Carleton College

ENGL 099. Summer Writing Program Emphasizing a writing process approach, the Summer Writing Program helps high school seniors learn to compose academic papers that are similar to those they will write in college. Students read both contemporary and traditional literature from classic texts by writers such as Plato and Shakespeare to a variety of modern short stories, essays, and poems by authors such as August Wilson, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Adrienne Rich. This literature then becomes the focus of their papers. Students write every day, and although occasional creative writing exercises are included, the main emphasis of the course will be on expository prose. Cannot be used for the Writing Requirement. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, NE, Summer—Staff

ENGL 100. Autobiography How do we, how should we, respond to the autobiographical writings of public figures, private citizens, academics, or movie stars? Are there common strategies employed in these acts and processes of self-mapping? Does accuracy matter to us if we happen to find these textual self-portraits appealing? We will keep questions like these in mind as we read, discuss, and write about autobiographies and memoirs by Maya Angelou, Sidney Poitier, James McBride, Barack Obama, bell hooks, and John Hope Franklin. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—K. Owusu

ENGL 100. Writing Within the Liberal Arts Writing makes thinking visible. In this course, students will conduct research projects that involve posing a problem, collecting data (in many forms), choosing what data are relevant, and making a case for action. Readings will range from the Western rhetorical tradition to current events. All students will participate in peer review and oral presentations.  6 cr., AI, WR1, QRE, Fall—C. Rutz

ENGL 100. Imagining a Self This course examines how first-person narrators present, define, defend, and construct the self. We will read an assortment of autobiographical and fictional works, focusing on the critical issues that the first-person speaker "I" raises. In particular, we will consider the risks and rewards of narrative self-exposure, the relationship between autobiography and the novel, and the apparent intimacy between first-person narrators and their readers. Authors will include James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Jacobs, Sylvia Plath, and Dave Eggers. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—J. Leiman

ENGL 100. Spirit of Place We will consider a range of texts (in fiction poetry, drama, nonfiction) that explore the intangible and multifaceted nature of "place" in literary works. We will attempt to determine what influence place has on human perception and behavior and study the variety of ways in which writers have attempted to evoke a "spirit of place." Authors read will include Shakespeare, Hardy, Frost, Erdrich and Heaney.  6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 100. Visions of the Waste Land In his great post-World War I poem, T. S. Eliot described the waste land of western civilization as "a heap of broken images." We will explore how the writers of the first half of the twentieth-century invented ways of reshaping those broken images into a new literary art that has come to be called Modernism. Writers studied will likely include Yeats, Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner. Attention will be given to the writing of literary critical papers, and to supplying students with the foundational tools for more advanced literary study.  6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—G. Smith

ENGL 100. Drama, Film, and Society With an emphasis on critical reading, writing, and the fundamentals of college-level research, this course will develop students' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the relationship between drama and film and the social and cultural contexts of which they are (or were) a part and product. The course explores the various ways in which these plays and movies (which might include anything and everything from Spike Lee to Tony Kushner to Christopher Marlowe) generate meaning, with particular attention to the social, historical, and political realities that contribute to that meaning. Attending live performances in the Twin Cities will be required. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—P. Hecker

ENGL 100. Literature and Science Literature and science will seem to most of us disparate enterprises arising from fundamentally different kinds of knowing. This course investigates how nineteenth-century literature responded to the burgeoning authority of newly professionalized natural sciences and what the new sciences borrowed from literature. Reading both literary and scientific texts and paying attention to how writers of either kind understand themselves and their tasks, we will seek to observe how science and literature both threatened and served each other. In the second half of the term we will sample some twentieth-century examples of this fraught and fruitful relation.  6 cr., WR; AI, WR1, Fall—P. Balaam

ENGL 109. Introduction to Rhetoric English 109 is the single Carleton course devoted exclusively to the study and practice of expository prose. It is designed to provide students with the organizational and argumentative skills they will need in order to write effectively at the college level and beyond. All sections of the course feature diverse readings, weekly writing exercises and essays, and individual tutorials. 6 cr., NE, WR2, Winter,Spring—P. Balaam, C. Rutz

ENGL 112. Introduction to the Novel This course will explore the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from the eighteenth century to the present. Among the questions that we will consider: What are our expectations for novels, and what makes them such a popular form of entertainment? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate, even dominant, literary form? Authors will likely include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Jean Rhys. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Winter—J. Leiman

ENGL 114. Introduction to Medieval Literature This course surveys the poetry and prose of later medieval England, from about 1350-1475--an era of great accomplishment and considerable variety in English writing and great changes and considerable upheaval in English society, a period of plague, heresy, rebellion, and civil war. Readings (in modern translation) will include travel literature and autobiography, dream visions and Arthurian romances, sermons, saints' lives, and allegories. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 115. The Art of Storytelling Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying that "unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential." This course focuses attention primarily on the short story as an enduring form. We will read short stories drawn from different literary traditions and from various parts of the world. Stories to be read include those by Aksenov, Atwood, Beckett, Borges, Camus, Cheever, Cisneros, Farah, Fuentes, Gordimer, Ishiguro, Kundera, Mahfouz, Marquez, Moravia, Nabokov, Narayan, Pritchett, Rushdie, Trevor, Welty, and Xue.  6 cr., LA, WR2, Spring—K. Owusu

ENGL 117. African American Literature This course pays particular attention to the tradition of African American literary expression and the individual talent that brings depth and diversity to that tradition. The course's broader aims will be complemented by an introduction to the concept of genre and by the cultivation of the relevant skills of literary analysis. Authors to be read include Baraka, Ed Bullins, Countee Cullen, Douglass, Ellison, Nikki Giovanni, Hughes, Weldon Johnson, Larsen, and Wheatley. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IDS, Fall—K. Owusu

ENGL 118. Introduction to Poetry We will look at the whole kingdom of poetry, exploring how poets use form, tone, sound, imagery, rhythm, and subject matter to create what Wallace Stevens called the "supreme fiction." Examples will be drawn from around the world, from Sappho to spoken word. Participation in discussion is mandatory; essay assignments will ask you to provide close readings of particular works; a couple of assignments will focus on the writing of poems so as to give you a full understanding of this ancient and living art. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Winter—T. Raylor

ENGL 119. Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature We will begin by examining the forefathers and mothers of Latino/a literature: the nineteenth century texts of exile, struggles for Latin American independence, and southwestern resistance and accommodation. The early twentieth century offers new genres: immigrant novels and popular poetry that reveal the nascent Latino identities rooted in (or formed in opposition to) U.S. ethics and ideals. Finally we will read a sampling of the many excellent contemporary authors who are transforming the face of American literature. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 129. Introduction to British Comedy "And those things do best please me / That befall prepost'rously." A survey of comic plays, novels, short stories, films and television from Shakespeare, Austen, Lewis Carroll, Gilbert and Sullivan, Oscar Wilde, through P.G. Wodehouse and beyond. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Fall—C. Walker

ENGL 131. Reading Fiction Selected texts to be read in this course include those by Daniel Defoe, Thomas Hardy, Charles Johnson, J.M. Coetzee, Zadie Smith, and Sherman Alexie. We will pay close attention to the language of fiction, to the nature of narrative, and to narrative traditions in our ten-week journey from the world of Defoe's Moll Flanders to that of Alexie's Part-Time Indian. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 135. Imperial Adventures Indiana Jones has a pedigree. In this class we will encounter some of his ancestors in stories, novels and comic books from the early decades of the twentieth century. The wilds of Afghanistan, the African forest, a prehistoric world in Patagonia, the opium dens of mysterious exotic London--these will be but some of our stops as we examine the structure and ideology and lasting legacy of the imperial adventure tale. Authors we will read include Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Spring—A. Chakladar

ENGL 144. Shakespeare I A chronological survey of the whole of Shakespeare's career, covering all genres and periods, this course explores the nature of Shakespeare's genius and the scope of his art. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between literature and stagecraft ("page to stage"). By tackling the complexities of prosody, of textual transmission, and of Shakespeare's highly figurative and metaphorical language, the course will help you further develop your ability to think critically about literature. Note: Declared or prospective English majors should register for English 244. 6 cr., LA, Fall—P. Hecker

ENGL 160. Introduction to Creative Writing This course offers training in the writing and revision of poetry and prose fiction, supplemented by examples from published writers and some essays on the creative process. Discussion of each participant's writing is the central mode of instruction. 6 cr., ARP, WR2, Fall,Winter,Spring—S. Jaret McKinstry, C. Martin, G. Smith

ENGL 194. The "Great War" and the Literary Imagination The First World War shaped the world that we recognize as ours, creating new ways of remembering and forgetting as well as new forms of artistic expression. Writers shattered poetic forms and visual artists traditional modes of representation in order to register the previously unimaginable horrors of mechanized trench warfare and industrial-scale slaughter. Focusing primarily on poetry we will follow the arc of this aesthetic engagement from both British and German perspectives, starting with the late-Romantic musings of Rupert Brooke, through the haunting poems of Wilfred Owen, on to the various short-lived movements that marked the birth of modernism. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Fall—T. Raylor, P. Petzschmann

ENGL 202. The Bible as Literature We will approach the Bible not as an archaeological relic, nor as the Word of God, but "as a work of great literary force and authority [that has] shaped the minds and lives of intelligent men and women for two millennia and more." As one place to investigate such shaping, we will sample how the Bible (especially in the "Authorized" or King James version) has drawn British and American poets and prose writers to borrow and deploy its language and respond creatively to its narratives, images, and visions. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 203. The Age of Beowulf Although the Age of Beowulf ended almost one thousand years ago, its influence endures. Just as the CGI adaptation of Beowulf uses Old English--the language in England during this period--to mark the monstrous, the History Channel's Vikings uses this era as a historical backdrop, and Tolkien's LOTR finds much of its inspiration in Old English literature. In this class, then, we'll return to the source--to tales of demons, dragons, heroes, and saints found in various chronicles, poems, riddles, and more from the Age of Beowulf--and, hopefully, start to understand why this particular epoch looms so large. Texts will be read in modern translation. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Winter—C. Flack

ENGL 210. From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature An introduction to some of the major genres, texts, and authors of medieval and Renaissance England. Readings may include works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the lyric poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Spring—P. Hecker

ENGL 211. Neoclassic, Romantic, and Victorian Literature Readings in eighteenth and nineteenth-century British literature. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 212. Nineteenth-Century American Literature A survey of the major forms and voices of nineteenth-century American literature during the Romantic and Realist periods, with attention to the historical and intellectual contexts of that work. Topics covered will include the literary writings of Transcendentalism, abolition, and the rise of literary "realism" after the Civil War as an artistic response to urbanization and industrialism. Writers to be read include Irving, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, James, and Wharton. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Winter—E. McKinsey

ENGL 213. Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe lived fast, died young, and left behind a beautiful body of work. The course will explore the major plays and poems, as well as the life, of this transgressive Elizabethan writer. 3 cr., LA, Winter—P. Hecker

ENGL 214. Revenge Tragedy Madness, murder, conspiracy, poison, incest, rape, ghosts, and lots of blood: the fashion for revenge tragedy in Elizabethan and Jacobean England led to the creation of some of the most brilliant, violent, funny, and deeply strange plays in the history of the language. Authors may include Cary, Chapman, Ford, Marston, Middleton, Kyd, Tourneur, and Webster. 3 cr., LA, Winter—P. Hecker

ENGL 215. Modern American Literature A survey of some of the central movements and texts in American literature, from World War I to the present. Topics covered will include modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat generation and postmodernism. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 217. A Novel Education Samuel Johnson declared novels to be "written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life." This course will explore what kinds of education the novel offered its readers during a time when fiction was considered a source of valuable lessons and a vehicle for corruption. We will read a selection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels, considering how they engage with contemporary educational theories, notions of male and female conduct, and concerns about the didactic and imaginative possibilities of fiction. Authors include Richardson, Lennox, Austen, Edgeworth, and Dickens. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Fall—J. Leiman

ENGL 218. The Gothic Spirit The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the rise of the Gothic, a genre populated by brooding hero-villains, vulnerable virgins, mad monks, ghosts, and monsters. In this course, we will examine the conventions and concerns of the Gothic, addressing its preoccupation with terror, sex, and the supernatural. As we situate this genre within its literary and historical context, we will consider its relationship to realism and Romanticism, and we will explore how it reflects the political and cultural anxieties of the age. Authors include Walpole, Radcliffe, Lewis, Austen, M. Shelley, and E. Bronte. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Spring—J. Leiman

ENGL 220. Arts of Oral Presentation Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 cr., S/CR/NC, NE, Winter,Spring—M. Kowalewski, T. Raylor

ENGL 222. The Art of Jane Austen All of Jane Austen's fiction will be read; the works she did not complete or choose to publish during her lifetime will be studied in an attempt to understand the art of her mature comic masterpieces, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Spring—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 223. American Transcendentalism Attempts to discern the nineteenth-century Zeitgeist come down, Emerson says, to a "practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?" This interdisciplinary course will investigate the works of the American Transcendentalist movement in its restless discontent with the conventional, its eclectic search for better ways of thinking and living. We will engage major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman alongside documents of the scientific, religious, and political changes that shaped their era and provoked their responses. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 224. Children's Literature A literary investigation of children's literature with close attention to the particular aesthetic issues that follow from the genre's mixing of delight and didacticism, whimsy and pedagogy. We will trace the nineteenth and twentieth-century rise of works written for a child audience back to origins in the power struggles and wish fulfillment of oral tradition tales, the Enlightenment "fairytale," and the Romantic-era "invention of childhood." Works by the Grimms, Straparola, Basile, Perrault, d'Aulnoy, Bettelheim, Wordsworth, Burnett, Kipling, E.B. White, and Sendak. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 226. Modernism In the first decades of the twentieth century, modernist writers, artists, and thinkers confronted a modern world of rapidly accelerating industrialization, urbanization, and militarization with radically new ideas and forms that, by the estimation of many, upended twenty centuries of culture. This course, while centered on literature, will explore the modernist movement on both sides of the Atlantic and across genres and disciplines. We will study William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Albert Einstein, and Sigmund Freud, among others. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 228. Sensation, Seduction, Sympathy: The American Novel to 1850 Still a new and distrusted genre in the 1790s, the novel became in the post-Revolutionary era a vehicle through which writers such as Susannah Rowson and Brockden Brown expressed the hopes, disappointments, illusions, and anxieties of life in the democratic republic. We will consider how these early Gothic and melodramatic narratives used pathos and sensation to both mask and articulate popular rage and uncertainty, and how they influenced the works of later writers Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Fanny Fern, and Melville. Warning: like life in the early U.S., this course offers drastic encounters with freedom and captivity, sex and obsession, marriage and whale hunting. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 229. The American Novel: Romance to Realism (1850 to 1910) Post-Civil War writers refashioned the cultural work of fiction to express the new taste for realism and the even more chastened mode of naturalism. The novels of this period have a documentary feel, as though charged with representing and re-envisioning the drama of real American lives in a disenchanted, industrialized, and rapidly consolidating world. Readings from Howells, James, Crane, Jewett, Gilman, Dreiser, Chesnutt, and Wharton. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Spring—P. Balaam

ENGL 234. Literature of the American South Masterpieces of the "Southern Renaissance" of the early and mid-twentieth century, in the context of American regionalism and particularly the culture of the South, the legacy of slavery and race relations, social and gender roles, and the modernist movement in literature. Authors will include Allen Tate, Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, William Percy, and others. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Winter—E. McKinsey

ENGL 235. Asian American Literature This course is an introduction to major works and authors of fiction, drama, and poetry from about 1900 to the present. We will trace the development of Asian American literary traditions while exploring the rich diversity of recent voices in the field. Authors to be read include Carlos Bulosan, Sui Sin Far, Philip Kan Gotanda, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Milton Murayama, Chang-rae Lee, Li-young Lee, and John Okada. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IDS, Fall—N. Cho

ENGL 236. American Nature Writing A study of the environmental imagination in American literature. We will explore the relationship between literature and the natural sciences and examine questions of style, narrative, and representation in the light of larger social, ethical, and political concerns about the environment. Authors read will include Thoreau, Muir, Jeffers, Abbey, and Leopold. Students will write a creative Natural History essay as part of the course requirements. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 238. African Literature in English This is a course on texts drawn from English-speaking Africa since the 1950's. Authors to be read include Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Benjamin Kwakye, and Wole Soyinka. 6 cr., LA, IS, Spring—K. Owusu

ENGL 244. Shakespeare I A chronological survey of the whole of Shakespeare's career, covering all genres and periods, this course explores the nature of Shakespeare's genius and the scope of his art. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between literature and stagecraft ("page to stage"). By tackling the complexities of prosody, of textual transmission, and of Shakespeare's highly figurative and metaphorical language, the course will help you further develop your ability to think critically about literature. Note: non-majors should register for English 144. 6 cr., LA, Fall—P. Hecker

ENGL 245. Bollywood Nation This course will serve as an introduction to Bollywood or popular Hindi cinema from India. We will trace the history of this cinema and analyze its formal components. We will watch and discuss some of the most celebrated and popular films of the last 60 years with particular emphasis on urban thrillers and social dramas. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 247. The American West Wallace Stegner once described the West as "the geography of hope" in the American imagination. Despite various dystopian urban pressures, the region still conjures up images of wide vistas and sunburned optimism. We will explore this paradox by examining both popular mythic conceptions of the West (primarily in film) and more searching literary treatments of the same area. We will explore how writers such as Twain, Cather, Stegner and Cormac McCarthy have dealt with the geographical diversity and multi-ethnic history of the West. Weekly film showings will include The Searchers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven, and Lone Star. Extra Time Required, evening screenings. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Fall—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 248. Visions of California An interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which California has been imagined in literature, art, film and popular culture from pre-contact to the present. We will explore the state both as a place (or rather, a mosaic of places) and as a continuing metaphor--whether of promise or disintegration--for the rest of the country. Authors read will include Muir, Steinbeck, Chandler, West, and Didion. Weekly film showings will include Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown and Blade Runner. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Winter—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 249. Irish Literature We will read and discuss modern Irish poetry, fiction, and drama in the context of Irish politics and culture. Readings will include works by W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Patrick Kavanaugh, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and Ciaran Carson, among others. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 250. Modern Indian Fiction In this course we will follow the various paths that the novel in India has taken since the early twentieth century. Reading both works composed in English and some in translation we will probe in particular the ways in which questions of language and national/cultural identity are constructed and critiqued in the Indian novel. We will read some of the most celebrated Indian writers of the last 100 years as well as some who are not as well-known as they should be. The course will also introduce you to some fundamental concepts in postcolonial studies. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 251. Contemporary Indian Fiction Contemporary Indian writers, based either in India or abroad, have become significant figures in the global literary landscape. This can be traced to the publication of Salman Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children in 1981. We will begin with that novel and read some of the other notable works of fiction of the following decades. The class will provide both a thorough grounding in the contemporary Indian literary scene as well as an introduction to some concepts in post-colonial studies. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Spring—A. Chakladar

ENGL 252. Caribbean Fiction This course will examine Anglophone fiction in the Caribbean from the late colonial period through our contemporary moment. We will examine major developments in form and language as well as the writing of identity, personal and (trans)national. We will read works by canonical writers such as V.S Naipaul, George Lamming and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as by lesser known contemporary writers. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 257. Ireland Program: Contemporary Irish Literature In this course students will read contemporary Irish literature and meet with writers. Students will learn how to write short book reviews and how to interview an author. The goal of the course is for student writers to become familiar with the rich, unique world of Irish letters today, and more generally, to understand how a community of writers works. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IS, Summer—G. Hewett

ENGL 258. Contemporary American Playwrights of Color This course examines a diverse selection of plays from the 1960s to the present, exploring how different theatrical contexts, from Broadway to regional theater to Off-Off Broadway, frame the staging of ethnic identity. Playwrights and performers to be studied include Amiri Baraka, Alice Childress, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, Luis Valdez, David Henry Hwang, August Wilson, Philip Gotanda, Maria Irene Fornes, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Anna Deavere Smith. There will be occasional out-of-class film screenings, and attendance at live theater performances when possible. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IDS, Winter—N. Cho

ENGL 260. Ireland Program: Creative Writing in Ireland Students will be asked to do journal writing covering their experiences of place, people, history, legend, contemporary events and conflicts, etc.--out of which they will produce a portfolio of creative nonfiction (a hybrid of personal essay and expository writing). The goal of this course is to synthesize experience into creative writing. 6 cr., WR; ARP, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Summer—G. Hewett

ENGL 270. Short Story Workshop An introduction to the writing of the short story (prior familiarity with the genre of the short story is expected of class members). Each student will write and have discussed in class three stories (from 1,500 to 6,000 words in length) and give constructive suggestions, including written critiques, for revising the stories written by other members of the class. Attention will be paid to all the elements of fiction: characterization, point of view, conflict, setting, dialogue, etc. Prerequisite: One prior 6-credit English course. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, ARP, WR2, Fall,Winter—G. Smith

ENGL 271. Poetry Workshop This course offers newer poets ways of developing poetic craft and vision. Through intensive writing and revision of poetry, supplemented by reading and discussion of poetry, each member of the group will create a portfolio of poems. Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course. 6 cr., ARP, WR2, Fall—G. Hewett

ENGL 272. Telling True Stories: A Journey in Journalism In this workshop class, the classroom becomes a newsroom and students create and publish their own works of journalism in digital media of their choosing including but not limited to personal blogs, podcasts, videos, still photography, online graphics and multimedia. Journalism as a truth-finding and truth-telling discipline--using vernacular language and digital tools to communicate critical social truths accessibly--is the underlying skill set taught in a "learning by doing" (as opposed to lecture style) format. Short classroom discussions on ethics and craft, based on recent published journalism and current events, are interspersed throughout. 6 cr., ARP, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 273. Writing Memoir This writing workshop allows students to explore the craft of memoir through intensive writing, critique, and revision in order to create their own memoir. To develop their skills, students will read and discuss memoirs in varied forms (including visual arts), and consider the competing demands of truth, narrative, fiction, and non-fiction in this rich and complex genre. Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course or instructor permission. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, ARP, WR2, Fall—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 274. Ireland Program: The History and Culture of Ireland through Literature Through selected readings, discussion, lecture, and site visits this interdisciplinary course will provide the necessary intellectual foundation and context for understanding Ireland past and present. The goal of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction to Ireland. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Summer—Local faculty

ENGL 275. Rhetoric and Self-Presentation Given that 75% of Carleton graduates enroll in graduate or professional school within five years of graduation, today's undergraduates can expect to be required to present themselves, their personal histories, their ideas, and their career goals in writing for various prestigious audiences. In this course, we will examine the rhetoric of self-presentation in contexts such as personal statements, fellowship applications, and research proposals. Students should expect frequent peer workshops and extensive revision toward polished, formally written products. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher. 6 cr., NE, WR2, QRE, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 277. London Program: London Studies Project In consultation with the director, students will work in pairs or groups of three to design an independent research project that demonstrates their knowledge of London. The projects will focus on particular London sites chosen by students--a street, a tube station, a city square, a store, a public artwork--the possibilities are vast. Student groups will design a presentation format (e.g., digital slideshow, poster board, artistic collage, etc.) and present their projects at the end of term. 3 cr., S/CR/NC, NE, Spring—N. Cho

ENGL 279. London Program: Urban Field Studies A combination of background readings, guided site visits, and personal exploration will give students tools for seeing London itself as a multilayered text under constant expansion and revision. Starting from the city's pre-urban geology and the still visible structures of its Roman past, students will gain a sense of London's rich history, its esthetic inspiration for writers and artists, and its complex status as a global metropolis.  3 cr., S/CR/NC, NE, Spring—Local Faculty

ENGL 280. Crafts of Writing: Creative Non-Fiction This course explores the translation from event to effective writing through a variety of creative non-fiction forms, including memoir, journalism, and personal essay. Discussion of each participant's writing is the central mode of instruction, supplemented by examples from published writers, current magazines and newspapers, and essays on the creative process. Each student will create a portfolio of their work. Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course. 6 cr., ARP, WR2, Spring—D. Cass

ENGL 281. London Program: Imagining London: Literature and the Metropolis How have modern writers depicted the city of London? Considering London in diverse ways--as marketplace, bohemian enclave, war-torn city, and transnational metropol--this course examines the portrayal of London in selected works of twentieth and twenty-first century literature. As we explore how writers confront the freedoms and pitfalls of modern urban life--e.g., speed, consumption, experimentation, redevelopment, and class and race conflict--we will relate the London around us to the London of our texts. Readings include E.M. Forster, G.B. Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Colin MacInnes, Sam Selvon, and Zadie Smith, as well as visual and theoretical works. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, IS, Spring—N. Cho

ENGL 282. London Program: London Theater Students will attend productions (at least two per week) of classic and contemporary plays in a range of London venues both on and off the West End, and will do related reading. We will also travel to Stratford-upon-Avon for a three-day theater trip. Class discussions will focus on dramatic genres and themes, dramaturgy, acting styles, and design. Guest speakers may include actors, critics, and directors. Students will keep a theater journal and write several full reviews of plays. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Spring—Local Faculty

ENGL 286. Eat the Story What happens when kids stop playing with their food? We write about it, Instagram it, Tweet it. Our obsession has also inspired a bumper crop of new food prose: call it desk-to-table. "Eat the Story" will be a writing workshop, with a focus on foodways, heirloom crops, and community/urban ag. Our reading menu will draw on contemporary post-Pollan food journalism. (Depending on our appetite, we may visit with local food producers.) These samples will serve as fodder for our main course: practical field reporting and writing projects, from blog posts to longer features. Prerequisite: One prior 6-credit English course. 6 cr., WR; ARP, WR2, Winter—M. Tortorello

ENGL 287. Storytelling in a Changing Media Landscape There have never been more platforms available to journalists--from Twitter to full-length films and everything in between. But each of these platforms has is own strengths and weaknesses as a way to communicate, and simply porting older forms like newspaper and magazine writing to new platforms is doomed to be unsatisfying to both storyteller and audience. We'll look at the tools and technologies available to today's journalists, identify how they might be most effectively deployed, and do case studies on some of the best work happening at the frontier of the media business. Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course or Cinema and Media Studies Digital Foundations course. 2 cr., S/CR/NC, ARP, Fall—M. McClusky

ENGL 295. Critical Methods Required of students majoring in English, this course explores practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism. Not open to first year students. Prerequisite: One English Foundations course and one prior 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Fall,Winter—A. Chakladar, P. Balaam

ENGL 310. Shakespeare II Continuing the work begun in Shakespeare I, this course delves deeper into the Shakespeare canon. More difficult and obscure plays are studied alongside some of the more famous ones. While focusing principally on the plays themselves as works of art, the course also explores their social, intellectual, and theatrical contexts, as well as the variety of critical response they have engendered. Prerequisite: One English Foundations course and English 144 or 244. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Winter—P. Hecker

ENGL 319. The Rise of the Novel A study of the origin and development of the English novel throughout the long eighteenth century. We will situate the early novel within its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to its concern with courtship and marriage, writing and reading, the real and the fantastic. We will also consider eighteenth-century debates about the social function of novels and the dangers of reading fiction. Authors include Behn, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Walpole, and Austen. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Winter—J. Leiman

ENGL 323. English Romantic Poetry "It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words"--P. B. Shelley. Readings in Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and their contemporaries. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Fall—C. Walker

ENGL 327. Victorian Novel We will study selected British novels of the nineteenth century (Eliot's Middlemarch, Dickens' Bleak House, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Du Maurier's Trilby, C. Bronte's Jane Eyre, and E. Bronte's Wuthering Heights) as literary texts and cultural objects, examining the prose and also the bindings, pages, and illustrations of Victorian and contemporary editions. Using Victorian serial publications as models, and in collaboration with studio art and art history students, students will design and create short illustrated serial editions of chapters that will be exhibited in spring term. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 328. Victorian Poetry Victorian poets are prolific, challenging, inventive, and deeply engaged with the intersection of words and visual images in poetry, painting, and photography. We will read the competing aesthetic theories that frame their art, and study works by Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, Dante Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and others. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Spring—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 329. The City in American Literature How do American authors "write the city"? The city as both material reality and metaphor has fueled the imagination of diverse novelists, poets, and playwrights, through tales of fallen women and con men, immigrant dreams, and visions of apocalypse. After studying the realistic tradition of urban fiction at the turn of the twentieth century, we will turn to modern and contemporary re-imaginings of the city, with a focus on Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Selected films, photographs, and historical sources will supplement our investigations of how writers face the challenge of representing urban worlds. Prerequisite: One English foundations course or one other 6 credit English course, or instructor permission. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 332. Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald An intensive study of the novels and short fiction of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The course will focus on the ethos of experimentation and the "homemade" quality of these innovative stylists who shaped the course of American modernism. Works read will be primarily from the twenties and thirties and will include The Sound and the Fury, In Our Time, Light in August, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and Go Down, Moses. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Spring—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 334. Postmodern American Fiction We will get lost in the funhouse of postmodern fiction, in whose mirrored rooms we will encounter Maxwell's Demon, a depressed Krazy Kat, and the icy imagination of the King of Zembla. (Time will be budgeted for side-excursions into pastiche, dreck, and indeterminacy.) Authors read will include Nabokov, Pynchon, Barthelme, and DeLillo. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 335. England in India/India in England This class will begin by exploring the representation of India in the colonial British imagination and segue into the representation of Britain by contemporary South Asian immigrant writers. We will examine the ways in which British and Indian identities are staged, contested and constructed in both the colonial and postcolonial period. Primary texts will include novels by Kipling, Forster, Kureishi and Kunzru; we will also read a range of postcolonial theory and watch related films and television shows. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 337. Art and Argument in U.S. Literary Realism From the 1870s to World War I, the realists produced novels they hoped would be aesthetically superior to those of the past as well as deeply responsive to the rapid social and moral changes of the era. Readings will be drawn from the fiction and theory of Twain, Howells, James, Crane, Jewett, Gilman, Wharton, Dreiser, and Du Bois. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 350. The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated understandings of the locations, forms and indeed the language of the contemporary English novel. This course will examine these questions and the theoretical and interpretive frames in which these writers have often been placed, and probe their place in the global marketplace (and awards stage). We will read writers such as Chinua Achebe, V.S Naipaul, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Salman Rushdie, Nuruddin Farah, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IS, Fall—A. Chakladar

ENGL 352. Toni Morrison: Novelist Morrison exposes the limitations of the language of fiction, but refuses to be constrained by them. Her quirky, inimitable, and invariably memorable characters are fully committed to the protocols of the narratives that define them. She is fearless in her choice of subject matter and boundless in her thematic range. And the novelistic site becomes a stage for Morrison's virtuoso performances. It is to her well-crafted novels that we turn our attention in this course. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course or instructor permission. 6 cr., LA, WR2, IDS, Winter—K. Owusu

ENGL 362. Narrative Theory "Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" asks Hayden White, metahistoriographer. To try to answer that question, we will read contemporary narrative theory by critics from several disciplines and apply their theories to literary texts, films, and cultural objects such as graphic novels, television shows, advertisements, and music videos. Prerequisite: One foundatiions course and one other 6-credit English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2015-2016.

ENGL 370. Advanced Fiction Workshop An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write three to four short stories or novel chapters which will be read and critiqued by the class. Students wishing to register for the course must first submit a portfolio of creative writing (typically a short story) to the instructor during Registration (see the English Department's website for full instructions.) Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor based on portfolio submission. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, ARP, WR2, Spring—G. Smith

ENGL 371. Advanced Poetry Workshop For students with some experience in writing poetry, this workshop further develops craft and vision. Readings and exercises will be used to expand the poet's individual range, and to explore the power of poetic language. Over the ten weeks, each poet will write and revise a significant portfolio. Students must submit three poems to the instructor prior to registration. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. Prerequisite: Submit three poems to instructor for consideration. 6 cr., ARP, WR2, Spring—C. Martin

ENGL 395. T. S. Eliot and the Metaphysical Poet We will examine the impact of Donne and his followers on T. S. Eliot and the founding documents of modernism (especially The Waste Land); assess Eliot's role in canonizing the metaphysical poets; and try to account for the literary and philosophical qualities which led Eliot to champion their work. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Spring—T. Raylor

ENGL 395. James and Wharton Focusing on major fiction of Henry James and Edith Wharton, we will also read criticism to learn a bit about their lives and literary friendship and to examine the ways they use American and international materials to explore human relationships, gender and national identities, the intersections of economic and social structures, and the nature of human consciousness. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 cr., WR; LA, WR2, Fall—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 395. Narrative Necessity "Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" asks metahistorian Hayden White. To try to answer that question is to explore the nature of representation, and confront literature's distinctive blend of fiction and nonfiction. We will read classic and contemporary narrative theory to understand how narrative works in a range of literary genres and forms, including their adaptation into films, graphic novels, and images. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Winter—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 395. Whose Freud?: Debates in Psychoanalytic Criticism For more than a century, assessments of Freudian psychoanalysis and the value of psychoanalytic approaches to literature have risen and fallen, zigged as well as zagged. We will interrogate this situation for ourselves, examining Freud's major theories, the checkered history of their application to literary study, the privileged position Freud granted to literature in his work, the roles of narrative and interpretation in his case histories and conception of "the talking cure." Reading Freud and his followers alongside works of twentieth-century literature, criticism, and critical theory, we will debate whether (or to what extent) psychoanalytic approaches put an end to fruitful inquiries or inspire and enable them. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 cr., LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Fall—P. Balaam

ENGL 400. Integrative Exercise Senior English majors may fulfill the integrative exercise by completing one of the four options: the Colloquium Option (a group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works); the Research Essay Option (an extended essay on a topic of the student's own devising); the Creative Option (creation of a work of literary art); or the Project Option (creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project). The Research Essay Option is open to students who have completed a senior seminar in the major by the end of fall term senior year. The Creative Option is open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of fall term senior year. 6 cr., S/NC, Winter,Spring—Staff