Course Directory

Eng Romanticism

Considers the major works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and their contemporaries such as Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others, and relates them to the intellectual, political, and social currents of the time. Spring, even-numbered years.

Studies In Victorian Lit

Focuses on such poets and essayists as Carlyle, Newman, Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, the Rossettis, and Meredith. Examines the current renewal of interest in poetry by women and noncanonical writers. Spring, odd-numbered years.

Images Of Working-Class Life

Examines the experience of working-class people from a number of perspectives: non-fiction, fiction, poetry, song, drama, film. Focuses on themes of class, identity, cultural influences, and economic and political power as they explicitly relate to the issue of work. Offered Spring odd years. Prerequisite: For ENG credit successful completion of or exemption from general education writing requirement; for SOC credit SOC 211. Spring, odd years.

Studies In Early American Lit

Explores various topics in 17th and 18th century American literature against the backdrop of Puritanism. Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, and Wheatley are among the major figures encountered. Gives attention to the dynamics of molding a distinctively national literature. Spring, even-numbered years.

Studies In Amer Romanticism

Studies a selected group of writers to illustrate their contributions to American art and thought and their relationships with the development of Romanticism in the first half of the 19th century. Emphasizes Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Fall, odd-numbered years.

Studies In Amer Real & Natural

Studies a selected group of writers to illustrate the development of realism and naturalism in American literature in the latter half of the 19th century. Emphasizes Twain, James, Howells, Crane, Norris, and Dickinson. Spring, even-numbered years.

Studies In Am Lit 1900-1945

Examines the period less as a unified site to be surveyed in terms of fiction, poetry, and drama than as a problematic field to be studied in terms of race, gender, and class. Authors include Wharton, Cather, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Hurston, and Faulkner. Fall, annually.

Studies In Contemp Amer Lit

Investigates the very idea of a canon for American literature since World War II and discusses strategies for reading such representative authors as Roth, Coover, Oates, and Morrison. Spring, odd-numbered years.

Stu In Afri-Amer Novel

Studies in depth the development of the African-American novel from its origins in the slave narratives to the present. How do African-American novels fit into the larger tradition of African-American literature? What modes of thematic and narrative,"discourse mark the particular characteristics of the African-American novel? Includes Douglass, Chesnutt, McKay, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Reed, Walker, and Morrison.

Brit Novel 19th Cent

Explores the English novel from Austen to Hardy. Nine or ten novels are studied with selections from Austen, Scott, Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli, Meredith, Trollope, the Brontes, Gaskell. No prerequisite; however, one semester of English literature survey (ENG 221 or 222) is recommended. Fall, even-numbered years.

Studies In Modern British Lit

Examines the relationship between social and cultural change and the creation of literature and theory in British literature from 1900 to the close of World War II. Provides an opportunity to compare genres and to study key literary movements. No p,"rerequisite. One semester of ENG 221 or 222 is recommended. Spring, even-numbered years.

Studies In Contemp British Lit

Examines British literature produced from the end of World War II to the present. Provides an opportunity to compare genres and to study significant literary and cultural movements. No prerequisite. One semester of ENG 221 or 222 is recommended.,"Spring, odd-numbered years.

Short Stories

Traces the evolution of the short story from the 19th century to the present. Elements such as plot, character, theme, style, and point of view are studied. Readings are drawn from a variety of writers representing a diversity of cultures: Poe, deMaupassant, Chopin, Gilman, Faulkner, Ellison, Kafka, Hurston, Fuentes, Lessing, Silko, Walker, and LeGuin. Spring, annually.

Studies in Graphic Narratives

Introduces students to the scholarly study of sequential art, comics, graphic novels, and graphic narratives. Texts and approach will vary. Prerequisites: ENG 111 or equivalent.

20th Century Poetry

Provides explication and discussion of works by such writers as Yeats, Frost, Eliot, Plath, L. Hughes, Auden, Brooks, and Rich. Fall, odd-numbered years.

English Drama 1642

Presents an overview of English drama in its first two phases, Medieval and Renaissance (non-Shakespearean). Includes literary, theatrical, and cultural studies. No prerequisite. Fall, odd-numbered years.

Eng Drama 1660-1850

Presents some of the major forms of drama in this extremely varied 200-year period, with possible focuses on heroic tragedy, Restoration comedy, sentimental comedy, Victorian melodrama, and the precursors of modern English drama. No prerequisite. Fall, even-numbered years.

Modern Drama To 1950

Surveys influential dramatic literature of the Continental, British, and American theater from 1850 to 1950 through lectures, discussion, and experiences related to the modern stage. No prerequisite. Spring, even-numbered years.

Contemporary Drama

Explores the diversity and vitality of British, American, and World theater since 1950 through selected texts and theatrical experiences. No prerequisite. Spring, odd-numbered years.

Movie Genres

Explores genre as sets of narrative conventions that have vitalized American movies. Demonstrates genre to be a socializing force as well as a mirror of social change. Considers representations of race, gender, and class in various genres. Spring, odd-numbered years.

Topics In Folklore

Provides intense study of one or more aspects of folklore study. Focuses on one or more folk groups, a particular folk genre, folklore and popular culture, or folklore and literature. Offers students a fieldwork experience-collection, transcription,classification-and methods of analysis of oral traditions. No prerequisite. Spring, annually.

American Voices

Provides an introduction to American dialectology and sociolinguistics. Emphasizes the great diversity and vitality of American English. Covers the causes and mechanisms of linguistic changes, the role of language differences in society, and the relevance of dialectology to language teaching. Pays special attention to the regional speech patterns of Pennsylvania. No prerequisite. Spring, odd-numbered years.

Topics In World Lit

Provides an in-depth study of world literature through the examination of the development of a particular literary genre, movement, or theme that crosses national or cultural boundaries; or a significant national or cross-cultural English language tradition that falls outside the conventional canons of British and American literature. Fall, odd-numbered years.

Topics Lit Theory

Provides a historical study of literary criticism and aesthetic theory with emphasis upon modern trends. Spring, even-numbered years.

Rhetor Thy For Writers

Explores such questions as why do we communicate in writing, how does writing help us learn, how does writing facilitate, change, or affect the nature of communication? Students examine in detail the works of figures such as Plato, Cicero, Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Derrida, and Kristeva, and study how rhetorical theory is used in everyday communication. Prerequisite: Exemption from or successful completion of the general education writing requirement.

English Study Off-Campus

Provides students with an opportunity to travel to significant literary and historical sites while reading and discussing related texts. Students would travel during university breaks and would meet with the instructor for orientation prior to trave,"l. After travel is completed, students will turn in assignments according to a schedule developed by instructor. No prerequisite. Spring, even-numbered years on demand.

Literature and Medicine

Explores the broad range of literature (short fiction, novel, poetry, memoir, drama/film) that expresses the human experiences of illness, disability, healing, and dying from the perspectives of patients, caregivers, and health care practitioners (physicians, nurses, allied health professionals). The course will emphasize social and historical contexts and represent the diversity of these experiences, especially in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and class, with further consideration of the influences of scientific and technological advances over time. Prerequisite: Exemption from or successful completion of the general education writing requirement.

Literature Of Aging

Explores the broad range of literature (short fiction, novel, poetry, memoir,drama/film) that expresses the human experiences of aging and depicts images of aging and the aged, with a focus on aging in relationship to identity, love, family, and community and on the concerns of independence/dependence, loneliness/alienation, friendship, faith, creativity and renewal, ageism, death, and bereavement from literary and social scientific perspectives. Prerequisite: Exemption from or successful completion of the general education writing requirement.

Images Women Lit

Examines images of women in myth, literature, and the culture at large and applies contemporary feminist critical approaches to the study of these images. Spring, annually.

Gender, Lit, Popular Culture

Examines representations, issues, constructions of gender in literature, myth, and popular culture. The focus and theme will vary. Applies feminist, queer, and cultural theory to the texts. Prerequisite: Successful completion of ENG 111, and sophomore standing.