English

• CAS EN 437: Thinking with Animals
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - In literary texts, animals appear as tricksters, clueless victims, predatory men, eloquent captives, and heroic matriarchs. This course analyzes narratives about animals in Anglo-American philosophy, science, and literature. Human myths about animals and the supremacy of the human are central to beliefs about race, gender, and private property. Focuses on animals as food, embodied mindedness, environmental justice, and ecological thinking. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS EN 452: Asian American Studies: Theory and Methods
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - A brief overview of the theories and methods of Asian American studies, reading theory, literature, history, culture, sociology, and legal study to define a mode of inquiry and action inspired by a legacy of activism and survival from the Asian diaspora. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • The Individual in Community
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS EN 465: Critical Studies in Literature and Society
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Two previous literature courses or junior or senior status. - Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Fables and Tales, Hamlet/Lear/Macbeth, etc. Please see English Department's website for current topic.
• CAS EN 474: Critical Studies in Literary Genres
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - Topic varies. Past topics include Film Noir, Early Modern Women Authors, etc. Please see English Department's website or contact instructor for current topic.
• CAS EN 480: Critical Studies in American Writers
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. – Topic varies by semester. Past topics include American Literature and Pragmatism, etc. Please see the English Department's website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 482: Critical Studies in Modern Literature
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - Topic varies. Past topics include Global Literature, Approaches to the Postmodern novel, etc. Please see English Department's website or contact instructor for current topic. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Aesthetic Exploration.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS EN 486: Critical Studies in Anglophone Literature
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior status. - Topics vary. Past topics include Comparative Readings in Postcolonial Literature, Anglophone Caribbean Poetry. Please see English Department's Website for current topic.
• CAS EN 488: Critical Studies in African American Literature
  Undergrad prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. Graduate prerequisites: graduate standing. – Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Gender and Sexuality in the Neo-slave Narrative, Black Women in Life and Writing, etc. Please see the English Department’s website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 492: Independent Study
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, department, and approved application.
• CAS EN 495: Critical Studies in Literary Topics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Literature and Affect Theory, Multiethnic Speculative Fiction, Literature and Conceptions of Time, etc. Please see English Department's website or contact instructor for current topic.
• CAS EN 497: Critical Studies in Literature and Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - Truth, beauty, reason, emotion, interpretation, justice, meaning--this course reads literature from specific philosophical perspectives, and understands philosophical texts using literary methods. It also examines historical, theoretical, and aesthetic relationships between literature and philosophy. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS EN 500: Henry James and New Media
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior status. - James's writing exposed moral and aesthetic dimensions of society's play with status, wealth, and romance. After exploring contemporary dating apps, social media, and films of James's works, students complete a video, graphic novel, or other form of "new media" criticism. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
• CAS EN 502: Reading and Writing Literary Nonfiction
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing; and First-Year Writing (WR 120 or equivalent). - This reading and writing seminar explores literary nonfiction, a wide-ranging, sometimes controversial genre in which writers use techniques associated with fiction and poetry to make meaning of lives. How do writers describe their world, especially peoples, places, and things? What are different ways of using personal voice? Each weekly meeting includes discussion of published nonfiction along with writing short exercises, and workshopping writing. The learning goals of this course are to become better readers and more skillful practitioners of the craft of literary nonfiction. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Creativity/Innovation.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• 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 must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. - 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. Effective Fall 2026 this course no longer carries HUB units.
• 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
  Prerequisites: 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. Effective Fall 2026 this course no longer carries HUB units.
• CAS EN 519: Drama in Theory and Practice 2: Experiments with Character and Form
  Prerequisites: 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. Effective Fall 2026 this course no longer carries HUB units.
• CAS EN 520: Drama in Theory and Practice 3: Adaptation and the Theatre
  Prerequisites: Consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. - 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. Effective Fall 2026 this course no longer carries HUB units.
• CAS EN 522: Literature of the Middle Ages 2
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. - Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Medieval Erotic Literature, Arthurian Literature. Please see English Department's website or contact instructor for current topic.