Faculty & Courses - English

ENGL-1010 English Composition

This is an intensive course in expository writing, required of all students except those achieving exceptional scores on the College Level Examination Program tests or other tests designed by the department. Some attention is given to basic skills, but primary emphasis is on effective communication. The major modes of discourse and the fundamentals of research are covered thoroughly. Students may not get credit for both this course and ENGL 1000. (C)

ENGL-1000 English Composition With Review

This is an English composition class that includes an additional hour for further work on mechanics, content, and organization. The course assists the student in developing strategies and skills necessary for college-level writing. It focuses on prewriting, organization, revising, and editing. There is a strong emphasis on writing as a process. It is designed to meet a variety of learning styles, levels, and needs with individual attention to boost writing skills. Students enrolled in the course will normally have a verbal ACT score at or below 18. This course meets four days a week. Students may not get credit for both this course and ENGL 1010. (C)

ENGL-1020 Introduction to Literature

This course provides an introduction to literature by types of genres: selected fiction, poetry, and drama. The course may also devote attention to specific plays and films presented on campus during the semester. The literature is drawn from British and American authors, as well as authors in translation, and represents various periods as well as works produced by men and women of different races and creeds. Papers of response and criticism regarding the various genres are required. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-1500 World Literature I: Ancient to Renaissance

This course is primarily an exploration of literary masterpieces of Western Civilization from Homer to Shakespeare. It may, however, include work from outside western culture. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-1550 World Literature II: Enlightenment to the Present

This course studies major literary masterpieces of Western civilization from Moliere to Swift, with equal attention to literature of the East, including writing from the history of colonialism. (AE, HP, WP, WC)

ENGL-1600 British Literature to 1750

This course is a general survey of English literature from earliest times to 1750. Works and writers surveyed may include Beowulf, Chaucer, Malory, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Swift. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-1650 British Literature After 1750

This course is a general survey of English literature from 1750 to the present. Representative writers may include Burns and the major romantics, Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Wilde, Conrad, Yeats, Woolfe, Joyce, Auden, and contemporary writers. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-1700 American Literature to the Civil War

This course is a study of American Literature from Colonial times to the Civil War with attention given to national movements, growth of literary genres, and the works of the chief writers, especially those of the "American Renaissance": Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Also the canon is broadened to include Native American, black, and women writers. (AE, HP, WP, WC)

ENGL-1750 American Literature After the Civil War

This course entails a study of American Literature beginning with Twain and including such writers as James, Chopin, Freeman, Jewett, Crane, Cather, Washington, DuBois, Frost, Hurston, Eliot, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dunbar, Hughes, and Faulkner. Includes Native American writers, Hispanics, and other minority writers not mentioned in the description above but affecting American thought. (AE, HP, WP, WC)

ENGL-2200, 2210, 3200, 3201 Loomings Practicum (I to IV)

This course involves laboratory work on Loomings, the campus literary magazine. Students engage in the practical tasks of producing a magazine from campus-wide submissions. It includes editorial tasks in selection, layout and design, copyediting, art, and photography. Students meet regularly with his or her advisor to resolve organizational and production issues and to receive professional critique. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

ENGL-3010 Old and Middle English Literature

This course includes readings in the literature of the Old and Middle English period from Beowulf through Malory, with special emphasis on Chaucer. Related continental literature may be used to encourage a broader appreciation of medieval culture. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-3020 Shakespeare

This course studies Shakespeare as poet and dramatist; selections from the comedies, histories, and tragedies. Attention is given to the historical and literary background or setting; some consideration also of secondary works of major Shakespearean critics and scholars. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-3030 Renaissance Literature

This course emphasizes a reading of the most significant poetry and prose of the period, with particular emphasis on the major poetic forms (lyric, sonnet, and epic), representative dramatic works exclusive of Shakespeare, and concentration on Spenser, Sidney, the sonnets of Shakespeare, the metaphysical poets, and Milton. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750.(AE, WC)

ENGL-3040 Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature

This course entails a study of the major writers of 1660-1790, including the study of representative works in poetry, drama, and the novel, and such writers as Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Johnson, and Goldsmith. Prerequisite:One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-3060 Classical Mythology

This course includes a study of the principal myths found in classical mythology and by extension the arts and literature they influenced throughout the ages. Students will be asked to relate the stories of the myths to modern day literature and the arts. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE)

ENGL-3110 The Novel

Students in this course study the development of the novel through reading and discussion of a number of representative novels from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries such as works by Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Dostoyevsky, Hawthorne, Paton, Faulkner, Ellison, and Morrison. This course is designed to promote an understanding of the most popular literary form in modern times. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC)

ENGL-3130 Poetry

This course is a study of the theories, techniques, and historical developments of the poetic form. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750.

ENGL-3140 Drama

This course is a study of the theories, techniques, and historical developments of the play as a literary form. Plays will be studied as they reflect aesthetic trends of their eras as well as with regard to the specifics of the play as a genre. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-3120 Short Story

This course is a study of the theories, techniques, and historical developments of the short story form, from its inception to the present. Nineteenth and twentieth-century analysis of the form includes attention to allegory, sketches, Romanticism, Naturalism, Realism, Modernism, Postmodernism, and more. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WP, WC)

ENGL-3150 Film

This course is a study of the theories, techniques, and some historical developments of the film genre. This course will emphasize the similar and different ways film and literature convey meaning. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC, VC)

ENGL-3250 Creative Writing

In this course, students receive writing instruction in one or more genres, which may include poetry, creative non-fiction, and fiction. Emphasis placed on the creative process, functions of language in creative writing, audience, and the like, facilitated through close reading of numerous published works, in-class writing exercises, and the use of a writing journal. Students give and receive peer critiques, and a portion of class time is dedicated to workshop-style discussion of student writing. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750.(WC)

ENGL-4250 Creative Writing II

This course involves writing poetry and imaginative essays, including writing for Loomings and other publications. Students will give a poetry presentation and present a completed portfolio. Prerequisite: ENGL 3250.

ENGL-3260 Advanced Composition

This course is an intensive study of the various modes of discourse used in compositions and the theories of composition. Several written compositions and a research paper are assigned throughout the semester. Prerequisite: ENGL 1010.

ENGL-3270 Writing Fiction

In this course, students receive writing instruction in short fiction. Emphasis placed on the creative process, modes and motives of the short story, occasions for storytelling, functions of language and voice in creative writing, audience, and the like. These are facilitated through close reading of numerous published works, in-class writing exercises, and the use of a writing journal. Students give and receive peer critiques, and a portion of class time is dedicated to workshop-style discussion of student writing. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (WC)

ENGL-3357 Young Adult Literature in Language Arts

This course addresses issues in teaching young adult literature, multicultural literature and other issues in teaching high school English such as grammar and dealing with censure. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750.

ENGL-3980 Special Topic

These are topics not included in the regular catalog. This course may be taken more than once if the subject matter varies sufficiently.

Examples of Special Topics Courses

Nineteenth-Century British Women Novelists

A study of novels written by women in the Romantic and Victorian time periods. Novelists will include Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot.

Modern Catholic Fiction

This course focuses on 20th and 21st century fiction by Catholic authors. How do these writers bring their readers the good, the beautiful, and the true while engaging their audience with gripping narratives, deep characterization, quotable dialogue, and other hallmarks of great literature? We will try to look at several genres, from mystery to fantasy and historical to regional. We will read at least ten (10) full-length books (i.e. 300-400 pages per week), so potential students should be avid and skilled readers. Likely authors include G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Madeleine L’Engle, François Mauriac, T. M. Doran, Dean Koontz, and Gene Wolfe.

Novel and Film

This course will focus on two literary genres—novels and film. We will discuss modern novels and their film adaptations. The novels will include The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Children of Men by P. D. James, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, What was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal: A Novel by Zoë Heller, and Atonement by Ian McEwan. The class is scheduled to accommodate the evenings when we view and discuss the films.

Edgar Allan Poe

This course is an in-depth examination of works by and about Edgar Allan Poe. We will read most, if not all, of the three-volume critical edition of his collected tales and poems, as well as key scholarly articles on Poe of the past 150 years. We will also read the standard 800-page scholarly biography of Poe. Students should be prepared for 300 - 350 pages per week of reading, daily reading quizzes, a major research paper, at least one oral presentation on a major work of Poe's, and seminar-style discussion.

World War I Literature

The approach of this course will be to study the First World War’s representation in and its broad impact on literature. One thematic point of examination will be the interrelationship of War Front and Home Front perspectives in both America and Great Britain. American and European literatures exhibit many of the same responses to The Great War, while maintain unique cultural and political differences. In fact, we will consider how and why the War had such a strong impact upon American culture given the limited and late involvement of the United States as compared to the cultural, political, and social devastation wrought in Europe. We will consider the interrelationship between the “war front” and the “home front” as well as the changing ideological landscape. Another of our thematic concerns will involve the effect World War I had on the burgeoning Modernist literary and arts movements.

Vampires in Literature

This course focuses on the literary character of the vampire and includes a study of selected works of British and American literature from the Romantic period to the present. Genres include poetry, short story, novella, novel, television, and film. The focus of the course is the emergence and development of the vampire character in British and American literature and culture. The works of literature will be presented chronologically in order to help students consider the vampires and the literary works that include them as reflections of the cultures and contexts from which they emerge. In this way, students will trace the growth of literature by studying the values and codes that each literary work embodies in terms of the political, social, economic, historical, and cultural context in which it was produced.

ENGL-4010 Romantic Literature

The emphasis of this course is on six poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and Shelley, and on the major essays of the period. Attention is also given to representative novels of the period such as those by Mary Shelley and the Bront's. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC)

ENGL-4020 Victorian Literature

The emphasis of this course is on poems by Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, and Hopkins, on novels by Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy, and essays by Newman, Ruskin, and Carlyle. Attention is given to the minor poets as time permits. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC)

ENGL-4050 Twentieth Century British Literature

This course includes the reading and discussion of representative poetry, drama, and the short novel, by writers such as Conrad, Yeats, Joyce, Lawrence, Auden, Thomas, Lessing, Woolf, Eliot, Beckett, and the poets of the First World War. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE)

ENGL-4060 American Literature from 1945 to the Present

This course focuses on the study of American literature from approximately 1945 to the present. Some of our central questions concern the foundations of contemporary American literature in a postmodern age as well as how the literature of the last sixty years has developed a foundation for the concerns of American writers in the 21st century. The course examines new themes and new approaches that are woven into the traditional and tried patterns and themes of the past. It also examines the contributions from authors of different American ethnicities. Authors may include O'Connor, Welty, Tennessee Williams, Angelou, Haruf, Bellow, Ellison, Kerouac, Baldwin, Walker, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Sherman Alexie, the Beat Poets, and other contemporary poets. Non-fiction, fiction, poetry and drama are all represented. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750.(AE, WC)

ENGL-4110 Literary Criticism

This course is a survey of literary criticism. Attention is given to the historical development of criticism and to the major critical approaches to literature. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, PI, WP)

ENGL-4130 Christianity and Literature

This course is primarily designed to analyze and interpret the spiritual dimensions of various genres of literature. Class activities include the study of essays, fiction, and poetry. Possible topics include angelology; faith and science; Ignatian, Carmelite, and mystic spirituality; the contemplative tradition; and the sanctification of the ordinary. Prerequisites: THEO 1100 and one from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, F)

ENGL-4140 The Vikings: History and Literature

The Vikings is a junior/senior level course concentrating equally upon the literature and history of the Norse people from their beginning to about 1300 A. D. Readings include Norse/Icelandic literature in English translation as well as modern historical and literary scholarship. Students will produce a major research paper and an in-class presentation based on individual or group work. Students are expected to know the basics of research methods in literature and MLA style documentation. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC)

ENGL-4200 Legends of King Arthur

King Arthur is a junior/senior level course devoted to in-depth investigation of medieval Arthurian literature, especially in English and French. As major assignments, students will do an individual research paper of 10-20 pages and an in-class presentation based on individual or group work. Students are expected to know the basics of research methods in literature and MLA style documentation. Prerequisite: One from ENGL 1500, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750. (AE, WC)

ENGL-4310 Introduction to Linguistics

This course, a beginning course in the scientific study of language, studies the background of modern linguistics as well as contemporary descriptions of English.

ENGL-4457 Methods of Teaching Language Arts

This course is designed to prepare students to teach language arts at the secondary level. Focus is on teaching literature and grammar and is extended to include methods of teaching speech communication, theater arts, and journalism. In addition, the students identify suitable teaching materials, and prepare tests for units in literature, composition, speech, and journalism.

ENGL-4910 Language and Literature Seminar

This seminar provides for the interpretation and criticism of literature not encountered in detail in other English and modern language courses. Seminar situations offer opportunities to explore issues such as race, creed, class, gender, culture, and interdisciplinary topics among various literatures. Open to majors from other college departments. Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing. (OC)

Examples of Seminars

Postcolonial Fiction and Theory Seminar

In The Postcolonial Fiction and Theory Seminar, we’ll study fiction created from the history of Western political, cultural, and military domination of Eastern populations, alongside a study of theorists’ efforts to explain the nature of these complicated relationships. Novels we’ll read include Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The novels we’ll discuss lead us to recognize various groups’ underlying beliefs about who “We” are and who “They” are, and challenge us to reconsider our own notions of these differences.

Modernism

This course is a study of some of the major ideas, themes, and artistic developments in early 20th-century American literature. The formative period of modern literature in the U.S. (and Britain) has typically been defined in terms of texts by a small number of writers labeled "modernist" (e.g., Eliot, Faulkner, Joyce). Their works are aimed at a relatively small audience comfortable with stylistic experimentation, fragmentary structures, and intellectual subject matter. Texts and authors that are merely "modern" (that is, representative of their historical period) but do not fit into the "modernist" mode have often been denigrated or dismissed (e.g., Edith Wharton's social fiction, Langston Hughes's blues- and jazz-inspired poetry).

This course will attempt to get at some of the major themes and forms of the early 20th century by questioning the distinction between "modern" and "modernist" and examining examples of each. It will ask in what ways experimental writing is conservative as well as in what ways apparently traditional texts are experimental. This will allow us to construct a broad picture of early 20th-century American culture, one that includes writing by women and men, blacks and whites, and forms that speak to large as well as small audiences. It will also allow us to see connections among apparently dissimilar authors and to ask general questions about how modern American writers have represented such subjects as the make-up of the individual, gender differences and relationships, the family, war, nature, social change, and history itself.

Shakespeare’s Roman Plays

An advanced-level course focused on a special topic in Shakespeare’s career. Emphasis is on class discussion, research, and the exploration of individual projects connected with the general topic of early modern views of the Roman world.

Disability in Literature

This course will look at how disability/ability is portrayed in literature. Students will explore the complexity and complications of disability, its metaphors, its meaning, and cultural implications drawn from literature. Texts for the class include A Christmas Carol; Poor Miss Finch; Girl, Interrupted; Of Mice and Men; X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills; Good Kings, Bad Kings; Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.