Upcoming Courses
Fall 2020 Classes
Looking for a class in Fall 2020? 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
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):
Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.
Princeton UP, 2020.
Metzel, Jonathan. Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s
Heartland. Basic Books, 2019.
Mishra, Pankaj. Age of Anger: The History of the Present. Picador, 2018.
Katherine Stewart. The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of
Religious Nationalism. Bloomsbury, 2020.
Lawrence Wright’s The End of October: A Novel. Knopf, 2020.
This course intended to give students a practical understanding of beginning techniques of creative or literary nonfiction writing (the personal essay, reportage, and memoir) with an emphasis on craft and research, taught through exercises and modeling, the writing and revision of original nonfiction, and readings and discussion of contemporary and classic nonfiction. This course also introduces students to the workshop method used in the intermediate and advanced courses.
Beginning techniques of poetry writing, taught through exercises, the writing of original poetry, and readings in contemporary poetry.
The entry course in the fiction sequence emphasizes the close study of the major craft elements of fiction (i.e., character, point of view, plot), usually with a focus on the short story. Students engage in close reading and discussion of contemporary and classic fiction and, through specific exercises and assignments, begin practicing the techniques, mechanisms, and modes of the short story. ENGL 210 also introduces students to the workshop method used in the intermediate and advanced courses, with guidelines on the importance of active participation and engaged response.
ENGL 215 is a lecture and reading course designed to introduce new or potential creative writing majors/minors to essential terms and concepts across the three genres offered at UofA (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction) and how to use them effectively within the expectations and tenets of a creative writing workshop. How to we apply these terms and concepts as we learn to observe, describe, and critique drafts with both fairness and sound artistic judgment? It is also designed to supply CW majors/minors with introductions to a range of authors (foundational and influential, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sandra Cisneros; and contemporary and innovative, such as Eula Biss, ZZ Packer, and Ander Monson). Students can expect writing to be both creative (generated by prompts and imitations) and analytical (guided by specific questions about form, content, and meaning).
This course will integrate the study of border and migration themed literature with a service-learning component, and a final student-directed symposium that will bring the ongoing dialogue of the class to the community. 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 question for this course will be, what does it mean to be a crosser of borders? In order to answer this question in its widest sense, we will operate in an intermediate space between academic discipline and community engagement, research and creative practice. Authors will include: Gloria Anzaldúa, Junot Diaz, Karen Tei Yamashita, C.S. Giscombe, Mahmoud Darwish, and more.
In this class, we will read multiple versions of classic tales and critical essays by scholars. We will be curious to discover what fairy tales are and why we still have them today. What is meaningful about the act of retelling? Together we will consider how fairy tales provide readers with portals to possibility spaces. We will follow their breadcrumbs from communal storytelling into literary culture and new media and from childhood to adulthood. Our resilient guides include Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, The Little Mermaid, and others. Prepare to be enchanted.
This introductory course covers basic concepts in the study of the English language. It surveys six broad areas: 1) What is Language? 2) What is Linguistics? 3) The Biology of Language; 4) The Ecology of Language; 5) Language, Society, & Culture; and 6) Language and Power. Each area corresponds to a unit that contains several subtopics.
This class offers an introduction to the best-known authors of the English language. It is meant to give you a broad overview of English literature, beginning with some of the earliest writings (Beowulf) and moving up through contemporary literature. For this reason, we will be moving very quickly. By the time the semester is completed, you will have a solid grasp of the literary movements that have shaped the English canon, and familiarity with the most canonical names of English authors.
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 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.
101 Fully Online
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. 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 by Bret Harte, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Clarice Lispector, and Rosario Ferré; the play “Zoot Suit” (a revival of which is currently playing to sell-out crowds in Los Angeles); Volkswagen Blues (a delightful road trip novel), 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
001
TR 12:30-1:45 PM
Instructor: Christopher Cokinos
This is a course in the writing of personal essays. We will privilege shorter, more frequent pieces in order to sample different types: memoir, character sketch, place profile and more, culminating in a longer piece at the end of the term. We will mix readings, discussions and workshops as we explore the fundamentals of the craft of writing the real. Expect a challenging but dynamic course in which we revel in writing awesome sentences and in confronting the aesthetic and ethical challenges of non-fiction. One required text will be Philip Gerard's Creative Nonfiction.
As an intermediate fiction-writing workshop, this course extends and complicates craft technique introduced at the beginning level. The emphasis of this course is to help you to begin developing a collection of short stories or a novel-in-stories. Same method of instruction and enrollment priority as 210 and class size is limited to 20. Creative Writing majors and minors will be given priority.
As an intermediate fiction-writing workshop, this course extends and complicates craft technique introduced at the beginning level. The emphasis of this course is to help you to begin developing a collection of short stories or a novel-in-stories. Same method of instruction and enrollment priority as 210 and class size is limited to 20. Creative Writing majors and minors will be given priority.
How do contemporary poets do what they do? We will look for the answers across a range of literary periods and styles. Then we will imitate, respond and innovate from published models to produce our own work. Our class time will mostly be divided between close reading seminars, workshop and studio time in which we draft out of a range of prompts and exercises. We will consider how the poem asks the author to cultivate a particular attention to the world and to experience. We will experiment with a wide archive of sources and inspiration for our poems. Over the course of the semester, we will review the many important tools of the poet (rhyme, rhythm, repetition, image, etc.). Finally, we will work through the various stages of creation and revision with aim of becoming better readers and editors of our own as well as our classmates’ work.
While the art of rhetoric is often thought about in relation to persuasion and to a host of classical figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Quintilian, Cicero, and the Sophists, it provides a much larger framework that helps us to explain and understand modern social phenomena such as the concepts of “post-truth” and “fake news” in modern culture, as well as the rise of demagogic and authoritarian figures in the context of populist political movements. For example, we see how prevalent references to “fake news” and “post-truth” have become in media discourse, where even science and objectivity have been called into question because of their connections to power and corruption. In this context, one gets to choose literally what she or he would like to believe about the external world because there is probably a community out there that will support it. What problems are posed for public discourse and deliberation when questions about representation become so prevalent? This is a major question we will consider in this class.
In the course, we will take a close look at this modern context by seeing how rhetorical study can help us to examine the persuasiveness of post-truth rhetorics. In addition, rhetorical study can assist us in understanding the growth of populist movements in the U.S. and Europe, providing a framework through which to explain and understand the surprising rise of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and as an anti-establishment politician. It would be a mistake, however, to see Trump as a singular figure, with European politicians such as Marine Le Pen and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan using similar populist appeals against the opposition, immigrants, multiculturalism, and political dissidents. Whether or not the labels “fascist” or “authoritarian” are accurate to describe the rise of these politicians is an issue we will consider. How do we go about explaining the problem of political polarization in the current public sphere? What can be done about it?
By examining the Western rhetorical tradition, we will lay the ground to understand how language and rhetoric have been used and abused by those in power. By understanding how rhetoric has developed throughout history as a tool of persuasion and manipulation, we will develop a greater appreciation of how the use of language in various contexts shapes our framing of reality. This is especially important as we enter what has been labeled as a “post-truth” era, where the very ability to represent “facts” and “reality” have been called into question. If what is factual or real is a function of how persuasive one is in presenting a particular version of events, the use of rhetoric, then, becomes a central force in shaping our relationship to the world. While rhetoric has historically been associated with pandering and manipulation, there is a long history of studying persuasive discourse that stresses the importance of ethics and good citizenship. This history is often lost in public understandings and use of the concept.
There is something of interest for everyone in the course material. Whether you are interested in the representation and treatment of minorities and women under the Trump administration, have an abiding interest in the rapid growth and influence of social movements such as #MeToo or Black Lives Matter, or have wondered why our current political moment is so unbelievable, you will be able to see the applicability of rhetoric to the emergence of social concerns and the growth of social movements in the public sphere.
A survey of British and American literature to 1660, with emphasis on major writers in their literary and historical contexts.
A survey of British and American literature from 1660 to the Victorian period, with emphasis on major writers in their literary and historical contexts.
A survey of British and American literature from 1660 to the Victorian period, with emphasis on major writers in their literary and historical contexts.
Title: The Rural and the Pastoral
This course teaches the skill of literary analysis, with an emphasis on close reading, through the rigorous study of poetry, short fiction, and novels. The themes for the texts are the pastoral and the rural, subjects that roughly concern the construction of “nature” as beauty on one hand, and explore the relation of individual identity to communal society on the other. Some of the writers we will read are: Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Emily Dickinson. Students will learn both basic and advanced terms for the study of literature, will be introduced to some key concepts in literary theory, and will be prepared, through a demanding course of analytical writing and revision, for the raised expectations of precision, originality, organization, and logic that they will encounter in the upper-division courses.
The course invites students to engage with important works from a number of literary genres. We will read and write analytically about prose, poetry, and drama from different times and places. Students should aim to come away with sharpened analytic and writing skills. There will be short papers (written out of class) and at least ten in-class writing assignments, including short-answer quizzes.
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). For this online course, regular participation in discussion boards will be a major course requirement. Students will also write roughly 7-8 short papers (1-2 pp. each), and 2 longer papers (3-5 pp. each). There are no exams.
Questions? Please email the instructor at nathanso@email.arizona.edu
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 create publishable works. Students will experience the entire cycle of creating a book.
This junior seminar immerses you in Virginia Woolf: novelist, essayist, feminist. Via Woolf we'll explore the first and second world wars, literary modernism, the representation of consciousness in the novel, the relations between philosophy, literature, and the visual arts, and questions of gender, sexuality, disability, education, empire, and fascism, among others. Be prepared to extensively explore Woolf's aesthetics. Readings may include: Woolf’s short stories, diary entries, critical prose relating to art and politics, novels such as Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando, and longer essays such as A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas. We’ll also consider Woolf’s intimates in the Bloomsbury circle, as well as stories and poetry by other modernists across the globe (for instance, Clarice Lispector and Una Marson), alongside exciting secondary criticism that will enrich your thinking about Woolf, her historical moment, and modernism; you’ll become an expert in her oeuvre and learn what a multiplicity of critical approaches her work invites. Expect to participate in lively seminar discussions, to post thoughts regularly to D2L, to deliver one kick-off presentation, and to write two essays on Woolf.
In this course, we will study Poe’s works—poetry, fiction, and criticism—in their biographical, historical and literary contexts. We will also study Poe’s influence on literary movements such as the rise of symbolisme in France, the innovation of postmodern fiction in Latin America, the African American gothic literary tradition and the development of “new criticism” and poststructuralism in aesthetic theory. But we will study Poe, not only as a struggling author or a prescient intellectual, but also as a central figure in an emergent popular culture. Not only did Poe “invent” the detective tale and the modern “horror” genre, but he is also the only literary figure to inspire the name for an NFL team mascot. We will ask many questions about Poe’s reputation, especially the problem of his wide public appeal despite (or perhaps as a consequence of?) his elitist posturing.
Students will complete two research projects. Students will learn to use the standard research tools in literary study, including scholarly indexes, electronic databases, annotated bibliographies, concordances, and, most importantly, the library.
This advanced workshop in literary nonfiction will challenge its participants to blend research and personal narrative in a single, ambitious, "braided" essay modeled on the work of such writers as Priscilla Long and Reg Saner. The approach will be step-by-step, resulting in an essay of some 20 pages or more. You will learn new research skills, lyrical approaches to factual material and historical scene reconstruction.
The Advanced Fiction Workshop (ENGL 404) offers an opportunity to write and think creatively, learn about the craft of fiction writing, incorporate rewriting into the writing process, and develop as an articulate and generous critic of fiction. Your time will be divided between writing and rewriting your own work, reading and commenting on peer manuscripts, and reading and discussing (mostly) contemporary fiction. Emphasis throughout the semester will be on participation and building a community of literary peers. This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.
The Advanced Fiction Workshop (ENGL 404) offers an opportunity to write and think creatively, learn about the craft of fiction writing, incorporate rewriting into the writing process, and develop as an articulate and generous critic of fiction. Your time will be divided between writing and rewriting your own work, reading and commenting on peer manuscripts, and reading and discussing (mostly) contemporary fiction. Emphasis throughout the semester will be on participation and building a community of literary peers. This is a Writing Emphasis Course for the Creative Writing Major. Discussion of student stories in a workshop setting.
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.
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.
What literature is and does, as exposed in theories of writing and in literary works.
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.
During the second half of his career, Shakespeare wrote most of his great tragedies, his so-called dark comedies, and his late romances. We will read plays from each of these groups, including Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. We will demystify the plays and make them accessible to modern readers. Two exams during the course, a final, and a term paper.
English 443 is an upper-division course for the study of Mexican American and Chicanx literature written in English or translated into English. The course is designed to give you a clear understanding of the historical development of the Mexican American literary tradition, with an emphasis on landmark works, and a focus on events and issues which impacted and influenced its evolution. Thus, we will take care to situate the literary texts within their historical moment and we will read them alongside of historical material, in order to better understand the social context within which the literature was produced. Finally, we will spend considerable time looking closely at individual texts: critically analyzing them, interpreting them and discussing their implications. Course requirements will include a midterm and a final exam, and two or three medium-length papers, as well as regular contributions to class discussion. The course will begin with a study of the corrido tradition and move on to the short stories of Maria Cristina Mena and Mario Suarez, the novel Pocho, the poetry of the Chicano Movement, the play Zoot Suit, and the novels Face and So Far from God.
The study of novels, drama and poetry by leading Black writers.
The Twentieth Century: Frost, Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, and others.
This is the capstone course in the English Major. It will examine 20th-century conceptions of America (the U.S., that is) in both American and international film and literature. What conflicting visions of America do these works present? How is America mythologized in terms of gender, race, colonialist discourses, and social class? Among the texts and films for the course are Franz Kafka’s Amerika, Nikesh Shukla and Chimen Suleyman’s The Good Immigrant, Edward James Olmos’ American Me, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, Werner Herzog’s Stroszek, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. We will also read critical works pertaining to these texts and study film terminology so as to analyze films more closely. The class is centered around student research, which students will share with other members of the class at the end of the semester. Students will have weekly in-class writing assignments, and write an 8-10-page midterm and a 12-14-page final paper, as well as an annotated bibliography with at least 10 sources. They will also present their research to the class at the end of the semester.
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.
In this class, we will examine the interweaving worlds of popular song and literature by considering the literary elements in recent genres of popular music, particularly in rock and hip-hop. How do songwriters—particular those who author their own songs—self-consciously place their work in a context of literary history, textual practice, and oral poetry. We will examine selected works from a variety of song-writers working across genres and traditions. Our listening and reading will range from canonical rock singer song-writers like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Patti Smith to punk rock originators like Lou Reed, Richard Hell, and Lydia Lunch to contemporary rapper-poets like Tupac Shakur, Saul Williams, Moor Mother, and Kate Tempest to “out there” experimentalists like Lauri Anderson, Scott Walker, and Kim Gordon. (Students will be asked to expand and contribute their own “canon” of songwriters in the course.) We will listen to and read the songs of these artists in order to: 1) analyze their formal poetic qualities, 2) describe the relationship between their musical (particularly vocal) performance and the language in the song, 3) discuss the relationship between recorded sound and text, 4) unpack allusions and literary influences, 5) place these artists within the expectations and conventions of lyric poetry, and 6) connect songs and song-forms to wider questions of culture, community, and influence. This class will encompass not only a brief and incomplete history of the poetics of recent popular song but will also include theoretical texts by literary and musical critics on the relationship between performance and song, text and music, and musical and literary history.
Students in this class will have great freedom to conduct their own research and writing projects in relation to the relationships between songs and literature from any Anglophone literary tradition. They will learn how to share their work with a wider community of curious and engaged readers as well as fellow scholars. On the way, they will learn: how to plan a research project; how to search for, organize, and judge primary and secondary sources; how to construct bibliographies and discographies; how to think about the uses of critical theory as a tool for research and argumentation; and, ultimately, how to write essays that combine archival source work, close description, and persuasive interpretation in well-written prose.
Professional & Technical Writing Courses
English 307 offers junior- and senior-level students the opportunity to develop their use of rhetorical strategies and communications technologies appropriate to workplaces. With an emphasis on written communication, students will engage in projects that require them to analyze and respond to a variety of professional situations. Students will plan and create a range of individual and collaborative projects including, but not limited to, employment documents, proposals, reports, brochures, newsletters, memos, letters, and other business genres. Workplace practices, business communication assessment, promotional resources, and writing on behalf of an organization are just some of the topics studied in English 307. Through client-based projects, simulations, and/or case studies, students will analyze and reflect upon the role of communication practices in a range of business settings. Students can expect to engage in reading discussions, daily assignments, on- and off-campus research, technology use, and oral reports.
English 308 offers junior- and senior-level students the opportunity to develop their use of the rhetorical strategies and communications technologies appropriate to technical writing situations. Students will plan, create, and user-test a range of individual and collaborative projects including, but not limited to, technical documentation, proposals, reports, job materials, and other technical genres. Project management, documentation plans, style guides, and usability testing are just some of the topics studied in English 308.
Building on the close reading, focused research, and reflective writing done in your general education writing courses (ENGL101 and ENGL102 and their equivalents), this course emphasizes the skills of rhetorical analysis, research, persuasion, reflection, and revision in specific professional and technical contexts.It is designed to help students learn to write for varied audiences and situations, find and evaluate sources, and make critically aware decisions about how best to achieve their purposes. The immediate goal of this course is to prepare students for further research and writing in future professional settings.
Building on the close reading, focused research, and reflective writing done in your general education writing courses (ENGL101 and ENGL102 and their equivalents), this course emphasizes the skills of rhetorical analysis, research, persuasion, reflection, and revision in specific professional and technical contexts.It is designed to help students learn to write for varied audiences and situations, find and evaluate sources, and make critically aware decisions about how best to achieve their purposes. The immediate goal of this course is to prepare students for further research and writing in future professional settings.