The goal of this course is to learn to analyze the structure of English sentences, or syntax. The method is sentence diagramming, a technique for identifying and separating the elements of a sentence, the subject, object, verb, conjunctions and clauses, in a graphic arrangement. We will only... (read more)

This course is a survey of writings by African American authors. Studying fiction, essays, and poetry, we'll close read representative texts to identify formal and thematic elements that characterize the African American literary tradition. We will consider how these works exemplify and... (read more)

An introduction to contemporary folklore studies, with emphasis on the meanings of stories, rituals, festivals, body art, subcultures, the supernatural, street art, Internet folklore, and other forms of vernacular expression as these relate to a diversity of social identities and cultural... (read more)

In 1968, Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for American literature. Momaday's award signaled for many the “arrival” of Native authors to the American literary scene, and ushered in an unprecedented era of Native literary production widely... (read more)

This course is an introduction to film and media studies and various methods of critical analysis. In this course, we will see that there are many productive ways of thinking about movies and many approaches we can use to analyze them. These approaches include the study of narrative structure,... (read more)

As an introductory survey, this course emphasizes the formal, thematic, and cultural diversity of Latinx literature. We will read novels, poetry, short stories, and comics, among other media, by authors from a range of identities—including Mexican American, Central American, Cuban American, and... (read more)

This course examines the fundamental elements of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en- scène, cinematography, genre, editing, and sound. By learning how to analyze and interpret film form by utilizing proper cinematic language, students will develop critical understanding of... (read more)

This course is an examination of the period often considered the most “magical,” the Middle Ages. Looking at the practices of medieval western Europe, particularly Britain, we will examine how medieval culture defined magic, what they hoped to achieve by practicing (or forbidding) magic, and how... (read more)

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“Survey of U.S. Cinema": We will screen a sampling of films associated with U.S./American cinema through its relatively short history since the sound era—-beginning with important “genres,” progressing into cinematic “modes,” and ultimately examining how movies in our national context reflect... (read more)

This class is conceived as an introduction to the art of comics, and to the methodologies of the new academic discipline of Comics Studies. Course content will vary from term to term, according to the specialist interests of the individual instructor, within the following parameters. Students... (read more)

In English 104, “Archetypes and Anarchy,” we will explore the basic elements of fiction via one of its most enduring forms: the fairy tale. As the course title indicates, we will begin by considering the archetype, a concept derived from Jungian psychology which refers to “a pervasive idea,... (read more)

While the primary emphasis of this course will be students’ frequent practice and evaluation of their own public speaking, we will also discuss theories of rhetoric; the identity, characteristics, and relationship of speaker (self) and audience (other); the importance of listening as an aspect... (read more)

This course is a survey of writings by African American authors. Studying fiction, essays, and poetry, we will read representative texts to consider whether there are specific formal and thematic elements that characterize an African American literary tradition. We will consider how these texts... (read more)

ENG 267, the third of three courses that study the historical evolution of cinema as an institution and as an art form from its origin, covers the time period from the “end” of the studio system in the 1960s to the present day. It may be taken individually or as part of a series (with ENG 265... (read more)

In 1968, Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for American literature. Momaday’s award signaled for many the “arrival” of Native authors to the American literary scene, and ushered in an unprecedented era of Native literary production widely... (read more)

Reading Asian American texts as a form of cultural representation, the class will be concerned with the following:

1. Where is Asian America? What are its geographical, social, and epistemological boundaries?
2. What is Asian American? Is it a racial concept, cultural construct,... (read more)

This course will address a theme within contemporary U.S. experimental literature. Course readings may include graphic novels, novels in verse, micro fiction, or narrative video games. We will address foundational questions about the nature of prose narrative by reading texts that push the... (read more)

This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the formal properties of poetry in English. Through careful analysis of poems by major writers, students will be challenged to explain not only what a given poem might mean to its readers, but also how a poem communicates... (read more)

This course explores the art of public speaking as grounded in theories of rhetoric, especially those pertaining to the relationship of a speaker to an audience, the importance of listening as an aspect of speaking, and the socioethical contexts of public discourse. Assignments and activities... (read more)

This course will introduce students to literature that depicts ‘the environment’ in various ways: as resplendent landscape, as increasingly industrialized space, as ecologically compromised animal habitat, and as chemically altered agricultural swath. This course will read fiction, nonfiction,... (read more)

This course aims to develop your media literacy by providing you with a precise set of critical tools for analyzing moving image texts. Although our primary focus will be on the formal analysis of image and sound rather than media history or social issues, we will study the interplay between... (read more)

We will explore issues related to food production and consumption through fictional and non-fictional representations of farmers and farmworkers in contemporary U.S. literature and culture. We will look at food production, food distribution, and food access through the lens of agriculture,... (read more)

English 108 is the second quarter of a year-long survey of World Literature, between antiquity and the modern period. In European literature, this period includes the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Rather than sample a smattering of various texts from this period, we will read a single great... (read more)

What story does your body tell? Beyond the assumptions others may make based on physical appearance, or what you might convey through adornment, what narrative does your body perpetuate? The Proto Polynesian word “tatau” (tattoo) is both a noun, the physical mark inscribed on the body, and a... (read more)

What does it mean to be at home? How does it feel to lose one's home? And how do ideas of home and homelessness shape our sense of self or security? This course builds on these questions to look at a collection of literary works that focus explicitly on the idea of home in American culture. We'... (read more)

Movies are often dismissed as mere popular entertainment. But the very pervasiveness of audio-visual media in our lives demands that we look more carefully at these cultural products. In fact, an entire field of study has developed to investigate the history and significance of moving picture... (read more)

As indicated by the title, this class is an introduction to the literary production by American authors of Asian descent. We shall read classic texts from this ethnic American literary tradition to understand the unique histories that shape it and to appreciate the people’s struggles and... (read more)

Description This course, which focuses on four of the later plays of Shakespeare’s career, is designed as an introduction to the language, themes, contexts, and implications of Shakespeare’s most mature work. Though our close reading of these plays will lead us to consider any number of the many... (read more)

English 110 is a lower-division elective that satisfies the Arts & Letters group
requirement by critically examining film and media objects. This incarnation of the
course is titled, “Survey of US Cinema.” We will screen a sampling of films associated
with US/American cinema... (read more)

Reading two novels, including John Crowley’s classic post-apocalyptic fantasy novel Engine Summer, and a variety of short stories, ENG 104 addresses basic questions about the nature of prose narrative and the interrelated activities of reading, writing, and interpretation. Most of the course... (read more)

This is the final segment of a three-term sequence that studies how cinema evolved as an institution and and an industrial art form. English 267 covers the period 1950s to the present. The aim of the course is explore the recent history of global cinema and develop the critical and analytic... (read more)

This course will examine the development of autobiography as a literary genre from the spiritual narratives of medieval women mystics to the graphic memoirs of twenty-first century writers. Along the way we will consider a range of autobiographical forms, including slave narrative, immigrant... (read more)

Why do stories matter? In this class we will read novels of childhood and adolescence, both
fantasy and realistic, and compare them to the stories that matter in our own lives and
families. The novels come from India, England, South Korea, and the United States. By the
end of the... (read more)

This course will build on our abilities to watch, analyze and write about media objects, particularly film. We will learn to recognize, define and elaborate on various kinds of cinema (fiction, documentary etc), genres (musical, western, horror etc), elements of narrative (script, plot, point of... (read more)

Genre courses focus on particular genres and forms crucial for the study of English, American, and Anglophone literature and culture and are aimed primarily at English majors. So structured, these courses explicitly align with the first three of the English Department’s core competencies in ... (read more)