This course will focus on the ways British literature and the literatures of Britain’s former colonies have profoundly influenced one another over the last century. We’ll examine how literature, and cultural representation more broadly, was central to Britain’s colonization of other lands, and in turn how literature became a fundamental tool of anticolonialism and decolonization. Exploring 20th and 21st century fiction, poetry, and drama from across the English-speaking world—Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, Europe—we’ll study how a wide range of authors have been shaped by empire and its afterlives. How, for instance, do we put in conversation the work of Mulk Raj Anand, Joseph Conrad, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Jamaica Kincaid—four authors from what might seem to be radically disparate cultural environments? How do writers from Zimbabwe, Barbados, and India reconfigure the English language and make it their own? We’ll look at how writers from the modernist period to the present construct racialized difference, historical memory, and intersectional identities, all while experimenting with new literary forms.  

Location

Lechase Room 163 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course introduces students to some of the most significant literature from the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern literary periods. Beginning with the outbreak of the French Revolution and ending with World War I, the years covered by this course represent a time of dramatic political, economic, and cultural change. The nineteenth century witnessed the rise of industrialism, rapid imperialist expansion, religious crisis, increasing democracy, and shifts in gender and class identity. In exploring this tumultuous time period, the course will focus on an array of novelists, poets, and essayists who will serve as touchstones for the key political, intellectual, and aesthetic problems of their times (e.g. Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Brontë, Browning, Ruskin, Yeats, and Woolf). Students will not only gain a greater appreciation for individual authors, but they will also be able to situate them within a larger framework of ideas and historical currents. No prerequisites. 

Location

Hylan Building Room 101 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

A survey of American literature in English from its origins in colonial British America to the late-19th-century US. We begin with the fascinating diversity of colonial writing (explorers accounts, sermons, captivity narratives, religious poetry) and end with the canon of “classic American literature” in the second half of the 19th century (prose narratives, novels, lyrics). Alongside this process of literary development, we see British America gradually unified around a new national identity—one which must constantly shore itself up against the threat of fracture, internal and external pressures. Our focus will be the literary side of the story, but we’ll remain mindful of its relationships to that larger history. 

Location

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

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

Bausch & Lomb Room 315 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of media studies. We will look at a range of both media and historical tendencies related to the media, including manuscript culture, print, and the rise of the newspaper, novel, and modern nation-state; photography, film, television and their respective differences as visual mediums; important shifts in attitudes towards painting; the place of sound in the media of modernity; and the computerization of culture brought about by the computer, social networks, video games, and cell phones. In looking at these, we will consider both the approaches that key scholars in the field of media studies use, and the concepts that are central to the field itself (media/medium; medium-specificity; remediation; the culture industry; reification and utopia; cultural politics). By the end of the class, students will have developed a toolkit for understanding, analyzing, and judging the media that shape their lives in late modernity.

Location

Meliora Room 203 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

The objective of this course is to provide the necessary tools to enable critical reflection on the respective values and mutual relationships of comics, art and film. The first weeks will be spent acquiring the technical and historical context that will enable us to begin to recognize the breadth and depth of word/image narrative practices. After developing a core vocabulary for thinking about comics as a medium we will then look at how artists and directors have drawn on that vocabulary in a range of different contexts. Retaining a sense of the specificity of both comics and film as artistic mediums, we will closely consider topics ranging from cross-cultural translation, ontologies of otherness, and modes of mediated history. Course requirements include class participation, an autobiographical comic, weekly wordless posts, a vocabulary quiz and a final paper/project.  

Location

Gavett Hall Room 301 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

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. 

Location

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

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.

Location

Meliora Room 205 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This is 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. In addition to writing and revising poems, students will read and write on contemporary books of poetry, learning more about the current and recent landscape of American poetry. Instructor permission is required to register. If interested, please email three-to-five poems or pages of creative writing to jennifer.grotz@rochester.edu. Class size is limited to fifteen so interested students are encouraged to apply early.  

Location

Meliora Room 206 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course introduces students to the mechanics, materials, and aesthetics of lighting for the theatre.  Students gain a thorough understanding of lighting equipment, procedures, safety, and how these fascinating elements contribute to creating theatrical storytelling.  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 112 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Want to get your feet wet or hands dirty doing some exciting behind-the-scenes work on Theatre Program productions? A perfect hands-on way to explore the excitement, camaraderie, creativity, and skills needed for backstage work—in lighting, sound, costumes, scenery, or stage management—is to get involved in ENGL 126 Production Experience, a 1-credit, half semester course where you get to work on actual theatre productions in the brand-new Sloan Performing Arts Center through lab participation, joining run crews, or other practical ways. You’ll learn valuable skills while contributing to the excellence in production that the International Theatre Program is known for. You’ll play a real role in making theatre happen! No prior experience needed." 

A laboratory course on the fundamentals of gathering, assessing, and writing news. The course emphasizes accuracy and  presentation, and explores a variety of story structures, from hard news to features and columns. This course will be taught by David Andreatta. If you have any questions please contact him at dandreat@ur.rochester.edu
 

Location

Lattimore Room 210 (T 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This class is all about making your nonfiction writing more creative, lively and interesting. We’ll read and analyze magazine, newspaper and online stories that use scenes and details to tell compelling stories about people and their lives. We’ll explore different techniques of nonfiction writing, with an emphasis on voice and how good writing comes from great interviewing. And we’ll do a lot of writing as a way of practicing what we study. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication

Location

Morey Room 504 (R 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

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

Lechase Room 141 (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

Morey Room 205 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

While the term copyediting may be associated with journalism or literary fiction, in fact it is a vital component of the publication of almost any textual materials from scholarly and popular publishing in arts and sciences to corporate and technical communications. So what do copy editors do? Is copyediting simply about enforcing rules of correctness? When is it okay to break those rules, or to allow others to do so, and what guides such decisions? How do copy editors understand and negotiate the relationships and interests of readers, writers, and the publications they work for? How has the information age changed the way copy editors think about and approach textual editing? In this class we will address both the principles and practices of copyediting. Students will learn the principles that guide copy editors, and then put these principles into use in a workshop setting, practicing copyediting in a variety of contexts, including digital communications.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Primary Writing Requirement.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

Stage Combat explores the concepts and techniques of theatrical violence for stage and screen. Students will stress safety and control as they learn to create the illusions of punches, kicks, throws, and falls. The course focuses on unarmed combat. In-class performances will be video recorded to study stage and film technique.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (F 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Puppetry has a history dating back thousands of years. In this course, class participants will be introduced to the breadth, scope, and history of puppetry arts, including traditional Japanese forms (Bunraku-style, kuruma ningyo-style), shadow puppetry (wayang kulit and overhead projectors) and object performance. Students will learn style-specific manipulation techniques through hands-on exploration of breath, eyeline, focus, and micromovement.  Students will have the opportunity to make their own Bunraku-style puppets, and explore how to tell stories with objects, using non-verbal communication and gesture.  This class is great training for actors, dancers, and performers to explore subtlety, nuance, and how to make your performance secondary, and in service to the puppet/object, which is the primary focus of storytelling.

Location

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

Space and how it is conceived and explored is fundamental to the telling of stories on stage 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. Meets 1st 7 Mondays of S24 semester: 1st class meets on 1/22/24, last class meets on 3/4/23.

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

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: $75. To be added to the rolling waiting list contact Jason Middleton.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 101 (MW 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

Location

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

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

Sloan Performing Arts Center Room B023 (MW 9:00AM - 10:15AM)

Ever wonder and admire how sound designers create awesome aural environments in live performance? This course investigates the tools, tricks, skills, and equipment of realizing sound design for the theater. You’ll learn how Sound Designers shape sound and music, and collaborate with other artists to achieve a specific creative vision. You’ll see and experience how sound systems are put together, getting hands-on time with different equipment and learning just what each piece does. We will build on the fundamentals of sound systems that can start as small as your computer and go as large as filling a 1,000 seat theater or larger. As you learn these trades and skills, you’ll then apply them in the Theatre Program's productions, working with peers and industry professionals to put on a full scale production. Whatever your experience level, you are welcome here. All you need is a passion for hearing the world around you, and the desire to bring your own creative world to life on whatever stage you find. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (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)

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.?- Maya Angelou. In this course students will gain an understanding and greater command of their unique and powerful voice. We will explore the teachings of Kristin Linklater, Alexander Technique, Cecily Barry and many others to create full, free and forward sound that will serve the actor from the audition to the stage, the interview to the boardroom. Students will develop relaxation and awareness skills, learn to connect to a variety of texts in a meaningful and creative way and the ability to support and project, increase their vocal range, versatility, and confidence. Actors will learn to transform their voice into the voice of the character with the technique that allows them to meet the demands of doing it eight shows a week!

Location

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

This course addresses both conceptual and practical aspects of the creation of sound for live performance.  Students will acquire an understanding of the history and theory of sound design, with emphasis placed on the creative association of sound and image; the process of developing a well-crafted, professional design from script to technical rehearsal to performance; and hands-on experience with tools and techniques used to build a sound design and execute it on stage.  Pre-requisites: ENGL 154. Offered second half of the semester 3/18 - 4/29/24.

Location

Sloan Performing Arts Center Room B025 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

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

Todd Union Room 107 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

What did drama look and feel like in the Middle Ages? How much can we know about performances that took place well over 600 years ago? We have two main goals ahead of us in this course: to read the major extant works of drama in Middle English, and to stage a medieval play. Along the way, we will discuss the texts themselves, the manuscript history of the surviving plays, their performance history, their relation to drama on the Continent, the religious opposition to them, sixteenth-century attempts to de-Catholicize them, their ultimate suppression after the Reformation, and their revival in twentieth-century England and North America. 

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 270 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

The second 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 the second half of 'Purgatorio' and the entirety of 'Paradiso,' students learn how to approach Dante's 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 Dante's 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. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.

Location

Morey Room 501 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

We will try to do justice to the lives, experiences, and desires of late medieval women and men, reading narratives that then and now hold or challenge the imagination of living readers. We will engage accounts of ghosts and revenants who bridge the world of spirit and flesh, and encounter reanimated corpses and souls who speak to the living from purgatory or hell, all revealing intense medieval responses to daily life, bonds of love, and thoughts of death and afterlife.   In addition to narratives of lost souls, zombies, and reanimated corpses, readings will include the out-of-body experience of Pearl, the amazing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, several other Arthurian / Gawain romances, fantasies of global and racial diversity in Mandeville’s Travels, and personal revelations by Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, among the first women writers in English.  All texts (with glosses and notes) will be supplied by the instructor, or will be available online through the UR’s own amazing Middle English Texts Series (https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text-online ).  We will also use digital resources to immerse ourselves in surviving 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, distinctive version of English as well as the dreads, longings, and joys felt by its speakers and writers.  Students will lead discussions, write short responses / analyses, and a longer final paper. 

Location

Gavett Hall Room 301 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course focuses on four very different major authors in the English Renaissance -- Robert Greene, William Shakespeare, John Milton, and Margaret Cavendish. We will have time to learn about each author, their writing, and their audiences. Why do we know more about the lives and writing practices of some of these authors than others? What is distinctive about their writing? Which literary traditions and social circumstances are most salient as we analyze their work? Who were their audiences?  Did this writing always appear in print and, if not, how did it reach its audiences?  Because each author was quite prolific and wrote in a wide range of literary forms, we will have at hand a rich set of readings. We will study examples of short verse and longer narrative and epic poetry, prose fiction and non-fiction essays, and drama designed for reading and for performance. We also will consider, among other topics, the tension between autobiographical and fictional voice (the celebrity persona cultivated by Greene’s pamphlets, the “I” of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, Cavendish’s self-presentation in public appearances and in her writing), these writers’ engagement with each other’s work (Shakespeare’s use of Greene’s Pandosto as a source for The Winter’s Tale, Milton’s references to Shakespeare’s plays in Paradise Lost and in his non-fiction prose), and the impact of the English Revolution on the writing and reception of Milton and Cavendish. No restrictions – all students welcome.
Fulfills the following requirements in the English major tracks: an upper-level course in British or American literature before 1800 for the British and American Literature track, for the Creative Writing track, and for the Theater track; and a literature course at the 200-level for the Language, Media, and Communication track.  Fulfills the following requirements in the English minors: a 200-level British or American literature course for the Creative Writing minor and the English Literature minor. Fulfills the following requirement in the Great Books, Great Authors cluster (an English/Humanities cluster): a 200-level major author course (please see English department Director of Undergraduate Studies for a cluster exception signature).
 

Location

O'brien Hall Room 105 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

British romanticism (1780-1830) came to life in the midst of extreme stress and change: revolutionary politics, science, religion, technology, and commerce. Artistically, writers of astounding talents experimented with radical forms of creativity—often at the dangerous edge where dreams and fantasy meet reality. One important form of this fusion is the “gothic”—which uses the medieval, the terrifying, the violent, and the creepy to explore the extremes of intense human experience. We shall focus on the most fascinating and gripping works to emerge from these efforts, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Location

Lechase Room 124 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

What does it mean to be a writer in a world where AI systems like ChatGPT or Claude can produce text that is at least sometimes indistinguishable from text written by a human? In this course, we will explore a variety of AI tools with the goal of understanding how these tools might fit into the writing process and where the possible pitfalls lie. We’ll learn how to interpret articles about AI in the media with a critical eye and discuss what would be necessary for media to do a better job of writing about AI. But we’ll also experiment with AI tools to explore what it means to write with AI. Throughout the semester, we’ll dive deeper into what it is that we humans do when we write, from brainstorming all the way through final drafts, and we’ll probe what happens when we add AI to the mix at each of those stages in a series of reflective assignments. These will build towards a final project in which students offer a research-based proposal for a specific way in which AI could be effectively and ethically used by writers.

Location

Hylan Building Room 303 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

When the now-classic novels of writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and D. H. Lawrence were published in the first part of the 20th century, readers were shocked by both their style and content. In the face of revolutionary upheavals in social and political life and in the understanding of human psychology and personal relationships, these writers proclaimed the end of fiction as we know it. Exploring the limits and possibilities of language and form, they called into question the very idea of “the novel” and its appropriate subject matter. Looking back from our vantage in the 21st century, we will reassess what made these novels appear so shocking. Pairing earlier twentieth-century works with novels from the second half of the century, we will also look at the way later writers revised the idea of modern consciousness and the fiction appropriate to it and at the ways they responded to the post WWII remapping of the British Empire and to the construction of postmodern and postcolonial identities. 

Location

Morey Room 501 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

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. NOTE: THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN ENGLISH

Location

Lattimore Room 431 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

We’ll be looking closely at some poets writing in the the early and mid-twentieth century who changed how poetry is made—changed it in ways that continue to shape the work of poets in the twenty-first century. The list will include Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, and Hart Crane. These are all poets who searched for a language more naked and more subtle, a language more open to the wildly shifting nature of experience in the historical world and in also our minds, conscious and unconscious. In their poems, a shocking plainness combines often with a challenging difficulty, a fierce and seductive strangeness, a wild sense of play. The personal and the impersonal intertwine in remarkable ways. We’ll also look at work of later poets touched by these moderns, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Haydon, John Ashbery, and others. Counts for the post-1800 requirement for the English major. Relevant clusters:  “Modern and Contemporary Literature” (1ENG008), “Great Books, Great Authors” (H1ENG010), and “Poems, Poetry, and Poetics” (H1ENG012). 

Location

Genesee Hall Room 308 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

With its unprecedented death toll and new technologies of destruction, WWI shattered illusions and exploded the fabric of society as people then knew it. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the war was instrumental in shaping the modern world in terms of geopolitical shifts and the weakening of Empire, transformed gender roles, reinvented language, and new practices of remembrance. In the wake of the Covid pandemic and the ongoing struggle in Ukraine, the questions of how and why we remember so forcefully posed by the war are newly relevant. While in the US, WWI remains our “forgotten war,” in the UK it is nothing short of a national obsession. Despite subsequent world conflicts and other traumatic occurrences, the Great War has remained for the British a haunting presence, becoming, in poet Ted Hughes’s words, the “number one national ghost.” As we move past the 100th anniversary of the war, we will trace the history of this national obsession in the searing poetry of the trenches, the combatant’s memoirs that exposed the war’s horror and futility, and the modernist fiction that registered the war’s impact in new ways of seeing. We will also explore returns to the war in late 20th/early 21st c. film, theater, television, and popular culture. For as War Horse and Downton Abbey have dramatically demonstrated, the memory of the war continues to fascinate, sustaining old myths and feeding new ones. This course will attempt to explain why the Great War has had such a remarkable hold on the modern imagination and what it can tell us about our own historical moment.

Location

Lechase Room 104 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course places Jane Austen's novels within the context of other female novelists writing in the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Readings will include Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion, in addition to works by Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Mary Shelley. Fulfills the pre-1800 Requirement for the English Major. 

Location

Lechase Room 104 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

What is a witch? Culturally, most people associate the term with pointed hats, black cats, and broomsticks. Historically, it refers to a threat to the social order, an enemy of the state, a confederate with the devil. Many scholars see the figure as a figment invented to attack those (usually women) perceived as defying community norms or infringing on official turf. Complicating these accounts, witch identity has been subsequently claimed by those who see in the term forgotten histories of female power, and better attitudes toward nature, gender, mind, and being. Through readings in drama, fiction, criticism, and history, this course introduces and explores this complex of perspectives on the figure of the witch. We will spend the bulk of the course in the early modern period (focusing in particular on the witch-hunting crazes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). But we will also read ancient and current writing on this subject. Authors will include Euripides, Shakespeare, Condé, and many others. 
Fulfills upper level writing requirement and diversity requirement. 
 

Location

Meliora Room 218 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

What can we learn about disordered and diseased minds from the past? How does literature from previous centuries illuminate how we understand psychology and psychiatry today? This course explores narratives of mental illness in English and German literature, the strangely romanticized relationship between insanity and creativity, and the changes in social and literary attitudes to various manifestations of mental illness over the course of five centuries. We will read intricate autobiographical accounts of mental illness (beginning in the fifteenth century, with a long poem by Chaucer’s biggest fan), novels and plays depicting mentally ill characters (and, in one case, the parallel madness of an entire society), recently-famous poems written in obscurity and despair in the asylum, and early theoretical and sociological works on insanity.

Location

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

This 4-credit intersession course will be conducted in London, UK, from December 26, 2022–January 7, 2023. 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. The fee total is $2850 

Moving images recorded on analog film defined the 20th century in an unprecedented way. This course considers the tangible object that is the source of the image onscreen, and the social, cultural, and historical value of a reel of film as an organic element with a finite life cycle. We focus on the analog photographic element and its origins (both theatrical and small gauge), the basics of photochemical film technology, and the state of film conservation and preservation worldwide. Guest lectures by staff of the Moving Image Department of George Eastman Museum provide a first-hand look at film preservation in action, allowing us to consider analog film as an ephemeral form of material culture: a multipurpose, visual record that is art, entertainment, evidentiary document, and historical artifact. Weekly film assignments. Class meets on River Campus and at George Eastman Museum (900 East Ave, no admission fee but students provide their own transportation). No audits, no pre-requisites. Enrollment limited by hands-on nature of course.

Location

Wegmans Room 1009 (R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course explores three of Italy’s most prominent post-WWII 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 thematic and stylistic 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; and 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

Hylan Building Room 105 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir said “throughout humanity superiority has been granted not to the sex that gives birth but to the one that kills.” Is it true that the matter with men is killing? Do men kill because they think they are superior? Do they think they are superior because they kill? Are men violent because they can’t speak? Why don’t men “use their words”? How is men’s woman-hating related to killing and raping? Why do women say that “men don’t listen”? Writers, who do use their words, have depicted men’s killing and their chronic melancholia over two millennia. This course considers how well-read stories and poems show men’s struggle with shame, anger, violence, and language. Writers studied include: James Baldwin, Samuel Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Stephanie Greenberg, Ira Levin, Herman Melville, Anne Petry, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf. 

Location

Lechase Room 181 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Apart from his infamous cameos, Alfred Hitchcock was a filmmaker who wanted his presence—seen or unseen—felt by his audience. When you watch a Hitchcock film, you are meant to be acutely aware that it is Hitchcock’s film. This course examines how exactly that works. More than a proper noun, “Hitchcock” implies a formal style, a dramatic genre and a paradigm of postwar Auteurism and influence. This course revolves around a close examination of fifteen out of the director’s fifty films, as well as samples from his television series. Without pardoning his socially insensitive shortcomings (i.e. misogynist “heroes,” mistreatment of leading ladies, use of blackface, etc.) we will unpack just what constitutes the “Hitchcock” touch. From his British silents to his Hollywood “masterpieces” to his final works, this course considers the ways in which Hitchcock devised a relation among narrative, spectator and character point of view, so as to yield his singular configuration of suspense, sensation and perception. 

Location

Goergen Hall Room 108 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

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

Lechase Room 148 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course introduces students to the methods involved in turning real objects into virtual ones using cutting edge digital imaging technology and image rendering techniques. Focusing on manuscripts, paintings, maps, and 3D artifacts, students will learn the basics of multispectral imaging, photogrammetry, and Reflectance Transformation Imaging, and spectral image processing using ENVI and Photoshop. These skills will be applied to data from the ongoing research of the Lazarus Project as well as to local cultural heritage collections.

Location

Hylan Building Room 303 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

Investigate technical theater beyond the realms of ENGL 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

Sloan Performing Arts Center Room B023 (MW 2:00PM - 3:25PM)

Building off of concepts introduced in ENGl 171/172 (recommended, but not required), students will learn the skills necessary to build and operate theatrical sound systems. Students will receive hands-on opportunities with live sound equipment, learn proper signal flow, get experience running and troubleshooting systems, and experiment with both technical and creative design. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

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

Diagnosing and talking to patients effectively, safely, and with empathy is a key skill for doctors and all behavioral health care providers. “Standardized Patients” (SPs) are carefully trained actors who realistically and accurately present as a patient with psychiatric symptoms in devised, structured encounters. Using skills including improvisation, and character analysis and development, in conjunction with medical insights into psychiatric behaviors and conditions, students will not only develop unusual, sustainable, and highly valued skillsets, but actively work to give feedback to trainees while putting their own performance objectives and learning into real world practice. A collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry’s Laboratory for Behavioral Health Skills, Performing as Patients is a rare and unique opportunity to build important, marketable, real-world skills with creative, targeted and valuable theatrical techniques.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Shakespeare's plays are living, breathing documents, written to be rehearsed quickly and presented to a diverse audience.  As an actor himself, Shakespeare wrote compelling characters whose motivations are revealed through his language.  For a contemporary actor, this language offers challenges, delights, and huge rewards.  This course will immerse students in the heart of Shakespeare's language, building an understanding of meter, rhyme, rhythm, and text, exploring how to bring his language and characters to vivid, theatrical life.  Immerse yourself in the exploration of some of Shakespeare's plays and learn how to embody Shakespearean text, working with scene partners and on soliloquies, while developing the vocal and physical skills to bring his characters to life.Shakespeare's plays are living, breathing documents, written to be rehearsed quickly and presented to a diverse audience.  As an actor himself, Shakespeare wrote compelling characters whose motivations are revealed through his language.  For a contemporary actor, this language offers challenges, delights, and huge rewards.  This course will immerse students in the heart of Shakespeare's language, building an understanding of meter, rhyme, rhythm, and text, exploring how to bring his language and characters to vivid, theatrical life.  Immerse yourself in the exploration of some of Shakespeare's plays and learn how to embody Shakespearean text, working with scene partners and on soliloquies, while developing the vocal and physical skills to bring his characters to life.

Location

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

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. In addition, this course will explore and attend to process, which may include questions of inspiration, generation, and revision. and Requirements: weekly writing and reading assignments, revisions of assignments, devoted participation in class discussions.  Permission of instructor is required. Students are to submit 3-5 typed poems by email to the instructor.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 226 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An introduction to the three-act film structure. Students will read and view numerous screenplays and films, and develop their own film treatment into a full-length script. 

Location

Lechase Room 182 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Whether you call them radio dramas or fiction podcasts, audio-only plays captivate listeners with gripping dialogue, mood-setting music, and judicious sound effects. In this course, you will first create your own play for the ear, and then turn it into a short podcast. Be ready to give and receive robust feedback in a fast-moving, team-oriented atmosphere.

Location

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

This course offers students an advanced engagement with theories, histories, and the skills and techniques of competitive academic debate. We will begin by exploring the many ways in which the activity of competitive debate has developed, regressed, turned corners, and evolved over its 100-year modern existence in the United States. Students will study many "meta-debates" about how the activity should be conducted as a particular context for examining several critical theoretical and philosophical approaches to understanding speech, debate, and the public sphere. Alongside this track students will have opportunities to learn advanced research skills and further develop their own abilities as debaters as the semester progresses. Assignments will include in-class speeches and debates, research papers, and occasional presentations. Students who wish to take the course but have not completed ENG 135: Introduction to Debate should email the instructor at brady.fletcher@rochester.edu for permission.

Location

Harkness Room 210 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

From planning to research to 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. And we'll put their methods into practice as you write your own articles. Among the feature types the course explores: 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; finding a suitable structure and tone; fact checking; revising and pruning; and getting published. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication. **Email Instructor a paragraph or so about your experience in reporting and/or writing. Students in this class should have taken at least one introductory journalism course AND/OR have significant extracurricular/internship experience in nonfiction reporting, writing, or editing. (Students who have taken Humor Writing at UR are also eligible.)

Location

Lechase Room 182 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Rochester is rich in stories, and throughout the course of the semester, students will look back at key moments, key issues, and key players in Rochester’s history. And students will also each build a longform story focusing on an event, a person, or a moment that shaped life in Rochester. For example, in previous semesters, one student looked at the impact of the bicycle on women’s liberation in Rochester, another examined how the garbage plate became an iconic Rochester food offering. Class discussions will also involve analyzing examples of nonfiction narratives. 

Location

Morey Room 502 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Provides a historical and critical introduction to the idea of medium and media, including books, paint, electronic files, music, photography, etc.

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 269 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

We will investigate broad models of argument and evidence from the interdisciplinary field of argumentation theory. Students will apply these models to specific academic and social contexts of their choice. Some questions we might ask are: Can argument or evidence be understood absent context? What do arguments in STEM fields have in common with those in the humanities? For instance, is there common ground in how we argue about English literature and how biologists argue about the natural world? How do audience and purpose in disciplines such as psychology, physics and philosophy shape what counts as an argument in their respective fields? Does political argument resemble academic argument? What strategies will enable experts to communicate more effectively with public audiences in fields such as public health and the environmental humanities? Students will write frequent reflections, develop several short papers, and the semester will culminate in the construction of a final project of the student’s own design (for example, a research paper, a website, a podcast…) that can focus on any aspect of academic, professional, or political argumentation.

Location

Hylan Building Room 305 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

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

The focus of this course is to examine what makes a translation "successful" as a translation. By reading a series of recently translated works (some contemporary, some retranslations of modern classics), and by talking with translators, we will have the opportunity to discuss both specific and general issues that come up while translating a given text. Young translators will be exposed to a lot of practical advice throughout this class, helping to refine their approach to their own translations, and will expand their understanding of various practices and possibilities for the art and craft of literary translation.

Location

Meliora Room 219 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

The purpose of writing in a digital world is to engage with a broader community around a topic of interest and contribute to public knowledge. In this course, students are invited to dig deeply into a question of interest, write for a public audience, and use the Internet as an archive of information waiting to be discovered, analyzed, and written about. Students can draw on pre-existing research interests from their majors or develop a line of inquiry stemming from class discussions, writing, and research. In order to gain experience writing to a range of readers, students will engage in a writing process informed by peer review, self-assessment, and revision. Shorter writing assignments will help students develop and refine ideas as they transform texts for different audiences. The final research project will be multimodal, published for a public audience, and should demonstrate your ability to think critically about a topic and effectively communicate that knowledge to a range of readers.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Primary Writing Requirement.

Location

Lechase Room 148 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Drawing on work from functional linguistics (e.g., Halliday, Hyland, Vande Kopple) and voice (Elbow), this course investigates the sentence—especially its rich potential for creating the writer’s meaning, persona, and voice. Through studying form-meaning relationships, we will see how sentence patterns shape meaning and affect readers’ interpretations not only in sentences, but also across paragraphs, essays, and larger works. Assignments will regularly involve analyzing texts chosen by students and playing purposefully with language. To aid analysis, GPT will be used to generate different versions of the “same” text, and AntConc, a simple corpus analysis tool, will help reveal textual patterns across large amounts of text. Through a final project, students will investigate some aspect of the sentence in a medium and context of their choice or address an interesting theoretical question about the sentence. This course is ideal for those interested in any kind of writing, writing education, or editing. Background in linguistics or grammar is not necessary. Open to undergraduates and graduate students.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room G108 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course takes up translation process as an object of study. How do translators work? What opportunities and constraints are present for freelance, specialist, or professional translators? To what extent do translators not only transmit but actively create knowledge and build community via their work of interpreting and adapting? We’ll explore a range of potentially high-stakes cases involving textual, audiovisual, and multimodal renditions of a source text. These may include translating an ad or museum label; subbing a TED Talk or performance; dubbing in anime or games; interpreting for business, medical, or other purposes. Along with course readings and short experimental translations, students will work with our paraprofessional consultants and community partners in SW Rochester to craft final projects that provide a meaningful extension of course learning to real-world issues (Counts toward the Citation in Community-Engaged Scholarship; see Authentically Urban, Virtually Global: Southwest Rochester).

Location

Hylan Building Room 206 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

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)

Musical Theatre is, indubitably, America's greatest home-grown theatrical form and one of the major accomplishments of American culture.  From Carousel to Hadestown, Show Boat to Next to Normal, American musical theatre has defined, celebrated, and confronted our lives through song, dance, and dramatic character and action.  The skills, techniques and talent needed to effectively embody characters from the repertoire challenge actors and singers in startling ways. This is a workshop-format, performance-based course devoted to the development of skills--both dramatic and musical--for musical theatre.  We will take songs (and, potentially, scenes) from a range of musicals and explore them from a performer's point of view: investigating action, character, musicality, vocal technique, and more. The class follows a workshop model, with students performing material that is then critiqued and reworked.  Students may get to work on both contemporary and Golden Age repertoire in both solo/monologue format and, potentially, in scenes or duets. The class is intended for students with some background in musical theatre performance and is by audition only. Follow link to sign up for Audition times -  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9OrlD-olnUaBcngJSIeKg-1KU4aFK9YU_IVK-LRUjDyRliA/viewform

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (W 3:25PM - 6:05PM)

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

For actors, assistant directors and select student staff working on the 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 situation.  Stage Management (fall/spring) students will get an in-depth introduction to and immersion in stage managing a theatrical production, as well as understanding the broader context of stage management within cultural, historical, theatrical and aesthetic histories/contexts.  The course covers all areas of management skills, safety procedures, technical knowledge, and paperwork.  Students will be expected to put in significant time in the lab portion of the course: serving 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.

Narrative is fundamental to many areas of inquiry, including literary studies, film and media studies, history, anthropology, psychology, law, and political science, to name just a few. This course studies narrative from various perspectives, including historiography (Hayden White’s Metahistory), philosophy (Aristotle’s Poetics; Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative), narratology (Mieke Bal’s Introduction to the Theory of Narrative; Roland Barthes, Gerard Genette, Tzvetan Todorov), film studies (Seymour Chatman’s Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film). The course will enable the student to develop the necessary analytical tools for understanding both literary and non-literary, textual and non-textual narratives. Conducted in English.

Location

Morey Room 502 (W 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

Are we experiencing the end of the world? Popular culture and the media cycle broadcast endless news of developments devastating for the sustainability of human civilization: infertility crises, weather disasters, GMO monsters, class warfare, mass extinction, and infectious diseases, even zombies. Scientists have recognized the irreparable impact that the human species have had on the earth’s ecological processes by naming a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. This course investigates representations of environmental apocalypse and the new geological era of the Anthropocene in order to understand the cultural politics and history of anxiety about end-times and the meaning of nature, planet, and ecology in our lives. We will read fiction by Cormac McCarthy​, Octavia Butler, and Indra Sinha; screen the films Mad Max: Fury Road, 28 Days Later, World War Z, and Snowpiercer; examine Arcade Fire’s album The Suburbs; and study recent environmental theory. We will also travel off campus to the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center in Syracuse, NY, for an all-day workshop the history of the Onondaga Nation.

Pre-requisites: Prior course work in EHUM or related field required.

Location

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

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.

Read short stories by contemporary writers along with fiction by the students in the workshop, and discuss ways writers can sharpen the conversation between text and reader. Also consider editing and reviewing techniques. Students expected to write and revise at least three original stories or three sections of a longer work of fiction.

Location

Lechase Room 182 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

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. In addition, this course will explore and attend to process, which may include questions of inspiration, generation, and revision. and Requirements: weekly writing and reading assignments, revisions of assignments, devoted participation in class discussions. Permission of instructor is required. Students are to submit 3-5 typed poems by email to the instructor.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 226 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

In the class we’ll be looking in-depth at some of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, the central tragedies, especially Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. We’ll also touch briefly on some other tragedies, particularly the play about ancient Rome, Coriolanus. We’ll be thinking about how these plays transform the vision of tragic experience and fate in earlier drama, how the plays dissect both love and power. We’ll look at how the plays offer a new language for human consciousness, human life in time, a language of self by turns intimate and cosmic, fantastical and fiercely material. At the center of all of them is the question of madness. These plays also grow out of Shakespeare’s ways of exploring the possibilities of live theater, pushing its limits, dissecting its illusions. The history of how these tragedies have been staged will thus be part of our study as well. There will be some brief written exercises, but the main work of the class will be a sustained essay in analysis,  focused most likely on a single play, on a topic that each student will develop themselves, with the professor’s help. The class is open to non-majors as well as majors in English—please contact me if you have any questions about the nature of the work. Counts as a pre-1800 course and fulfills the advanced seminar requirement for majors. Relevant clusters:  Great Books, Great Authors (H1ENG010), and Plays, Playwrights, and Theater (H1ENG011). 

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

The seminar considers the extent to which people assimilate the language of literature into ordinary usage. As we read, language, fantasy, and thought in literature combine in a social and political gesture. For most literature, we remember stories and characters, but rarely words. Literary language acts on us mostly without our awareness. With attention to a variety of genres of fiction, poetry, drama, and popular song lyrics, the seminar estimates the social and political speech action of literary language. Seminar members are invited to re-use the language of the works on the reading list by placing this language in new contexts and then comparing the new usages with those experienced in reading. Works on the reading list, which raise issues of language action, suggest how such actions appear in any literature. Authors studied include Dickinson, Kafka, Lawrence, Morrison, Olds, Orwell, Pinter, and Shakespeare. Obscene language is considered as a model of how literary language is politically active.

Location

Morey Room 524 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

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

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

Registration for English Internships needs to be completed through the Registrar's office Internship form

Blank Description

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

Enrollment in ENG 398 is limited to students who have been accepted into the English Department Honors Program for 2022-2023, and who are currently taking ENGL 396, the Honors Seminar.

Blank Description