Upcoming Courses
Spring 2022 Classes
Looking for a class in Spring 2022? Check out our great line up of literature, language, and writing courses to help round out your gen-eds, major requirements, or electives.
Visit the Schedule of Classes to find days/time for courses. Then register in the UAccess Student Center.
Schedule of Classes UAccess Student Center
English 100 & 200 Level Courses
101 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, LGBTQ, 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, 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 Fully Online
**7-Week Second Session**
Instructor: Matthew Abraham
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 (See Amy Chua’s World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. Anchor Books, 2004.) 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
Mason, Liliana. Uncivil Disagreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Univ. of Chicago Press, 2018.
Metzel, Jonathan. Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s
Heartland. Basic Books, 2019.
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.
201 Introduction to Nonfiction Writing
001 In Person
T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM
Instructor: Sarah Bates
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).
201 Introduction to Nonfiction Writing
002 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Juliana Lunde
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).
201 Introduction to Nonfiction Writing
101/201 Fully Online
**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).
ENGL 209 Introduction to Poetry Writing
001 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Aria Pahari
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.
ENGL 209 Introduction to Poetry Writing
002 In Person
T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM
Instructor: Hannah Lawless
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.
209 Introduction to Poetry Writing
110/210 Fully Online
**7-Week Second Session**
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.
ENGL 209 Introduction to Poetry Writing
003 In Person
T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM
Instructor: Susan Briante
In this course students will become familiar with 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 in-class and out-of-class 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.
ENGL 210 Introduction to Fiction Writing
001 In Person
F 11:00 AM-1:30 PM
Instructor: Lucia Edafioka
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.
ENGL 210 Introduction to Fiction Writing
002 In Person
F 1:00-3:30 PM
Instructor: Samiha Matin
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.
ENGL 210 Introduction to Fiction Writing
003 In Person
T/Th 3:30-4:45 PM
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.
ENGL 210 Introduction to Fiction Writing
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.
ENGL 215 Elements of Craft: Creative Writing
001 Asynchronous Online
Instructor: Farid Matuk
Multi-genre craft course introducing creative writing craft terms and concepts via intensive reading in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
ENGL 248B Introduction to Fairy Tales
101/201 Fully Online
Instructor: Kate Bernheimer
“Let it Go” and come learn about fairy tales! What meaning do these beautiful tales of survival hold for you? In this class, we will read multiple variations of classic fairy tales from around the world. We will follow their breadcrumbs from communal storytelling into literary culture and Disney, and from childhood to adulthood. The folkloric writing assignments in this class are designed to spark your curiosity and encourage your confidence. Our resilient guides include Little Red Riding Hood, Donkeyskin, Hansel & Gretel, The Little Mermaid, Elsa & Anna, and others. Prepare to be enchanted. All course materials will be available on D2L, apart from “Frozen,” a movie, which you will need to rent or purchase to watch (even if you have seen it before, you'll need to see it again!).
ENGL 263 Topics of Children’s Literature
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.
ENGL 264 US Popular Culture
101 Fully Online
**7-Week First Session**
Instructor: Maritza Cardenas
What can the study of popular cultural forms like Television, Films, Advertisements, Video Games, Facebook as well as cultural practices like shopping, viewing habits, and other modes of consumption reveal about US American Values? How do representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality disseminated within these popular texts shape the way we come to see others and ourselves? These are some of the guiding questions we will be exploring in our study of U.S. popular culture. Through an examination of both critical essays and primary texts, students in this course will learn not only how to critically read and interpret various cultural forms, but also will come to understand the ways in which popular culture structures our day to day lives.
001 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Stephanie Pearmain
Students will learn to critically examine and write about Young Adult novels and to develop a better understanding of the genre as a whole. Students will discuss, explore, and analyze the ways in which cultural and historical contexts influence the production and themes of literature. Students will come to understand the ways in which Young Adult literature shapes understandings of adolescence.
ENGL 280 Introduction to Literature
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.
ENGL 280 Introduction to Literature
002 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Staff
Close reading of literary texts, critical analysis, and articulation of intellectually challenging ideas in clear prose.
ENGL 280 Introduction to Literature
003 In Person
T/Th 3:30-4:45 AM
Instructor: Staff
Close reading of literary texts, critical analysis, and articulation of intellectually challenging ideas in clear prose.
ENGL 280
004H Live Online
T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM
Instructor: Daniel Cooper Alarcon
For this honors 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. 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, 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 Martin Espada, and Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer prize-winning, graphic memoir about the Holocaust, Maus. Expect to write several short papers over the course of the semester.
English 300 & 400 Level Courses
110/210 Fully Online
**7-Week Second Session**
Instructor: Staff
Comparative study of literature and cinema as aesthetic media.
101 Fully Online
Instructor: Christopher Cokinos
This is an intermediate workshop in creative nonfiction. You'll have a required text and will help “curate” the reading list from online sources! You will write one Brevity-type essay (750 words) and one Object Lessons/The Atlantic Online essay (1,000 words), plus a third essay of any kind or length (at least 1,000 words). You will revise all three for a final portfolio.
Subject matter is wide open. We are here to evaluate language and writerly possibilities not judge lives. This workshop is a safe space, multivocal and, while necessarily focused on critical takes about your essays, it will be supportive. As well, should a larger contextual discussion about what informs an essay’s standpoint be necessary, we won’t shy from that. The phrases constructive criticism and compassionate reflection come to mind.
The course mixes workshops, in-class writing, discussions and more. The vibe is energetic and helpful.
ENGL 304 Intermediate Fiction Writing Workshop
001 In Person
T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM
Instructor: Staff
Practice in writing short fiction.
ENGL 304 Intermediate Fiction Writing Workshop
002 In Person
M/W 12:30-1:45 PM
Instructor: Staff
Practice in writing short fiction.
ENGL 309 Intermediate Poetry Writing Workshop
001 In Person
M/W 3:00-4:15 PM
Instructor: TC Tolbert
Practice in writing poetry.
001 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Suresh Raval
This course will focus on read several modern/modernist works of tragic literature, mostly plays, and an ancient Greek tragedy (Oedipus the King). We will begin with this ancient Greek tragedy to develop certain general conceptions about tragedy in earlier cultures. Among the modern writers and their plays to be explored will be H. Ibsen, Four Great Plays, Luigi Pirandello, Naked Masks, B. Brecht, Mother Courage Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, and Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. Our goal will be to analyze major themes, techniques, and innovations of these works, and explore their cultural and philosophical significance. We will also study these works with a view to thinking about literary culture and its relations with society.
Students will be writing two papers on the texts discussed in class. There will be some quizzes, a mid-term exam and a final exam.
001 Fully Online
Instructor: Marcia Klotz
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).
001 In Person
T/Th 12:30-1:45 PM
Instructor: Emily Palese
Study of English form and use in relation to social and cultural contexts. Topics include regional and social dialectology, attitudes toward variation and change, strategies of interaction, gender and language use, and politeness, power and politics.
001 In Person
M/W 9:30-10:45AM
Instructor: Roger Dahood
English 373A introduces students to major writers and genres from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) period to the middle of the seventeenth century. By the end of the course students will have had opportunity to master ways of examining and thinking profitably about literary works through close engagement with the readings. The chronological arrangement of assignments and editors’ headnotes will contribute to a grasp of the development of English literature through time and an understanding of the historical context associated with each work.
We begin with the Old English epic Beowulf and end with the seventeenth-century epic Paradise Lost. Lecture/discussion will aim to generate deep understanding of the readings—how their earliest audiences might have understood them and how we might engage with them today.
001 In Person
M/W 11:00-11:50 AM | Discussion Sections: 001A: F; 11:00-11:50 | 001B: F; 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Paul Hurh
A survey of literature written in English from the 17th through the 19th centuries. This course will read broadly through multiple significant literary movements and traditions during the period.
Students will work in small groups to generate blogs that engage with the literature in unique and contemporary ways. Memes, listicles, clickbait, hot takes, deep dives, and other forms of experimental and informal writing will explore the relevance of the English literary tradition today.
ENGL 380 Literary Analysis: The Rural and the Pastoral
001 In Person
M/W 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Tenney Nathanson
This is a course in “close reading.” The reading assignments will be short, to allow us to pay close attention to individual texts and individual passages. We’ll read many poems some short stories, and perhaps one novel, with an eye toward mastering the close reading techniques crucial to the sort of literary analysis we practice in upper-division literature courses (and beyond). Regular class attendance and regular participation in class discussions and online discussion boards are required. Students will write roughly 6-8 short papers (1-2 pp. each), and 2 somewhat longer papers (3-5 pp. each). There are no exams.
Questions? Please email the instructor at nathanso@arizona.edu
ENGL 380 Literary Analysis
002 In Person
T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM
Instructor: Staff
Introduction to the various modes, techniques, and terminology of practical criticism.
001 In Person
T 6:30-8:00 PM
Instructors: Meg Lota Brown and Dr. Aishan Shi
The focus of this course is on the relationship between medicine and society in seven of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV, Part II, Twelfth Night, and All’s Well That Ends Well. Students will examine representations of mental health; aging, dementia, and elderly care; adolescence, suicide, and public health; disease, alcoholism, and obesity; LGBTQ+, social outcasts, and autism spectrum; pregnancy and bodies; and the roles of healers. Through close-reading and character analysis, we will consider how disease and pathology affect individuals and societies. In addition, we will investigate the relation of bodies to power, of disease to discourse, of empathy to knowledge, and of medical evidence to cultural constructions of meaning.
001 In Person
T/Th 3:30-4:45 PM
Instructor: Sara McKinney
This course will consist of both hands-on and academic experience and training in journal publishing; specific sections will be tied to one particular English Department journal.
ENGL 396A Junior Proseminar
001 Fully Online
Instructor: Lee Medovoi
This Junior-level proseminar introduces students to methods and materials of literary research. Content of individual seminars will vary, based upon instructor.
ENGL 396A Junior Proseminar: The Colonial and Postcolonial Novel
002 In Person
TR 2:00-3:15 PM
Instructor: Suresh Somnath Raval
This course will deal with several major colonial and postcolonial novels, focusing on issues at stake in contemporary discussions of these works. Among the novelists to be explored are Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Forster (A Passage to India), Achebe (Things Fall Apart), Kincaid (Lucy), Naipaul (A Bend in the River), Coetzee (Disgrace), and Bharati Mukherjee (Jasmine). Nearly all these novels are quite short and are chosen to focus on larger cultural and political contexts and problems they explore. We will also read some chapters of Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and Edward Said’s Orientalism and a selection of some short but important theoretical essays. Our goal will be to examine these novels from the perspective of various major postcolonial concepts about identity, representation, nationalism, and globalization among a host of others.
Students will write ONE 1- or 2-page, single-space commentary on an important aspect of each novel, a term paper, a mid-term exam, and a final exam.
001 In Person
M 12:30-3:00 PM
Instructor: Francisco Cantú
Writing-Emphasis Course for creative writing majors.
ENGL 404 Advanced Fiction Writing
001 In Person
W 12:30-3:00 PM
Instructor: Kindall Gray
This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.
ENGL 404 Advanced Fiction Writing
002 In Person
F 12:30 -3:00 PM
Instructor: Ted McLoof
This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.
001 In Person
MW 2:00-3:15 PM
Instructor: Jonathon Reinhardt
Introduction to the nature of grammar and approaches to the description of English grammar, emphasizing Chomsky's transformational-generative model. Focus is on grammatical structure, but scope includes phonology and social/historical factors which influence the form and use of English in various contexts. Includes practice in phonemic transcription and sentence diagramming.
001 In Person
W 3:30-6:00 PM
Instructor: Farid Matuk
This is the advanced course in the undergraduate poetry-writing sequence. Our class time will mostly be divided between close reading seminars and studio time in which we draft out of a range of prompts and exercises, transitioning to whole-group critiques when appropriate. We will read contemporary and canonical poets across cultures and write brief craft analyses of their work. While this course is about writing better poems, it is ultimately about learning new ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, and being; it’s about expanding your tool kit for self-invention and for world-invention. Students may present longer works for discussion and may work toward culminating projects such as chapbook manuscripts and longer poem sequences. Class size is limited to 15 students. Creative Writing majors and minors will be given priority.
ENGL 414/514
110/210 Fully Online
Instructor: Catrina Mitchum
This course emphasizes communicating scientific knowledge. You will learn strategies for and get practice in developing, testing, and delivering scientific and technical reports for specific audiences. Whether you bring a project to the class or develop a project for the purpose of the class, you will have opportunities to get feedback on your project in various stages of preparation. ENGL 414 counts as an elective for the undergraduate Professional and Technical Writing Certificate. ENGL514 counts toward the Graduate Certificate in Science Communication.
110/210 Fully Online
Instructor: Marcia Klotz
Analysis of selected writings by women, as well as representations of women in literature, with attention to social and intellectual contexts.
001 In Person
M/W 12:30-1:45 PM
Instructor: Roger Dahood
We will read and familiarize ourselves in depth with the most admired (and sometimes problematic) parts of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer was a master storyteller. Our readings include some of the funniest and some of the most deeply moving stories ever told in English.
The class will be interdisciplinary in spirit. We will emphasize close reading as the first step in understanding but will have at hand also a range of interpretive/critical tools, including historical, linguistic, and art historical resources.
The required text is Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: Seventeen Tales and the General Prologue. 3rd ed. Ed. V. A. Kolve and G. Olson. Norton Critical Edition, (New York, 2018). This latest update of the Norton Critical Edition is geared to classroom use.
001 In Person
T/Th 2:00-3:15 PM
Instructor: Fred Kiefer
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 on a stage. We will demystify the plays and make them accessible to modern readers. Two exams during the course, a final, and a term paper.
001 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Kyle DiRoberto
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. We will learn about the major preoccupations of the Jacobean era, paying particular attention to the social, political, economic, legal, and religious changes that are reflected in the plays. Finally, as Mark Olshaker reminds us, " every age . . . gets the Shakespeare it deserves," and as the experience of our current age is informed by its relationship to new media and the globe, our exploration of Shakespeare will also include the proliferation of interpretations and adaptations that a post-print global culture demands. Not only will we read, interpret, and write about Shakespeare, but we will also explore the adaptation of Shakespeare in both Western and non-Western productions, social media, digital games, and virtual reality.
001 In Person
M/W 3:30-4:45 PM
Instructor: Tenney Nathanson
Contemporary American poetry both extends and morphs the restless experimental energies and grand ambitions of the great American modernists. We’ll read contemporary (post WW2-present) poetry both as a dialogic response to the modern tradition and as an engagement with contemporary political, economic, and cultural developments. Poets to be studied may include, among others: Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Philip Whalen, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman, Leslie Scalapino, Norman Fischer, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Erica Hunt, Harryette Mullen, Tracie Morris, Heriberto Yépez. (We won’t read all these poets: a reading list of seven to eight writers is most likely.) Principal requirements: three short papers (3-5 pp. each), or two short papers plus a journal of imitations; a final exam.
Literature Right Now
001 In Person
T/Th 9:30-10:45 AM
Instructor: Scott Selisker
This capstone course will consider the 21st-century literary landscape. 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, poetry, and genre fiction. Likely authors include Ling Ma, Jennifer Egan, Allison Bechdel, Jia Tolentino, Thomas Pynchon, Tom McCarthy, Layli Long Soldier, Nnedi Okorafor, and Colson Whitehead. Students will collaboratively choose our final work or two. We’ll draw widely on recent scholarship, especially work that takes a sociological approach to literature. How do the institutions of contemporary literature (conglomerate and small presses, prizes, universities themselves) and the wider field of cultural forms across media (online media platforms, games, print media), 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. The major project for this capstone course will be a longer critical research paper with a creative, multimedia, or public-facing component.
002 Fully Online
Instructor: Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
This senior seminar will immerse students in contemporary migration literatures, specifically written under the sign of return. “Return” is one of the oldest tropes in the literature of migration. For some immigrants, the pull of home is only matched by the impossibility of going back. For others, emigration away from home and immigration into a new country must eventually be consummated with a return journey. Return can be chosen or coerced. Return can be a search for roots, or a quest for routes. In all instances, return can be narrated. We might say that return itself is a narrative form.
Over the course of the semester, we will read, listen to, and watch narratives of reverse migration, second-generation return, temporary return, post-conflict return, economic and labor migration, ancestral pilgrimage, and deportation. We will analyze how various temporalities of return animate the literary apprehension of the present. We will compare narratives of return across genres, as we engage in analyses of novels, memoirs, poetry, short stories, interviews, essays, podcasts, and films. Finally, we will use return literature as an occasion to examine our individual and collective itineraries through (as well as to and from) the discipline of English. Active participation in online discussions and modules is expected as well as commitment to close, critical reading and honing the methods of literary research and argumentative writing.
003 In Person
T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Instructor: Lauren Camille Mason
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.
004/005 In Person
M/W 2:00-3:15 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. The English Honors version of this class will read also give an introduction to critical theory by reading selections of the American Gothic through multiple theoretical lenses, including older psychoanalytic, Marxist, and feminist readings as well as more contemporary theory, including critical race theory, new materialism, queer theory, posthumanism, and more.
Note: Enrollment in this section is limited to students in the English Honors Program.
Professional & Technical Writing Courses
101/201 Fully Online
7-Week Second Session
Instructor: Staff
This seven-week, asynchronous online course introduces the theory and practice of professional and technical writing in academic, professional, and community contexts. Using open educational resources and library-accessible resources, we will learn about key concepts, values, practices, and areas of expertise. We will apply our learning in a course project that examines and reports on professional and technical writing in specific contexts chosen by students. This course fulfills a core course requirement for the undergraduate major and minor in Professional and Technical Writing.
110/210 Fully Online
7-Week Second Session
Instructor: Staff
This course is the final step toward completing the Professional and Technical Writing Certificate at the University of Arizona. In this one-credit, pass/fail, asynchronous online (7 week 2) course, students build a portfolio that is tailored to their professional interests and goals.
101 Fully Online
Instructor: Ann Shivers-McNair
In this course, students complete a capstone project and compile a portfolio of their work in professional and technical writing.