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Department of English Language and Literature

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Undergraduate Course Descriptions - Fall 2023

Classes You Won’t See Every Semester

ENGL 415.001          The English Novel I          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Jarrells

In this course we will survey fiction writing from the eighteenth century in order to answer the following questions: 1. How does the novel, especially the realist novel that emerges in the period, negotiate the divide between fact and fiction? 2. Why did this genre, often maligned as frivolous, become an effective vehicle for disseminating and testing Enlightenment ideas about nature, individualism, sympathy, equality, and progress? 3. Can this print-born form that was closely connected to a new and expanding commercial society still thrive in a post-print world here on the opposite end of modernity’s arc? Eighteenth-century novels are long; so please be prepared to read a fair bit (some shorter readings, critical and historical, will be mixed in to balance out the workload…). Authors to be covered include Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Jane Austen, and Walter Scott.

ENGL 422.001          American Literature 1860-1910          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          Shields

This course will be organized around three themes:  City Life for poor and Rich.  Bohemianism & the concept of the Artist. The Rise of Popular Culture.  Authors include Horatio Alger, Walt Whitman, Lafcadio Hearn, Kate Chopin, Jacob Riis,  W.E.B. Dubois, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Addams, Mark Twain.  

ENGL 438C.001          Irish Literature          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Madden

In this class we will examine the literature and culture of Ireland, concentrating on selected works of the last two centuries. The course will include representative writers (Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, WB Yeats) as well as contemporary writers (Emma Donoghue, Tana French), as well as popular culture and film. We will examine 19th century vampire tales, 20th century political poems, 21st century mystery novels. By the end of this seminar, you should be able to discuss authors, texts, issues, and themes relevant to Irish literature and culture of the last two centuries; to demonstrate an awareness of major contexts for understanding Irish literature; and to connect literary texts to cultural and political contexts.

Grades will be based on two analysis essays, class presentations, class work (including short response papers), a short essay final, and a final creative project. This course can fulfill either a pre-1800s or a post-1800s requirement.

ENGL 439.001          Topics: Language and Racism          TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM          Chun

(Crosslisted with LING 305 and ANTH 391)

This course explores the intersection of language, race, and power. Focusing primarily on communities in the United States, this course will address the following topics:

(1) definitions of race and racism;
(2) psychological aspects of racism;
(3) microaggressions;
(4) colorblindness;
(5) racial code words and dog whistles;
(6) derogatory and reappropriated uses of ethnic slurs;
(7) linguistic appropriation;
(8) racism in public space;
(9) accent-based discrimination;
(10) structural racism in media and education;
(11) anti-racist strategies.

In other words, we will investigate what racism is, how it can be based in language practices (sounds, words, rants), why it is often difficult to see and hear, and what we can do to counter it.

ENGL 485          Women's Rhetoric          TTH 4:25-5:40          Ercolini

SPCH / ENGL / WGST 485

This course examines practices, histories, pedagogies, theories, and forms of criticism that comprise women's rhetoric. Prerequisites: ENGL 101 & ENGL 102. This course is approved for both the GLD Diversity and Social Advocacy and GLD Professional and Civic Engagement pathways.

ENGL 566.001          Topic: Complex Television          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Minett

(Crosslisted with FAMS 566)

This class explores “complex television” as a distinct mode of television storytelling, pursuing questions of narrative design, antiheroes, audience sympathy, and cultural legitimation. Emphasis is placed on early 21st century series, including LostBreaking Bad, and The Wire. Students will apply key concepts to a contemporary series of their choice.

Courses That Satisfy Core AIU & VSR Requirements

ENGL 200.001          Creative Writing & Community          TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM          TBA

(AIU & VSR)
Workshop course on creative writing with a focus on values, ethics, and social responsibility.


ENGL 200.002          Creative Writing & Community          MW 3:55PM-5:10PM          Barilla

(AIU & VSR)
Workshop course on creative writing with a focus on values, ethics, and social responsibility.


ENGL 200.003          Creative Writing & Community          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          TBA

(AIU & VSR)
Workshop course on creative writing with a focus on values, ethics, and social responsibility.


ENGL 200.004          Creative Writing & Community          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          TBA

(AIU & VSR)
Workshop course on creative writing with a focus on values, ethics, and social responsibility.

ENGL 270.001          World Literature          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Van Fleit

(AIU)
Selected masterpieces of world literature from antiquity to present.

ENGL 280.001          Literature and Society          WEB ASYNCHRONOUS          Muckelbauer

(AIU & VSR)
Fiction, poetry, drama and other cultural texts engaged with questions of values, ethics and social responsibility.

ENGL 286.002          Poetry          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Powell

(AIU)

English 286 is an introductory course in reading poetry designed for undergraduate students pursuing majors other than English.  Students will become familiar with basic formal techniques useful in reading contemporary poetry and practice expository writing skills through analyses of diverse poetic texts.  This section of the course will study these techniques by using them to explore poetry by living writers inspired by the American South, especially South Carolina—including but not limited to poems by Kwame Dawes, Nikky Finney, Ed Madden, Ron Rash, and Atsuro Riley.  Some of the questions we will consider are what distinguishes poetry from other kinds of writing, what characterizes contemporary southern poetry, how poets influence one another, and what function poetry may have in a literate society.  In addition to completing course readings in poetry and prose, and attending and participating in class activities, participants will complete 3-4 written assignments and demonstrate mastery of course materials on quizzes and a cumulative final exam. 

Major Prerequisites

ENGL 287.001          American Literature          TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM          Keyser

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

An introduction to American literary history, emphasizing the analysis of literary texts, the development of literary traditions over time, the emergence of new genres and forms, and the writing of successful essays about literature.


ENGL 287.003          American Literature          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Vanderborg

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

Homelands in American Literature

This class examines multiple creations and memories of homelands in American literature: Native American communities and histories, colonists challenging their ties to Britain, successive waves of immigrants to the new republic, and the violent loss of homelands in slavery, as well as speculative American homelands, dystopian or hopeful, that authors have imagined for the future. Get ready to explore the vital languages, geographies, cultural translations, and haunting legacies in each of these homeland visions. Our readings include a vivid range of genres--documents, autobiographies/memoirs (Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Art Spiegelman's Maus, Maxine Hong Kingston's blend of family fact and fiction in The Woman Warrior), short stories, poems, a YA novel (M.T. Anderson's sci-fi Feed), a superhero graphic novel (Gene Luen Yang's The Shadow Hero), a film (The Brother from Another Planet), and interactive digital literature (Paisley Rekdal's West on the transcontinental railroad, and the adventure game Kentucky Route Zero)—from the American colonial period through the contemporary period, as well as a unit on homelands in recent American children's books.

There will be two papers, a final exam, reading quizzes, and group presentations.


ENGL 287.004          American Literature          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          Greven

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

In 1820, one English commentator observed, “In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?” By the end of the century, American literature had won, as one critic puts it, “a grudging respect” in the transatlantic literary marketplace. This course focuses on the development of a national literature in the nineteenth-century United States, paying attention to the transition from romanticism to realism. Grounding our analysis in considerations of form, we will explore the ways that literature registered broader conflicts over race, gender, sexuality, and class in the emergent nation. Participation will be graded, and other requirements will include individual presentations, unannounced quizzes, two essays, a midterm, and a final.


ENGL 287.006          American Literature          MW 3:55PM-5:10PM          Shields

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

This general survey of American Literature from 1800 to the present focuses on the literary modes of presenting the story of individual lives.  Life-writing as a mode of expression has become increasingly central to literary endeavor in the 21st century, but this course will demonstrate that it has been a central concern since the founding of the nation. Yet over the course of the years the ways of conceiving of individuals has changed greatly, and the functions of life stories changed commensurately.  We shall examine how each mode of viewing human being—as a soul, as a character, as a personality, as a self, as a psyche—defines the particularly of that being against a backdrop of community.  And we shall measure the degree to which a person expresses or defies the identity of the community.  

 

ENGL 288.001          English Literature          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Gavin

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

An introduction to English literary history, emphasizing the analysis of literary texts, the development of literary traditions over time, and the emergence of new genres and forms. Authors covered will include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, among others.


ENGL 288.002          English Literature          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Brown

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

In this survey course, we will focus on the major movements from the nineteenth century up to the present day in British and Irish literature.  While reading a variety of works from the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern periods, we will carefully consider the historical, social, and philosophical conditions that influenced their production.  Throughout the course, we will also examine how authors created different styles that both responded to and shaped our understanding of a broad range of topics, including urbanization, science, gender, race, imperialism, and art itself.


ENGL 288.003          English Literature          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Graves

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

An introduction to English literary history, emphasizing the analysis of literary texts, the development of literary traditions over time, the emergence of new genres and forms, and the writing of successful essays about literature.

Pre-1800s Literature

ENGL 381.001           The Renaissance           TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM           Shifflett

(Crosslisted with CPLT 381)

Literature of the Renaissance, in its cultural contexts, explored through representative works.

ENGL 382.001           The Enlightenment           TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM           Gavin

The Enlightenment was an intellectual and political movement in Europe and Great Britain that spanned the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, emphasizing freedom of thought and experimentation. Many important aspects of our thinking today can be traced back to this time. Science, democracy, nationalism, and capitalism all underwent fundamental transformations during this time, which also witnessed the invention of new literary forms like operas and novels. During this course, students will be introduced to the broad outlines of this important moment in cultural history, with an emphasis on writers from Great Britain and with special attention to changes in literary form over the eighteenth century.

ENGL 390.001          Great Books of the Western World I          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Dal Molin

(Crosslisted with CPLT 301)

European masterpieces from antiquity to the beginning of the Renaissance.

 

ENGL 405.001          Shakespeare’s Tragedies          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Gieskes

We will read eight plays this semester—plays generally labeled as tragedies, along with one that occupies a slightly different generic niche—deriving from almost the whole span of Shakespeare’s dramatic career.  We will also read one play not by Shakespeare (Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy) to provide some context for Shakespeare’s tragic practice. Our goal will be to read the plays closely as literature—objects of verbal art—and as playtexts—scripts for theatrical production.  In addition we will attempt to situate Shakespeare’s plays in the context in which they were produced:  early modern London.  Shakespeare’s plays are intimately involved with that context and our reading will be enriched by an understanding of his times.

ENGL 415.001          The English Novel I          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Jarrells

In this course we will survey fiction writing from the eighteenth century in order to answer the following questions: 1. How does the novel, especially the realist novel that emerges in the period, negotiate the divide between fact and fiction? 2. Why did this genre, often maligned as frivolous, become an effective vehicle for disseminating and testing Enlightenment ideas about nature, individualism, sympathy, equality, and progress? 3. Can this print-born form that was closely connected to a new and expanding commercial society still thrive in a post-print world here on the opposite end of modernity’s arc? Eighteenth-century novels are long; so please be prepared to read a fair bit (some shorter readings, critical and historical, will be mixed in to balance out the workload…). Authors to be covered include Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Jane Austen, and Walter Scott.  

Post-1800s Literature

ENGL 350.001          Intro to Comics Studies          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Minett

(Crosslisted with FAMS 350)

Tackles questions of storytelling, industry, history, culture, legitimation, and audiences. Readings range from Donald Duck to Maus, from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to Fun Home, from Archie to The Avengers, from Persepolis to Lumberjanes, and from Tales from the Crypt to Young Romance.

ENGL 393.001          Postcolonialism          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Gulick

“Postcolonialism” can refer to the historical era that began when Europe’s colonial territories gained political independence in the wake of World War Two. But postcolonialism is also an aspirational concept, a term that gestures toward a not-yet-realized vision of a world free of imperial, white supremacist, and capitalist oppression. In this course we’ll keep both of these meanings in mind as we explore the literature and critical thought of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean from the mid-twentieth century up to the present day. What are the cultural and political legacies of empire in these regions of the world, and how do postcolonial writers confront those legacies in their work? What happens to our understanding of literature and its genres when we stop centering the British and American canonical authors who loom so large in most English classes? Students can expect to encounter historically iconic writers such as Aimé Césaire, Chinua Achebe, Arundhati Roy, Tsitsi Dangarembga, J.M. Coetzee, and Jamaica Kincaid. We will also attend to more recent novels, essays, poetry, and films by contemporary authors such as Moshin Hamid, Warsan Shire, Bernardine Evaristo, and Chimamand Ngozi Adichie. Brief and gentle forays into literary criticism and theory will enhance our experience with this literature.

You don’t need to be an English major to take this course; in fact, diverse disciplinary and life experiences are welcome and hoped for! Whatever your academic background, you should prepare to read voraciously, write carefully, and approach in-class discussions with enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, candor, and a genuine desire to learn from your peers.

ENGL 422.001          American Literature 1860-1910          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          Shields

This course will be organized around three themes:  City Life for poor and Rich.  Bohemianism & the concept of the Artist. The Rise of Popular Culture.  Authors include Horatio Alger, Walt Whitman, Lafcadio Hearn, Kate Chopin, Jacob Riis,  W.E.B. Dubois, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Addams, Mark Twain. 

ENGL 425B.001          The American Novel Since 1914          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM         Keyser

This course spans a century of novels—from Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918) to Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys (2019)--and follows a few central questions. How does modern narration shape the novel's representation of the psyche and the social world? How does the modern novel represent geography and temporality, and why is it so often fascinated with lost places and lost times? Throughout the semester, we will consider the relationship between the shape of the sentence, paragraph, or chapter and the thematic impact of the whole, and we will also place novels in their historical and cultural contexts, asking how these writers speak to their political moment through the imagined worlds they create. There will be a mid-term and a final exam.

ENGL 426.001          American Poetry          TTH 4:25PM-5:40PM          Vanderborg

“Here, At the Edge of America”: Experiments in Contemporary Poetry

This class investigates new visions of community and new formats in American poetry of the past few decades, focusing on geographic and literary border crossings.

Prepare to travel through Richard Blanco’s stories of immigration in the praise songs and elegies of How to Love a Country. Read Joy Harjo’s lyrics of tribal displacement, trauma, and survival in An American Sunrise and join Giovanni Singleton’s celebrations of Black literature, music, and art at the limits of concrete poetry in American Letters. Explore an adoptive country filled with cyborgs and time travelers in the sci-fi landscapes of Sun Yung Shin’s Unbearable Splendor; discover Shara McCallum’s fusion of classical myths and Caribbean legends in The Water Between Us. Journey across the country with Leise Hook, tracing metaphors of alienness and alienation at fluid border spaces in the poetic webcomic The Vine and the Fish. There will be other genre-crossing poems as games, poems as interactive documents, poem films, biopoetry projects for bees, whales, and dolphins, poems of speculative, surreal regions as well as poems about national news headlines, and a unit on borderlands in American children’s poetry books.

Assignments include two analytical papers, a creative project, discussion posts, and opportunities to write your own brief response poems. The class emphasizes close reading and a discussion format.  

ENGL 428B.001           African American Literature II: 1903-Present        TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM         Whitted

(Crosslisted with AFAM 428B)

Representative works of African-American writers from 1903 to the present.

ENGL 430.001          Topics: Race, Gender, and Graphic Novels          TTH 2:50-4:05     Whitted

(Crosslisted with AFAM 515 and WGST 515)

A scholarly study of comics that focuses on representations of race and gender. Drawing on a wide range of source material from early newspaper comic strips to contemporary graphic novels and comics studies scholarship, this class will explore: 1) how race and gender impact the way that comics explore the meaning of power, citizenship, identity, heroism, and more; 2) the role that comic books have played historically in both affirming and challenging narratives of difference; and 3) how visual elements of the medium provide fresh, creative perspectives on the cultural representation of marginalized voices. Undergraduate assignments include weekly responses and visual annotations, a class project, and a final exam.

ENGL 430.002          Topics: Introduction to Afro-Latinx Literature of the 20th and 21st Century          TTH 2:50-4:05        Jimenez

In this course, we will explore the literature of 20th century and contemporary Afro-Latinx writers in the United States, including Arturo Schomburg, Jesus Colón, Julia de Burgos, Nicolas Guillen, as well as more recent writers such as Jasminne Méndez, Elisabeth Acevedo, Raina León, Mayra Santos-Febres, and Malcolm Friend. We will examine how these writers represent, subvert and/or challenge the histories and ideas of race, Latinidad, Blackness and diaspora in their work. In addition to close reading and critical analysis, students will also have the opportunity to craft their own creative stories and poems.

ENGL 431B.001           Picture Books           TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM           Johnson-Feelings

This course introduces students to the field of contemporary children’s literature, encompassing picture books as well as short novels written for audiences of young people. Topics of exploration include (but are not limited to) the history of children’s literature, the world of children’s book prizing, the legacy of Dr. Seuss, the disturbing image in children’s books, and literary/artistic excellence in children’s literature. In some ways, this is an American Studies course; students will consider ways in which children’s literature infuses our culture—“There’s no place like home.” Students will leave the course with an understanding of central issues and controversies in the industry of children’s book publishing and the literary criticism of children’s books. Most importantly, students will explore the relationship between children’s literature and the idea of social justice.

ENGL 432.001           Young Adult Literature           TTH 8:30AM-9:45AM           Johnson-Feelings

The subject matter of this course is contemporary American young adult (YA) literature. Students will examine texts that are in some way related to central ideas about America and Americans of various backgrounds and experiences. Discussion topics will include the meanings of literary excellence in the young adult literature world, the politics of the children’s book publishing industry, and current issues and controversies in the field, including awards, censorship, gender, authorship, race, and more. Most importantly, students will give attention to the relationship between literature and social justice.

ENGL 436.001           Science Fiction Literature           WEB ASYNCHRONOUS           Muckelbauer

Representative masterworks of science fiction from the beginnings of the genre to the present.

ENGL 437.001           Women Writers           TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM           Davis

(Crosslisted with WGST 437)

Controversy may sell books, but it can also cause harm, as writers whose works are challenged for various reasons soon discover. Many of the women writers covered in this course faced a backlash due to the perception that they had violated cultural norms, particularly conventional understandings of appropriate gendered behavior and subject matter. As we see in our own day, controversy can also ensue from concerns about the detrimental effects certain books may have on impressionable readers. The course will trace a genealogy of controversial U.S. women’s writing that will extend from the colonial period through the subsequent centuries on into our current moment. Among our goals will be to assess why particular works by U.S. women writers have touched a nerve both then and now.

ENGL 438C.001          Irish Literature          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Madden

In this class we will examine the literature and culture of Ireland, concentrating on selected works of the last two centuries. The course will include representative writers (Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, WB Yeats) as well as contemporary writers (Emma Donoghue, Tana French), as well as popular culture and film. We will examine 19th century vampire tales, 20th century political poems, 21st century mystery novels. By the end of this seminar, you should be able to discuss authors, texts, issues, and themes relevant to Irish literature and culture of the last two centuries; to demonstrate an awareness of major contexts for understanding Irish literature; and to connect literary texts to cultural and political contexts.

Grades will be based on two analysis essays, class presentations, class work (including short response papers), a short essay final, and a final creative project. This course can fulfill either a pre-1800s or a post-1800s requirement.

ENGL 566.001           Topic: Complex Television           TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM           Minett

(Crosslisted with FAMS 566)

This class explores “complex television” as a distinct mode of television storytelling, pursuing questions of narrative design, antiheroes, audience sympathy, and cultural legitimation. Emphasis is placed on early 21st century series, including LostBreaking Bad, and The Wire. Students will apply key concepts to a contemporary series of their choice.

 Creative Writing

ENGL 360.001          Creative Writing          TTH 2:50PM-3:35PM          Amadon

This course is an introduction to the writing of poetry and fiction. We will learn, as a class, ways of responding to creative work and use our discussions as a means of defining our own aims and values as writers and poets. The final goal of this course is a portfolio of original creative work, but peer response is fundamental; both will factor heavily in the final grade. The class will read works by contemporary and canonical writers as a way of expanding our view of what our writing can do. However, this course is designed as a creative writing workshop, and the majority of class time will be devoted to discussing new writing from students.


ENGL 360.002          Creative Writing          TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM          Amadon

This course is an introduction to the writing of poetry and fiction. We will learn, as a class, ways of responding to creative work and use our discussions as a means of defining our own aims and values as writers and poets. The final goal of this course is a portfolio of original creative work, but peer response is fundamental; both will factor heavily in the final grade. The class will read works by contemporary and canonical writers as a way of expanding our view of what our writing can do. However, this course is designed as a creative writing workshop, and the majority of class time will be devoted to discussing new writing from students.

ENGL 360.003          Creative Writing          MW 2:20PM-4:05PM          Kinard

Workshop course on writing original fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction.

ENGL 360.004          Creative Writing          MWF 1:10PM-2:00PM          TBA

Workshop course on writing original fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction.

ENGL 464.001          Poetry Workshop          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Dings

This course is designed for students who have already taken Engl 360. Students will spend the entire semester on poetry; they will read professional poetry, complete specific assignments that focus on core aspects of poetry, and write their own original poems to be discussed in a workshop format by their peers and instructor. Specifically, students should expect to work on image, figurative language, rhythm, and sonic texture. Grading will be done by portfolio. Students will be required to use Blackboard for certain readings, video viewings, and assignment submissions.

ENGL 492.001          Advanced Fiction Workshop          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Jimenez

Students will study the art and craft of writing literary fiction at an advanced level through close readings and the composition of original short stories.

Rhetoric, Theory, and Writing

ENGL 363.001          Intro to Professional Writing          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          Garriott

Overview of concepts, contexts, and genres used in professional communication. Intensive practice in analyzing, emulating, and creating textual and multimedia documents for a variety of professional, non-academic purposes (including commercial, informative, persuasive, and technical).

ENGL 387.001          Introduction to Rhetoric          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM

(Crosslisted with SPCH 387)

Theories of human communication useful for understanding and informing the everyday work of writers. Emphasis on intensive analysis and writing.

ENGL 460.001          Advanced Writing          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Rule

How do writers stand out? What about a writer's choices—about their sentences or structure or tiny word choices—make us feel like we're experiencing their "voice"? How do writers shape language to convey their unique perspective, their presence, or distinct personality? This course focuses on these questions, as we puzzle over what it means to say that writing has "voice" and experiment with how to bring out such force in our own writing (and other media). Through study of rhetorical style, sentence-craft, identification and other concepts, students can expect in this class to analyze a range of personal essays and other first-person genres, collect in a commonplace book samples of powerful sentences and excerpts, and develop your own composing projects in a semester-long writer's workshop and portfolio, including a multimodal project in which you literally give voice to your writing. Focusing neither on academic nor creative genres alone, this course will speak to any student interested in improving their facility with and impact in writing across domains.

ENGL 462.001          Technical Writing          MW 3:55PM-5:10PM          Bland

Preparation for and practice in types of writing important to scientists, engineers, and computer scientists, from brief technical letters to formal articles and reports.

ENGL 463          Business Writing

Seven sections at various times. Please see Self-Service Carolina for full listings.

Extensive practice in different types of business writing, from brief letters to formal articles and reports.

ENGL 485          Women's Rhetoric          TTH 4:25-5:40          Ercolini

SPCH / ENGL / WGST 485

This course examines practices, histories, pedagogies, theories, and forms of criticism that comprise women's rhetoric. Prerequisites: ENGL 101 & ENGL 102. This course is approved for both the GLD Diversity and Social Advocacy and GLD Professional and Civic Engagement pathways.

Language and Linguistics (all fulfill the Linguistics overlay requirement)

ENGL 389.001          The English Language          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          TBA

(Crosslisted with LING 301)

Introduction to the field of linguistics with an emphasis on English. Covers the English sound system, word structure, and grammar. Explores history of English, American dialects, social registers, and style.

ENGL 389.002          The English Language          MW 3:55PM-5:10PM          TBA

(Crosslisted with LING 301)

Introduction to the field of linguistics with an emphasis on English. Covers the English sound system, word structure, and grammar. Explores history of English, American dialects, social registers, and style.

ENGL 439.001          Topics: Language and Racism          TTH 10:05AM-11:20AM          Chun

(Crosslisted with LING 305 and ANTH 391)

This course explores the intersection of language, race, and power. Focusing primarily on communities in the United States, this course will address the following topics: (1) definitions of race and racism; (2) psychological aspects of racism; (3) microaggressions; (4) colorblindness; (5) racial code words and dog whistles; (6) derogatory and reappropriated uses of ethnic slurs; (7) linguistic appropriation; (8) racism in public space; (9) accent-based discrimination; (10) structural racism in media and education; (11) anti-racist strategies. In other words, we will investigate what racism is, how it can be based in language practices (sounds, words, rants), why it is often difficult to see and hear, and what we can do to counter it.

ENGL 450.001           English Grammar          MW 2:20PM-3:35PM          Holcomb

(Crosslisted with LING 421)

This course focuses on the teaching of English grammar for future educators in both English and Linguistics. We’ll begin by examining the term “grammar” itself and its different meanings. We’ll then dive into the particulars of grammar in English (its morphology and syntax), while also discussing strategies for presenting this material in the classroom. Along the way, we’ll discuss such topics as language variation, grammar in the writing classroom, functional and rhetorical grammar, and stylistics (that is, reinforcing instruction in grammar by using its terms and categories as a vocabulary for analyzing literary and non-fiction texts).

Honors College Courses (ALL SCHC courses restricted to SC Honors College Students)

ENGL 270.H01          HNRS: World Literature          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Van Fleit

(Crosslisted with CPLT 270H) (AIU)

Selected masterpieces of world literature from antiquity to present.

ENGL 287.H01          HNRS: American Literature          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Jackson

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

An introduction to American literary history, emphasizing the analysis of literary texts, the development of literary traditions over time, the emergence of new genres and forms, and the writing of successful essays about literature.

ENGL 288.H01          HNRS: English Literature          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Stern

(Designed for English Majors) (AIU)

This version of ENGL 288 will focus on three of our most enduring British legacies: race relations, class divisions, and climate change. Reading novels, essays, poems, and plays, we’ll consider the traditions, aesthetics, and liabilities we’ve inherited from industrial Britain. We’ll cover a range of canonical and non-canonical works as we dig into scholarship and archives to better understand the links between Britain’s colonial past and the way we live now. 

ENGL 389.H01          HNRS: The English Language          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM          Liu

(Crosslisted with LING 301H)

Introduction to the field of linguistics with an emphasis on English. Covers the English sound system, word structure, and grammar. Explores history of English, American dialects, social registers, and style.

ENGL 457.H01          HNRS: African-American English          TTH 2:50PM-4:05PM          Peltier

(Crosslisted with AFAM 442, ANTH 442, and LING 442)

In this course, we will examine some of the linguistic features that distinguish African American English (AAE) from other varieties of American English. We will also explore the history and emergence of AAE, how it is used, and how it is represented in literature. Lastly, we will consider attitudinal issues surrounding the use of AAE, especially as they relate to education and the acquisition of Standard American English. By the end of this course, you should be able to:

  • Identify common myths about AAE and counter them with linguistic facts
  • Identify many of the linguistic features associated with AAE
  • Describe and evaluate competing theories regarding the historical development of AAE
  • Describe and evaluate competing positions regarding the role of AAE in schools

ENGL 462.H01          HNRS: Technical Writing          MW 3:55PM-5:10PM          Rees-White

Preparation for and practice in types of writing important to scientists, engineers, and computer scientists, from brief technical letters to formal articles and reports.

ENGL 463.H01          HNRS: Business Writing          TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Anderson

Extensive practice in different types of business writing, from brief letters to formal articles and reports.

SCHC 350.H01             HNRS: Fiction and Mental Health      TTH 11:40AM-12:55PM          Jackson

Attending school can be stressful for all of us, but according to a 2019 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, America's colleges are currently witnessing a "student mental health-crisis."  In the last decade, the number of students visiting campus counseling services for depression and anxiety has grown by forty percent.  Our lives have only become more stressful with the advent of Covid.  What can fiction possibly teach us about mental health, and how might fiction, and stories more generally, help us achieve and maintain it?  In this course, we'll find out.  We'll read a variety of contemporary novels and short stories, and a few historical ones, about anxiety, depression, dissociation, and isolation but also consider fictions about healing, happiness, and wellness.  We'll probe the boundaries of what counts as fiction by reading clinical case histories and memoirs, and we'll investigate how fiction has operated in therapeutic practices such as Bibliotherapy, Existential, Narrative, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapies.  We'll also investigate the value of traditional wellness practices including mindfulness and yoga.  We'll cover a wide range of approaches to interpreting and analyzing fiction and along the way learn about some basic concepts in mental health and wellness. Assessment will be by a variety of take home assignments.  This class is not a substitute for attending counseling, but our emphasis will be on reading fiction in ways that are not only perceptive but also helpful and hopeful.

SCHC 450.H01           HNRS: Climate Fiction and Animal Life          TTH 1:15PM-2:30PM           Forter

This course explores the recent flowering of climate fiction in the US and around the world. We’ll pay special attention to how the genre depicts what scholars call “creatureliness”—that is, the fragilities and interdependencies of nonhuman animals and of the human as animal. The fictions we’ll read suggest that this creatureliness is central to cultivating a non-destructive relation to the Earth’s resources. The novels also connect these issues to a range of other concerns: capitalism and globalization; colonialism; the concept of the “Anthropocene”; the peculiar temporality of global warming, in which our present is charged with the particulates of past emissions whose effects will not be fully felt till the future; the difficulty of depicting global processes in a genre (the novel) that has conventionally focused on individual (local) experience; and the uneven distribution of climate change’s effects, especially along lines of race, gender, and social class. Finally, in the case of the science- and speculative-fictional works on our list, we’ll ask what this type of literature “knows” that more realistic fiction does not. This question will be key to grappling with the dystopian setting of so much cli-fi, which often (paradoxically) throws into relief what a non-dystopian future might look like. Possible texts: M. Bell, Appleseed; N. Booth, Sealed; O. Butler, Parable of the Sower; J. M. Coetzee, The Life of Animals; A. Ghosh, Gun Island; M. Hamid, Exit West; L. Millet, A Children’s Bible; S. Schweblin, Fever Dream; K. T. Walkner, The Dreamers.

SCHC 452.H01           HNRS: Playing in the Archives           TTH 4:25PM-5:40PM           Stern

In this class, we will explore the archival holdings of libraries and centers on campus and other collections in the Columbia area. Our readings will include short fiction; non-fiction essays about archival research, the making of history, and the ethics of curation; and, of course, holdings from the archives themselves. 

By the end of this class, students will be able to craft narratives using archival materials; to write critically about the processes of making history; to identify key principles in the field of curation; and to participate in an informed discussion about the archives available in our city. 

SCHC 454.H01       HNRS: Poetry and Religion: Eastern Traditions     TTH 10:05AM-1120AM      Dings

This course will explore Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and some of the best poetry in the world canon that grows out of these world views (a planned sequel will explore Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).  Global citizenship requires that we understand ourselves in relation to our global neighbors. The fact is that most people around the world think and act in some relationship to core beliefs that they hold; it is also true that for many societies around the world these beliefs are religious or grow out of religious traditions.  Knowledge of these traditions can lead to greater understanding and discovery of shared values.  Students should expect intensive reading about each religion and careful reading of selected poetic texts.  Grading will be determined by four tests, homework assignments, quality and regularity of class performance, and one final 10-page paper.


Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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