Interim
EN 311-001 SPECIAL TOPICS IN LIT MTWRF 9:00 – 12:00 Hodo
Reclaiming Hogwarts: Examining the Literary and Cultural Impact of Harry Potter
September 1st, 1998, is an important date in the lives of many American fantasy lovers. On that day the US edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was released and completely changed the landscape of popular fiction. Readers, young and old alike, fell in love with The Boy Who Lived and waited with bated breath for each subsequent novel to be released. Over his 20-year history, Harry Potter has inspired joy, wonder, anger, fear, and protest from fans and haters. In recent years, author J.K. Rowling’s problematic statements about gender identity alienated many fans. One aspect of this course will be the idea of “reclaiming” Hogwarts for all and how do we separate the problematic creator from the world they created. In this course, we will read Rowling’s original seven novels and trace Harry’s journey from infant celebrity to adult hero of the wizarding world. We will discuss a variety of topics over the course of our short semester including: racism (both fantastic and real), gender, socioeconomic issues, the role of archetypes in literature, activism, power in politics, and many more.
EN 344-001 MAJOR AUTHORS 1660-1900 MTWRF 10:00-1:00 Novak
Oscar Wilde
In our culture, Oscar Wilde has come to stand for so many (sometimes contradictory) things: An icon of homosexuality and of gay martyrdom; of Irish identity; of modernity; of the aesthete; or even of literature itself. Wilde’s life and his position as a cultural icon so often dominates our understanding of his texts that it is sometimes hard to remember him as a writer. This class will offer a survey of Wilde’s writing (plays, poems, fiction, and non-fiction essays) as well as critical, biographical, and theoretical work on Wilde, in order to ask how Wilde himself defines the terms by which he is most often understood—identity and desire, body and text, performance and essence. We will also look at other writers of the 1880s and 90s to contextualize Wilde within a larger British fin-de-siècle culture. Rather than looking for “the real Oscar Wilde” (the title of a book by one of Wilde’s first biographers) we will be exploring what is at stake in our culture’s myths and interpretations of Oscar Wilde. Our aim is to analyze the implications of the models and theories presented in these texts, not to impose our own notions of what (for example) identity, desire, and gender should be. In other words, the late nineteenth century is interesting not because it reminds us of our own world, but precisely because it often offers an alternative vision.
EN 400-001 SENIOR SEMINAR MTWRF 10:00-1:00 Deutsch
The Queer Art of Queer Writing:
LGBTQ+ American Art and Literature from the late nineteenth century until today
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all offer a striking combination of text and imagery that provide new means to represent American identities based upon once taboo or transgressive personas, habits, desires, and practices. In a very real and concrete way, the influence of queer literature on queer art and figuration has a long, diversely American history, one that stretches across race, religion, region, and socio-political re-imaginings of a multitude of Americas. This course will explore the interrelationships that exist in primarily US cultural circumstances, at home and abroad, amid painting, sculpture, drawing, and literature that stretches from the late-nineteenth century until the technological advances of the 21st century. We’ll consider literature by Walt Whitman, Djuna Barnes, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, and Jewel Gomez, among others; and art by Thomas Eakins, Richard Bruce Nugent, Bernice Bing, Salman Toor, Agnes Martin, and Kehinde Wiley, to name a few. Students need not have any art background, as we’ll explore writing about art and images together. Students will also have an opportunity to learn how to research and to write about contemporary artists whom they may discover on their own via current social media platforms.
Full Summer Term
EN 400-360 SENIOR SEMINAR S 9:00-5:00 Jolly
The Development of American Literature to 1860
This course, The Development of American Literature to 1860, is a study of literature produced in what became the United States from its beginnings to 1860. Along with literary influences, social, economic, religious, and political influences leading to literature that is distinctively and definitively American will be examined.
Term I
EN 305-050 CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING MTWRF 10:00-11:45 Riesen
Study of the basic principles of writing creative nonfiction. Reading and assigned writing experiments in a broad range of forms of the genre.
EN 319-050 TECHNICAL WRITING MTWRF 10:00-11:45 Dayton
This course focuses on principles and practices of technical writing, including audience analysis, organization and planning, information design and style, usability testing, and collaborative writing.
EN 329-050 DIRECTED STUDIES TBA TBA
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.
EN 408-050 ADV CREATIVE WRITING MTWRF 10:00-11:45 Estes
Freedom & Practice (multi-genre)
Robert Frost defined the most basic need of his work as a writer like this: All I would keep for myself is the freedom of my material ”the condition of body and mind now and then to summons aptly from the vast chaos of all I have lived through”. One could do worse! This course has no grand theme or project; it is about the work of writing, but more importantly about the way of the writer. We well explore, discover, and practice what it takes for an artist to begin and then to keep going: the mental, spiritual, physical, and temporal skills needed to live a sustainable creative life. The objectives are to know yourself better, to gain permissions for artistic and personal freedoms, to write what you want how you want for as long as your life will allow. In short, to design your life on your terms and point yourself with energy and purpose toward your goals. In the midst of that education, you will propose and develop an independent writing project in line with your interests.
EN 429-050 DIRECTED READINGS TBA TBA
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.
Term II
EN 301-100 FICTION WRITING MTWRF 2:00-3:45 Ariail
Study of basic principles of writing poetry. Reading and assigned writing experiments in a broad range of poetic forms. Class will largely consist of workshopping your own work as well as that of your peers.
EN 319-100 TECHNICAL WRITING MTWRF 10:00-11:45 Buck
Focuses 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.
EN 329-100 DIRECTED STUDIES TBA TBA
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.
EN 408-100 ADV CREATIVE WRITING MTWRF 10:00-11:45 Marker
Speculative & Science Fiction
This course is an exploration of the craft of speculative and science fiction in the short story form. We will study writers like Charles Yu, Octavia Butler, and Neil Gaiman.
EN 429-100 DIRECTED READINGS TBA TBA
Prerequisite: Enrollment only by previous arrangement with a specific instructor and with the permission of the director of undergraduate English studies.