Academic Catalog

English (ENGL)

ENGL 100 College Writing I3 cr

Explores the writing process, providing practical strategies and techniques. Emphasis is on constructing texts with attention to various levels of organization and development.

ENGL 150 College Writing II3 cr

Emphasizes college-level writing, reading, research and revision practices necessary for 21st century academic and civic engagement. Teaches students to use a variety of genres, rhetorical techniques, and sources of evidence to reach academic and civic audiences.

Prerequisite: ENGL 100  
Attributes: Critical Reading, Thinking, Writing (CWR)  
ENGL 151 Fundamentals of Literary Studies I: Reading and Imagination3 cr

Introduces students to the imaginative potentials of reading as a practice that transforms our understanding of the world. Students will learn the fundamental skills associated with the study of literature across multiple genres and from various cultural traditions, with attention paid to how the close reading of a text informs the creative act of interpretation.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
ENGL 151H Honors: Fundamentals of Literary Studies I: Reading and Imagination3 cr

Introduces students to the imaginative potentials of reading as a practice that transforms our understanding of the world. Students will learn the fundamental skills associated with the study of literature across multiple genres and from various cultural traditions, with attention paid to how the close reading of a text informs the creative act of interpretation.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA), Honors Program (HONR)  
ENGL 152 Fundamentals of Literary Studies II: Interpretation and Methods3 cr

Introduces first-year students to the rigors of academic research through a scaffolded research project and the exploration of multiple theoretical frameworks applied to literature, films, and other cultural texts. Students will explore critical frameworks related to a centralized theme (e.g. Explorations of Elegy, Nordic Noir).

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
ENGL 153 Introduction to Visual Culture3 cr

Explores how our encounters with images profoundly impact our experiences of the world. Through an examination of diverse modes of visual expression, this course introduces students to key concepts of visual culture, including the social dynamics of representation, power structures of looking, and phenomena of spectacle.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
ENGL 153H Honors: Introduction to Visual Culture3 cr

Explores how our encounters with images profoundly impact our experiences of the world. Through an examination of diverse modes of visual expression, this course introduces students to key concepts of visual culture, including the social dynamics of representation, power structures of looking, and phenomena of spectacle.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA), Honors Program (HONR)  
ENGL 202 Writing Identities3 cr

Explores in theory and practice how writers critically and creatively illuminate questions of identity and power through the lens of personal experience. By engaging with personal essays written by a diversity of authors, students will discover voices they've never encountered, or that they never knew they had, opening up space for rhetorical engagement across difference. Students will leave the course with a critical understanding of who they are as writers and audience members.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
ENGL 208 Experiments in Creative Writing3 cr

Introduces students to a range of creative writing techniques and practices inspired by various literary movements and contemporary writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds. Working across multiple genres (fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry) our goal is not to perfect stable pieces but to expand the possibilities for writing, by experimenting with formal conditions, styles and language games.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
ENGL 209 Writing and the Visual3 cr

Explores the relationship between writing and visual media at the introductory level. Through a variety of writerly modes and genres, students will engage directly in imaginative acts of interpretation and translation of visual texts from historical and/or contemporary eras. Visual texts including painting, sculpture, photography, film, graphic art, installation art, and new digital media may serve as occasions for creative writing experimentation.

ENGL 210 Essentials of Film3 cr

Focuses on film interpretation by emphasizing elements such as light, sound, composition, camera movement, acting, and direction. Initiates students into developments in film history, film genre and film theory.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
ENGL 216 Coming of Age in Literature and Film3 cr

Investigates the space between characters' identities through close work with film and literature by way of course discussions, group activities, and a range of writing projects. We will focus on texts from the 20th and 21st centuries across cultures to consider why the genre remains in such wide circulation in today's society.

Attributes: Core Self & Society (CSS)  
ENGL 221 Literary Journalism3 cr

Surveys the rich literature of creative nonfiction. Students read and analyze the work of several contemporary literary journalists such as John McPhee, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich and Joseph Mitchell, as well as a sampling of historical authors, such as Daniel DeFoe and Henry David Thoreau. Students identify themes and techniques of literary journalists and how these are similar to or different from fiction writers. They also have an opportunity to practice writing short pieces in this genre.

ENGL 230 Creative Writing: Poetry3 cr

Introduces a structured and supportive environment in which students can develop their skills as poets. Through exposure to a variety of forms and styles of poems by writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds, students will learn to expand their own poetry-writing practices in a hands-on, collaborative setting.

Prerequisite: ENGL 208  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 235 Creative Writing: Fiction3 cr

Introduces potentially lifelong practices for those interested in creating, honing and expanding their fictional experiments. Students will be exposed to a variety of ways they can enrich their writing practice as they study particular forms in fiction writing. There will be many opportunities to share and discuss new work.

Prerequisite: ENGL 208  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 251 Queer Lit3 cr

Explores a vast, messy, intersectional and moving canon of queer literature as it takes up a range of positionalities, politics, styles, and forms. Students will read transhistorically with an eye towards the contemporary - how are queer identities articulated in the latest additions to this always mutable and proliferating canon?

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
Attributes: Child & Family Studies Minor (C&FS), Cross-Cultural and Social Justice (CCSJ), Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 256 African American Literature3 cr

Explores literature produced in the United States with a focus on writing by and about African Americans from the country's inception to the present period. Running throughout this literature, we will see many common features, such as the importance of orality, multiplicity and diversity of subject positions and perspectives (masking, double-consciousness, double-voiced texts), gender roles, sexuality, and concern with social issues.

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
Attributes: Cross-Cultural and Social Justice (CCSJ), Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 257 Global Anglophone Literary Survey3 cr

Analyzes Global Anglophone Literature and Postcolonial theory with a particular focus on writing from and about Africa, the Caribbean, and India. Discussions will center on questions of language, representation, and form. We will explore the various aesthetic strategies and techniques employed by writers to communicate contemporary postcolonial themes, such as neocolonialism, globalization, nationalism, imperialism, feminism, migration, hybridity, and diaspora.

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
Attributes: Cross-Cultural and Social Justice (CCSJ), Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 258 American Literary Survey3 cr

Explores landmark texts in American literature, from the Colonial period to the 21st century, with special attention paid to the politics of canon formation and to the question of how "America" has been conceived and re-conceived over time.

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
ENGL 259 British Literary Survey3 cr

Explores the landmark texts in British literature. Readings may include Beowulf and works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Woolf or Joyce.

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
ENGL 265 Literary Theme3 cr

Utilizes both primary and secondary literary and historical sources to explore ways in which a selected theme continually reappears in literature. Texts are examined, interpreted and evaluated within historical contexts; critical and comparative approaches are used to draw conclusions regarding content and context. The specific theme to be examined will vary and will be identified by subtitle.

Attributes: Core Human Heritage (CHH)  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 270 Literary Genre3 cr

Examines the question of how an author's choice of a single literary mode, genre, or type affects the meanings of a text. May focus on plays, short stories, song lyrics, comedy, romance, novels, myths, or other genres. The specific genre to be examined will vary and will be identified by subtitle.

Attributes: Core Creative Arts (CCA)  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 289 Special Topics in English3 cr

Explores a specific theme or practice in literature, writing, film, or cultural studies. Designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of analysis and/or practice at the 200-level. Content identified by subtitle.

Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 291 Open Up: Community Dialogue Workshop3 cr

A high-impact, community-based learning course that puts students directly in the classroom, leading discussions on important topics, such as race, gender, sexuality, identity, and community. The course centers theoretical and pedagogical discussions grounded in books and articles, such as The New Jim Crow and White Fragility, as well as documentary films, exploring power, society, and identity. Student groups will then develop workshops and partner with local high schools.

Prerequisite: ENGL 151 or ENGL 151H  
ENGL 303 Creative Writing: Prose3 cr

Gives students who have completed their foundational studies additional practice and instruction in writing nonfiction prose. Explores the adaptation of such prose to specific contexts. Individual courses may focus on prose writing in a particular discourse community (e.g., business, science and technology, education), which will be identified by subtitle.

Prerequisite: ENGL 202 or ENGL 230 or ENGL 235  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 308 Writing Associate Workshop3 cr

Journey between Writing Studies theory and hands-on practice, exploring questions of voice, identity, power and rhetorical agency and how to ethically and effectively collaborate with other writers. Students will leave this course with a better understanding of the nuances of academic writing and with the ability to work one-on-one with writers in various contexts, from MCLA's Writing Studio, to their future classrooms, to the publishing industry.

Prerequisite: ENGL 150, instructor approval  
ENGL 315 Constructing the Short Film3 cr

Acquaints students with the various aspects of the film production process through the use of videotape. This course gives students an understanding of the kinds of decisions filmmakers encounter and the kinds of techniques they employ. Activities include preparing detailed shooting scripts, experimenting with photography, light, color, motion, sound and editing, and manipulating both live action and animated materials. Individually or in small groups, students will produce a 10-15 minute film.

ENGL 331 The Story of English3 cr

Examines English as the global language of power from the Anglo-Saxon era to today's digitally-connected world and the ways it has been continually transformed by the diverse racial and ethnic communities who have used it. Students explore English's complexity by engaging with multiple genres across a diversity of research traditions, from creative non-fiction, to historical research, to contemporary scholarship in the fields of Writing Studies, Linguistics, and Comparative Rhetorics.

Prerequisite: ENGL 202 or ENGL 230 or ENGL 235  
ENGL 340 Literature and Society3 cr

Analyzes a range of texts that illuminate significant social issues, integrating literary study with other disciplinary approaches to address themes of contemporary cultural relevance. The specific topic to be examined will vary and will be identified by the course's subtitle.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 341 Hybrid Poetics3 cr

Investigates a range of experimental literary texts that cross, blur, or recombine different modes and genres of writing, in order to invent new forms of expression. Students explore the porous borders between poetry and prose, the creative and the critical, the visual and the verbal, the oral and the written, the factual and the imaginative. In their own writing, students are invited to move between two types of writing, creative and analytical, that are ordinarily kept separate.

Prerequisite: ENGL 202 or ENGL 230 or ENGL 235  
ENGL 341H Honors: Hybrid Poetics3 cr

Investigates a range of experimental literary texts that cross, blur, or recombine different modes and genres of writing, in order to invent new forms of expression. Students explore the porous borders between poetry and prose, the creative and the critical, the visual and the verbal, the oral and the written, the factual and the imaginative. In their own writing, students are invited to move between two types of writing, creative and analytical, that are ordinarily kept separate.

Prerequisite: ENGL 202 or ENGL 230 or ENGL 235  
Attributes: Honors Program (HONR)  
ENGL 349 Critical Reading3 cr

Explores different ways of reading a text. Students use diverse critical methods to consider the distinct understandings of a text produced by different reading methods. Examines connections between developments in critical theory and parallel developments in philosophy, art and film criticism and social theory. A variety of critical methods will be examined.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
ENGL 351 The World of Shakespeare3 cr

Explores the plays of William Shakespeare and the various worlds they imagine, including this one. Discussions and lectures focus on understanding the historical political, and social climates of the Renaissance, as well as their persistent recrudescence. Readings may include Twelfth Night, Othello, and the Tempest.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
ENGL 361 John Steinbeck3 cr

Considers the vision of the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men and Travels with Charley. Examines texts drawn from throughout Steinbeck's career, with special attention to the common themes, preoccupations and narrative devices which characterize his works. Readings will be drawn from such works as Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath and The Winter of Our Discontent.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
ENGL 363 Travel Writing3 cr

Examines a variety of travel literatures across multiple modes and genres - including essay, poetry, memoir and fiction - in order to spur students' own writing and thinking processes about how "traveling" happens, from the local to the global. Students explore not only the personal, ethical and ethnographic dimensions of travel, but will create exploratory texts that move and rove, cross borders, pitch questions and field discoveries in which the reader can participate as traveling companion.

Prerequisite: ENGL 202 or ENGL 230 or ENGL 235  
ENGL 364 MASS MoCA Immersion3 cr

Explores how visual culture encodes race, gender, sexuality, class, ability and other aspects of social life through exhibitions at MASS MoCA. Students will investigate whose vision is reinforced or discarded and what goes seen or unseen in contemporary culture. This course will feature regular visits to the museum and pedagogical engagements with MASS MoCA staff.

Prerequisite: ENGL 153  
ENGL 368 The Age of Milton3 cr

Explores the works of John Milton in relation to the major intellectual and social currents of early modernity. Discussions and lectures focus on analyzing the literary, philosophical, and religious attitudes of the period, as well as their uncanny afterlives in the present. Readings include Lycidas, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
ENGL 368H Honors: The Age of Milton3 cr

Explores the works of John Milton in relation to the major intellectual and social currents of early modernity. Discussions and lectures focus on analyzing the literary, philosophical, and religious attitudes of the period, as well as their uncanny afterlives in the present. Readings include Lycidas, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
Attributes: Honors Program (HONR)  
ENGL 371 The American Renaissance3 cr

Explores the artistic, social, racial, political, and religious dimensions of mid-19th century American culture through in-depth study of literary texts by authors such as Dickinson, Douglass, Whitman, Jacobs, Thoreau, Stowe, Fuller, Melville, Hawthorne.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
Attributes: Environmental Studies (ENVI)  
ENGL 372 Arts of Medieval and Renaissance Britain3 cr

Explores medieval and Renaissance British literature, history and culture. The course includes a spring break travel component. During travel students contextualize literature with the cultural heritage experienced via visual arts architecture, music, theatre, dance, fashion, food, and landscapes and cityscapes of Britain. There are additional fees associated with the travel portion of this course that the student will be responsible for.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152, instructor approval  
Attributes: Additional Fees Apply (FEE)  
ENGL 372H Honors: Arts of Medieval and Renaissance Britain3 cr

Explores medieval and Renaissance British literature, history and culture. The course includes a spring break travel component. During travel students contextualize literature with the cultural heritage experienced via visual arts architecture, music, theatre, dance, fashion, food, and landscapes and cityscapes of Britain. There are additional fees associated with the travel portion of this course that the student will be responsible for.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152, instructor approval  
Attributes: Additional Fees Apply (FEE), Honors Program (HONR)  
ENGL 388 Visions and Voices: American Ethnic Literature and Art3 cr

Explores a range of works (fiction, poetry, memoir, photography, music, painting) from American ethnic writers and artists of the twentieth-century and beyond. This course critically examines the cross-section of ethnicity and creative expression as it applies to questions of American identity. Topics include systemic oppression, nationhood, immigration, marginalization, intersectionality, cultural hybridity, intergenerational trauma and survival, border crossing, and heritage.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
Attributes: Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 393 Faulkner and the Global South3 cr

Explores the reciprocal resonances between the writing of white southern modernist, William Faulkner, and the diverse literatures coming out of the Global South. Examines the ways in which Global South writers use experimental poetics to continue Faulkner's project and tell the stories of colonialism from the neocolonial present.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152  
ENGL 394 Film and the Creative Writer3 cr

Explores the forms, ideas, and innovations of filmmakers as inspiration for creative writing. How might cinematic styles and grammars provoke, enchant or inform your own writing experiments? How might contemporary writers use films and filmmaking to inspire pieces in a range of modes: autobiography, fanfic, social commentary, homage - in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students will be assigned to write creatively in this course.

Prerequisite: ENGL 209 or ENGL 210  
ENGL 397 Special Topics in Film3 cr

Studies in-depth a specific issue in film and filmmaking linked by one or more common contexts, such as genre and subject matter, or historical, social, economic, philosophical or aesthetic concerns. Students will practice using evidence from those contexts to produce close, critical readings of films that reflect both an understanding of the context and an understanding of the visual and auditory languages of film. A filmmaking component may be incorporated. Content identified by subtitle.

Prerequisite: ENGL 210  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 399 Junior Colloquium3 cr

Offers in-depth explorations of a topic or question that requires interdisciplinary inquiry and research, culminating in a colloquium that presents student research projects to broader publics. Content will be identified by subtitle.

ENGL 402 Special Topics in Visual Culture3 cr

Explores a specialized topic of visual culture. Students will critically examine how images generate meaning and communicate complex ideas through an interdisciplinary and experiential approach. Content identified by subtitle.

Prerequisite: ENGL 153 and junior status  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 405 Creativity and Survival3 cr

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152 and junior status  
Attributes: Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 405H Honors: Creativity and Survival3 cr

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Prerequisite: ENGL 152 and junior status  
Attributes: Honors Program (HONR), Women Gender Sexuality Studies (WMST)  
ENGL 410 Special Topics in Creative Writing3 cr

Explores new forms, genres, and approaches to the craft of creative writing for advanced students looking to further their creative and critical artistic practices. Content identified by subtitle. Primarily for majors in the junior and senior year.

Prerequisite: Junior/senior status  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 412 Films and Filmmakers3 cr

Studies in depth a number of films by one or a cluster of filmmaking professionals. The professionals may include directors, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, producers or others. Guides students in understanding the aesthetic, technical, economic and other concerns of various film professionals, leading students to analyze and appreciate a filmmaker's body of work. A student filmmaking component may be incorporated dependent on instructor.

Prerequisite: ENGL 210 and junior status  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 430 Advanced Poetry Workshop3 cr

Offers a structured and supportive environment in which students will deepen their poetry-writing practice. Through exposure to a variety of forms and styles by writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds, students will work toward a short manuscript of related poems by semester's end.

Prerequisite: ENGL 230 and junior status  
ENGL 435 Advanced Fiction Workshop3 cr

Initiates a workshop space in which advanced students in creative writing may share and critique new writing, study a variety of forms, and challenge the limits of their own practice.

Prerequisite: ENGL 235 and junior status  
ENGL 441 Special Topics in Literature3 cr

Studies in depth a specific aspect of literature. Designed to provide advanced work in literary analysis, interpretation and research. Primarily for majors in the junior and senior year. Content identified by subtitle.

Prerequisite: ENGL152  
Repeatable: Unlimited Credits  
ENGL 490 Senior Seminar3 cr

Explores in both theory and practice how texts shape meaning in today's complex world. After examining various critical approaches and methods, students will craft a sustained, inquiry-based critical and/or creative project. They will use this project to reflect on how they have developed as knowledge-makers, storytellers and creators since they joined the department and how these abilities might transfer meaningfully to future situations.

Prerequisite: ENGL 399, junior/senior status, ENGL or COMM Major  
Repeatable: Maximum of 6 credits  
ENGL 493 Teaching Assistantship in English1-6 cr

Assists the instructor with the organization, implementation and assessment of individual English/Communications courses.

Prerequisite: Department approval  
Repeatable: Maximum of 6 credits  
ENGL 500 Independent Study1-3 cr

Open to juniors and seniors who wish to read in a given area or to study a topic in depth. Written reports and frequent conferences with the advisor are required.

Prerequisite: Junior/senior status, department approval  
Repeatable: Maximum of 12 credits  
ENGL 540 Internship in English1-15 cr

Provides a practical, hands-on field experience to supplement classroom courses. The student works with an on-campus faculty advisor and usually with an on-site supervisor, and the two jointly evaluate the student's work.

Prerequisite: Junior/senior standing, department approval  
Repeatable: Maximum of 15 credits