English

Chair, Fall 2019: Sharon Alker (on Gaurav Majumdar Adjunct Faculty:
Sabbatical, Spring 2020) Mary Raschko (on Sabbatical, Johanna Stoberock
Chair, Spring 2020: Scott Elliott Fall 2019) Jenna Terry
Theresa M. DiPasquale Katrina Roberts
Affiliated Faculty:
Adam Gordon (on Sabbatical, Fall 2019) Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel
Lydia McDermott, Rhetoric, Writing
Christopher Leise
and Public Discourse

The courses in English provide opportunity for the extensive and intensive study of literature for its aesthetic
interest and value and for its historical and general cultural significance. English courses also provide instruction and
practice in writing: some in scholarly and critical writing, others in creative writing.

Distribution: Courses completed in English apply to the humanities distribution area, with the following
exceptions:
Humanities or Cultural Pluralism: 246, 247, 376, and other courses as specified below.
Fine Arts: 150, 250, 251, 252, 320, 321, 322, and 389

Total credits required to complete a English major: 36

Learning Goals – English Major

 Major-Specific Areas of Knowledge
o Upon graduating, English majors will be able to perform sophisticated close readings of
literary texts, applying genre-specific literary terminology in demonstrating their
understanding of the relationship between form and content. They will be able to demonstrate
their familiarity with various approaches to literary studies, to identify the effects of literary
allusions, and to investigate the relationship between a text and the culture in which it was
written.
 Accessing Academic Community/Resources
o They will be able to make good use of library resources and to read and explore literary texts
independently.
 Critical Thinking
o They will have developed sensitivity to literary aesthetics and style and will be able to analyze
texts and discourses in a variety of media--written, performed, visual, and oral; they will be
able to synthesize a broad range of information bearing upon the interpretation of these
discourses.
 Communication
o They will be able to think, speak, and write intelligently about what texts do in their various
functions. They will speak and write clearly, confidently, persuasively, and with nuance.
 Quantitative Skills
o They will understand the principles of poetic meter and be capable of scanning metrical verse.
 Research Experience
o They will be capable of writing an extended literary analysis paper supported by primary and
secondary research. They will be capable of identifying literary questions, posing an
hypothesis about how the question might be answered, and researching the question through
the analysis of primary sources and synthesis of secondary sources.
The English major: A minimum of 36 credits to include:
I. One elective at the 100-or 200-level chosen from 176-179, 200, 230-233, 246, 247, 250-252, or 270.
II. English 290.
III. At least three other 200-or-300-level courses meeting specific requirements, , including:
 a. One early period British literature course, chosen from English 335, 336, 337, 338, or 350.
b. One course in American literature, chosen from 347, 348, or 349.
c. One course in underrepresented literatures, chosen from 246, 247, 376, or another course
identified as counting in this category.
IV. Three electives at the 300- or 400-level. One of the electives may, with the written approval of the
English department, be a literature course in global literatures numbered 300 or higher or a course in
literature offered by the department of foreign languages and literatures numbered above 306.
V. English 491.
No course may satisfy more than one requirement.
No more than two Creative Writing courses may be counted toward the major.
No more than 12 credits earned in off-campus programs, transfer credits, credits from courses offered by other
Whitman departments, or cross-listed courses may be used to satisfy major requirements. Courses used to satisfy
requirements in other majors or minors cannot also be used to satisfy requirements in the English major or minor.
Courses taken P-D-F may not be used to satisfy course and credit requirements for the major.
The English department strongly recommends at least two years of a foreign language, especially for students
planning to attend graduate school.

Honors in the major: English Majors do not apply for admission to candidacy for honors. If they wish to
pursue honors, senior majors must apply to write a thesis, register for English 497, and proceed to write a thesis that
fulfills the requirements for honors as described in the English Majors’ Handbook. If a senior’s thesis proposal is
accepted and he or she proceeds to write an honors-level thesis, he or she will be granted Honors in Major Study if
he or she:
 Earns at least one distinction (with no failures) on his or her Senior Comprehensive Examinations;
 has completed a total of at least 36 credits in English (excluding English 497);
 attains Cumulative and Major GPAs specified in the faculty code (3.300 and 3.500, respectively); and
 earns a grade of A or A- on the thesis.
The Chair of the English Department will notify the Registrar of those students attaining Honors in Major Study
no later than the beginning of the third week of April for spring honors thesis candidates, at which time the Registrar
will change the thesis course in which they are registered from English 497 to English 498. An acceptable digital
copy of each honors thesis must be submitted to Penrose Library no later than Reading Day.

The English minor: A minimum of 20 credits to include:

I. One elective at the 100-or 200-level chosen from 176-179, 200, 230-233, 246, 247, 250-252, 270, or 290.
II. At least three other 200-or 300-level courses meeting specific requirements, including:
a) One British literature course, chosen from English 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, or 341.
b) One course in American literature, chosen from 347, 348, or 349.
c) One course in underrepresented literatures, chosen from 246, 247, 376 or another course identified
in the descriptions below as counting toward this requirement.
III. One elective at the 300- or 400-level.
No course may satisfy more than one requirement. Courses taken P-D-F may not be used to satisfy course and credit
requirements for the minor.

The Creative Writing minor: A minimum of 20 credits to include:

I. English 150. Though it is preferable to complete the entire creative writing sequence in order, this course
may be taken out of sequence, if necessary.
II. One literature course in the English Department at any level.
III. Two courses in a genre of the student’s choice: 250 and 320 (fiction), 251 and 321 (poetry), or 252 and
322 (creative non-fiction).
IV. One additional creative writing elective at the 200- or 300-level.
Students who combine a major in English and a minor in Creative Writing will be allowed to use one creative
writing and one literature course to satisfy both sets of requirements. Students, in this case, will complete a
minimum of 48 credits total.

For courses in expository writing: See Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse 170, 210, and 320.
COURSES IN LITERATURE AND THEORY
176 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction
Fall K. Schlegel 4 credits
A study of the forms, techniques, and traditions of a shape-shifting genre that can be understood as arising from the
long tradition of the “essay.” Creative Nonfiction includes forms as diverse as the lyric essay, memoir, profile,
critique, rant, and review; inspired and researched, it is a form that transforms lived experience into literary art. The
course will explore the writings of literary essayists from antiquity to the present.

177 Introduction to Poetry

Spring A. Gordon 4 credits
A study of the forms, strategies, voices, and visions of British and North American poetry across time. An ever-
changing art form related to song, poetry predates literacy; today, through imagery, implication, indirection, and
other means, poems continue to offer writers and readers ways to give voice to the ineffable. We will examine how
poetic form and content interact, and consider the unique powers and possibilities of poetry’s metaphoric language
to address all aspects of life.

178 Introduction to Fiction

Fall Majumdar 4 credits
A study of the forms, techniques, and traditions of fiction across time. Fiction has been said to be a means of
imaginative escape, a way to gain deeper understanding of the external world, “the lie through which we tell the
truth,” and a way to acquire a deep empathy for others. This course will explore the complex power of fiction in a
variety of manifestations, from the short story to the novella and the novel.

179 Introduction to Drama

Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
A study of plays as literary texts, examining the forms and techniques of drama across cultures and time periods. We
will consider the dynamics of reading (as opposed to watching) plays and will discuss how dramatic texts are
developed and interpreted through performance.

200 Introduction to Literature and the Humanities

4 credits
The study of selected texts in the humanities, with particular attention to literature written in English, offered at the
introductory level and designed to fulfill the humanities distribution requirement. These courses are writing
intensive (involving at least 18 pages of formal, graded writing assignments and including instruction in academic
writing) and involve a substantial amount of reading. Subjects for the section change from semester to semester and
year to year in order to provide students with a variety of choices for literary study at the 200-level. Any current
offerings follow.

200 VT: Literature and the Digital

Fall Alker 4 credits
Over the last twenty years, literary studies have been greatly enriched by digital methods and tools that
have introduced new ways of reading, interpreting, exhibiting, and editing texts. New critical theories have
arisen in response: theories that reach across disciplines to conceptualize what is now often called the
Digital Humanities. This course will focus on those theories and on the practices they seek to illuminate.
We will learn an array of skills through which we can apply digital tools to texts, use digital techniques to
recreate or to analyze literature in new ways, and study digital literature. Focusing on a set of primary
digital literary texts on which we will experiment with digital tools, and consulting an array of theoretical
texts, we will ask what sorts of knowledge literature produces; how digital practices enhance or limit that
knowledge; and how students of literature and culture can use digital methods to engage productively and
ethically with, and perhaps even transform, what Alan Liu has called the “knowledge work” that dominates
 the world we inhabit. May be taken for credit toward the Film and Media Studies major or minor.
Distribution area: humanities.

200 VT: Many Magicks

Spring DiPasquale 4 credits
Magic! Contemporary writers, like the poets and playwrights of the English Renaissance, are fascinated by
intersections between the natural and the supernatural; they explore not only magic’s association with
trickery, but its potential to inspire deeds truly marvelous, sacred, or tragic in scope. We’ll explore magic
across time and place, from 16th-century England to the twenty-first century Inland Northwest. Readings
may include such texts as Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus; Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene;
the international short-story collection The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories, ed. Mahvesh Murad and
Jared Shurin; and Weird Sisters, an anthology published by Scablands Books in Spokane. Distribution
area: humanities or cultural pluralism.

230 Introduction to Shakespeare: Love, Sex, and Gender

Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
From Hermia’s “The course of true love never did run smooth!” to Lady Macbeth’s “Come, you spirits / That tend
on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,” Shakespeare’s plays and poems grapple with erotic love, human sexuality, and
the complex workings of gender in human experience. Writing for the English stage during a period when female
roles were played by male actors, Shakespeare often explored the ways in which gender is constructed and
performed, yet his writings also include archetypes of masculinity and femininity; and he fashions lovers whose
passions and desires range from the sublime to the ridiculous. The course will introduce students to college-level
study of Shakespeare’s poetry and plays, with particular attention to the themes of love, sex, and gender. May be
taken for credit towards the Gender Studies major.

231 Introduction to Shakespeare: Race, Nationality, and Power

Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
“What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?” asks the enraged Irish captain MacMorris, speaking in dialect as he
confronts the Welsh captain Fluellen in Shakespeare’s Henry V. Not only in his history plays, but in his comedies,
tragedies, and romances, Shakespeare explores both how race, ethnicity, and nationality are constructed and how
these concepts shape individual identities and social interactions. Shakespeare not only worked to define what it
meant to be “English” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but helped to shape the English language
itself—which only a tiny percentage of the world’s population spoke at the time he wrote his plays—into England’s
most powerful global export. The course will introduce students to college-level study of Shakespeare’s poetry and
plays, with particular attention to the themes of race, nationality, and power. May be taken for credit towards the
Race and Ethnic Studies major.

232 Introduction to Shakespeare: Work, Wealth, and Status

Fall DiPasquale 4 credits
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” This mock proverb
tempts Twelfth Night’s Malvolio to fantasize about social mobility – an ambition met with comic but humiliating
ridicule. Across his works, Shakespeare interrogates the social, economic, and gendered structures that stratified
early modern communities. He examines various modes of service, leadership, and artistry, including the craft of
poetry. Mixing high art with realism and humor, he labors to engage diverse audiences, ranging from those who
stand in the yard to those so wealthy that they can pay to sit on the stage. The course will introduce students to
college-level study of Shakespeare’s poetry and plays, with particular attention to the themes of work, wealth, and
status.

233 Introduction to Shakespeare: Faith, Fate, and Virtue

Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
“Who can control his fate?” Othello asks in his last moments upon the stage, after falling prey to Iago’s
manipulations and punishing his wife for imagined sins. Throughout his plays, Shakespeare repeatedly grapples with
questions related to belief and power. In tragedy, comedy, and romance, he explores the boundaries between the
worldly and the supernatural, as well as the limits of free will. Interweaving politics and religion, ethics and
philosophy, Shakespeare’s texts confront audiences with the existential and moral dilemmas that make us human.
The course will introduce students to college-level study of Shakespeare’s poetry and plays, with particular attention
to the themes of faith, fate, and virtue.

246 Native American Literatures

Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
A survey of writing by indigenous peoples of the present-day United States. This reading-heavy course will focus its
attention on a small number of distinctive indigenous literary traditions, possibly (but not necessarily) including the
Iroquois confederacy of the U.S. Northeast and southeastern Canada, the Creek nation of the U.S. Southeast, the
Kiowa peoples of the Southwest, and the peoples of the Columbia Plateau. Aside from reading, assignments will
include exams and formal essays. May be taken for credit toward the major’s “Underrepresented Literatures”
requirement. May be taken for credit toward the Race and Ethnic Studies major.

247 African American Literature

Spring Leise 4 credits
A survey of autobiography, poetry, and fiction by black authors from the 1800s to the present. In this reading-heavy
course, topics will include the way writers of African descent in the British American colonies and subsequent
United States forged spaces for expression in the public sphere, debates about what “Negro literature” during the
Jim Crow era was and how it should be done, and representations of history and identity pertaining to African
Americans after the Civil Rights Act became law. Aside from reading, assignments will include exams and formal
essays. May be taken for credit toward the major’s “Underrepresented Literatures” requirement. May be taken for
credit toward the Race and Ethnic Studies major.

270 Special Topics in Underrepresented Literatures

4 credits
Courses will cover one area of underrepresented literatures in depth. Any current offerings follow.

290 Approaches to the Study of Literature

Fall, Spring Fall: DiPasquale; Spring: Majumdar 4 credits
A course in practical criticism designed to introduce students to some of the approaches that can be used in literary
analysis.

335-341 Studies in British Literature

4 credits
Courses designed to introduce students to the literature and culture of England in each of six literary periods: the
Middle Ages (English 336), the Renaissance (English 337), the Restoration and 18th Century (English 338), the
Romantic Period (English 339), the Victorian Period (English 340), and 1900-Present (English 341). Also included
in this category are courses covering in depth particular topics in pre-Romantic English literature (English 335). The
specific focus of each course will vary from year to year. Topics in a particular literary period may be taken a total
of two times, but the second will count as an elective. Any current offerings follow:

338 VT: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature: The Birth of Empire

Fall Alker 4 credits
Eighteenth-century British literature reflected and exposed the anxieties of the emergent empire. In the
same era that the poet James Thomson wrote the bombastic song “Rule Britannia,” celebrating the
supremacy of Britain over global matters, writers such as Aphra Behn, Alexander Pope, and others were
expressing concern about the consequences of this quest for power, foregrounding such issues as the ethics
 of slavery, extended wars, the effects of luxury, and the instability of British identity in an international
age. This course will investigate the cacophony of voices surrounding the imperial desires of the nation.
Writers may include Behn, Pope, Defoe, Centlivre, Dryden, Haywood, Addison and Steele, Mary Wortley
Montagu, and Olaudah Equiano. May be taken for credit toward the Global Studies concentration.
Distribution area: humanities.

340 VT: Victorian Literature: The Phantoms of Progress

Fall Alker 4 credits
Victorian literature reflects and responds to the technological and industrial progress that strongly marked
the era. We will explore a wide variety of cultural responses to rapid social change. We will examine the
literary presence of a strong nostalgia for an imagined past, the crystallization of narratives of nationalism
and imperialism, and the desire for moral and spiritual certainty. We also will look at disruptive elements in
literature, paying particular attention to the use of supernatural or fantastic beings, from Dickens’s
phantoms to Christina Rossetti’s goblins, to challenge and complicate the impulse toward progress. Authors
studied may include: Elizabeth Gaskell; Charles Dickens; Wilkie Collins; Christina Rossetti; Charles
Kingsley; Lewis Carroll; Thomas Carlyle; Oscar Wilde; Robert Browning; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Edward
Lear; and Robert Louis Stevenson. Distribution area: humanities.

341 VT: Contemporary British Literature

Fall Majumdar 4 credits
Examining literature produced in Britain from the end of the Second World War to the present, this course
will discuss the following main questions: How does a society read its transition from global dominance
and manifestly-controlled homogeneity to one of reduced international power, but vibrant cultural and
racial difference? How do changes in attitudes to gender, minority issues, and popular culture shape this
reading? How does contemporary literature confirm or contradict Britain’s claims to “coolness" or a global
culture amid anxieties about threats to “Britishness”? To engage such topics, we will occasionally
supplement our reading of canonical literature with works from popular culture. We will study works by
Anthony Burgess, Muriel Spark, Philip Larkin, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Carol Ann Duffy, Robin
Robertson, Rachel Cusk, David Mitchell, and Sarah Hall. Distribution area: humanities.

347 Studies in American Literature

4 credits
This includes two period courses designed to introduce students to American literature and culture in two broad
periods: early and middle American literature as well as modern and contemporary literature. One special topics
course, 347, with a topic that will vary every year, will examine one area of American literature in depth. English
347 can be taken twice if a different topic is offered and both times can be counted toward the elective requirement.
Any current offerings follow.

348 The American Literary Emergence, 1620 - 1920

Spring A. Gordon 4 credits
Beginning with the pre-Revolutionary texts by those newly arrived to the Atlantic Coast colonies, and including the
writings of those already present on the continent, we will study how an “American” literature came into being. As
the population boomed and expansion moved westward, the newly formed United States became a national entity
and global presence. We will study the development of American individualism, the rise of genres such as the
captivity narrative and the slave narrative, and major literary movements such as the shift to realism and naturalism.
Authors may include Bradstreet, Emerson, Douglass, Hawthorne, Whitman, Twain, Wharton, James, Dunbar, and
many more.
349 American Literature: Modern to Contemporary
Fall Leise 4 credits
A study of select American literary works across genres from the rise of Modernism into the present, with special
emphasis on changes and continuities in literary form. Topics may include issues of race, class, and gender;
reconsiderations of American “individualism”; and the role of capital, technology, and the corporation in
contemporary American culture. Assignments include a carefully researched and well-written term paper. Prior
college-level literature coursework is suggested but not required.

350 Chaucer
Not offered 2019-20 4 credits
A study of medieval England’s most famous, influential, and humorous poet. Course texts will include The
Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and select shorter poems. Students will learn to read texts in the original
Middle English. May be taken to count toward the major’s “Early Period British Literature” requirement.

353 Studies In Shakespeare

4 credits
A course on the dramatic and non-dramatic works of William Shakespeare, the course will focus on close reading of
the primary texts, with attention to questions arising both from the Early Modern English culture in which they were
written and to their cross-cultural significance in later literature, theatre, and film. The course will vary from year to
year and will be organized by theme. Any current offerings follow:

357 Milton and the Idea of Freedom

Spring DiPasquale 4 credits
The writings of John Milton (1608-1674) played a crucial role in shaping what we now know as Modernity. We will
study his poetry and prose, with particular attention to his ground-breaking political treatises and his enormously
influential epic Paradise Lost.

367 Selected Works by One Author

4 credits
An intensive study of one influential English-language author, designed to include texts from the beginning to the
end of that writer’s career. Any current offerings follow.

375 Literary Theory Variable Topics

4 credits
This course introduces students to arguments about the shaping, the effects, and the interpretation of literature.
Themes for the course will vary, but among the questions we will consistently examine are the following: Through
what kinds of assumptions do we read literature? How do characters in literary texts themselves read? How do these
texts interpret what they represent? We will devote approximately equal time to the study of theoretical texts and to
reading literary works through theoretical lenses. Any current offerings follow.

375 VT: Literary Theory: Resistance: Literature, Theory, and Politics

Spring Majumdar 4 credits
This course will focus on theoretical and literary explorations of resistance in language, interpretation, and
politics. Among the questions we will engage are the following: How does interpretive resistance
demystify philosophical, textual, and social structures? How do literary aesthetics and politics co-operate?
As public commentators now use the term "resistance" for almost any political opposition or disagreement,
what kinds of nuance does the word lose or distort? In what ways does resistance engage disappointment,
grief, hope, or even ironic frustration? Alongside theoretical arguments by Plato, Wollstonecraft,
Nietzsche, Marx, Lukács, Althusser, Foucault, Fanon, Butler, Caygill, and Unger (among others), we will
study literature by Joyce, Woolf, Sinclair, Auden, Gordimer, Rushdie, Beatty, and Cole (among others), as
well as writings from historical resistance-movements by Rosa Luxemburg, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and
Huey Newton. Distribution area: humanities.
376 Studies in Colonial and Anti-Colonial Literature
4 credits
This course will examine texts from former colonies in South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and
Australia. We will study how these works negotiate the past and present, and how they explore multiple forms and
conditions of colonialism and postcolonialism. The course will discuss works of literature, as well as theoretical and
critical texts. Offered annually. May be taken for credit toward the major’s “Underrepresented Literatures”
requirement. Any current offerings follow.

376 VT: Counterpoints: Edward Said’s Work and Anti-Colonial Literature

Fall Majumdar 4 credits
Edward Said’s practice of “contrapuntal” reading unveils various texts’ implicit participation in colonial or
imperialist discourse and, simultaneously, considers resistance to such discourse. Such reading gives much
ballast to anti-colonial literature and theory. This course will focus mainly on the following questions:
What is “contrapuntal” reading? How does literature work against and as counterpoint to stated claims or
unacknowledged assumptions? How might literary aesthetics also function as politics? How does anti-
colonial literature resist and refine notions of solidarity and universalism? Alongside writings by Said that
span his career, we will study works by Kipling, Macaulay, Haggard, Bird, Joyce, Desai, Brathwaite,
Spivak, Rushdie, and Cole. May be taken for credit toward the Race and Ethnic Studies major or toward the
Global Studies concentration. Distribution area: humanities or cultural pluralism.

377 Rhetorical Bodies

Spring McDermott 4 credits
This course examines the rhetorical construction of bodies as well as the ways in which bodies are often used
rhetorically. In order to carry out this examination, we will apply a variety of critical rhetorical lenses to written and
visual texts. We will be particularly concerned with the intersections of social factors such as gender, race, class,
sexuality, and disability and the ways in which these intersections are written on our bodies. We will read texts by
classical and contemporary theorists and authors, such as Hippocrates, Quintilian, Judith Butler, Kenneth Burke,
Patricia Hill Collins, Debra Hawhee, and Robert McCruer. This course will be writing intensive. May be taken for
credit toward the Race and Ethnic Studies major. May be elected as Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse 380.

387-388 Special Studies

4 credits
Studies of English or American literature and language generally not considered in other courses offered by the
department. The specific material will vary from semester to semester. Any current offerings follow.

387B VT: Making Melville

Spring A. Gordon 4 credits
In June of 1851, a frustrated Herman Melville griped to his friend Hawthorne, “Try to get a living by the
Truth—and go to the Soup Societies…Though I wrote the gospels in this century, I should die in the
gutter.” This course takes Melville’s career as a case study for broader questions about literary taste, critical
standards, and canon formation. How does a work become a “classic”? How did Moby-Dick, received with
ambivalence, if not outright hostility, during Melville’s lifetime, come to be seen as the “great American
novel”? And how have Melville’s texts shifted under the analytic gaze of different critical schools, from
nineteenth-century reviewers and the twentieth-century Melville revival to recent new historicist, queer
studies, and postcolonial perspectives? Readings will include Typee; Moby-Dick; several works of short
fiction and poetry; as well as the eccentric domestic novel Pierre. We’ll also examine Melville’s place in
twenty-first-century popular culture and literature, asking what Melville’s legacy tells us about the state of
literary culture. Distribution area: humanities.
491 Seminars in English and American Literature
4 credits
Seminars require a substantial amount of writing, a major written project of at least 15 pages involving research in
secondary sources, and oral presentations. Topics will vary from semester to semester. Open to junior and senior
English majors only. Prerequisite: English 290. Any current offerings follow.

491A VT: Realism and American Fiction in the last 25 years

Fall Leise 4 credits
This course will consider the legacy of “realism” in American fiction, examining how writers both advance
and complicate realist aesthetics and politics. Questions will focus on how recent American novels build
readers’ sympathies with made-up people and to what purposes, and encourage students to examine
whether or not ostensibly realistic storytelling affirms or undermines a text’s apparent motivations. Writers
may include Percival Everett, Ruth Ozeki, Richard Powers, Sergio De La Pava, Marilynne Robinson, and
others. Prerequisite: English 290. Distribution area: humanities.

491B VT: John Donne and Contemporary Poetry

Fall DiPasquale 4 credits
“Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of
another,” writes Julia Kristeva. In this seminar, we will study the 17th-century poet John Donne, the
intertextual features of his writing, and a range of 20 th- and 21st-century writing that engages with, recalls,
appropriates, echoes, revises, contradicts, reworks, or revives his poetry and prose. We will also read
selected criticism and theory on the workings of influence, intertextuality, and poetic appropriation across
divisions of time, gender, place, race, and belief. The syllabus will include writing by such poets as Derek
Walcott, Adrienne Rich, Paul Muldoon, Stephen Edgar, Mark Jarman, Kimberly Johnson, Jericho Brown,
Katie Ford, and Meg Day. Prerequisite: English 290. Distribution area: humanities.

COURSES IN CREATIVE WRITING

150 Introductory Creative Writing
Fall, Spring Fall: Elliott, Roberts; Spring: Roberts, K. Schlegel 4 credits
The writing of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Experience not necessary, but students should expect to
complete weekly exercises, share work aloud, and write responses for peers. In addition, extensive reading and
analysis of pieces by established writers in a variety of literary forms.

250 Intermediate Creative Writing – Fiction

Fall Elliott 4 credits
An intermediate workshop in fiction writing offering students the opportunity to expand their knowledge of
fundamental techniques and important works in the genre. Students will write original short stories and experiment
with strategies and structures through exercises meant to increase their awareness of, and proficiency in, the
elements of fiction. Extensive analysis of peer work and important established models in the genre. Weekly
assignments in reading and writing to develop critical and creative faculties. Final portfolio of creative and critical
work. Prerequisite: English 150 or consent of instructor.

251 Intermediate Creative Writing – Poetry

Fall Roberts 4 credits
An intermediate workshop in poetry writing, intended to expand knowledge of fundamental techniques, and to
familiarize students with many important writers in the genre. Students will have the opportunity to write and revise
poems based on prompts as well as on their own. There will be weekly reading and journal exercises, and extensive
analysis of peer work and established models to develop critical and creative faculties. Final portfolio of creative
and critical work. Prerequisite: English 150 or consent of instructor.
252 Intermediate Creative Writing – Nonfiction
Fall K. Schlegel 4 credits
An intermediate workshop in creative nonfiction writing, intended to expand knowledge of fundamental
techniques, and to familiarize students with many important writers in the genre. Students will write original
essays and experiment with strategies and structures through exercises meant to increase their awareness of,
and proficiency in, the elements of nonfiction. Extensive analysis of peer work and important established
models in the genre. Weekly assignments in reading and writing to develop critical and creative faculties.
Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisite: English 150 or consent of instructor.

320 Advanced Creative Writing – Fiction

Spring Elliott 4 credits
An intensive advanced workshop in fiction. Students will continue to develop their proficiency in fiction writing by
reading deeply and analyzing established models, completing exercises, producing drafts of original stories and
revisions, participating in discussions of peer work, and giving presentations based on close readings. Final portfolio
of creative and critical work, which may include some consideration of where the student’s work fits into a fiction-
writing tradition. Prerequisites: English 250 or equivalent and consent of instructor.

321 Advanced Creative Writing – Poetry

Spring Roberts 4 credits
An intensive advanced workshop in poetry. Students will have the opportunity to develop proficiency in poetry
writing by completing exercises, producing drafts and revisions of poems for peer discussions, reading deeply and
analyzing established models, and actively participating in rigorous and constructively critical discussions. Weekly
poem assignments, as well as reading and journal exercises. Final portfolio of creative and critical work.
Prerequisites: English 251 or equivalent and consent of instructor.

322 Advanced Creative Writing – Nonfiction

Spring K. Schlegel 4 credits
An intensive advanced workshop in “the fourth genre,” creative nonfiction. Students will have the opportunity to
experiment with form, to address a range of subjects in weekly creative nonfiction pieces, and to read deeply and
analyze established models as well as peer work to develop important critical faculties. Students will be expected to
participate actively in rigorous, constructively critical discussions. Weekly exercises, as well as reading and journal
assignments. Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisites: English 252, or equivalent, and consent of
instructor.

389 Special Studies in Craft

4 credits
Studies of literary craft not considered in other courses offered by the department, intended for upper-level creative
writing students. Active participation in rigorous discussions and intensive workshops expected. Final portfolios of
creative and critical works. Specific material will vary from semester to semester. The distribution area is fine arts.
Prerequisites: English 250, 251, or equivalent, and consent of instructor. Any current offerings follow.

389 VT: UniVerse: The Poetry of Science & Mathematics

Fall Roberts 4 credits
Galileo calls the universe “a grand book written in the language of mathematics,” and poet Elizabeth
Bartlett offers words that might be proof of a sustained fascination with the world’s equations: “Because I
longed/To comprehend the infinite/I drew a line/Between the known and unknown.” In this craft course,
we’ll consider how poetry, science, and mathematics are often inextricably entwined. Octavio Paz reminds
us of “dangerous experiments” conducted by scientists and poets alike “to explore forbidden zones,”
navigating that which Emily Dickinson insists “eludes the finding out.” While reading widely in
contemporary poetry, students will bring vernacular and imagery from across disciplines to write poems
fueled and ballasted by passions and interests in geology, biology, astronomy, physics, calculus, chemistry,
 etc. We’ll investigate methods, ethics, forms, and tools; the nature of knowledge itself; as well as pressing
issues for poets writing within the Anthropocene. Prerequisites: Intermediate creative writing or consent of
instructor. Interested students without prerequisites are highly encouraged to contact the professor.
Distribution area: fine arts.

INDEPENDENT STUDY and THESIS

401, 402 Independent Study
Fall, Spring Staff 1-4 credits
Directed reading and the preparation of written work on topics suggested by the student. The project must be
approved by the staff of the department. Thus, the student is expected to submit a written proposal to the intended
director of the project prior to registration for the study. The number of students accepted for the work will depend
on the availability of the staff. Independent Study may not count as one of the electives fulfilling minimum
requirements for the major or minor without prior written approval of the English department. Prerequisite: consent
of instructor.

497 Thesis
Fall, Spring Staff 4 credits
Designed to further independent research projects leading to the preparation of an undergraduate thesis. The creative
thesis, an option for a student of exceptional ability in creative writing, will be a substantial, accomplished collection
of work in a particular genre. Limited to, but not required of, senior English majors. Prerequisite: approval of a
proposal submitted to the English department prior to registration by a date designated by the department. For full
details, see the English Department Handbook.

498 Honors Thesis

Fall, Spring Staff 4 credits
Designed to further independent critical and creative research projects leading to the preparation of an undergraduate
thesis. The creative thesis, an option for a student of exceptional ability in creative writing, will be a substantial,
accomplished collection of work in a particular genre. Required of and limited to senior honors candidates in
English. The candidate will be assigned to an appropriate thesis adviser, depending upon his or her field of interest.
Prerequisite: approval of a proposal submitted to the English department prior to registration by a date designated
by the department. For full details, see the English Department Handbook.