English

General Information

In Carleton’s English department, we are passionate about the study of literature and the teaching of writing. We offer a major in English as well as a minor in creative writing. The diverse backgrounds and specialties of English department faculty are reflected in the variety of our literature courses and creative writing workshops. Our courses examine a range of genres, historical eras, literary and cultural traditions, and critical approaches. 

The skills in reading, interpretation, writing, creativity, and communication taught in the English department are essential to all fields of study, whether artistic, humanistic, or scientific. These skills also transfer readily to a broad range of careers.

Requirements for the English Major

Seventy-two credits in English, including the following:

1. Foundations: One designated 100-level course that develops skills of literary analysis and introduces the concept of genre 

  • ENGL 100 Imagining a Self
  • ENGL 100 Writing About America and Globalization
  • ENGL 100 Spirit of Place
  • ENGL 100 Milton, Shelley, Pullman
  • ENGL 100 How We Read: The History and Science of Reading
  • ENGL 100 Rhetoric: Art of Persuasion
  • ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel
  • ENGL 114 Introduction to Medieval Narrative (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 115 The Art of Storytelling
  • ENGL 116 The Art of Drama
  • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 118 Introduction to Poetry
  • ENGL 119 Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 125 Norse and Celtic Mythology (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 129 Introduction to British Comedy (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 131 Reading Fiction (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 136 Black Speculative Fiction (not offered in 2020-21)
  • ENGL 144 Shakespeare I
  • ENGL 187 Murder

2. Historical Eras: 36 credits in literature courses numbered 200-394 (excluding 220 and 295) which must include:

  • Group I: 12 credits in literature before 1660
    • ENGL 126 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 203 Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature
    • ENGL 204 History of the English Language (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 205 The Medieval Outlaw (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 206 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 207 Princes. Poets. Power
    • ENGL 208 The Faerie Queene
    • ENGL 209 Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 210 From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 213 Christopher Marlowe (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 214 Revenge Tragedy
    • ENGL 216 Milton (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare
    • ENGL 228 Encountering the Other: The Crusades (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 244 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 302 The Medieval Outlaw (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 310 Shakespeare II
  • Group II: 12 credits in literature between 1660 and 1900
    • AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America (not offered in 2020-21)
    • AMST 256 Walt Whitman's New York
    • ENGL 212 Nineteenth-Century American Literature
    • ENGL 217 A Novel Education
    • ENGL 218 The Gothic Spirit
    • ENGL 221 "Moby-Dick" & Race: Whiteness and the Whale
    • ENGL 222 The Art of Jane Austen
    • ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism
    • ENGL 225 'Public Offenders': Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 239 Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 319 The Rise of the Novel
    • ENGL 323 Romanticism and Reform
    • ENGL 327 Victorian Novel (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 328 Victorian Poetry
  • Group III: 12 credits in literature after 1900 
    • AMST 269 Woodstock Nation
    • ENGL 215 Modern American Literature
    • ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 234 Literature of the American South
    • ENGL 235 Asian American Literature
    • ENGL 236 American Nature Writing (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 237 Black British Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
    • ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump
    • ENGL 247 The American West
    • ENGL 248 Visions of California (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 249 Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
    • ENGL 250 Indian Fiction 1880-1980
    • ENGL 251 Contemporary Indian Fiction
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction
    • ENGL 253 Canadian Fiction
    • ENGL 256 Ireland Program: Irish History and Culture (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage
    • ENGL 264 American Lyric: Poetry, Pop and Rap (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 274 Ireland Program: Irish Literary Pasts and Presents (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 288 California Program: The Literature of California
    • ENGL 329 The City in American Literature
    • ENGL 332 Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 333 Margaret Atwood (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 334 Postmodern American Fiction (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 345 Queer Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
    • ENGL 351 Zadie Smith (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist
    • ENGL 359 World Literature in the Twenty-First Century
    • ENGL 362 Narrative Theory (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 366 The Carleton Miscellany (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 395 Narrative
    • THEA 242 Modern American Drama

3. English 295: Critical Methods

4. English 395: Advanced Seminar

5. English 400: Senior Integrative Exercise (A senior may choose one of the following):

  • Colloquium Option: A group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works.
  • Research Essay Option: An extended essay on a topic of the student's own devising. Open only to students who have completed their Advanced Seminar by the end of fall term senior year.
  • Creative Writing Option: Creation of a work of literary art. 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.
  • Project Option: Creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project.

Of the 72 credits required to complete the major:

1. at least 6 credits must be taken in each of the following traditions:

  • T1: Literature of Ireland and Britain
    • ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel
    • ENGL 114 Introduction to Medieval Narrative (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 116 The Art of Drama
    • ENGL 126 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 129 Introduction to British Comedy (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 135 Imperial Adventures
    • ENGL 144 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 203 Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature
    • ENGL 204 History of the English Language (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 205 The Medieval Outlaw (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 206 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 207 Princes. Poets. Power
    • ENGL 208 The Faerie Queene
    • ENGL 209 Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 210 From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 213 Christopher Marlowe (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 214 Revenge Tragedy
    • ENGL 216 Milton (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 217 A Novel Education
    • ENGL 218 The Gothic Spirit
    • ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare
    • ENGL 222 The Art of Jane Austen
    • ENGL 225 'Public Offenders': Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 228 Encountering the Other: The Crusades (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 244 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 249 Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
    • ENGL 256 Ireland Program: Irish History and Culture (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 274 Ireland Program: Irish Literary Pasts and Presents (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 282 London Program: London Theater
    • ENGL 302 The Medieval Outlaw (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 310 Shakespeare II
    • ENGL 319 The Rise of the Novel
    • ENGL 323 Romanticism and Reform
    • ENGL 327 Victorian Novel (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 328 Victorian Poetry
    • ENGL 351 Zadie Smith (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 395 Seductive Fictions
    • ENGL 395 T. S. Eliot and the Metaphysical Poet
    • EUST 232 Economics and European Studies in Cambridge: The Great War in Poetry, History and Memory (not offered in 2020-21)
  • T2: Literature of North America
    • AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America (not offered in 2020-21)
    • AMST 256 Walt Whitman's New York
    • AMST 269 Woodstock Nation
    • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 136 Black Speculative Fiction (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 212 Nineteenth-Century American Literature
    • ENGL 215 Modern American Literature
    • ENGL 221 "Moby-Dick" & Race: Whiteness and the Whale
    • ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism
    • ENGL 226 Modernism (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 234 Literature of the American South
    • ENGL 235 Asian American Literature
    • ENGL 236 American Nature Writing (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 239 Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump
    • ENGL 247 The American West
    • ENGL 248 Visions of California (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 253 Canadian Fiction
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage
    • ENGL 264 American Lyric: Poetry, Pop and Rap (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 288 California Program: The Literature of California
    • ENGL 329 The City in American Literature
    • ENGL 332 Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 333 Margaret Atwood (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist
    • ENGL 366 The Carleton Miscellany (not offered in 2020-21)
  • T3: Global Anglophone Literatures
    • ENGL 237 Black British Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
    • ENGL 250 Indian Fiction 1880-1980
    • ENGL 251 Contemporary Indian Fiction
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
    • ENGL 359 World Literature in the Twenty-First Century

2. at least 24 credits must be in courses numbered 300-395

3. up to 6 credits may be in literature other than English in the original or translation 

  • ARBC 144 Arabic Literature at War
  • ARBC 185 The Creation of Classical Arabic Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
  • CHIN 245 Chinese Vision of the Past in Translation
  • CHIN 251 Heroes, Heroines, Exceptional Lives in Chinese Biographical Histories (not offered in 2020-21)
  • CHIN 355 Contemporary Chinese Short Stories (not offered in 2020-21)
  • CHIN 364 Chinese Classic Tales and Modern Adaptation
  • CLAS 112 The Epic in Classical Antiquity: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts (not offered in 2020-21)
  • CLAS 116 Ancient Drama: Truth in Performance
  • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 233 French Cinema and Culture (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 237 Page and Stage: The Performance of Culture (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 238 Back to the Future: French Classics Reimagined (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 239 Banned Books (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 241 The Lyric and Other Seductions
  • FREN 242 Journeys of Self-Discovery (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 244 Contemporary France and Humor
  • FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 247 The Seven Deadly Sins (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 248 Murder and Mayhem: Narratives of Suspense (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 259 Paris Program: Hybrid Paris
  • FREN 340 Arts of Brevity: Short Fiction (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 341 Madame Bovary and Her Avatars (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 347 Gender and Sexuality in the Francophone World (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 351 Love, War and Monsters in Renaissance France (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 354 The World Beyond (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 360 The Algerian War of Liberation and Its Representations (not offered in 2020-21)
  • FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa
  • GERM 247 Mirror, Mirror: Reflecting on Fairy Tales and Folklore (not offered in 2020-21)
  • GRK 204 Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry
  • LATN 204 Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry
  • RELG 161 The Jewish Bible (not offered in 2020-21)
  • RELG 162 Jesus, the Bible, and Christian Beginnings (not offered in 2020-21)
  • RUSS 244 The Rise of the Russian Novel
  • RUSS 261 Lolita
  • RUSS 266 The Brothers Karamazov (not offered in 2020-21)
  • RUSS 267 War and Peace (not offered in 2020-21)
  • RUSS 341 From Folktale to Fanfiction: Russian Short Prose (not offered in 2020-21)
  • RUSS 351 Chekhov
  • SPAN 242 Introduction to Latin American Literature
  • SPAN 262 Myth and History in Central American Literature
  • SPAN 330 The Invention of the Modern Novel: Cervantes' Don Quijote (not offered in 2020-21)
  • SPAN 366 Jorge Luis Borges: Less a Man Than a Vast and Complex Literature
  • SPAN 371 Yours Truly: The Body of the Letter (not offered in 2020-21)

4. up to 12 credits may be in creative writing

Double-majors considering completing the integrative exercise during the junior year will need written approval from the departmental chair.

Workshops in Writing

The Department of English offers workshop courses in the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction for those students who wish to gain experience in writing. Students are encouraged to submit their work to college publications such as The Lens, manuscript, the Clap, and Carleton Progressive.

Writers on the Carleton faculty include poets Gregory Hewett and Susan Jaret McKinstry and novelist Gregory Blake Smith. In addition to those courses offered by regular faculty members, the department brings visiting writers to campus to read and to conduct workshops in their specialties. Visitors have included playwright Tony Kushner, memoirists Richard Rodriquez and Patricia Hampl, poets Robert Creeley, Carolyn Forche, Sharon Olds, and Andrew Hudgins, nature writers Dan O'Brien and David Rains Wallace, and fiction-writers Jane Hamilton, Ann Beattie, Maxine Hong Kingston, Marilynne Robinson, Jonis Agee, Paul Auster, and Siri Hustvedt.

English Creative Writing Minor

The English Creative Writing Minor is intended for students who wish to gain experience in creative writing by taking a series of writing workshops accompanied by the study of literature relevant to their writing interests. Students must complete 36 total credits as described below.

  • 18 credits of creative writing workshops, chosen from college-wide offerings in prose fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, television writing, and/or creative nonfiction; including at least one course in the English Department and one course at the 300 level: 
    • CAMS 271 Fiction
    • CAMS 278 Writing for Television (not offered in 2020-21)
    • CAMS 279 Screenwriting
    • CCST 270 Creative Travel Writing Workshop (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 160 Creative Writing
    • ENGL 263 Crafts of Writing: Creative Nonfiction (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 264 American Lyric: Poetry, Pop and Rap (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 265 News Stories
    • ENGL 270 Short Story Workshop
    • ENGL 271 Poetry Workshop
    • ENGL 273 Writing Memoir (not offered in 2020-21)
    • ENGL 370 Advanced Fiction Workshop
    • ENGL 371 Advanced Poetry Workshop
    • THEA 246 Playwriting (not offered in 2020-21)
  • 18 credits of literature courses drawn from offerings in the Department of English, in courses numbered over 100.  Must include at least one course at the 300 level. Students who wish to complete the Creative Writing Minor are encouraged to choose literature courses that are pertinent to their creative writing interests.

English majors who wish to also minor in Creative Writing may do so, but they may not count more than 18 credits of their major toward the 36 total credits for the minor.

 

 

English Courses

ENGL 100 How We Read: The History and Science of Reading In recent years, a 500-year-old technology for reading (the printed book) has been challenged by a very new one (the LCD displays in our phones and tablets). At the same time, advances in cognitive neuroscience have deepened our understanding of reading as a mental process. This makes it a good moment to consider how we read now and how we read in the past. We will examine a variety of reading practices, including reading aloud and silent reading, as well as the emotional impact of reading. The course will emphasize the foundational skill of academic reading--“close” reading--but also consider “distant” and “surface” reading. In addition to relevant scholarship, we will read poetry and novels as we reflect on our own habits as readers. 6 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; George G Shuffelton
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 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; Jessica L Leiman
ENGL 100 Milton, Shelley, Pullman We will read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials as responses to and radical revisions of Milton's Paradise Lost. 6 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; Constance Walker
ENGL 100 Rhetoric: Art of Persuasion Rhetoric's all around us: in political manifestos and legal pleadings; in professions of love and advertisements for dog food. We use it whenever we urge someone to believe what we say or do what we want. But how well do we understand the foundations and protocols of this art that teaches us "to see the available means of persuasion?" In this class we'll study the origins and theory of rhetoric (via Aristotle), examine exemplary instances (from Pericles to Trump), and consider the charges (via Plato) that it's all lies and trickery, while learning how to compose persuasive academic papers and presentations. 6 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; Timothy Raylor
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 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; Michael J Kowalewski
ENGL 100 Writing About America and Globalization Focusing on rhetorical choices and writing strategies, we will seek to read critically, formulate questions, and write persuasively about contemporary issues in the U.S. in a globalized world. Varied readings – journalistic and scholarly – as well as our own experiences, will inform discussion of the impact of globalization on particular issues, such as economic and social justice, national sovereignty, sustainability, and human rights in the context of economic interdependence and instant communication across the globe; topics this year will include gender, winners and losers, COVID-19, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Students will refine persuasive skills through research, writing, and revising several major essays, through peer review and feedback from the professor.  6 credits; AI, WR1; Fall; Elizabeth McKinsey
ENGL 109 The Craft of Academic Writing This course is designed to demystify the practice of academic writing and to introduce students to the skills they’ll need to write effectively in a variety of academic disciplines and contexts. Students will learn how to respond to other authors’ claims, frame clear arguments of their own, structure essays to develop a clear logical flow, integrate outside sources into their writing, and improve their writing through revision. All sections will include a variety of readings, multiple writing assignments, and substantial feedback from the course instructor. 6 credits; NE, WR2; Winter, Spring; Peter J Balaam, Timothy Raylor
ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel This course explores the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from a strange, sensational experiment in the eighteenth century to a dominant literary genre today. Among the questions that we will consider: What is a novel? What makes it such a popular form of entertainment? How does the novel participate in ongoing conversations about family, sex, class, race, and nation? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate literary form? Authors include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, and Jackie Kay. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter, Spring; Jessica L Leiman
ENGL 114 Introduction to Medieval Narrative This class will focus on three of the most popular and closely connected modes of narrative enjoyed by medieval audiences: the epic, the romance, and the saint's life. Readings, drawn primarily from the English and French traditions, will include Beowulf, The Song of Roland, the Arthurian romances of Chretien de Troyes, and legends of St. Alexis and St. Margaret. We will consider how each narrative mode influenced the other, as we encounter warriors and lovers who suffer like saints, and saints who triumph like warriors and lovers. Readings will be in translation or highly accessible modernizations. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Kofi Owusu
ENGL 116 The Art of Drama An exploration of drama approached as literature and in performance. New digital resources enable us to take world-class productions from the National Theatre and elsewhere as our texts. Drawing examples both globally and across time, we will consider plays and recent productions in their historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop critical vocabularies, debate interpretations, and hone their interpretive and rhetorical skills in writing reviews and essays. Additional time required for viewing performances. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Fall, Spring; Pierre Hecker, Peter J Balaam
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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall, Winter; Timothy Raylor, Constance Walker
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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 125 Norse and Celtic Mythology What remains of the beliefs of the pre-Christian Norse and Celts represent some of the stranger and more obscure elements of Western tradition. Preserved thanks to the literacy which was brought by the new religion that extinguished it, the mythology of the Irish, Welsh, and Icelanders left a legacy that reveals itself in surprising places in our modern world. This course studies works such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas, The Mabinogi, and The Táin to explore myths as the products of environment and culture and examine the problems of transmission inherent to Christian descriptions of pagan belief. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 126 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern King Arthur is a figure from Western tradition whose name conjures a clear series of associations: the Sword in the Stone, the Round Table, the Holy Grail. This course traces the development of this tradition, from its origins in an obscure corner of the British Isles to its dominance within both European literature and the popular imagination. Similarly, Arthur himself takes on multiple, sometimes contradictory guises—an enemy of the English and yet a symbol of England, the archetype of the perfect king but a champion of democracy, the epitome of Christian devotion yet suffused with pagan imagery. Our texts range from medieval Welsh legend to modern film; everything is in modern English translation. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Fall; Arnab Chakladar
ENGL 136 Black Speculative Fiction This course introduces the black speculative tradition from the nineteenth century to Black Panther (2018). We will situate our readings within the science fiction/fantasy genre to investigate the ways black authors construct narratives about technology and the future to advocate for racial, sexual, and gender equality. We will discuss dichotomies of human/alien life, blackness and technology, and purity and hybridity, in addition to cosmic narratives of gender and sexuality and interspecies tolerance. Course materials include works by Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delaney, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Janelle Monae. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA; Fall; Pierre Hecker
ENGL 160 Creative Writing You will work in several genres and forms, among them: traditional and experimental poetry, prose fiction, and creative nonfiction. In your writing you will explore the relationship between the self, the imagination, the word, and the world. In this practitioner’s guide to the creative writing process, we will examine writings from past and current authors, and your writings will be critiqued in a workshop setting and revised throughout the term.  6 credits; ARP, WR2; Fall, Winter, Spring; Gregory G Hewett, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Christopher M Martin
ENGL 187 Murder From the ancient Greeks to the Bible to the modern serial killer novel, murder has always been a preeminent topic of intellectual and artistic investigation. Covering a range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, drama, and film, this transhistorical survey will explore why homicide has been the subject of such fierce attention from so many great minds. Works may include: the Bible, Shakespeare, De Quincey, Poe, Thompson, Capote, Tey, McGinniss, Auster, French, Malcolm, Wilder, and Morris, as well as critical, legal, and other materials. Warning: not for the faint-hearted. (May not be retaken as ENGL 395.) 6 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Pierre Hecker
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 203 Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature When medieval writers imagined worlds beyond their own, what did they see?  This course will examine depictions of the afterlife, the East, and magical realms of the imagination. We will read romances, saints' lives, and a masterpiece of pseudo-travel literature that influenced both Shakespeare and Columbus, alongside contemporary theories of postcolonialism, gender and race. We will visit the lands of the dead and the undead, and compare gruesome punishments and heavenly rewards. We will encounter dog-headed men, Amazons, cannibals, armies devoured by hippopotami, and roasted geese that fly onto waiting dinner tables. Be prepared. Readings in Middle English and in modern translations. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; George G Shuffelton
ENGL 204 History of the English Language This class teaches the history of the English language through the prism of sociolinguistics. Along with teaching phonology, the basics of Old and Middle English, and changes in morphology, pronunciation and vocabulary over time, the course will explore how language both shapes and is shaped by society. We will use the history of English as a vehicle for exploring issues of imperialism, class, and politics that arose throughout the language’s development. Along the way, students see how language plays an active role in both perpetuating and resolving communities’ thorniest social problems, in the past and in the present day. 6 credits; HI, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 205 The Medieval Outlaw Some of the most enduring figures of the Middle Ages are Robin Hood and his Merry Men. However, the Robin Hood we know only appeared in English literature in the Late Middle Ages and his story was not established until the Renaissance. This course traces the development of the outlaw figure from Anglo-Saxon poetry through Irish and Icelandic traditions to the rebels that arose in the Middle English period. We examine the outlaw from several theoretical standpoints, including the postcolonial, anthropological, ecocritical, and gender studies perspectives. All readings are either in Middle English or in Modern English translation. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 206 Arthurian Tradition: From Medieval to Modern King Arthur is a figure from Western tradition whose name conjures a clear series of associations: the Sword in the Stone, the Round Table, the Holy Grail. This course traces the development of this tradition, from its origins in an obscure corner of the British Isles to its dominance within both European literature and the popular imagination. Similarly, Arthur himself takes on multiple, sometimes contradictory guises—an enemy of the English and yet a symbol of England, the archetype of the perfect king but a champion of democracy, the epitome of Christian devotion yet suffused with pagan imagery. Our texts range from medieval Welsh legend to modern film; everything is in modern English translation. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 207 Princes. Poets. Power Can you serve power without sacrificing your principles or risking your life?  We examine the classic explorations of the problem--Machiavelli's Prince, Castiglione's Courtier, and More's Utopia--and investigate the place of poets and poetry at court of Henry VIII, tracing the birth of the English sonnet, and the role of poetry in the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn. 3 credits; LA; Spring; Timothy Raylor
ENGL 208 The Faerie Queene Spenser's romance epic: an Arthurian quest-cycle, celebrating the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, and England's imperial destiny.  Readers encounter knights, ladies, and lady-knights; enchanted groves and magic castles; dragons and sorcerers; and are put through a series of moral tests and hermeneutic challenges. 3 credits; LA; Spring; Timothy Raylor
ENGL 209 Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course This interdisciplinary course, taught in conjunction with a full-scale Carleton Players production, will explore one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated and performed works, Much Ado About Nothing. We will investigate the play’s historical, social, and theatrical contexts as we try to understand not only the world that produced the play, but the world that came out of it. How should what we learn of the past inform a modern production? How can performance offer interpretive arguments about the play’s meanings? Mixing embodied and experiential learning, individual and group projects may include a combination of research, assistant directing, choreography, music direction, dramaturgy, design, exhibition curation, and work in Special Collections. 6 credits; IS, ARP; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 historical and intellectual contexts including ideas about race, class, gender, and the nature of democracy. 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, Fuller, Jacobs, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, James, and Chopin. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Elizabeth 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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter; Pierre 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 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; Michael J Kowalewski
ENGL 216 Milton Radical, heretic, and revolutionary, John Milton wrote the most influential, and perhaps the greatest, poem in the English language. We will read the major poems (Lycidas, the sonnets, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes), a selection of the prose, and will attend to Milton's historical context, to the critical arguments over his work, and to his impact on literature and the other arts. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Jessica L 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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Jessica L Leiman
ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare Shakespeare’s plays have been reimagined and repurposed all over the world, performed on seven continents, and translated into over 100 languages. The course explores how issues of globalization, nationalism, translation (both cultural and linguistic), and (de)colonization inform our understanding of these wonderfully varied adaptations and appropriations. We will examine the social, political, and aesthetic implications of a range of international stage, film, and literary versions as we consider how other cultures respond to the hegemonic original. No prior experience with Shakespeare is necessary. 3 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter; Pierre Hecker
ENGL 220 Arts of Oral Presentation Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 credits; S/CR/NC; NE; Winter, Spring; Timothy Raylor, Michael J Kowalewski
ENGL 221 "Moby-Dick" & Race: Whiteness and the Whale From its famous opening line to its apocalyptic close, Melville’s lofty and profane romance of the whaling-industry is gripped by the myths and marked by the traumas of race. Exploring its black-and-white thematics and racialized characters in nineteenth- as well as twenty-first-century social and political contexts, this course takes Melville’s stupendous book as an anatomy of "whiteness" as a racial construct in U.S. cultural history. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter, Spring; Peter J Balaam
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall, Spring; Constance Walker
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 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Peter J Balaam
ENGL 225 'Public Offenders': Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group Two exceptional groups of artists changed aesthetic and cultural history through their writings, art, politics, and lives. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began in 1847 when art students united to create “direct and serious and heartfelt” work; the Bloomsbury group began with Cambridge friends sharing their insistence on aesthetic lives. Critics said the PRB “extolled fleshliness as the supreme end of poetic and pictorial art,” and the Bloomsbury Group “painted in circles, lived in squares and loved in triangles.” We will study Dante Rossetti, Holman Hunt, John Millais, William Morris, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Roger Fry, Vanessa and Clive Bell. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands This course engages the borderlands as space (the geographic area that straddles nations) and idea (liminal spaces, identities, communities). We examine texts from writers like Anzaldúa, Butler, Cervantes, Dick, Eugenides, Haraway, and Muñoz first to understand how borders act to constrain our imagi(nation) and then to explore how and to what degree the borderlands offer hybrid identities, queer affects, and speculative world-building. We will engage the excess of the borderlands through a broad chronological and generic range of U.S. literary and visual texts. Come prepared to question what is "American," what is race, what is human. 6 credits; WR2, IDS, LA; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 228 Encountering the Other: The Crusades The Crusades, beginning in 1099, brought the kingdoms of Western Europe into contact with many new cultures. This course studies the literature of the period to understand the attitudes and motivations that initiated it, and takes a postcolonialist approach to characterize texts from the Crusades as an attempt to define the Self against the Other—not just on the part of the Crusaders, but from the perspective of Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Greeks, and others. By examining this material, we can gain insight into the motivations behind prejudice and violence, issues which are of crucial importance today. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present We will explore developments in African American literature since the 1950s with a focus on literary expression in the Civil Rights Era; on the Black Arts Movement; on the new wave of feminist/womanist writing; and on the experimental and futuristic fictions of the twenty-first century. Authors to be read include Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Charles Johnson, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Suzan-Lori Parks, Kevin Young, and Tracy Smith. 6 credits; LA, IDS; Fall; Kofi Owusu
ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice Social justice is fairness as it manifests in society, but who gets to determine what fairness looks, sounds, feels like? The self-described Black Canadian poet Dionne Brand says that she doesn’t write toward justice because that doesn’t exist, but that she writes against tyranny. If we use that framework, how does that change our own writing and our own notions of justice in our or any time? What is the role of literary writing, especially fiction, the essay, and poetry in the collective and individual quest to understand and build conditions that could yield increased potential for social justice? In this course, students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about various texts that might be considered to be against myriad tyrannies, if not necessarily toward social justice. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Phillip Metres, Toni Morrison, Myung Mi Kim, and M. NourbeSe Philipe. 6 credits; ARP, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Spring; Elizabeth 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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Winter; Nancy J 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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 237 Black British Literature A survey of black British literature across Great Britain, focusing on regional identity and tensions between rural and urban spaces. This course examines the history of black British communities and their overlapping diasporas, and the ways the British nation state has defined black British identity. Readings include poetry, novels, and short stories by John Agard, Jackie Kay, George Lamming, Grace Nichols, Helen Oyeyemi, Samuel Selvon, and Zadie Smith, and foreground issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, IS; Spring; Kofi Owusu
ENGL 239 Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels An important preoccupation of nineteenth century America was the nature of democracy and the proper balance of individualism and the social good. An experiment in government, democracy also raised new questions about gender, class, and race. Citizenship was contested; roles in the new, expanding nation were fluid; abolition and emancipation, the movement for women's rights, industrialization all caused ferment and anxiety. The course will explore the way these issues were imagined in fiction by such writers as Cooper, Hawthorne, Maria Sedgwick, Stowe, Tourgee, Henry Adams, Twain, Gilman, and Chesnutt. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump The last few years have placed Latinx communities under siege and in the spotlight. The demands of the census and new policies around immigration mean that who counts as Latinx and why it matters has public visibility and meaning. Simultaneously, the last few years have seen an incredible growth of new literary voices and genres in the world of Latinx letters. From fictional and creative nonfiction accounts of detention camps, border crossings, and asylum court proceedings to lyrical wanderings in bilingualism to demands for greater attention to Afrolatinidad and the particular experiences of Black Latinxs--Latinx voices are rising. We will engage with current literary discussions in print, on twitter, and in literary journals as we chart the shifting, developing terrain of Latinx literatures.  6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Fall; Adriana Estill
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Pierre 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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Spring; Arnab Chakladar
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Michael J 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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 249 Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics What can and should be the role of literature in times of bitter political conflict? Caught in partisan strife, Irish writers have grappled personally and painfully with the question. We will read works by Joyce, Yeats, and Heaney, among others, and watch films (Bloody Sunday, Hunger) that confront the deep and ongoing divisions in Irish political life. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; Constance Walker
ENGL 250 Indian Fiction 1880-1980 In this course we will follow the various paths that the novel in India has taken since the late nineteenth 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 odd 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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Fall; Arnab Chakladar
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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Spring; Arnab 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 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter; Arnab Chakladar
ENGL 253 Canadian Fiction This course will serve as an introduction to Canadian fiction in English of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will read a number of major novelists and short story writers, as well as newer voices. Our attempt will be to trace the major trajectories along which Canadian literature has developed in the period and explore the faultlines that complicate the question of a national literature.  6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter; Arnab Chakladar
ENGL 256 Ireland Program: Irish History and Culture In this course we will examine the beliefs, practices, and relationships that shaped the Irish historical experience, providing students with an historical grounding for their explorations and studies in Ireland. In addition to history and politics, topics will include language, folklore, music, and visual culture. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage This course examines work by U.S. playwrights of color from the 1950s to the present, focusing on questions of race, performance, and self-representation. We will consider opportunities and limitations of the commercial theater, Off-Off Broadway, ethnic theaters, and non-traditional performance spaces. Playwrights may include Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Luis Valdez, Cherrie Moraga, August Wilson, David Henry Hwang, Philip Gotanda, Maria Irene Fornes, Anna Deavere Smith, and Chay Yew. We will watch selected film adaptations and attend a live performance when possible.  6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Winter; Nancy J Cho
ENGL 263 Crafts of Writing: Creative Nonfiction Do you like it when true things happen? Would you like to take those true things and make them sound truer than true? Would you like to use words while doing that? In this course, students will write an evocation, a piece of long-form narrative journalism, and a personal essay. Class time will be spent on live writing assignments, giving and receiving feedback, learning writing and research techniques, and having discussions about things that seem trivial right up until the moment that their ultimate significance is revealed. Prerequisite: One previous English course. 6 credits; ARP, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 264 American Lyric: Poetry, Pop and Rap In this course we will look at the shifting boundary between genres that share a common root in lyrical expression. From the sonnet to chart topping pop to underground rap, what it means to be American has been built and is continually refurbished from the lyric up. We will be asking many questions. How does Kendrick Lamar’s song “i” echo and update Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”? What happens in the overlap between T. S. Eliot and Missy Elliott? How is the new generation of American poets integrating song and rap into their work? Our answers will come in both critical and creative forms. Prerequisite: Not open to students who have taken ENGL 100.00 Fall 2016. 6 credits; ARP, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 265 News Stories This journalism course explores the process of moving from event to news story. Students will study and write different forms of journalism (including news, reviews, features, interviews, investigative pieces, and images), critique one another’s writing, and revise their pieces for a final portfolio of professional work. 6 credits; ARP, WR2; Spring; Susan Jaret McKinstry
ENGL 266 Research Writing This writing-rich course will address techniques for designing an extended research project and using that research to write in a variety of genres. Students will begin the term by designing an overall research topic in an area of their interests (not necessarily limited to literary studies or the humanities). Over the course of the term, students will research this topic independently while the class examines how different audiences and purposes determine the ways that writers use evidence, organize information, and convey their ideas. Writing assignments throughout the term will draw on students’ research and may include project proposals, literature reviews, blog posts, op-ed pieces, and posters. 6 credits; NE, WR2; Winter, Spring; George Cusack
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 credits; S/CR/NC; ARP, WR2; Fall, Winter; Gregory B 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 credits; ARP, WR2; Winter; Gregory G Hewett
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 credits; ARP, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 274 Ireland Program: Irish Literary Pasts and Presents In Dublin and Belfast we will read and discuss works by Irish writers from the early twentieth century on the Irish Literary Revival and the political and cultural currents leading up the Easter Rising and Irish independence; we will also read works by early twenty-first century Irish writers in conversation with those crucial moments in Irish political and cultural self-fashioning from a century ago. We will also meet with writers and attend readings, lectures, films, and plays. Prerequisite: Participation in OCS Ireland program. 6 credits; LA, IS, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 278 London Program: Shakespeare's England This course concentrates on the relationship between the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the world in which they lived, and the vitality of performance. Particular attention will be paid to Tudor and Stuart historical sites as students explore England through the lens of Renaissance literature and the literature through the lens of Renaissance England. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter
ENGL 282 London Program: London Theater Students will attend productions of both classic and contemporary plays in London and Stratford-on-Avon and do related reading. Class discussions will focus on dramatic genres and themes, dramaturgy, acting styles, and design. Guest speakers may include actors, critics, and directors. Students will take backstage tours, keep a theater journal, and work on theater criticism and reviews. Prerequisite: Participation in OCS London program. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter
ENGL 285 Textual Technologies from Parchment to Pixel As readers, we rarely consider the technologies, practices, and transactions that deliver us our texts. This course introduces students to the material study of writing, manuscripts, books, printing, and digital media. It attends to the processes of copying, revision, editing, and circulation; familiarizes students with the disciplines of descriptive bibliography, paleography, and textual criticism; and introduces the principles of editing, in both print and electronic media. It offers hands-on practice in most of these areas. 6 credits; HI, WR2; Spring; George G Shuffelton, Austin P Mason
ENGL 288 California Program: The Literature of California An intensive study of writing and film that explores California 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 John Muir, Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, Robinson Jeffers, John Steinbeck, and Joan Didion. Films will include: Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, The Grapes of Wrath, Zoot Suit, and Blade Runner. 6 credits; LA, IDS; Winter
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 credits; LA, WR2; Fall, Spring; Peter J Balaam, Susan Jaret McKinstry
ENGL 302 The Medieval Outlaw Some of the most enduring figures of the Middle Ages are Robin Hood and his Merry Men. However, the Robin Hood we know only appeared in English literature in the Late Middle Ages and his story was not established until the Renaissance. This course traces the development of the outlaw figure from Anglo-Saxon poetry through Irish and Icelandic traditions to the rebels that arose in the Middle English period. We examine the outlaw from several theoretical standpoints, including the postcolonial, anthropological, ecocritical, and gender studies perspectives. All readings are either in Middle English or in Modern English translation. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; Pierre 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 six credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; Jessica L Leiman
ENGL 323 Romanticism and Reform Mass protests, police brutality, reactionary politicians, imprisoned journalists, widespread unemployment, and disease were all features of the Romantic era in Britain as well as our own time. We will explore how its writers brilliantly advocate for empathy, liberty, and social justice in the midst of violence and upheaval. Readings will include works by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley, and their contemporaries. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Constance Walker
ENGL 327 Victorian Novel Puzzled about nineteenth century novels, Henry James asks, 'But what do such large loose baggy monsters with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?'' (“Preface,” Tragic Muse). What, indeed? These novels have defined the form of "the novel" for nearly 200 years. Through close reading, historic context, and visual studies, we will examine the prose, design, publication, and illustrations of Victorian editions, and consider how we (re)define and interpret the nineteenth century novel now. Students will create a photographic portrait project. Authors include George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Mary Seacole, and Lewis Carroll. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course or instructor consent. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 328 Victorian Poetry Living in an era of rapid progress and profound doubt, Victorian poets are prolific, challenging, inventive, and insistent that poetry address contemporary questions of social inequity, science, gender, nation, self, race, and knowledge itself. Readings will include works by Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, Dante Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and others, as well as cultural images and documents. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Winter; Susan 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 and one other 6 credit English course, or instructor permission. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Nancy J Cho
ENGL 332 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 additional 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 333 Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood is among the most influential and important writers of our time. In this class we will study a wide range of her major work from the beginning of her career to the present, asking questions about genre, feminism, form, etc. While her novels will be our focus, we will also read some of her poetry, short stories, and essays. There will be occasional out-of-class screenings of television and film adaptations of Atwood's work. Prerequisite: One Foundations course in ENGL and one additional 6 credit course in English courses. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 345 Queer Literature This course focuses on the relationship between literature and queer theory: how concepts of queerness have shaped, and been shaped by, literary art. Through the study of fiction, poetry, and essays, the class explores changing definitions of LGBTQ+ culture at the intersections of race, ability, size, class, and ethnicity. We will examine how queer political movements create radical spaces to rethink identity politics, and investigate queer literature’s portrayal of queer themes and culture. Authors and theorists include: Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, Audre Lorde, Jose Munoz, Leslie Feinberg, Michael Cunningham, James Baldwin, Carmen Maria Machado, and Roxane Gay. Prerequisite: One English foundations courses and one other six credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated our 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 a number of major novelists of the postcolonial era from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and the diaspora as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Fall, Spring; Arnab Chakladar
ENGL 351 Zadie Smith In this course we will study the majority of the oeuvre of Zadie Smith, a writer who stands at the intersections of a number of traditions of literary study as traditionally construed. All the novels will be read along with some short stories and much of her critical essays and other non-fiction work. We will read the growing body of criticism on her work as well and analyze the ongoing development of one of the major writers of our time. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2020-21
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 credits; LA, WR2, IDS; Fall; Kofi Owusu
ENGL 359 World Literature in the Twenty-First Century Our focus will be on contemporary writers who tend to localize the global and/or globalize the local in their decidedly textured fiction and nonfiction published since 2001. Selected writers include Zinzi Clemmons, Ta-Nehisi Coates, J.M. Coetzee, Junot Diaz, Esi Edugyan, Nuruddin Farah, Yaa Gyasi, Dinaw Mengestu, Chigozie Obioma, and Zadie Smith. Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course or instructor permission. 6 credits; LA, WR2, IS; Winter; Kofi 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 6-credit English foundations course and one additional 6-credit English course or permission of the instructor. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
ENGL 366 The Carleton Miscellany An in-depth study of the Carleton Miscellany, a nationally renowned literary quarterly once described as “the nation’s most delightful magazine.” Published at the college for two decades, from 1960-1980, the Miscellany featured the work of a dozen Pulitzer Prize winning authors and that of numerous Carleton faculty. The magazine had a cosmopolitan, international perspective but also reflected its origins in a small, leafy Midwestern college town. We will explore the significance of the Miscellany in the context of the history of “little magazines.” The class will include a variety of student research assignments, some of them from the Carleton archives.  Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2020-21
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.  Prerequisite: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246. 6 credits; S/CR/NC; ARP, WR2; Spring; Gregory B 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.  Prerequisite: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246. 6 credits; ARP, WR2; Spring; Gregory G Hewett
ENGL 395 Narrative Roland Barthes claims that "narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself." Yet metahistorian Hayden White wonders, "Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" To study narrative is to confront art's distinctive interplay of fiction and nonfiction, invention and truth. We will read contemporary narrative theory by critics from several disciplines and apply their theories to textual and visual narratives such as literary texts, graphic novels, films, images, television shows, advertisements, and music videos. Students will collaborate on a digital storytelling project. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Fall; Susan Jaret McKinstry
ENGL 395 Seductive Fictions Stories of virtue in distress and innocence ruined preoccupied English novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  This course will focus on the English seduction novel, considering the following questions: What was the allure of the seduction plot?  What does it reveal about sexual relations, gender, power, and class during this period?  How does the seduction plot address and provoke concerns about novel-reading itself during a time when the genre was considered both an instrument of education and an agent of moral corruption?  Authors include: Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Susanna Rowson, and Bram Stoker. Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Jessica L Leiman
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 credits; LA, WR2; Spring; Timothy Raylor
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 credits; S/NC; Winter, Spring