Creative Writing Courses

ENG 101 College Writing I

Basic instruction in expository writing. Emphasis on identifying an audience, formulating a thesis, developing an argument, supporting the argument, marshaling evidence, citing authorities, answering possible objections. Students are asked to respond to and analyze a variety of texts and to critique each other's work. ENG 101 includes a brief review of grammar and punctuation.

ENG 102 College Writing II

Advanced instruction in expository writing. ENG 102 does not include a review of grammar and punctuation; it does include some library work and a research paper. The course is intended for all writers, weak or strong, who wish to improve their writing and research skills.

ENG 104 Writing Studio 1/2 or 1

An introduction to the writing arts, this course will allow students to engage in creative practice through an exploration of techniques in craft. Students will learn how to generate and shape their writing, while experimenting with genre and elements of form. Specific offerings may vary from year to year, but all iterations will encourage students to develop a habit of practice, where the play of language can reshape familiar subjects or guide the writer toward new discoveries.

ENG 104A Writing Studio: Writing About Race 1/2 or 1

This introductory creative writing course invites students to explore how race shapes stories about our everyday experience. We will read poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that helps us consider race as one of many forces that influence voice, perspective, and belonging. The course emphasizes experimentation, craft, and supportive discussion, with a focus on themes such as home, family, community, language, and place. This course is open to students from all backgrounds and is designed as a space for curiosity, reflection, and learning through writing.

ENG 104A Writing Studio: The Side of Oddness: Gerard Manley Hopkins 1/2 or 1

In 1875, inside a Jesuit Monastery, Gerard Manley Hopkins-gay, Catholic, and terrified-decided to start writing poems again. "No doubt my poetry errs on the side of oddness," he wrote. And indeed, his poetry is as odd as he was. With wild experiments in language and music, Hopkins invented a poetics of deep paradox that scholars and poets alike have since fiercely debated. What do his words mean? Where do his words come from? Why is his music so weird? And why do we care? No experience with reading or writing poetry is required for this course.

ENG 105 Reading Studio 1/2 or 1

An introduction to literary close reading, this course explores foundational approaches to interpretation alongside literature's demonstrated capacity to reflect social, political and cultural predicaments. Students will engage questions of ongoing human significance that arise through the process of reading. This course will foster a community of readers who will guide one another to read more confidently. It will encourage and stimulate readers to consider, construct, and defend original interpretations of text. Specific offerings may vary from year to year, but all iterations will examine literature through close reading strategies.

ENG 105 Reading Studio: Border Crossers 1/2 or 1

Borders shape how people move, who belongs, and how stories are told. In this course, we'll read stories and poems from the U.S.-Mexican borderlands that explore migration, identity, language, and survival. We will look at borders as liminal but lived-in spaces where cultures and histories meet and collide. This course emphasizes close reading, discussion, and reflective writing. Designed for those who want to build their reading skills, the course is open to anyone who wants to engage urgent questions about belonging, power, and what it means to cross-geographically, culturally, and imaginatively.

ENG 105B Reading Studio: The Animal That Therefore I am 1/2 or 1

What does it mean to be human, and how do animal stories help us ask that question? We will focus on literature that thinks about bodies, violence, survival, law, and love. We will read fiction, poetry, and hybrid forms that explore how writers imagine the human as an animal among other animals . The course emphasizes close reading, curiosity, discussion, and creative thinking for beginners. You'll learn how to read attentively, ask compelling questions, and articulate arguments with confidence , while engaging with texts that are vivid, at times unsettling , if tender, but that are alive to the world we live in now

ENG 105C Reading Studio: What Can Be Said: Carl Phillips 1/2 or 1

Carl Phillips has often said that poetry saved his life. As a young man, Phillips struggled with the pressure to live inside identities he could not yet fully name. Writing poetry became a way for him to speak when other forms of language failed. We will read literature by Phillips and other writers this term that enact what he calls "resistance": to say what feels dangerous, uncertain, or unfinished. Phillips' work invites readers into questions of desire, belief, cruelty, power, and self-knowledge . This course welcomes all students who are curious about how writing helps people live , and how learning to read closely can help us hear what can be said, and what almost can't.

ENG 110 Uses and Abuses of AI

This course explores artificial intelligence as a cultural, ethical, and rhetorical phenomenon. We will analyze scholarly texts, popular writing, and AI-generated texts to explore questions of labor, bias, surveillance, creativity, the environment, and education. Engaging in close readings and critical reflections of contemporary debates about AI, students will learn how language and identity shape both knowledge and power.

ENG 120 The Story and the Lyric

Storytelling is the art of sharing experience through narrative in order to connect with an audience, and its purposes range from entertainment to legal argument to marketing. Stories are everywhere-from novels and poems to films, advertisements, and everyday conversation-and remain one of the most basic ways humans communicate meaning. This course assumes that studying the human condition through language empowers us across fields and professions. Using a wide range of texts, students will explore storytelling through fiction and poetry as well as through genres such as nonfiction, drama, and film.

ENG 123 Foundations of Theatre and Drama

An introductory study of theatre as a collaborative art form, examining dramatic writing and theatrical production, and the process whereby scripts are translated into performance by theatre artists, and exploring theatre's capacity to reflect and promote social, political, and cultural change.

ENG 124 Introduction to Film

This course introduces students to film as a distinct art form with its own language. Films selected represent a variety of cinematic movements or technical advances and are studied from historical, theoretical, and formal perspectives.

ENG 125 The Sacred and the Profane

This course explores how biblical themes, narratives, and imagery resonate in poetry, fiction, and drama from works that confront violence and loss to those that reinterpret sacred stories in surprising ways. Readings include selections from scripture alongside stories, poetry, and plays, highlighting the tension between the holy and the human, the awe-inspiring and the profane.

ENG 126 Environmental Literature, Film, and the Arts

This course builds on the premise that the natural environment is the "original text" that shapes all other texts, the model for interconnectivity and aesthetics. Selections of literature, film, visual art, and landscape may vary, but will consider the movement's writers, artists, and pressing issues.

ENG 140 Introduction to Letterpress Arts

In contrast to a dizzying array of media that are created and consumed in the instant, we will consider how the slow means involved in letterpress printing may present fresh opportunities for literary and artistic expression. The course will introduce students to the history, terminology, and practices involved in letterpress art. As a studio-based course, however, most of our time will be spent sorting and setting type, maintaining and cleaning equipment, and carrying out regular printing projects--both individual and collaborative. The class will culminate with each student's presentation of a final portfolio of eight to ten prints.

ENG 200 Reading Theories

Students will investigate the act of "reading," and by studying modes of interpretation, consider different critical approaches to reading texts. Integrating theory and practice, we test the usefulness of models provided by theoretical movements such as New Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Reader-Response, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, New Historicism, and Race and Queer Theories. These models will guide our analysis of literary and cultural texts.

ENG 201 Modern Business Messaging

The course is intended for any student wishing to improve written communication skills, but especially for those students who want to gain skills in writing clear and effective business-related prose. The course focuses on the business and technical writing skills necessary to communicate effectively in a variety of professional settings. Students analyze, evaluate, and create a variety of professional documents: letters, memos, resumes, reports, proposals, business plans, presentations, etc.

ENG 202 Teaching Writing

The course is designed to provide students with a thorough understanding of the theory, practice, and pedagogy of writing. What defines good writing? How do we learn to write? What are the most effective ways to work with writers one-on-one and in the classroom? As we answer these questions, students learn not only how to effectively teach writing, but also how to improve their own writing.

ENG 203 The Careful Editor

This course will acquaint you with the publishing industry. We will discuss how a manuscript travels from author to finished product and how that process is now changing. We will introduce you to the role of the editor and provide famous examples of editor and writer relationships. The course will also give you an opportunity to learn line-by-line editing skills, following The Chicago Manual of Style, while in the process honing your own writing skills.

ENG 204 Genres and Forms

This course will introduce the concept of literary classification (genre) through the focused exploration of one particular species (form). Possible offerings may include Lyric Essay, the Ode, the Novella, etc. Students will learn to identify generic traits and to analyze forms (within a genre) by examining the evolution and workings of their internal design.

ENG 204B Motifs of Fairy Tale and Fantasy

This course will explore the motifs (recurring patterns) in the fairy tale and fantasy genres as well as their literary intersections. Using Philip Pullman's retelling of Grimm's fairy tales, we'll consider fairy tale form and structure, including original source material and formal tale types, with a view toward understanding the fairy tale as both a separate and specific narrative form and an intertextual point of reference for fantasy literature. Additionally, we'll consider the more complex story telling found in representative fantasy novels and the defining characteristics of world building that we associate with this genre.

ENG 204D A Swim in the Pond in the Rain

For the past twenty years, George Saunders has taught a class at Syracuse University that attempts "to understand the physics of the [short story] form" by reading "a handful of the great Russian writers to see how they did it." That class is now available in book form via Saunders' A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. In this course, we will read Saunders' text, which includes stories by Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Gogol, to assess his ideas about how stories work. We will then attempt to discern whether and how those same ideas might be applied to contemporary American fiction. In addition to Saunders' own stories, the reading list may include works by Charles Yu, Carmen Maria Machado, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine, among others.

ENG 204F Ghost Stories from Literature, Culture, and Environment

In this course, we'll explore the power and presence of the ghost in a variety of cultural forms, including literature, film, and visual art, with an additional consideration of spectrality as a critical theory and a lens through which we might view the uncanny world in which we are living.

ENG 204G The Psychological Horror Film

This course explores the psychological horror film as a mode of narrative that unsettles the mind rather than shocks the senses. Focusing on atmosphere, perception, memory, and repression, we will analyze how filmmakers create psychological dread through framing, sound design, narrative structure, and performance. Moving from foundational works such as Psycho and Peeping Tom to contemporary films like The Babadook and Get Out, the course examines horror's engagement with identity, trauma, gender, race, and the uncanny.

ENG 205 Beginning Poetry Translation

Discussion of theory, contemporary practice, and student work, plus conferences with members of the language faculties.

ENG 206 Beginning Creative Nonfiction Writing

A seminar in the practice of creative nonfiction writing, through workshops and the examination of various forms. This course will foster opportunities to develop one's voice through focused attention upon essential craft elements such as perspective, setting, narrative arc, etc.

ENG 207 Beginning Fiction Writing

A seminar in the practice of fiction writing, through workshops and the examination of various forms. This course will foster opportunities to develop one's voice through focused attention upon essential craft elements such as character, setting, narrative strategies, etc.

ENG 208 Beginning Poetry Writing

A seminar in the practice of poetry writing, through workshops and the examination of various forms. This course will foster opportunities to develop one's voice through focused attention upon essential craft elements such as image, syntax, cadence, line, etc.

ENG 209 Beginning Playwriting

A seminar in the practice of writing for the stage, through workshops and the examination of various forms. This course will foster opportunities to develop one's voice through focused attention upon essential craft elements such as dialogue, dramatic action, writing for a collaborative medium, etc.

ENG 221 Queer Literature

This course offers an introduction to queer literature across historical periods, genres, and cultural contexts. Students examine how writers have represented queer identities, desires, and communities, as well as how literary texts have challenged dominant norms of gender, sexuality, family, and power. Readings may include poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, and theory by LGBTQ+ authors and allies from the nineteenth century to the present.

ENG 223 Introduction to Children's Literature

This course is designed to familiarize students with various types of children's literature, including folklore, modern fantasy, picture books and realistic fiction. Students will learn how to evaluate the literary standards and pluralistic character of the literature. Authors may include Nodelman, Park, Lowery, Pullman, Taylor and Feiffer.

ENG 227 Introduction to Shakespeare

This course is an intensive survey of Shakespeare's drama and poetry. We will read Shakespeare's works within a historical and scholarly context while working to develop critical writing and close-reading skills. Through examining archival source material from sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we will probe how Shakespeare's plays and sonnets reflect, complicate, and contradict popular ideas, particularly those surrounding unstable categories such as gender, race, and sexuality. In addition, we will discuss both early modern theatrical conventions and contemporary productions as we consider the transformative possibilities of the stage.

ENG 229 Creativity

The specific focus of this course is the creative process. We will address questions like: Are you creative? Are there creative "types"? How do we measure creativity? Does the definition of creativity vary as a function of discipline? Is scientific creativity like artistic creativity? Can we actually learn to be more creative? In essence, therefore, we will be exploring what creativity means, how it works, and why it matters. We will try to define creativity, understand how it is measured, and analyze processes of creativity.

ENG 231 Becoming American: Literature, Identity, and Conflict

A survey of literature from colonization through the major authors of the mid-19th century. We examine the formation of an American literary tradition in the context of cultural, intellectual, political and economic developments. Authors may include de Vaca, Bradstreet, Edwards, Wheatley, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson, Stoddard, Brent, Douglass and Stowe.

ENG 232 Many Americas: Literature in the United States from Reconstruction to Present

A survey of literatures produced in the United States since the Civil War. We examine relationships between cultural and intellectual currents and the political, economic, and social development of the United States during this period, focusing particularly on race, gender and class as analytic categories. Authors may include Howells, Twain, Jewett, Chopin, Cather, Chesnutt, Fitzgerald, Pynchon, Cisneros, Morrison, Harjo, Gibson.

ENG 233 African-American Literature

A survey of African-American literature from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. Major literary movements, major writers, and folk literature are studied in historical, cultural and purposive context. Consideration is given to the form and language of the literature, as well as to the question of cultural repression.

ENG 235 African American Women Writers

A broad survey of the poetry, fiction, autobiographies and literary criticism of African American women. Beginning with late eighteenth-century poetry, we explore the themes and images of black women and men, language, settings and form of that literature. With African American women at the center of discourse speaking as subjects, we further examine the interlocking of gender, race, and class and the uniqueness of their experience as reflected in their literature, as well as how the historical context of internal colonialism has affected their voices. Alternate years.

ENG 243 U.S. Latino Literature: Identity and Resistance

The course examines major works by U.S. Latino writers. We explore the themes of identity and resistance as they are developed in the poetry, fiction, theater and essays of Chicano and Puerto Rican authors. Taking as our starting point the cultural nationalist discourses developed by the Chicano writers in the late 1960s, we analyze Puerto Rican and Chicano critiques of the American ideal of the "melting pot." We see how poets, novelists and dramatists have grappled with questions regarding Spanish as a proud marker of identity, with the impossibility of the return to an ideal Island paradise, or to an "Aztlan." In addition, special attention is given to the discussion of gender dynamics as they are expressed in the literature and culture.

ENG 245 Literature and Power

A study of the relationship between literature and power. This course will examine the cultural forces that influence the creation, circulation, and interpretation of texts. Specific offerings may vary from year to year, but in each incarnation, the course will examine literature through the lens of cultural diversity and power.

ENG 245E Literature and Medicine

In this course, we will trace literary and medical representations of illness and disability and examine how writers communicate the body in pain, in mourning, in pleasure, and in recovery. We will read contemporary literary and autobiographical accounts of illness, and discuss how cultural myths and metaphors shape and sometimes resist ideas about health and wellness, what constitutes a "normal" body, and the ways patient care intersects with multiple axes of difference. Other topics will include empathy and compassion, access to quality treatment, black and feminist critiques of the medical-industrial complex, and the evolving field of the medical humanities.

ENG 245F The Effects of Empire: Postcolonial Literatures

How do writers engage with or write back to European colonization? In this course, we will read literatures from Britain, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific as we examine histories of conquest, enslavement, and subjugation that are at once deeply personal and resolutely political. As we explore issues like belonging, exile, nationalism, migration, and representation, we will also turn to the colonial and postcolonial theories of pivotal scholars like Edward Said, Franz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Sara Suleri as frameworks for the consideration of colonial impact

ENG 247 Revenge, Morality, and Literature

This course investigates the moral and psychological contours of revenge through a careful examination of philosophical texts and some of Shakespeare's plays. We are especially interested in what revenge can tell us about the value of persons, along the dimensions of gender, class, race, and religion. The questions we consider are: (1) What relationship does revenge bear to justice? (2) What sorts of actions inspire a desire for revenge? (3) Is revenge ever morally permitted? (4) When should forgiveness or mercy be granted? (5) Does genre affect how revenge function--for instance, tragedy vs. comedy?

ENG 248 Teaching Assistant 1/2 or 1

ENG 251 English Literature: Clans to Colonization

A study of English literature in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Emphasis is on literary works by early writers and the periods' pivotal transformations, such as the solidification of the English nation, the rise of humanist thought, and the breakthroughs of science and medicine. Students will read writers such as the Beowulf poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer, John Donne, Margaret Cavendish, and John Milton alongside contemporaneous archival sources, including but not limited to bestiaries, religious treatises, and travelogues.

ENG 252 English Literature: Enlightenment to Empire

A study of English literature from the late 17th century through the end of the 19th century, with an emphasis on Restoration, Enlightenment, Romantic, and Victorian writers in their historical and cultural contexts. The course examines the development of literary styles and themes in light of political, social, religious, and philosophical movements, such as revolution and terror, the launch of modern science, the education of women and slaves, and the advent of the photograph. Readings may include Margaret Cavendish, Jonathan Swift, Eliza Haywood, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Oscar Wilde.

ENG 253 Modernist Literature

In the 20th century a new artistic movement emerged that reconsidered art's meaning and purpose in a world that was changing quickly and drastically. Modernism transcended borders and challenged traditional moral, social, intellectual, and aesthetic values. Through a variety of representative readings from British, Irish, and American authors, we will consider the experiments and innovations of modernism as well as its relationship to social and historical contexts.

ENG 261 Women and Film

This is a course examining the representation of women in the cinematic medium. We will especially focus on the intersection of two interpretive theories, psychoanalysis and feminism, and their multi-varied application to the literary text that is cinema, with particular interest in questions of dream, hysteria and transference. Prerequisites: ENG 124 or permission of instructor. Students need familiarity with basic film technique and history.

ENG 263 Structure of the English Language 1/2

This course investigates the English language, beginning with the theory and principles of syntactic analysis. Specifically, it analyzes the difference between real and apparent sentence structure. Ultimately, we will consider how an understanding of the history of the language can help us analyze literary texts more fully.

ENG 264 History of the English Language 1/2

This course investigates the history of English, specifically as a literary language. It traces English from its Indo-European roots to its contemporary manifestations around the world. Ultimately, we will consider how an understanding of the history of the language can help us analyze literary texts more fully.

ENG 270 The Mind of the Journalist: Newswriting and Reporting

This course introduces print journalism through an exploration of its mindset and fundamental forms. Writing- and reporting-intensive, it involves regular assignments for publication about local issues and events, with readings and class discussion. Focusing on Galesburg as a microcosm of reporting anywhere, students form the Knox News Team, meet with city officials and business leaders, and cover stories ranging from recycling to law enforcement to the arts. Articles are regularly printed in local daily and weekly newspapers and on-line venues. Topics include: story research; interviewing and developing a source; covering standard news beats; style and structure of news stories; fact-checking; meeting deadlines; journalism and the law.

ENG 275 Novel Compositions

Too long situated within the rhetorical tradition as an historical artifact and form, argument has fallen out of favor with many contemporary writers and especially students who dread the writing of "research papers" as an unwelcome rite of passage in first-year composition courses. In this course, we will examine some of the ways in which we can revive argument. Drawing upon a structuralist approach to understanding arguments, we will explore authorial choice and the acts of envisioning, speculating, and crafting compositions to challenge "old" notions of argument and to create innovative forms.

ENG 280 Studies in English and American Literature

Concentration on one or two English or American writers, or on a period or genre. Writers vary from term to term.

ENG 286J Latinx Playwrights

A study of the relationship between theatre and society. This course examines a variety of plays, theatre practitioners and theoreticians, focusing on theatre's capacity to reflect and participate in social, political and cultural discourse.

ENG 295 Special Topics 1/2 or 1

Courses offered occasionally to students in special areas of literature or related topics not covered in the usual curriculum.

ENG 300L Library Research .0

This lab is a co- or prerequisite for certain 300-level courses in the English department (see course descriptions). It teaches the fundamental research strategies students will need in order to write informed and relevant literary criticism. Students learn to evaluate and cite sources, produce annotated bibliographies, and use the library's databases and resources to their fullest.

ENG 306 Creative Nonfiction

Intensive work in the reading and writing of creative nonfiction; workshops plus individual conferences.

ENG 307 Fiction Workshop

Intensive work in the reading and writing of fiction; workshops plus individual conferences.

ENG 308 Poetry Workshop

Intensive work in the reading and writing of poetry; workshops plus individual conferences.

ENG 309 Playwriting and Screenwriting Workshop

Intensive work in the writing of plays and film or television scripts; workshops and individual conferences.

ENG 311 Advanced Writing 1/2 or 1

Individual projects in writing non-fiction, fiction, poetry, or drama. Conducted on a tutorial basis by members of the department.

ENG 311A Advanced Writing: Fiction into Film 1/2 or 1

Student writers will acquire screenwriting skills through exercises and scene work, examine adaptations of fiction into film, and finally adapt a piece of their own fiction into a screenplay.

ENG 311B Advanced Writing: Vision after Revision 1/2 or 1

In this course, students will prioritize writing already made-in any literary genre-to develop and hone strategies for deep revision. Beginning with what Philip Metres identifies as an approach to "move toward the work as it reveals itself," we will embrace his stance that "revision isn't 'editing' or 'fixing.' Your work is not full of mistakes, and it's not broken. It's just not itself yet." Our aim, after the hard work of many drafts, will be to trace and retrace the vision of our writing.

ENG 320 Fairy Tale: Historical Roots and Cultural Development

Focusing mainly on the European fairy tale (Italian, French, German, English), the course seeks understanding of the genre's roots in early modern oral culture; of its transition to fashionable literary circles and to children's bookshelves; of its relationship to issues of class and gender; and of its psychological appeal. Some attention also is given to modern and postmodern American and film treatments of the fairy tale.

ENG 323 Studies in Adolescent Literature

The course will consider the evolution of young adult literature as a literary genre and a consumer market using a variety of representative texts and critical approaches and with a specific focus on the ways in which this literature constructs and commodifies the adolescent experience. Authors may include J.D. Salinger, S.E. Hinton, Walter Dean Myers, David Levithan, and Laurie Halse Anderson.

ENG 327 English Prosody

A methods course meant to attune students more fully to the dynamic and expressive music of the English language, chiefly in poems written between the 14th through the 21st century, but touching upon meters and rhythms in other contemporary media.

ENG 330 Chaucer

Focus on Chaucer's poetry (in the Middle English) with emphasis on The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde and on the cultural and literary contexts in which Chaucer wrote. We read selected Chaucerian sources as well as secondary sources on medieval life, customs, and culture.

ENG 331 Shakespeare: Histories and Comedies

Study of Shakespeare's histories and comedies with combined attention to the plays as rich poetry and as texts for performance. Some discussion of the plays in connection with selected critical essays on them, and some in-class analysis of scenes from filmed productions of the plays.

ENG 332 Shakespeare: Tragedies and Romances

Study of Shakespeare's tragedies and romances with combined attention to the plays as rich poetry and as texts for performance. Some discussion of the plays in connection with selected critical essays on them, and some in-class analysis of scenes from filmed productions of the plays.

ENG 334 Literary Criticism

This course is a highly focused workshop-seminar designed to facilitate the careful discussion of a few selected critical theories and their application to a range of literary and cultural texts. Theories discussed may include New Historicism, Feminist Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, and Queer Theory. The term culminates in a theory-based project on a topic of the student's choosing.

ENG 335 Studies in American Romanticism

Specific offerings may vary from year to year. Individual topics of study may include "The American 'Renaissance' Revisited"; "American Women Writers of the 19th-Century"; "Literature and Moral Reform"; "Antebellum Poetics: Poe, Whitman, Dickinson".

ENG 336 Studies in the Literatures of America

A study of the proliferation of American literatures since 1860. Specific offerings vary from year to year but might include: "Fiction of the Gilded Age"; "The Rise of Naturalism"; "The Harlem Renaissance"; "Midwestern Literature"; "Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States"; "American Postmodernism"; and "American Gothic."

ENG 342 Renaissance Literature and Culture

Explores the crossover between a complex cultural issue from the 16th to 17th centuries and a set of literary and/or dramatic texts from the same period. Topics include: the racialized and gendered body; queer sexuality; travel and cross-cultural interactions; and reexaminations of anatomy and the natural world. Possible authors: Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, Lady Mary Wroth, Elizabeth Cary, John Webster, Margaret Cavendish, and John Milton.

ENG 343 Virgins and Whores: A History of the Novel

The early novel is obsessed with representations of "woman" as either virgin or whore, innocent or ruined, trusting or cunning. These distinctions, though, prove far less stable than they at first appear: virgins are as crafty as whores; whores are as sympathetic as virgins. And the narratives that try to make sense of them start to fall apart even as they construct the novel as a genre. In this course, we will read eighteenth-century texts that explore, interrogate, and celebrate these wily women.

ENG 344 Romantic Literature

This course traces the development of English literature from 1789-1837. Possible topics include Romantic obsessions with the monstrous and the unnatural, Gothic transgressive sexualities, controversies over female minds and bodies, the idealizing of colonized and enslaved populations towards the making of empire, the reimagining of religious language in aesthetic contexts, and theories of self, sublimity, and human consciousness.

ENG 345 Victorian Literature

This course traces the development of English literature from 1837-1900. Possible topics include the evolution of the novel from the Gothic to high realism, the representation of women as "angels in the house," the development of irony and fin-de-siecle literature, and Victorian anxieties about religion, evolutionary science, and the abolition of slavery.

ENG 345A Animal Gothic

The monster that terrorizes the Victorian Gothic is the animal. In this literature, the animal of Darwin's master narrative becomes increasingly unintelligible. It is a transitional being, ever-morphing and/or missing; it baffles notions of subjectivity, the body, suffering, and God. It is alien, extraterrestrial, supernatural, and/or mechanistic. It is both a carrier and a contaminant of madness, degeneration, criminality, and hysteria. Its hybridity is transgressive/excessive/sexual and presents a constant threat to the stability of social boundaries-marriage, empire, gender, class, race, religion-that for Victorian culture ultmately signify, and give shape to, what is human. And yet throughout the literature, the animal also represents the purest scapegoat-the victim that is given over to domestication, punishment, slavery, vivisection, and annihilation. Permission of instructor is available to those who may not have the required prerequisites.

ENG 345B The Cult of Womanhood

Victorian literature represents "woman" as an "angel in the house," an ideal of feminine purity, domesticity, and moral authority. At the same time, it undermines this representation, illustrating hard cracks between this ideal and the women who fail to live up to it. By tracing the figures of women in novels throughout the period, this course examines how gender ideology intersects with class, labor, sexuality, and empire to reveal the social and narrative pressures that shape both feminine virtue and its failures.

ENG 346 Modern and/or Contemporary Poetry

A study of modern and contemporary poetry. Attention is directed toward various traditions and innovations in poetic art. Emphasis will vary, but may include consideration of specific authors, themes, movements, and trends in the field.

ENG 347 Modern and/or Contemporary Fiction

A study of modern and contemporary fiction. Attention is directed toward various traditions and innovations in narrative art as they reflect and incorporate shifting social, cultural, and aesthetic attitudes and values.

ENG 348 Teaching Assistant 1/2 or 1

ENG 351 World Theatre and Drama I: Greeks through the Renaissance

A study of the origins and evolution of drama and theatre beginning with Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe through Early Modern England, Italy, and France. Additional examination of the development of theatrical practice in Japan, China, and India.

ENG 352 World Theatre and Drama II: Restoration through World War I

A study of the developments of dramatic forms and major theatrical movements from Restoration era comedies (1660) through World War I. Additional examination of influences from nonwestern traditions. Focus placed on the theatre as a cultural, social, political, industrial, and economic institution.

ENG 353 World Theatre and Drama III: 1915 to the Present

A study of the developments of dramatic forms and major theatrical movements throughout the world from 1915 to the present. The plays are discussed in their literary, cultural, social, political, and theatrical contexts.

ENG 363 Film Theories

This course explores some of the main currents in film theory, which may include Formalist, Structuralist, Psychoanalytic, Feminist, or Poststructuralist approaches. Specific offerings vary from year to year. Possible topics include "Genre versus Auteur," "Psychoanalysis and Film," "Narrative of Film," "Experimental Film," and "Noir."

ENG 370 Feature Writing and Narrative Journalism

Students study the feature article, its distinguished history--including the birth of the Muckrakers at Knox College--and its alternative forms, including the underground press and "new journalism" beginning in the 1960s, narrative journalism, and online story-telling today. Students also produce professional quality feature stores, some in narrative journalism form, drawing on a broad range of communication skills, including critical thinking, reporting, research, writing and edition.

ENG 371 In-Depth Reporting

Passionate, fact-based investigative news stories can have a profound impact on society, as the history of McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers demonstrates. In this course, students work in teams on locally based topics of national significance to produce a substantial investigative story of publishable quality. Students confer with subject-area mentors who provide guidance in research and understanding the technical, scientific or other specialized issues involved. The course will involve substantial background research and interviewing, in addition to writing a major investigative feature story.

ENG 380 Studies in English and American Literature

Concentration on one or two English or American writers, or on a period or genre. Writers vary from term to term.

ENG 380H William Blake

This course explores the work of William Blake, an early Romantic era poet and artist who believed imagination was revolutionary and transformative. Blake was a poor engraver who handprinted his illuminated books t o combine poetry and visual art that challenged print culture, authority, religion, empire, and conventional ideas about the body and the soul. We'll read Blake's major early works alongside his visionary images, and look at how his radical ideas about creativity and perception speak to contemporary concerns about power, oppression, sexuality, and belief. The course emphasizes close reading, discussion, and critical writing, while inviting students to grapple with one of the most original minds in literary history. Permission of the instructor is available to students who may not have the required prerequisites

ENG 380FF Jane Austen and Lizzy Bennet

Since the appearance of Pride and Prejudice, readers have fallen in love with Jane Austen. Her polished prose, engaging characters, and charming plots have created an almost unrivalled following. But Austen's power goes beyond her personal appeal-she perfected a genre that's still vital today, and even more impressive, invented literary techniques that make the modern novel possible. This course explores Austen, her work, and the scads of imitations and adaptations they have inspired.

ENG 383 Women Playwrights

Analysis of the works of female playwrights who represent diversity in race, nationality, perspective, and style. A brief review of the evolution of feminisms is traced in order to identify the areas of thought and conflict that most influence the condition of the female writer and specifically the playwright.

ENG 384 American Drama and Theatre

This course is a survey of dramatic writing and theatrical expression in America. Close investigation placed on themes such as the American dream, the American family, and the struggle for racial, ethnic, economic, and sexual equality. Plays are discussed within particular social, historical, political, and artistic frameworks.

ENG 386 Theatre and Society

A study of the relationship between theatre and society. This course examines a variety of plays and theatre practitioners and theoreticians, focusing on theatre's capacity to reflect and participate in social, political and cultural discourse. Specific topics vary from term to term.

ENG 386E

See description of THTR 386E.

ENG 386K Theatre & Society: Theatre and Incarceration

In Theatre and Incarceration, we will examine plays that feature incarcerated and recently incarcerated characters, to examine issues related to incarceration in today's society. We will supplement the reading of these plays with examinations of organizations who make theatre with and for individuals impacted by incarceration, exploring the opportunities inherent in theatre to provide a creative outlet and representation for those who are marginalized via the legal system and prison industrial complex.

ENG 387 Studies in Dramatic Literature

Close examination of the work of a single playwright or theatre practitioner (such as Caryl Churchill or Bertolt Brecht), or of a period (e.g., Jacobean) or genre (e.g., tragedy).

ENG 394 Topics in Investigative Journalism

Topics vary from term to term as does the media platform in which the story or stories are told.

ENG 395 Special Topics 1/2 or 1

Courses offered occasionally to students in special areas of literature or related topics not covered in the usual curriculum.

ENG 398 Senior Seminar for Literature Majors

The capstone seminar engages a key issue in contemporary literary studies. The seminar culminates in a conference where students present papers and answer audience questions.

ENG 399 Senior Portfolio for Writing Majors 1/2 or 1

In this capstone experience, students collect, select, and revise their oeuvre of creative writing, tracking their development of artistic voice and situating it in the tradition to which it speaks. In a formal presentation at "Milk Route," a 25-page critical essay, and an annotated bibliography, students introduce this vision to the Knox community, articulate their writing's aesthetic influences, assess its strengths and limitations, and chart its potential. The course is taken over two consecutive terms as ENG 399 (1/2 credit for manuscript preparation and presentation) and ENG 399 (1/2 credit for composition), or in an intensive one-term experience ENG 399 (1 credit).

ENG 400 Advanced Studies 1/2 or 1

See College Honors Program.