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 779: Modernism: Text and Screen
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Multiple relays between the experiments of modernist literature and the emergence of film. How did early film challenge ideas of art, subjectivity, narration, description? Texts by Joyce, Woolf, Beckett, and more, alongside films by Bunuel, Ivens, Pabst, Deren, and Keaton.
• CAS EN 782: Faulkner in Context
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Faulkner's fiction in dialogue with later novelists who challenge his vision: Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Edward P. Jones, Jesmyn Ward. Topics include the plantation, racial capitalism, formation of identity and community, gender and sexuality, desecration of the environment, aesthetic choices.
• CAS EN 788: Transnational Modernism
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - This interdisciplinary course explores how globalization shaped the emergence of modernist styles in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Topics include transatlantic migration; the effects of mobilization and world war; the rise of black internationalism; and modernist indebtedness to Asian cultures.
• CAS EN 789: After Wittgenstein
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Wittgenstein's later work and some of the literary/critical responses it has generated. Topics include meaning, privacy, aesthetics, "the ordinary," pragmatism, avant-garde, narrative selves, animals. Commentaries by Cavell, Rorty, Diamond, Moi, MacIntyre, Perloff; literary works by Nabokov, Stein, Sartre, Beckett, Coetzee.
• CAS EN 792: Introduction to Recent Critical Theory and Method
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Selective survey of recent literary theory and method. Representative topics: Post- Structuralism; Marxism; Frankfurt School; Film Studies; New Historicism; Science and Technology Studies; Performance Theory; Genre; Post-Colonial Studies; Book History; Gender Theory; Disability Studies.
• CAS EN 794: Professional Seminar
  Graduate Prerequisites: English PhD students in their final semester of coursework. - Developing professional skills and preparing for advanced independent scholarship for English doctoral students in the last semester of coursework. Course includes preparation for comprehensive exam and dissertation prospectus; conference paper submission; publication; fellowship and job applications.
• CAS EN 795: World Literature: Theory and History
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - We consider whether postcolonial studies might be expanded to include approaches whose primary aim is not to "subvert" empire. Imperial histories as well as Anglophone fictions and autobiographies by minorities will be studied with this in mind.
• CAS EN 798: Studies in Arts and Literature
  Graduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing. - Studies in Arts and Literature: Interdisciplinary consideration of the evolving relationships between the visual, plastic, and literary arts; see English Department website for current topic.
• CAS EN 799: Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture
  Explores texts, contexts, and theories that have shaped contemporary literary cultures. Interconnections between modern and contemporary literatures alongside theoretical paradigms such as critical studies of gender, race, sexualities, and class, global and comparative approaches to challenges, aesthetic experimentation, and more.
• CAS EN 993: Directed Study in English
  DS ENGLISH 1
• CAS EN 994: Directed Study in English
  DS ENGLISH 2
• CAS EN 996: Directed Study in Play Production
  Graduate Prerequisites: thesis-level student in the MFA in Playwriting. - Directed study devoted to production of the student's thesis play.
• CAS HI 500: Topics in History
  May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topics for Spring 2026 - Section A1: Indigenous Cinematic Pasts and Futures. Examines how Indigenous Peoples have interacted, influenced, and involved themselves in cinema from 1894 to the present, exploring concepts of visual sovereignty, cultural activism, and Indigenous futurism. Throughout the course, we examine the arguments pertaining to three central questions on visual sovereignty. Section B1: The Life, Times and Work of W. E. B. Du Bois. Traces the life, intellectual career and dominant themes animating the art and activism of W. E. B. Du Bois. Historically contextualizes Du Bois and his work to demonstrate his importance to Black Studies and African diasporic history. Section C1: African City Life. Explores the lives of Africans in urban areas during different historical periods. Examines cities as sites of political, social, and cultural innovation, debates and negotiations among urban residents, and the relationship between urban and rural spaces.
• CAS HI 504: The Civil War in American Memory
  From the immediate post-war years through very recent political conflicts, Americans have vigorously contested the memory of their Civil War. This course considers this question by exploring literature, film, and historical documents. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 505: The American South in History, Literature, and Film
  Explores the American South through literature, film, and other sources. Considers what, if anything, has been distinctive about the Southern experience and how a variety of Americans have imagined the region over time. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title that was previously numbered CAS HI 462. Also offered as CAS AM 505. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 506: The Transformation of Early New England: Witches, Whalers and Warfare
  New England’s history is filled with religious turmoil, warfare, political upheaval, and technological innovation. Come learn how religious schisms, witchcraft, conflict between Puritans and Native Americans, the American Revolution, and commerce transformed Puritan New England into an urbanized, industrial democracy. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry 1.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS HI 507: Three Revolutions
  The course examines how the English civil wars, the Glorious Revolution, and the American Revolution altered Anglo-American political thought and encouraged the rise of a democratic order and changed the nature of governance. Writers from Hobbes and Milton to Burke and Jefferson grappled with these transformations that created political modernity. The course situates these changes within their broader social and spiritual contextes and explores the continuation of inequality within a democratic order. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS HI 514: Enlightenment and Its Critics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Explores how eighteenth-century criticisms of the Enlightenment have been taken up by twentieth-century thinkers such as Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Gadamer, and Foucault; discusses recent defenses of Enlightenment ideals of reason, critique and autonomy by Habermas and others. Also offered as CAS PO 592 and CAS PH 412.
• CAS HI 526: Poverty and Democracy: Modern India and the United States in Comparative Perspective
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Through an examination of historical, empirical, and journalistic evidence, students examine the peculiar and pernicious nature of modern and contemporary poverty in the context of two large democracies, India and the United States. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 527: Getting Around: Transportation, Cars, and Community in the Modern World
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120) - Explores the history of transportation and mobility and its impact on daily life, community, environment, and justice, examining automobiles, walking, biking, and mass transit in diverse global contexts from the nineteenth century to the present day. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry II.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course