Beginning in the late 20th century, human organization and experience has increasingly been influenced by digital forms of communication, production and integration with the environment. This is an environmental, technological, social landscape that will likely dominate the rest of our lives, but how can people responsibly accept or use it without putting it in context with other forms of technology and communities?

Offered as CHM 108 and ENV 108. An introduction to environmental chemistry, applying chemical concepts to topics such as acid rain, greenhouse gases, air quality, pesticides and waste treatment. Chemical concepts are developed as needed.

Earth has entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, characterized by the accelerating impact of human activities on the Earth’s ecosystems. All over the globe, humans have transformed the environment and have sometimes created catastrophic dynamics within social-ecological systems. Scientists have studied these phenomena for decades, alerting both the general public and policy-makers of the consequences of human actions. However, despite convincing evidence of environmental degradation, humans continue to radically transform their environment.

How does one write a life, especially if it’s one’s own? This writing workshop addresses the profound complexities, challenges and pleasures of the genre of the memoir, through intensive reading, discussion, and both analytical and creative writing. Readings are drawn from a range of mostly contemporary memoirists with intersectional identity locations—and dislocations—drawing from a range of voices, experiences and representations, pursuing what the class comes to identify as the most urgent aesthetic and ethical questions.

Poems praising women’s nipples, satires about London brothels, ballads about dildos: this is how English Renaissance writers wrote about sex! English attitudes toward sex were complex, and they devised innovative literary forms to express their ambivalence. This course aims to give students a sense of the range of literary treatments of sex from 1580 to 1680. Placing these texts within contemporary understandings of gender, love and desire, the course asks: What did men write about women? What did women write about men? How was same-sex love depicted?

Offered as PYX 301 and ENG 301. Conceived as the culmination of an undergraduate poet’s work, this course features a rigorous immersion in creative generation and revision. Student poets write a chapbook manuscript with thematic or stylistic cohesion (rather than disparate poems, as in prior workshop settings). For Poetry Concentrators, this course counts as the required Capstone; for English majors in the Creative Writing track, the course counts as an advanced workshop and may count toward the fulfillment of the "capstone experience" requirement.

This course helps more advanced fiction writers improve their skills in a supportive workshop context, which encourages experimentation and attention to craft. The course focuses on technique, close reading, and the production of new work. Students submit manuscripts for discussion, receive feedback from peers, and revise their work. They keep a process journal and practice mindfulness to cultivate powers of focus and observation. Students read Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose and short fiction by authors in different genres.

A study of 20th-21st century women writers in English from Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean. Students read a variety of genres in their historical, cultural and political contexts, to address questions such as: how have women writers addressed the challenges of contesting sexism and patriarchy from within their home cultures as well as the impacts of western imperialism? How have they combined feminism with anti-colonialism, and addressed issues of race, class, gender, sexuality or nationhood, war, migration and diaspora?