Old English Major (1995-2015)
People respond to movies in different ways, and there are many reasons for this. We have all stood in the lobby of a theater and heard conflicting opinions from people who have just seen the same film. Some loved it, some hated it, some found it just OK. Perhaps we've thought, "What do they know... (read more)
In this course, you will review and explore important concepts in rhetoric and argumentation theory, and you will gain skill in discovering the questions that drive controversies and the arguments that can be made on all the different sides of an issue. You will also practice speaking, writing,... (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. This course on tragedy traces the historical development and transformation of the genre and places strong emphasis on... (read more)
This course will survey the long history of stories about the creation of artificial people. We’ll look at the desires expressed by this genre, most of all, the desire to perfect or eliminate what is most human. Familiar questions – can robots feel? can we tell who is a robot? what traits are... (read more)
The goal of this course is to learn how to analyze the structure, or syntax, of English sentences. Our method will be sentence diagramming, a technique for identifying and separating the elements of a sentence--such as the subject, object, verb, prepositions, phrases and clauses--in a graphic... (read more)
This course is a survey of writings by African American authors from the 18th century through the Harlem Renaissance. 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... (read more)
ENG 250 is the gateway to the English Department’s Digital Humanities Minor. The interdisciplinary field of digital humanities (DH) is concerned with the relationship between digital technology and the humanities (academic disciplines that study language, literature, history, philosophy,... (read more)
This course explores the fundamentals of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. By learning how to analyze film and utilize proper cinematic language, students will begin to critically understand film as an art form and a product of... (read more)
This course explores the fundamentals of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. By learning how to analyze film and utilize proper cinematic language, students will begin to critically understand film as an art form and a product of... (read more)
This course provides an introduction to the analysis of comics and graphic narratives in terms of their poetics, genres, forms, history, and the academic discipline of Comics Studies. Our multifaceted examination will balance close reading with in-depth research and analysis of the development... (read more)
Laskaya, C. Anne; Pyle, Forest
ENG 304, Contexts for Literary/Textual Study, is part of The Foundations of the English Major three-course series (ENG 303, ENG 304, ENG 305). The series introduces students to the discipline of English as it is practiced at the University of Oregon, providing English majors with a common... (read more)
In this course, we will study novels by Black American women from the late nineteenth century to the present. Using close reading and historical context, we will consider how these novels construct race, class, and gender; the possibilities and limits of the novel form; whether and how these... (read more)
Bullshit, Fake News, and Argumentation
The practice of bullshitting (“speech intended to persuade without regard for truth”) is firmly sedimented into civic life in the 21st century. Examples are everywhere: fake social media accounts and highjacked elections, accusations of... (read more)
The Black Fantastic
In 2020, against the backdrop of a pandemic, wildfires, anti-Black violence, a global wave of protests and social unrest, and political upheaval, Octavia Butler’s 1993 Afrofuturist novel, Parable of the Sower, reached the New York Times bestseller... (read more)
This course studies works of film and media as aesthetic objects that engage with communities identified by class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It considers both the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on media and filmmaking practices and modes of reception that... (read more)
In the last two decades, comics journalism has become one of the most provocative forms of creative nonfiction and an essential field of comics art. University of Oregon alum Joe Sacco, who received his BA in journalism in 1981, effectively founded contemporary comics journalism through his... (read more)
Students in “Shakespeare’s World” learn to read Shakespeare’s works in relation to the cultural, literary, and historical contexts in which he wrote. This can be a first course in Shakespeare (no prerequisites). In Winter 2021, students will read Hamlet in relation to earlier revenge... (read more)
In this course, we will study poetry of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) in its literary, political, and cultural contexts. BAM is the cultural arm of the Black Power Movement and was at its peak from about 1965 to about 1976. BAM writers are diverse in terms of form, genre, gender, geography, and... (read more)
OEII: The Adventure Continues! In OEII we’ll read a varied selection of shorter poems and prose in Old English and perform a (virtual) reenactment of The Battle of Maldon. You’ll get some of the finer points of OE grammar and we’ll review other grammatical concepts as needed. The course... (read more)
Explores the role of folklore in people's religious lives with particular emphasis on narrative, beliefs, rituals, celebrations, otherworldly encounters, pilgrimage, and ecstatic states.
(read more)Emphasis on form, function, and style of scientific, professional and technical writing: weekly writing assignments include proposals, reports, definitions, instructions, summaries. Use of documentation in publication. Junior standing required. Prerequisite: completion of UO writing requirement... (read more)
Practice in writing and analyzing internal and external messages common to business, industry, and professions. Suggested for business and management students.
WR 321 offers practice in writing and analyzing communication common to business, industry, and related professions. Students will... (read more)
This course is an introductory survey where we will identify and define the field of Chicanx and Latinx literatures and cultural studies through a critical engagement. In addition to considering how history, politics, and literary periods shape these robust fields, we will also examine the ways... (read more)
What is the Age of King Arthur? Legends of King Arthur, Excalibur, Merlin, the Holy Grail, and Camelot have persisted from their medieval origins into our contemporary culture. In this introductory English course, we will read Arthurian literature in translation from French, German, Welsh, Latin... (read more)
In this class we’ll consider life-writing as a form, focusing on auto/biography and memoir. We’ll read a selection of life stories by modernist writers, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys, and explore how they present... (read more)
ENG 240 introduces students to central concepts and essential texts in disability studies and applies them to literary and cultural texts, with a focus on racial diversity and learning directly from writers and scholars who experience a wide spectrum of body/mind variabilities. The texts in this... (read more)
This course considers how women writers acknowledge, resist, and re-imagine their relationship to law. We will read literary works that directly engage law, as well as scholarship from legal studies to explore questions including: What is the relationship between law and literature? How do women... (read more)
In this course we will examine theories of reasoned-based argumentation in the oral mode, and then incorporate those theories into the practice of making effective speeches that advocate for particular positions on arguable issues of public concern. We will analyze and critique oral arguments as... (read more)
La Malinche. Pocahontas. Sacagawea. These are likely the only Indigenous women with whom many are familiar. Though real historical figures, these Indigenous women are often depicted in popular literature along a rigid spectrum as race traitors or colonial sympathizers, virtuous princesses or... (read more)
In this course we’ll explore graphic narratives as a mode of life writing (biography. autobiography, memoir, coming of age narratives). We’ll discuss the ways in which the graphic narrative lends itself particularly well to these kinds of stories. Themes will include: the process of life-writing... (read more)
We are going to look very closely at sentences to see how they work, how the individual parts of speech draw together into syntax, and what effect (artistic and otherwise) these patterns of syntax create. The course will mix technical study of sentence structure and reflection upon their artful... (read more)
This course explores texts produced by the three major cultures inhabiting the British Isles in the early Middle Ages: the Táin bo Culainge and stories of St. Brigit for the Irish; the Saga of the Volsungs and the Prose Edda (written in Iceland) for the Danes; and Genesis... (read more)
British Romantic Writers
This course will be a sustained examination of the question: “What is Romanticism? This is a question which has no single or ultimate answer given that there seem to be as many answers as there are “askers.” There is, however, a rich and complex body of literature... (read more)
Once upon a time, the four-color world of the superhero was a comfortingly simple place. Whether they came from distant galaxies or our home planet, the super-powered beings of the 1940s and 50s were secure in their sense of righteousness and generally saw no contradiction between truth,... (read more)
This class introduces students to TV as a way of studying the power dynamics of popular culture—with special attention to the 1950s and 1960s, unconventional forms of art, the overlaps of the music and television industries, and previous student research in this and other queer transgender media... (read more)
How are we persuaded? What is rhetoric? What is rhetorical criticism? What can rhetorical criticism do? How can it help us? In this course, we will explore the potential of rhetorical criticism. You will gain knowledge of rhetorical theory and rhetorical criticism, and you will gain experience... (read more)
St. Augustine once wrote, “I have become a question to myself.” What does it mean to turn my self into a question? And how could I possibly capture this self in words? Students in this section of 108 World Literature will look at three Renaissance authors—Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Petrarch—who... (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)
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Captivity Narrative was the earliest popular genre in American literature, in the seventeenth century. Its roots go back to the Old Testament stories of Moses, Daniel and Jonah, and these archetypes have influenced centuries of confrontations between people of different faiths and cultures, and... (read more)
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Captivity Narrative was the earliest popular genre in American literature, in the seventeenth century. Its roots go back to the Old Testament stories of Moses, Daniel and Jonah, and these archetypes have influenced centuries of confrontations between people of different faiths and cultures, and... (read more)
This course studies works of film and media as representational objects that engage with communities identified ... (read more)
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People respond to movies in different ways, and there are many reasons for this. We have all stood in the lobby of a theater and heard conflicting opinions from people who have just seen the same film. Some loved it, some hated it, some found it just OK. Disagreements, however, can reveal a... (read more)
People respond to movies in different ways, and there are many reasons for this. We have all stood in the lobby of a theater and heard conflicting opinions from people who have just seen the same film. Some loved it, some hated it, some found it just OK. Disagreements, however, can reveal a... (read more)
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“This is who we are, Mama. Real women.” This declaration made by America Ferrera’s character Ana in the 2002 coming-of-age film Real Women Have Curves marks a powerful turning point for Ana as she stands up for all women who have been made to feel ashamed for their bodies, their choices, their... (read more)
This course studies works of film and media as representational objects that engage with communities identified by intersectional categories including sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nation, class, and ability. It considers historical and contemporary effects of prejudice, intolerance,... (read more)
Escape! Whether we’re reading for pleasure or entertainment, the novel has been a means of escape for readers: an escape from reality, from the anxieties or doldrums of everyday life and into other lives and worlds. For nineteenth-century American readers who craved a fictional escape,... (read more)
After the end of the world
after death
I found myself in the midst of life
creating myself
building life
--“In the Midst of Life,” Tadeusz Rózewicz
After the cataclysm of WWII, the old order was beginning to crumble. In this aftermath, many artists viewed the... (read more)
This course studies works of film and media as representational objects that engage with communities identified by intersectional categories including sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nation, class, and ability. It considers historical and contemporary effects of prejudice, intolerance,... (read more)
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This course provides an introduction to the analysis of form and style in cinema and related media, focusing on narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. This course aims to develop your media literacy by providing you with a precise set of critical tools for analyzing moving... (read more)
This course is designed to provide students with the equipment they need to understand the theory and practice of public speaking as a... (read more)
Though signifying idealized notions of love in popular parlance, romance is about more than the transcendent power and emotional magic... (read more)
Students’ Rights to their Own Sentences
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Do we read literature differently when we read for the environment? How are environmental issues connected to colonialism, gender,... (read more)
This course surveys African American literature from its origins to the present. We will read a wide... (read more)
This course explores the fundamentals of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and... (read more)
This course explores the fundamentals of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and... (read more)
Travel, or the journey, is often conceptualized in relation to home as the point of departure and return: in Homer’s Odyssey,... (read more)
BS, Fake News, and Argumentation
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This course introduces students to critical thinking about the aesthetic, historical and economic factors influencing film, media, and... (read more)
ENG 399 Writing Associates Development is a variable-credit, hybrid, companion course designed to support tutors in ENG 404 ... (read more)
What happens to literature when text moves from page to screen? This online course invites students of all majors and levels of... (read more)
How can artists ethically represent war? Are certain media predisposed to certain kinds of narratives and interpretations of war? Do... (read more)
Wherever slavery existed, there were those who resisted it, many of whom paid with their lives. This course examines the literature of... (read more)
Emphasis on form, function, and style of scientific, professional, and technical writing; weekly writing assignments include proposals, reports, definitions, instructions, summaries. Use of documentation in publication.
(read more)Emphasis on form, function, and style of scientific, professional, and technical writing; weekly writing assignments include proposals, reports, definitions, instructions, summaries. Use of documentation in publication.
(read more)Practice in writing and analyzing internal and external messages common to business, industry, and professions. Suggested for business... (read more)
An introduction to contemporary folklore studies, with emphasis on the meanings of stories, rituals, festivals, body art, subcultures,... (read more)
Examines the research questions and theoretical models used by folklorists and other scholars in the study of vernacular religion and... (read more)
Fantasy and Violence will examine the role of violence in literature of the fantastic with special attention to the problems violence... (read more)
This course is an introduction to the genre of comedy. It surveys examples of comedy across a long historical range—from classical... (read more)
Shakespeare’s Extremities... (read more)
This course introduces students to some of the major works, authors, and themes of Asian American literature, a diverse body of writing... (read more)
The prolific White Earth Ojibwe writer Gerald Vizenor conceptualizes the cultural work of Indigenous literatures as “survivance,”... (read more)
This course provides an introduction to the analysis of comics and graphic narratives in terms of their poetics, genres, forms, history... (read more)
This course is designed to introduce students to some important theories and practices of literary and cultural criticism. My goals for... (read more)
Bovilsky, Lara; Peppis, Paul; Saunders, Ben
ENG 304 addresses the following questions: What is a context? How do texts and history interact? We will... (read more)
Hallucinations, Prophecies, and the Supernatural. Working from the 19th century to the present, this course will consider African... (read more)
One could say that most comics are about the human body, in all its variations, exaggerations, erotics, poses, powers, and... (read more)
This course presents a survey of American novels in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will cover a variety of styles and... (read more)
“Things Fall Apart”: Revolution, Reaction and Renewal in Early Twentieth Century Culture (1895-1945)... (read more)
Cinema and Ireland
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This course addresses the relationship between narrative and cartography. The course engages two perspectives on this topic, as... (read more)
ENG 427 invites students to engage selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Texts will include the more familiar comedic... (read more)
OEII reviews and builds on the grammatical foundations learned in OEI and adds to students’ knowledge of early English literature and... (read more)
This interdisciplinary course looks at how ideas of nature and the natural world shape early modern understandings of the Americas.... (read more)
According to Wendell Berry, “You don’t know who you are until you know where you are.” Yet, as we know from the fierce... (read more)
There is perhaps no image more widely recognized yet more grossly misunderstood in American popular culture than the “Indian.”... (read more)
Rhetoric has been characterized as a power to lead the soul, the universal form of communication, the art of persuasion, the way we... (read more)
What happens when digital tools and literature meet? What can the “digital turn” in literary studies help us to understand about... (read more)
This course focuses on fictional constructions of nation in British novels of the nineteenth century. In an era embracing massive... (read more)
This discussion section is a space to practice the methodologies you will be learning throughout the ENG 304 lecture sessions. We will use our weekly meetings to review and cement the concepts introduced... (read more)
This discussion section supplements your lectures with opportunities for direct participation in the form of... (read more)
This discussion section supplements your lectures with opportunities for direct participation in the form of questions, comments, and conversation with classmates. Our discussions will be most... (read more)
Practice in writing and analyzing internal and external messages common to business, industry, and professions. Suggested for business... (read more)
What makes a poem modern or a poet a modernist? The history of modern poetry, like that of any literary period, is a ... (read more)
War, Peace, and Hospitality in Ancient Poetry and Prose
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This course is an introduction to film and media studies and various methods of critical analysis. In this course, we will see that... (read more)
Listening rigorously and deeply, inquiring into issues and topics of importance to our communities, and speaking effectively are key elements that assist our... (read more)
This course will introduce students to the genre of testimonial literary discourse, or testimonio: an authentic narrative, told... (read more)
This course is a survey of literature by African American authors from the 19th century into the present. We will read texts from a range of genres... (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... (read more)
In 1968, Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for American literature. The award signaled for many the “... (read more)
Though the slave narrative genre reached its peak in the mid-19... (read more)
This course examines the pithy praise appearing on book jackets and other product packaging. Blurbs are quick descriptions. They... (read more)
This class explores depictions of the environment in literature with a particular emphasis on contemporary U.S. fiction and non-fiction. By attending to the... (read more)