This course is concerned with the problem of honesty in subjective expression.  We will study both fictional and non-fictional first-person narratives.  Some narrators deliberately deceive, and some deceive without intending to.  How does an elusive understanding of the self make even an “honest” narrator’s project of telling harder, if not impossible?  Readings will include works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Mitchell, Janet Malcolm, Lauren Slater, and Geoff Dyer.  Students will be required to produce both critical and creative writi

An introduction to the study of the novel, through the exploration of a variety of critical terms (plot, character, point of view, tone, realism, identification, genre fiction, the book) and methodologies (structuralist, Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic).  We will draw on a selection of novels in English to illustrate and complicate those terms; possible authors include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Emma Donoghue, David Foster Wallace, Monique Truong, Jennifer Egan.

An introduction to the study of the novel, through the exploration of a variety of critical terms (plot, character, point of view, tone, realism, identification, genre fiction, the book) and methodologies (structuralist, Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic).  We will draw on a selection of novels in English to illustrate and complicate those terms; possible authors include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Emma Donoghue, David Foster Wallace, Monique Truong, Jennifer Egan.

A first course in the critical reading of selected English-language poets, which gives students exposure to significant poets, poetic styles, and literary and cultural contexts for poetry from across the tradition.  Attention will be given to prosody and poetic forms, and to different ways of reading poems.

Limited to 35 students.  Fall semester:  Professor Sofield.  Spring semester:  Professors Nelson and Worsley.

A first course in the critical reading of selected English-language poets, which gives students exposure to significant poets, poetic styles, and literary and cultural contexts for poetry from across the tradition.  Attention will be given to prosody and poetic forms, and to different ways of reading poems.

Limited to 35 students.  Fall semester:  Professor Sofield.  Spring semester:  Professors Nelson and Worsley.

A first course in writing fiction. Emphasis will be on experimentation as well as on developing skill and craft. Workshop (discussion) format.

Limited enrollment. Please consult the Creative Writing Center website for information on admission to this course.  Fall semester:  Visiting Writer Gaige.  Spring semester:  Professor Frank.

We will study writers’ renderings of their own experiences (memoirs) and their analyses of society and its institutions (cultural criticism). Workshop format, with discussion of texts and of students’ experiments in the genre. Students must submit examples of their writing to the English office. Three class hours per week.

Limited to 12 students. Please consult the Creative Writing Center website for information on admission to this course.  Spring semester.  Professor Emeritus Townsend.

(Offered as ENGL 180 and FAMS 110.)  A first course in reading films and writing about them. A varied selection of films for study and criticism, partly to illustrate the main elements of film language and partly to pose challenging texts for reading and writing. Frequent short papers. Two 80-minute class meetings and two screenings per week.

Limited to 25 students.  Fall semester:  Dean's Faculty Fellow Cornett.  Spring semester:  Visiting Professor Pritchett.

In the United States, as in many countries, we divide ourselves into regions.  Differences in language and/or dialect, in history, in customs and politics, are often seen as legitimating regional divisions.  The South has always held an especially powerful place in the American imagination, even before the Civil War.  Through close encounters with texts and music, we will explore the differences within the South, the ways in which particular literary texts have come to be seen not just as representing the South but, in part, constituting its difference, and the compl