Graphic Novel (3). This course examines comics, graphic novels, words-and-pictures as an imaginative art from the lat 19th century to early 21st century.
ENG 3010. Introduction to Literary Analysis (3). This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and techniques of literary analysis. It is strongly recommended that students complete this course before taking any of the 3000- and 4000-level literature courses. This course provides students with the critical vocabulary and skills of close reading and interpretation needed to engage in the analysis of literary works. Students read a wide range of literary texts in fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction in order to learn how to engage in the process of literary interpretation and produce their own analyses of literary and cultural texts.
ENG 3014. Understanding Theory and Criticism (3). This course is an introduction to the issues and debates that inform contemporary literary studies. Required course for English Literature concentration.
ENG 3114. Film Adaptation (3). This course will study classic and contemporary theories of film adaptation, borrowing as well as breaking from the concept of fidelity to create a space to explore how the cinema engages with literature, and how literary stories are deformed and reformed through the medium of film.
ENG 3116. The Documentary Film (3). This course offers students the opportunity to study cinema's ability to use documentary form to question the nature of truth, the politics of representation, the construction of the real, and the sociology of the image.
ENG 3310. Film Genres (3). This course discusses film as a means of exploring the problems of genre studies: relationship to literary genres, historical continuity, transformation of genre in the film medium.
ENG 3600. Hollywood Cinema (3). This course surveys central problems in the study of mainstream U.S. cinema. Topics include major historical developments, arguments over social and aesthetic value, and close examination of critically important films.
ENG 3803. History of Text Technologies (3). This course introduces the history of the changing technologies that humans have used to record and transmit their experiences across time and space. It surveys the variety of forms this effort has taken, from tattoo to TikTok, and from papyrus scrolls to iPads. Students investigate how culturally diverse technologies have shaped the way we produce, transmit, and receive texts.
ENG 3804. History of Illustrated Texts (3). This course explores the relationship between image and word in different historical eras by examining various texts and media. Students read, respond to, and analyze a range of materials, which may include Medieval manuscripts and graphic novels. Finally, students produce an original composition involving the interplay of image and language.
ENG 3931r. Topics in English (1–3). May be repeated to a maximum of twenty-four semester hours.
ENG 3943r. Kudzu Review Undergraduate Magazine (0–3). (S/U grade only.) Prerequisite: Instructor permission. This course is a practicum intended to provide each student with practical experience in the field of literary editing. Students work under the direction of the Senior Editor throughout the process of soliciting, judging, and editing manuscripts for the Kudzu Review. Students also work together throughout the process of magazine lay-out as well as magazine printing and distribution. May be repeated to a maximum of six semester hours.
ENG 4013. Literary Criticism (3). This course is a historical overview of critical texts that consider the nature of literature from antiquity to the early 20th century. Typically includes readings from Plato, Aristotle, Wroth, Dryden, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold, Eliot, and Woolf.
ENG 4020. Rhetorical Theory and Practice (3). Prerequisites: ENC 3310 and instructor permission. This course emphasizes contemporary developments in rhetoric and their applicability to writing. For upper-division students who intend to teach English composition.
ENG 4043. Contemporary Critical Theory (3). Prerequisite: Instructor permission. This course is an advanced study of crosscurrents in later 20th-century critical theory.
ENG 4115. Film Theory (3). This course considers centrally important theories of film from the 1920s work of Eisenstein through the 1970s "gaze" theories of Metz and Mulvey, to the present. The course emphasizes what distinguishes film from other arts as well as its socio-historical causes and consequences.
ENG 4615. Media: Innovation, Theory, and Practice (3). This course examines the limits and potentialities of media, new media, and media theory in contemporary culture.
ENG 4815. What is a Text? (3). Prerequisites: 3000-level core courses in major and 4000-level coursework recommended. This course investigates the nature of textuality and its relationship to various media and technologies, while also exploring theoretical and practical questions related to the production and reception of texts in a variety of different forms and media. Students read works in which textuality is broached as a topic, including multimedia texts, and also produce a final project in at least two different media.
ENG 4816. Introduction to Digital Humanities (3). This course gives students an introduction to the ongoing digital transformation of humanities scholarship, as well as applied introductory skills in the practice of digital humanities. Particular topics may vary, but each course taught under this number explores critically and practically one of several configurations of digital scholarship in the humanities today, including digital literary studies, humanities computing, digital cultural history, new media and network culture, virtuality and games, and digital curation. Students are introduced to the critical issues shaping any of the concentrations, and learn technical skills to interact with and produce work within the particular field.
ENG 4834. Issues in Publishing (3). Prerequisite: 3000-level core courses in the major recommended. This course explores a wide range of issues in the history and practice of publishing, editing, and the production and distribution of texts from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well as from earlier historical periods. These issues include the book as object, the ethics of publishing, the history of reading, and censorship, as well as the rise of print culture. It also includes practical training, introducing students to the work that editors currently perform in magazine and book publishing.
ENG 4905r. Directed Individual Study (1–3). Topic to be approved by the director of undergraduate English studies. May be repeated to a maximum of twenty-four semester hours.
ENG 4910. Research in Renaissance Literature (3). This course is designed to engage students in the authentic work of scholarly research in Renaissance/early modern literature. Hands-on work in research archives and databases builds toward a final research project with multimedia components.
ENG 4932r. Studies in English (1–3). Topics vary. For senior majors and qualified students. May be repeated to a maximum of twenty-four semester hours.
ENG 4934. Senior Seminar in Literature (3). Prerequisites: Ninety semester hours of college work. Topics vary. Required for senior English majors concentrating in literature.
ENG 4936r. Honors Thesis (English) (1–6). Prerequisites: Instructor permission and admission to the department's honors-in-the-major program. The honors student takes two semesters of thesis work. May be repeated to a maximum of nine (9) credit hours; repeatable within the same term.
ENG 4938r. Advanced Seminar in English (3). Prerequisite: Admission to the department's honors-in-the-major program. The honors student takes two seminars. Permission required. May be repeated to a maximum of six semester hours.
ENG 4996r. Tutorial in English (1–3). May be repeated to a maximum of three semester hours.
ENL 2022. British Authors: Early Romantics to the Present (3). This course is a survey of English masterworks intended for students in liberal studies and those exploring a literature major. Among the authors typically considered are Wordsworth, Dickens, and Conrad.
ENL 3184. British Drama: History, Text and Criticism (3). This course is an introduction to the history of the British drama and its current representation on the London stage. Students read and attend performances of plays from the major periods of British literary and dramatic history, from the Renaissance to the modern period.
ENL 3210. Medieval Literature in Translation (3). This course explores literature of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods: Beowulf, Romance of the Rose, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and others.
ENL 3334. Introduction to Shakespeare (3). This course is an introduction to the study of Shakespeare at the college level. Consideration of representative works of comedy, history, tragedy, tragic-comedy drawn from throughout the playwright's career.
ENL 3591. Renaissance Source Texts: Essential Reading in the Age of Shakespeare (3). This course focuses on the literary and cultural texts from the Greek, Roman, and later European traditions that were essential reading in the English Renaissance and that shaped literary culture in the age of Shakespeare. This course includes attention to the history of literary genres and to the history of reading. Authors studied may include: Homer, Virgil, Ovid, the Bible, Aristotle, Horace, Strabo, Lucretius, Plutarch, Seneca, Plautus, Augustine, Erasmus, della Mirandola, among others.
ENL 4112. The 18th-Century British Novel (3). This course typically includes Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, and Radcliffe.
ENL 4122. The 19th-Century British Novel (3). This course typically includes Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, and Hardy.
ENL 4132. The Modern British Novel (3). This course typically includes Conrad, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Greene, Spark, and Lessing.
ENL 4161. Renaissance Drama (3). This course focuses on the English drama by Shakespeare's contemporaries and successors from Marlowe until the closing of the theatres in 1642.
ENL 4171. Restoration and 18th-Century Drama (3). This course includes representative plays of the period 1660—1800. May include plays by Dryden, Etherege, Wycherley, Otway, Congreve, Farquhar, Steele, Rowe, Gay, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Sheridan.
ENL 4218. Middle English Romance (3). This course is an introduction to the Medieval English romance tradition from its beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth to Malory's Morte d'Arthur.
ENL 4220. Renaissance Poetry and Prose (3). This course examines lyric poetry and prose from Wyatt and Spenser to Shakespeare and the metaphysicals: Donne, Herbert, Marvell, and Vaughan.
ENL 4230. Restoration and 18th-Century British Literature (3). This course studies British poetry and prose from 1660 to 1800.
ENL 4240. British Romantic Literature (3). This course studies British poetry and prose from 1785 to 1832.
ENL 4251. Victorian British Literature (3). This course studies British poetry and prose from 1830 to 1900.
ENL 4273. Modern British Literature (3). This course explores British poetry, fiction, and essays since 1900. Typically includes Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, Yeats, Lawrence, Woolf, Auden, and Lessing.
ENL 4311. Chaucer (3). This course focuses on the High Middle Ages in England seen through the perspective of the Canterbury Tales read in Middle English.
ENL 4333. Shakespeare (3). This course is a study of representative Shakespearean dramas and their relationship to the Renaissance. Typically may include attention to relevant contemporary intellectual, historical, and political movements.
ENL 4336. Orality and Poetics: Shakespeare's Sonnets (3). This course focuses on aspects of orality in Shakespeare's Sonnets, with some complementary work in theory, acoustics, and rhetoric. The course consists of explicit instruction in writing and presenting original critical talks with specific feedback on them, plus chances to incorporate that feedback in another oral presentation.
ENL 4341. Milton (3). This course focuses on Milton's life and works; emphasis on Lycidas, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Milton's important libertarian prose.
HUM 3123. Irish Culture: An Introduction (3). This course introduces students to the rich traditions and culture of Ireland. The course acquaints students with the cultural factors that have shaped Ireland in general and Dublin in particular.
IDH 3109. Sustainability in Public Discourse (3). This course focuses on sustainability in public discourse with particular attention to three different spheres: scientific and technical writing, environmental rhetoric, and public policy. Students develop expertise in analyzing public genres for hidden and explicit sociocultural agendas, in order to construct effective arguments for various public audiences.
IDS 2160. The Tourist Trap: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (3). This course is designed to help students think critically about cultures with which they are familiar, to learn about cultures with which they are less familiar, and to navigate the complex ways they perceive and participate in and with multiple cultures. Through an exploration of travel writing, journalism, literature, film, and music, students explore, discuss, and respond to in writing questions about the good, the bad, and the ugly of tourism and tourists.
IDS 2194. The Immigrant Experience in Contemporary America (3). This course explores essential questions of the "immigrant experience" in contemporary American literature. Students engage a variety of texts, including novels, films, memoirs, essays and historical/documentary materials.
IDS 2335. Central American Cinema (3). This course gives an overview of Central American Cinema and provides the student with an opportunity to understand and apply basic film analysis tools as well as to understand the socio-political and cultural contexts under which films from six different countries of the region were produced. This course is taught in English.
IDS 2375. Third World Cinema (3). This course works from films that engage the third world to address how colonialism and postcolonialism are shaped and mediated through images and the gaze. The dynamics of colonial history motivate and shape colonial and postcolonial perceptions and influence their patterns of global circulation when the boundary between the world out there and the nation at home is increasingly blurred. This course also seeks to think about what kinds of responsibility we have for our involvement in politics elsewhere.
IDS 2394. Making Babies, Making Families: Adoption and Surrogacy in Literature, Film, and Public Debate (3). This course samples prominent cultural representations of adoption and surrogacy in recent literature and film and explores forms of public debates about these headline-grabbing issues.
IDS 2455. The Role of the Public Intellectual (3). This course examines the role of the public intellectual. Students read, discuss, and write about texts by, typically, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Susan Sontag, Camille Paglia, Greil Marcus, and Cornell West, in order to: (1) Encounter ideas to which they have not yet been exposed, (2) Become aware of their own heightened ability to work with big ideas and communicate them, and (3) Identify a road map for their own progress toward becoming a public intellectual.
IDS 2465. To Work, Learn, or Play? The Role of the Child in British Fiction 1830-1914 (3). This course focuses on the role of the child as demonstrated in 19th and early 20th century British fiction with child protagonists and on the social and cultural forces that shaped these depictions, such as the changing landscape of legislation governing child labor, orphanages, and education. Discussions of stories and novels about children are put into perspective by comparing them to poems, paintings, popular songs, magic lantern shows, and advertisements featuring child protagonists.
IDS 2673. Popular Music in Literature (3). This course surveys the literature and criticism concerning American popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries. The focus is on the relation between popular music and literature.
IDS 2676. Understanding America: Hemingway in a World of Discredited Values and Traditions (3). In this course, students investigate numerous cultural and political issues and defining moments in 20th-century America through the lenses of Hemingway biography, texts, and audience.
IDS 2680. Reading, Writing, and Speaking in the Digital Age (3). This course explores the implications of the digital revolution: what it means for the publishing industry, books, magazines, copyright, libraries, how we read and write, and how we organize ourselves as a society.
IDS 3457. The Reel Middle Ages: Medieval Literature and Film (3). This is a course about adaptation, medievalism, and the Middle Ages. Students examine a body of medieval texts in their literary and cultural contexts, analyzing their reception and re-interpretation through the contemporary medium of film. Students also learn about the theory and practice of film adaptation in general, and the transformation of medieval texts to film in particular.
LIN 3010. Introduction to Language Study (3). This course covers the relationship between meaning, form, and sound in language, including language acquisition, dialects, and grammar.
LIT 2000. Introduction to Literature (3). This course introduces students to key terminology, concepts, and methodologies for the study of complex literature. The course provides a groundwork in literary types for non-majors and is also strongly recommended as preparation for upper-level (3000- or 4000-level) coursework in the field.
LIT 2010. Introduction to Fiction (3). This course introduces students to such narrative elements as point of view, characterization, setting, theme, and symbolism in the works of longer prose fiction and provides an introduction to the basic interpretive skills necessary to conduct literary analysis.
LIT 2030. Introduction to Poetry (3). This course engages students in the art of understanding and analyzing poetry as a genre by looking closely and critically at the forms, themes, techniques, and devices in selected poems from a variety of historical periods.
LIT 2081. Contemporary Literature (3). This course covers poetry, fiction, drama from WWI to the present. For beginning students.
LIT 2230. Introduction to Global Literature in English (3). This course is an introduction to English-language literature from countries that were former British colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
LIT 3002. Topics in Genre and Form (3). A consideration of a representative selection of works relating to a theme, form, or literary genre.
LIT 3024. Perspectives on the Short Story (3). This course introduces students to the critical reading of short stories dating from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century. This course teaches students to identify tone, narration, form, theme, characterization, and other formal aspects of short fiction. Students are encouraged to formulate their own interpretation of the works read, based on their developing ability to recognize the decisions each author has made in constructing the text.
LIT 3043. Modern Drama (3). This course covers from O'Neill, Pirandello, Miller, and Theatre of the Absurd to the present.
LIT 3112. Understanding Literary History I (3). This course is a survey of literature composed in English from the Anglo-Saxon period to 1800, focusing on characteristics of artistic movements or social practices important to Anglophone literacy development in the British Isles and the New World.
LIT 3313. Science Fiction (3). This course explores the historical, cultural, and critical genealogies of science fiction.
LIT 3124. Understanding Literary History II (3). This course is a survey of literature from the 19th through the late 20th centuries. Special emphasis is given to close reading skills and to discussions of the overarching social and historical movements surrounding the assigned works.
LIT 3313. Science Fiction (3). This course explores the historical, cultural and critical genealogies of science fiction.
LIT 3383. Women in Literature (3). In this course, students study texts that consider women's roles in society. The course focuses on women's gender roles and legal status during the Victorian period. What kinds of political and literary power did women have? What did women have to say about social and political matters? How did women use literary forms to communicate their arguments?
LIT 3438r. Literature and Medicine (3). This course studies how literary texts address questions in medical ethics and public health. Each topic examined is paired with a set of readings that addresses similar concerns in the contemporary setting. May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.
LIT 3524. LGBTQ Drama (3). This course considers the genre of LGBTQ Theatre that encompasses dramatic literature, theatre, performance sites, theory, narrative traditions, and themes.
LIT 3622. Eco-Literature and Ecocriticism (3). This course considers what literature and literary criticism respond to ecological and climatological change, its history, and politics.
LIT 3822. Latinx Drama (3). This course explores how Latinx identities, inclusive of Afro-Latinidad and indigeneity, are depicted in dramatic literature and performed onstage.
LIT 4013r. Studies in the Novel (3). This course focuses on varying topics in the novel as a genre from the beginnings of print culture through the contemporary period, with attention to texts of diverse national origins from the major traditions of the genre. This course also includes attention to both the history and theory of the genre. Authors studied may include: Cervantes, Diderot, Sterne, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Bely, Kafka, Woolf, Tomasi di Lampedusa, and Garcia Marquez, among others. May be repeated when topics vary to a maximum of six semester hours.
LIT 4033. Modern Poetry (3). This course is an introductory analysis of techniques and meanings. Typically includes Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Eliot, Auden, Thomas, and Plath.
LIT 4034. Postmodern and Contemporary Poetry (3). Prerequisites: ENC 1102 and ENC 1122 or equivalents. This course allows students to analyze themes and techniques associated with poetry in English from the end of World War II to the present. Poets studied typically include Olson, Ginsberg, Baraka, Clifton, Bishop, Lowell, Plath, Heaney, and Rich.
LIT 4044r. Readings in Dramatic Literature (3–6). This course covers specific topics in the study of British, American, or Continental drama. May be repeated to a maximum of six hours credit.
LIT 4093. Currents in Contemporary Literature (3). This course covers diverse, resurgent, and oppositional trends in literature since 1945; Mailer, Brautigan, Bellow, and others.
LIT 4103. World Literature (3). This course will delve into histories and movements for global social justice, while discussing the relationship between language, aesthetics, politics, and power.
LIT 4184. Irish Literature (3). This course covers Synge, Yeats, Shaw, O'Casey, Joyce, Beckett, and others.
LIT 4205. Literature of Human Rights (3). This course is a study of literature in English and related materials relevant to the issue of human rights.
LIT 4233. Anglophone Postcolonial Literature (3). This course is an advanced study of literature written in English in former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
LIT 4304. The Literary Expression of American Popular Culture (3). This course is an introductory course treating the wide variety of literary manifestations of American popular culture as reflections and symptoms of the concerns of modern American society.
LIT 4322. Folklore (3). This course is an introduction to myth, legend, tale, song, ballad, beliefs, and customs.
LIT 4329. African-American Folklore (3). This course provides an overview of the major forms of cultural expression developed by African-Americans. The focus will be on African-American folklore as a living tradition to be understood and interpreted.
LIT 4385. Major Women Writers (3). This course is an examination of selected works by significant women writers.
LIT 4514. Postcolonial Literatures and Feminisms (3). This course focuses upon literature and criticism about the status of women in former colonies.
LIT 4533. Feminisms: The Long 19th Century (3). This course introduces students to some of the key concepts of what is known as the "First Wave" of Feminist Theory in the 19th century.
LIT 4534. Early Feminisms (3). This course introduces students to key concepts, issues, and debates that shaped societal attitudes toward women prior to the emergence of "first wave feminism" in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Topics may include women's education, rights to participate in the public sphere, roles in marriage, the nature of women's work, and women's right to citizenship.
LIT 4554. Feminist Theory (3). This course introduces students to the basic concepts and issues in feminist thought through reading some of the major feminist theorists.
LIT 4608. Law and Literature (3). In this course students study some of the most influential approaches to law and literature, with the aim of recognizing how issues of literary style, theory, and history compare to the areas of legal style, theory, and history.
LIT 4652. Middle Eastern Literature and Translation (3). This course explores English translations of various genres of literature written in the Middle East and offers a Middle Eastern perspective of the religious, cultural, economic, territorial, and geopolitical conflicts of the region. The course covers the use of theoretical languages and concepts from a broad spectrum of literary fields such as postcolonialism, religious studies, feminism, globalization studies, and area studies.
LIT 4714. Modernism (3). This course explores how modernist authors and artists engaged with new ideas emerging from modern philosophy, psychology, and non-literary arts; from transformations in technologies and cultural institutions; from large-scale movements of people and popular cultures; and from new forms of identity and agency.
LIT 4852. Understanding Cultural Studies (3). This course introduces students to Cultural Studies as an academic Discipline and to examine the specific methodologies it employs in the study of literary and other cultural texts.
REA 1905r. Improving College-Level Reading (1–3). (S/U grade only.) This course is an individualized program of instruction in critical and comprehensive reading skills. Open to students from all levels and major areas. May be repeated to a maximum of three semester hours.
For listings relating to graduate coursework, consult the Graduate Bulletin.