Upcoming Courses

This course examines how activists have mobilized social justice movements, including those that have defended the rights of women, immigrants, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ+ people. Students will learn about the history of human rights philosophies and the ways changes in media, society, and culture have shaped the rhetorical strategies used by younger generations of activists in movements such as Black Lives Matters and #MeToo.

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.

As a nation we seem more divided than ever. Anger, resentment, and calls for resistance against various cultural forces have been especially prominent since January of 2017. Add to this situation a pandemic, which is straining the infrastructural resources of every country in the world, and one can understand how the phrase “world on fire” applies.^[1] In this context, expressions of racism, misogyny, xenophobia toward immigrants, and general disgust directed toward those who look or behave differently become manifest. Unemployment, social marginalization, and a rapid increase in substance abuse and suicide among middle-aged men represent a societal tipping point.

The rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement, #MeToo, and immigrant activism point to a widespread recognition of how systemic abuses of power are being resisted strongly by certain demographic sectors. At the center of this storm of protest and resistance is the presidency of Donald J. Trump, whose unprecedented campaign and election fueled the rise of large-scale resistance movements among women, ethnic minorities, environmentalists, and ordinary citizens intent on defending constitutional norms and mainstream governmental institutions. At the same time, we must recognize a backlash against these movements represented by the rise of white supremacy and white nationalism.

In this course, we will explore the role of anger and resentment in the context of understanding this current historical and political movement that has made resistance fashionable again. How are anger and resentment mobilized to create coalitions around key social issues such as feminism (#MeToo), the Black Lives Matter Movement, immigration, as well as among those who constitute a general opposition to current policies on many fronts including healthcare, education, and corporate control of worker rights? How might we go about thinking about and discussing these oppositional movements that have tapped into widespread anger and disappointment in the state of American democracy? How have other oppositional movements, such as those expressing nativist and racial supremacist sentiments, channeled their anger and resentment in the age of Trump through social media?  These are just some of the questions that we will turn to in this seven-and-a-half-week course.

Possible Course Texts (available at U of A Bookstore or at an online bookstore):

French, David. Divided We Fall. America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. St.

     Martin’s Press, 2020

Rankin, Claudia. Just Us: An American Conversation. Graywolf Press.

Batya Ungar-Sargon’s Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy. Encounter Books.

^[1]See Amy Chua’s World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. Anchor Books, 2004.

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.

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).

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.

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.

 

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 read and analyze contemporary poetry as we find models for our own work. A variety of writing prompts will help stoke our imagination and inspiration. Then we will develop a process for sharing, critiquing, and revising our work. 

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

This project-based studio course introduces a range of different approaches to writing fiction and a series of project prompts inspired by and/or provided by contemporary writers. The course will begin with the following questions: what does it mean to be a writer of fiction today? What responsibilities does a writer of fiction have to their audience, the world they write from, and larger cultural conversations about truth-telling? Students will be asked to craft a personal “line of inquiry” (1 page max) that will guide their course-long investigation into fiction’s role in critical thinking and contemporary life. Prior to each project prompt students will rigorously engage with the creative work of a contemporary fiction writer, as well as that work’s cultural, historical, and theoretical context. Following each project, they will be required to submit both a record of the creative material generated by the project and a short (2 page max) critical reflection on the work produced. A final (5-6 page) “learning statement” will ask students to both respond directly to their opening line of inquiry and to demonstrate an ability to synthesize the course’s critical, creative, and experiential components. Above all, a sense of experimentation and openness to different styles, methods, and ways of thinking about fiction-writing and its potentials is key.

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

You will learn the nuts and bolts of English grammar in a fun and welcoming environment. In this course, you will also learn and apply contextual strategies for editing your own writing, as well as the writing of others, for grammar, style, and format. This course counts as an elective for the English major, the Creative Writing major, the undergraduate Professional and Technical Writing Certificate, and the new undergraduate major and minor in Professional and Technical Writing. 

This course introduces you to the Hebrew Bible (aka the “Old Testament”), inarguably the most consequential text in the history of western civilization. The Bible was written over a period of 800 years under very different conditions and contexts. In the centuries that followed, it became central to many religious traditions that came to interpret it in quite different ways.  In addition to the contexts in which it was written, we will therefore also consider how the Hebrew Bible became viewed in Judaic, Christian, and Muslim religious traditions. We will even consider how the Bible was adapted as a source for secular values. Taking a literary approach, we will also consider the principal literary genres out of which the Bible was assembled (narrative, poetry, chronicle, legal code, wisdom writing), and explore the ideological signification of the texts (what it has been used to explain and justify over the centuries).

Basic concepts in the study of the English language: history, semantics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse. English in its social context: regional and social varieties, language acquisition, and English as an international language.

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.

What do we mean when we discuss “American Literature”? In this section of “Major American Authors,” we will explore the work of numerous American writers who identify as such while having been born elsewhere. In other words, we will read and study the work of immigrant writers who made their homes in the U.S. and wrote/are writing in English. We have all heard statements about the United States being a great “melting pot” of ethnicities and cultures, and this class will examine some of the ways in which this nation’s diversity accounts for and contributes to the richness and variety of our national literature. Here is a partial list of the authors we will read and the countries they came from before establishing themselves in the U.S.: Vladimir Nabokov (Russia), Junot Díaz (the Dominican Republic), Yiyun Li (China), Claudia Rankine (Jamaica), and Gina Apostol (the Philippines). We will read a combination of novels, short stories, poetry, and essays by these and other immigrant writers. This is a reading- and writing-intensive course, and we will write regularly in order to closely examine these works in relation to form, themes, and context as we try to answer questions about how each of these writers and texts expands our notions about American literature.

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.

 

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.

 

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.  Please note that this section of 280 is being offered Live Online for the entire semester.

 

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.

 

This course is really kind of two courses in one: It is a fusion of an introduction-to-film-analysis course and a course focused on the adaptation of literature into film. Because of the time constraints built into this compressed 7-week online course, students will read short stories, rather than novels or plays, that have been made into films, analyze the film adaptations of those stories, and study some of the theoretical and practical approaches filmmakers have taken to adapting fiction for the screen. Students will also read the most essential chapters of the excellent film textbook Looking at Movies (7^th Edition), which will give us the vocabulary and the analytical tools we need to discuss film in nuanced and technical ways, the better to understand how cinema finds ways to parallel the more historically established literary techniques. Our ultimate goal will be to find more complex responses to film adaptations than the reductive assumption that “the book is always better.”

We’ll start new nonfiction projects and read a lot of creative nonfiction, contemporary and classic. We’ll further refine our craft through reading, writing, and revising creative nonfiction, with a particular eye on the ways in which the ways writers of nonfiction interact with the world. We’ll write about music, about food, about movies and books and video games. Maybe board games too. We’ll write about the self, and we’ll write about the world, and explore how the self—the I—is transformed by its encounter with the world, and the world is brought to life as it is witnessed and explored by the self. With a focus on research and going out into the world to bring stuff back, we write by bringing the world to the self and the self to the world. We’ll also spend time looking at the way nonfiction (and all) writers interact with the world as readers, writers, editors, reviewers, fangirls, and literary citizens. We’ll fool around with computer-generated prose and figure out what we (can and will) bring to the table as writers and investigators of all kinds of phenomena. What makes our own writing better than what an AI can generate? We’ll find out. We’ll do it.

Practice in writing short fiction.

 

Practice in writing short fiction.

 

Practice in writing poetry.

In this course, students will: 

--learn the history of haiku from its origins to its current, global practice 

--become familiar with the formal properties of traditional classic haiku 

--understand the role of formal properties in reading and writing haiku 

--become familiar with issues in current practice: including controversies about form, problems of/in translation, issues regarding cultural contexts of the practice and its origins, discussions and disagreements about content, and other textual issues as they arise from our collaborative learning process 

--respond reflectively to assigned haiku in required Discussion posts and two papers

--write and discuss their haiku with other students (focus on positive aspects and responses only); these haiku will be ungraded and shared anonymously and will not be graded  

--perhaps come away with a haiku writing practice 

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

 

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

The Prison Writing Course encourages reflection and response to "narratives" about prison and inmates and examines larger societal issues surrounding this topic. The lectures and main assignments will encourage students to look at received perspectives of prison and prison issues (past), allow for response to issues raised in the readings and within class discussions (present), and then give students the opportunity to propose a community project that addresses some issue raised or encountered throughout the course (future).

Literary history—in one sense, this single subject forms the core of studying English literature. Which old books have people throughout the centuries found fascinating, and why? How do people radically different from us in perspective and outlook comprehend their worlds? An old joke goes that a true survey course must range from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, but of course that’s impossible. Already in this class we cover a 1,000-year stretch; even that barely scratches the surface. Yet we’ll take journeys through historical ages only dimly understood by most people—the “Dark Ages,” the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance and Reformation. But we’ll also see how those ages flourish in texts that range across a hundred thousand adaptations, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (basically Arthurian fan-fic) to The Lord of the Rings. In ENGL 373A, we’ll ultimately study the earliest beginnings of English literature up through the early Modern period. We’ll breathe in the romance of the old, where far from the daringness of the avant-garde or the technological cutting edge, we’ll find world-views and wisdom buried deeply by time. We’ll uncover strange new literary modes and techniques, and we’ll delve into nuances of creative adaptation through the centuries. Not everyone takes 373A already knowing that they love literary history … but everyone will leave having learned what they have missed. 

A survey of British and American Literature from the roots of modernism to the postmodern and contemporary period, with an emphasis on major writers in their literary and historical contexts.

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, William Faulkner, Kyle Baker, and others.

 

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

 

This course examines basic literary aesthetics as the foundation of poetic, fictive, dramatic, and visual narrative meaning. In keeping with the course’s curricular function, we will study poetry, drama, and fiction. We will develop close reading skills by studying poetic form, meter, rhyme, tropes, schemes; narrative structures and devices; literary genre forms, dramatic structures and conventions, and filmic narrative conventions. These fundamentals will inform our analysis of the ways in which meaning is constructed through a marriage of form and content in literary and filmic texts. Students will master basic terms, concepts, and conventions of poetic, dramatic, fiction, and filmic aesthetics, and demonstrate that knowledge in analytical work based on close reading. 

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 on picture books for children and students will have the opportunity to write, edit, and submit picture book text. We will be partnering with Make Way for Books and students will cr

This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.

 

This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.

As the advanced course in our sequence, this iteration of ENGL 409 requires you to practice habits that will sustain your poetry writing long after you’ve earned your degree: discussing your friends’ drafts and contemporary books of poetry, and writing your own poems with an eye toward creating longer, collected works that you could submit for chapbook and even full-length book publication. 

Preparation of professional literature for publication.

During the first half of his career, Shakespeare wrote most of his romantic comedies, most of his history plays, and several of his best tragedies, including Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. We shall read a selection of these plays, paying close attention to language, character, and dramatic action. We shall also endeavor to keep in mind that Shakespeare was himself an actor and that his plays came to life not in a study but on the stage. We will demystify the plays, make them accessible, and explore why they are so powerful in performance. Two exams during the course, a final, and a term paper.

This course will focus on a selection of Shakespeare’s late comedies, tragedies, and romances. We will examine the art of these plays, looking at Shakespeare’s language, his dramatic technique, and his development as an artist. To gain a more complete understanding of these works, we will also study them in their historical context. The birth of nationalism, the emergence of capitalism, and the Reformation, for example, will involve us in discussions of economic, religious, racial, and gendered identity. But we will not limit ourselves to just this plurality of forces.  Employing the interdisciplinary theorizations of Shakespeare in the twenty-first century, we will also consider how alternative subjectivities reconfigure our understanding of authorship both then and now. By employing actor-network theory, new materialism, and post-humanism, we will explore how these plays and their modern adaptation offer creative potentialities and new networks of understanding.

A general overview of the profession covering prominent theories, methodologies, and procedures influencing the field.

The study of novels, drama and poetry by leading Black writers.

This course will provide an opportunity to read, consider, and discuss a diverse array of texts we might broadly categorize as travel literature. Our goal will be to identify the conventions of the various manifestations of this genre, as well as the different kinds of cultural work that travel literature performs at different historical moments.  As the course progresses, we’ll think about how travel narratives were altered to accommodate new philosophies, ideologies, and artistic movements, and, as I hope the term “travel fictions” suggests, we will think about how and why these narratives often misrepresent, distort, and fabricate notions about the people and places they purport to describe. We will also read a wide range of travel fictions that purposefully raise questions about different types of travel, including exploration, tramping, immigration, and tourism. And, we’ll consider how travel narratives and travel fictions often borrow from one another, mutually reinforcing ideas, tropes, and modes of representation. Finally, we’ll think about how reading and writing have become an integral part of traveling–shaping not just itineraries, but perceptions and beliefs about the places travelers visit.

We will read memoirs, short stories, and essays by Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, María Cristina Mena, Jamaica Kincaid, Rudolfo Anaya, and Leslie Marmon Silko.  We will also read three novels: The Sheltering Sky (Paul Bowles), Jasmine (Bharati Mukherjee), and Volkswagen Blues (Jacques Poulin).  You will be asked to write two medium-length papers and to participate regularly in class discussion.  Please note that this course is being offered Live Online for the entire semester.

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

We shall take as our starting point the words spoken by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek. His word “space” has an aura of the unknown and uncharted. It can signal adventure and wonder. But space could have another meaning. As John Donne wrote, “New philosophy [science] calls all in doubt, / the element of fire is quite put out; / the sun is lost, and the earth . . . / ’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone.” John Milton in Paradise Lost captures the disorientation of vast distance when Satan looks from hell to earth and finds a “wild abyss.”

The expanses of space unnerved Shakespeare’s culture. Perhaps that’s why people were so anxious to contain and shape the world around them, whether indoors or outdoors. To accomplish this goal, they employed the arts of architecture, painting, garden design, and poetry.

This interdisciplinary seminar will look at the literal, literary, and artistic handling of space in the European Renaissance. How have people organized and divided space? What cultural significance does the treatment of space have? What are the implications for an understanding of the world around us? The course is not chiefly about space as understood by scientists or mathematicians. Instead, we will focus on the artistic expression of William Shakespeare’s culture, especially as it manifests itself in buildings, paintings, the landscape around courtly homes, and the arrangement of lyrics in a collection of poems. The class will culminate in a careful look at Shakespeare’s sonnets. If you join us, you will experience the sublime.

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.

 

The 18^th century poet Alexander Pope famously claimed that in poetry “sound must seem an echo to the sense.” But how exactly does this echo work? And what happens if we reverse the order and say, “sense must seem an echo to the sound”? This is often the case in nursery rhymes, nonsense verse, experimental writing, and song lyrics.

In this class, we will examine how sound studies can help us answer questions about the work of sound in literature. Sound studies is an interdisciplinary field that traces the theory and practice of listening. The field combines literature, poetics, music, performance, film studies, linguistics, acoustics, environmental studies, recording arts, history, philosophy, and more in order to show how listening is not only a cultural artifact—a product of contextual practices, technologies, and rituals—but also a form of inquiry.

For this course, then, we will ask: How do different ways of listening help us to rethink literary texts and their aesthetics of sound? And, conversely, how do literary texts help us uncover new ways of understanding sound in the world—from city soundscapes to pop song recordings? Answering these questions will necessitate a sonic reckoning with the concepts at the heart of contemporary critical study: aesthetics and politics, race and personhood, voice and community, the environment and knowledge.

We will read, listen to, and think with a wide array of sound writing: lyric poetry, sound poetry, experimental audio, concrete music, songs, performance art, extended and improvised musical forms, poetry readings, and more. Specific texts will range from Sappho to Susan Howe, Alexander Pope to Public Enemy. Assignments will include essays, reflections, and analyses as well as exercises in listening, recording, and editing sound.

In this course, students learn how to apply localization strategies to the development, editing, and management of content in ways that are responsive to and inclusive of linguistic and cultural differences.

Students will explore the theories and practices of professional and academic portfolios while simultaneously designing and developing an adaptive identity and a professional persona for post-graduate settings. Students will synthesize work from past and present courses and experiences. They will make complex composition decisions about content, design, structure, and media of their portfolios in connection with identifiable elements of a given rhetorical situation. Students will discuss and apply legal and ethical issues related to portfolio development and publication of 21st century digital identities.

A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies.  Senior standing required.