English 100: Academic Writing [W]
Focuses on rhetorical awareness. In this course, students will explore the reading and writing practices of the academic community. Through primary and secondary research, and through guided writing practice, students will critically examine what these practices mean and consider how students’ own reading and writing practices fit into those of “the Academy.” While additional texts may be assigned, writing produced by students in the class will serve as the principal texts of the course. Additional texts may include Graff & Birkenstein’s TheySay/I Say, Harris’ Rewriting: How to do things with Texts, and Richard Lanham’s Revising Prose. Prerequisite: FYS. Enrollment is restricted to first-year and sophomore students.
English 100-01: Writing enhancement in academic settings.
This section is open only to students whose first language is not English. Prerequisite(s): First Year Seminar and permission of the instructor.
Professor Kang TR 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
English 100-02: Academic Writing
STAFF
English 115: Science Fiction [H]
This course focuses on works of literature that ask us to reflect on scientific, technological, and sociological issues by inviting us to enter alternative realities that are both like and unlike the world we live in. Who has control over and benefits from specific scientific and technological developments—and who lacks access and is harmed? When does reliance on technology become overreliance? Do new means of communication foster or thwart effective interactions between individuals? How might works of science fiction help us better understand climate change, imperialism, advances in medicine, or the causes and consequences of systemic racism, sexism and homophobia? These are just a few of the issues we’ll be discussing as we venture into the highly imaginative and thought-provoking texts of both well-known SF writers (Phillip K. Dick, Ursula LeGuin, Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Mary Shelley, Ray Bradbury)…and a host of important but less famous 20th and 21st century writers of science fiction.
Professor Byrd MWF 3:10 – 4:00 p.m.
English 135: Literature and Human Experience [H, V]
An examination of a significant social or cultural problem as reflected in literary texts. Topics vary from semester to semester and will be announced during the registration period. May be taken more than once with different content.
English 135-01: Reading Animals [H, V]
This course investigates the ways in which non-human animals are situated within literary and cultural discourses. We will seek to understand how various animals are valued and used in our culture, what ideas underlie such distinctions, and how the human/animal relation is represented in literary texts. The course begins with a broad introduction to the ways animals have been theorized within our own (Western) intellectual tradition and then examines representations of the human/animal boundary in twentieth-century and contemporary novels, short stories, and poems.
Professor Rohman MWF 9:00 – 9:50 a.m.
English 135-02: Misfits, Outcasts, & Loners [H, V]
What is normal, and who gets to decide? These are simple questions that are actually hard to answer. Although “normal” seems to describe what most people think or do, once you stop to ponder these questions, you might start to wonder if the very idea of normality is connected to social or political regulation—after all, to be labeled “not normal” is to be placed on the margins of some (usually imaginary) group or society that calls itself normal. In this course, we will read literature concerned with misfits, outcasts, and loners in order to understand how writers have challenged the very idea of normality as it relates to a variety of human experiences. Given that many well-known writers have been interested in the broad question of normality versus abnormality, we will have the opportunity to read literature ranging from the 19th Century up to the 2010s. Along the way, we will study some of the most significant works of literature written in the last 150 years, as well as lesser known—though no less powerful—work. Our method will be to combine close attention to the language of the text with explorations of the social, cultural, political, and intellectual contexts that help these works come alive. Throughout the course, we will explore also what is distinctive about literature and literary inquiry and ask why so many people across so many different times and places have thought literature vital to better understanding themselves and their relationship to wider culture.
Professor Belletto TR 8:00 – 9:15
English 135-03: Lit & Hum Exp: Race/Eth Amer Lit
This course examines American identity and history from the perspectives of ethnic American writers. Students will analyze a variety of works published or performed since 1900 including the fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Leslie Marmon Silko, the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the comedy of Donald Glover and Ali Wong. Intersectionality will guide many of our class discussions. To analyze the complex influence of race, class, sexuality, and gender on American society, students will compare literary texts by authors from different cultural backgrounds and eras. Reading literature by African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latinx writers, students will be able to identify and analyze shared themes across distinct ethnic American literary traditions and movements. Historical touchstones that will guide our discussions include the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Act, the Chicano Movement, the Red Power Movement, the Vietnam War, 9/11, and Black Lives Matter. We will also discuss how contemporary authors promote coalition building, social justice and allyship in their creative work. Authors we will read include Nella Larsen, Gloria Anzaldúa, John Okada, Leslie Marmon Silko, Zitkala Sa, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, Langston Hughes, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Barack Obama.
Professor Uzendoski MWF 11:00 – 11:50
English 135-04: Intro to Queer Literature [H,V]
This course navigates the history of queer life in America, which we will explore via a mix of media including poetry, journalism, film, and literature, including primary texts from James Baldwin, Rita Mae Brown, Melvin Dixon, and graphic memoirist Maia Kobabe. While the course spans history from the mid-century until today, we will focus especially on the 1970s (the gay liberation movement) and the 1980s (the HIV/AIDS epidemic) to better understand how these two decades indelibly shaped how queerness is lived and perceived in the US. Over the course of the semester, we will have open and honest discussions about the trials and successes of queer life and artistic practice, all while considering our own positions in relation to the course materials. At times, these works of art will remind us of the histories of oppression that attempted to stifle queer expression, but my hope is that another narrative emerges from the material, one of pride and perseverance via the expression of queer love and liberty. Assignments will ask you to respond both critically and creatively to course materials.
Professor Bruno. MWF. 10:00 – 10:50
English 151-01: Introduction to Creative Writing [W]
An introduction to the fundamentals of creative writing, focusing on strategies for generating, developing, revising, and editing in the genres of poetry and fiction. Through intensive reading, writing, and discussion, students will explore ways to enhance their own creative processes as they identify and seek to duplicate techniques employed by imaginative writers. In turn, students will discover ways to critique the creative work of their peers and to respond with insight to the imaginative writing of a diverse range of writers. Open to first-year students & sophomores.
English 151-01 Professor Fernandes TR 1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
English 151-02 Professor Gilmore MW 2:45 – 4:00 p.m.
English 174: Chicano Literature
The focus of this course is Mexican American literature and culture. In this course, students will study Mexican American literature published since 1900. Reading a variety of texts—including novels, shorts stories, poetry, and memoirs—students will explore American history from the perspective of Mexican American writers. Topics we will discuss include immigration, the civil rights movement, Chicano nationalism, Chicana feminism, the Mexican-American War, and allyship. In our class discussions, we will use an intersectional approach to understand how identity is shaped by factors such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will examine how writers portray distinct regional and national identities. We will also discuss why many Mexican Americans choose to identify themselves as “Chicano” or “Chicanx” in the 21st century. Each literary text captures a dynamic relationship between identity and place. Settings we will consider include East Los Angeles, the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Latinx neighborhoods in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, and the border between the US and Mexico. Authors we will read include Gloria Anzadlúa, Oscar Casares, Ana Castillo, Luís Alberto Urrea, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Jovita González, and Rudolfo Anaya.
Professor Uzendoski MWF 2:10 – 3:00 p.m.
English 202: Writing Seminar [W]
Writing seminars are courses that make writing and language their explicit subject. While each seminar has a specific focus, all seminars emphasize the process of academic reading and writing and use student writing as a primary text. Prerequisite: FYS.
English 202-01: Art and Argumentative Writing [W]
This writing seminar helps students hone their argumentative writing skills by exploring various aspects of the art debate (“what is ‘good’ art, and should it be publicly funded?”). Students will have a chance to workshop one another’s writing with the goal of refining both their analytical reading and writing abilities, skills which will have wider applicability in the rest of their college careers and beyond.
Professor Belletto TR 9:30 – 10:45
English 202-02: Writing for the Ear [W]
StoryCorps. The Moth. Serial. Code Switch. The Daily. Nice White Parents. S Town. The Last Archive with historian Jill Lepore. These are all examples of podcasts that are heralding a resurgence in audio storytelling, an ancient tradition that creates an intimate experience for the narrator and audience. But writing for broadcast is different from producing content for the eye. In Writing for the Ear, we’ll focus on producing stories designed to be read out loud using a more concise and conversational style than writing for print, but with the same emphasis on clarity, authentic voice, and powerful word usage. You will learn to find stories, conduct interviews, write and edit scripts, and produce compelling audio stories that resonate with listeners. The final project involves producing your own podcast. Out-of-class assignments include listening and responding to a diverse variety of audio stories and podcasts to discern how sound and effective storytelling techniques can enhance your own work.
Professor Parrish TR 11:00-12- 15 p.m.
English 202-03: Writing Seminar: Literature & Existence
This course asks students to write about big existential themes – subjectivity, ethics, freedom, death, faith – as they are depicted in novels, poems, plays, films, and theoretical writings. Primary texts will include works by Kafka, Sartre, Camus, Beckett, and Dostoevsky.
Professor Cefalu MWF 9:00 – 9:50 a.m.
English 205 Introduction to English Studies I [H]
ENG 205-01 Professor Laquintano TR 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
ENG 205-02 Professor Rohman MWF 10:00 – 10:50 a.m.
English 206 Literary History [H]
How is literary history constructed? What is the canon of great works and how is it formed? This course inquires into the specific cultural practices that construct literature and engages students in an exploration of canon formation, marginalization, intertextuality, and influence. Readings are chosen from British, American, and Anglophone literatures and from various genres; texts from at least three literary periods are studied in depth. Prerequisite: Any 100-level English course (101-199), or AP credit, or permission of instructor.
English 206-01: Literary History: When In Doubt, Go to the Library
How can we know the history of literature? How do we make sure we have the right texts to read? How do we study authors’ careers, and how does doing say change how we say their writings—and the times in which they lived? Can we get at literary history by looking at readers as well as authors? Emphasizing familiarization with a wide range of library research tools, we will explore these questions through several case studies: the maddening magic of editing literary texts, the often-difficult relationship between authors’ careers and literary periods, and the reading habits of pre-Civil War Easton residents via the Easton Library Company’s records. Field trips and research at the Easton Area Public Library may be required.
Professor Phillips MWF 11:00 – 11:50 a.m.
English 206-02: Literary History: Theorizing Early Modernism
This semester we will focus on texts that were originally written during the Early Modern period (16th through 17th centuries) and then radically re-written or re-interpreted according to romantic, modern and postmodern sensibilities. Our primary texts will be supplemented by critical essays on the question of periodization and the origins of terms like “classical, “ “Renaissance,” “Reformation,” “Early Modern,” “Restoration,” “Romanticism” “Modernism,” and “Postmodernism.” One of our goals will be to determine the range of choices made by readers, publishers, critics, authors that contribute to the construction of literary history. Primary texts will include Beowulf, Gardner’s Grendel, More’s Utopia, Huxley’s Brave New World, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee’s Foe, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest in relation to postcolonial reimaginings of Shakespearean romance. This course satisfies the literary history requirement for the English major.
Professor Cefalu MWF 1:10 – 2:00 p.m.
English 231: Journalistic Writing [W]
This course introduces the fundamentals of journalism through its most basic form: news reporting. Students will learning how to write clearly and succinctly, conduct interviews, locate and use accurate and relevant information, think analytically, recognize a good story, and work on deadline. The course also examines the changing media landscape as it pertains to digital media and the role of the journalist in a democratic society. Prerequisite: FYS.
Professor Parrish W 7:00 – 9:50 p.m.
English 247: Nature Writing [H, GM1, W]
This critical-creative writing workshop might be better titled, “(De) Nature Writing” as its fundamental question is to ask students to destabilize romantic notions of “Nature.” Positioned within critical race and feminist thought, the course challenges students to not simply consider the subject of “Nature” as that which is preoccupied with trees, lakes, pastoral landscapes, and humankind’s corresponding interior meditative reflection, but more expansively, to ask ourselves, what is the nature of the Human? If we decide certain behaviors are natural, then what behaviors are unnatural? How do we consider issues of contagion and toxicity within such parameters? How do different “natural” disasters reveal our own social and political commitments? In her seminal book, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Donna Haraway even critiques the romanticism of the “natural” as dangerous for women, people of color, and first nations communities. She suggests that our understanding of “nature” and the “natural” is too biologically deterministic and seeks to marginalize vulnerable populations from positions of access, representation, and power. In this course, students will be expected to read a variety of texts related to the concept of “Nature” and write twenty pages of revised creative and critical work on the subject. Prerequisite: FYS.
Professor Fernandes TR 2:45 – 4:00
English 251: Introduction to Screenwriting: Adaptation [H, W]
This course will introduce students to screenwriting adaptation in feature films focusing on the delights and challenges of adapting fictional and non-fictional narratives to film. Students will examine various tools and methods of screenwriting including story
structure, logical cause and effect, character development, use of conflict, scene writing and dialogue. The class will also seek to address the ethics of adaptation, and some of the questions and techniques surrounding the process of fictionalizing “truth” and revising fiction for dramatic purposes. Students will read and analyze fictional and non-fictional narratives and their accompanying script adaptations to illustrate universal script principles. These formal investigations will be applied to students’ own original material in a workshop environment. Permission of the instructor required.
Professor Gilmore MW 1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
English 254 Humor Writing [W]
Unleash your inner funny and learn how to write with a side of wit and dollop of snark by studying and dissecting the work of exceptional humor writers and stand-up comedians. You will learn techniques to invigorate and enliven your writing while generating new perspectives through humor. You may even produce some LOL belly-busting or inside-where-it-counts material to employ on dates, job interviews, and tension-filled family gatherings. Assignments include listicles, essays, advice columns, a campus guide as well as a 5-minute comedy routine, which you will perform as your finale assignment. We will also delve into the history of standup comedy, learn what makes something funny, and cheer each other on in a supportive and respectful environment.
Professor Parrish TR 2:45 – 4:00 p.m.
English 326: Gender, Class and Race in Romantic Era Poetry GM1, H, W
Displaced workers, increasing income inequality, voters’rights, women’s rights, systemic racism, inequities in the criminal justice system, industrial pollution, restrictions on immigration and civil liberties, a seemingly endless war fought on foreign soil…..21st-century Americans are not the first people who have had to address this complex web of social, political, and economic issues. So, too, did people living in Great Britain and its West Indian colonies during what has come to be known as the “Romantic period”—the period between roughly 1780 and 1830. This course will focus on ways in which Romantic era texts—especially poems—weigh in on these issues, reproducing and/or challenging injustices related to gender, class and race. In addition to analytical and creative writing assignments, students will do group presentations on topics that can enrich our understanding of the era and its literature, such as the movement to abolish slavery or the plight of the rural and urban poor. Writers to be studied include S.T. Coleridge, Charlotte Smith, Mary Prince, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Shelley, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, and a host of important but less well-known writers of the period. (W, GM1)
Professor Byrd MWF 11:00 – 11:50 a.m
English 329: Science Fiction in the 2010s [H, GM1, W]
During the last decade, science fiction was radically reimagined by a new generation of writers.
They sought new ways to address how society was being transformed by climate change, globalization, and emerging technologies. The epic Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison, the experimental post-apocalyptic fiction of Jeff VanderMeer, and the complex worldbuilding of Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan series represent how writers in the 2010s reinvented science fiction to tell new stories for the 21st century. This decade of science fiction would be defined by a commitment to inclusivity and diversity. Writers like Jemison, VanderMeer, and Martine published science fiction that featured ensemble casts and incorporated multiple perspectives. No single protagonist dominates their stories. Students in this course will discuss how science fiction in the 2010s elucidated histories of oppression, empowered alternative worldviews, and promoted collaboration. Science fiction has also increasingly offered a global perspective on science and culture. Throughout the previous decade, writers sought new ways to represent the political and cultural effects of globalization, while readers benefitted from an unprecedented increase in the translation of global science fiction into English. Perhaps the most influential trend was the emergence of “climate fiction” as a mainstream subgenre. Writers we will discuss in class include N.K. Jemison, Jeff VanderMeer, Arkady Martine, Paolo Bacigalupi, Emily St. John Mandel, Stephen Graham Jones, Rebecca Roanhorse, Kim Stanley Robinson, Martha Wells, Yoon Ha Lee, Omar El Akkad, and Ken Liu.
Professor Uzendoski MWF 1:10 – 2:00
English 337: Milton [H,V,W]
“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary.” These famous lines from Areopagitica (1644) were written by John Milton, not only one of England’s greatest national poets, but also a profoundly influential theologian, philosopher and revolutionary apologist for the execution of England’s King, Charles I, in 1649. In this course we will read Paradise Lost in its entirety and selections from Milton’s prose and other poetry, focusing not only on literary themes, style and genre, but also on the place of Milton’s writings in the history of religious and political thought. We will devote considerable attention to Milton’s radicalism, including both his theological “heresies” and left-leaning political sympathies. With regard to Paradise Lost, we will consider Milton’s unique conception of the creation narrative and the “characters” of Adam and Eve, Christ, God, and arguably Milton’s most magnificent creation, Satan. Was Milton, as William Blake provocatively asserted, “of the devil’s party without knowing it?” Why does Milton depict Adam and Eve as hard laborers in so-called Paradise? In raising and attempting to answer these questions, we will spend considerable time reading secondary criticism on Milton’s theological and philosophical viewpoints. Prerequisite: ENG 205 or permission of the instructor.
Professor Cefalu MWF 10:00 – 10:50 a.m.
English 352: (Post) Plantation Literatures
Reckoning with and Resisting the Legacy of the Plantation [GM1, W]
Relying on the writing that emerged from the antebellum plantation as a departure point, this course mines the African American literary tradition to understand why the Plantation remains a focal point of American economic, political, and social history today. After examining writing produced in the antebellum period, we will turn to texts written in the postplantation period. That is, while the Thirteenth Amendment may have ended the specific form of plantation slavery that ruled the American South for over a century, attitudes and patterns of behavior on the Plantation left a legacy that extends far beyond 1863. By examining texts from the late 19th century through the 21st century, we will identify how the collapse of plantation slavery created shockwaves in the way Americans conceive of race and belonging that reverberate today, in our political and legal structures, our conceptions of distinct U.S. geographies, and our broader cultural narratives of national identity. We will not focus solely on the harmful legacies of the Plantation, but also consider how Black life and art have thrived despite the nation’s investment in antiblackness, focusing at times on fugitivity, survivance, and an ethics of care.
Professor Bruno MWF 2:10-3:00
English 354: Contemporary Rhetorical Theory [W Pending]
This seminar-style course will introduce you to the interdisciplinary commitments of rhetorical theory by focusing on key concepts, questions, theorists, and intellectual traditions. Contemporary rhetorical scholarship has moved beyond considering only linguistic and textual techniques of persuasion to interrogate issues of power, agency, citizenship, embodiment, (post)humanism, and materiality. Through the rigorous and deliberate reading of theory, we will reckon with crises including, but not limited to, racism, state and vigilante violence, mass death, migrant detention, deliberative democracy, dehumanization, and demagoguery. We will ask what it means to assume a rhetorical stance toward public life, meaning that we will think of rhetoric as both a scholarly discipline and a critical orientation to (inter)acting in the world. To this end, this course’s most important objective is to provide you with space to hone a sophisticated approach to reading and writing about complex theory.
Professor Mitchell TR 11:00 – 12:15 p.m.
English 361: Advance Creative Writing: Poetry [W]
In this course, you will strengthen your close reading and workshop skills, produce a polished chapbook of poems, experiment with different writing prompts, and analyze two collections of contemporary poetry. In Advanced Poetry, we study what actually makes a line, how poetics has expanded in the 21st century due to the formal constraints of new technologies and media, and how new processes of surveillance play a role in poetry. In short, our goal is to demonstrate, through our writing and critique, how poetics remains essential to the way we communicate, desire, and politicize. Writers and artists we will be reading and analyzing include Kendrick Lamar, Terrancy Hayes, Anne Carson, June Jordan, Solmaz Sharif, Ocean Vuong, among many others.
Professor Fernandes M 7:00 p.m. – 9:50 p.m.
English 369: The Beats [H,W]
The Beat literary movement began with a small group of friends in New York and San Francisco in the 1940s and 1950s, but eventually radiated out to achieve worldwide significance. The Beats produced some of the most interesting and enduring literature of the twentieth century, even as they were dismissed by academic critics as lazy, “know-nothing bohemians.” Works like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, and William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch are now recognized as classics of American literature, and for decades generations of young people embraced these and other Beat works as their guides to the authentic life. Indeed, Beat literature has influenced everyone from The Beatles (who borrowed the term when they named their band) to Thomas Pynchon to Maxine Hong Kingston to the U.S.’s recent Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Bob Dylan. This course examines the Beat Generation as it was constructed by the Beats themselves and by the culture in and against which they wrote and lived. We will look at how Beat texts initiate a conversation about the values and self-image of America from the 1940s well into the 1970s and beyond, leveling trenchant critiques of race and class in America, and introducing frank discussions of previously taboo topics such as “free love,” homosexuality, and drug use. We will therefore examine Beat writing both in terms of its political critique and its considerable aesthetic innovations. We will read not only the “major” Beat writers mentioned above, but also many others who were crucial to the movement, including Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Diane di Prima, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We will also focus attention on African American Beats, including Ted Joans, Bob Kaufman, and LeRoi Jones; Beat women writers, including Bonnie Bremser, Hettie Jones, Joyce Johnson, Joanne Kyger, and Lenore Kandel; and other groundbreaking poets such as Philip Whalen, John Wieners, Philip Lamantia, Lew Welch, Ray Bremser, Tuli Kupferberg, and Ed Sanders.
Professor Belletto TR 1:15 – 2:30