Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS EN 671: Critical Studies in American Literary Movements
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Transatlantic Revolutions, Reading U.S. Empire, etc. Please see the English Department's website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 673: Critical Studies in Literary Genres
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Narratives of Illness, The Artist Novel, etc. Please see the English Department's website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 674: Critical Studies in Literary Genres
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Marriage and Money in American Fiction, Early Modern Women Authors, The Origin of Love, etc. Please see the English Department's website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 675: Critical Studies in Literature and Gender
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Topic for Fall 2020: Early Modern Women Authors. A survey of European women writers from the 1400s to the early 1600s, and of the modern critical thinking that has redefined their literary-historical importance. Christine de Pizan, Theresa of Avila, Marguerite de Navarre, Gaspara Stampa, Elizabeth I, and others.
• CAS EN 680: Critical Studies of American Writers
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate 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 682: Critical Studies in Modern Literature
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Introduction to philosophical and historical approaches to the study of global literature outside Europe and North America. Themes addressed include individual and social development, historical reflection, cosmopolitanism, nationalism, cultural identity, the impact of socio- economic forces Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings and Aesthetic Exploration.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS EN 686: Studies in Anglophone Literature
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Topics vary. Past topics include Comparative Readings in Postcolonial Literature, Anglophone Caribbean Poetry. Please see English Department’s website for current topic.
• CAS EN 688: 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 694: A1 Critical Studies in Literature and the Arts
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior status. Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - May be repeatable for credit as topics vary. Past topics include Film Language and Narrative Theory, Music and Poetry, Poetry and Visual Arts. Please see English Department's Website for current topic.
• CAS EN 695: Critical Studies in Literary Topics
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. Topic varies by semester. Past topics include Fables and Tales, etc. Please see the English Department's website for the current topic.
• CAS EN 696: Critical Studies in Literary Topics
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - Topic for Spring 2018: Fables and Tales. Stories have designs on you. How the "grammar" of storytelling shapes meaning in stories from Aesop's Fables, The Arabian Nights, the Grimms' Household Tales, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Boccaccio's Decameron, and some contemporary sources.
• CAS EN 697: Critical Studies in Literature and Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Graduate 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 698: Critical Studies in Contemporary Literature
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous literature courses or junior or senior status. Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - May be repeatable for credit as topics vary. Please see English Department's Website for current topic.
• CAS EN 700: Structure and the Contemporary Script
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. 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.
• CAS EN 701: Writing and Research for Graduate Students
  Prerequisite: for English graduate students in their first semester of coursework. Professional skills and knowledge essential for writing, research, and public presentations in graduate school. Topics include the history of the discipline; persuasive arguments and rhetoric in scholarly writing; library, archival, and other research; public speaking in academic contexts.
• CAS EN 705: Seminar: The Writing of Plays 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom one act or a full-length play must be s ubmitted in the period just before classes begin. - A workshop in the writing of plays. Manuscripts are read using professional actors from the Boston community, and plays are discussed in class. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment.
• CAS EN 706: Seminar: The Writing of Plays 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor, to whom one act or a full-length play must be s ubmitted during the period just before classes begin. - A workshop in the writing of plays. Manuscripts are read using professional actors from the Boston community, and plays are discussed in class. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment.
• CAS EN 720: Dramatic Theory and its Foundations
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. An examination of dramatic theory and an exploration of essential elements of theatre and performance across cultures and eras, with an eye towards contemporary application.
• CAS EN 726: States of Exception: Seventeenth-Century Women's Writing and Violence
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Drawing on Agamben's analysis of the English Civil War, as well as gender and queer theory, this class explores seventeenth-century English women's writing and its afterlives. In particular, we consider the importance of wartime violence to these women's writing.
• CAS EN 728: Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. Specialized topics in British medieval literature and culture. Topics vary by instructor: see English department website for details.