Fall 2024
GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSES (not for majors or minors)
ENGL 210: Composition: Business, Professional, and Technical Writing
This course provides instruction and practice in writing the kinds of letters, memos,
emails, proposals,
and reports required in the professional world of business and industry. It emphasizes
both formats and
techniques necessary for effective and persuasive professional communication. We will
also discuss job
application materials such as resumes and cover letters. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 101,
102 or instructor's
consent. May be taken as part of the Professional Writing and Editing Minor.
ENGL 230: Exploring Literature
General education humanities course. Instruction in the critical reading of literature in its major traditional periods or genres (especially drama, fiction and poetry).This is a Kansas Systemwide Transfer Course. Pre- or corequisite(s): ENGL 102.
MW 9:30-10:45 [CRN 12054]
Instructor: TBD
TR 9:30-10:45 [CRN 12055]
Instructor: TBD
Online [CRN 22148]
Instructor: Clinton Jones
This course is a general education class meant to guide students in critical reading of period- and genre-specific literature, including and specifically drama, fiction, and poetry. The class will focus in part on your reception and engagement of literature using critical reading strategies and discussions with classmates. Reading stories lets the audience step out into a different environment without responsibilities or anything on the line. You become a 3rd party entity that gains insight into a world and situations that aren’t your own. Hopefully, after reading and engaging with a piece, the audience walks away with new perspective that can transfer to life outside of the pages. A hope in this course is that students gain these perspectives through the literature assigned and conversations with fellow classmates. You’ll be encouraged to ask questions, critique, and form your own thoughts about the material based on an educational foundation
Online [CRN 12056]
Instructor: Melinda DeFrain
The section of ENGL 230 will explore the roots of Nature Writing, beginning with the
Romantics, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Included in the course are readings from contemporary
Nature
Writing; works such as Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Robin Kimmerer’s
recently published
Braiding Sweetgrass. The course will also include a poetry anthology containing works
of celebrated
black nature writers. The works will be viewed through diverse lenses, including but
not limited to Ecofeminism. Students will be asked to keep a nature journal and to
develop a multimodal final project.
ENGL 232K: Images of Insanity
Online [CRN 12516]
Instructor: Lael Ewy
General education humanities introductory course. You wake to the sound of screams. You are immobilized, the covers of your bed cinched down so tight that you can barely breathe. Craning your neck in the half-light, you can make out a room full of white lumps on bed frames—your co-inhabitants in a world of clinical white. Here, somehow, you must begin to heal. Images of Insanity uses the work of some of America’s greatest writers to bring students the realities of overwhelming emotional experiences and extreme states of mind. Together, we challenge stereotypes and break stigma to see how creating and engaging in the literary arts can bring us deeper understanding and greater compassion for what we face when we face madness. General education introductory course. Pre- or corequisite: ENGL 102.
ENGL 232R: Horror and the Supernatural
Online [CRN 12871]
Instructor: Kerry Jones
Welcome! To all things that go BUMP in the night! In this class, we'll be exploring
American Literature
with a somewhat darker and more ominous twist, and we will examine classical and contemporary
works of horror and the supernatural--particularly themes and ideas common to the
genre. Sometimes
the elements are obvious and overt; sometimes they are sinister and subtle. We'll
also try to explore just
what makes this genre of literature so popular. What draws readers to the macabre,
the fantastic, the
grotesque, and (sometimes) the truly terrifying? Why do people keep coming back for
more? Our
authors this semester will include Poe, Hawthorne, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Stephen
King, Octavia
Butler and many more! Films will be included this semester, and may include Dracula,
The Haunting,
Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining.
ENGL 232T: Hip-Hop and Culture
TR 9:30-10:45 [CRN 14894]
Instructor: TBD
General education humanities introductory course.
ENGL 234: Young-Adult Literature
Online
Instructor: Melinda DeFrain
The course will explore a variety of young adult literature, from classics such as
the Sandra Cisneros
novel, The House on Mango Street and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird to more contemporary
work
such as Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, the graphic novel American
Born Chinese by
Gene Luen Yang, and Walter Dean Myers’ work, Monster as well as others. Students will
be asked to
explore themes common in young adult literature as well as rarer themes such as youth
incarceration
and its correlation to race. The works are diverse and reflect a diverse youth population.
Students will be
asked to develop a multimodal final project.
ENGL 273: Science Fiction
Online [CRN 12059]
Instructor: John Jones
General education humanities introductory course. Survey of key classic and contemporary works of science fiction and speculative literature, emphasizing themes and ideas common in the genre and its subgenres. Prerequisites: ENGL 101, 102.
ENGL 277: Detective Fiction
TR 11:00-12:15 [CRN 13662]
Instructor: TJ Boynton
Upper-Level Courses
ENGL 285: Introduction to Creative Writing
MW 9:30-10:45 [CRN 12060]
Instructor: TBD
TR 11:00-12:15 [CRN 13593]
Instructor: Jedd Beaudoin
ENGL 285 is a course in literary writing—poetry and fiction. In poetry, students write
five poetry
kick-starts and three poems, each centered on one technical skill: a poem which uses
enjambment, a poem in iambic pentameter, and a poem that uses slant rhyme.. In fiction,
students write five fiction kick-starts and two short stories, each featuring a character
or plot
reversal. Rough drafts are discussed in class, and revisions are submitted in a portfolio.
Students find by semester’s end that they write with increased control of punctuation,
grammar, word choice, sentence variety, coherence, and unity, and that collaborating
with
their fellow students to write poems and stories makes for an exciting and rich experience.
General education humanities course. Pre- or Co-requisite: ENGL 101.
ENGL 301: Fiction Writing
TR 2:00-3:15 [CRN 12061]
Instructor: Margaret Dawe
English 301 continues the work begun in English 285 on writing literary fiction. Students will write a series of ten exercises and three short stories, and revise Story 2 or 3 for a final portfolio. The exercises help students develop their craft and many can be done to help with that final story revision. Topics include how to write a first line for a story, how to create characters who are complex and have rich inner lives, how to how to write dialogue and to combine dialogue with gesture, to name some. We’ll also read stories by published writers to study craft.
Prerequisite: English 285 with a grade of B- or better
ENGL 303: Poetry Writing
M 12:30-1:45 [CRN 13175]
Instructor: Dr Adam Scheffler
In this poetry workshop, we will focus on writing as a way of intimately exploring the world and the self. This course includes plenty of fun, but it also requires an intense engagement with your whole being and should be entered with purpose and intention. Beyond any concern for product, we will prioritize each student's deepening relationship to the creative process itself-— beginning with freeing him/her from inhibitions, self-censorship, fears of vulnerability, and rational control, and guiding each writer to touch the world up close with the imaginative power of language. The poem will be presented as a field in which a vision of the world is enacted, a space in which indeed anything can happen. Throughout the semester, we will read diverse models of successful poems and gradually introduce formal considerations of the craft as we respond constructively to each other's work. Repeatable for credit.
ENGL 310: The Nature of Poetry
MW 11:00-12:15 [CRN 13282]
Instructor: Dr TJ Boynton
Poetry is the most caricatured and misunderstood of literary forms. Pop-cultural depictions of poetry portray it as a spontaneous gushing of flowery or sentimental language designed to woo a love interest, rhapsodizing over one’s passions, or brooding over one’s sufferings. Anyone who has these universal motivations and experiences can write poetry; they need only purchase a fountain pen and a moleskin notebook and find a secluded forest glade or a quiet corner of the local coffee shop. As this course will show, the popular perception of poetry is as wrong as it is clichéd. Poetry is not only a serious literary form marked by extreme technical discipline and imaginative creativity; it is, per square inch of text, perhaps the most difficult one to engage with in terms of both composition and reading comprehension. This course will train you in the concepts and skills required to appreciate and interpret this extremely challenging literary form. We will examine a wide variety of poetic genres by a historically and nationally diverse range of poets, and in the process we shall see that, in sharp contrast to its popular image, poetry is one of the most demanding and most rewarding of human creative pursuits.Prerequisite(s): ENGL 102.
ENGL 315: Introduction to English Linguistics
Online [CRN 12071]
Instructor: Dr Mythili Menon
The main goal of this course is to introduce students to the basic methodology, linguistic
principles, including phonological and grammatical concepts used in modern linguistics.
A secondary goal of this course is to teach analytic reasoning through the examination
of linguistic phenomenon and data from
English.
ENGL 323: World Literature
TR 3:30-4:45 [CRN 12237]
Instructor: Dr Katie Lanning
This course approaches the vast array of world literature by focusing on the unifying theme of leaving home. How does literature from across the world represent concepts like homeland, borders, and foreign spaces? How do they understand place and the relationship between different regions of the world? Our course seeks to investigate these questions with a small but diverse snapshot of world literature. We’ll learn and practice several methodologies in pursuit of this study: comparative literature, translation theory, and colonial/postcolonial studies. Our class challenges you, then, not only to think about the content of our readings but also about the approaches we take in analyzing them. These tools will equip you to assess world literature even beyond the texts assigned in this course. Where else but in world literature can you learn about Ancient Egyptian shipwrecks, Incan warriors, Korean folk heroes, Cuban magical realism, and Japanese ghost stories all in the same class?! Venture outside your comfort zone and come globetrotting in English 323. General education humanities course.
ENGL 325: Introduction to English Studies
MW 12:30-1:45 [CRN 15874]
Instructor: Dr Katie Lanning
Don’t let the title of the course fool you: this class benefits anyone, English major
or not, who
foresees a career engaging with the written word. This methods course prepares you
to analyze any
kind of text. In fact, in this course, students pick their own books to study. Learn
close reading,
writing, and research skills that can help you approach texts with confidence. This
course builds in
lots of time for writing and revision in the classroom. Great for English or communications
majors,
pre-law or business, and anyone looking to gain experience in textual analysis. Plus,
a chance to
reread your favorite book and learn what makes it so good! How can you pass that up?!
ENGL 330: The Nature of Fiction
MW 11:00-12:15 [CRN 13610]
Instructor: Kerry Jones
General education humanities course. This course is designed to acquaint students with narrative fiction in a variety of forms, from the short story to the novella and novel. We will cover work from a variety of cultures (although Western literature will be the primary focus) and historical periods, giving some attention to the historical development and to the theories of fiction, and we will examine various techniques used by different authors. The focus of this course will be on craft and technique. General Education Humanities course.
Online [CRN 12807]
Instructor: Dr Rebeccah Bechtold
“A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels,
and the time lost
in that reading which should be instructively employed,” or so stated Thomas Jefferson
in a letter
dated 1818. This course actively ignores Jefferson’s implicit advice and instead pursues
the pleasure
of reading fiction through the lens of American writers. Throughout the semester,
we will be
reading and analyzing a variety of fictional works by Americans, including Toni Morrison’s
epic Song
of Solomon as well as short stories by Washington Irving, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Sherwood
Anderson, Flannery O’Connor, Edgar Allan Poe, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Langston Hughes,
among other
works, to better understand the genre and the scholarly traditions that support it.
Early in the
semester we will learn the basics of literary analysis while being introduced to the
key concepts,
skills, and terms associated with the genre; we will then move into broader questions
about fiction,
focusing on the different lenses literary scholars tend to use in their approach to
the study of fiction;
the class will culminate with a more in-depth research experience, providing you with
the tools to
write an informed literary analysis by the semester’s end.
ENGL 333: Literature and Law [New course!!!]
TR 8:00-9:15 [CRN 26422]
Instructor: Clinton Jones, Esq.
Legal themes have long permeated Western literature. Prior to the Civil War, most lawyers and judges were well educated in Greek and Roman classics, and since the late 19th century the study of law required "a full possession of the general literature of ancient and modern times.” Focusing on law in literature rather law as literature, this class will explore legal themes found in fiction, plays, non-fiction, film, and television—with the objective of exploring essential legal themes like ethics, morality, justice, equality, human rights, crime and punishment. We will emphasize how these themes relate not only to literary works, but also to modern legal and ethical issues, and contemporary perceptions of jurisprudence. Papers and quizzes will stress this ideology. The course requires no prior legal knowledge, and it is not a course in the study of law. This course should be of interest to anyone who wants to engage with the role of law in culture, the legal and literary representation of justice, and how law uses language.General education humanities course.
ENGL 363: Major American Writers II
MW 12:30-1:45 [CRN 16992]
Instructor: Dr Jean Griffith
This course will survey American literature from the end of the nineteenth century
to the present, focusing on
realist, modern, and postmodern innovations in short fiction, poetry, drama, and the
novel. Since our course
will begin with the period in which the United States emerged as a world power, we
will pay attention to the
cultural conditions that made the twentieth century “the American Century” and how
the writers of the
period have responded and, in the twenty-first century, continue to respond to that
context. We will read
works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Toni
Morrison, Joy Harjo,
Jhumpa Lahiri, and Junot Diaz. General education humanities and fine arts advanced
further study course. Prerequisite: ENGL 102.
ENGL 376: Literature In the Audio Age [New Course!]
TR 11:00-12:15 [CRN 16991]
Instructor: Dr Katie Lanning
This course is as much about listening as it is about reading. In fact, the central
question of this class is
whether listening can itself be a form of reading. Together we’ll study the history
and impact of audio
literature in three major forms: radio, audiobook, and podcast. We’ll investigate
the appeal of listening to
books, the strategies and characteristics of producing literature in audio, and the
ways our understandings of
texts can change through sound.
ENGL 377: Graphic Novels
MW 2:00-3:15 [CRN 14240]
Instructor: Dr Darren DeFrain
You know you want to take this course. Comics and graphic novels are bigger and bigger
drivers of American
culture. By the end of this semester successful students should be armed with the
ability to speak and write
informed, articulate and literary responses to questions related to the historical,
cultural, and aesthetic
concerns of the graphic novel. Students should have a functional understanding of
sequential art, visual
rhetoric, and visual analysis and be able to apply these learned skills to the larger
world. Reach out to Dr.
DeFrain with questions!
ENGL 380C: Aftican-American Literary Movements
MW 11-12:15
Instructor: Clinton Jones
This course offers an introduction to the sociological, historical, and political
experience of the African
American male through literary movements in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. We
will explore the major
themes, literary traditions and narrative strategies that merge and shape this body
of literature, considering,
for example, the influence of double-consciousness, questions of authenticity and
performance, and the
presence of folklore and vernacular traditions. Through print and digital texts, oral
histories, film, music, and
poetry, we will investigate literary techniques and strategies including irony, satire,
narration, voice,
characterization, imagery, style, and setting. We will situate texts in their various
historical and cultural
contexts, and introduce students to key literary concepts and terms that should inform
reading and writing
about these texts.
ENGL 401: Fiction Workshop
MW 11:00-12:15 [CRN 12236]
Instructor: Margaret Dawe
English 401 is an advanced course in literary writing in which student manuscripts
are critiqued to develop skill in writing, rewriting, and polishing literary fiction.
The coursework is designed to make writing concrete, precise, and compelling. Students
will write exercises and story drafts, discussed by the class in workshop, and submit
a final revision of one story that includes exercises done toward that revision. Repeatable for credit. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 301.
ENGL 403: Poetry Workshop
MW 12:30-1:45 [CRN 22130]
Instructor: Dr Adam Scheffler
See description for ENGL 303. These classes are held together, with additional assignments for ENGL 403 students.(Course may be repeated for credit) Prerequisite: ENGL 303.
ENGL 505: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
MW 12:30-1:45 [CRN 16993]
Instructor: Margaret Dawe
The course emphasizes advanced accomplishment in writing imaginative nonfiction which
this semester is
narrative nonfiction: telling a story which is all fact but uses fiction writing techniques:
action, language,
character, setting, and theme. Coursework includes reading in this genre and writing
four short pieces of
narrative nonfiction and a longer work (15-20 pages) based on research, interviews,
and immersion reporting.
ENGL 515: Studies In Shakespeare
R 4:30-6:50 [CRN 14199]
Instructor: Dr Francis X. Connor
Shakespeare wrote his plays and poems in the midst of a massive revolution in media, with the printing press barely a century old and the commercial book trade slowly developing. His reputation as a major canonical author would largely be established and affirmed through technologies of publication, from the play quartos printed during his lifetime to the posthumous folios that preserved his plays to the paperback Penguin and Arden Shakespeares of the 20th century to the digital complete works available today. This class will, by focusing particularly on works where he imagines books and literary writing, ask what Shakespeare himself may have thought about this media revolution, and it will also consider how Shakespeare's reputation as an ultra-canonical English writer has been established and revised through the publishing of his work from his handpress age to our online age.
Readings will likely include: Hamlet, Shakespeare's Sonnets, The Tempest, Love's Labours Lost, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Arden of Faversham, The Two Noble Kinsmen, various and sundry other plays and/or poems. David Bevington's Shakespeare and the Book will be our trusty guide. The New Oxford Shakespeare will be our bible.
ENGL 521: Medieval Literature
TR 11:00-12:15 [CRN 16994]
Instructor: Dr Bill Woods
In the Middle Ages, European culture was more homogenous than it became in later centuries.
Latin was still the international language, and literature was less defined by national
boundaries than by class and literary tradition. For students of English medieval
literature it is therefore helpful to have some knowledge of major works by continental
writers. In this seminar we are going to read English and French literature, mainly
narrative poetry, most of it written between
the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. The literary forms include epic, beast epic,
romance, elegies and tales.
Reading list includes:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Geofrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
Chrétien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances
The Song of Roland
Beowulf
ENGL 527: Victorian Literature
Online [CRN 14200]
Instructor: Dr Carrie Dickison
The theme of this course is “Monsters of the Nineteenth Century.” From Frankenstein's
Monster to Dr.
Jekyll/Mr. Hyde to Count Dracula, many of our most enduring monsters emerged from
nineteenth-century
texts. This seminar examines these figures and their twentieth-century counterparts
through a range of
theoretical lenses in order to trace the evolution of the monstrous "other." Readings
include Marry Shelly's
Frankenstein, Polidori's The Vampyre, Le Fanu's Carmilla, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Marryat's
The Blood of
the Vampire, and Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.
ENGL 533: Contemporary Literature
Online [CRN 15888]
Instructor: Dr Jason Allen
ENGL 590: Senior Seminar
T 4:30-6:50 [CRN 12075]
Instructor: Dr TJ Boynton
From roughly the mid-Victorian period onward, the British Empire brought British subjects
into
unprecedented contact with other cultures and races from around the globe. What it
was to be British
soon became entangled with such experiences, such that the nation’s identity grew
to be increasingly
marked by influences from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. This course will explore
the ways in which British
and “postcolonial” literatures chronicle this process, and it will do so through a
series of strategically paired
texts centering on a number of key topics/themes from the modern and contemporary
period. The
overarching goal is to provide a rich basis for students to place a capstone upon
their English degrees.
ENGL 665: Advanced History Of the English Language
Online [CRN 17046]
Instructor: Dr Mythili Menon
ENGL 680: Theory and Practice in Composition
Online [CRN 12077]
Instructor: Dr Carrie Dickison
Introduces theories of rhetoric, research in composition and writing programs, and practices in schools and colleges. Students investigate the process of writing, analyze varieties and samples of school writing, and develop their own writing skills by writing, revising and evaluating their own and others' work. Designed especially for prospective and practicing teachers.
ENGL 686: Professional, Technical, Scientific Writing and Editing
Online [CRN 17057]
Instructor: Dr Michael Behrens
Introduces students to editing and writing in professional, scientific, technical
and medical fields. Through
careful reading and analysis of exemplary technical and scientific documents, students
gain exposure to
numerous writing genres produced for different audiences and contexts. They practice
writing in several
forms, which may include research summaries, press releases, procedures, specifications,
infographics,
public service announcements, fact sheets and popular science writing. Assignments
help strengthen
students' rhetorical awareness, as well as the precision, clarity and readability
of their writing.