Courses

1222 Fall 2021-22 Course Descriptions

In addition, information about the undergraduate catalogue for English courses can be found in MyCourseGuide (NetID log-in required). Non-UW students can contact the Undergraduate Advisor for information about courses.

Please note Definition of Different Types of Modality, for the purposes of this document:

In-person: has some in-person meeting times
Remote Synchronous: Entirely remote. Students are expected to participate in online lectures, discussions, labs or activities synchronously during scheduled meeting times.
Remote Asynchronous: Entirely remote. Students are engaging regularly every week with the instructor, course content, activities, assignments, etc. but are not required to meet with the class synchronously in a scheduled meeting-time pattern.
Please be sure to check the class notes in the Course Search and Enroll application for additional information.

100: Intro to College Composition
TA taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: Students required to take the MSN ESLAT cannot enroll until the ESL 118 requirement is satisfied

English 100 is an introduction to college composition that begins to prepare students for the demands of writing in the university and for a variety of contexts beyond the classroom. Students will compose several shorter and longer essays totaling 25-30 pages of revised writing, develop critical reading and thinking skills and information literacy, and practice oral communication.

120: Introduction to Theatre and Dramatic Literature
Mary Trotter
MW 12:05pm-12:55pm Room Pending
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama

An introduction to theatre and dramatic literature, considering classical, modern and contemporary texts, genres and styles.

140: Comm B Topics in English Literature
Topic: The Figure of the Outsider: Writing from the Margins
Anja Jovic-Humphrey
TR 12:05pm-12:55pm Room Pending

Jack Kerouac and his friends go on road trips across America, crossing each other’s paths and making the continent seem small at the time when there are no cell phones to help them stay in touch. Sylvia Plath’s character Esther Greenwood wonders whether she is unwomanly because she is not sure whether she wants to get married and have a baby. Ralph Ellison’s narrator addresses us from a basement, saying: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

In this course, we will look at various kinds of outsiders, nonconformists, and “marginal” characters in the broad sense of the term. When does sanity turn into madness? How can race, gender, or ethnicity make us “invisible” – or too visible? To which extent is conformity a positive force, and to which extent it can stifle our sense of self?

We will examine the nature of sanity/madness, gender, race, ethnicity, and lifestyle, and try to understand what and why the society at large labels as “normal” or “abnormal.”

144: Women’s Writing
Topic: TBA
Jennifer Plants
M 4:00pm-6:30pm Room Pending

Course Catalog Description: An introduction to literature in English written by women in various periods and places; specific topics will vary.

150: Literature & Culture of Asian America
Timothy Yu
TR 1:20pm-2:10pm Room Pending
Cross-Listed with Asian American Studies

Since the 19th century, “America” has often been defined by its relationship with “Asia,” through cultural influence, immigration, imperialism, and war. This course traces the role of Asia and Asians in American literature and culture, from the Chinese and Japanese cultural influences that helped shape literary modernism to the rise of a distinctive culture produced by Asian immigrants to America and their descendants.

English/Asian American Studies 462: Asian Americans and Science Fiction
(Asian American Studies is primary on this one so I don’t know if you’ll be able to access it.)

Is the future Asian? From Jack London’s visions of the yellow peril to Blade Runner’s 1980s “techno-orientalism,” we’ll see how American science fiction projects its fantasies and fears about the future onto Asia. We’ll also see how Asian American writers like Charles Yu, Cynthia Kadohata, and Ken Liu have responded.

153.001: Literature and the Environment
Topic: Calling Planet Earth: Our Planetary Environment
Frederic Neyrat
MW 11:00am-11:50am Room Pending
Cross-Listed with Environmental Studies

The goal of his course is to reveal that planet Earth is both a global ecosystem in which nature and technologies are entangled and a cosmological entity belonging to our solar system. Drawing on literature, music, cinema, philosophy, science, and anthropology, this class investigates the crucial issues of our terrestrial condition.

155-Myth & Literature
Topic: Classical Myth and Modern Literature
Ronald Harris
MWF 1:20-2:10pm Pending Room
Reserved for FIG students

At its core, history is a collection of ancient stories with themes that often appear over and over again. It’s no wonder, then, that ancient myths find their way into modern lives every day. So, a central question explored by this FIG is: How do myths find their ways into our lives—into our poetry, our literature, our popular culture? To answer this question, we will dive into studies of classical literature as well as contemporary artistic and literary adaptations to examine the continuing presence of myth in society today.
We will investigate puzzles: How do the lost fragments of an ancient Greek poem travel from archeologists, to translators, to us, speaking across time of love and desire? And these questions lead to other explorations:

What do our campus tall-tales tell us about UW–Madison’s history and values?
When we enter into these stories through creative retelling, how do we become a more integral part of our campus?
What do the stories of diverse American traditions—the Gullah people of South Carolina, whose language resonates with African rhythms—tell us about how African storytelling traditions connect to the Br’er Rabbit stories of the American South?
And what is the Mississippi Blues music tradition doing in an American Indian novel from the Pacific Northwest?

The main seminar in this FIG, English 155: “Classical Myth and Modern Literature,” explores ways that modern American culture interprets, adopts, and adapts classical myth in order to address contemporary social, aesthetic, and political concerns. Each course in the FIG deals primarily with the classical worlds of Greece and Rome, but by tracing these adaptations and the transmission of stories from one culture, time, and place to another, you will also study other ancient civilizations from the Middle East, Africa, and Native America. The historical, archaeological, and literary approaches to the legacy of the classical world will take you out of the classroom, to the museum, the library, the laboratory, and the green spaces across campus—each with its own story to tell.

156.001: Literature and Medicine
Topic: The Art of Healing
Colin Gillis
T 6:00-8:30pm Room Pending

Course Guide Description: Exploration of literature as both a source of knowledge about medicine and as a catalyst for reflection about medical concepts and practices, including health, illness, dying, and disability. Students will consider ways that literature can serve as a resource for patients and healthcare practitioners.

162: Shakespeare
Joshua Calhoun
TR 11:00-11:50am Room Pending

Why Shakespeare? is an entry-level, large-lecture course designed to introduce students from a variety of social, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds to Shakespearean literature. In the course, we’ll also try to better understand Shakespeare’s enduring prominence in literature and culture. Is he really that good? Does our ongoing fascination with Shakespeare say more about his writing or about us, about our preferences, about our values?

In the first unit, we will read selections from Romeo & Juliet, then move through a comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), a tragedy (Macbeth), and a history play (Henry IV, Part One). This first unit will focus on “Form & Function” as we seek to better understand the language of Shakespeare’s plays and poems and how that language works on the page and on stage.
Our second unit, “Lives & Afterlives,” considers two of Shakespeare’s most well-known and often-performed plays: Hamlet and The Tempest. Reading these plays, we’ll explore Shakespeare’s unique staying power in the popular imagination.

Assessments include three writing assignments, memorization of one sonnet, and a midterm exam. If we succeed as a class, students will end the semester with a working understanding of Shakespearean language and themes that appear everywhere in literature and media (including graphic novels, film, music, children’s literature, etc.).

172: Literatures of Native America
Susan Dominguez
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Cross-Listed with American Indian Studies

Introduction to the oral and written literatures of the peoples of native North America. Students will engage texts across historical periods, tribal groups and regions, within genres such as creation stories, oratory, testimony, autobiography, poetry, short story, graphics, film, and novels.

174.001: Literature and Social Justice
Topic: Protest Literature
Sarah Wood
MW 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Reserved for FIG students

This course will consider protest literature in the United States from the last few years. How do writers respond to the social and political issues of their time? You will read mostly poetry and short stories while we explore the rhetorical and literary strategies of the authors. We will read mostly from brand new anthologies published within the last three years so that we can hear what poets are saying in response to our particular historical moment. We will read selections from anthologies such as Who Will Speak for America?, Go Home!, New Native Poets, Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America, Women of Resistance, and Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems for Now. You will be expected to answer pre-class prompts in your analysis journal, participate daily. Assignments will include short writing assignments and creative projects such as a commonplace book and final project of your own design.

174.002: Literature and Social Justice
Topic: Staging Environmental Justice
Jennifer Plants
MW 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending

From toxic drinking water and floods to rising temperatures and raging wildfires, environmental risks rarely come with a choice to opt out. This course will focus on how theatre and performance are used as tools in the struggle for environmental justice. What can we learn from Shakespeare and Lin-Manuel Miranda when we examine how their work relates to the natural world? Can a play about Hurricane Katrina do anything to protect those vulnerable to flooding in the future? Can you write a play about climate change or is it too big for the scale of the stage? Course texts will include plays, multi-media performances, and environmental criticism, supplemented by guest artists and mini-field trips.

174.003: Literature and Social Justice
Topic: Law and Literature
Ralph Grunewald
MW 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Reserved for FIG students

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Law and Literature. In the first part, we will address “Law in Literature,” the field that focuses on the depiction and reflection of law and legal questions in works of literature as a way to understand law in its social, philosophical, and cultural context. Literary texts often address ideas of law and justice outside technical and doctrinal paradigms.

We will then look at “Law as Literature,” the area that examines legal writings through the lens of literary analysis. We will explore the semantic, linguistic, and narrative similarities and differences between law and literature, and how, for example, the literary analysis of the “story” that underlies a criminal case contribute to a more refined understanding of the law and justice. As we will discuss, a “literary” analysis introduces a different perspective revealing insights about the law that are not immediately obvious to the eyes of a lawyer.

The main objective of this course is to develop an understanding of how much the disciplines of law and literature can benefit from each other. I will demonstrate that law is subject to human, social, and literary construction—not only in a theoretical sense but also in actual cases. The assigned readings are chosen from the canon of works on law and literature. They are all connected by themes which invite comparisons on many levels.

This class does not require any background in law or legal studies. Legal themes and ideas will be explained in class.

175: Literature and the Other Disciplines
Topic: Laboring for Revolution: An Introduction to the Life, Thought, and Legacy of Karl Marx
Joseph Bowling
TR 1:00-2:15pm Pending Room
Reserved for FIG students
Honors Optional (%)

The nineteenth-century German philosopher Karl Marx is among the most referenced yet least understood thinkers. This FIG introduces students to Marx and his writings by reading selections of his most important works, by situating those works in their historical context, and by tracing the legacy of those works in the revolutions of the twentieth century. This course will be organized around the key ideas Marx developed across his life: alienation, historical materialism, and capitalist production. We will read and discuss Marx in seminar-style meetings in which students will be expected to actively contribute. Students will also complete regular informal writing assignments, present and lead discussion on an excerpt from Marx’s writings, and write a research paper. The goal of the course is to train students in the careful analytical practices required to apprehend and develop a nuanced understanding of Marx’s philosophy. To aid in our study, we will turn to works of literature and film, putting into practice Marx’s method of critique, in order to elucidate the difficulties of his thought. Throughout, we’ll consider the relevance of Marx to our present moment.

176: Topics in Literature and Film
Topic: Literature and the Cinematic Imagination
Joseph Bowling
TR 9:55-10:45am Pending Room

In this class, we will study the basics of film form and analysis, specifically cinematograph and mis-en-scène. We will then compare the principles of visual analysis to literature, reflecting on the shared principles of film and literary form, in order to become more critical audiences of both media.

177.001: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: Literary Bollywood: Film and Fiction in India
Aparna Dharwadker
R 2:30-5:30pm Pending Room

The Indian cinema industry has been a popular culture phenomenon since the arrival of talking films in 1931, with a vast audience in the subcontinent, and a loyal following in unexpected venues like Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. More recently, the invention of “Bollywood” as a concept has turned popular Indian (mainly Hindi) cinema into a fully global brand, associated with youthful romance, glitzy international settings, extravagant music-and-dance numbers, stunning costumes, and ostentatious displays of wealth. Consumed on a large scale by the 20-million strong Indian diaspora as well as viewers around the world, Bollywood films appear oddly at variance with India’s very real profile as a developing nation with high levels of poverty and illiteracy, critical problems of overpopulation, and glaring social inequalities.

The purpose of this course is to provide a more complex view of film as a popular-cultural medium in twentieth- and twenty-first century India, and to explore its specific connections to literature (mainly novels and short stories by major modern writers).

177.002: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: TBA
Sara Guyer
TR 9:30-10:45am Pending Room

Course Catalog Description: A selected topic studying the intersection of literature and popular culture in various forms and media.

177.003: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: Beowulf to Tolkien: The Medieval as Modern Fantasy
Martin Foys
TR 8:50-9:40am Pending Room

This class will first explore Beowulf, the Old English epic poem of heroes, feuds and monsters, using Tolkien’s own modern translation and others. We will also study the legacy of Beowulf today, through comic book, film and video game adaptations, as well as some other examples of medieval literature that inspired Tolkien.

We will then study the rise of modern fantasy through Tolkien’s own theories of fantasy, looking at material such as proto-fantasy (Grimm’s Fairy Tales), Victorian fantasy (Alice in Wonderland), the fantasy of Tolkien and his time, (The Hobbit, Narnia Chronicles, Conan the Barbarian), before ending with thinking about the state of popular fantasy today in books, film and television (Peter Jackson’s films, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series) finishing with studies of N.K Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf. During the course, we will tie our explorations to culturally relevant issues of past and present including: nationalism, the power of religion, effects of media and technology, social constructions of race, racism and gender, the nostalgic production of the past, and the transformative nature of language.

Please note: In the purchase of your textbooks, you are invited to consider ordering them from Semicolon Bookstore (https://www.semicolonchi.com/), the closest black-owned bookstore to Madison

177.004: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: Audiotopia: Reading Race and Music
Yanie Fecu
TR 2:30-3:45pm Pending Room
Reserved for FIG students

This course is an introduction to global black literature and music that focuses on links between the U.S. and the Caribbean. From Beyoncé and Jamaica Kincaid to Kanye West and Paule Marshall, students will analyze novels, poetry, music videos, films, and documentaries alongside different musical traditions. The seminar will highlight key historical moments like the Harlem Renaissance as well as more recent events, like rapper Kendrick Lamar’s historic Pulitzer Prize win. We will consider questions such as:

How can literature and music capture the lived experience of marginalized people?
How do authors explore the social and political impact of black music?
How can we understand the relationship between fans and musical artists?

Ultimately, this FIG will enable students to think critically about narratives that present black American culture as a monolith and instead recognize the diversity of African diasporic experience.

178: Digital Media, Literature, and Culture
Topic: Human Memory, Big Data, and the Digital Age
Mark Vareschi
TR 9:30-10:45pm Room Pending
Reserved for FIG students
Honors Optional (%)

The course will begin by considering the relationship between memory and human identity. In many ways, we are who we are because we remember who we are day to day.

However, human memory is fragile. We forget things; we misremember events.

By contrast, any and all online activity leaves a trace that can be collected to form a version of the user. This version is not identical to the human user and yet is often a frighteningly accurate image of the user whose behaviors may be tracked and predicted.

Importantly, this digital version of the user is produced by a form of memory (or more precisely a storage of information) that does not forget. You may not remember “liking” that photo on Instagram at 3 am, but Instagram does. Note: This course is only open to first-year students.

181: First-Year Honors Seminar
Topic: Beowulf to Tolkien: The Medieval as Modern Fantasy
Martin Foys
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: First Year students only and declared in Honors program

NOTE: you are not permitted to enroll in this course if you are taking/have taken the large lecture version (ENGL 177) of this course.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series were the books that launched the modern fantasy genre. But Tolkien was also a brilliant Oxford scholar of medieval literature, and used medieval literature like Beowulf as the foundation for all of his fantasy creations. And now, the neo-medieval model of fantasy Tolkien and others established is now changing in response to contemporary social issues such as environmental change, gender equality, and racial equality.

This class will first explore Beowulf, the Old English epic poem of heroes, feuds and monsters, using Tolkien’s own modern translation and others. We will also study the legacy of Beowulf today, through comic book, film and video game adaptations, as well as some other examples of medieval literature that inspired Tolkien.

We will then study the rise of modern fantasy through Tolkien’s own theories of fantasy, looking at material such as proto-fantasy (Grimm’s Fairy Tales), Victorian fantasy (Alice in Wonderland), the fantasy of Tolkien and his time, (The Hobbit, Narnia Chronicles, Conan the Barbarian), before ending with thinking about the state of popular fantasy today in books, film and television (Peter Jackson’s films, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series) finishing with studies of N.K Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf. During the course, we will tie our explorations to culturally relevant issues of past and present including: nationalism, the power of religion, effects of media and technology, social constructions of race, racism and gender, the nostalgic production of the past, and the transformative nature of language.

In addition to papers and exams, students will do a series of in-class presentations on individual materials.

Please note: In the purchase of your textbooks, you are invited to consider ordering them from Semicolon Bookstore (https://www.semicolonchi.com/), the closest black-owned bookstore to Madison

182.001: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: Doing Time: Race, Labor, and Incarceration in America
Ingrid Diran
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Declared in honors program

In the eighteenth century, the phrase “doing time” came to apply for the first time to both work and crime as both became measurable in terms of duration. Prison, once understood as a place to hold prisoners before public flogging, became the private space of punishment itself, while labor, once understood as a skill or craft, became a shift. In this class, we will examine how the idea of “doing time” has shaped and been shaped by, two aspects of American history: race (especially in relation the current regime of mass incarceration and policing) and literature (especially the time represented in the novel). In so doing, we will explore how “doing time has changed and charged the political, social, racial and aesthetic field from the revolutionary era to the present.

182.002: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: TBA
Vinay Dharwadker
MW 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Declared in honors program

This course will use the seminar format, combining open discussion with short lectures, student presentations, and other classroom activities. Our main goal will be to familiarize ourselves with representative works of literature in the genres of poetry, fiction (short story and novel), drama, and non-fictional prose. We will sample authors and works from British and American literatures (such as William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison), as well as classics from Anglophone and world literatures (with a few texts in English translation). Our supplementary goal will be to develop our skills in literary criticism, methods of literary analysis, and critical thinking and writing, using works by men as well as women writers.

201: Intermediate Composition
TA taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereq: Satisfied Communications A requirement and sophomore standing; not open to special students

English 201 is a small, topic-driven writing course that fulfills part B of the University’s Communication requirement. Sections of 201 offer hands-on practice with writing and revision, building on skills developed in earlier writing courses and providing new opportunities for students to grow as writers. Though topics vary by section and semester, this class consistently provides experience writing in multiple genres and for diverse audiences.

207: Introduction to Creative Writing
TA taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: First Year, freshman or sophomore standing only
Satisfies a Comm B requirement

In this course, students are taught the fundamental elements of craft in both fiction (plot, point of view, dialogue, and setting, etc.) and poetry (the image, the line, sound and meter, etc.). This class is taught as a workshop, which means class discussion will focus on both craft (published stories, poems, and essays) and, perhaps more importantly, the fiction and poetry written by each student. That is, the student writing becomes the text, and the instructor leads a sympathetic, but critical, discussion of the particular work at hand. Students should expect to read and comment on two or three published works per week as well as the work of their peers.

214: The English Language
Anja Wanner
MW 12:05-12:55pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This class is intended for anyone who wants to learn how English works as a language – in different situations, different communities, and across different modes of expression. Students will acquire skills in linguistics and will use them to understand the structure, uses, varieties, styles, and history of the English language.

223: Vladimir Nabokov: Russian & American Writings
S. A. Karpukhin
MWF 11:00-11:50am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with Literature in Translation
Honors Optional (%)

The major novels of Vladimir Nabokov studied in the context of literary and social history in Russia, Western Europe, and the US. Nabokov as a quintessential 20th-century artist for whom art brings relief from loss of home, change of language, and mortality itself.

241: Literature and Culture 1: to the 18th Century
Lisa Cooper
MW 2:25-3:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Not open to students who took ENGL 215 prior to Fall 2014

What is a person, a home, a nation, a world? What we now call “English literature” begins with these questions, imagining a cosmos filled with gods and heroes, liars and thieves, angels and demons, dragons and dungeons, whores and witches, drunken stupor and religious ecstasy. Authors crafted answers to these questions using technologies of writing from parchment to the printing press, and genres old and new, from epic and romance to drama and the sonnet. Emphasis will be on developing the skills of close reading, critical analysis, and writing that are of use for majors and non-majors alike, and on thinking about what it means to participate in a community (or several communities) of readers. And especially in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic, we will think as well about the consolations (and disappointments) of literature. What does premodern literature, in particular, offer us as we consider—perhaps more sharply than many of us have before—what it means to be human on the shared space of the earth? About what it means to live? About what it means to die? What do works written at such a chronological distance from us teach us about what it means to care, in all the potential meanings of that word?

242: Literature and Culture II: from the 18th Century to the Present
Topic: Literature in Perspective
Mario Ortiz-Robles
TR 9:55-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Not open to students who took ENGL 216 prior to Fall 2014

This course is organized around one simple but very important aspect of literature: its ability to make us see the world from different points of view. In some sense, all literature is an exercise in perspective since it is written by different people living in different places in different time periods, but the texts we will be reading in this class are self-conscious explorations of how we represent the world to ourselves in order to make sense of our place within it and to imagine how it might be otherwise. We will be reading classic works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, R. L. Stevenson, William Faulkner, Jamaica Kincaid, and J. M. Coetzee. In reading and writing about literary perspective, we will also be endeavoring to learn something about what it means to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

243: Twenty first Century Classics
Russ Castronovo
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course pairs winners of the National Book Award for fiction with Oscar winners for Best Picture. Our time frame will be literature and film since the year 2000. Authors include Charles Yu, Louise Erdrich, Susan Sontag, Colson Whitehead, and others. We will also read critical texts related to climate change, disability, surveillance, and social justice.

245.001: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Writing Rivers
Caroline Druschke
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Community Based Learning section
Honors Optional (%)

This community-based learning designated seminar offers a chance for you to practice professional and creative writing, critical thinking, and collaboration, while coordinating with a community partner the Driftless Writing Center in Viroqua, Wisconsin to contribute to a real-life community project: Stories from the Flood. Stories from the Flood is working to collect oral histories from residents of southwestern Wisconsin who experienced catastrophic flooding in August 2018 to promote community healing and prepare for future floods.

245.002: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Plot & Plantation: Material of Resistance in Novel
Kristina Huang
MW 6:00-7:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

In the English-speaking world during the eighteenth century, enslaved people’s access to the tools of reading and writing were surveilled and made punishable by their captors. How does this contextualize the ways contemporary readers and writers study representations and testimonies of the enslaved in early English literature? Who read and interpreted these images and narratives in the eighteenth century? How do contemporary artists counter-write and/or break from representations violently structured by colonialism, imperialism, and racism? At the intersection of contemporary art, literature, and history, course readings include the writings of Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, M. NourbeSe Philip, Toni Morrison, Caryl Phillips, Sylvia Wynter, and Maryse Condé.

245.003: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Narratives of Passing
Cherene Sherrard
TR 9:30-10:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

In this course we will investigate what it means to “pass” by focusing on literature and films
that feature protagonists who for various reasons decide to take on alternate identities. In
most cases, the usually racially ambiguous hero or heroine will engage in racial passing,
exchanging one cultural and racial identity for another. While racial passing is our primary
focus, we will also explore other kinds of passing, including gender and class
performance. The reasons why one would elect to pass are as myriad as the qualities that
allow one to pass. Some characters only pass for a fixed period of time. In the slave
narrative Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860), Ellen Craft passes as a white male slaveholder in order to obtain freedom for herself and her husband. In other cases, as in the novel and film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the protagonist takes on specific identity in order to obtain wealth and privilege. Because the passing performance is dependent on a visual as well as cultural masquerade, we will also examine several films that deal with the passing motif in
conjunction with our study of literary passing narratives. In-class presentations, discussion,
several short essays, and one longer essay will be required. One of the aims of this course will
be to develop writing and interpretive skills that can be applied to more than one object of
analysis, including, but not limited to literature, film, theoretical texts, and popular culture.

245.004: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Victorian Ecologies
Mario Ortiz-Robles
R 2:30-5:00pm Pending Room
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

This course examines climate change fiction from the Victorian period, a period characterized by unprecedented industrial development, the expansion of European empires, and the consolidation of capitalism as a global phenomenon. Through readings across a range of fictional representations of the environment, we will explore how the concept of “nature” was already attached in the nineteenth century to the ideas of loss, degradation, and pollution that we tend to associate today with anthropogenic climate change. By paying particular attention to aesthetic form, we will also seek to determine the extent to which the fictional representation of nature reflected, resisted, or promoted the extractive economies that gave rise of our fossil-fueled modernity. Texts from among the following: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud, and William Henry Hudson’s Green Mansions.

245.005: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Literary Architectures: Making Space in American Literature
Sarah Ensor
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

In this class, we will consider “literary architectures,” broadly conceived, and analyze the social configurations that these structures make space for. As we move back and forth between discussing the structures depicted in American literature and the structures (forms, genres, traditions) of that literature itself, we will ask questions like the following: How do gender, sexuality, race, and class shape our inhabitation of space, and vice versa? How does our built environment affect our relationships to each other – including, importantly, whom we care for and how? When literary characters inhabit, dismantle, or remake physical structures, what can that teach us about how we might inhabit, dismantle, or remake social structures? And how has authors’ play with literary form – including the space of the page and the dimensions of reading itself – been a way to make new relational possibilities legible, and effect social change?

245.006: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Noise and American Culture
Yanie Fecu
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

The line between music and noise has always been blurred. Making the distinction largely depends on what culture and time period you choose. How are we conditioned to distinguish between desirable and undesirable sounds? And how has the development of sound recording technologies shaped the way we communicate?

This seminar investigates the nuances of noise through a broad range of American literature and media. We begin by reading brief philosophical texts on different modes of listening, acoustic environments, and the human voice. At the same time, we’ll work through major innovations in sound technology throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, ranging from the phonograph and radio to the iPod. We will consider the individual’s increasing control over the production and dissemination of sound artifacts. Finally, we’ll examine the social and political dimensions of different musical genres by examining novels and films.

245.007: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Writing and Money
Eileen Lagman
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course asks students to explore the intersections of writing and money in everyday life. If we accept the narrative that modern society has moved from an industrial economy to an information economy, what does that mean for writers? What is writing for? How is it valued? How do economics systems determine what is “good” writing? And what does it mean to write for money? Alongside developing skills in critical reading and writing that are fundamental to the English major, the course will engage texts from across different disciplines, including economics, literacy studies, rhetorical theory, and political science and will address such topics as: authorship, open-source writing, economic inequality, and writing as labor.

304: Composition & Rhetoric In and Beyond the University
Topic: Race and the University
Eileen Lagman
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Satisfied Communications A requirement

This course surveys the study of writing and rhetoric. It will cover major theories, practices, and research areas in the field of Composition and Rhetoric with attention to their importance both inside and outside the university. In particular, the course examines how language participates in the construction of race and racism. One of the defining elements of college life is the promotion of racial diversity, but how does this play out in the everyday life of the university and its students? To answer this question, this course will examine how theories of writing and rhetoric can help us understand the university as a unique setting for the social construction and lived experience of race and racism. Students will conduct first-hand research in the university to ask: What role does the university play is shaping our understanding of race in U.S. higher education? What are the challenges surrounding race and racism at the university? And what are the possibilities for cross-cultural exchange and racial justice at the university? We’ll investigate how the university is not just neutral place but a complex social institution communicating diverse missions, values, and identities. In doing so, the course will explore how language and literacy practices at the university extend to the world outside of it. This class will be useful for English majors interested in graduate study and for prospective teachers.

305: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement
Caroline Druschke
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Environmental Studies
Honors Optional (%)

This course focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of public engagement with scientific research, policy, and management, with an emphasis on science communication. We’ll explore University of Wisconsin’s land grant mandate to share university research with the public and use university resources to explore public needs. And we’ll critique that mission by attending to the university’s role in displacing members of the Ho-Chunk Nation, as did land grant institutions across the country. We’ll build from readings in science communication, public participation in science, inclusive science communication, and environmental justice to consider the challenges to and opportunities for public engagement with science.

307: Creative Writing: Fiction & Poetry Workshop
TA taught courses
Days & Times Vary Online
Prereqs: Junior standing or ENGL 207. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 407, 408, 409, 410, 469, 508, 509, or 695
Satisfies a Comm B requirement
Satisfies a workshop requirement for the emphasis in creative writing
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class is similar to English 207 (see above) but with greater emphasis on craft (narrative control, poetic form) and the writing process. Like 207, this class is taught as a workshop, which means class discussion will focus on both craft (published stories, poems, and essays) and, perhaps more importantly, the fiction and poetry written by each student. That is, the student writing becomes the text, and the instructor leads a sympathetic, but critical, discussion of the particular work at hand. Students should expect to read and comment on two or three published works per week as well as the work of their peers.

314: Structure of English
Juliet Huynh
MWF 9:55-10:45 Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of the syntactic structure of English phrasal grammar. Students will descriptively analyze the structure of words and phrases while also comparing them to actual spoken English sentences. The course grade will be assessed based on participation, homework assignments, quizzes, and a final paper.

315: English Phonology
Tom Purnell
MWF 1:20-2:10pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Meets with Linguistics 310

[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad) This course offers an introduction to the sound system of English, including phonetics and elementary phonology. Topics include articulatory phonetic descriptions of consonants and vowels, classical phonemic theory, the nature of phonological processes, linguistic change and the acquisition of phonological systems. By the end of the course, students should be able to describe and transcribe speech sounds of English, recognize and describe phonemic and phonotactic patterns and account for basic phonological processes.

316: English Language Variation in the U.S.
Tom Purnell
MWF 11:00-10:50am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad) Why do some speakers of American English talk differently? English 316 offers an overview of language variation in United States English from a current sociolinguistic perspective. Historical, social, regional, ethnic, gender, and stylistic variation are examined, along with models for describing, explaining, and applying sociolinguistic knowledge. Each student transcribes a recording from the Dictionary of American English and compares the variation in that transcription with those made by other students in the class. Students are exposed to a wide range of data on language variation focused on vernacular varieties of American English in general.

318: Second Language Acquisition
Juliet Huynh
MW 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course will introduce the field of second language acquisition. The course will cover research topics including the differences between first and second language acquisition, language perception and production and how the first and second language are affected, and what the second language teaching implications are.

328: The Sixteenth Century
Elizabeth Bearden
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This advanced course focuses on Tudor literature in the context of global exchange. The class includes poetry, prose, and the visual arts. Students consider the global literary exchanges that coalesced in the flowering of Renaissance literature. A midterm essay and an 8-10 page final research project are required along with creative and other assignments.

350.001: Special Topics in Gender & Literature
Topic: Social Justice Literature
Samantha Schalk
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: GEN&WS 101, 102, 103, or GEN&WS/SOC 200
Honors Optional (%)
Cross-Listed with Gender & Women’s Studies

Investigation of some specific topic in gender and women’s studies related to gender and literature. Topic for Fall 2020 is social justice literature. Writing intensive course with creative writing elements.

350.002: Special Topics in Gender & Literature
Topic: Queer Art of Memoir, Art of Queer Memoir
A. Finn Enke
T 2:30-5:00pm Room Pending
Prereq: GEN&WS 101, 102, 103, or GEN&WS/SOC 200
Honors Only Courses (H)
Cross-Listed with Gender & Women’s Studies

Explores artist memoir and visual modes of storying personal experience, embodiment, and activism. The seminar emphasizes ways queer, Black, indigenous, people of color, and dis/abled artists have created genre-bending possibilities for pasts, presents, and futures.

353: British Literature since 1900
Topic: Modern British and Irish Literature
Richard Begam
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional %

This course surveys a number of the principal works of twentieth-century British, Irish and Commonwealth literature. Issues to be considered include the “inward turn” of modernism, its fascination with myth and archetype, England’s changing social and economic conditions, and the encounter between Western and non-Western cultures resulting from British colonialism.

375: Literatures of Migration and Diaspora
Topic: Storytelling and Diasporic Crossings
Kristina Huang
MW 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

How do stories of migration represent kinship and experiences of rupture? How do writers engage with memories of displacement and survival entangled in histories of colonialism, imperialism, and racism? What are the power dynamics that inform the literary study of writings about crossings, forced or otherwise? This course examines how writers creatively draw on a variety of sources (i.e., legal documents, songs, photographs, rumor, and so on) to narrate stories of place and belonging beyond national boundaries. Writings that we’ll study include those of Shailja Patel, Dionne Brand, Monique Truong, Gaiutra Bahadur, Carole Boyce Davies, and Patricia Powell.

401: Race, Sex, and Texts (How to do things with writing)
Christa Olson
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

In this class, we’ll investigate how race and sex intersect with language. We’ll study historical and contemporary interconnections, developing analytical tools for understanding how language works on and in our world. Your work for the class will include weekly reading and discussions, reflective writing, and a multimedia final project.

403.001: Seminar on Tutoring Writing Across the Curriculum
Emily Hall
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Consent of instructor and acceptance into the Writing Fellows Program. Students who completed English 316 prior to fall semester 2014 may not receive credit for English 403
Accelerated Honors (!)

Explores current theory and research on the writing process and analyzes disciplinary genres and conventions. Teaches strategies for helping writers revise their work. Explores the teaching of writing from multiple perspectives including that of race, disability, and social justice. As Undergraduate Writing Fellows, students will help their peers improve their writing in courses across the curriculum.

403.002: Seminar on Tutoring Writing Across the Curriculum
Emily Hall
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereqs: Consent of instructor and acceptance into the Writing Fellows Program. Students who completed English 316 prior to fall semester 2014 may not receive credit for English 403
Accelerated Honors (!)

407: Creative Writing: Nonfiction Workshop
Beth Nguyen
T 1:20-3:15pm Room Pending
Prereqs: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 408, 409, 410, 469, 508, 509, or 695
Accelerated Honors (!)

This workshop will focus on creative nonfiction, which includes memoirs, personal essays, narrative nonfiction, and more. Students will write and share their own work and discuss examples of contemporary nonfiction. The class will also cover issues such as intention, audience, and ethics. The workshop will be an unsilenced space, where open dialogue is encouraged.

408.001: Creative Writing: Fiction Workshop
Dantiel Moniz
M 3:30-5:25pm Room Pending
Prereqs: Completion of one of the following with a 3.0 or higher: English 207 or 307 taken Fall 2014 or later; or English 203 taken prior to Fall 2014
Students who do not meet the prerequisite may submit a writing sample to the program director on Monday of the last week of classes.
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class will attempt to provide you with a vocabulary for discussing creative work (that of established writers as well as your peers) and help you apply learned techniques to your own writing, so that you may begin to determine your own aesthetic. Some topics you can expect to explore include: point of view, the construction of good dialogue, navigating scene and exposition, and the sound and rhythm of constructing a sentence.

Whether or not you go on to write professionally, reading and writing are fundamental tools you’ll use for the rest of your life, and you can only benefit from refining these skills. In return, I’ll expect the cooperative fostering of a safe and conducive environment for yourself and your peers to learn in. Though writing is often a solitary practice, it is necessary to create a writing community that allows its members to share and discuss work and ideas in a way that benefits the development of both the writer and the reader. At times, this class will seem to move quickly, and require you to really engage with your writing, the writing of your peers, and all of the assigned readings.

408.002: Creative Writing: Fiction Workshop
Ron Kuka
R 5:40-7:40pm Room Pending
Prereqs: Completion of one of the following with a 3.0 or higher: English 207 or 307 taken Fall 2014 or later; or English 203 taken prior to Fall 2014
Students who do not meet the prerequisite may submit a writing sample to the program director on Monday of the last week of classes.
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class helps students apply lessons from published fiction (both classic and contemporary) to their own creative work. Class typically begins with a lecture concerning some aspect of craft and is followed by “workshop.” This entails a discussion of story shape, word choice, character development etc. using the creative work of the student as the text. Classes are small (15), and students are expected to read the work of their peers carefully and participate during class discussions.

409.001: Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop
Leila Chatti
M 1:20-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: English 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, or 410 in Fall 2014 or later; or ENGL 203, 300-307 before Fall 2014
Accelerated Honors (!)

In this weekly workshop we will read, write, and learn strategies for generating and revising poetry in a variety of styles. Students will workshop their own work in class and participate in individual and group writing exercises. Additionally, students will keep poetry journals, and will complete a visual broadside project. Students will submit a final portfolio of revised work at the end of the course.

409.002: Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop
Sean Bishop
T 1:20-3:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: English 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, or 410 in Fall 2014 or later; or ENGL 203, 300-307 before Fall 2014
Accelerated Honors (!)

In this weekly workshop we’ll read, write, and learn strategies for revising poetry in a variety of 21st-century styles: poetry of political witness, imagistic poetry, discursive poetry, process poetry, fabular poetry, surrealist poetry, praise poetry, and others. Each student will be workshopped 3 or 4 times, submitting poems in any style they want. Additionally, students will keep poetry journals and will write brief weekly exercises to develop their skills in each of the poetic styles we’ll explore. There will be no required textbooks (all readings will be posted to Canvas), and no exams. Students will submit a final portfolio of revisions at the end of the course.

411: Creative Writing: Special Topics Workshop
Topic: Fiction editing workshop
Ron Kuka
T 5:40-7:40pm Room Pending
Prereq: 207, 307,407,408,409,410, 411, or graduate/professional standing.
Accelerated Honors (!)

This is a class in which students will polish two stories in preparation for submission for publication. While writing several drafts of each story, we will make a study of story shape, narrative trajectory, sentence rhythm, and word choice using examples from contemporary fiction.

415: Introduction to TESOL Methods
Joseph Nosek
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

English 415 is an introduction to the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. In this course, we will explore the contexts in which English is taught, and the methods and materials used to teach it. Students will read about, respond to and discuss the methods for teaching English as a second or foreign language, with a focus on theory and rationale, and techniques and materials. Students will also observe ESL classes and document their observations as well as tutor a language learner throughout the semester.

417: History of the English Language
Jordan Zweck
TR 9:30-10:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Have you ever wondered why the plural of foot is feet, where the y in “ye olde shoppe” comes from, or how textspeak is changing Modern English? If so, this class is for you! We will explore the history of English from its origins as an Indo-European language to the present day, studying the systematic changes that took place to its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. In addition to linguistic history, we will also study the social, cultural, and political history that shaped and was shaped by the English language. The course proceeds chronologically, and will focus on four main periods of the English language: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Present-Day English (including dialects of American English, World Englishes, and the ways that technology affects language).

No previous experience in early English (OE, ME, EModE) or linguistics is required.

420: Topics in English Language & Linguistics
Topic: Third Language Acquisition
Jacee Cho
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course provides an introduction to third language (L3) acquisition. Questions we will address in this course include: (1) What is the initial stage of L3 acquisition (native language, second language, or both?) (2) What motivates linguistic transfer selectivity between the two available systems (i.e., L1 and L2).

426: Chaucer’s Courtly Poetry
Jordan Zweck
TR 1:00-2:15pm Pending Room
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Medieval Studies

In this course, we will read poetry by the medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer, including his dream visions (including one with a whirling twiggy house, another with a mysterious knight and a game of chess, and a third featuring a debate among talking birds!), longer courtly love poetry, and shorter lyrics. If you’ve ever wanted to know what Chaucer wrote when he wasn’t writing the Canterbury Tales, this is the course for you!

Texts will be read in Middle English, but no prior experience with Middle English or medieval literature is required.

431: Early Works of Shakespeare
Elizabeth Bearden
R 4:00-6:30pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This advanced seminar on Shakespeare’s early works emphasis’s the representation of error. Readings include comedies, tragedies, histories, poetry, and Shakespeare’s sources. Students consider how error is crucial to Shakespeare’s formal and cultural contributions. One midterm essay and one 8-10 page final research paper is required along with creative and theatrical assignments.

433: Spenser
Joshua Calhoun
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Perhaps because it is a rich, complex, lengthy, poem Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is seldom read in its entirety in a single course. In this course, we will take the time to inhabit Faerie Land–to learn its topographies, its characters, its poetic language, its politics, its flora and fauna, and so on. Additional primary and secondary readings will inform our in-depth reading, but FQ will be our main focus throughout the semester.

Active, self-motivated, independent reading and research is expected of each student in this upper-level course. If possible, some independent research for this class will take place in Special Collections, which has limited hours (M-F, 9-5). Major assignments/assessments include papers, creative projects, and presentations

438: Topic in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Topic: Gender and Sexuality in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature: Libertines, Eunuchs, Mollies, and More!
Mark Vareschi
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Do the ways we think, feel, and write about gender and sexuality have a history? What is the relationship between the desiring body and the desiring mind? Are they the same thing? These are a few of the central questions we will pursue in this course. Focusing on the period between 1660 and 1790, we will attend to the, sometimes radical, transformations in literature and culture. We will seek to tease out the ways in which these transformations have shaped our modern conceptions of gender and sexuality.

Our goals in this course are to develop an ability to speak and write about major developments in British literature from 1660-1790, to familiarize ourselves with the poetry, drama, and prose of the period under consideration, and to develop a critical perspective regarding the period’s literary and intellectual movements.

443: Outstanding Figure(s) in Literature since 1800
Topic: The Modern Short Story
Vinay Dharwadker
MW 6:00-7:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Study of outstanding figure(s) in literature.

444.001: Topic in Romantic or Victorian Literature and Culture
Topic: India and the Victorian Imagination
Amanda Shubert
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

The course explores the representation of India in Victorian literary and visual culture. How did Victorians imagine India? What was the role of the imagination in advancing empire and enforcing racial hierarchies? We will closely read novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins and Rudyard Kipling; watch films by Satyajit Ray; and apply frameworks from postcolonial theory.

444.002: Topic in Romantic or Victorian Literature and Culture
Topic: From Fairies to Steampunk: The Victorian Imagination Then and Now in Art and Literature
Nancy R. Marshall
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Steampunk. Sherlock. Victoria’s Secret. Popular culture continually reinvents and reimagines Victorian Britain. This upper-level, discussion-based class explores aspects of 19th-century art and literature that have proven the most persistent. We explore works that treat technocracy, industrialization, and racial, gender, and class struggle in the context of British imperialism, concluding with a look at Neo-Victoriana.

453: Topic in British Literature since 1900
Topic: Backgrounds to Modernism
Richard Begam
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

This course charts the intersection between the cultural phenomenon we call modernity and the literary and aesthetic phenomenon we call modernism. Drawing on works in philosophy, psychology, ethics and aesthetics, we examine how the central texts of modernist literature grappled with a number of the defining issues of twentieth-century thought.

455: A Study of Outstanding Figure or Figures in American Literature
Topic: Toni Morrison
Cherene Sherrard
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

The author of eleven novels and winner of a Nobel Prize, Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated and significant authors of the twentieth /early twenty-first century. Most students of literature are familiar with The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Solomon, but how many have read Tar Baby, Love, or A Mercy? This class focuses on Morrison’s later and less well-known novels. Rather than considering her recent books as pale comparisons to earlier masterpieces, we will explore how Morrison’s writing has evolved over her fifty-year writing career. What themes, narrative techniques and subjects does she return to? Beginning with the triptych of Beloved, Paradise and Jazz, we will read her almost-forgotten novel Tar Baby, more recent novels like Love, A Mercy, and God Bless the Child, and her penetrating essays on race and the human experience. Few writers are as well read as Morrison and one of the pleasures of her work is locating the sources from which she draws inspiration. To this end, one of our goals in this course will be to hone our close reading and interpretive skills, while situating each novel in its literary, cultural, and historical context.

456: Topic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture
Topic: Drama, Theatre, Spectacle
Mary Trotter
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

An historical and critical study of theatre and performance’s role in shaping ideas about diverse American identities and cultures between about 1820 and 1910. We will read the stage as a site of celebration, education and—too often–oppression in its representations of American life.

457: Topic in American Literature and Culture since 1900
Topic: Jewish Humor
Sunny Yudkoff
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Meets with Jewish Studies 430

What is humor? Why and when do people tell jokes? And what do we make of the fact that a certain form of humor has come to be labeled “Jewish”? In this course, we will examine the notion of “Jewish humor” by reading a variety of texts (jokes, short stories, films, websites, conceptual art, and cultural kitsch). The course will begin by covering a variety of theoretical explorations of humor and “Jewish Humor.” We will then trace techniques of Jewish humor from eastern Europe to central Europe to North American. Themes to be examined include: in-group vs. out-group humor; Jewish-Christian difference; humor and the Holocaust; humor and ethnicity; the notion of self-hatred; and the relationship between humor, repetition, and innovation. The general goal of the course will be to answer the question: Is there such a thing called “Jewish humor”? (Hint: The answer may be “no.”)

465: Asian American Poetry
Timothy Yu
TR 11:00-12:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Throughout the history of Asian America, poetry has been a vehicle for the creation and exploration of an Asian American voice; in poetry we can see the continuing struggle over what form Asian American expression will take. Will it follow Asian or European models? Will it employ traditional forms, or experiment in search of new styles? Will it be individual or collective, introspective or political? We will explore these questions through a study of a wide range of Asian American poets from a variety of historical periods and ethnicities, including Janice Mirikitani, Lawson Fusao Inada, Li-Young Lee, John Yau, Myung Mi Kim, and Linh Dinh.

474.001: Topic in Contemporary Literature
Topic: American Protest Literature
Sarah Wood
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

474.002: Topic in Contemporary Literature
Topic: American Protest Literature
Sarah Wood
TR 1:00-2:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophomore standing

508: Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction Workshop
Dantiel Moniz
R 1:20-3:15pm Room Pending
Prereq: ENGL 408 or graduate/professional standing. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 469, 509, or 695
Accelerated Honors (!)

Though similar to English 408, this class goes into greater detail to help students with experience in fiction writing refine their skills with readings and lectures that address in detail narrative arch, scene development, realistic dialogue, experimental form, etc. Reading and discussions will vary somewhat depending upon the instructor. This is a “workshop,” so students will be expected to complete weekly writing assignments as well as (at a minimum) two complete short stories. They will also be expected to comment on the work of their classmates and participate in class discussions. Classes are small, typically under 15 students.

515: Techniques & Materials for TESOL
TBA
TR 9:30-10:45am Room Pending
Prereq: ENGL 415

Course Guide Description: Supervised practice in the use of current techniques and materials in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, including peer and community teaching with videotaped sessions.

533: Topic in Literature and the Environment
Topic: Eco-poetry
Heather Swan
W 2:30-5:00pm Room Pending
Prereq: Sophmore standing

Many contemporary poets explore our relationship to nature in a moment facing climate change, resource depletion, and extinction. This class will investigate how poems can speak for nature and the nonhuman while also examining how our different identities affect our relationships to the natural world due to cultural, geographical, and historical situatedness.

559: Topic in Literary or Cultural Theory
Topic: On Groundlessness: Thinking in a time of Crisis
Ramzi Fawaz
M 2:30-5:00pm Room pending
Prereq: Sophmore standing

How do you learn to think when the world around you is constantly changing? This course explores cultural and political theories of contingency, a body of thought that tries to explain the unpredictability of the human experience. This includes understanding how our racial, gender, and sexual identities transform over time; how democratic life asks us to negotiate multiple and sometimes incompatible worldviews; and how we can make meaningful judgements about ideas, events, and issues of common concern in a radically complex world. We will explore art, literature and scholarship by thinkers in the fields of postmodernism, deconstruction, feminist, queer and critical race studies, environmental studies, even popular Buddhism, to understand how they deal with uncertainty, transformation, and change.

651: Special Topics in Theatre and Performance Studies Research
Topic: Race, Politics, and Identity
Paola Hernandez
TR 2:30-3:45pm Room pending
Prereq: Junior standing

This course aims to understand the Latinx experience in the U.S. through a variety of theater plays and performances. We will begin with the Chicano movement and Teatro Campesino (1960s) and move through the present to learn about social and political situations that have made Latinx theater a cultural imperative. Themes of racial injustices, political protests, working rights, myth, and Hispanic traditions will be central to this class. All plays and performances will be in English. No need to know Spanish for this course.