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CAS EN 101: Encounters: Reading across Time and Space
Encounters in literature from Britain, the Americas and around the globe: early literature in English and contemporary adaptations and remediation. Explores canonical and non-canonical texts, in various genres and media, including poetry, drama, travel narrative, autobiography, novel, film, performance. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 107: The Voice of Poetry
This course offers an encounter with poetry beyond appreciation, recognizing poems as works of art created to communicate something powerful and important: poetry as a form of experience, intimately personal as well as cultural. Taking inspiration from the Favorite Poem Project, this course emphasizes the vocal nature of poetry, and the physical experience of a poem as a comparison, or even a model, for other ways of speaking, writing, and thinking. Professor Emeritus and former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky joins the class for guest lectures. -
CAS EN 120: Freshman Seminar
Limited enrollment. Variable topics. Through discussions and frequent writing assignments, students develop skills in the close reading of literary texts and learn to express their interpretive ideas in correct and persuasive prose. Satisfies CAS WR 120 requirement. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: First-Year Writing Seminar. -
CAS EN 121: Reading World Literature
Study of literature in English or English translation -- poetry, drama, and prose narrative -- outside of British and American traditions. Attention to such topics as cultural self-construction, relationships of historical context to artistic expression, and development of literary forms. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS EN 122: Medieval Worlds
Why does the deep medieval past continue to haunt our dreams in novels, games, and on TV? Medieval literature and its afterlives. Topics may include Arthurian romance, otherworld visions, monsters and heroes, women's lives and writing, modern medievalism. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 126: Jewish Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - How do changing notions of ethnicity and race, religion, and gender, as well as geographical place define Jewish family and community' Topics include immigration, diaspora, and national culture; patriotism, antisemitism, and multiculturalism; Jewish identities and gender; conversion, assimilation, and acculturation. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing-intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CAS EN 127: Reading American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Readings may include works of fiction, poetry, or drama composed in America from the colonial period to the present. Attention to a wide range of literary works and historical and cultural contexts. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing-intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community. -
CAS EN 129: Introduction to African American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent) - What is the African American literary tradition? In this course, we will read poetry, slave narratives, essays, speeches, tales, short stories, and novels and consider how culture, politics, and history shape African American literature. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 130: Science/Fiction
Undergraduate Prerequisites: None - Through readings in British and/or American literature, an exploration of some of the following topics: science and technology as literary themes; historical construction of science and art; similarities and differences between literary and scientific methods; the development of science fiction. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning, Writing-Intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 141: Introduction to Fiction
Introduces critical concepts for analyzing works of fiction. Readings in different periods, genres, and traditions, ranging from canonical masterpieces to unheralded literary gems, aimed to cultivate an appetite for the pleasures, and rigors, of narrative art. Topics vary by instructor. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 142: Introduction to Poetry
Introduction to the understanding, interpretation, and appreciation of a wide range of poetry. Focus on poetic form, genre, and style, with explorations of cultural and aesthetic contexts. Particular emphasis on close, careful reading and discussion. Topics vary by instructor. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Oral and/or Signed Communication. -
CAS EN 150: Children's Literature: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Imaginary Spaces
What stories do we tell about children? What guidance do we imagine them needing? Examines fairy tales; the Golden Age of Children's Literature (1860-1920); fantasy; genre and adaptation. Authors include Grimms, Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Tolkien, Le Guin, Pullman, Sendak. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS EN 155: The Myth of the Family in Classical American Literature, Film, and Television
Blood bonds, criminality, violence, and language as they emerge across American cultural forms. Works include novels by Twain, Faulkner, Morrison, and Junot Díaz; films such as The Godfather and Boys Don't Cry; serial television such as Breaking Bad and The Wire. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS EN 162: The Ethics of Art
Does art make you good? How does it shape our values and sense of justice? Ancient thinkers (Plato, Horace) and modern theorists (Wollstonecraft, Wilde), followed by contemporary case studies. Topics may include propaganda, body aesthetics, animals, disability, pornography, graffiti, censorship. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 163: Reading Shakespeare
A critical introduction to Shakespeare through intensive analyses of six or seven plays. Possible attention to such topics as literary sources, early modern stagecraft, performance history, and contemporary film adaptation. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 170: The Graphic Novel
Examination of the rise, nature, and status of the contemporary book-length graphic novel. Topics include graphic vs. traditional novel, word and image, style and space, representations of subjectivity, trauma, and history. Authors may include Spiegelman, Bechdel, Nakazawa, Sacco, Satrapi, Backderf. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS EN 176: Introduction to Film & Media Aesthetics
Introduction to fundamental concepts for the analysis/understanding of film and media. Key concepts of formal composition (e.g., editing, mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound and more) over a diverse set of media texts. Foundational skills in analysis appropriate to film, television and moving-image media. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 177: Introduction to Asian-American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: None - Explores Asian American literature from the early twentieth century until today. Addresses questions of identity, immigration, national belonging, diaspora, war, and global capitalism. Authors include John Okada, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-Rae Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Monique Truong, and Ha Jin. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing-intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 179: Introduction to Trans Literature
Is there such a thing as trans literature? While "Trans Studies" as a field of study in academia is relatively new, trans literature is not. In this course we engage with a wide-ranging trans literary tradition that spans time, genre, and language. We ask questions about authorship, community, and the social and political conditions which allow and bar the flourishing of trans culture. We will ask: What can the word 'trans' mean, and how does its multiple meanings open space to imagine new ways of becoming? How can literature expand how the world might be, rather than what it is? Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 195: Literature and Ideas
How does literature relate to philosophy? How do poems and stories explore philosophical beliefs? Readings may include novels, epics, dialogues, sermons, theoretical treatises, and poetry, all engaging with broad questions about meaning, selfhood, divinity, politics, community, value. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking.
