COURSE DESCRIPTIONS: ENGLISH 100-174 All courses require completion at least one course at the 20-99 level. Some courses have an additional prerequisite, noted following the course description. Courses with an asterisk* can be taken for graduate credit.

102*. Structure of Modern American English
A synchronic (present-day) analysis of the phonological, morphological, and grammatical strategic structure of current American English. Development of a vocabulary to talk about language and style systematically and scientifically.

104*. History of the English Language
Study of the development of English through time, from the pre-English period, through the Old and Middle English periods, to the Modern period. The historical changes and developments in the phonological, morphological, lexical and grammatical systems of English.

105*. Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language
Study of "what to teach and how to teach it" to people whose native language is not English. The theory underlying ESL instruction, and the methodology and strategies of teaching, listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills to non-native speakers of English.

106*. Acquisition of Language
Study of how the child acquired the sound system, vocabulary, grammar of her/his native language, and the knowledge of how to use this acquired behavior, throughout the first dozen years of life; study of how a child or adult acquires a second language.

109*. Prose Stylistics: Analysis and Applications
This course considers what constitutes "style" in a given text, how one talks about style, how one gains control over one's own style and thus comes to shape language to one's own needs and purposes. Students analyze sentences and phrase construction of texts looking at how such constructions affect meaning. Frequent writing and revision.

111*. Reading and Writing The Personal Essay
Essayists have celebrated the flexibility of the personal essay, its successful appropriation of widely varying forms and subjects, its penchant for exploration and risk-taking. Students read selected essayists and write essays themselves, considering what sort of work the essay does now (and has done in the past) and what critical problems the essay might present as we try to find a language which speaks in and to its particular forms and concerns. Frequent writing and revision.

112*. Reading and Writing Autobiography
This course asks students to investigate the social and historical uses of autobiographical writing through their own acts of reading and writing. To this end, students will write and revise an autobiography (20-25 pages). To provide perspectives for their experimentations with the genre, they will read autobiographies by writers from different historical periods with diverse social interests and concerns as well as several critical essays which study the genre in relation to the politics of language and the construction of individual/social identities. Frequent writing and revision.

113*. Fiction and Poetry Workshop
A workshop in which students explore the possibilities for writing within and against traditional generic boundaries that have served to distinguish poetry from fiction. Students read essays, poetry and fiction to increase their knowledge of the concept of genre, the changing historical construction of literary genres, and the possibilities for writing. Through their own writing, students work within each genre and experiment with breaking down the boundaries between poetry and fiction. This writing workshop emphasizes critical analysis of selected texts and discussion of student work. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisites: One of the following: ENG 90 or 91 or 92 or 93, or instructor permission.

114*. Poetry Workshop
An intermediate level course intended for students with a developing interest in the practice of poetry. Students will read essays on poetry and poetics, write poems, and discuss elements of craft within the broader context of literary studies. The course emphasizes critical analysis of selected texts, particularly student work. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisites: English 91 or 113 or instructor permission.

115*. Fiction Workshop
An intermediate level course for students with a developing interest in writing fiction. Students will read fiction, essays on fiction and narratology, write stories, and discuss elements of fiction writing within the broader context of literary studies. The course emphasizes the critical analysis of selected texts, particularly student work. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisite: English 92 or 113 or instructor permission.

116*. Topics in Creative Writing
A reading/writing course at the advanced level, intended for students who want to explore specific issues in the production of creative writing. Sample topics might include: "Poetry and Authenticity," "Writing Against the Grain," "Stories into Screenplays," etc. Course descriptions will be available to students in the English office when topics are announced. May be repeated once for credit when the topic is different. Frequent writing and revision. Prerequisites: One of the following: English 60, 61, 86, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115 or instructor permission. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

120. Topics in Popular Culture
This course concentrates on topics of interpretation in popular culture. Each version of the course will devote attention to a particular set of issues in the production and reception of specific popular culture forms--for instance, the nineteenth-century dime novel, a century of detective fiction, romances, soap operas and westerns, technologies of reproduction in science fiction/fantasy. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

122. Studies in Popular Music History and Criticism
This course focuses on topics in the interpretation of popular music in the 20th century popular culture. Each version of the course (e.g., musical subcultures and popular taste, youth cultures and music, popular music and literary movements) devotes attention to issues of genre definition, representation and narration, production and reception, or more generally, to the "culture work" such texts and practices perform. Listening/viewing lab required. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies. Frequent writing and revision.

124. Topics in Cultural History
This course is designed to have students perform an intensive critical analysis on one particular moment of cultural history or on the relationship between two such moments. Students will investigate the relationship between changes in cultural forms and practices and changes in social, political, and economic practices. Specific subjects may include "The Birth of Mass Culture: Promotion and Resistance in Turn-of-the-Century USA and Europe"; "The Corporation"; "The Salem Witch Trials"; "The 1950s: Television Takes on the American Home." May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

126. Studies in Film/Television History & Criticism
This course concentrates on topics in the interpretation of cinema and/or television as mass culture forms. Each version of the course (e.g., recent American cinema, detective film, women's melodrama, Vietnam War/Gulf War) will devote attention to issues of genre definition, representation and narration, production and reception, or, more generally, to the "cultural work" such texts and practices perform. Viewing lab required. Fee of $20 to cover the cost of film rentals and video purchases. May be repeated for credit when the topic varies.

128. Placing the Stage: Theatre/Culture/History
The stage frequently occupies a place on the limits of respectability, its actual location (the "liberties" or off-Broadway or London) signifying its problematic social, moral, and literary status. As a liminal space, the stage displays not only the dominant ideology that sanctions the theater but also the challenges to or subversions of that ideology. This course will read plays of a given historical period (Tudor-Jacobean, Restoration, late 19th century, or 1950's-1960's) within the context of their physical and cultural topographies. May be repeated for credit when the topic varies.

130. Studies in Literary Genres
An examination of the history, criticism, theory, and status of a literary genre, such as the epic, romance, short story, essay, and so on. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

131. Major Figure(s)
A study of the works of one or more major writers. Emphasis will be on their artistic achievement and their place in the development of literary expression. The figure(s) to be studied may vary. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

133*. Theories of Myths and Archetypes
Any study of myths and archetypes is inevitably cross-disciplinary. In an attempt to "define" what myth is and to construct for ourselves what it means to read mythologies (or "how" to read them), we will dip into anthropological, philosophical, psychological, sociological, linguistic, folkloric and literary versions of how to account for myth. Within the theoretical frameworks we establish for ourselves, we will examine either particular sets of national myths (e.g. Old Norse, Greek and Roman, Babylonian) or alternately, myth systems or subjects (e.g. creation, the hero, the divine child). Eng. 60 recommended, but not required.

135*. Adolescent Literature
Selected readings in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written for young adults, with emphasis on contemporary novels. Discussions will explore the relationship of the adolescent characters to adults and peers, the rites of passage in each story, and the contrasting narrative viewpoints from which these stories are told. Some attention to teaching this literature to junior high and high school students.

136. Adolescence & American Fiction
This course explores how selected short stories and novels represent the adolescent experience in the United States: how the adolescent protagonist is positioned in relation to other groups and the larger culture, the attitude of the implied author towards adolescence, experiences that comprise "growing up." Writing assignments will include critical responses and an original short story.

140. 20th-Century British Literature
The study of a variety of literary writing from the British Isles since the 1890's. Fiction, poetry and other writings considered principally in terms of developments and tensions in modern British society and of what it may have meant to be and to write "British" during this period.

142. Reading Early English Texts
What does it mean in the 20th century to "read" early English texts (500-1500)? What sort of specialized knowledge must one have? Are these texts simply quaint survivals from the era of damsels and dragons? Or do they "speak" in any way to modern concerns about social, cultural and literary issues? We will examine selected texts closely, focusing on issues of authorship and cultural context, deliberate textual obscurity, language practices and backgrounds. Some texts will be read in translation.

143*. Topics in Early Modern Texts (1500-1780)
This course examines early modern texts, focusing critical and cultural attention on those issues that make them both "early" and "modern." Topics to be considered include the construction of subjectivity, colonialism, gender and power relations/self-representation, literacy, the body, and others. May be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

145*. Shakespeare: Texts/Contexts
This course centers on reading selected Shakespearean plays closely and imaginatively, focusing especially on how they are shaped by and, in turn, give shape to the interrelations between power and gender in the culture that gave rise to them as well as in late twentieth-century culture(s).

147. The Industrial Revolution of British Literature (1790-1870)
How did writers react to the dramatic transformation of British society known as the Industrial Revolution; how did they contribute to that transformation; and how was writing itself transformed in the process? Literary responses to the promises and problems of rapid industrialization, technological breakthroughs, and attendant changes in public organization and private behavior. Relevant fiction, essays and poetry of the period, plus necessary historical reading. Some attention to the implications of the era and its writing beyond Britain and beyond the ninteenth century.

148. Irish Literature
A study of Irish writing in English, mostly from the early 19th century to the present, in terms of socio-political developments, the complex relationship of the Irish writer to English language and culture, and the persisting (and conflicting) images of Ireland, the Irish and Irishness informing such writings.

149. Recent Writing from Britain
Mostly fiction and poetry written in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) since World War II, considered particularly (but not exclusively) in terms of: (1) dislocations in British society and culture related to the War and its aftermath, and to changes in national self-identity and social relations; (2) various related senses of personal dislocation among individuals in British society during this time; and (3) the similarities and differences between these and comparable developments in American society and literature during this period.

150*. Poetry and Culture, 1720-1920
A study of representative poetry from Britain and the United States written between the early 18th century and the early 20th, neoclassicism to modernism, with attention to possible relationships between literary change and broader changes in British and U.S. societies.

152*. American Literature to 1900
Students will consider a variety of issues pertaining to American literary and cultural history to 1900. Topics may focus on a particular period or era (colonialism or the Civil War), issues (literature, history, and nationalism), or genre (the novel, the periodical, etc.).

155. 20th-Century American Literature
In light of recent scholarship on canon formation and modernism, this course will offer students an opportunity not only to read some of the classic texts of modernism, but also a chance to consider how the definition(s) of modernism have tended to emphasize some writers, topics and approaches, while systematically excluding others. We will be particularly concerned with issues of identity, narrative strategies, and the shifting cultural agendas and literary criteria for social fiction.

156. Recent American Poetry
This course examines recent styles in American poetry, with emphasis on discovering assumptions about the relationship between self, language, and social milieu implicit in these styles. The first half of the semester is devoted to poems composed between 1955-75, many of which are part of the canon; the second half is devoted to poems that embody and articulate recent (1975-present) literary and social forces which have led to the variousness of contemporary poetry.

160*. Theories of Language and Discourse
The course is designed to familiarize students with the different ways theorists have studied and defined language and discourse. Theories constructed by philosophers, psychologists, linguists and social theorists will be examined, and students will become involved in critical analysis of the epistemological assumptions of these theories. Prerequisites: ENG 60, 61, and one course 100-174.

162. Gender and the Body Politic in Recent Fiction by Women
This course studies the work of selected women writers since World War II, and especially of the last two decades. It focuses on issues of gender, race, and class in works that concern themselves with women's lives, social change, and the future of the planet.

163. Writings from The Border Countries
This course asks students to investigate the relationship between writing and the exploration of positions on the "border" of diverse cultures. Students will read and write about texts by writers whose gender, professional, educational, religious, and family backgrounds tend to "place" them simultaneously within a range of dissonant cultures. To provide critical perspectives for their reading and writing, students will also examine critical essays which investigate issues which face writers concerned to write from the "border countries" and the cultural function of this type of writing.

164. Latino/a Literature
This course is an introduction to Latino/a literature and film, especially to their cultural influences and effects. Readings are studied in context with the history of relations between Latin American/ Caribbean countries and the United States, with Anglo-American representations of Hispanics, and with contemporary cultural issues such as bilingualism.

165. Postcolonial Literature
This course is an introduction to literature by writers from nations which were formerly European colonies. Influential texts by European writers about the colonial situation are also studied. The course introduces students to the critical framework and primary debates within the field of postcolonial literature. There are two versions of this course: one centering on the literature of Africa, the other on Asia.

166. Literature of War
This course explores the special problem of writing and reading about war. Students study how writers have attempted to make sense out of the experiences of the war and of war's psychological, social, political, and cultural aftermath. The course may focus on a particular war ­ Civil, World War II, Vietnam, Gulf, for instance ­ or it may examine the phenomenon of war from a chronological and/or cross-national perspective. In any case, the texts (stories, essays, poems, films, documentaries, etc.) are placed in a historical context.

168. Storytelling as a Social Practice
This course examines the different functions of storytelling through reading, writing about, and producing different approaches to storytelling. Through examining and writing texts, student will be concerned with issues such as the relationship between storytellers and communities and social institutions, as well as how storytelling works to preserve and change communities and culture. Emphasis will be on recent texts, and there wil be attention to the historical functions of storytelling.

171*. Teaching Writing: Theory and Practice
This course focuses on the theory and practice of teaching writing. Students will be introduced to competing theories of writing and explore their implications for various teaching practices. Topics to be addressed include the overall design and structure of writing and writing-intensive courses, relations between writing and reading, assignment writing, responding to student papers, responding to "error," and working with diverse student populations. Prerequisites: ENG 60, 61, and one course 100-174.

172. Teaching Tutorial Writing
Instruction in and experience with tutoring student writers under the supervision of the director of the Writing Workshop. Weekly meetings and required writing. Readings and discussion of topics such as promoting fluency and critical analysis, responding to cultural differences, teaching revision, etc. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

173*. Critical Theory
This course focuses on the study of varied attempts to determine what literature is or ought to be, with special concern for the critical methods that derive from those attempts. Prerequisites: English 60, 61, and one course at the 100-174 level.

174. Special Topics
Additional courses not described in the above course listings will be offered on an occasional basis according to student and faculty interest. Titles for these courses will appear in preregistration materials. Individual course descriptions will be available through the English Department office.