English Curriculum
The major in English develops the student’s sensitivity to language and literature and enriches knowledge of the artistic imagination.
It exposes students to a broad range of literary works in their historical context and helps them develop skills in speaking, writing, and critical thinking.
Every English major, whether emphasizing creative writing or literature, should have:
- a knowledge of literary history—its construction, traditions, periods, schools, styles, and genres;
- some investigation of the creative process;
- an acquaintance with various ways of reading and understanding texts; and
- experience with both analytical and creative writing.
The English major offers excellent preparation for advanced work in graduate or professional school and for a wide array of options in business and industry.
Students considering graduate school in English should confer with their advisors to be sure they have planned an appropriate curriculum.
Since most graduate schools require at least one modern language and some require a classical language as well, the student should be proficient in at least one foreign language at the time of graduation.
There is only one major in the department: the English major. Students may choose to emphasize either creative writing or literature, but the department is firmly committed to the mutual support and dependence of the two emphases, both of which engage the student in reading, writing, and critical and creative thinking.
Every effort is made to insure that students who elect the one emphasis will both contribute to and learn from those who elect the other.
Course Offerings
Below is a list of available courses offered by the English Department. Consult the Registrar’s Office and the College Catalog for registration information.
WRIT 1100 - College Writing Skills
This course provides instruction in college-level writing development, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and English language usage for students who require additional preparation before entering Writing in College (WRIT1103). Through individualized support and peer collaboration, students will cultivate a more robust understanding of basic sentence and paragraph construction, punctuation, and revision. Students placed in WRIT 1100 will be required to take WRIT 1103 in the subsequent semester. Credit hours: 4. By placement only.
WRIT 1103 - Writing In College
WRIT 1103 is an introduction to writing at the college level, with attention to using English correctly and effectively, thinking analytically, identifying audiences, finding and evaluating source materials, developing an arguable thesis and supporting it with evidence, and using disciplinary conventions for citation and documentation. Guided practice in generating, revising, and editing drafts of essays. Credit hours: 4. This course cannot be taken on a Pass/Fail basis. (WR)
ENGL 1111 - Reading Gender
Literature both expresses and explores identity, of which gender is an essential component. This course considers the ways that historical and cultural notions of gender shape literary narratives, as well as the ways that notions of gender operate to constrain and/or liberate literary creativity. Thematic topics vary; recent iterations include “US Women Regionalists,” “Science/Fiction,” and “Sanity and Spaces.” Emphasis on critical approaches and the writing of textual analysis. Credit hours: 4. (AE, CI, WI)
ENGL 1112 - Sports Literature
Walt Whitman said of baseball, it "belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly as our constitutions." This course examines sports as subject for both analytical and imaginative writing. Students read works that present an American identity through sport, the tension between being self-reliant and playing for the team; or, as Whitman would have it, "the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere." Credit hours: 4. (AE,WI)
ENGL 1113 - Introduction To Literary Studies
The topic varies by session. Credit hours: 4. May be repeated for credit when topic differs. (AE)
ENGL 1140 - Reading Race
Literature both expresses and explores identity, of which race is an essential component. This course considers the ways that historical and cultural notions of race shape literary narratives, as well as the ways that notions of race operate to constrain and/or liberate literary creativity. Thematic topics vary. Emphasis on critical approaches and the writing of textual analysis. Credit hours: 4. (CI, HE, WI)
ENGL 1142 - F. Scott And Zelda
How did a disorganized college student become a world-class novelist? This course traces the development of F. Scott Fitzgerald's art through the wide range of his writing, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Attention will be given to his collaboration and competition with Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, as well as to relevant cultural phenomena such as media celebrity and the rise of Hollywood. Credit hours: 4. (AE,WI)
ENGL 1161 - Introduction To Creative Writing
The writing of poetry, fiction, and plays, focusing upon group discussion of student work. The work of modern and contemporary authors will be used as models for discussions of theme, theory, and technique. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 1167 - Exploring Creative Writing
An introduction to creative process and the writing of poetry, short fiction, plays, or creative nonfiction. Taught by the current Randolph Writer in Residence. Credit hours: 1. First-year students have registration priority. Offered on a Pass/Fail basis only.
ENGL 1168 - Editing Practicum
This course involves hands-on experience editing for publication or instructing student clients in editing academic papers. Possible activities include positions on Hail, Muse!, Etc., The Sundial, The Jack, or Revolute; Writing Lab tutor positions in the RC Academic Services Center; student research through appropriate non-credit Summer Research Program projects; other writing/editing activities at RC. Prerequisite: Permission of the Department. Repeatable for up to 6 credits. Credit hours: 0–1. Offered on a Pass/Fail basis only.
ENGL 2210 - Multicultural Children's Literature
A survey of multicultural children’s literature. The course includes various authors and illustrators in such genres as the oral tradition, fantasy, realistic and historical fiction, poetry, and picture books. Special emphasis is given to teaching from a culturally relevant perspective and creating a diverse classroom library that includes authors and characters who are Black, Indigenous and people of color; women; LGBTQ+; and from a range of religious and cultural backgrounds. Reading and writing strategies will be incorporated related to text selection and the importance of using a wide variety of reading options in the classroom. Identical with EDUC 2210. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or permission of instructor. Offered Spring, Session 4. (CI)
ENGL 2231 - Topics In Literature
The work in the course varies from year to year. Credit hours: 4.
ENGL 2238 - Selling Sex: The Prostitute In Literature
The prostitute, the whore, the fallen woman, the sexually voracious woman, call her what you will, populates the literary landscape. She is a central figure in cultural debates about sexuality, about the role of women in public markets (both literal and authorial), and about the relationship between romance and fiction. Credit hours: 4
ENGL 2253 - Reading Poetry
A study of lyric, narrative, and dramatic verse. Students will discover meaning by examining the formal properties of poetry, including meter, diction, imagery, and tone. Readings will include a range of genres such as epic, elegy, pastoral, and ode. Representative authors may include Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Whitman, and Dickinson. Credit hours: 4. (AE)
ENGL 2255 - Reading Nonfiction
A study of non-fiction prose, including autobiography, intellectual essay, reportage, criticism, and literary theory. Students will investigate the boundaries of critical thinking and creative imagination; of fact, fiction, and truth. Representative authors may include Montaigne, Douglass, Thoreau, Woolf, and Welty. Credit hours: 4. (AE)
ENGL 2256 - Reading Fiction
A study of the short story and the novel with particular attention given to form and technique. Students will explore a variety of narrative types such as picaresque, epistolary, naturalistic, satiric, and experimental. Representative authors may include Voltaire, Austen, Twain, Joyce, García Márquez, and Walker. Credit hours: 4. (WI)
ENGL 2263 - Writing Poetry
Intensive work in the writing of poetry. Reading of theory along with examples from contemporary poets as models. Primary focus on the workshopping of students’ poems. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2265 - Writing Creative Nonfiction
Intensive work in the writing of creative nonfiction. Reading of theory along with examples from contemporary writers as models. Primary focus on the workshopping of students’ essays. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2266 - Writing Fiction
Intensive work in the writing of fiction. Reading of theory along with examples from contemporary fiction writers as models. Primary focus on the workshopping of students’ stories. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2268 - Professional Editing
Hands-on experience with professional editing, including proofreading; developmental, line, and copy editing; and other skills applicable to book publishing, literary and trade publications, online content editing, and more. Through work on Hail, Muse, Etc.!, students learn the basics of producing a literary magazine, developing aesthetic judgment and the skills necessary for editorial and production responsibilities. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: any ENGL course. (WI)
ENGL 2273S - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 2274 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4.0. Prerequisite: ENGL 1103, ENGL 1113, or permission of the department. One time only.
ENGL 2276 - Reading Drama
A study of tragedy, comedy, and other varieties of works for the theatre, with attention given to historical and social context. Students will consider the elements and structure of drama (character, plot, dialogue, setting, casting, etc,) and the material practices of theatre and theatre-going. Attendance at screenings and at live productions by the theatre department may be required. Representative authors may include Sophocles, Ibsen, Williams, Miller, and Hansberry. Identical with THTR 2276. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2277 - Shakespeare
An introductory course dealing with the principles of Renaissance stagecraft, the nature of performance, the construction and themes of the plays, and the concept of genre or type. Representative plays in all genres from throughout Shakespeare’s career. Identical with THTR 2277. Credit hours: 4. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2279 - Writing Plays
In this course, students learn how to structure a scene, how to structure a play, how to create, hold, and release the tension of a dramatic moment through taut and convincing dialogue, how to create characters that an audience will identify with and care about. Through the reading of modern and contemporary plays, both short and full length, students will study the ways that highly accomplished playwrights solve the problems presented by a variety of dramatic situations, and will begin to implement into their own scenes and plays the elements of the craft that they discover. Identical with THTR 2279. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: THTR 1142 or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (AE, WI)
ENGL 2280 - Sci Fi, Fantasy, And Classical Traditions
This course explores how the genres of speculative fiction draw on and departs from ancient Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, myth, history, and art: in other words, how sci-fi and fantasy both transmit and transmute ancient materials and form deep wells of receptions of the ancient world. Students will focus on themes of perennial human significance (e.g., the uses of history, technology, fantastic voyages, metamorphosis, knowledge/wonder, and so on) in books, comics, films, television, and more. Identical with CLAS 2280. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: CLAS 1132 or permission of instructor.
ENGL 2285 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 2286 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 2287 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 2288 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 2288S - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 3333 - Literature Of The American South
A seminar-style investigation of prose, poetry, and drama of the southern United States through selections from five centuries of Anglophone writing in the region. Topics — Renascence / Renaissance: The Segregated Southern Literatures of the 1920s-1930s, (Re)Writing the War, and others — will vary. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: 1100- or 2200-level literature course or permission of instructor. (CI, HE)
ENGL 3336 - Inspired By The Sea
An exploration of the maritime imagination that proceeds from the sea as setting, subject, and figure to transnational notions of “sea consciousness” that challenge traditions of geopolitical “mapping” in literary and cultural studies. Texts will be selected from a range of writers such as Equiano, Dana, Melville, Jewett, Conrad, Carson, Junger, Walcott, and Trethewey. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: 1100- or 2200-level literature coruse or permission of instructor. (AE)
ENGL 3343 - Transatlantic Brontë
The British sisters Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë burst upon the Victorian literary scene with novels featuring passion and violence. Their astonishing fictions evoked outrage and admiration, and inspired responses not only from other British writers, but also from writers in the United States. This course will explore the cultural and literary contexts -- and legacies -- of the transatlantic Brontë phenomenon. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: 1100- or 2200-level literature course or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (AE, CI)
ENGL 3357 - Radical Turns
Just before the turns of the 19th and 20th centuries, the vogues of Gothicism and Naturalism, respectively, featured radical imaginations that shocked readers and redefined the terms of literature. Works by British and U.S. writers will provide a study of the phenomenon of creative extremity, as well as its influence and enduring power. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: 1100- or 2200-level literature course or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (AE)
ENGL 3363 - Advanced Creative Writing
A workshop in the writing of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and/or playwriting. Students may pursue the genre(s) of their choice. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: Two of the following: ENGL 1161, ENGL 2263, ENGL 2265, ENGL 2266, ENGL/THTR 2279; or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit up to a maximum of twelve hours.
ENGL 3364 - Feminist Literary Theory
This course provides an introduction to feminist literary criticism/theory. It also examines the ways that this strand of criticism overlaps, influences, and expands other fields of literary criticisms, including (among others) Marxist theory, queer theory, cultural studies, post-colonial theory, psychoanalytic theory, and new historicism. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: 1100- or 2200-level literature course or permission of instructor.
ENGL 3367 - Pearl S. Buck Workshop
An advanced creative writing workshop with varying topics and taught in conjunction with the current Pearl S. Buck Writer in Residence. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: One 2200-level creative writing course (2263, 2265, 2266, or 2279 and/or permission of the Coordinator of the Visiting Writers Series. English majors and minors have registration priority. May be repeated for credit.
ENGL 3373 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 3374 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 3378 - Power And Beauty: Gender In Renaissance Art And Literature
This course seeks to understand, analyze, and interpret representations of gender and sex within Renaissance art and literature (in both England and Italy). Using contemporary texts when possible and readings from the disciplines of literature, social history, feminist theory, and art historical texts, the course aims for a fuller assessment of gendered Renaissance life as it pertains to art and literature. Identical with ARTH 3378. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: junior standing or permission of instructor. (CI, HE)
ENGL 3386 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 3388 - Engl One Time Only
Credit hours: 4. One time only.
ENGL 3390 - Independent Study
ENGL 4490 - Independent Study
ENGL 4493 - Senior Seminar
A course designed to help develop critical perspectives in literature. The aim is to increase understanding of such key concepts as genre, period, school, and critical approach. The course will require both essays and oral presentations. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: permission of the Department.
ENGL 4494 - Senior Paper
Each student will work closely with a faculty supervisor to prepare a major paper of about 15-20 pages. At the end of the session, faculty and students will meet as a group to hear oral presentations of the students’ work. Credit hours: 4. Prerequisite: ENGL 4493 and permission of the Department
