FALL 2025

Literature and Film Graduate Courses

ENG 518 ADVANCED HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
T 2:00-4:30 PM
Matt Giancarlo

This course explores the development of English from its roots in Indo- European, through Old, Middle, and Early Modern English(es), culminating with a review of the English languages of today. It focuses on the phonological, grammatical, and lexical changes of the language, as well as on the social contexts of the rise and spread of English as a contemporary world language. Special emphasis is given to a linguistically informed understanding of how the language has changed in response to political and historical pressures. Fulfills the ENG Early Period requirement. Provides ENG Major Elective Credit and ENG Minor credit.

ENG 570 SELECTED TOPICS: 5 Books That Made America
T 2:00- 4:30
Andy Doolen

Literature has the power to influence, inspire, and transform societies. This course, "5 Books That Made America," invites students to explore literature's important role in shaping American experiences, beliefs, identities, and memories.  The final list of 5 books will be determined later, but we will begin the course by reading two 19th century classics: Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Students can expect that at least two of the books studied in the course will be from the 20th and 21st centuries. This course includes the opportunity for each student to select their own “book that made America” and present it to the class.  

 

ENG 609 Composition for Teachers
W 3:00-5:30
Joshua Abboud

A course in the theory and practice of teaching English composition at the college level. Required of first-year teaching assistants in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, the course is structured to match the ordering of WRD 110/111 so that the practical work of college writing and the theoretical considerations of English 609 will be mutually reinforcing.

ENG 622 Studies in Renaissance Literature: 1500-1660
R 2:00-4:30
Emily Shortslef

How has the drama, poetry, and prose of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries shaped the history of literary theory and practice? In this course we will study major works of Renaissance literature alongside influential 20th and 21st century readings of those texts that occasioned new critical methods for literary studies. Assigned Renaissance texts will likely include Utopia, Hamlet, and Paradise Lost.


ENG 771 001 Seminar in Special Topics: Caribbean Literature
R 5:00-7:30
Shauna Morgan

In this course we will study works of Caribbean literature with a focus on major authors, themes, and literary movements. While the course will also explore historical and cultural contexts, our study of Caribbean prose, poetry, drama, and a range of media will rely heavily on literary analysis to examine what Guyanese writer David Dabydeen described as “the extraordinary richness of writing that has emerged from the region.” A multi-ethnic multi-lingual archipelago, the Caribbean—and its diaspora—has a rich literary and theoretical tradition. We will engage major figures such as Kamau Brathwaite, Erna Brodber, Aimé Cesaire (in translation), Jamaica Kincaid, George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott, as well as contemporary and emerging writers and artists across genre and discipline.

ENG 771 002 Seminar in Special Topics: Introduction to Cognitive Literary Studies
T 5:00-7:30
Lisa Zunshine

This course will feature a broad selection of texts, from Shakespeare's plays to contemporary novels, approached through the lens of cognitive literary analysis.

Creative Writing Graduate Courses

ENG 607 001 GRAD WRITING WORKSHOP: Creative Nonfiction
2:00-4:30
DaMaris Hill

This Graduate MFA Nonfiction Writers Workshop is a creative writing workshop and course that explores literary nonfiction writing, including memoir, essay, autobiography, etc. The course will also challenge students to critique and create nonfiction writing. This course will introduce to some and reintroduce to others the various elements and techniques associated with nonfiction writing. The course will explore the different narrative theories that are evident in traditional and contemporary nonfiction. Therefore, many contemporary writers and canonical authors will be discussed. Our class meetings will consider how our aesthetic choices generate feelings of nostalgia and collective memory in our writing. Traditional and innovative nonfiction narrative forms are welcome.

ENG 607 002 GRAD WRITING WORKSHOP:  Poetry
M 2:00-4:30
Julia Johnson

Course description forthcoming.

ENG 607 003 GRAD WRITING WORKSHOP: Fiction
T 2:00-4:30
Hannah Pittard

This is a graduate-level workshop in the art of short fiction. It is also an atypical workshop. Students in this class will respond to course-specific writing prompts only. In other words, this is not a “write what you want” workshop. The assigned prompts are designed to stretch artistic muscles, push writers beyond their current comfort zones, and hone skills at the line level. Enrollment is limited to current MFA students and/or by permission of Prof Pittard.

ENG 608 001 THE CRAFT OF WRITING: Ekphrastic Writing
M 5:00-7:30
Erik Reece

Course description forthcoming.