Welcome back from break, English majors! We hope you had fun adventuring, resting, and maybe even reading (Moby Dick, anyone?).
Now we’re back in the throes of Spring semester and need to think about next Fall! That’s right, it’s time for registration. Get ready for new classes and the return of our beloved Dr. Hersh and Dr. Weiger!
This preview of Fall’s Upper Division English courses isn’t any old course catalog; it has bonus insider info from professors about topics, perspectives, reading lists, and more. Check it out –
ENG 301 – British Literature
MWF 9:15 Swidzinski
Study over a thousand years of British literature – from its origins in Anglo-Saxon poetry to the development of the novel in the eighteenth century – looking at the social, political, and material contexts of literary form and genre. Readings include Beowulf, the Lais of Marie de France, More’s Utopia, Spenser’s The Fairie Queene, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Behn’s Oroonoko, Haywood’s Fantomina, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Equiano’s Interesting Narrative.
Dr. Swidzinski says this course “offers a great opportunity to study how the literary forms that we know and love emerged and evolved historically. Another important feature of the course will be what we might call its globalism… I’ve selected texts that highlight the ways in which English literature developed through its contacts (both real and imagined) with other cultures, languages, and traditions. So we’ll be reading “English” texts that span the globe and we’ll try to map (yes, literally ) the interconnected world they create.”
ENG 304 – American Literature: 1900 to present
MW 4:10 Larson
Take a close look at 20th century American literature in the context of historical, political, and cultural developments. This course is a new version of two previous survey classes: American Modernisms and Contemporary American Literature.
Dr. Larson is excited that this class is a “new opportunity to find connections between the past century’s literature and the problems we still haven’t solved today, from the legacies of violence (Claude McKay’s “The Lynching”) to the cult of celebrity (Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust), to our uneasy relationship with righteousness (Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”), to our quarrel with the universe (Thomas Pynchon’s “Entropy”).”
ENG 309 – Fiction Workshop
M 7:10 TBA
Discover the principles and techniques necessary to developing your own original short stories, and analyze professional fiction for insights. Ask why we write fiction and in what ways we write it, thinking deeply about the role of fiction. Take risks by using classic elements of story to reach different ends. TBA’s can be risky, but this class will be worth it!
Juniors & seniors only. Pre-req: 300-level English/American course.
ENG 311 – Advanced Writing
TR 2:30 Hannon | TR 4:10 McDonald
Develop your skills for writing and editing expository essays in a workshop setting, and examine the writing process by reading fine essays.
Dr. McDonald shares, “I really enjoy the Advanced Writing workshop. We have students from all different disciplines writing personal narratives and voicing their views on various subjects. As a student, you will learn a lot about your own writing.”
Fr. Pat says, “I love encouraging my students to see themselves as writers with distinct voices ready to make their mark in words and sentences… It’s all about going to those dark places (meaning: unfamiliar, tantalizing, surprising) in our thinking and in our imaginations to see what such spelunking reveals and prompts us to write.” Three essays he looks forward to reading in this class: Baldwin’s “Notes on a Native Son,” Woolf’s “Death of a Moth,” and Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant.”
ENG 317 – Composition Theory & Practice
M 4:10 Hersh
Combine theory and practice to discover how to best teach the writing process, including composition, rhetoric, and linguistics.
Dr. Hersh previously said, “We not only discuss the qualities of effective writing, but explore the best ways to inspire effective writing in others… I love the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the course. Students who take English 317 come from every nook of UP’s academic world and are really invested in good writing. We all thus work together and share best practices for teaching writing.
Training for Writing Assistants. Pre-req: 3.0 GPA in writing courses.
ENG 337 & 337H – Modern/Contemporary Arabic Literature
MWF 1:35 McDonald
Read several modern Arabic literary works, emphasizing historical and cultural contexts, post-colonialism, forced migration, the Bildungsroman, Bedouin culture, and women in Arab cultures.
Dr. McDonald says, “It’s been a few years since I have been able to offer Arabic literature… the class usually ends up being populated by multiple majors. A new addition the class is Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra, which was banned in many Arab countries after its publication in 1986.”
ENG 339 – Studies in Fiction
MW 2:40 Brassard
Focus on ‘being and becoming human’ in a study of representative novels from the British tradition. Readings will be entirely British literature from the 19th century to present; you’re guaranteed to encounter Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Hardy, and Woolf – bookended by Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
Dr. Brassard promises, “Students should be expecting lots of reading but also engaging plots, exciting ideas, and inventive prose. Anglophiles are especially welcome, and anyone else intrigued by the intricacies of the British class system, the seemingly timeless battle of the sexes, and the pleasures of sinking into satisfying fictional universes.”
ENG 372 – Multi-Ethnic American Literature
TR 2:30 Hiro
Compare representative works by American writers of African, Asian, Latin American, American Indian, and Jewish descent, situated within historical issues of cultural continuity, immigration, assimilation, civil rights, and citizenship.
Dr. Hiro says, “Multi-ethnic American Lit is exciting but also overwhelming, because there’s just a ton to choose from in the rich traditions of writings by African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians, Latino/Latina Americans, and Jewish Americans… We read a good amout of literature that voices a broader or intersectional identity… I’m always especially excited to teach Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (both Pulitzer Prize winners, incidentally!)”
ENG 403 – Literature & Posthumanism
W 4:10 Weiger
Challenge yourself to imagine the world beyond/outside the “human,” attempting to understand what is meant by concepts like human, animal, subjectivity, agency, sympathy, and affect. Readings will include Haraway’s When Species Meet, Berger’s King: A Street Story, and Kapil’s Humanimal; plus films Grizzly Man and, new for this year, Arrival.
Dr. Weiger says, “Challenging ourselves to think about the ways in which being human is conditioned by what we believe to be inhuman, nonhuman, or posthuman is usually fun, but also comes with a good dose of what Haraway might call intellectual “indigestion:” an inability to sit comfortably with ourselves and our happenings. This is, nevertheless, what being a thinking animal requires. Come join us as we sit at the table with our nonhuman companions! The experience is sure to be as odd as Alice’s at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.”
Fall Online Registration is March 21st – 30th.