An introduction to major literary types including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Course themes and readings vary by section. The writing component consists of three to five essays of analysis and an emphasis on the writing process.
FYS 110 or a transfer Composition I course
Every Fall and Spring
In this course, students will learn the fundamental principles that underpin the creation of literary art. What does it mean to think like a writer? How do you create stories and poems that reach out and grab a reader? Through the study of four different genres—poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction—students will write their own work while also exploring issues of craft that include, character development, dialogue, plot, point of view, stanza formation, line breaks, scene setting, and narrative voice. Through lectures, class workshops, and reading assignments, students will learn the basics of creative writing.
Every Spring
Bodies house the essence of identity and represent that identity to the world. Bodies are also written on by that world; they are marked by such things as disease, trauma, and societal expectations of gender, race, and class—the symptoms of life’s circumstances. In this course, we will consider the representation of bodies in literature from the 19th century to the present and examine how social, cultural, historical, and scientific expectations prescribe our responses to the marked body. Although not a scientific study itself, this course will encourage students to encounter scientific thought and medical practices through the narrative imagination. Because this is a 200-level literature course, it is also an introduction to major literary types including short fiction, novel, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and film. We will consider works in each of these categories, paying particular attention to the ways in which they intertwine with and inform one another as well as to how they distinguish themselves from each other. Throughout the term you should expect to gain confidence in your approach to a literary text—and, therefore, any text—as well as in your analytical and critical thinking and writing skills.
Occasional Interims
Conducted as a workshop, this course considers the theory and practice of sports writing for print media. Students will learn how to write a variety of sports stories while studying and critiquing sports writing at a local and national level.
Every Spring
This course is designed to serve students from across the University to the end of equipping them with the tools to adapt to a diverse set of writing situations. We will analyze the dialects and style conventions used in medicine, engineering, business, law, government, education, and marketing. The more writing dexterity we have in different fields, the more options we have after graduation. In addition to bringing in professionals from each of these fields to speak to the writing situations they face, we will practice these forms of writing from Amazon's Blue Papers to engineering reports to legal memos, etc. as part of the course. Relevant fields may be adjusted based on student interest.
A survey of world literature from 2500 BC to 1650 AD, with special emphasis given to the Mediterranean region. Texts will include drama, fiction, and both narrative and lyric poetry.
Every Spring
Reading and discussion from the 17th to the 21st century and expanding the scope further outside the European tradition.
Every Fall
An introductory overview of British literature and authors. Emphasis is placed on issues of literary history. Students become familiar with the standard scheme of periodization and learn to think about literature in relation to the currents of history. In addition, they explore such subjects as literary influence, changes in literary technology and the consumption of the written word, changes in identity and colonialism and changing theories about the nature and value of literature.
Every Fall
This course will consider public affairs through coverage of events such as school board and city council meetings. Additional emphasis will be placed on beat reporting, including but not limited to in-depth coverage of issues emerging from areas such as government, science, and health, the economy, religion, and the legal system. Emphasis will be given to creating and using multi-media components to deliver information. Students will advance their philosophy of freedom of the press through the study of various philosophical orientations.
Every other Fall, even years
An overview of the literatures written in the region we now know as the United States from the time of European colonization until the present. Course readings will represent literary periods and movements from the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, to contemporary Postmodernism. Lectures and discussion will consider both the development of American literary traditions and the connections between literature and social phenomena such as first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans, slavery, industrialization, social reform, and the women's movement.
Every Spring
In this course students will study the principles of a theory of empathy and will cultivate and practice an ethic of empathy. In order to live fully and deeply human beings must bring all of their human capacities to bear in their daily lives, professional and personal. As students gain a deeper understanding of empathy as an innate human ability, they will find ways to understand better both themselves and others. Students will read and discuss works of nonfiction and will practice empathy through the act of interviewing individuals whose lives or ways of being they believe significantly different from their own.
Occasional Interims
An in-depth study of how English sentences are constructed and how that knowledge can aid in other endeavors such as writing or the study of literature. Structural grammar will be emphasized with comparison to traditional and transformational grammars. The history of the language, morphology, and semantics are included.
Every Fall
This course introduces students to the historical development of the English language from its origins in Anglo-Saxon to its current incarnations around the globe. Students will learn basic principles of linguistic description and analysis, including phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. In addition, students will examine the role of key literary figures such as Chaucer and Shakespeare in establishing standard dialects and developing vocabulary and syntax.
ENGL 200
Every other Spring, odd years
What happens when we read literature? How does a literary work come to "mean"? What do literary texts tell us about the nature of language? What do they tell us about the culture they're part of? Many literary critics and theorists have pondered these questions lately, and we'll explore them too, by studying primary texts in 20th- and 21st- century criticism and theory. The particular focus of the course will vary but will typically involve discussion of structuralism and post-structuralism, feminist criticism, and cultural studies.
Every other Spring, even years
Special Topics in English.
Every Spring
An intensive study of an author or of a period on a semi-tutorial basis.