A study of the major poems and selected prose of John Milton, radical and conservative, heretic and defender of the faith, apologist for regicide and advocate of human dignity, committed revolutionary and Renaissance humanist, and a poet of enormous creative power and influence, whose epic, Paradise Lost, changed subsequent English Literature. Restrictions: Not open to first-year students.

Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale. Restrictions: Not open to first-years.

This course explores the constructed worlds made by some wonderful writers and builds fictional worlds of its own. The course involves both in-class participation and a great deal of writing:  short stories, worldbuilding exercises, writing about reading. Each week, students read the fiction published in that week's edition of "The New Yorker." Enrollment limited to 12.

What terrain—physically, culturally and emotionally—do American writers inhabit when they write about borders? How might thinking about borders, whether literal or metaphorical ones, complicate the way race, class and gender inform matters of belonging and citizenship? Using literary and cultural analysis, this course explores what it means to be, become or refuse to be “American.” Major course themes include ethnic subjects and the American Dream, internment and detainment, and the disputed ownership of land, resources and persons.

This course considers how literature represents environmental change and crisis, and shapes the understanding of the natural world. How can poetry provide new ways for thinking through extinction, conservation, and environmental justice? The course explores these issues by reading a selection of environmental poetry in conversation with key texts from the environmental humanities.

Offered as AFR 175 and ENG 236. A survey of the evolution of African American literature during the 20th century. This class builds on the foundations established in AFR 113. Writers include Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Paule Marshall.

This course focuses on the extraordinary burst of literary creativity that coincided with the emergence of a new American nation.

In this course students read as writers and write as readers, analyzing the poetic devices and strategies employed in a diverse range of contemporary poetry, gaining practical use of these elements to create a portfolio of original work and developing the skills of critique and revision. In addition, students read and write on craft issues and attend Poetry Center readings and Q&A’s. May be repeated. Enrollment limited to 12. Writing sample required. Instructor permission required.