300-Level Courses
Literature
Literature, Pre-1700
EN 330-001 CHAUCER AND MEDIEVAL LIT TR 11:00-12:15 Cook
In this course, we will read Chaucer’s two greatest poems, Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales, in the original Middle English (for The Canterbury Tales, we will use a “facing translation,” which gives both the original language and a modern translation). In the first half of the semester, we will historicize love itself by reading selections from a medieval love handbook called The Art of Love, a selection of Marie de France’s short romances, or “lais,” and finally, the Troilus. In the second half of the semester, we will read The Canterbury Tales, a story that invites us to ponder what it means to tell stories. What do the competing storytellers reveal about themselves—intentionally or unintentionally—in the tales they tell? What are the arts, powers, and responsibilities of those who tell stories and those who listen? Course requirements include weekly reading quizzes, three short papers, and a final project for which you can choose to write a critical essay or, if a more creative option appeals to you, compose your own original Canterbury tale in rhyming couplets.
EN 333-001 SHAKESPEARE TR 2:00-3:15 Tavares
Shakespeare in Community
Designed for majors in English, Secondary Education, Theatre, and Creative Writing, this course offers an introduction to the study of English Renaissance theatre, including its print, performance, and after-lives. Particular attention will be paid to scansion, the printed book, and playhouses. Reading across genres, the course closely attends to who these plays envision as audiences, how they construct models of community, and the communities of skilled labor that produced them. Through three scaffolded essays, students explore how the plays define community, interrogate what is held in common, and index the ways in which we divide and withhold, share and collaborate.
EN 335-002 MILTON MWF 11:00-11:50 Emerson
An introduction to Milton’s English poetry along with the history, politics, aesthetics, philosophy, and theology of seventeenth-century England. Typically devotes approximately half the semester to a close reading of Paradise Lost.
Literature, 1700-1900
EN 343-001 BRITISH FICTION TO 1900 MW 3:00-4:15 Weiss
Orphans and Outcasts in the British Novel
The novel emerged and then flourished in England in a time of great social and economic change: the aristocracy was declining, the middle and professional classes were rising, and the value placed on inherited privilege and wealth were being replaced by a new respect for individual merit and upward mobility. Between 1700 and 1900, the British novel was centrally preoccupied with this shift–with documenting, examining, and evaluating the long, slow death of the aristocracy and its replacement by the rising middle class. A central character in the social and economic story the British novel told was the orphan—boy or girl—who had to make his or her way in the world without money, family, or status. Because of their parentless condition, these characters were often outcasts who had to move through life with little assistance or sympathy, often victims of a social environment filled with perils. The class will look at the development of the British novel through the experiences of orphans and outcasts, paying attention to formal elements such as characterization, setting, chronology, dialogue, and narration, as well as to the social and economic experiences of the various protagonists.
EN 349-001 VICTORIAN LITERATURE TR 11:00-12:15 Novak
Gender equality, racial justice, income inequality, religion, or the crisis in the humanities. These could be today’s top stories in your Newsfeed. But the discussion about these issues began back in the Victorian period, and in many ways we are still arguing about these questions on the very terms and values set by Victorian writers. In essays, novels, and poetry Victorian writers debated the position of women in the public sphere (“the Woman Question”), economic inequality and alienated labor (“The Condition of England Question”), English treatment of colonized subjects, evolution, religious skepticism, and the function of literature. Let me stress how important it is to bracket our own notions of how these domains are defined in “our” own culture and for “us.” By taking seriously and literally the way these texts construct these issues, we will often not only see the ways in which these texts challenge our assumptions, but also how they interrogate the very notion of the assumed objectivity, universality, and obviousness of truths that are appropriate for all communities and individuals.
Literature, post-1900
EN 366-001 TWENTIETH CENTURY POETRY MW 3:00-4:15 White
In this course we will read a selection of the major American and British poets of the 20th Century. We will be learning how to read and enjoy poems as we go, and no previous experience with poetry is necessary. If you think you hate poetry this course will convince you you just haven’t been properly introduced to it yet. Learning how poetic language works will enrich all of your reading and writing–come let’s learn together.
Literature, Special Topics
EN 351-001 TOPICS IN NATIVE AMERICAN LIT MWF 11-11:50 Cherry-Randle
Indians in Unexpected Places: Native Americans in Pop Culture
From graphic novel superheroes to viral TikTok trends, Indigenous voices are reshaping the pop culture landscape. In this special topic course, we will explore how contemporary Native writers, artists, musicians, and creators are claiming space in variety of genres and platforms that once overlooked them: literary fiction, comics, film and television, music across every genre imaginable, and the fast-moving world of social media. Rather than treating Native representation as a historical question, this course asks: what does Indigenous storytelling look like right now—on the page—on screen—on stage—and on your socials feed? We’ll read contemporary fiction and graphic novels that blend tradition with innovation, analyze how film and television are moving beyond old stereotypes toward complex, inventive narratives, and listen across musical genres, from hip-hop to heavy metal to powwow-inspired sound we will hear how Indigenous musicians are remixing genre. We will also turn a critical eye to social media, examining how platforms have become spaces for activism, humor, community-building, and cultural authority.
EN 355-001 TOPICS IN SOUTHERN LIT TR 3:30-4:45 Steverson
Reel South: Southern Literature on Screen
Hollywood has long tried to build a mythology around the South, distilling the region down to a marketable idea of itself. On screen, that idea has often meant constructing the South as marked by “cultural backwardness, religious fanaticism, economic destitution, and intolerance of gendered, classed, and racial alterity” (Hinrichsen 2017). Yet long before “Southern Gothic” became a marketing strategy, writers were already producing the region in all its complexity — the same materials Hollywood would later reshape for the screen. This course examines how the move from page or stage to screen reshapes a text’s politics of race, class, gender, and region to ask what survives translation and what a studio might quietly smooth over. Reel South puts major works of Southern literature side by side with the films made from them. These texts may include some of the following: Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (1952), a darkly comic novel about faith, blindness, and false prophets; Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying (1993), a quiet, devastating novel about dignity on death row; Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), a book about survival that was too much for network television when its film adaptation was pulled from air; Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), censored by Hollywood’s Production Code before the camera even finished rolling; and Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing (2018), a bestseller that shows how the marsh-and-murder South still sells today. Bring your popcorn… and your curiosity.
Creative Writing
EN 301-001 FICTION WRITING MW 12:30-1:45 Wells
EN 301-002 FICTION WRITING MW 10:30-11:45 Bingham
EN 301-003 FICTION WRITING TR 9:30-10:45 McSpadden
EN 301-004 FICTION WRITING TR 11:00-12:15 Nkweti
EN 301-006 FICTION WRITING TR 3:30-4:45 Dinwiddie
Close study of the basic principles for composing creative prose. Reading and assigned writing experiments in a broad range of prose strategies. Required of all creative writing minors.
EN 303-001 POETRY WRITING MW 3:00–4:15 Brady
EN 303-002 POETRY WRITING TR 12:30 – 1:45 Parker
EN 303-005 POETRY WRITING TR 2:00–3:15 Smith
Study of basic principles of writing poetry. Reading and assigned writing experiments in a broad range of poetic forms.
EN 303-003 POETRY WRITING TR 12:30 – 1:45 Pirkle
This course is an intermediate level creative writing course which will be run partially as a lecture/discussion course and partially as a writing workshop. Students will be introduced to both basic and complex poetic terminology, they will be asked to read and discuss the work of numerous poets, they will become familiar with different basic forms of poetry, and they will write original poems.
EN 305-001 CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING TR 12:30–1:45 Champagne
EN 305-002 CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING MW 4:30-5:45 Riesen
EN 305-003 CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING TR 12:30-1:45 Padgett
Study of the basic principles of writing creative nonfiction. Reading and assigned writing experiments in a broad range of forms of the genre. Prerequisite(s): 6 hours of 200-level EN courses
EN 307-001 SPECIAL TOPICS IN APPLIED CREATIVE WRITING TR 12:30-1:45 Davis-Abel
Writing for Audio: Podcasting
This course provides students with a survey of podcasting concepts and techniques that are used to tell stories in a new digital landscape. We will study the structure of audio storytelling, the genres encompassed in this media, as well as the mechanics of recording and editing, digital delivery techniques, audio equipment, and digital distribution. Over the course of the semester, we will listen to a variety of podcasts, study their structures, speak with experts in the field, train in equipment and software usage, and ultimately, work together to create a series of podcasts about our interests.
EN 307-002 SPECIAL TOPICS APPLIED CREATIVE WRITING TR 2:00–3:15 Cheshire
Red Rook Publishing Lab
This is an experiential course in professional publishing associated with Red Rook Press, UA’s own undergraduate publishing lab. Over the course of the semester, you will work collaboratively to design, edit, publish, and promote a short anthology of student writing. Through the process, you will gain the skills and experience necessary to translate a raw manuscript into a professional, perfect-bound book, complete with an ISBN number and your name in the masthead! No prior publishing experience or Red Rook involvement required.
EN 307-003 SPECIAL TOPICS APPLIED CREATIVE WRITING TR 3:30–4:45 Albano
Literary Editing and Publishing
This course will examine the origins, evolution, and the present-day landscape of literary journals and small presses, with a special emphasis on print culture, and learning the fundamentals of the editing process, from the acquisition and revision of work through its proofreading and publishing. As part of this process, we will discuss and implement strategies for publishing our own work covering the entire submission process, from identifying suitable journals to writing professional cover letters. As a culminating project we will produce an online edition of the eighteenth issue of Call Me [Brackets]—the literary journal started in Fall 2018. This will involve selecting a new theme and aesthetic, and introduce, in addition to the aforementioned skills, the basics of layout and web design, while considering essential post-publishing efforts such as distribution and marketing.
EN 307-004 SPECIAL TOPICS APPLIED CREATIVE WRITING TR 12:30–1:45 Marker
Zines
In this course, we will explore both the history of zines and how to plan, craft, and create our own literary zines. We will experiment with visual elements of storytelling, such as typography, composition, and color theory, and try our hand at both digital zine creation and making physical zines. While we will build skills through the creation of individual zines, this class offers an opportunity to learn to create in community through collaborative projects and collective making.
EN 308-001 FORMS OF CREATIVE WRITING MW 3:00 – 4:15 Anderson
Translation Workshop
This course offers a supportive, introductory environment for students to experiment with literary translation. Students will produce and workshop their own translations in the genres of their choice and collect this work in a final portfolio. Assigned readings will cover essential theories of literary translation, applied techniques, comparative examples, and practical considerations for publishing. Basic reading knowledge of a second language is recommended but not required to participate in this class.
EN 308-002 FORMS OF CREATIVE WRITING TR 11:00 – 12:15 Davis-Abel
Lyric Creative Nonfiction
This course introduces students to the craft of lyric creative nonfiction, a form that blends the truth-telling of nonfiction with the language, structure, and experimentation of other genres. We will study how writers use unconventional forms and creative styles to transform lived experience into compelling literary work. Over the course of the semester, students will read a diverse range of contemporary lyric essays and experiment with forms such as the braided essay, segmented essay, hermit crab essay, and collage essay as well as memoirs told in verse.
EN 308-003 FORMS OF CREATIVE WRITING TR 2:00 – 3:15 Guthrie
Special topics in Creative Writing. Focus may be on poetry, fiction, nonfiction or a combination. Students produce imaginative writing and read related texts. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 hours.
EN 308-005 FORMS OF CREATIVE WRITING TR 3:30 – 4:45 Girardeau
Throwing Forms: Experiments in Hybrid Writing
Have any of your ideas ever broken containment? Do formal conventions of stories, essays, or poems ever seem too narrow? Join us in Throwing Forms as we explore hybrid writing: what happens when writers combine literary forms to accommodate their obsessions. In this class, you’ll read and write hybrid forms like lyric essays and prose poems, and you’ll draw inspiration from adventurous creators like Claudia Rankine, Anne Carson, and Nathan Fielder. Design a literary container for your next, wildest idea; you just might surprise yourself along the way. Expect regular reading and writing assignments, as well as workshops, throughout the semester.
EN 398-001 CREATIVE WRITING INTENSIVE SEMINAR M 2-4:30 Dugat
This course will prepare students to plan and write a longform project, and is required of English majors wishing to write a Creative Writing Honors Thesis in a subsequent semester. Majors should enroll in this course no later than spring of their junior year. While priority will go to those students, additional seats will be made available to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses. Students will study sustained creative projects such as poetry chapbooks, novellas, story or essay collections, and other longform works, and plan and begin their own substantial creative writing projects. The course will also include professionalization in the field of creative writing, covering topics such as how to approach publishing and editing, how to submit creative writing for publication, how to apply to graduate school, how to prepare for careers in writing, and how to identify and connect to resources in the field. Students will develop a proposal for their Honors Thesis (or a similarly ambitious) project that includes a reading list, project description, and process description.
Linguistics
EN 320-001 INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS TR 9:30-10:45 Popova
Introduction to the study of language, including subjects such as language acquisition, variation, and origins. The course will explore language structures including morphology, phonology, syntax and semantics. The system of sounds, syntax, and meaning are illustrated in English and other languages. Language universals and typologies will be analyzed and discussed. Our focus will also include a sociolinguistic exploration of speech acts, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and language variation. First and second language acquisition theories, as well as perspectives on historical linguistics, will be introduced.
EN 321-001 ESSENTIAL GRAMMAR TR 12:30-1:45 Worden-Chambers
A study of English grammar integrating principles from linguistic theory with structural approaches to grammar. The course includes a focus on the expectations of grammatical usage in different contexts and an understanding of how to apply this knowledge in teaching, writing, and editing.
Methodology
EN 300-001 INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH STUDIES TR 9:30-10:45 Blount
An introduction for English majors to the methods employed in the discipline of English. Students will be exposed to the fundamental issues of critical reading, interpretation, and writing, especially to the use of critical methods in the study of primary texts. Readings will include a selection of texts in the traditional categories of poetry, drama, and prose, as well as the genre of the critical essay. There may also be investigations into other genres and media.
Rhetoric and Composition
EN 313-001 WRITING ACROSS MEDIA MWF 10:00–10:50 Cherry-Randle
Advanced writing course exploring composition with images, sound, video, and other media while considering theoretical perspectives on rhetorical concepts such as authorship, audience, process, revision, and design.
EN 313-002 WRITING ACROSS MEDIA TR 9:30–10:45 Alalem
Advanced writing course exploring composition with images, sound, video, and other media while considering theoretical perspectives on rhetorical concepts such as authorship, audience, process, revision, and design.
EN 317-001 WRITING CENTER PRACTICUM TR 11:00 – 12:15 Adebayo & Tidwell
This course will introduce you to the principles and practice of writing center work through reading, reflection, and real-world practice. In the first eight weeks, you will reflect on your writing practices and read about various aspects of composing. In the second eight weeks, you will do three hours of supervised consulting per week, and meet once a week in class to discuss your experiences and reflect on what you are learning. This course is required for undergraduates who wish to work in the Writing Center; students who pass with an A or a B and excellent attendance are eligible to work for pay in future semesters. Students must apply and be accepted to take EN 317. For an application and more information, go to: https://writingcenter.ua.edu/jobs/
EN 319-001 TECHNICAL WRITING MWF 9:00-9:50 Eubanks
EN 319-002 TECHNICAL WRITING MWF 10:00-10:50 Eubanks
EN 319-003 TECHNICAL WRITING MWF 11:00-11:50 Eubanks
EN 319-004 TECHNICAL WRITING TR 4:00-5:15 Alalem
EN 319-005 TECHNICAL WRITING TR 12:30-1:45 Dayton
EN 319-006 TECHNICAL WRITING TR 11:00-12:15 Buck
EN 319-007 TECHNICAL WRITING TR 9:30-10:45 Dziuba
EN 319-008 TECHNICAL WRITING TR 2:00-3:15 Lambert
This class will focus on principles and practices of technical writing, including audience analysis, organization and planning, information design and style, usability testing, and collaborative writing. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course. These concepts highlight the relationship between content (having something to say) and expression (saying something a certain way). ENG 319 emphasizes three themes: (1) understanding implications of technical writing, (2) recognizing contextualized writing and technology practices, and (3) developing strategies to improve our writing skills.
EN 380-320 LEGAL WRITING MW 6:00-7:15 Millsaps
This course will provide an introduction to legal writing, emphasizing the structure and expectations of written legal argumentation. Students will learn the basics of the American legal system in order to spot legal issues and evaluate relevant facts, analyze different sources of law such as statutes and cases, and apply legal concepts to craft effective legal arguments. In addition to learning and applying legal concepts in their writing, students will be expected to demonstrate basic professional writing skills required of practicing attorneys. Writing proficiency within this discipline is required for a passing grade in this course. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. These assignments will require students to demonstrate higher-level crucial skills, such as analysis and synthesis. Student writing will be graded and commented upon and become part of the assigned grade. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper division student in the discipline will not be given a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs other course requirements.
EN 380-321 LEGAL WRITING TR 5:00-6:15 Hargett
This course will examine the various ways writing is involved in the legal profession. Subjects may include but are not limited to written legal claims, written materials required during stages of litigation, and how to construct other forms of legal argumentation in writing. The course will include significant writing analysis, grammar reviews, and legal writing exercises. Writing proficiency within this discipline is required for a passing grade in this course. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. These assignments will require students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis. Student writing will be graded and commented upon and become part of the assigned grade. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper division student in the discipline will not be given a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs other course requirements.
EN 381-001 SCIENCE WRITING MW 12:00-1:15 Fitzsimmons
This course will study the practice and conventions of science writing, and the communication of challenging, complex, and nuanced scientific facts to a broader public. We’ll read and analyze both science essays for broader audiences and scientific journal articles to see how those forms of communication work. The class will also investigate multimodal forms of scientific writing. We’ll discuss the ethics of good science writing and develop effective writing processes (brainstorming, revising, collaborating) to help you construct your own science writing. English majors and non-majors welcome.
EN 381-002 SCIENCE WRITING MW 3:00-4:15 Riesen
This course will study a subgenre of nonfiction writing that seeks to communicate challenging, complex, and nuanced facts and ideas in clear, engaging prose. While learning to evaluate and synthesize the claims of scientists and intellectuals across various domains, students will produce data-rich essays and articles aimed at being accessible and enjoyable to a broad, lay public. Writing proficiency within this discipline is required for a passing grade in this course. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. These assignments will require students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis. Student writing will be graded and commented upon and become part of the assigned grade. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper division student in the discipline will not be given a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs other course requirements.
EN 381-003 SCIENCE WRITING TR 11:00-12:15 Kidd
This course is intended to help students become more confident communicators about scientific topics. We’ll examine how scientific journal articles work and how to understand and use that type of writing. Then, we’ll work on how to communicate science effectively for broader, non-scientific audiences. We’ll discuss the ethics of good science writing and develop effective writing processes (brainstorming, revising, collaborating) to help you construct your own science writing. English majors and non-majors welcome. The class is designed to meet the needs of both STEM students and non-STEM students.
EN 381-004 SCIENCE WRITING TR 9:30–10:45 Veronie
Writing Across the Health Professions
Professionals writing in health care and medicine have special obligations to communicate ideas and information clearly and concisely. Their success in health care depends on strong critical thinking and communication skills to collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to address patient concerns, meet patient, family and other support needs, and to communicate information about health topics to the public. This course will focus on the writing of healthcare professionals, including nurses, physicians, acute care nurse practitioners, nutritionists, radiologists, pathologists, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, dentists, and physical therapists. Writing genre will include clinical communications—e-mail, professional reports, correspondence, conference presentations, and peer-reviewed publications necessary for sharing health care and research findings with other professionals in the field. Students in this course will gain familiarity with the formal requirements of biomedical abstracts, literature reviews, and research papers. Additionally, students will learn about evidence-based medical culture, how to research using medical databases, and other research tools. Since the healthcare professional also mediates research findings for the general public, this course will offer strategies for effective communication across consumer audiences. Readings such as American psychiatrist Samuel Shem’s classic, The House of God, physician-writer Siddhartha Mukerjee’s The Gene: An Intimate History, and excerpts from medical writers will springboard discussions and collaborative activities to guide students towards more considerate communication with those under their care and colleagues in healthcare and research.
EN 382-001 BUSINESS WRITING MWF 10:00-10:50 Walters
This course develops the interdisciplinary writing and rhetorical skills necessary to create compelling content and effective strategic communications useful in any type of workplace, whether corporate, nonprofit, or entrepreneurial. Students will learn best-practice and collaborative approaches to an array of situations encountered in the course of doing business—from data-rich analysis to storytelling that moves—tailored to engage both general and industry-specific audiences. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. These assignments will require students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course.
EN 382-002 BUSINESS WRITING MWF 11:00-11:50 McKinley
This course develops the interdisciplinary writing and rhetorical skills necessary to create compelling content and effective strategic communications useful in any type of workplace, whether corporate, nonprofit, or entrepreneurial. Students will learn best-practice and collaborative approaches to an array of situations encountered in the course of doing business—from data-rich analysis to storytelling that moves—tailored to engage both general and industry-specific audiences. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. These assignments will require students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course.
EN 383-001 BOOK AND PRINT DESIGN TR 2:00-3:15 Marker
An aesthetic and technical course on layout design principles and Adobe Creative Suite software emphasizing computer software and processes for copy-editing, layouts, book design, and the mechanics of book publishing, marketing, and distribution.
EN 384-001 GRANT WRITING TR 3:30-4:45 Marker
This course introduces students to the methodologies of successful grant writing. Students will explore the grant writing process from researching granting agencies, through writing a grant proposal, to managing grants, and grant reporting. Practicum element includes student partnerships with community organizations engaged in grant-seeking. This course’s written assignments require coherent, logical, and carefully edited prose. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper division student in the discipline will not be given a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs other course requirements.
Special Topics in Writing
EN 310-001 SPECIAL TOPICS IN WRITING TR 2:00–3:15 Presnall
Editing and Design for SPACE
This class works with Space: A Student Journal for Public Audiences in the editing and design of manuscripts accepted for publication. Students will learn about and practice working with the different stages of editorial and design, gain experience working with design software, and lay out a manuscript for publication. Space publishes written, visual, and digital work composed by undergraduate students at The University of Alabama and other institutions. It is a celebration of student expression arranged intentionally to affect the thought and action of local and global publics. https://ojs.lib.ua.edu/space
Directed Courses
EN 329-001/002 DIRECTED STUDIES STAFF
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.
400-Level English Courses
Advanced Studies in Literature
EN 422-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN AMERICAN LIT MW 3:00-4:15 Manora
Apocalypse!? Or New Beginning!?: American Modernisms & the Dialectic of Contradictions
The term American Modernism traditionally refers to a period of both literary innovation and profound ideological disruption. As the American scene underwent a sea change during the decades between 1915 and 1945, both European American and African-American Modernists, i.e. Harlem Renaissance writers, captured American Modernism’s dialectic of contradictions, its “apocalyptic sense of crisis and belief in a new beginning.” Through literary analyses and work with scholarship we will consider the relationships between order, disorder, place, and identity, including notions and constructions of race, class, gender, and the “self,” that concerned these writers, while also exploring the historical, social, cultural, and ideological discourses and disruptions that informed their works. Writers may include F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Weldon Johnson, William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, Willa Cather, Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, and Zora Neale Hurston. Requirements include engaged presence and participation, brief reader responses, one 4-5 page paper, and a final paper.
EN 422-002 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN AMERICAN LIT TR 2:00-3:15 Steverson
…Or However It Goes: Retelling, Parody, and Revision in American Literature
American literature has never stopped talking to itself. Its most canonical texts have generated fierce, formally inventive responses from writers who inherit their plots, their characters, and their cultural authority — only to turn them inside out. This capstone seminar examines three pairings in which a later writer answers, revises, or interrogates an earlier American text: Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) alongside Percival Everett’s James (2024); Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) alongside Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone (2001); and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) alongside Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (2010). Each pairing stages a confrontation between a text that helped define — or distort — American cultural memory, and a later work that seizes its material to expose what the original silenced, sentimentalized, or got wrong. Students will examine these pairs as a sustained argument about authorship, appropriation, and authority: who gets to narrate American experience, what counts as fidelity versus theft when a writer reworks another’s material, and how genre and form (parody, counter-narrative, sequel, satire) become tools of critical and political revision. In addition to critical essays, students will work throughout the semester toward a culminating digital exhibit project, in which they curate primary and critical sources, write curatorial narrative, and build a public-facing digital humanities artifact around one of the course’s three text pairs.
EN 433-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN BRITISH LIT MW 4:30-5:45 McNaughton
20th and 21st Century British and Irish Poetry
This seminar in Irish and British poetry has three sections: modernist poetry, mid-century reactions to modernism, and contemporary Irish poetry. The course is guided by the idea that a little formalism takes you away from history, but that a lot brings you back to it. So we will perform detailed close readings, keeping in mind how formal developments in poetry mark political conflict, social critique, and historical change. We begin with major writers, principally among them Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith, and Seamus Heaney. Then we turn to contemporary Irish poets. Students will work individually on a complete collection of recently-published poetry, select poems for the class to read, and write a publishable book review. Previously, students have been drawn to collections by Paula Meehan, Tom French, Kerry Hardie, Harry Clifton, Leontia Flynn, Ciaran Carson, Sinead Morrissey, and others. We will add collections from recent younger writers besides, Stephen Sexton, Mary O’Malley, Jessica Traynor, Lorcán Black, Emma Must, Keith Payne, Dylan Brennan, among others. Aside from book reviews, the professor expects a number of essays, an exam, and a presentation.
EN 433-002 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN BRITISH LIT T 5:00-7:30 Tavares
Adopt a Play: Performance in the Archives
Robin Hood, The Alchemist, Brutus, The Fair American, Jane Eyre, The Japanese Wife, Zelda Fitzgerald: these are but some of the figures at the expansive archive of rare printed plays in UA’s W. S. Hoole Special Collections. From William Shakespeare to Gertrude Stein, from German puppet plays to Italian operas, William Stanley Hoole created the special collections to house rare books, with a particular interest in the development of early theatre, about which he wrote and published extensively. This collection was expanded through several later gifts, including a wealth of sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth century drama from the Shakespeare scholar Hudson Strode, for which our Renaissance program is named. Working from this uniquely deep resource available nowhere else in the Southeast, this course offers a guided workshop to rare books and manuscript research, from the work of discovery in the archives to developing an original project for a variety of audiences. As a practical and critical exploration of theatre historiography within the context of a performance archive, students will (a) develop the skills to uncover primary documents and the contexts of previous leisure marketplaces of the past, and (b) create a multi-step research project of their own design to support their career goals (e.g, academic articles, public podcast, museum exhibit/catalogue/pamphlet, artistic response or adaptation, New Yorker time magazine article, YouTube infotainment film, &c.). The course will be held once weekly in the Hoole reading room (Bryant Hall). For a list of some of the plays available for exploration, visit https://tinyurl.com/HoolePlays. In addition to fulfilling requirements in the English major and minor, this course also fulfills requirements for the Shakespeare Studies and MEMES minors.
EN 433-003 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN BRITISH LIT TR 9:30-10:45 Cook
The Romance, Medieval and Modern
Romances get a bad name. Characterized as frivolous and time-wasting, at best they distract us from more important issues; at worst, they give us rose-colored glasses and encourage a refusal to see and deal with the world as it is. In this course, we will challenge those negative views by exploring the possibility that romances invite readers to imagine the world otherwise, galvanizing us to change our ideas and maybe even our lives. At the beginning of the semester, we will read medieval romances, focusing on the magical, chivalric adventures of knights and ladies. Next, we will turn to the gothic and medievalist romances of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Medieval course readings include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and selections from Marie de France’s Lais and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (in modern English translation). Modern novels and short stories include John Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, and Charles W. Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars. Writing proficiency within this discipline is required for a passing grade in this course. Students will write a five-page paper and a longer research paper. To prepare for the latter, students will complete three short scaffolding assignments, including an article analysis, a mini-prospectus, and an annotated bibliography.
EN 444-001/WS 430 ADVANCED STUDIES IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORY TR 2:00-3:15 Purvis
Feminist Responses to Rape Culture: Towards Sex Positivity
Issues concerning sexuality and bodily integrity are fraught with controversy and comprised of many complicated and competing views. In the midst of overwhelming sexual violence and gender injustice, feminist commitments to sexual liberation and gender justice persist. This course establishes the long, ongoing, and complicated relationship between sexual liberation and gender justice, with a focus on feminist responses to sexual assault and rape at the end of last century and in the first quarter of this one. We study an interdisciplinary array of feminist writings documenting, interrogating, and theorizing the persistence of sexual violence, sex negativity, purity myths, and rape culture as well as the emergence of feminist theories of sexual justice promoting sex positivity, pleasure activism, and radical intimacy. We ask: What sort of sexual revolution is possible in the absence of gender justice? Students in this course will gain an understanding of the issues surrounding sexual violence and other manifestations of rape culture, historically and today, assess artificial antagonisms, such as that between “sex-positive” and “sex-negative” feminists, break down problematic terminology, such as the so-called “sex wars,” and establish a feminist understanding of “sexual justice.” Readings illuminate the meaning of restorative and transformative justice, consent, sex-positive and sex-critical feminism, care-centric approaches to sexuality, pleasure activism, and radical intimacy. This course provides background for further study and feminist praxis, including some of the rudiments of feminist theory. Prerequisites: For WS 430: WS 200: “Introduction to Women’s Studies” (or equivalent) or permission of the professor. For EN 444: 18 hours of English Study, including 6 hours at the 200 level and 6 hours at the 300 level. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course.
Advanced Studies in Writing
EN 455-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN WRITING TR 11:00-12:15 Dziuba
Women in the History of Rhetoric
This course will feature an eclectic sampling of women rhetors from across time and space—from Aspasia of Miletus (c. 470–428 BCE) through Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911) through Audre Lorde (1934–1992). We will read a variety of primary sources (including speeches, manifestos, newspaper columns, essays, and poetry) in which these rhetors assert the value of their perspectives. In analyzing these texts, we will be especially attentive to how these rhetors contest social and cultural norms. We will supplement these readings with selected scholarly works in histories of rhetoric and in feminist rhetoric. Students will have the opportunity to do archival research into a historical rhetor of their choice.
EN 455-002 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN WRITING TR 12:30-1:45 Presnall
Forming Self and World
How does writing shape who we are and what we can do in the world? What kinds of agency do different creative and cultural forms make possible? This course examines two forms, essay and assembly. We will trace the literary essay to see how various authors narrate self and imagine possibilities for conscious agency in the world. Then, we will explore the nonlinear gathering of materials into active shapes that may or may not belong to or represent self. Assembly relies on patterns, whole relations, analogy, visual logic, arrays, sequences, constellations, repetition, remixing, and accumulation. Students will journal as a process of reflection and inquiry, apply concepts developed through reading and discussion to analysis, and develop their own research and writing projects.
Creative Writing
EN 408-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING MW 2:00-3:15 Bingham
Novel Workshop: Fantasy and Science Fiction
This section of EN 408 is dedicated to novels in the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and their subgenres). Together with a supportive group of Fantasy and SF enthusiasts, we will write, workshop, talk genre, explore craft, and learn the skills necessary for making writing a consistent part of our lives.
EN 408-002 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TR 9:30-10:45 Maples
The Art of Voice & Persona Poetry
In this course we will pursue the mysterious element of voice, a worthy pursuit for any intentional writer. To that end, we will engage theories on the art of voice as a way of developing our own. To enhance this development, we will read persona poetry. Persona poetry is dynamic, alive, always presenting an opportunity for voice to take center stage. It lends the writer courage, (much needed for the early writer) in writing their own voice. So we will practice writing in persona, too. So this is a proper marriage—voice and persona—that can aid you, no matter your preferred form of creative writing. By the end of the class, you’ll have written several in and out of class prompts, read several poems, and received feedback from your peers. You will be ready to produce a portfolio of poems, edited to the best of your ability.
EN 408-003 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TR 11:00-12:15 Weiland
Response Poetry: Time to Talk Back
This poetry workshop will explore the Response Poem and how it functions independently and as part of a larger discussion in the poetry community. We will study a variety of Response Poems and consider how they comment on culture, politics, social customs, and even poetry itself. Students will write and workshop their own original poems that respond to works we’ve read in class and/or poems they have discovered on their own. Students will also do a presentation on the work of an established poet and at the end of the semester, will produce a portfolio of their revised poems, as well as reflections on the revision process.
EN 408-005 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TR 2:00-3:15 Beatty
Novel Sequence 2 of 2
Second half of a two-semester sequence. In this novel workshop, students will generate a draft fiction manuscript (any genre, any length, any subject matter). We will continue to pile up pages; seek out models to emulate, evolve, or oppose; revise; hold each other accountable; commiserate; eat candy; commune in art; and talk shop. The heart of the class will be work shopping material from works-in-progress and responding to peers. Priority enrollment for those enrolled in F26 EN408-003, but in the event of open seats, students with a substantial work in progress may petition to enroll.
EN 408-006 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TR 3:30-4:45 Cheshire
The Writer in the World: Collaborative Forms
How do we, as writers, function as members of larger creative communities? In what ways can creative writing interact with other art forms, such as music, movement, and visual art? In this class, we will expand our writerly voices by putting ourselves in creative conversation with other artistic voices and forms. Topics of focus will include epistolary forms, ekphrasis (writing in response to visual art), documentary poetics, “after” poems, and multi-modal collaboration. We will meet with various local artists, musicians, and creators for inspiration, and use campus spaces— such as the Sarah Moody Art Gallery, Hoole Special Collections, and an assortment of intriguing sites around campus— to guide us as we venture out of the classroom and into broader creative worlds.
EN 408-012/JCM 442 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING T 2:00-4:50 Bragg
Specialized Magazine Writing
This course is designed to help students understand writing and editing of long-form articles for publication in print and online depth magazines. Students will learn advanced narrative non-fiction writing techniques and how to gather information for longer feature stories. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course.
Linguistics
EN 466-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN LINGUSTICS TR 11:00-12:15 Demir
Sociolinguistics
Why do we write differently on Reddit than in emails? How do social media, texting, and memes shape language? And does ChatGPT really write like us? This course explores how language changes across digital spaces and why. Using real-world examples, students will investigate how context (e.g., audience, purpose) and technology shape communication, explore how identity and community are expressed online, and discover what online language can tell us about an increasingly AI-mediated world.
EN 466-002 CAPSTONE COURSE: ADV STUDIES IN LINGUSTICS TR 12:30-1:45 Poole
Discourse Analysis
This special topics course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of discourse analysis through a survey of various approaches and methods for the analysis of texts from social media posts and advertisements to political speeches, corporate communication, academic writing, and many other forms of public discourse. We will take a point of view that is descriptive/explanatory and critical/ideological, as we learn to identify, analyze, and interpret patterns of language use across a range of contexts that shape how we understand the world. We will explore areas such as genre analysis, critical discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and corpus-assisted discourse analysis while applying various methodological techniques to further our inquiry into the stances, attitudes, assumptions, and perspectives embedded in language use. And yes, we will explore how generative AI may support discourse analysis research. Students will develop research projects in areas of personal and professional interest.
Directed Courses
EN 429-001 through 004 DIRECTED READINGS STAFF
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.
EN 430-001 ENGLISH INTERNSHIP Blount
An on- or off-campus training position in which students use the skills they have gained as English majors to explore and enhance their employment opportunities after graduation. Interns work approximately 10 hours a week, holding responsible positions with that span legal professions, non-profit work, and publishing (magazine, journal, book, television, radio). Apply to the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English. Please see the departmental website for the application form and further details.
EN 498-001 CAPSTONE COURSE: SENIOR THESIS: CREATIVE STAFF
The Creative Writing Honors Thesis is an individualized class that culminates in a complete, long-form piece of creative writing such as a poetry chapbook, novella, essay collection, short story collection, or extended creative non-fiction piece of publishable quality, approximately 30-60 pages. A student who completes this course with a grade of A or A- and who meets GPA requirements will be awarded Departmental Honors with a creative emphasis. Each student enrolled will work individually with a faculty mentor. Students must submit a proposal to the Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing by a designated date and have that proposal be approved by the Undergraduate Creative Writing committee.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of B or higher in EN 398 and approved research proposal
EN 499-001-004 CAPSTONE COURSE: SENIOR THESIS
The Senior Thesis is an individualized, directed readings class that culminates in a thesis. The thesis is a research-based work making an original analytical claim in the fields of literary studies, linguistics, or rhetoric and composition. Students enrolled will work individually with a faculty mentor. A student who completes this course with a grade of A or A- and who meets GPA requirements will be awarded Departmental Honors. To enroll students must submit a research proposal to the Departmental Honors Coordinator before the end of the previous semester, and that proposal must be approved by the Honors Committee. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course.