This course introduces students to mythology and its academic study using myths from a wide range of cultures and traditions, including those of Mesopotamia, the Levant, Greece and Rome, India, and the Americas. Close study of particular myths and mythic literatures will help us to investigate fundamental questions. What is myth? How did it shape the past? Where is it found in the present? Texts may include The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Genesis, and The Ramayana.

Location

Lechase Room 163 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

We will take a very bold and ambitious approach to the study of literature, surveying a group of landmark literary works starting in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin antiquity, and concluding in the early twentieth century. We often associate that kind of study with the notion of “great books.” I won’t dispute that will read some of those this semester. But what really unites these works is that they understood themselves to be contributing to a cultural tradition in which each work builds on prior ones to achieve something new. The important point is not that these books count as Western masterpieces, but that they played a role in the invention and diffusion of that very idea. We will try to approach this set of literary works as their authors and first readers did: not as a disconnected series of individual creations but as a cultural whole greater than the sum of its parts—a living literary history which helped to produce the idea of a “western” culture or of the more particular national cultures that made it up.

Location

(TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

"Maximum "English" introduces you to the full range of English here at UR. Is it literature you want today, or creative writing? film? theater? journalism? debate?  So you'll learn the fundamentals of reading and viewing from the department's own creative writers, its literary and film critics and historians, and its theater directors. You'll enlarge the experience of reading literature and criticism by listening to writers read their own original work and then discussing it with them. You'll experience plays not only as written scripts but as living theatrical events by attending performances and talking to actors, directors, and designers about what they do to bring a play to the stage. You'll encounter works in different media, from the live human voice to printed books, from the stage to film and multimedia digital texts. Maximum English is particularly suitable for first-year students, though all others are welcome.  

Location

(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. Greek tragedy and comedy: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The Hebrew Bible -- Abraham and Isaac, Moses and Pharaoh, Esther and Judith -- and Christianity's New Testament. The two great traditions studied in this introductory course -- classical and Biblical -- have been pondered by generations of writers and artists for thousands of years. A great deal of literary history is the story of intricately rewriting and adapting the core texts of these traditions; it has been said that the European philosophical tradition is a series of footnotes to Plato. While doing justice to any one of these authors or traditions in a single semester would be a challenge, the goal of this class is to read as much as possible of the classical and scriptural tradition in the short time we have, giving you a solid introduction to some of the key stories and ideas that have generated so much thought, conflict, and human creativity over the past two dozen centuries. First-years welcome! .

Location

Morey Room 502 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course immerses students in the most influential and engaging writings from the earlier periods of English literature. Our aim will be to enjoy and understand these writings in themselves, and then to see their relation to each other and to their larger historical context. Students should leave the course with some real affection for particular writings, and some assured sense of the contours and highlights of cultural history. Our emphasis will be on the careful appreciation of language and texture in representative texts and authors (including Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope and their contemporaries). Class will proceed by lecture and discussion

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 270 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course surveys African-American literature of a variety of genres—poetry, drama, autobiography, fiction, and non-fiction—with a focus on the 18th and 19th Centuries. The course interprets this tradition not only as the production of American writers of African descent, but also as a set works that display formal characteristics associated with black cultural traditions. Discussion topics include the meanings of race, the construction of black identity, and literature as historical document. Special attention will be paid to approaching literary texts from a variety of critical perspectives. Featured writers include Phillis Wheatley, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Harriet W. Wilson, Charles W. Chesnutt, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and more. Course requirements include two formal writing assignments, bi-weekly reading responses, and class participation.

Location

Lechase Room 143 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course surveys African American literature of a variety of genres—poetry, drama, autobiography, fiction, and non-fiction essays—from the 20th Century.  The course interprets this tradition not only as the production of American writers of African descent, but also as a set works that display formal characteristics associated with black cultural traditions.  Discussion topics include the meanings of race, the construction of black identity, and intra-racial differences of class, gender, and sexuality.   Special attention will be paid to approaching literary texts from a variety of critical perspectives.

Location

Lechase Room 143 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

As an introduction to the art of film, this course will present the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema also involves an interaction with audiences and larger social structures.

Location

Online Room 14 (ASE) (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This is an introductory workshop designed for students interested in exploring the art of fiction writing. Students will write original short pieces, and work-in-progress will be discussed in class. We’ll read a wide variety of modern and contemporary authors as we explore elements of the genre. No background in creative writing is necessary, but permission of instructor is required.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Short story workshop.

Location

Morey Room 403 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

This class is a writing workshop, where students share their own fiction and participate in group critique. We will read and discuss stories from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries by writers of many backgrounds and dispositions, including James Joyce, Isak Dinesen, Edward P. Jones, Ha Jin, Joy Williams, W. G. Sebald, Gabriel García Márquez, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Chinua Achebe, and Franz Kafka. Students will have the chance to experiment with different styles and structures as they learn about literary invention. We'll consider techniques for shaping fictional characters, the management of point of view, the possibilities of narrative design, the role of setting and description, and the process of revision. Please contact David Hansen at dhansen9@esm.rochester.edu

Location

(M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

This class is a writing workshop, where students share their own fiction and participate in group critique. We will read and discuss stories from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries by writers of many backgrounds and dispositions, including James Joyce, Isak Dinesen, Edward P. Jones, Ha Jin, Joy Williams, W. G. Sebald, Gabriel García Márquez, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Chinua Achebe, and Franz Kafka. Students will have the chance to experiment with different styles and structures as they learn about literary invention. We'll consider techniques for shaping fictional characters, the management of point of view, the possibilities of narrative design, the role of setting and description, and the process of revision. Please contact David Hansen at dhansen9@esm.rochester.edu

Location

(R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An introductory course in the art of writing poetry. In addition to reading and writing poems, students will learn about various essential elements of craft such as image, metaphor, line, syntax, rhyme, and meter. The course will be conducted in a workshop format and instructor permission is required. To apply, email the instructor 3-5 poems or a small prose piece (fiction or creative nonfiction).

Location

(T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Not unlike the essay or laboratory experiment, a play is a tool that allows the curious mind to develop, test, and rethink ideas, and to grapple with significant issues (both public and private) in live, three-dimensional space. Playwriting introduces the beginning writer interested in exploring the discipline of live performance (and the seasoned writer wishing to develop his/her craft) to the exciting world of writing for the stage. Each semester, students in this course get the chance to study with a different, award-winning guest playwright. In so doing, they get to experience instruction and guidance under the tutelage of some of the most exciting voices working professionally in the American theatre.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (M 12:30PM - 3:15PM)

Reporting and Writing the News introduces the student to journalistic writing and reporting. Through a variety of classroom exercises and through out-of-class reporting, students learn to prepare accurate and balanced news stories. Assignments progress from single-source interviewing to news profiles, speech-and-meeting coverage, and feature stories. Additional experience is gained through rewriting assignments, as directed by editing comment. Attention is also paid to First Amendment issues such as libel, as well as to the challenges and opportunities presented by new media. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

(TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Reporting and Writing the News introduces the student to journalistic writing and reporting. Through a variety of classroom exercises and through out-of-class reporting, students learn to prepare accurate and balanced news stories. Assignments progress from single-source interviewing to news profiles, speech-and-meeting coverage, and feature stories. Additional experience is gained through rewriting assignments, as directed by editing comment. Attention is also paid to First Amendment issues such as libel, as well as to the challenges and opportunities presented by new media. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Basic public speaking is the focus. Emphasis is placed on researching speeches, using appropriate language and delivery, and listening critically to oral presentations. ENG 134 contains two quizzes, a final exam, and four speeches to be given by the student. The speeches include a tribute, persuasive, explanatory, and problem-solving address. Material also features video and inaugural addresses of past U.S. presidents. The course utilizes instructor Curt Smith’s experience as a former White House presidential speechwriter and as a Smithsonian Institution series host. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

(TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

(R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

(T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

We often think of technology as something that is separate from our bodies, without gender, race, sexual orientation, or (dis)ability. How do preconceived ideas and inherent biases about identity inform the development and use of technology? The field of media archaeology offers a means to understand gendered and racial biases inherited by new technology through studying new and old technologies—and their cultural representations in advertising and media—for successes, failures, and alternative possibilities that were never realized. In a culture that is constantly adopting new technologies and upgrading gadgets, where does the history of technology and the people who developed it go? Women were often the unsung and forgotten laborers who manufactured and operated new technologies. By digging through layers of technological history and challenging the usual narrative of technological progress, this course questions assumptions underlying how technology is built and operates. It examines the relationship of technology to society and our everyday, embodied lives through taking concrete examples of technology, like photography or artificial intelligence, as case studies. We will also consider cultural imagination about technology and its oppressive or emancipatory possibilities. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach in the chosen readings and incorporates films and popular media. Classes rely upon student participation and discussion. Students will acquire critical skills to better understand our technological present with implications for the methodology and practice of creating new media and developing future technologies that break with the biases of the past.

This class can count for a "media history, theory, and practice" requirement for the DMS major and minor. This course may also be taken to fulfill and upper level writing requirement in consultation with the professor.

Location

Lattimore Room 540 (W 9:00AM - 11:40AM)

Space and how it is conceived and explored is fundamental to the telling of storiesonstage and elsewhere. This introductory course aims at giving students skills to create, translate and communicate a visual design/environment for performance. The class will focus on design fundamentals, materials, research and visual storytelling through class discussion, script analysis and practical work. Students will read a play, devise a concept for that play, research possible environments, and begin to produce drawings and other visual ideas for their design. Student's work will be presented and discussed in each class.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $50.

Location

(MW 9:00AM - 11:40AM)

This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $50.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 104 (MW 9:00AM - 11:40AM)

This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $50.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 104 (MW 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $50.

Location

Online Room 12 (ASE) (MW 9:00AM - 11:40AM)

This course allows students to move progressively toward a stronger understanding of long form improvisation acting theory and skills related to listening, supporting others, heightening, and taking risks. By the end of this course students will be able to work within a cast to create full length, fully improvised plays that incorporate spontaneous monologues and scenes with recurring characters and themes. Performers will develop skills that enable them to write, direct, edit, and act in pieces that are made up on the spot using a single audience suggestion. Particular focus will be paid to scene work and narrative improvisation.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (R 3:25PM - 6:05PM)

The creation of a contemporary theatrical production uses skills and talents across a wide range of disciplines: from carpentry to rigging, from painting to computer drafting, from electrical to audiovisual engineering for the stage. This introductory course will explore the theories, methods, and safe practice of set construction (including using power tools), rigging, stage lighting, drafting, sound, and scene painting. Students will work on actual productions staged by the Theatre Program during required labs that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (MW 9:00AM - 10:15AM)

Lighting and sound provide theatre productions with critical, complex and nuanced effects that tell stories as eloquently as words. This course exposes students to the mechanics and aesthetics of lighting and sound design for the theatre. Students gain a thorough understanding of lighting and sound equipment, procedures, safety, and how these fascinating elements contribute to creating and enriching the theatrical event. Students work actively with these technologies on productions, getting valuable practical experience. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course serves as an introduction to, and exploration of the acting process for the stage, developing the fundamental skills students need to approach a text from a performers standpoint and to create character. The course takes as its basic premise that the actors instrument is the selfwith all of the physical, psychological, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual implications of that term. Students will be encouraged in both the expression and the expansion of the self and of the imagination. The class will also help the student develop an overall appreciation for the role of the theatre in todays society. Fall class: in conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course serves as an introduction to, and exploration of the acting process for the stage, developing the fundamental skills students need to approach a text from a performers standpoint and to create character. The course takes as its basic premise that the actors instrument is the selfwith all of the physical, psychological, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual implications of that term. Students will be encouraged in both the expression and the expansion of the self and of the imagination. The class will also help the student develop an overall appreciation for the role of the theatre in todays society. Fall class: in conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (W 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal. In today's ever increasingly technological world soft skills? are more valuable than ever. It is not just important what we say, but how we say it. In Movement for Stage using Alexander Technique, Bartenieff Fundamental, View Points, Laban and many other exercises and explorations students will gain an awareness of their own habits and physical tensions, learn alignment and relaxation techniques, let go of inhibitions and then learn to make physical choices to create diverse and inventive characters. Students will learn to read the body language of others and tools to use in their own lives to physically adjust and respond and relate to new situations in new ways.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (MF 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

Ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal. In today's ever increasingly technological world soft skills? are more valuable than ever. It is not just important what we say, but how we say it. In Movement for Stage using Alexander Technique, Bartenieff Fundamental, View Points, Laban and many other exercises and explorations students will gain an awareness of their own habits and physical tensions, learn alignment and relaxation techniques, let go of inhibitions and then learn to make physical choices to create diverse and inventive characters. Students will learn to read the body language of others and tools to use in their own lives to physically adjust and respond and relate to new situations in new ways.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (F 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

Design for Stage: TBA

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

Design for Stage: TBA

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

Design for Stage: TBA

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

In todays theatre, the director is generally considered to be the key creative figure in how a theatre production is conceived, explored and presented. But the directors task is a difficult one, encompassing rigorous intellectual, theatrical and artistic knowledge and skills. This introductory directing techniques class for aspiring directors will explore the nature of the theatrical event, investigate conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (F 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

In todays theatre, the director is generally considered to be the key creative figure in how a theatre production is conceived, explored and presented. But the directors task is a difficult one, encompassing rigorous intellectual, theatrical and artistic knowledge and skills. This introductory directing techniques class for aspiring directors will explore the nature of the theatrical event, investigate conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (W 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

What is the relationship between theatre and protest? How, in a world that is chaotic and unjust, can we create work that foments social justice and galvanizes artists and audiences around a shared cause? In this course, we will study protest theatre movements both in the United States and around the world, and apply those tenets to creating work that speaks to our current sociopolitical moment and the challenges we collectively face.

Location

(M 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This course allows students to comprehensively and actively understand the entire theatrical production process from the page to the stage. Students will study and gain insight into an actual text being produced in Todd Theatre; work with the artist directing the production to understand and explore the creative and artistic process; and gain first-hand, practical experience working on the production in one of many labs associated with the production process (scenery, lighting, costume, sound, etc.). A unique class melding the theoretical and practical. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

English is a huge banquet of words. Its history is one of invasions and adaptations. Brought to Britain by Germanic tribes in the 5th century, it was matured by violent and peaceful contact with other peoples and ideas. Few other languages are so accepting of neologism as English, so humongous in vocabulary, so malleable of construction. We’ll peruse texts from Old, Middle and Modern English and watch it grow from a Teutonic tongue to the powerful, ductile, and eclectic instrument it is today, spreading to other continents, colonizing, absorbing and irritating. We’ll read texts about linguistic Angst and jouissance by Alfred the Great, Aelfric, Robert of Gloucester, Chaucer, Caxton, Mulcaster, Shakespeare, Locke, Swift, Johnson, Webster, Orwell and others who praised or blamed our shifty English. Finally, we’ll grok urban dialects, vernaculars, slang, lolcat, texting, propriety and proscription. Is it “based on” or “based off of”? Does it matter? Is English in decline or poised on a new horizon? C U

Location

Online Room 14 (ASE) (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

After Chaucer died in 1400, he was imitated because of his immense popularity. After modern pronunciation settled in for good in the 18th century, he was considered funny, but a poor rhymester. After it was decided that even educated women were to be told nothing about sex, Chaucer was censored. In the twentieth-century his longest work was banned. So what is it about The Canterbury Tales? What preconceptions and biases do we bring to the study of Chaucer’s most ambitious text? What issues (about reading, about knowledge, about ethics, religion, class, gender, culture, language, political injustice, rioting among the lower classes and the Black Death) overlap with relevant issues today? Is there a way in which we can create a 'reading' of Chaucer that makes him speak to us as brightly and as familiarly as he spoke to his own times?

Location

(TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

The first of a sequence of two, the course approaches 'The Divine Comedy' both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of 'Inferno,' and the first half of 'Purgatorio,' students learn how to approach Dantes poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dantes concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the 'Comedy' and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. Dante I can be taken independently from Dante II. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.

Location

Online Room 3 (ASE) (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

We will try to do justice to the lives and desires of late medieval women and men, reading narratives that then and now hold the imagination of living readers. We will pursue ghosts and revenants who bridge the world of spirit and flesh, reanimated corpses and souls speaking from purgatory or hell, all revealing intense medieval responses to living, loving, and dying. Works will include the out-of-body experience of Pearl, the amazing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, fantasies of global and racial diversity in Mandeville’s Travels and other exotic narratives, and personal revelations by Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, among the first women writers in English. Using digital resources, we will immerse ourselves in the physical books and images that medieval people treasured.  Our purpose is to enrich our sense of the present by gaining a sure grasp of this earlier English language and artistry. Students will offer presentations, write short responses / analyses, and a longer final paper.

Location

(MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

The first of a sequence of two, the course approaches 'The Divine Comedy' both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of 'Inferno,' and the first half of 'Purgatorio,' students learn how to approach Dantes poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dantes concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the 'Comedy' and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. Dante I can be taken independently from Dante II. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.

Location

Gavett Hall Room 310 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

For medievals, the book functioned as a master trope for a world whose mysteries lie open to those who can read them, a world in which every action, gesture, image, word, is significant and imbued by God or nature with a hidden meaning. This is both a course in the intellectual history of the book and an introduction to semiotics, allegoresis, and iconography. In it we will learn to read six types of books: (1) the Manuscript; (2) the Book of Secrets; (3) the Book of God; (4) Books without words; (5) the Book of Love; (6) the Book of Fortune.

      Along the way we will address a variety of historical and theoretical questions. Do we read scripture differently from a mere text, and if so why? Where does allegory come from and how does it work? What is the relationship between orality and literacy in medieval narrative? Is there a meaningful spatial dialectic between a manuscript or a church and its marginalia and illustrations?

Location

Hylan Building Room 206 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This seminar will explore some of the most captivating twentieth-century historical novels set in the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance world, alongside source materials from each period. We will investigate how authors construct texts blending historical facts and fictional narrative, while comparing the modern novels to some of their ancient, medieval, and Renaissance source texts. Authors studied will include Marguerite Yourcenar (Memoirs of Hadrian), John Williams (Augustus), Gore Vidal (Julian the Apostate), Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose), Poul Anderson (The High Crusade), Anthony Burgess (A Dead Man in Deptford), Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall), and Anna Banti (Artemisia). Students are encouraged to join the English Department trip to Stratford, Ontario, in September to see the staged production of Wolf Hall.

Location

Meliora Room 219 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

The course will analyze the figurative tradition in some illuminated Italian XIV century manuscripts—such as the Thompson Divine Comedy in the British Library; Petrarch’s Virgil, in the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, and Boccaccio’s Dante in the Riccardiana Library in Florence (Ms. 1035)—from the point of view of the relationship between text and image, the treatment of spatial construction, and narrative space-time value. The course will also consider the problems of conservation of medieval manuscripts and early books, and their availability to larger audiences through the employment of digital technologies. The objective of the course is to enable students to acquire an interdisciplinary competence on the the original sources, their conservarion, and their relevance for both the Humanities and the Sciences.

Location

Morey Room 205 (MTW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

The class explores the full range of Shakespeare's theater, including examples of history plays, comedy, tragedy, and romance. We approach the plays from many angles, looking at their stark and extravagant language, their invention of complex conflicted human characters, their analyses of the worlds of politics and war, their self-conscious theatricality, as well as the ways that they join together play and seriousness, the tragic and the comic. We learn about the literary and theatrical conventions that would have been second nature to Shakespeare and his audience 400 years ago, and consider how Renaissance stage practices might help us to better understand his plays and better appreciate why Renaissance audiences found them so compelling. This course is appropriate for all students, from those in their first semester at the university to senior English majors. It fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major and two English Clusters (Great Books, Great Authors; Plays, Playwrights, and Theater).

Location

Hylan Building Room 105 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course examines American writers’ responses to intense social, economic, and technological upheavals, such as urbanization, colonization, industrialization, and social injustices, from 1850s through now. Topics to be covered include colonialism, eco-tourism, slavery, civil rights, trauma, technology, urbanization, and the rise of science, and students can expect to explore the questions such as the following: How do environmental issues relate to the politics of race? How do writers represent the ongoing trauma of losing indigenous land? How to communicate the invisible hazards of climate change and the chemical industry? How has the rise of rationality displaced spiritual visions of the natural world? How do we create a meaningful connection to home and the planet amidst so much injustice and technological upheaval? INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. NOT OPEN TO SENIORS.

Location

Online Room 5 (ASE) (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Location

Lechase Room 161 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

The British monarchy was restored to power in 1660, following an 18-year period of Puritan rule -- and, by extension, a ban on the theatre. When the playhouses reopened, they did so with a vengeance: women appeared onstage for the first time, and verbally rich and risqué comedy flourished in particular, exploring shifts in gender and sexuality, courtship and marriage, and the balance of power between the old aristocracy and the rising middle class -- as well as between high and low culture: often spoofing traditionally elite genres such as Heroic Tragedy and opera, playwrights came to question the nature of theatre itself. In addition to reading a play a week, we will also consider poetic, theoretical, and historical backgrounds, as well as film and music. (Applicable English Cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater)

Location

Lattimore Room 413 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

In this seminar, we will do two things at once: first, read a group of literary texts associated with the "American Renaissance."  At the same time, we will read and analyze some of the masterworks of twentieth-century literary criticism that have produced, defended, and contested this tradition.  The course will proceed by alternating week by week between a work of literature and a work of criticism, and by doing that will be able to establish an interesting reciprocal dialogue between the two kinds of writing.  Of the critical texts, we will ask such questions as:  What authors or works (or features of texts) do different critics tend to value or devalue, emphasize or forget in order to produce a “tradition”?  What happens when we focus on the narrative elements of criticism?  For example, when are literary histories themselves structured and emplotted like the literary texts they discuss?  Of the literary works themselves, we will ask:  what features of form or content made these works the harbingers of a cultural “rebirth”?  And is there any sense in which these literary works do something like "criticism"—in thinking, for example, about their own value as fulfilling the call for a national aesthetic?  Readings include literary works by Melville, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, and critical works by D.H. Lawrence, F.O. Matthiessen, Leslie Fiedler, William Spengemann, and Richard Poirier.  

Location

(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Opium-induced fantasies. Detectives investigating violent crimes. Prostitutes lurking city streets. These are not the things that immediately come to mind when one thinks of nineteenth-century British literature—a literature more typically associated with poets writing meditative poems about nature or marriage-plot novels expressing conservative attitudes toward gender and sexuality. But nineteenth-century British literature was also deeply interested in representing various types of behavior that British society deemed to be dangerous and transgressive: prostitution, homosexuality, drug addiction, and urban crime. In this course we will read a number of major nineteenth-century authors (e.g. Thomas DeQuincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde) and examine a variety of genres, from poems and essays to detective novels as they explored the underbelly of British society. Fulfills the post-1800 requirement. No prerequisites.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 404 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

From 1886 to 1912, including poetry by Dickinson and Frost; realist and naturalist fiction by Twain, Wharton, James, Dreiser; representative nonfiction and philosophy.

Location

Todd Union Room 202 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

How do cyborgs, superheroes, and ghosts change our understanding of what it means to be human? How do interstellar travel, dystopian climate change, and revisionist ancient histories reframe the way we think of African diasporic histories of trauma, survival, desired freedom, and collective belonging? Studying science fiction, fantasy, and horror from across Africa, the Caribbean, and North America, this course will focus on how 20th and 21st century artists have reimagined black life after slavery and empire. We’ll study a range of artistic forms, including fiction, film, visual art, graphic novels, and music, by artists like Octavia Butler, Wanuri Kahiu, Wangechi Mutu, Nalo Hopkinson, Ryan Coogler, and Nnedi Okorafor. We’ll look at how artists of color contort the world we know, and how they use the speculative mode to pose deeply philosophical and historical questions. 

Location

Online Room 3 (ASE) (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Whether fugitive or enslaved, diseased or disfigured, in anguish or ecstasy, laboring, dissenting, dying, or engaged in racial or gender-based passing—the situation of the body in nineteenth-century U.S. literature provides a fascinating lens onto the political complexity and aesthetic inventiveness of this period of literary history. Reading across a wide range of poetry, narrative prose, and nonfiction, this course examines representations of individual bodies and conditions of embodiment, in light of the broader political pressures and state projects that imagined Americans as collectively forming a “body politic” shaped by the body politics of discourses of race, gender, disability, and sexuality. For example, we will ask how celebrations of the sexual body’s liberatory potential in later nineteenth-century works by Walt Whitman and Kate Chopin connect to that era’s racialized politics of population management, which perceived sex as a site of containment, control, and eugenicist social engineering. In addition to Whitman and Chopin, authors we will read include Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles W. Chesnutt, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Jacobs. 

Location

Lechase Room 163 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course will examine the relationship between modern and contemporary works of poetry, the language or languages in which that poetry is written, and the nature of thinking that can be said to occur most intensely in poetic art. At the origin of this version of poetic modernity, Whitman occupies a very large place. We will consider poets and poems in several literary and linguistic traditions, primarily English, French, Spanish and German, though all texts will be read in English. We will also spend some time considering the importance of the Western reception of Japanese verse forms, like Haiku, and Chinese ideograms by Western modernists who continue the Whitman tradition on a global scale.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 404 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course will examine the relationship between modern and contemporary works of poetry, the language or languages in which that poetry is written, and the nature of thinking that can be said to occur most intensely in poetic art. At the origin of this version of poetic modernity, Whitman occupies a very large place. We will consider poets and poems in several literary and linguistic traditions, primarily English, French, Spanish and German, though all texts will be read in English. We will also spend some time considering the importance of the Western reception of Japanese verse forms, like Haiku, and Chinese ideograms by Western modernists who continue the Whitman tradition on a global scale.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 403 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Whether fugitive or enslaved, diseased or disfigured, in anguish or ecstasy, laboring, dissenting, dying, or engaged in racial or gender-based passing—the situation of the body in nineteenth-century U.S. literature provides a fascinating lens onto the political complexity and aesthetic inventiveness of this period of literary history. Reading across a wide range of poetry, narrative prose, and nonfiction, this course examines representations of individual bodies and conditions of embodiment, in light of the broader political pressures and state projects that imagined Americans as collectively forming a “body politic” shaped by the body politics of discourses of race, gender, disability, and sexuality. For example, we will ask how celebrations of the sexual body’s liberatory potential in later nineteenth-century works by Walt Whitman and Kate Chopin connect to that era’s racialized politics of population management, which perceived sex as a site of containment, control, and eugenicist social engineering. In addition to Whitman and Chopin, authors we will read include Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles W. Chesnutt, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Jacobs. 

Location

Lechase Room 163 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Whether fugitive or enslaved, diseased or disfigured, in anguish or ecstasy, laboring, dissenting, dying, or engaged in racial or gender-based passing—the situation of the body in nineteenth-century U.S. literature provides a fascinating lens onto the political complexity and aesthetic inventiveness of this period of literary history. Reading across a wide range of poetry, narrative prose, and nonfiction, this course examines representations of individual bodies and conditions of embodiment, in light of the broader political pressures and state projects that imagined Americans as collectively forming a “body politic” shaped by the body politics of discourses of race, gender, disability, and sexuality. For example, we will ask how celebrations of the sexual body’s liberatory potential in later nineteenth-century works by Walt Whitman and Kate Chopin connect to that era’s racialized politics of population management, which perceived sex as a site of containment, control, and eugenicist social engineering. In addition to Whitman and Chopin, authors we will read include Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles W. Chesnutt, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Jacobs. 

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course explores the beginnings of the horror and detective genres in the 19th century. Particular attention is devoted to the narrative structure, tropes, and psychological content of the strange tales by Poe and Hoffmann. Theories of horror are also addressed to include discussions by lessing, Todorov, Huet, and Kristeva.

Location

Online Room 7 (ASE) (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

In this course we’ll dive deep into the cultural history of three sprawling cities, asking how urban space on the African continent has been imagined and reimagined from the mid-20th century to the present. Spending consecutive weeks on each—Lagos (Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa)—we will traverse an eclectic range of materials and perspectives. We’ll read about underground club cultures, colonial segregation laws, LGBTQ communities, and emergent musics like Afrobeat, Benga, and Township Tech. We’ll also study an array of cultural forms spanning sci-fi film, music videos, novels, sound art, fashion blogs, and comics. How, we’ll ask, do ever-shifting constraints, global influences, and desires for freedom change the shape of a city? What does it mean for a city to be continually reimagined and revised? 

Location

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

In this course we’ll dive deep into the cultural history of three sprawling cities, asking how urban space on the African continent has been imagined and reimagined from the mid-20th century to the present. Spending consecutive weeks on each—Lagos (Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa)—we will traverse an eclectic range of materials and perspectives. We’ll read about underground club cultures, colonial segregation laws, LGBTQ communities, and emergent musics like Afrobeat, Benga, and Township Tech. We’ll also study an array of cultural forms spanning sci-fi film, music videos, novels, sound art, fashion blogs, and comics. How, we’ll ask, do ever-shifting constraints, global influences, and desires for freedom change the shape of a city? What does it mean for a city to be continually reimagined and revised? 

Location

Online Room 6 (ASE) (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course will examine the relationship between modern and contemporary works of poetry, the language or languages in which that poetry is written, and the nature of thinking that can be said to occur most intensely in poetic art. At the origin of this version of poetic modernity, Whitman occupies a very large place. We will consider poets and poems in several literary and linguistic traditions, primarily English, French, Spanish and German, though all texts will be read in English. We will also spend some time considering the importance of the Western reception of Japanese verse forms, like Haiku, and Chinese ideograms by Western modernists who continue the Whitman tradition on a global scale.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 404 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Studies the history of “aesthetic” thought—namely the philosophical reflection on the concepts of beauty, taste, and sublimity, on our affective response to art and nature, and on the role of art and the artist in society—from Plato to the present, with particular emphasis on how it relates to questions of epistemology, anthropology, ethics, ontology, and politics. Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Dubos, Burke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche, Lyotard, Derrida, Rancière.

Location

Morey Room 525 (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Studies the history of “aesthetic” thought—namely the philosophical reflection on the concepts of beauty, taste, and sublimity, on our affective response to art and nature, and on the role of art and the artist in society—from Plato to the present, with particular emphasis on how it relates to questions of epistemology, anthropology, ethics, ontology, and politics. Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Dubos, Burke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche, Lyotard, Derrida, Rancière.  Conducted in English.

Location

Meliora Room 221 (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Intensive study of the writings of a single author or small group of authors from British or American literary traditions.

Location

Lattimore Room 401 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Charles Dickens is considered one of the great novelists in the English language. There are few novelists whose name alone conjures a distinctive style. But when we refer to a novel as “Dickensian,” it elicits numerous associations—intricate plots, labyrinthine depictions of cityscape and social life, comedic characterizations, social satire, and sentimentalism, to name a few. In this course we will read a variety of Dickens’s major novels in order to appreciate his vision and style as a writer and thus learn, first hand, what it means to describe a novel as Dickensian. The course will situate Dickens’s novels in their biographical, aesthetic, and historical contexts, but it will also examine stylistic aspects of Dickens’s writing (e.g. descriptive language, narrative voice, characterization). We will address Dickens’s influence on other nineteenth-century novelists and conclude with a twentieth-century novel that critics have labeled Dickensian. Fulfills the post-1800 requirement. No prerequisites.

Location

Meliora Room 218 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

More broadly, a study of the gray zone between short story and novel, containing many ambiguous labels (long short story, novella, short novel). The course will interrogate various boundaries -- When does a short story become a novella? When does a novella become a novel? -- and locate answers not merely in word count, but in reader experience and expectation. Because of the (relative) brevity of these in-between texts, the course will cover much stylistic and geographic ground. Author list may include: Franz Kafka, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Carson McCullers, Nathanael West, Gabriel García Márquez, Henry James, George Saunders, Jane Smiley, Lan Samantha Chang, Aleksandar Hemon, William Gass, and Cynthia Ozick.

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 270 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course studies American writers’ engagement with shifting experiences of environment, nature, and place during the period of intense modernization from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will study how writers imagine human-environment relationships amidst social, economic, and technological changes, such as urbanization, colonization, industrialization, and the civil rights and social justice movements. A guiding question raised by the artworks is: How to create a meaningful connection to the planet in a time of so much injustice, destabilization, delocalization, mobility, and flux? Close attention will be paid to how literature can help us elucidate historical erasures of environmental relationships in modern times, such as experiences of racial oppression, eco-tourism, exoticism, trauma and war, exile, alienation, among others.

Location

(MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Recently, women have collectively mobilized to announce and describe their anger to the public. We ask how to locate anger in social relations as well as in individuals. We try to distinguish between the behaviors emerging from men’s and women’s anger. We read Mercy and other works by Andrea Dworkin, graphic stories by Phoebe Gloeckner and Isabel Greenberg, the off-genre What Purpose Did I Serve in Your Life by Marie Calloway, The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, Vox by Christina Dalcher, autobiographical/documentary films by Michelle Citron, Su Friedrich, and Cheryl Dunye, the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale, and political writings such as Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister, Eloquent Rage: a Black Feminist Discovers her Superpower by Brittney Cooper, and Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly. Weekly essays, final essay, no exams.

Location

Online Room 3 (ASE) (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

This 4-credit intersession course will be conducted in London, UK, from DecemberJanuary TBA. Attending two plays per day with a seminar discussion each morning, students in this course are exposed to a full range of theatre experiences, from intimate theatre-in-the-round to monumental productions at the National Theatre, and from West End spectaculars to cutting-edge works mounted in post-industrial spaces. See the link on the English Department homepage to find the course's website, which describes the program in greater detail and contains syllabi from the past 25+ years. Need-based financial aid is available.

Intro to history, technology, cultural significance of motion pictures of the 'pre-sound' era, screenings of 35mm prints accompanied by live music in the Dryden Theatre. Special attention to major pioneers, Dickson, Porter, Lumire, Mlis, and Griffith, including a variety of internationally produced films selected from the world-famous archival film collection of the George Eastman House. Same as FMS 247

Location

Hylan Building Room 101 (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course provides a transnational survey of film history, examining the technical and formal aspects of the medium in its production and exhibition. As we explore the development of cinema during this period, we will address a number of aesthetic and technological issues. For example, how did the development of sound technology affect film form? How did it affect cross-cultural cinematic exchange? What is the significance of genre across various film traditions? What did the studio system contribute to Hollywood's success in the international market? How did immigrant and exiled film personnel shape the industries they joined? Weekly screenings and film journals required.

Location

Morey Room 504 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

A focused study of Godzilla on film, beginning with the 1954 film that inspired and helped define the Japanese kaiju eiga genre. The larger context of the course is a critical investigation of genre film, specifically the science fiction/horror/creature-feature film, and a careful consideration of the culture of war(World War II through 21st century). We begin with a sampling of seminal non-Japanese titles that provided the foundation for the Godzilla film paradigm, then focus on a close textual study of select Godzilla films that help us understand the historical and social contexts for Godzilla’s erratic trajectory since 1954. Recent DVD releases with both dubbed and original Japanese language versions enable us to dissect the culturally generated permutations of kaiju eiga.

Location

Meliora Room 206 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Location

Online Room 11 (ASE) (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course will explore the many ways in which cinema operates as a time machine. Through close analysis of works by Agns Varda, Chantal Akerman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Jean-Luc Godard we will consider varieties of cinematic temporality in relation to questions of history and memory (collective and subjective). Readings will include: Gilles Deleuze, Kaja Silverman, David Rodowick, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin.

Location

Morey Room 504 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course explores three of Italy’s mostprominent postwar directors, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Liliana Cavani, who developed distinct cinemas and contributed radical representations to key cultural debates. 
Students will examine each filmmaker’s specific formal and thematic innovations, such as Fellini’s 
carnivalesque and dreamlike states, Antonioni’s use of space and color, and Cavani’s marginal 
figures and use of flashback. Students will also compare how their works address three of postwar 
Italy’s and the West’s most critical questions: modernization, the 1968 student protests and the 
legacy of Fascism. Films include: Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Amarcord; Antonioni’s Red Desert and 
Zabriskie Point; Cavani’s The Cannibals and The Night Porter. Assignments include: historical, 
biographical and critical readings, film screenings, short papers and a final essay. Readings will 
be in English and films will be shown with English subtitles

Location

Lechase Room 182 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course runs in combination with an internship at Open Letter Books and focuses on explaining the basics of the business of literary publishing: editing, marketing, promoting, fundraising, ebooks, the future of bookselling, etc. Literature in translation is emphasized in this class, and all the topics covered tie in with the various projects interns work on for Open Letter Books.

Location

Meliora Room 219 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Investigate technical theater beyond the realms of ENG 170/171 (Technical Theater). Focus on skilled and specialized work related to the scenic design and technical production of the semester's Theatre Program productions. Working in small seminars and in one-on-one tutorials, the instructor will assist students in learning more about their chosen technical area, including advanced scenic and technical problem-solving. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

Advanced Acting aims to provide students who have substantial or significant performance experience an opportunity to explore, in depth, advanced acting techniques, while further developing interpretive and imaginative skills. The class aims to build creativity and the ability to inhabit a broad diversity of characters and performance styles.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This workshop is for advanced fiction writers who have completed ENG 121 or have permission from the instructor. The course emphasizes the development of each student's individual style and imagination, as well as the practical and technical concerns of a fiction writer's craft. Readings will be drawn from a wide variety of modern and contemporary writers. Students will be expected to write three original short stories as well as to revise extensively in order to explore the full range of the story's potential. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 302 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This workshop is for advanced fiction writers who have completed ENG 121 or have permission from the instructor. The course emphasizes the development of each student's individual style and imagination, as well as the practical and technical concerns of a fiction writer's craft. Readings will be drawn from a wide variety of modern and contemporary writers. Students will be expected to write three original short stories as well as to revise extensively in order to explore the full range of the story's potential. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

In all cases, there will be a 75-minute weekly class meeting to synthesize common goals and address topics of general interest as it relates to the week’s reading or writing assignments. This weekly class session will be followed by individualized tutorials once a week between faculty and student.

Location

(R 3:25PM - 4:15PM)

This workshop is for advanced fiction writers who have completed ENG 121 or have permission from the instructor. The course emphasizes the development of each student's individual style and imagination, as well as the practical and technical concerns of a fiction writer's craft. Readings will be drawn from a wide variety of modern and contemporary writers. Students will be expected to write three original short stories as well as to revise extensively in order to explore the full range of the story's potential. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

In all cases, there will be a 75-minute weekly class meeting to synthesize common goals and address topics of general interest as it relates to the week’s reading or writing assignments. This weekly class session will be followed by individualized tutorials once a week between faculty and student.

Location

Online Room 21 (ASE) (R 3:00PM - 4:15PM)

Poems, as William Carlos Williams once said, are machines made out of words, and in this advanced poetry workshop we will work on making the most gorgeous, gripping, and efficient machines possible. To that end, we will read both one another's poems and poems by established authors, in either case paying attention to the ways in which the authors harness aspects of their medium, the English language: syntax, diction, rhythm. The poems we write may take any shape, any form, but we will work towards understanding why a particular poem must take the shape it has; we will pay attention not so much to what the poems say as to how they say it. Requirements: weekly writing and reading assignments, revisions of assignments, devoted participation in class discussions, a final project.

Location

Online Room 9 (ASE) (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

From smart planning to solid research to sparkling communication, this course nurtures skills crucial in almost any field. We’ll look at how successful feature writers bridge the gap between news and commentary, shedding light on people, places, and perplexing issues. We’ll study their methods and put them into practice as we write our own articles. Among the feature forms we’ll explore: profiles, trend pieces, investigations, science and travel stories, and color pieces. Among our topics: finding and developing ideas; digging for information; interviewing and quoting effectively and ethically; achieving the right structure and tone; fact checking; revising and pruning; and getting published. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication. Please email Instructor a paragraph or two about why you would like to take the course.

Location

Morey Room 403 (T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

From smart planning to solid research to sparkling communication, this course nurtures skills crucial in almost any field. We'll look at how successful feature writers bridge the gap between news and commentary, shedding light on people, places, and perplexing issues. We'll study their methods and put them into practice as we write our own articles. Among the feature forms we'll explore: profiles, trend pieces, investigations, science and travel stories, and color pieces. Among our topics: finding and developing ideas; digging for information; interviewing and quoting effectively and ethically; achieving the right structure and tone; fact checking; revising and pruning; and getting published. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication. Please email Instructor a paragraph or two about why you would like to take the course.

Location

Morey Room 403 (T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

In this course students will investigate the following questions: What is argument? What is evidence? To answer these questions, students will also think deeply about how context does or does not shape our understanding of these concepts. For instance, what do arguments in STEM fields have in common with those in the humanities? Do different fields such as philosophy, psychology, and biology share evidence and argumentative strategies? Is the meaning of evidence static across these fields? We will begin by investigating different models of argument from philosophy and argumentation theory, and then students will use these broad models to investigate and analyze argument in academic contexts of their choice. We will also explore how these theoretical accounts of argument apply to popular contexts such as advertising, public deliberation, and journalism. Students will explore these issues through reflective writing, several short papers and a research project of their own design.

Location

Online Room 13 (ASE) (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course covers varying topics related to journalism

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room G121A (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course covers varying topics related to journalism

Presidential Rhetoric, taught by former presidential speechwriter Curt Smith, helps students critically examine the public rhetoric and themes of the modern American presidency. ENG 286 devotes special attention to the office’s symbolic nature, focusing on how well twentieth-century presidents communicate via a variety of forms, including the press conference, political speech, inaugural address, and prime-time TV speech. Smith will draw on his experiences at the White House and at ESPN TV to link the world’s most powerful office and today’s dominant medium. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

Lechase Room 161 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

A study of the theoretical backgrounds, practical challenges, and creative activity of literary translation.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course encourages you to bring your unique talent and personality to the screen with confidence and freedom. We will cover technical terminology and physical adjustments required for working in front of the lens. The first half of the semester will focus on 'on camera' interviews, auditions and interview work. The second half will focus on 2-3 character 'on camera? scene work. Every taped session will be followed up by feedback and discussion.

Location

Rettner Hall Room 305 (W 12:30PM - 3:15PM)

For actors, assistant directors and select student staff working on a current mainstage production.

For actors, assistant directors and select student staff working on a current mainstage production.

The stage manager is the critical organizational and management hub in the artistic process of theatrical production. Stage Managers are skilled project managers, and the skills learned in stage management are applicable to almost any management Stage Management (fall/spring) students will get an in-depth introduction to and immersion in stage managing a theatrical production. In addition, cover all areas of management skills, safety procedures, technical knowledge, and paperwork, students will be expected to serve as an assistant stage manager or production stage manager on one (or both) Theater Program productions in their registered semester.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (F 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

A 1 credit pass/fail performance lab course for students accepted into ENG 292, 293, 294, 295 & 296 or for those involved as actors in mainstage Theatre Program productions.

A 1 credit pass/fail performance lab course for students accepted into ENG 292, 293, 294, 295 & 296 or for those involved as actors in mainstage Theatre Program productions.

In Special Projects: Theatre students work in a particular area or on a particular project of their choosing or devising. Developed with and overseen by a Theatre Program faculty member and functioning like an Independent Study, Special Projects: Theatre allows students the opportunity of specializing in or investigate theatre in a tailored, focused, and self-directed way.

This course examines major critical issues surrounding the horror genre, through close study of Classical Hollywood, post-classical, and international horror films, and readings in critical theory. Issues to be explored include boundary transgression and bodily abjection in the construction of the horror monster; gender, pregnancy, and the monstrous-feminine; social Otherness (race, class, sexuality) as monstrosity; the figure of the serial killer and the shift from classic to modern horror; the grotesque and the blending of comedy and horror in the zombie film. As a research seminar, the course will involve the development of a substantial research project.

Location

Hylan Building Room 102 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Advanced seminar. Autobiography is the foundational genre in the tradition of African-American literature. It is also the genre that both illustrates and represents the process of the construction of identity. Autobiography is not only writing about a life authored by oneself, but also the life of the self made manifest in the form of writing. This course surveys the tradition of autobiographical writings by African Americans, from slave narratives to recent bestsellers, in order to promote an understanding of autobiography as a narrative form shaped by its historical context and the purposes of the author. In addition, the course provides students with insights into various topics in African-American culture and history. Readings include texts by Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, Zora Neale Hurston, Harriet Jacobs, Audre Lorde, Barack Obama, Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, and more. Requirements include two formal writing assignments, bi-weekly reading responses, and participation in class discussion.

Location

(MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course will provide an opportunity to sample an exciting body of contemporary literature, some written by authors already widely acclaimed when they received the Nobel Prize and some by writers suddenly catapulted into fame and international recognition. A central focus of the course will be the literature itself, but we will also look at some of the controversies the prize has generated – including the recent scandal that led to the prize’s temporary suspension. We will consider how receipt of the prize changed writers' lives and literary reputations. In the U.S., where less than 5% of the literature published each year is literature in translation, Nobel prize-winning literature is often the only modern literature Americans read in translation. This raises the question of translation and the role of the Nobel Prize in creating and promoting an international literature. We will also consider the special challenges this literature poses for its readers in speaking to both local and global audiences.

Location

Online Room 6 (ASE) (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

This course examines major critical issues surrounding the horror genre, through close study of Classical Hollywood, post-classical, and international horror films, and readings in critical theory. Issues to be explored include boundary transgression and bodily abjection in the construction of the horror monster; gender, pregnancy, and the monstrous-feminine; social Otherness (race, class, sexuality) as monstrosity; the figure of the serial killer and the shift from classic to modern horror; the grotesque and the blending of comedy and horror in the zombie film. As a research seminar, the course will involve the development of a substantial research project. Please contact Professor Middleton at jason.middleton@rochester.edu to request permission to add the course. Priority Registration given to English and Film majors.

Location

Online Room 12 (ASE) (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

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A course of reading, research, and writing on topics not covered by the existing curriculum, developed between the student and a faculty advisor.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

A course of reading, research, and writing on topics not covered by the existing curriculum, developed between the student and a faculty advisor.

A course of reading, research, and writing on topics not covered by the existing curriculum, developed between the student and a faculty advisor.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Advanced Stage Management Practicum is designed for, and available only to students fulfilling the roll of a Production Stage Manager on a mainstage Theatre Program production.

Advanced Stage Management Practicum is designed for, and available only to students fulfilling the roll of a Production Stage Manager on a mainstage Theatre Program production.

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Special seminar for senior majors accepted into the English Honors Program.

This course on tragedy has three parts. The first concentrates on ancient Greek tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles). The second considers the revival of tragedy in early modern England both as a prestigious neoclassical form and as a vehicle for domestic themes traditionally associated with comedy (Marlowe, Shakespeare, Dryden). The third takes up the disappearance--or transformation--of tragedy in more recent times (Beckett, Lorca). In addition to primary texts, we will examine a number of important theories of tragedy (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, Weil, Benjamin, Arendt). Our readings will be guided by such questions as: what might the story of this genre tell us about the longer history of representation? And how does tragedy illuminate basic problems such as the appeal of violence and vengeance, the role of religion in society, and the difficulty of finding an ethics that works for all people?

Location

Lechase Room 163 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

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