Upcoming Courses

101/201 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Damián Baca

This course will examine the ways that literacy theorists and practitioners are decolonizing Eurocentric systems of meaning and recovering patterns of thinking, sensing, and being that have been buried by the spread of colonization. We will focus particularly on theories of literacy that have emerged within three parallel movements: Chicana feminist studies, Latin American subaltern studies, and Settler Colonial studies. Our aim will be to explore methods of representation articulated within non-Western/Other cultures and to consider how the understanding of those methods might productively disrupt the norms that currently define literacy and related educational practice.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Matthew Abraham

This course will introduce students to the persuasive strategies that marginalized groups deploy and sustain to gain voice, agency, and the attention of the mainstream. Such contexts include the Civil Rights Movement, the push to pass the 19^th amendment, the struggle for the right to same-sex marriage, the movement to recognize climate change, and many other struggles that continue into the present forcing a reckoning with how societies treat those most invisible among us. 

The path from invisibility to emergence can be traced rhetorically, enabling an understanding of how speaking truth to power requires gaining the attention of those in power. We will focus on how these speaking-truth-to-power and persuasive strategies structure and inform contemporary social movements such as the Black Lives Matter Movement, #MeToo, the fight for LGBQT and transgender rights, as well the Palestinian Lives Matter Movement in the context of the Zionist genocide in Gaza. Students will read a diverse set of figures ranging from Elie Wiesel, Edie Windsor, Edward Said, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehesi Coates, Wesley Lowery, Mahatma Gandhi, Ahed Tamimi, and Greta Thunberg.

101/201 Fully Online

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Melani Martinez

ENGL 160A2 explores food writing and its relationship to culture. Analyzing food as both personal and cultural symbol, students will develop an appreciation for how food traditions reflect and shape cultural societies and diverse worldview. Course materials will focus on diverse perspectives with emphasis on marginalized groups such as migrant, incarcerated, and Indigenous food communities. Students will explore their own food memories in reflective writing and storytelling to find connections between personal food histories and social or environmental justice. Using various rhetorical strategies and drawing from research, field study, oral history, and lived experiences/traditional knowledge, students will practice food writing for a variety of audiences in four key genres: recipe card, profile podcast, food memoir, and manifesto. Workshop and revision will be important aspects of the course.

101/201 Fully Online

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Dennis Wise 

Monsters are cool—but they’re also interesting, and also sometimes deeply problematic. The category of the “non-human” (or, more broadly, “the Other”) raises key questions about human identity, human values, and the cultural boundaries we construct to cordon off the horrific, the weird, the frightening, the monstrous, or the non-human. As a result, we won’t focus simply particular monster-types like the zombie, the vampire, or the cyborg. Instead, we’ll look at monster-figures in literature and film as key indicators of cultural history: the symbolic carriers of cultural values, problems, and ideological tensions. These cultural issues can include things like political dissension, systems of religious belief, social order and disorder, human nature, or distinctions of race/class/gender. As we’ll see, monsters often become symbols in the cultural, political, and intellectual clashes that mark Western history. In order to better understand our cultural roots, then, we have to come to terms with the historical and ideological tensions behind those clashes. In this course, we’ll discuss these tensions through well-organized analytical arguments that present strong textual evidence and display critical thinking.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Dennis Wise 

Monsters are cool—but they’re also interesting, and also sometimes deeply problematic. The category of the “non-human” (or, more broadly, “the Other”) raises key questions about human identity, human values, and the cultural boundaries we construct to cordon off the horrific, the weird, the frightening, the monstrous, or the non-human. As a result, we won’t focus simply particular monster-types like the zombie, the vampire, or the cyborg. Instead, we’ll look at monster-figures in literature and film as key indicators of cultural history: the symbolic carriers of cultural values, problems, and ideological tensions. These cultural issues can include things like political dissension, systems of religious belief, social order and disorder, human nature, or distinctions of race/class/gender. As we’ll see, monsters often become symbols in the cultural, political, and intellectual clashes that mark Western history. In order to better understand our cultural roots, then, we have to come to terms with the historical and ideological tensions behind those clashes. In this course, we’ll discuss these tensions through well-organized analytical arguments that present strong textual evidence and display critical thinking.

001 In Person

T/Th 11:00-12:15 PM

Instructor: Ander Monson

Learn about the many pleasures of nonfiction writing in this new version of a favorite class! Kick those boring first-year essays to the side and learn some of the many possibilities of reading and writing contemporary creative nonfiction. This course serves as the introduction to the nonfiction creative writing track and is open to anyone interested. We’ll learn the tools of literary nonfiction writers: research, style, the sentence, experiments with form, and we’ll read and write about games, music, culture, memory, and a whole lot more. This course isn’t a workshop per se but will introduce writers to the workshop model that they will be able to explore in more depth in the intermediate and advanced courses if you choose to.

101/201 In Person

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Staff

Students will gain a working knowledge of these concepts and terms: memoir, personal essay, portrait, travel essay, literary journalism, narrative voice, dialogue, metaphor, image, scene, narrative summary, reflection, and research. Students will read selected texts and discuss craft elements in works of literary nonfiction. Students will develop writing skills by doing exercises and writing assignments in several modes of nonfiction writing (i.e., portrait, travel essay, memoir).

001 In Person

T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM

Instructor: Staff

The beginning course in the undergraduate poetry-writing sequence. Method of instruction: class discussion of student poems, with some readings of modern and contemporary poetry. Workshop sections are limited to 20 students. Priority enrollment given to Creative Writing majors and minors.

002 In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Staff

The beginning course in the undergraduate poetry-writing sequence. Method of instruction: class discussion of student poems, with some readings of modern and contemporary poetry. Workshop sections are limited to 20 students. Priority enrollment given to Creative Writing majors and minors.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Susan Briante

In this course students will become familiar with the beginning techniques of poetry writing taught through exercises, the writing of original poetry, workshop and reading in contemporary poetry.

The poet Kenneth Koch says: "Poetry is a separate language within our language… a language in which the sound of words is raised to an importance equal to that of their meaning." In this class, we’ll tune our ears to the sounds of poetic language. We will learn some of the most important tools of poetic craft (rhyme, rhythm, repetition, line, image, etc.) We will look at poetry from the ancients to the present as models for our own work. A variety of  prompts will help to stoke our imagination and inspiration. Then we will develop a process for reading, critiquing, and revising our own work as well as the work of our peers. 

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Manuel Muñoz 

The 200-level course introduces the student to craft terms and concepts through lecture, exercises, and reading selections. The workshop method introduces the sharing and critique of original student work in breakout discussion groups. Students gain a working knowledge of basic craft terms and concepts such as character, plot, setting, narrative time, dialogue, point-of-view, voice, conflict resolution, and metaphorical language. The group will analyze readings from published authors are analyzed from a writer’s perspective. Students will identify and hone the writing skills necessary for success in fiction writing. Students complete exercises based on these elements and write at least one complete short story.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Staff

The 200-level course introduces the student to craft terms and concepts through lecture, exercises, and reading selections. The workshop method introduces the sharing and critique of original student work in breakout discussion groups. Students gain a working knowledge of basic craft terms and concepts such as character, plot, setting, narrative time, dialogue, point-of-view, voice, conflict resolution, and metaphorical language. The group will analyze readings from published authors are analyzed from a writer’s perspective. Students will identify and hone the writing skills necessary for success in fiction writing. Students complete exercises based on these elements and write at least one complete short story.

In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Sara Sams

Multi-genre craft course introducing creative writing craft terms and concepts via intensive reading in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Manya Lempert

An English grammar and editing course in which students will learn and apply contextual strategies for editing their own writing, as well as the writing of others, for grammar, style, and format.

In Person

MW 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Johanna Skibsrud

This course integrates the study of border and migration themed literature with an experiential component that encourages students to recognize and engage with real-life borders in their lives and communities. 

The concept of the border will be addressed as both a political reality and an imaginative construct – an organizing principle for our desire to seek and transmit diverse experiences and knowledge-systems across thresholds. The guiding questions for this course will be: what does it mean to be a crosser of borders? How and why do notions of social, political, artistic, geologic and scientific thresholds continuously shift and change? To answer these questions, we will operate in an intermediate space between academic discipline and community engagement, research and creative practice. Authors will include Gloria Anzaldúa, Leslie Marmon Silko, Cecilia Viçuna, and more.

In Person

M/W 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Hayriye Kayi-Aydar

This course offers a captivating exploration of the English language and its multifaceted role in real-world and global settings.  We will begin by exploring foundational concepts in the areas of English phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax. We will then transition to examining English and its role within various contexts, such as language teaching, language planning and policy, bi- and multilingualism, new technologies, etc. By the end of the course, you will gain a deeper understanding of the history of English and its growth as an international language.

101 Fully Online

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Stephanie Pearmain

From the “origins” of Children’s Literature to the current day call for diverse voices in the genre, this course examines the development of concepts of the child, children’s literature, and Western Culture. We will read a broad spectrum of historical and contemporary U.S., British, and world literature, and works representing a variety of genres and cultures. Through a survey of folk tales, picture books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, and graphic novels, we will consider the historical development of children’s literature as well as its dual agenda of instruction and amusement.

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Micah Stack

This course will be focused on the concept and cultural products of Postmodernism, a confusing and much-debated term that means so much more than “after Modernism.” We will examine some of the philosophical underpinnings of Postmodernist thought: its famous distrust of so-called “master narratives,” its political paranoia, its criticism of consumer culture and superficiality. But above all, we will study the playful, ironic, satirical, non-linear, and often parody-based approach to creative expression in Postmodern works of art. The reading list is still being refined, but some authors likely to appear on it include John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Ishmael Reed, David Foster Wallace, Nam Le, Gina Apostol, Toni Morrison, and Percival Everett. We will also examine films as diverse as Fight Club, The Batman Lego Movie, and Barbie: The Movie, all of which exhibit certain characteristics of Postmodernism, including our present-day obsession with all things “meta-”.

150 Fully Online

Instructor: Lynda Zwinger

Gothic Threads

American literature began in the same historical era that saw the development of the classic Gothic novel, with its ghosts, castles, dungeons, depraved aristocracy, trembling helpless heroines, and the enormous and horrifying presence of the past in the present. We will be reading classic U.S. texts that rely on gothic modalities, transforming (and perhaps intensifying) the fundamental fears and anxieties they express and embody. This course focuses on the careful and reflective reading these wonderful, complex, and (still) entertaining texts invite us to enjoy.

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Staff

Close reading of literary texts, critical analysis, and articulation of intellectually challenging ideas in clear prose. Different sections of the course may be based around themes, such as madness, utopia and dystopia, American identities, detectives and detection, or love and knowledge, that the class considers from a variety of perspectives.

002 In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Daniel Cooper Alarcon

For this section of English 280, we will read a wide-range of different types of literature: short stories, poems, plays, novels—as well as some texts that are not so easy to classify—and we will discuss the challenges that each of these different literary forms present to us as readers, as we try to interpret and make sense of them. Over the course of the semester, we will discuss the varied elements that comprise literary works, the varied aspects that one might consider when analyzing a literary text, and different interpretive approaches to literature. We will also discuss literary tradition and why it matters when thinking about individual texts. For the reading list, I am selecting texts that are not only moving and meaningful, but also creative and inventive; texts that not only offer us insight into the world and its endlessly varied communities and human relationships, but also that amplify our understanding of literature and what it can do. The reading list for the course will likely include short stories and memoirs by Bret Harte, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Paul Bowles, Leslie Marmon Silko, Clarice Lispector, and Rosario Ferré; the play “Zoot Suit,” by Luis Valdez, Volkswagen Blues (a delightful road trip novel), Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, poems by Martín Espada, and Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer prize-winning, graphic memoir about the Holocaust, Maus. Expect to write two or three short papers over the course of the semester. 

003 In Person

M/W 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Staff

Close reading of literary texts, critical analysis, and articulation of intellectually challenging ideas in clear prose. Different sections of the course may be based around themes, such as madness, utopia and dystopia, American identities, detectives and detection, or love and knowledge, that the class considers from a variety of perspectives.

110/210 Fully Online

**7-Week Second Session**

Instructor: Staff

Close reading of literary texts, critical analysis, and articulation of intellectually challenging ideas in clear prose. Different sections of the course may be based around themes, such as madness, utopia and dystopia, American identities, detectives and detection, or love and knowledge, that the class considers from a variety of perspectives.

101/201 Fully Online 

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Peter Figler

English 300 is a comparative study of literature and cinema as aesthetic media. Given the breadth and complexity of film and literature, including historical, technical, and narrative elements, our class is broken into three modules: “Film, Literature, and Aesthetics,” “Adaptation and Intertextuality,” and “Cultural and Ideological Connections.” We will survey a curated list of films and texts that serve as examples, emphasizing specific dimensions that support course outcomes. Class activities include asynchronous discussions, individual reflections, short essays, and a final multimodal project that synthesizes the course modules and materials. All of our readings and films are found on D2L, so that they may be easily accessed and revisited as often as needed. 

In Person

W 9:30 AM-12:00 PM

Instructor: Paco Cantú

This intermediate undergraduate workshop will be centered on the act of reading, writing, and understanding the experiential and research-based intricacies of creative nonfiction. To develop a deeper understanding of the genre, we will spend time reading a wide variety of essays and, in some cases, discussing the creative process with early-career authors as a way of discovering the breath of possibilities available to us within the nonfiction genre. The other central component of our time together will involve sharing new writing with one another, and creating a generative space for conversation, revision, and critique. Instead of bringing in work that is already finished and polished, you’ll learn to become comfortable sharing work that is fresh and in-progress, and to develop strategies for inviting feedback into your writing process.

001 In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Kate Bernheimer

This course will build on skills acquired at the introductory level by asking students to further study and practice a range of genres and styles. The course will require students to read published fiction with close attention and participate in writing exercises and discussions. The written components will consist of short craft analyses of published fiction and at least one full-length story or novel chapter (between 10 and 15 pages) which will be workshopped in class, and which will be revised as a final project.

002 In Person

T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM

Instructor: Kate Bernheimer

This course will build on skills acquired at the introductory level by asking students to further study and practice a range of genres and styles. The course will require students to read published fiction with close attention and participate in writing exercises and discussions. The written components will consist of short craft analyses of published fiction and at least one full-length story or novel chapter (between 10 and 15 pages) which will be workshopped in class, and which will be revised as a final project.

001 In Person

Th 12:30-3:00 PM

Instructor: Farid Matuk

Practice in writing poetry.

001 In Person

T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM

Instructor: Bojan Louis

This course will use speculative fiction as a general theme to introduce students to the myriad BIPOC writers who are challenging and reimagining the genres and subgenres of speculative and horror fiction. These writers force audiences to reconsider and reimagine the possibilities of realities and futures that do not fit westernized or settler-colonial understandings of the world. We will discuss how speculative/horror fiction by BIPOC writers fits into the greater stream of contemporary fiction and the study of BIPOC consciousness and art forms. This is a reading intensive course designed to use a BIPOC lens to critique our limited and often racist worldview(s) through science fiction, fantasy, horror, and (alternate) history. Some authors who we will consider are Octavia Butler, Bora Chung, Ramona Emerson, and Monica Ojeda among others.

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Scott Selisker

What can we learn for our own future from a century's worth of aliens, robots, and star wars? How does science fiction help us to think about the differences between others and ourselves? This course looks at science fiction through a history including the early pulp magazines, the golden age, the new wave, cyberpunk, and contemporary U.S. and global works. We'll explore science fiction’s big questions and aesthetic techniques, mostly through stories but also in film, digital media, fan universes, and at least one novel. Likely authors include E.M. Forster, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick, Ursula K Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Kazuo Ishiguro, and a few more. Assignments will include several 4-6-page papers, reading responses, and a creative project based on translating part of a science fiction text to another medium.

101/201 Fully Online

**7-Week First Session**

Instructor: Cristina Ramirez 

An introduction to key concepts and practices of professional and technical writing. 

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Ander Monson 

This course, Video Game Writing, will be focusing on writing IN and ABOUT video games and approaching them as a literary/art form capable of providing new narrative experiences that books and films, as great as they are, cannot touch. How do stories work in video games? How does player choice, immersion, and interactivity affect our experience of story? How do writers construct branched narratives? And how do WRITERS play games? We will read writers writing about games, and we will play games, mostly narrative ones like Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Oxenfree, Gone Home. We be writing about games, and we will be doing some game writing of our own using Twine to make branching narratives. No experience with games required.

001 In Person

T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM

Instructor: M’Balia Thomas

Do literary texts have accents, the way people do? How do we read the accented voices of English. This class explores voice and accent in English language literature and cultural production, including podcasts, audiobooks, film, and television. Everyone has an accent, but not all accents are created equal. Some are heard as “neutral” and others as markers of difference. This has serious implications in the real world: accent discrimination costs jobs, housing applications, and asylum claims. Students will examine American literatures alongside interdisciplinary scholarship on topics including race and voice (e.g. brown voice, white voice, “Mock Asian,” Black English), the cybernetic voices of virtual assistants like Siri, forensic listening, and call centers. Students will gain broad understanding of politics of literary voice and accent, while learning to use their own accented voices to produce close, critical readings and informed social interventions.

001 In Person

M/W/F 11:00 AM-11:50 PM

Instructor: Paul Hurh

A survey of literature written in English in Britain and American from the 17^th through the 19^th centuries.  This course will read broadly through multiple significant literary movements and traditions during the period.  

ENGL 378 Fantasy Fiction

001 In Person

M/W 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Dennis Wise

If you know fantasy, then you probably already know about Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, but the genre has roots deeper than the Lonely Mountain. In this course, you’ll see just how far the literature of contemporary fantasy extends. We’ll start with the major early British fantasists (Tolkien, William Morris) before turning our sights on the sword-&-sorcery subgenre. We’ll discuss world-building, maps, style, and the late 1970s epic fantasy boom. Finally, no survey would be complete without the “representational turn” of fantasy publishing since 2000. So hold on to your reins, folks, and come get a dragon’s-eye-view of how fantasy fiction has grown and developed. Appropriate for creative writing and literature majors alike.

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Daniel Cooper Alarcon

English 380 provides an introduction to literary analysis. Over the course of the semester, we will discuss the varied elements that comprise literary works, the varied aspects that one might consider when analyzing a literary text, and different interpretive approaches to literature. We will discuss literary form and literary tradition, and why they matter when thinking about individual texts. Finally, we will discuss how to use and engage in a dialogue with literary criticism about a specific text. The goal of the course is to provide you with a set of critical and interpretive strategies that you can always draw upon to think, discuss, and write about literary works. To that end, we will read and discuss a wide range of literature and criticism, in response to which you will write several short, analytical essays. You will also write a longer research paper at the end of the semester.

002 In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Peter Figler

English 380 is a course in advanced literary analysis, emphasizing close reading and critical theory. We will study several key theoretical and historical movements as they relate to literature and literary form, focusing most closely on the novel, though we will examine other genres and forms along the way. Classes will generally be driven by discussion and interpretation, though on occasion I will lecture. The final texts and authors are being determined but will include authors such as Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, Jhumpa Lahiri, Don DeLillo, Kyle Baker, and others.

003 In Person

M/W 2:00-3:15

Instructor: Staff

Introduction to the various modes, techniques, and terminology of practical criticism. 

001 In Person

T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM

Instructor: Stephanie Pearmain

This course will provide an overview of the Children’s Literature literary publishing industry. It is designed to provide aspiring editors and writers basic knowledge of the field including research and discussion of: writing, picture book genre overview, editing, querying, publishing trends, agents & agenting, submissions, digital publishing, and publishing houses. This course will focus works for children and young adults. We will be partnering with Make Way for Books for the first half of the semester, and students will create potentially publishable works. Students will have the opportunity to write, edit, and submit picture book text.

001 In Person

Th 9:30 AM-12:00 PM

Instructor: Bojan Louis

ENGL 404 is the final, advanced workshop-based course in the fiction major. It is intended to reinforce your knowledge of literary terms through the practice of close reading and workshop discussion. It will also consider longer forms of fiction and the process of thinking about and generating a collection of short stories. Since reading is key at all stages of the fiction sequence in the major we will read four texts closely while engaging in as many modes and subjects as possible.

The first half of the semester will focus on the critical reading of selected texts and will be supplemented with writing prompts/exercises intended for longer fiction forms and/or interlinked story collections. We will also review and engage with some of the major fiction tools you learned and practiced in previous lectures and workshops (character, plot, dialogue, point of view, detail, rhythm and syntax, the long sentence, tone, etc.).  As we move through the semester, we will consider some slightly more advanced concepts of the longer form:  

• the long story

• the interlinked short story collection

• the novella

• the lyric/experimental novel

002 In Person

M 9:30 AM-12:00 PM

Instructor: Johanna Skibsrud 

Conceived as a project-based studio course, this senior-level creative writing workshop investigates diverse styles and approaches to writing fiction with the aim of expanding our collective sense of creative possibility. We’re often told, “write what you know!,” but less often pause to reflect on what this really means, and requires of us as writers. Whether we’re working on a science fiction novel or a memoir, everything we encounter—everything we’ve read, or seen, dreamed about, imagined, or feared—becomes the material for creative writing.  Working to broaden our sense of what this material is or could be and how it intersects with, and is framed by, personal perspective and the realities of our own lives can enrich our approach to writing about (and even, perhaps, conceiving of) the world around us—but it also reveals our deep responsibility.  This is a studio-based course, i.e., it is active and participatory, with an emphasis on creative process and production rather than feedback and revision. Through diverse creative exercises and discussion, its goal is to emphasize the possibility of honing new forms of attention to what we may not yet even realize we know…. Coursework and discussion will also encourage reflection on the ethical implications (the possibilities, but also the potential limitations) of fiction writing.  Students will be invited to think the continuities between contemporary fiction and the Ancient Greek concept of poiesis—meaning, literally, “the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.” Through thought, writing and performance-based exercises aimed at expanding a sense of the possible, as well as what we may already know, this course challenges students to bring about—through their participation—something “that did not exist before.”

001 In Person

T/Th 3:30-4:45 PM

Instructor: Staff

In this course, students learn the history, key theories, and conventions of document design practices, and produce professional documents in which they apply design principles using industry-standard software applications (such as InDesign, Photoshop, and MS Publisher). In addition to written analyses and reflections on their work, students can expect to design both print and web documents that include brochures, pamphlets, newsletters, programs, infographics, tables, charts, and graphs. In the process, they will explore how a document's rhetorical situation -- its intended purpose and audience -- shape the choices designers must make with respect to its type, genre, platform, and graphic elements. At the course's conclusion, students will assemble their work in a portfolio and will reflect on the effectiveness of their rhetorical choices across the span of the semester.

150 Fully Online

Instructor: Ann Shivers-McNair

This asynchronous online course offers students an opportunity to learn and practice user experience (UX) research methods for engaging communities at every step of their writing and design processes and for reporting effectively on their research. The course is organized in weekly modules, each with a lecture and reading materials and discussion activities where we can share our ideas and learning. We will begin by considering the role of research in design theories and processes, then we will review a variety of commonly used UX research methods, with opportunities for low-stakes practice. At the end of the semester, we will work on small scale UX research projects for more hands-on practice, and you will have the option to work on a collaborative project or choose a project of your own. 

001 In Person

T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Fredrick Kiefer

During the first half of his career, Shakespeare wrote a rich variety of plays: his most enjoyable comedies, two of his most beloved tragedies (Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet), and his finest history plays. We’ll look at each kind of play, exploring why his drama has such a triumphant record onstage and what it says to us today. We shall keep in mind that Shakespeare was a professional actor, that he was a founding member of a theatrical company, and that he meant his plays to be presented in a theater.

001 In Person

T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM

Instructor: Fred Kiefer

During the second half of his career, Shakespeare turned away from buoyant comedy and dramatizations of English history. His outlook became darker, and he wrote most of his great tragedies, including Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. We’ll explore Shakespeare’s tragic vision and its implications for the human condition. Whatever the play, we shall be mindful that Shakespeare wrote for the stage not the study. Along the way we shall consider the rebuilt Globe theater in London and what that venue has to tell us about Shakespeare’s plays.

In Person

M/W 3:30-4:45 PM

Instructor: Steph Brown

In 1948, the Empire-Windrush sailed from Jamaica to England, carrying the first members of an entire generation of emigrants from Britain’s colonial empire who would revitalize and irrevocably change the course of post-war literature in England. This course will consider a group of authors writing from 1948 to the present whose work has shaped the landscape of writing in Britain. They’ve done so by exploring the entanglement of race and empire, aesthetics and politics, English and other languages, a range of emigrant experiences, colonial and post-independence histories, Brexit and its significance for contemporary Black British writers, among other themes. These writers experiment with a variety of new fictional and poetic forms, and imagine into being new forms of citizenship, art, and community.  

While we will begin with the Caribbean and the Windrush trajectory, we will move forward chronologically and outward geographically to read authors from a variety of national and colonial backgrounds from around the (former) British empire; this will give us a sense of the sheer breadth of post-Windrush and post-empire literary product (and will include brief excursions into the visual arts, broadcasting, and music).

In Person

T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM

Instructor: Jennifer Jenkins

In this course we will look at representations of Mexico in literature, film, and visual culture. How did US cinema characterize our nearest neighbor? What tropes of familiarity and foreignness shape the US literary and visual imagination of Mexico in the 20^th century? We will examine these concepts in Hollywood, non-theatrical, and home movie footage. In addition to viewing this historical span of cinematic works, we will read narratives that established and challenged prevailing notions of Mexico by US, British, and Mexican writers. Work for credit will include a decoupage, a narrative adaptation, and a final visual project or critical essay. Preparation: students should expect to commit an average of four hours per week to viewing filmwork in addition to completing assigned readings before class meetings.

001 In Person 

W/F 10:00-10:50AM

Instructor: Farid Matuk

This seminar-style course is intended for Creative Writing majors in their junior or senior year. Students working in all genres will have the opportunity to glean professionalization skills and career path guidance from a range of visitors that can include UArizona CW major alumni, visiting authors, literary agents, book and literary journal editors, and UArizona MFA Program alumni. This class will sometimes co-convene with a graduate section of Colloquium, offering undergraduate Creative Writing majors an exceptional opportunity to be mentored by current graduate students in the highly competitive UArizona MFA Program in Creative Writing, and to interact in an intimate setting with authors who come to campus for the MFA Program’s Distinguished Visitor Series in Creative Writing and the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center reading series. 

001/002 Limited to English Honors / Honors Students 

In Person

T/Th 3:30-4:45 PM

Instructor: John Melillo

The development and exchange of scholarly information, usually in a small group setting. The scope of work shall consist of research by course registrants, with the exchange of the results of such research through discussion, reports, and/or papers.

004 In Person

M/W 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Paul Hurh

This course will chart the American adaptation of the gothic literary tradition over the past two centuries. The texts and films for this course will be drawn from the horror genre, and we will consider how their specific contours are shaped by the specific political, social, economic, sexual, and racial tensions of the developing United States. 

003 In Person

T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM

Instructor: Scott Selisker

This capstone course will consider the 21^st-century literary landscape through several critical and practical lenses. We’ll aim to connect what you’ve learned as majors about literary history with some glimpses into the present and future of literary practice and discourse. We’ll skew toward U.S. literary fiction, but we’ll also glance at the wider Anglophone literary sphere and at creative nonfiction, genre fiction, and poetry practice. Likely authors include Ling Ma, Jennifer Egan, Alison Bechdel, Jia Tolentino, Tom McCarthy, Layli Long Soldier, Ted Chiang, N.K. Jemisin, Valeria Luiselli, and Colson Whitehead. We’ll draw widely on recent scholarship, especially work with a focus on a sociological approach to literature. How do the institutions of contemporary literature (conglomerate and small presses, prizes, universities themselves) and the wider media landscape, we’ll ask, shape the forms and values we associate with literature today? In this intensive seminar, students will sign on as discussion leaders for a segment of each class session. Several short papers will expand on insights begun in our class discussions. In another assignment, students will make arguments for, and vote on, the final texts we’ll read together. The major project for this capstone course will be a critical research paper with a creative, multimedia, or public-facing component.