Courses

• CAS EN 221: Major Authors I
  Introduction to the major works of ancient and medieval literatures that influenced later Continental, English, and American literature: the Bible, Homeric epic, Greek tragedy, Vergil's Aeneid, and Dante's The Divine Comedy. Required of concentrators in English. Cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course by the same title that was formerly numbered CAS HU 221.
• CAS EN 304: Writing of Poetry
  The writing of poems discussed in a workshop setting. For the more advanced student. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment.
• CAS EN 305: Writing of Fiction
  The writing of short stories and perhaps longer fiction discussed in a workshop setting. For the more advanced student. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment.
• CAS EN 306: Introduction to Playwriting
  Students write and discuss their plays in a workshop setting. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment.
• CAS EN 322: British Literature I
  Beginnings of English literature from Anglo-Saxon period to end of the seventeenth century. Topics include the development of various poetic forms, medieval romance, and British drama. Authors may include Chaucer, Kempe, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, and Milton.
• CAS EN 323: British Literature II
  Overview of English literature between 1700 and 1900. Topics include London as urban center, modern prose fiction, Romantic and Victorian poetry, tensions between religion and science. Authors may include Pope, Swift, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, Wilde.
• CAS EN 326: Voices of Women
  Topic for Spring 2013: Representations of gender on diverse stages, in high and low genres, from antiquity to the present. Theatrical and feminist movements and the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Readings include dramatic texts and gender and performance theory.
• CAS EN 327: Topics in American Literature
  May be repeated for credit as topics change each semester. Topic for Fall 2013: Jane Eyre's Sisters. A close study of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, followed by nineteenth and twentieth century writers who appropriate and revise aspects of Bronte's novel in an American context. Authors include Jacobs, Alcott, Stoddard, Rhys, and Mukherjee.
• CAS EN 341: History of the Novel in English
  An introduction to the history of the Anglophone novel, from its origins in early modern England to its status as the dominant literary form of modernity. Readings include Defoe, Austen, Dickens, James, Woolf, Morrison, and Cotzee.
• CAS EN 347: Topics in Contemporary Fiction
  May be repeated for credit as topics change each semester. Topic for Fall 2012: Overview of fiction written in English from the end of WWII to the present. Topics include "postmodernism," cultural identity, historical trauma, and responses to modern technological change. Authors may include Bellow, Updike, Pynchon, Morrison, Atwood, Rushdie.
• CAS EN 355: Modern Drama I
  Theatre history from 1870 to 1920. Plays by Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Wilde, Shaw. The birth of modern techniques of acting, design, and directing. Students stage short scenes; no experience required.
• CAS EN 356: Modern Drama II
  Modern drama and theatre history from roughly 1920 to the present. Playwrights may include Pirandello, Beckett, Ionesco, Brecht, O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Albee, Pinter, and Churchill. The development of modern techniques of acting, stage design, and directing.
• CAS EN 363: Shakespeare I
  Six plays chosen from the following: Richard II, Henry IV, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter's Tale. Some attention to the sonnets.
• CAS EN 364: Shakespeare II
  Six or seven plays chosen from the following: Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest.
• CAS EN 370: Introduction to African American Women Writers
  Surveys the writings of African American women writers from slavery to the present and explores the African American female literary tradition in the context of black history and culture. Also offered as CAS AA 304.
• CAS EN 371: African American and Asian American Women Writers
  Cross-cultural comparison of African American and Asian American women writers. Explores and evaluates the cultural impact of their work, and looks at how these two groups bound together by "otherness" pursue the theme of conflicting cultures. Also offered as CAS AA 504.
• CAS EN 373: Detective Fiction
  A study of the major writers in the history of literary crime and detection, mainly British and American, with attention to the genre's cultural contexts and development from the eighteenth century to the present.
• CAS EN 375: Topics in Literature and Film
  Major themes and techniques explored by both writers and filmmakers. May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2013: On The Road in American Literature and Film. Explores the various motivations for and consequences of taking to the road. Works may include Ford's Grapes of Wrath, Invisible Man, Housekeeping, The Wild One, The Fugitive Kind, Catcher in the Rye, Thelma and Louise, Boys Don't Cry. Topic for Spring 2014: The Mother Figure in Literature and Film. A study of literature and film with prominent maternal figures, from monster moms to model mothers. Weekly screenings.
• CAS EN 377: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
  A study of the major writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Explores how they proclaimed a renewal of racial consciousness and cultural pride, and how they challenged racial and cultural barriers in American society. Also offered as CAS AA 507.
• CAS EN 379: American Poetry
  A survey of American poetry, from the Revolutionary era up through the post-WWII period, introducing the fundamentals of poetic form and lyric practice, as well as the historical and cultural contexts surrounding the development of Romanticism, Modernism, and beyond.

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