English Master Course Descriptions

A listing of all English classes and their course titles and descriptions

**Designates a variable-titled course
Alll classes are 3 credit hours unless otherwise noted

|  200 level  |  300 level  |  400 level  |  500 level  |  600 level |

ENGL 20200 Engaging English
Have you committed to being an English major? Are you considering a major or minor in English? Are you curious about what it takes to read and write about literature at a university level of sophistication? This is precisely the course to answer those questions. In ENGL 202 you will, in short, be introduced to the intellectual world of studying English. You will learn about the major genres of literature (short stories, novels, poetry and drama). You will develop skills in critical reading and analysis, writing about literature, and talking about literature in academic, learned ways. And you will also discover the variety of options available here at Purdue in the English Department, beyond Literature.

ENGL 20300 Introduction to Research for Professional Writers
Introduction to research sources and methods useful for professional writers, including electronic resources. Focus on collecting print and online information, interviewing, surveying, and conducting observations; and on evaluating, summarizing, analyzing, and reporting research.

ENGL 20400 Special Topics In Writing
A course in writing, with the special topic selected by the instructor.

ENGL 20500 Introduction to Creative Writing
Practice in writing short prose narratives and poetry for students who have finished composition and wish to expand into creative work. Workshop criticism and discussion of published writing.

ENGL 21500 Inventing Languages
Invented languages are language systems that are intentionally created for a specific purpose. Familiar examples include languages invented for fictional worlds, such as Dothraki (Game of Thrones], Na'vi (Avatar), Elvish (Lord of the Rings) and Klingon (Star Trek), as well as languages invented for international communication by real speakers, such as Esperanto and Interlingua. This course explores the history of invented languages and the various purposes for which such languages have been designed and put to use, as well as the major properties of natural human languages as relevant for understanding invented languages and for creating new invented languages.

ENGL 21700 Monsters (Figures of Myth and Legend 1)
This course traces specific monster case studies across a variety of genres and media from the ancient to the modern period. It explores the way monsters define and police the boundaries of what it means to be human, and provide a common language for crystallizing specific social, ethnic, and national practices.

ENGL 21800 Heroes and Villains (Figures of Myth and Legend 2)
This class offers in-depth explorations of the larger-than-life leaders (on the side of good, and sometimes evil, too) who have become models for how we think of heroism, charisma, and what it means to seek and wield power over others. From the chivalric Knights of the Round Table to the frightening energy of the Viking comitatus bands, it will show that no models of mythic leadership come without their complications–or admirable qualities.

ENGL 21900 Magic & Marvels (Figures of Myth and Legend 3)
This course surveys stories of elves, fairies, wizards, witches, etc., and explores the allure of all things marvelous, strange, and magical. It considers how language itself constitutes a kind of magic; examines magic as technology and vice versa, since, as Arthur C. Clarke famously declared: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”; and seeks to understand how people across history have used stories of magic to reinforce (mystify) or upend (defamiliarize) the status quo.

ENGL 22300 Literature and Technology
This class uses literature to explore how technological innovation both enables and constrains creativity.  It also explores how technology has been represented in literature, and examines the relationship between literature and new media.

ENGL 22400 Literature, Money, Markets
This course explores the interconnections among markets, business and its management, and literature.  It examines representations of traditional markets (industry, finance, and global trade) as well as alternative markets (the market in bodies, the black market, and the digital marketplace economy).  The course will present a wide-ranging survey of canonical texts, orienting the reader as to how classics from Chaucer to Dickens are engaged in the business of thinking about business. But it will also engage with alternative viewpoints and contemporary concerns about business practices, literature, and individual consciousness in the techno digital age.

ENGL 22500 Literature, Inequality, Injustice
This course introduces students to literature addressing inequality and social justice. Questions will include: What is social justice? How do literary works reproduce or resist dominant ideologies? How does literature provide tools to map social and economic formations? What role have literary works played in emancipatory and egalitarian political movements? Readings and comparison of these texts will help examine how literature maintains a variety of communities.

ENGL 22600 Narrative Medicine
“Narrative Medicine” encompasses stories about the interior lives of doctors and medical professionals, the complexities of medicine past and present, and health-care for patients and their families. Ultimately, this course emphasizes the essential role of rhetoric and storytelling in the face of medical crisis and uses stories about illness and disability to explore the human condition.

ENGL 22700 Elements of Linguistics
A summary of what is known about human language, its structure, its universality, and its diversity; language in its social setting; language in relation to other aspects of human inquiry and knowledge.

ENGL 22800 Langauge and Social Identity
This course introduces linguistic diversity, including regional, cultural, and stylistic variation within a single language, code-switching in bilingual communities, and colonial, immigrant, Creole, indigenous, and sign languages. It also explores the role of language in supporting various types of social identity (e.g. age, gender, social class, race, ethnicity) as well as power structures that enable discrimination against less powerful groups.

ENGL 22900 Creole Languages and Cultures
This course introduces the concept of pidgin and creole languages across the world, with a focus on English-based pidgins and creoles. It addresses their geographical distribution and some of their cultural manifestations such as music, food and literature on both sides of the Atlantic. The course presents a general view of the historical events that led to the formation of creole languages and to the development of the African diaspora. We will consider different varieties of creole languages and (their) cultures, characteristics and histories. We will explore the ways in which the languages manifest in the music and literature of the contexts where they are spoken. Finally, we will consider the African diaspora as a fundamental thread that ties (English-based) creole languages and peoples together.

ENGL 23000 Great Narrative Works
The highly dramatic nature of these narratives gives them a strong appeal. Several involve characters on difficult journeys, in high-risk situations, who must often interact in extreme ways with supernatural powers. The Odyssey and The Monkey King derive from myth and legend and, as they are epic in scope, we will focus on their “greatest” parts. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and Morrison’s Beloved, the realistic and the supernatural also coexist in striking ways. Huckleberry Finn, the families in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” are, like Odysseus and Monkey, making dramatically problematic journeys, and in this class we will journey with these stories and more while learning why we continue to return to them.

ENGL 23100 Introduction to Literature
Reading and discussion of great works of various types to develop an understanding of their ideas, structures, and styles. Includes poetry, drama, biography, essay, and prose fiction.

**ENGL 23200 Thematic Studies in Literature
Examination of a particular theme, such as the hero, death, or the city, and the techniques by which it is treated in various literary works, usually in more than one genre.

ENGL 23400 Ecological Literature
Literary study of nature writing; writing from the natural sciences; and canonical poetry, fiction, and essays through an ecological lens. Introduces students to ecocritical thought and environmental literary history.

ENGL 23700 Introduction to Poetry
How to read poetry intelligently; function of diction, metrics, figures of speech, and theme; place of a poem in history, uses of poetry.

ENGL 23800 Introduction to Fiction
How to read fiction intelligently; promotes understanding and appreciation of the range, values, techniques, and meanings of fiction genres.

ENGL 24000 British Literature Survey to 1800
Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jonathan Swift. These names ring out for a reason: they are foundational to literature. In this course, you will discover why they are so important, why they are so challenging, why they continue to engage us as readers and scholars in the twenty-first century, and why no reader worth their salt can afford not to know about these greats. This course surveys British literature from the Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century. You will become acquainted with some of the most important works of these periods; you will trace developments of genre, style, and language; and you will examine connections between the literature and the political, intellectual, and social history of England.

ENGL 24100 British Literature after 1789
A historically oriented survey of genres, authors, and texts from the Romantic period on.

ENGL 24900 Great British Books
Why are British books so compelling?  This course examines the dynamic history of British literature and explores how canonical and contemporary texts shaped the cultural landscape of Britain, the British Empire, and the world.

ENGL 25000 Great American Books
What makes great American books so compelling?  This course examines the dynamic history of American literature and explores how canonical and contemporary books have shaped the landscape of the U.S. and the world.

ENGL 25700 Literature of Black America
A survey of literature written by black American authors. Close attention is paid to the history of black literature and to the historical context in which it was written, as well as to the texts of major works by black writers.

ENGL 26200 Greek and Roman Classics in Translation
Study of important works of Greek and Roman literature, their intrinsic literary values, and their influence on later European and American writing and thinking.

ENGL 26400 The Bible as Literature
The Bible contains some of the weirdest and most wonderful literature you will ever read; there is certainly no book that has had a greater influence on English-language literature. Our attention to literary matters of allusion, characters and their motivations, ethical meaning, genre, inspiration, plot, structure, theme, and contemporary relevance will enable us to agree or disagree — or at least lay the groundwork for doing so — with biblical and literary critic and reader Northrup Frye that the Bible is “the great code of Western Literature.”

This course fulfills the University Core “Human Culture: Humanities (HUM)”; Religious Studies major and minor “Category I: Religious Traditions and Diversity” requirement; and various Area requirements of the English major and minor.

ENGL 26600 World Literature: From The Beginnings to 1700 A.D.
(Crosslisted with CMPL 26600) World literature in translation. A comparative and chronological survey of the masterpieces of Eastern and Western literature.

ENGL 26700 World Literature: From 1700 A.D. to the Present
(Crosslisted with CMPL 26700) World literature in translation. A comparative and chronological survey of the masterpieces of Eastern and Western literature.

ENGL 27600 Shakespeare on Film
Considers the relation of the written text of five or six Shakespeare plays to multiple film versions from a wide variety of times and cultures, e.g., the United States, England, France, Italy, Japan, Denmark, India, and Russia.

ENGL 27900 The American Short Story in Print and Film
Analysis of American short stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their filmed versions, their printed scenarios, and critical writings about the tales and their adaptations.

ENGL 28000 Games, Narrative, Culture
This is an introduction to the field of game studies, and to games as narrative and cultural media. We will look at the stories games tell; the way their narrative elements or plot devices intersect with the culture around the games and gaming itself; and how all these things come together to affect game design, meaning, and play.

ENGL 28600 The Movies
Introduction to the movies from classic to contemporary film.

ENGL 30100 Ways of Reading
Introduction to literary theory and practice.  Close reading of and significant writing about selected literary texts informed by a variety of critical and/or theoretical perspectives.

ENGL 30400 Advanced Composition
Designed for students who wish additional training in composition beyond the basic requirements. Extensive practice in the writing of mature expository, critical, and argumentative prose. (The course satisfies the Indiana certification requirement of three hours of advanced composition.).

ENGL 30600 Introduction to Professional Writing
Development of skill in analyzing rhetorical situations in the workplace. Practice in planning, writing, evaluating, and revising a variety of documents typical of those used in the arts and industry.

ENGL 30900 Digital Design and Production
The development of the ability to write and design documents using electronic publishing technologies. Students will receive instruction in writing, graphics, and publishing software and will write, design, produce, and critique a number of publications.

ENGL 31600 Craft of Fiction from a Writer’s Perspective
This course focuses on the craft of fiction with some consideration of its underlying principles from a writer’s perspective. Topics of study may include works of fiction, statements of aesthetics and craft, and various fictional forms.

ENGL 31700 Craft of Poetry from a Writer’s Perspective
This course focuses on the craft of poetry with some consideration of its underlying principles from a writer’s perspective. Topics of study may include works of poetry, statements of aesthetics and craft, and various poetic forms.

ENGL 32200 Word, Image, Media
This course introduces majors and non-majors to the study of images, their relationship to language and technology, and their functions in media. From decoding advertising images to analyzing news videos, this course explores a broad range of questions in a variety of contexts (from biometrics to social media). Students will learn how images and their viewers make meaning, what role images play in our cultures, and what it means to negotiate so many images in our lives.

ENGL 32700 English Language I: History and Development
Introduction to the history of the English language, its sounds, inflections, words, and sentence structures. Cultural and historical events affecting this history, and the interplay between language and literature.

ENGL 32800 English Language II: Structure and Meaning
The structure of American English and its dialects, with emphasis on syntax and semantics, including parts of speech, sentence structure, and meaning. Implications of recent theory for the teaching of English.

ENGL 32900 English Language III: Sound and Form
The structure of American English and its dialects, with emphasis on phonology and morphology. Implications of recent theory to the teaching of English.

ENGL 33000 Games and Diversity
This course looks critically at diversity in games, game development, and in the larger mainstream games community. Students will analyze and play games that relate to women, minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, and/or those who lack access because of disability.

ENGL 33200 Games and User Experience (UX)
This course connects gamers and their experiences with games by developing ways to harvest gaming experiences for the improvement of games. We aim to prepare you to better understand gaming experiences, use those understandings to improve games in development, and be able to think and write critically about those experiences.

**ENGL 34100 Topics in Science, Literature, and Culture
This course focuses on issues in and representation of science and technology in various texts, including literature, film, science, and theory. May be repeated for credit only under a different topic.

ENGL 34200 Legal Fictions
This course explores legal conflicts through literature. It uses the narratives created by the cat-and-mouse of procedural dramas, emotionally charged trial scenes, and dramatic courtroom struggles, to introduce different schools of jurisprudence, and to critically examine the decisions made by those with social and legal governing power.

ENGL 34300 Labor and Literature
This course introduces its students to the transformative synergy between the labor of literature and labor within literature. In contrast to accepting the marketplace as a societal monolith, the readings illustrate the role of labor in creation.  This course will examine labor taken in its broadest sense, from the labor of self-fashioning to the labor of industries; the labor of life and the labor of destruction--and the implications of the laboring body from market creation to market collapse. Diverse readings  range from traditional literary staples to modern representations of the labor market.

ENGL 34400 Environmental Ethics, Policy, and Sustainability
This course focuses on the relationship ethics, policy, and environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability. We’ll learn about the historical causes of our current environmental situation, about holism and biocentrism, about developing nations' relations to environmentalism and climate change, about economic policies in relation to sustainability and climate change, and about the general concepts and ways of thinking that inform our thinking about the environment, in some cases govern and limit our thinking about the environment, and in other cases make possible new methods of thinking and conceptualizing that offer possible alternatives to the ecological crises now affecting life on planet Earth.

ENGL 34500 Games and World Building
Every game designer and gamer knows that there is more to narrative than just words on a page and more to world building than images on a screen. This course looks at the ways that narrative worlds get built in games. We will begin by looking at the narrative elements in analog games that have been the foundation of many digital games and move on to look at the elements in digital games that come together to form the worlds.

ENGL 35000 American Literature before 1865
A historically oriented survey of genres, authors, and texts from European colonization to the U.S. Civil War.

ENGL 35100 American Literature after 1865
The post-Civil War period sees a significant increase in the number of professional authors, largely enabled by the rise of magazine culture. Realist writers seek to represent, as magazine editor and novelist William Dean Howells puts it, “the truth of human experience.” The ethical project of Realism is challenged, however, by Naturalist writers, who believe that individuals are always products of their heredity and environment. in this class we'll explore how the impacts of the industrial revolution lead to alienated labor, the devestation of World War I and its impact on the American psych, and how the psychic determinism of Freudian psychoanalysis map the alienation of the modern individual.  This course charts shifts in the American literature over the last century and a half, from the hopefulness of Realism through modernist explorations of alienation to postmodern depictions of paranoia in the American experience.

ENGL 35200 Native American Literature
How can we learn to be better human beings and live in more sustainable ways? This is one of the overarching questions addressed in Native American literature. Our readings will come from a variety of genres (novels, poems, stories, essays) and reflect a diverse array of Native authors from distinct tribal and cultural backgrounds. So whether we read a novel by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) or by Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet), or a poem by Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota) or by Craig Santos Perez (Indigenous Chamorro), we will be reading deeply, using the skills of literary analysis, but also absorbing specific historical, legal, and ethnographic contexts.

ENGL 35400 Asian American Literature
Study of Asian American Literature covering issues such as immigration, identity, class, and gender.

ENGL 35800 Black Drama
This course examines plays by African American writers from the Harlem Renaissance through the 21st-century. It explores drama in relation to key historical events including racial segregation, the Black Arts Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement. Discussion and lectures bring critical race studies together with comparative literary analysis to address the key thematic concerns of Black Drama as well as its aesthetic and stylistic elements. Writers to include: Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Suzan-Lori Parks, Anna Devaere Smith, and August Wilson.

ENGL 35900 Black Women Writers
(AAS 35900) This course introduces students to the rich and varied literary texts produced by black women writers. Literary analysis, along with a consideration of historical, cultural, gender, and racial contexts will be emphasized.

ENGL 36000 Gender and Literature
An introduction to feminist approaches to the study of literature, including poetry, drama, fiction, and/or autobiography. Examines how gender intersects with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class in shaping authorship, reading, and representation.

ENGL 36600 Postcolonial Literatures
A study of Third World Literature, film, and theory that emerged during and after Western rule.

ENGL 36700 Mystery and Detective Fiction
An introduction to the detective genre, examining its origins, its characteristics, and its intersections with empiricism, forensic science, race, class, gender, sex, and empire.

ENGL 36800 Sociolinguistic Study of African American English
A study of the history, structure, uses, and educational concerns of African American English in African American speech communities and the United States culture at large.

ENGL 37300 Science Fiction and Fantasy
Representative works of science fiction and fantasy examined in relation to both mainstream and popular literature. Emphasis is on technique, theme, and form.

ENGL 37401 Studies in British Literary History
This class focuses on one of several important British literary-historical periods, ranging from medieval English to modern British literature. In it, students will examine individual authors and texts while also gaining a wider understanding of their historical context. Students will also engage with a variety of genres and practice numerous critical approaches to literature.

ENGL 37700 Modern and Contemporary Poetry
A study of poetry in English from the twentieth century to the present.

ENGL 37800 Studies in American Literary History
This class focuses on one of several important American literary-historical periods: colonial, nineteenth-, or twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. In it, students examine individual authors and texts while also gaining a wider understanding of their historical context. Students also will engage with a variety of genres and practice numerous critical approaches to literature.

ENGL 37900 The Short Story
A study of the development and features of the short story genre.

**ENGL 380  Issues in Rhetoric and Public Life
Study of how language and media create belief and change. Examines ancient and contemporary rhetorical theory as it applies to public discourse, media, and technology. May be repeated for credit with a different topic. Some recent topics inclue:

Rhetoric & the Public Interest - This course explores the polarized debates that color nearly all public conversation today. From “religious freedom” to “discrimination” and “voting rights” to “reproductive rights,” we explore how activists take up competing notions of national and collective identity to influence public policy and the law as well as in individual or private lives.

ENGL 38100 The British Novel
A survey of British novels ranging from the eighteenth- to the twenty-first centuries.

ENGL 38200 The American Novel
A survey of American novels ranging from the eighteenth- to the twenty-first centuries.

ENGL 38600 History of Film to 1950
This survey crosses the divide between the silent film era and the "talkies" to explore narrative, experimental, and documentary styles of feature films from the 1890s to 1950.

ENGL 38700 History of Film Since 1950
A survey of narrative, experimental, and documentary styles of feature films from the mid-twentieth century to the present.

ENGL 38900 Literature for Children
This course surveys eighteenth, nineteenth-century, and early-twentieth-century literature for children, including the so-called "golden age" of children's myth, fairy tales, and fantasy, as well as domestic fiction for girls and adventure books for boys.

ENGL 39100 Composition for English Teachers
Exploration of the theory, research, and pedagogy of teaching writing at the secondary level. Topics include the development of writing assignments and related activities, the study of writing process models, and the evaluation of student work in a variety of genres.

ENGL 39200 Young Adult Literature
This course examines the construct of Young Adult Literature as a genre crafted specifically for adolescents. Using both classic and contemporary novels, as well as relevant theoretical and research texts, this course explores how YA literature is defined, what it offers to adolescent readers, and how it is situated in the literary landscape.

ENGL 39300 Introduction to Environmental and Sustainability Studies
This course is the lynchpin of the undergraduate Certificate in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. It will present a series of case studies, core concepts, and problem questions that integrate the following three academic approaches: 1) Human Dimensions and Environment/Sustainability, 2) Engineering and Environment/Sustainability, and 3) Environmental/Sustainability Sciences.

**ENGL 39600 Studies in Literature And Language
A course in the study of a special topic directed by an instructor in whose particular field of specialization the content of the course falls.

ENGL 39900 Beyond English
This class teaches English majors to translate the worth of English and the humanities to the world beyond the university, providing them with tools to articulate their achievements and prepare for their professional and adult lives.

ENGL 40600 Review Writing
Intensive practice in the writing of book, film, and theatre criticism, as well as reviews of musical programs and art exhibits. Readings in critics to serve as possible models. Audience analysis of newspapers and periodicals that would be potential markets.

ENGL 40700 Intermediate Poetry Writing
What distinguishes a poem from a story, from an advertisement, from a protest sign? How do poems get written? And do they need to rhyme? In this workshop, students investigate these and many other questions about poetic process and craft by reading and analyzing poetry, writing their own poems, and offering feedback on the work of their peers. Together we’ll explore the joys of repetition, the leaps of metaphor, and the wells of memory. By semester’s end, students will produce a portfolio of revised poems and a statement of what they have learned about their creative process, aesthetic preferences, and their growing mastery of craft.

ENGL 40800 Creative Writing Capstone
This course will focus on the writing and revision of the capstone thesis in Creative Writing, consisting of a substantial portfolio of either fiction or poetry with an introductory essay. Workshop, discussion of published writing, and individual conferences will form the center of the course with readings, lecture, and discussion of various literary topics. Permission of instructor required.

ENGL 40900 Intermediate Fiction Writing
Study and practice of methods of composing fiction, with a primary emphasis on the student’s own work. Workshop criticism and discussion of published fiction.

**ENGL Capstone Courses
At the culmination of their studies, each English major takes at least one capstone course. These can be repeated with different topics, and include:

ENGL 41900 Multimedia Writing
Multimedia writing for networked contexts. Emphasizes principles, and practices of multimedia design, implementation, and publishing. Typical genres include Web sites, interactive media, digital video, visual presentations, visual argument, and user documentation.

ENGL 42000 Business Writing
Workplace writing in networked environments for management contexts. Emphasizes organizational context, project planning, document management, ethics, research, team writing. Typical genres include management memos, reports, letters, e-mail, resumes (print and online), oral presentations.

ENGL 42100 Technical Writing
Workplace writing in networked environments for technical contexts. Emphasizes context and user analysis, data analysis/display, project planning, document management, usability, ethics, research, team writing. Typical genres include technical reports, memos, documentation, Web sites.

ENGL 42201 Writing for the Health and Human Sciences
This course applies rhetorical principles to writing in health, hospitality, nutrition, nursing and related fields in the Health and Human Sciences.

ENGL 42400 Writing for High Technology Industries
Applies principles of effective professional writing to the planning, production, and evaluation of computer user manuals and other writing tasks.

ENGL 43201 Editing and Publishing
Editing and Publishing is a professional writing workshop that teaches students how to proofread, copyedit, substantive edit, and global edit documents. Students will learn how to navigate the publishing industry and work with authors on print, electronic, online, and multimedia documents.

ENGL 43300 Writing Proposals and Grants

Grant writing is becoming more important in not-for-profit and educational contexts, as competitive grants are often used to divide shrinking budgets. It is challenging and time consuming, demanding a systematic, thoughtful, and reflective approach. This course will focus on the writing skills and knowledge necessary for writing effective grants, while engaging related content such as sustainability and distributed work. Students will develop a grant project fitted to their interests, career goals, and disciplines. Check out a previous syllabus here.

ENGL 43400 Science and Technical Writing
Science and Medical writing is a professional writing workshop that teaches students how to write in medical and scientific fields. Students will learn the genres and conventions that are used by medical writers and science writers, as well as editors in these fields.

ENGL 43900 Topics in Disability Studies
Explores cultural, social, and political meanings and effects of disability in relation to literature and/or rhetoric.  May be repeated for credit with a different topic. Some recent topics include:

Literature in the Age of Eugenics - In this course students will read historical material about the eugenics programs in the United States and Britain and study literature that engages with disability and eugenics. We will explore ideas about this effort as we consider the ways race, class, gender, and disability intersected in the first half of the twentieth century to create an atmosphere of surveillance and judgment about (in Hannah Arendt's terms) who should and should not inhabit the world.

ENGL 44200 Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s dramatic craftsmanship, poetry, humor, characterization, psychology, and modern pertinence illustrated in representative tragedies, comedies, and history plays.

**ENGL 46000 Studies in Women’s Literature
A study of literary works by women according to a specific theme, historical period, genre, or culture, e.g., Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists, Madness in Women’s Writing, Caribbean Women Writers. May be repeated only with different topic.

ENGL 46200 The Bible as Literature: The Old Testament
A study of the Old Testament – Pentateuch, Prophets, and other books such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes – with emphasis on its unique literary characteristics.

ENGL 46300 The Bible as Literature: The New Testament
A study of the New Testament, with emphasis on its unique literary characteristics.

**ENGL 47000  Advanced Topics in Rhetorical Studies
Study of rhetorical theories and practices past and present. Includes readings in primary texts in the history and theory of rhetoric. May be repeated for credit with a different topic. 

ENGL 48800 Internship In Professional Writing
This course provides on-the-job experience in various kinds of professional writing, combined with a seminar in applied rhetoric. Students work in selected internship settings, participate in seminar discussions of their work, and read selections appropriate to their internship. Permission of instructor required.

ENGL 49000 Worksite Internship Practicum
Course facilitates the transition between an English undergraduate degree and the workplace or professional life. The course has two components: a professor-guided component and a practicum component in a chosen area. Permission of instructor required.

ENGL 49200 Literature in the Secondary Schools
Exploration of the theory, research and pedagogy supporting the teaching of literature at the secondary level. Topics include text selection, instructional strategies, adolescent literacy, student engagement and the use of alternative texts.

ENGL 49400 Research Practicum for Undergraduates
This course introduces students to research techniques and trains them to participate in a research laboratory or a professor-sponsored research project. Permission of instructor required.

ENGL 50100 Introduction to English Studies
Introduction to graduate studies in English with special emphasis on research and reference tools, methods of bibliography, and the writing of scholarly papers. Prerequisite: Fulfillment of the basic composition requirement and 6 credit hours in English.

ENGL 50200 Practicum in Teaching College Composition
Reading professional literature, preparing syllabi; evaluating student papers, leading discussions. Required of all teaching assistants in their initial semesters. Credit Hours: 1.00.

ENGL 50500 Approaches to Teaching College English
Reading professional literature on the teaching of writing, linguistics, and ESL. Studies of methodologies, issues of assessment, and the relationship between theory and pedagogy. This course is not part of the degree requirement. Open only to teaching assistants in the Department of English. Permission of instructor required.

ENGL 50600 Introduction to English And General Linguistics
General study of language and linguistic theory with emphasis on English. Problems and methods in phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Current techniques of linguistics analysis.

ENGL 50700 Advanced Poetry Writing
Study and practice of advanced methods of composing poetry, with primary emphasis on the student’s own work. Workshop criticism and discussion of published writing.

ENGL 50900 Fiction Writing
Study of the techniques of writing short stories. Workshop.

ENGL 51000 History of the English Language
Introduction to theories of linguistic change and their application to the historical development of English from its beginnings.

ENGL 51100 Semantics
An introduction to and survey of current semantic theories and methods with an emphasis on English. Basic concepts of linguistic semantics and its relation to the other semantics. Compositional (transformational), model-theoretical (truth-conditional), pragmatic, and contextual semantics.

ENGL 51200 English Syntax and Syntactic Theory
Introduction to English syntactic structure, syntactic argumentation, and syntactic theory. Emphasis on one current theory as the primary theoretical framework, with other theories considered.

ENGL 51300 English Phonology
Introduction to current phonological theory, with applications to descriptions of American and British English. Articulatory description of English phonological structure and contrastive analysis of phonetic variation across dialects. Evolution of the stress system of English and its utilization by poets writing metrical verse.

ENGL 51500 Advanced Professional Writing
Production of documents and coordination of publishing projects for clients and users; application of advanced principles of document design, rhetoric, collaboration, and project management; and team writing in a computer-networked environment.

ENGL 51600 Teaching English as a Second Language: Theoretical Foundations
Survey of theories of learning and teaching English as a second/foreign/international language. Focus is on current theories and their implications for practice.

ENGL 51800 Teaching English as a Second Language: Principles And Practices
Studies of issues and principles in ESL/EFL program development. Emphasis is on practical application of theory in a variety of English learning and teaching contexts in the U.S. and abroad.

ENGL 52800 Medieval English Literature
A survey of selected works of Medieval English literature (700-1500 C.E.), exclusive of Chaucer’s writings.

ENGL 53100 The Rise of the Novel
A study of the history and theory of the emergent novel genre as it developed in 18th-century Britain and/or America.

ENGL 53200 The English Novel in the Nineteenth Century
A survey of fiction up to about 1880, including such novelists as Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot, and Meredith.

ENGL 53400 Seventeenth-Century Literature
Nondramatic literature from 1603 to 1660. Particular emphasis upon such figures as Jonson, Donne, Marvell, and Herbert, with representative prose from Bacon, Browne, Burton, and others.

ENGL 53500 Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Literature
A survey of nondramatic literature from 1660 to 1744, from Clarendon through Thomson. Emphasizes Bunyan, Dryden, Pope, and Swift.

ENGL 53800 English Drama from the Restoration to the Modern Period
A survey of English drama from Dryden and Wycherley through Robertson and Pinero.

ENGL 54100 Studies in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Critical reading of The Canterbury Tales and related works in Middle English, with attention to the literary and cultural background and to secondary studies.

ENGL 54300 Shakespeare in Critical Perspective
Shakespeare’s plays read in context of historical and contemporary literary theory and criticism, considering such issues and approaches as structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, new historicism, colonialism, sexuality, race, and gender.

ENGL 54400 Milton
A study of Milton’s poetry and prose, with particular emphasis on Paradise Lost, and some attention to the social, political, and literary background.

ENGL 54700 British Romanticism
Readings from among the works of the High Romantics and other figures; discussion of historical, philosophical, cultural debates of the era, with attention to current critical and theoretical developments in the field.

ENGL 54800 Victorian Literature
A study of selected English poetry and prose, largely nonfiction, from circa 1830-1900. Includes readings from such figures as Arnold, Barrett, Bronte, Browning, Carlyle, Mill, Rosetti, Ruskin, and Tennyson.

**ENGL 55200 Studies in Major American Authors
A study of the works of one or two influential American authors.

ENGL 55300 Colonial and Early American Literature
A survey of American literature to about 1820. Texts of major and minor authors, such as Bradford, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, and Cooper, are viewed within their cultural context.

ENGL 55400 American Literary Culture 1820-1860
Emphasizes cultural inventory, definition, and production in early nineteenth-century literary culture. The approach is intertextual, moving back and forth between the emerging culture and literary productions, and between one author and other authors.

ENGL 55700 Nineteenth-Century African-American Narrative
This course focuses on both fiction and nonfiction by a range of African American authors dating from the pre-Civil War years through the turn of the twentieth century. Appropriate for M.A. students seeking to fulfill 19th-century breadth requirements and/or build a foundation for future study in the field. Appropriate for Ph.D. students preparing for qualifying exams and/or preparing to write a dissertation in the field.

ENGL 55800 American Literature in the Later Nineteenth Century
Study of American literature from about 1865 to 1900. Addresses realism, regionalism, naturalism, and other related movements. Focuses on such writers as Whitman, Dickinson, Stowe, Davis, Stoddard, Alcott, Twain, Howells, James, Jewett, Chopin, Crane, Chesnutt, and Norris.

ENGL 56000 Modern American Poetry
This course offers an in-depth study of the verse of the Modernist American poets T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H.D. [Hilda Doolittle], William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Stevens that addresses how, beginning in the early 20th century, they changed the course of poetry writing in uniquely inventive, personally expressive, and culturally attentive ways. Whether you're a poet yourself, simply a fan, or even a poetry "skeptic," this course offers something for everyone.

ENGL 56100 Modern British Poetry
Surveys modern British poetry from Hardy to Auden; relates it to the main currents of modern thought and feeling; introduces critical principles.

ENGL 56300 Historical Linguistics
(ANTH 56300, LC 56300) A survey of mechanisms and motivations of linguistic change. Topics include: phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic change, comparative and internal reconstruction, linguistic variation, language contact, and linguistic typology.

ENGL 56500 Sociolinguistics
(ANTH 56500, COM 56500, LC 56500, LING 56500) An introduction to language in its social context, focusing on uses and users of language. Topics include social class, ethnic group, gender, language attitudes, and bilingualism.

ENGL 56900 Contemporary Criticism and Theory
Study of contemporary criticism and theory generally focused on such schools and movements as structuralism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, feminism, new historicism, cultural studies, and gay and lesbian studies.

ENGL 57000 Introduction to Semiotics
(ANTH 51900, AUSL 58900, COM 50700, LC 57000) The study of languages, literatures, and other systems of human communication. Includes a wide range of phenomena which can be brought together by means of a general theory of signs. The course deals with three fundamental areas: 1) verbal communication, 2) nonverbal communication (iconic systems, gestures, body language, etc.), and 3) communication through art forms.

ENGL 57300 Tragedy
The chief tragic views of life, as illustrated in Greek, Shakespearean, and modern drama, as well as in the novel and poetry, with selected reading on the theory of tragedy.

ENGL 57800 Early Twentieth-Century American Fiction
Study of American fiction from about 1900 to 1945. Addresses naturalism, social realism, modernism, and related movements, and such writers as Dreiser, Wharton, Stein, Lewis, Toomer, Cather, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Glasgow, Roth, Dos Passos, Miller, Faulkner, Hurston, Wright, and Welty.

ENGL 57900 Modern British Fiction
Critical study of twentieth-century novels, mainly before World War II, by such writers as Conrad, Lawrence, Forster, Joyce, and Woolf.

ENGL 58000 Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity
Exploration of theories and models of modernity and postmodernity, with emphasis on cultural and critical issues.

**ENGL 58300 U S Ethnic/Multicultural Literature
A critical examination of multicultural literature or the literature of a particular ethnic group or groups, such as African American, Asian American, Jewish American, Latina/o, Native American.

**ENGL 58500 Creative Nonfiction Writing
Study and practice of advanced methods of composing creative nonfiction, with primary emphasis on the student’s own work. Workshop criticism and discussion of published writing.

ENGL 58900 Directed Writing
Writing (creative, popularly technical, biographical, historical, philosophical) on subjects of the student’s choice. Individual conferences only; no class meetings. Permission of instructor required. Individual study.

ENGL 59000 Directed Reading
Directs the reading of students with special interests. Guides students in profitable reading in subjects of their own choice. Individual conferences; no class meetings. Permission of instructor required. Individual study.

ENGL 59100 Composition Studies: Theories and Practices
The course historicizes composition theory and practice in the U.S. from its origins in the late 1800s, emphasizing developments that have shaped the discipline since the 1960s through the present.

**ENGL 59200 Postcolonial Studies
Study of works from once colonized cultures in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and/or postcolonial diasporas. Individual sections will focus on one or more of the following: literature, women’s literature, film, or feminist and cultural theory.

ENGL 59300 Contemporary British Fiction
Critical study of the British novel since World War II. Survey of scholarship and criticism.

ENGL 59400 Contemporary Poetry
Study of poetry of the past two or three decades, both American and foreign, and their interaction. Attention to influences, “schools,” and little magazines, as well as to conventional sources.

ENGL 59500 Contemporary American Fiction
Intensive study of contemporary and postmodern American fiction within various formal, theoretical, and cultural contexts, including multiculturalism, postructuralism, and gender analysis, among others.

**ENGL 59600 Advanced Studies in Literature or Language
Advanced study of a topic within the instructor’s fields of specialization. Emphasis on scholarly analysis and research.

ENGL 59700 Contemporary Black Feminist Literature
An intense examination of recent literary works by black women along with various critical theories constructed about black women’s literature, beginning with the premise that black feminism is a “sign to be interrogated, a locus of contradictions.”

ENGL 59900 Academic Language and Content Area Learning
(EDCI 55900) Course focuses on theoretical and practical knowledge for teachers about how second languages are learned, and on the educational and philosophical basis for second language teaching and learning. The course links English language development to teaching and learning strategies and is designed for undergraduate and graduate students in education and practicing teachers.

ENGL 60100 Teaching Literature at the College Level
Focuses on the practical and theoretical issues related to teaching literature at the college level. Topics include course design, literary canons and text selection, teaching and learning styles, close reading, writing about literature, assessment, and professional ethics. Prerequisite: ENGL 50100 or consent of department. Restricted to graduate students in the Department of English.

ENGL 60400 Introduction to Inquiry in Second Language Studies
Survey of a variety of approaches to inquiry (incl. hermeneutic, conceptual, historical, qualitative, and quantitative) available for second language studies to provide participants copies for design of their own research and scholarship.

ENGL 60500 Computers in Language and Rhetoric
Seminar that investigates how computers figure in contemporary theories of text and text making. Typical topics: critiques of technology, hypertext, cyberspace, computer-mediated communication, Internet, electronic writing, online research, pedagogy, and publishing.

ENGL 60600 Seminar in Poetry Writing
An advanced course in the writing of poetry. Workshop criticism. Study of the work of established writers. Prerequisite: admission to the MFA program in creative writing.

ENGL 60700 The Theory and Craft of Creative Writing
A study of the craft of poetry, fiction, or drama with some consideration of underlying theories. Prerequisite: admission to the MFA program in creative writing.

ENGL 60900 Seminar in Fiction Writing
An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Workshop critiques. Prerequisite: Admission to the creative writing program.

ENGL 61100 Old English Language
A study of the principal prose and poetry from the beginnings to about 1100. Emphasis on the language.

ENGL 61200 Old English Literature
A survey of Old English literary works, including heroic poetry, religious epic, elegiac poetry, homilies, and secular prose, illustrative of the early development of English literature and culture. Prerequisite: ENGL 61100.

ENGL 61300 Middle English Language
A study of selected readings from the literature of about 1100 to about 1500. Emphasis on the language.

ENGL 61400 Middle English Literature
Study of representative works in the major literary traditions and genres of Middle English literature (exclusive of Chaucer): lyric, romance, satire, and allegory. Detailed examination of major works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and Pearl. Prerequisite: ENGL 61300.

ENGL 61500 A Reading of Beowulf
An intensive reading of Beowulf in the original with a consideration of background sources and interpretive theories. Prerequisite: ENGL 61100.

ENGL 61800 Quantitative Research in Second Language Studies
A survey of quantitative research methods and designs associated with second language studies. Prerequisite: ENGL 51600.

ENGL 61900 Qualitative Research in Second Language Studies
Introduces graduate students to the theoretical concepts and practical tools associated with situated approaches to research in second language studies.

ENGL 62200 Ancient Rhetorics
The course historicizes issues in composition studies from the sophists to the Renaissance. Prerequisite: ENGL 59100.

ENGL 62400 Issues in Composition Studies: Modern Period
The course historicizes issues in ancient rhetoric from the sophists to the end of the classical age, and includes attention to ancient non-Greek rhetorical traditions.

ENGL 62500 Seminar on Empirical Research in Writing
An analysis and evaluation of empirical research concerned with composing processes, critical literacy, disciplinary writing, various writing cultures, and composition pedagogy. Students will study empirical research designs and develop a project in one of the above areas. Prerequisite: ENGL 59100.

ENGL 62600 Contemporary Theory and Rhetoric
The course historicizes how postmodern theory, contemporary rhetorical theory, and contemporary cultural practices (cultural, political, ethical, philosophical, technological, aesthetic) influence the study and teaching of rhetoric and writing.

**ENGL 62700 Seminar in Linguistics
Investigation of a topic in advanced linguistics research.

ENGL 62800 Natural Language Processing
This course focuses on keyword-driven question answering systems; transition networks; parsing procedures for context-free grammars; theory of transformational grammars; implementation of recursive transition networks; implementation of augmented transition networks; representation of conceptual dependencies; surface semantic conceptual analysis; conceptual dependency parsing; generating natural language from a conceptual base; scripts, plans, and goals; building conversationalist programs. Prerequisite: ENGL 50600 or ECE 57000.

**ENGL 62900 Seminar in English as a Second Language
In-depth study of variable subjects relating to the nature of English as a second/foreign/international language and its learning and teaching. Prerequisite: ENGL 51600.

ENGL 63000 Seminar in Second Language Writing
An overview and examination of major issues in the theory, research, and practice of writing in English as a second language. Prerequisite: ENGL 51600 or 59100.

ENGL 63100 World Englishes
Investigation of the use, spread, and development of English as an international language. Topics include: non-native varieties, language contact and change, new English literatures, and the teaching of English as an international language. Prerequisite: ENGL 50600.

**ENGL 63300 Seminar in English Literature before 1660
Variable subjects (authors, themes, periods, movements) in English literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost.

**ENGL 63500 Seminar in English Literature 1660-1783
Intensive consideration of one to three or four authors or of literary topics and genres, such as drama, fiction, literary criticism and literary history, the medieval revival, poetic and prose satire, the periodical essay, biography, etc.

**ENGL 64200 Seminar in Shakespeare
Special topics in Shakespeare criticism, concentrating on one or more plays. Topics such as women in Shakespeare’s plays, performance theory and practice, and current theoretical approaches. Students investigate a single topic in depth.

**ENGL 64700 Seminar in the Romantic Movement
A close investigation of the works of one or more outstanding writers of English literature from 1783 to 1832, their place in the Romantic Movement, and their historical and cultural relations to the times.

**ENGL 64800 Seminar in Victorian Literature
A detailed study of the works of one or more figures of English literature from 1832 to 1880: their relation to the literary movements and historical and cultural backgrounds of the age.

**ENGL 64900 Seminar in English Literature 1880-1920
Subjects will range from individual authors and specific literary types to transitional literary movements.

**ENGL 65700 Seminar in American Literature 1630-1900
A variable content seminar on authors, themes, genres, movements, geographic regions, or cultural contexts.

**ENGL 66500 Seminar in Comparative Literature
(CMPL 65000 and LC 63900) Advanced study of international literary movements, influence thematology, literary theory, and genre development. See Comparative Literature Program.

**ENGL 66700 Seminar in Poetics and Aesthetics
Study of selected influential figures, concepts, and texts in the history of poetics and aesthetics from ancient times to the present.

**ENGL 66800 Seminar in Interpretation and Cultural Theory
Examination of selected developments in social, cultural, and hermeneutical theories from the eighteenth century to the present.

ENGL 66900 Introduction to Visual Theory and Visual Culture
Visual studies is the multidisciplinary study of images, viewers, and vision. Students will be provided with an overview of the theories, practices, and histories of the visual from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and historical periods. The seminar will be organized around a series of basic questions (such as what is an image? how do images produce meaning? What do images do? what is vision?) whose responses have come to constitute the field as well as its transdisciplinarity. Readings will be drawn from seminal works in visual theory, cultural semiotics, cultural theory, intermediality, art history, media studies as well as the psychology, philosophy, and science of vision.

**ENGL 67200 Seminar in Women’s Literature and Feminist Theory
A variable topic course investigating gender as a category of analysis. Intensive study of one or two women authors, of a particular genre or period, or of a critical issue relevant to women’s literature and/or feminist theory.

**ENGL 67300 Seminar in Postcolonial Studies
Advanced study of works from once-colonized cultures in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and/or postcolonial diasporas in the first world. Individual sections will focus on one or more of the following: literature, women’s literature, film, and feminist and cultural theory.

ENGL 67400 Seminar in Language Testing
An introduction to the techniques, practices, and history of language testing. Introduces the basic tenets of measurement and the issues and controversies related to the measurement of language ability.

**ENGL 67700 Seminar in Modern Literature
Developments in English, American, and European literature in modern times. Individual seminars will ordinarily be concerned with drama, poetry, or fiction, but may treat all three types together.

**ENGL 67800 Seminar in Modern American Literature
A variable content course, focusing on developments, movements, and authors in modern American literature and culture. Major research project required.

**ENGL 67900 Seminar in Modern British Fiction
Study in depth of one or two major novelists, a literary movement, a group of writers, or a form of modern fiction. Oral reports and research papers required.

**ENGL 68000 Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition
A variable content course dealing with topics such as cultural studies and composition, medieval rhetoric, renaissance rhetoric, literacy, historiographies of rhetoric, qualitative studies, and professional writing theory. Prerequisite: ENGL 59100.

ENGL 68100 Hutton Lectures In Rhetoric and Composition
Reading and discussion of the work of contemporary scholarship in rhetoric and composition, accompanied by lectures by visiting scholars.

ENGL 69000 Internship in Second Language Studies/ESL
Part-time or full-time practical work experience in selected situations related to the student’s field of study. The internship must be located at an off-campus site. Permission of instructor required.

**ENGL 69100 Seminar in the English Language Arts
(EDCI 61300) Problems in the teaching of English: literature, language, rhetoric. Attention to recent scholarship and to its application in the public schools.

ENGL 69200 Scholarly Writing and Publishing
Guides graduate students through preparing an essay for journal publication. Activities include selecting appropriate venues, daily revision, outlining, workshopping, and hearing guest speakers. At the end of the course, students will formally submit their essay publication. Prerequisites: ENGL 50100 or instructor permission. Students must have an essay draft in hand that they wish to work on revising.

**ENGL 69600 Seminar in Literature
Advanced study of special subjects.

ENGL 69800 Research MA or MFA Thesis
Research MA Or MFA Thesis. Permission of instructor required.