English

• CAS EN 507: Seminar: Creative Writing, Fiction
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom two or three stories or chapters from a novel must be submitted during the period just before classes begin.
  A workshop in the writing of fiction. Manuscripts read and discussed in class. Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students.
• CAS EN 508: Seminar: Creative Writing, Poetry
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom a selection of poems must be submittedduring the period just before classes begin.
  Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students.
• CAS EN 509: Playwriting 2: Writing the Social/Political Play
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin.
  Explores the dramatist's response to political and social events over 2,000 years from the Greeks through the modern period. Examines how playwrights dramatized the pressing issues of their times with a focus on content, historical context, and theatrical forms.
• CAS EN 510: Playwriting 1: Writing of Short Plays
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play mustbe submitted during the period just before classes begin. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
  A seminar in the writing of short, original plays, addressing structure, language, and theme. Students read and discuss the masters of modern drama. Writing exercises are assigned to stir the imagination and develop craft. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 512: Readings for Writers: Contemporary Literary Nonfiction
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  Intensive reading seminar for students interested in literary nonfiction, a wide-ranging, sometimes controversial genre in which writers use techniques associated with fiction and poetry to make meaning of facts. Explores the wealth and breadth of contemporary literary nonfiction -- memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, travel, science, and medical writing -- with an eye toward helping students think about their own nonfiction writing practices.
• CAS EN 513: Modern English Grammar and Style
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  This course shows how to systematically analyze grammar and style of sentences and longer units of discourse. Explores academic and popular debates on grammar and grammar instruction and helps the student become a better speaker and writer.
• CAS EN 517: Drama in Theory and Practice 1: Structure and the Script
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120) and by consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin.
  Structure and the Contemporary Script. A comparison and analysis of the design of plays from the last two decades, encouraging students to imitate the form, character, and plot from these plays while experimenting with their own narrative structures. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 519: Drama in Theory and Practice 2: Experiments with Character and Form
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CAS WR 100 or WR 120 along with the consent of the instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin.
  Course includes the reading and analysis of dramatic works. Classes allow experimentation with the full-length monologue and small cast plays while giving attention to dramatic structure and style. Students present their own work in a workshop format, and material is critiqued in class. Students also attend performances and write critiques of professional productions. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 520: Drama in Theory and Practice 3: Adaptation and the Theatre
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play mustbe submitted during the period just before classes begin. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
  This playwriting seminar focuses on translation versus adaptation, comparing the two, and culling material from other writing genres. Focusing on tone, imagery, stage design, and language, students write their own stage adaptations as well as read various texts translated from World Theatre. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 537: Black Thought: Literary and Cultural Criticism in the African Diaspora
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  An introduction to the cultural criticism of African-America and the Black Diaspora. This ranges from literary, theoretical and public conversations centered on race, and interrelated issues such as gender, sex, and migration. The course hones in on specific trends, themes, topics and characteristics of this work and assesses its relationship to historical and contemporary political and social contexts.
• CAS EN 538: Teaching American Literature
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  This course focuses on teaching American literature at the high school level. Goals include building a knowledge base in American literary history, modeling deep learning with selected texts, addressing theoretical questions in English Language Arts pedagogy, and learning practical classroom skills. 4 cr. 1st sem. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS EN 542: The Rise of the Novel
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  The development of prose fiction in England through the eighteenth century. Major themes and genres in works by Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollet, Lennox, Austen, and Sterne.
• CAS EN 546: The Modern American Novel
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing; and First-Year Writing (WR 120 or equivalent).
  Topics vary each semester but this course may be taken only once for credit. Topic for Fall 2021: Representative Works 1900 - 1950. Novelistic responses to American modernity, centered on idea that "the color line" is its central feature. How does racism structure modern economic, social, cultural change? Authors: James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Willa Cather, Faulkner, Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 548: Joyce & After
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing.
  Readings in transatlantic modernism (Irish, British, American) from 1922 forward. Joyce's Ulysses is central. Other readings from authors such as James Baldwin, Alison Bechdel, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bishop, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, and Virginia Woolf. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Exploration.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Ethical Reasoning
• CAS EN 556: Faulkner and After
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (CAS WR 120 or equivalent)
  Four of Faulkner's major novels in dialogue with works by later authors who explicitly engage his fiction as they establish their own original projects: Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, and Jesmyn Ward. Opportunities to explore other writers as well. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 560: Disability Voices
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (CAS WR 120 or equivalent)
  Disability Studies theory and literature. Writing about dis/ability comes in many forms: autobiography, essay, fiction, graphic novel, visual arts, poetry, performance. An exploration of how texts, medieval to modern, replace, extend, critique or supplement normative narratives about the human person. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 562: Studies in Asexualities
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120).
  Writing-intensive seminar that explores asexuality studies as well as various kinds of sexual and romantic absences in contemporary literature, literary analysis, and critical theory with particular attention to race and disability.
• CAS EN 564: Studies in Auteur Filmmaking
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing; and First-Year Writing (WR 120 or equivalent).
  Intensive study of a single filmmaker or group of filmmakers, paying special attention to theoretical problems of authorship and artistic control. How do filmmakers respond to studio pressure, historical events or government censorship? How do personal styles develop and transform in a collaborative medium? What does it mean to think of the director or writer or producer of a film as its author? Topic for Spring 2021: Kubrick. Intensive study of Stanley Kubrick's films. Readings include novels he adapted (Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining), thematically relevant fiction, and critical essays. Topics to be considered: black comedy, visionary experience, utopic misanthropy. Weekly screenings. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 569: Film and Media Theory
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing; and First-Year Writing (WR 120 or equivalent).
  Introduction to film and media theory as a mode of inquiry. What happens when we render the world as an image? How do cinematic images differ from other forms of image-making? What does it mean to be a spectator? Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS EN 570: Studies in British Literary Movements
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar WR 100 or 120 or equivalent
  Topic varies by semester. Please see English Department's website or contact instructor for current topic. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course