Undergraduate Program

This course introduces students to some of the most significant literature from the Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist literary periods. The literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century witnessed an era of monumental change: the American and French Revolution; rising democracy and the fight for the equal rights of women, workers, and slaves; colonial expansion and colonial rebellion; the beginnings of climate change and the first World War. In this course we will examine how literary figures from this period responded to this time of tumultuous change. How did writers use various literary forms, ranging from poetry, novels, and essays, to reflect on the world that was being transformed around them and to express their own point of view? How was literature for poets and novelists not just a space for private artistic expression, but also a way to articulate political dissent? In addressing these questions, we 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. William Blake, P. B. Shelley, John Ruskin, Charlotte Brontë, T.S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad, and Virginia Woolf, to name a few). Students will not only gain a greater appreciation for the artistic vision of individual authors, but they will also be able to situate these writers within a larger framework of ideas and historical currents. No prerequisites. Counts toward the survey requirement for the Literature, Creative Writing, and Theater majors. Relevant clusters: “Great Books, Great Authors” (H1ENG010). 

Location

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

Survey of American literature in English from its origins in colonial British America to the late-nineteenth-century U.S. We begin with the fascinating diversity of colonial writing (explorers' accounts, sermons, captivity narratives, religious poetry) and end with the first canonical works of “classic American literature” (prose narratives, novels, lyrics) in the second half of the nineteenth century. Alongside this process of literary development, British America is gradually becoming unified around a new national identity—yet, at the same time, constantly threatening to fracture under internal and external pressures. Our focus will be on the literary side of the story, but we’ll remain mindful of its relationships to that larger history. Authors will likely include John Winthrop, Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Phillis Wheatley, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman.

Location

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

This course surveys African American literature of a variety of genres—primarily fiction, poetry, and non-fiction essays—from the early 20th century to the present. The course interprets this tradition not only as the creative expression of American writers of African descent, but also as a set works displaying formal characteristics associated with black cultural traditions. Discussion topics will include the meanings of race, the construction of black identity, and intra-racial differences of class, gender, and sexuality, as well as how experimentation, 1960s black radicalism, and the contemporary Movement for Black Lives have shaped black literature. Our readings will traverse a range of influential writers, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, and Danez Smith.

Location

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

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

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

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

(T 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. 

Location

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

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. 

Location

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

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

(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." 

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

(TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

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 get outside the classroom to explore stories and do a lot of writing as a way of practicing what we study. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication

Location

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

The course will focus on the basic elements of editing for publication and on the ethical, legal and practical issues editors face. 

Location

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

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

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

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

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

This course introduces theatrical and social dance forms frequently used in musical theatre and opera productions. Each class begins with a thorough warm up that draws from somatic practices to promote healthy alignment and prevent injuries. Following the warm up, students learn and perform dance combinations incorporating a range of styles, including jazz, jitterbug, waltz, and others. The course focuses equally on the development of technical skills, musicality, and stage presence.

Location

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

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

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

This course will introduce students to the process of creating and altering costumes for a theatrical production. Through a variety of projects, students will learn a myriad of techniques used in hand sewing, machine sewing, and fabric manipulation. Emphasis will be placed on the ability to create a costume from initial design to a fully realized garment. Students will use these skills on multiple projects throughout the course as well as lab time where they will refine these skills on a current theatrical production.  Students will also get to discover the Costume Designer's process, from initial sketch through finished garment, and will get exciting opportunities to work with guest artists on actual theatrical productions, creating a better understanding of the process and function of a professional costume shop.

Location

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

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

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

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

(MW 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.

Location

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

Location

(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

(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

(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

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

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

(F 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

Wes hal! England prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 c.e,  produced King Alfred, Beowulf and stunning poetry and prose, written at a time when “Anglo-Saxon” England fought for its cultural and political status in the British Isles. We’ll explore the sublime, mystical, medical, and earthy writings of England: Wonders of the East, comets, portents, medicinal charms, riddles, the Paternoster and the Devil, maps, visions, wolves, women, runes, cross-dressing saints. We’ll read some in the original Old English and some in translation, and as your lareow (teaching-slave) I’ll help you sharpen your knowledge of OE grammar and vocabulary, and explore the diversity of a people who’ve been reduced to stereotype and debasement. Old English stood with Old Irish as being one of the earliest producers in western Europe of a people’s native language on manuscript. England survived invasions by the Danes and the Normans (1066) which never completely replaced its language with Danish or French, merely change it.  

Location

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

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is perhaps the most poetically sophisticated, bawdy, funny, and cynical  portrait of pre-Modern society in the English canon. This course is a portal into Chaucer's world: language, class pretensions, gender non-conformism, political cataclysms. Reading the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English – easy and fun to learn – the class explores both the tales themselves and some of their contemporary reimaginings.  

Location

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

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

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

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

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

This course focuses on literature and medicine in the 16th and 17th centuries. It introduces students to the major medical systems of the era and explores the ways that medical theories and practices both influenced and incorporated literary representations. We will consider character, inspiration, gender, race, and erotic love, among other topics. Authors may include William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Robert Burton, Thomas Browne, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Finch, Lady Montague, and members of the Royal Society. 

Location

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

In this class we’ll be reading the work of the so-called “metaphysical poets,” a group of English Renaissance poets including John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Traherne, and Andrew Marvell. Shakespeare’s sonnets may also be on the reading list. The poems of these writers are marked by an intense, passionate style of intellectual play, by wildness of metaphor, density of thought, and dramatic force of language. Their poems range from the secular to the sacred, from witty and often bluntly sexual love poems to poems of divine praise and spiritual affliction. The metaphysicals have been a continual provocation to later poets, from Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot to Elizabeth Bishop and John Ashbery, and we’ll be looking at some of these responses as well. Relevant cluster: Poems, Poetry, and Poetics (H1ENG012). Counts for pre-1800 requirement in the English major. 

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

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

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

The course will focus on literary treatments of the ancient theme of metamorphosis, myths and fictions that describe the transformation of human beings and gods into beasts, plants, elements, and objects, as well as the bringing to life of things that are inanimate, lifeless.  One fundamental text will be the book-length poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, a work that offers an encyclopedic re-telling of hundreds of ancient Greek myths of transformation—playful, dramatic, erotic, psychologically complex, often grotesque and violent.  Ovid’s poem evolves a vision of change as a process central to all being, something at once natural and supernatural, human and inhuman, by turns liberating and entrapping, creative and destructive.  Among the later texts that take up and further explore the theme of metamorphosis, we’ll look at passages from Dante’s Divine Comedy (especially his Inferno), the medieval Irish poem Sweeney Astray, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.  If there’s time, we’ll also be looking at how the idea of metamorphosis creeps into different traditions of fairy tales, and into certain central texts of modern and contemporary poetry.  Relevant cluster: Poems, Poetry, and Poetics (H1ENG012).  Can count for either the pre- or post-1800 requirement for English majors.  

Location

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

The life of John Keats is the stuff of romantic legend. The son of a London innkeeper and initially trained as a doctor, Keats would go on to write some of the most memorable poems of the English language before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25 in Italy, far from the love of his life Fanny Brawne. In this course we will read a variety of Keats’s poems and letters, paying attention to how he overcame the prejudices against his social class and developed the stylistic traits for which he is now famous—lush imagery, sensuous verbal music, intense emotion, and imaginative vision. Despite his brief life, Keats’s poems have exerted a lasting influence. This course traces Keats’s influence on two major poets of the Victorian and Modernist eras—Gerard Manley Hopkins and William Butler Yeats. Hopkins, a Jesuit priest who wrote moving poems about nature in an era of industrialism and struggled with his religious faith and homoerotic desires, would seem to have little in common with the Irish poet Yeats, who explored everything from Gaelic myths and revolutionary politics to the occult. This course explores how, despite their many differences, both Hopkins and Yeats were inspired by the work of Keats, who provided a model for their literary experiments and for the poet as visionary. No prerequisites or prior knowledge of poetry required for this class. Fulfills the post-1800 requirement. No prerequisites. Counts towards the following clusters: Great Books, Great Authors (H1ENG010) and Poems, Poetry, and Poetics (H1ENG012).

Location

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

In recent years, we have seen a virtual explosion of writing by women, with women’s novels constituting some of the most widely read and critically admired work being produced today. The global reach of both its authors and audiences has made contemporary women’s writing a truly international phenomenon. We will examine what makes this work especially innovative: its experimentation with new voices and narrative forms and its blurring of genre boundaries. We will look at the dialogue it has established with the past, where it often finds its inspiration, self-consciously appropriating earlier literary texts or rewriting history.  We will also consider what special challenges this work poses for its readers. Looking at works originating in a wide range of locations, this course, will explore the diverse shapes of contemporary women's imagination and attempt to account for the compelling interest of this new body of fiction.

Location

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

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; STUDENTS PROVIDE THEIR OWN TRANSPORTATION FOR CLASSES OFF CAMPUS). No audits, no pre-requisites. Enrollment limited by hands-on nature of course and meeting space capacity.

Location

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

This course examines the philosophical, aesthetic, and social issues that are central to classical film theory. It traces the historical development of film theory from 1900 to the 1950s. We will begin with on thinkers in the period of early cinema, including Germaine Dulac, Jean and Marie Epstein, and then we will examine the development of film theory in the work of later theorists, such as Jean Mitry, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Andre Bazin and Christian Metz. Weekly screenings of historically contemporary films will allow us to examine the ongoing dialogue between the evolving medium and the developing theoretical discussion.

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 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

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

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

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

This class explores global trends in film history from 1989 to the present. In considering the contemporary period of cinema, we will look at the technical, social, and formal aspects of the medium. Of interest will be new digital technologies for production, post-production, and exhibition in both commercial and independent filmmaking (e.g., CGI, HD, Motion Capture, High Frame Rate), all of which are linked to a network culture that emerges after 1989. We will also focus on geopolitical developments and social upheavals such as the end of the Cold War, the events of September 11, 2001, economic and cultural globalization, and the post-2008 financial crisis as all these altered various national/regional cinemas and genres (e.g., the spy film, the horror movie, the comedy-drama, and action movies). We will screen the works of major figures in late twentieth century and early twenty-first century world cinema from the United States, Mexico, China, and Hong Kong to Palestine, Iran, India, and Senegal. 

Location

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

This course doubles as an internship at Open Letter Books (no need to apply for an internship separately) and focuses on explaining the basics of the business of literary publishing: editing, marketing, promoting, fundraising, e-books, 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

(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

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

Building off of concepts introduced in ENGL124, students will learn the skills necessary to HANG, Focus, and operate theatrical lighting systems. Students will receive hands-on opportunities with lighting equipment and 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. PRE-REQUISITE: ENGL124. Permission of Instructor.

Location

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

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

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

This class is an intensive fiction workshop for students who have completed ENGL 121 or have permission from the instructor. Students will write three complete short stories; submit those stories to group critique; read challenging short fiction by established writers like Lydia Davis, Diane Williams, Yasunari Kawabata, and others; and take part in thorough, critical group discussion. Readings will emphasize experimental and unconventional writing styles. We will discuss the effects of perspective, time, sound, visual detail, mood, and story shape, and other fine-grained elements of craft.

Location

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

is a study-abroad course based in Florence, Italy, and dedicated to the intensive study of Creative Writing. It will run from May 12 – May 31, 2025. Both interdisciplinary and international, this course will offer students the opportunity to work on their writing projects in one of the most culturally significant cities in the world. The course will combine group workshops, tutorial meetings, and walking tours through Florence and the surrounding countryside. Students will complete a portfolio in their preferred genre: fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, or literary translation. The course is open to University of Rochester students and can be taken as an elective. It will fulfill a 200-level requirement in the Creative Writing major, minor, or cluster. The program fee is $3,800. For further questions please contact Professor Joanna Scott.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Prerequisites; English 122 or equivalent; instructor permission. Students are to submit 3-5 typed poems to cwessels@ur.rochester.edu to obtain permission to register.

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.
Permission of instructor is required. Students are to submit 3-5 typed poems to cwessels@ur.rochester.edu in order to apply.

Location

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

"When activists, advocates, and resisters plan, organize, and strategize to oppose the powers that be, language and image are among their first considerations. The way in which they publicly represent their group, movement, or organization can make the difference between growing their ranks and successfully struggling against that power or failing to gain a foothold and remaining marginal or unknown. In this course we will examine some of the history of how movements and struggles have articulated their identity, mission, and goals to the world using critical, literary, and rhetorical theory to better understand those specific representational choices as forms of rhetorical praxis. We will consider many genres of resistance rhetoric, from manifestos, declarations, and slogans to pamphlets and essays, all of which also had specific authorial conditions and reception contexts. While written texts will form the majority of the first half of our course, we will venture into examining images, both still and moving, to understand how the mass reproducibility of graphics and images affected how movements represented themselves over the decades. Students who take this course should be prepared to actively participate in class discussions and projects throughout the semester."    

Location

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

You’ve studied the basics of nonfiction writing. Now, inspired by some of the most skillful journalists and memoirists around, it’s time to take your work to the next level. How do you find and develop a real-life story people can’t wait to read? How do you craft it so they won’t put it down? And how can you do all this while being accurate and ethical? These are just some of the questions we’ll explore as you produce and share your own pieces.  **Instructor’s permission required. Please email Melissa Balmain (melissa.balmain@rochester.edu) a short paragraph on your writing experience: You should have at least one nonfiction or creative writing course under your belt, such as Feature Writing, Fiction Writing, News Writing, Humor Writing, Screenwriting, or Playwriting—or significant writing experience at a print or online publication, on or off campus.281 can count as an upper-level (200-level) course in the CW major and minor.

Location

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

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

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

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

(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

(WF 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

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

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

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

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

(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.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

This advanced seminar examines recent works in interdisciplinary Environmental Humanities scholarship to understand the state of the people, animals, and the planet in the twenty-first century.

Location

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

According to a story recorded in A Collection of Notable Tales Old and New, in the wake of a civil war that saw to the formation of the Kamakura shogunate, the Cloistered Sovereign Goshirakawa sent an emissary to the Shogun Minamoto Yoritomo. This emissary carried with him an illustrated narrative scroll from Goshirakawa’s own secret collection. The shogun, however, dared not even glance at the contents and ordered its immediate return. Japan’s celebrated tradition of graphic storytelling can in part trace its roots to a culture of illustrated narrative that began in the 8th century. This course introduces students to illustrated narrative scrolls and other forms of visual and performative culture from the late classical through the early modern period with reference to modern manifestations of Japan’s ongoing visual culture. Students will explore the relationship between text and image, how scholars approach illustrated narrative, and how historical developments shape the formation of illustrated narrative and are in turn shaped by these combinations of text and image. In considering how illustrated scrolls developed and matured as a Japanese art form, we will dare to look where Japan’s first shogun did not, and in so doing, come to understand his refusal to do so—and something of our own desire to view and be viewed. Taught in English.

Location

(MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This class introduces students to personal and confessional texts in Japanese literature. The genres we will encounter include I-novel (shishōsetsu) and fragmented essay (zuihitsu). We will also read works that play with the boundaries between autobiography and fiction, such as Confessions of a Mask (1949) by Yukio Mishima. In this class, the students will be guided to critically reflect on relationship among the self, the text, and the reader. Taught in English.

Location

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

What makes a metropolis so fascinating, disorienting, or dreadful? Is it the history, the people, or the never-ending parade of sights and sounds? In this course, we journey through four major urban centers in East Asia—Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei—by examining their kaleidoscopic reflections in literature and film. We will come across city narratives composed from a medley of perspectives: Shanghai seen by Japanese writer Yokomitsu Riichi and by Chinese writer Wei Hui; Tokyo through the eyes of edokko (“Edo/Tokyo native”) writer Tanizaki Junichirō, zainichi (“resident Korean in Japan”) writer Yū Miri, and Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. While appreciating the stories, we will learn about the complicated histories of each metropolis and acquire skills to critically analyze how a physical place can be transformed into metaphors for modernity, turmoil, sentimentality, (dis)connection, and so on. Taught in English.

Location

(TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Only some people have direct experience with war, but almost all people have very firm ideas about what war is like––Writing war (writing about war; describing literal wars or fictionalizing them) is as old as writing itself, and war writing a staple of reading. We will think about the "encounter" with war in reading. With a selection of texts drawn heavily from the World Wars of the twentieth century, we will investigate questions of how war is represented in different media. We will learn how to translate our reading into our own writing. This course is designed to introduce students to the practice of critical reading and textual analysis, practices that are the cornerstone of the humanistic / social science disciplines. All reading and discussion in English, primary German reading available for additional credit.  

Location

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

What is the self, and where can we find it? What do we see when we look in the mirror, in a photograph, or in a short video? What role do these and other optical media play in the search for the self? Can the self be represented visually? In this new seminar, students will engage with these and other questions posed by a diverse range of texts and other media. Course materials will be drawn from literature, philosophy, and other media contemporaneous to the invention and reception of various visual media, such as photography and film in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries This course is designed for all undergraduates. Emphasis on developing close reading and media literacy skills. Instruction and discussion will be in English and all course materials will be in English or in English translation

Location

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

Forty years after his death in 1984, Michel Foucault continues to be considered one of the world’s most prominent and influential thinkers across a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, literary studies, art history, cultural studies, sociology, cultural anthropology, gender studies, history, musicology, and visual/film studies. We will examine Foucault’s major works, such as Madness and Civilization, The Order of Things, and Discipline and Punish, the interviews and essays of Power/Knowledge, as well as selections from the recently published Collège de France lectures, to understand his profound effect on the ethical and political transformations of “Theory” or “Critical Theory.” We will also examine Foucault’s thought in relation to prominent philosophers and critics, including Judith Butler, Derrida, Rorty, Habermas, and Hayden White. Conducted in English.

Location

(TR 6:15PM - 7:30PM)

Stage Production Project: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

This course will build upon skills and experience garnered in earlier stage management coursework on Theatre Program mainstage production.  It allows students to build real-world management techniques, test and develop their working knowledge of stage management, and develop hands-on experience in “the field”.  Students will again work with professional artists on a Theatre Program Mainstage production and are expected to manage the production with advanced facility, significant self-regulation and self-evaluation, and develop mentorship skills to assist, inspire, and enhance the abilities of their student assistant stage management team members.  Permission of Instructor Required.  Pre-req: ENGL 296/297 and ENGL 392.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Get an overview of what’s happening in scripted television today as you find ways to refine your own pilot and series idea for the market.
 
There is a plethora of new and exciting shows being released in this current television era. For a new writer, the sheer number of genres and the type of shows can be overwhelming, and you might find yourself at a loss in determining the best way to convey the story you wish to tell. In this course you get a brief overview of some current pilots selected across genres, but demonstrate that regardless of the type, setting, and world of a show, the most successful pilots have certain structural and storytelling elements in common. You learn how to formulate and refine an idea for your own pilot script and receive advice on how to survive the inevitable rough spots you will face in a career in television.
 

Location

(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

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

This course examines four science fiction writers—Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, and Michel Faber—who address the perilous issues of voyage into foreign terrain, calling upon post-colonial criticism to guide us. Clarke's novels Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End will be read in conjunction with Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. We will read Solaris by Lem and see one or both films made of it. Faber’s Under the Skin interrogates our treatment of animals by making us prey to aliens and The Book of Strange New Things tells the daring story about a minister who has been asked by a non-human race to continue his missionary work on Oasis, with no concept that his idea of Christianity doesn’t square with theirs. We end with Ted Chiang’s story and its film adaptation, Arrival, which investigates cultural barriers created by language, body, and foreign ground—matters that drive all stories about the Otherworld, and the complex problems of misreading each other.

Location

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

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Enrollment in ENG 398 is limited to students who have been accepted into the English Department Honors Program for 2024-2025, and who are currently taking ENGL 396, the Honors Seminar.

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)