Gateway Course Required for the Beginning Major
Engl 25000
Introduction to Literary Study
21256 sec. D TBA M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
21255 sec. G TBA M W 5:00 – 6:15pm
21254 sec. L TBA T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am
21253 sec. R Mark-Allan Donaldson T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
This course offers an introduction for beginning English majors to the practices and concepts in the study of literature. We will think carefully about literature as a form of representation – about what literary texts mean as well as how they mean. The course will help students to develop a critical vocabulary and method for reading and writing about literature, as well as introduce them to the cultural contexts and backgrounds of various literary traditions. Our readings will explore a variety of genres and styles – short fiction, the novel, narrative poetry, lyric poetry, and forms of drama. Above all, this is a class in reading and (frequent) writing which will emphasize close reading techniques, interpretive approaches, the making of arguments, and the development of individual critical voices in order to prepare students to succeed in advanced English elective courses.
21289 sec. F Harold Veeser M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm
Introduction to Literary Study is intended as a Gateway course for English Majors. As such, it seeks to provide Literature and Creative Writing majors with a basic frame of knowledge that will enable them to read other works intelligently and a basic conceptual vocabulary in which to write about writing. Introducing you to this basic framework is the learning objective of the course. The course is also attractive to non-English majors, who are very much welcome.
Literature Courses
200- Level courses
Please note: These 200-level courses are designed to introduce beginning students to literary history, critical approaches, and formal terminology. They typically have a minimum of 3-5 shorter assignments, a variety of in-class writing tasks, and assume no prior background in the discipline. For this reason, majors are not permitted to take more than four (4) 200-level classes.
Engl 21200
Introduction to Language Studies
21277 sec. E Olivia Wood M W 2:00 – 3:15pm
In this course, we will study the functions and social politics of language. We will engage research that invites us to critically examine societal structures and attitudes surrounding language (including our own beliefs) that create and uphold social and racial hierarchies—a worthwhile inquiry for any student and all educators. In our studies, we will draw upon research from the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, sociology, rhetoric and composition, literacy studies, disability studies, and more.
Engl 25100
Historical Survey of British Literature Part I
21315 sec. M Elizabeth Mazzola T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
Designed for beginning English majors and non-majors alike, this introductory course provides an overview of some of the earliest works from the English literary tradition. We will look at recurring ideas about maleness and femaleness, heroism, and criminality, but we’ll also think about what happens to storytelling when more people learn how to read and write for themselves, and more stories are given permanence and a wider circulation because of the technology of print. The readings are always fun, accessible, and memorable, and include works like Beowulf, Paradise Lost, The Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Many of them feature conceited heroes, sympathetic monsters, and more than a few women who challenge conventional ideas about sex, revenge, honor, and family, as well as who gets to control the storytelling apparatus. Please reach out to Prof. Elizabeth Mazzola at emazzola@ccny.cuny.edu with questions.
Engl 27015
Demons, Mad(wo)men, Rebels, Fools: Russian Literature Through the Eyes of Non-conformist Heroines and Heroes
20863 sec. B Anna Linetskaya M, W 9:30 – 10:45am
In this course we will examine a variety of Russian literary portrayals of non-conformism and will look at the “Russian anti-hero:ine” as literary figure, social critic, religious seeker, and revolutionary. We will meet holy fools, anarchists, political revolutionaries, Gulag prisoners, drunkards, murderers, punk poet:esses, vampires, and demon:esses, and will analyze how their passions, desires, and torments can create tension with the society at large. Is otherness madness? What is the connection between resistance and insanity? What is a madhouse – a prison or a hospital? Is it a reflection of the “normal” world? With the help of the canonical exemplars of 19th and 20th century Russian literature as well as lesser known texts in the form of fairytales, skazs, and short stories, we will engage in student-centered class discussions of the assigned readings, and will attempt to make sense of what does it mean to speak truth to power no matter the consequences.
Among the writers we will read are: Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Goncharov, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, and many others. By the end of the semester, you will (a) have a sense of the overarching narrative of Russian literary non-conformists in the broader historical, social, artistic, and intellectual context; (b) uncover why it has become a critical commonplace that Russian language literature often expresses unpalatable truths that are not addressed in other national canons; (c) discuss the major themes and questions that preoccupied Russian language non-conformist writers; and (4) discover what their literary works can still teach us today.
No knowledge of Russian is required to participate in this course.
Engl 27025
Defining Womanhood: Memoir and Autobiography from 1861
20027 sec. P Janée Moses T, TH 2:00 – 3:15pm
This course examines American women’s life-writing, in the form of memoir and autobiography, to consider how these works expand the American literary canon and notions of American identity from 1861 through the present. Throughout the course, we will engage authors of varied racial and ethnic positions to more deeply analyze what the category of womanhood entails.
Engl 28000
Cross-listed with CL 28000/FREN 40600
Introduction to Comparative Literature
20025 sec. F TBA M W 3:30 – 4:45pm
Course description is forthcoming.
300- Level Courses
Please note: 300-level classes assume some background and prior experience at the 200-level. Students should complete two 200 level courses before embarking on 300 level work; however, they may register for a single 300 level course if they are still completing 200 level requirements. Generally, these classes require two shorter essays and one longer assignment or final paper involving research or reference to secondary materials.
Engl 31173
Cross-listed with JWST 31713
Culture of Resistance in New York
20023 sec. M Elazar Elhanan T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
From 1880 to the 1920 over two million Jewish immigrants arrived in New York from Eastern Europe. Faced with terrible conditions of exploitation and nativist racism, these immigrants created a rich and unique culture of resistance. Through this culture, expressed in their own language, Yiddish, they coped with the shock of immigration, with the reality of poverty, sweatshops, crime and discrimination they found in the “Golden Land”, and called to task the American Dream itself.
Engl 31865
Irish Literature
21312 sec. C Estha Weiner M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
“Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.” W.H. Auden, In Memory of W.B. Yeats
Yes, a sampling of genres: poetry, non-fiction {essays}, short fiction, drama, from the 18th Century to the 21st. The frame in this class is on genre, though the volume of this literature could be viewed from a variety of perspectives. Critical/literary, historical, and political perspectives will provide a context, as well as videos, virtual readings, and performances. Also, a list of variant Irish Literary and Theatrical organizations in NY will be provided, in order for you to learn of readings, events, and performances. Finally, we’ll be reading authors writing in English and in Irish {in translation}, and attempt to pronounce these authors’ names as correctly as possible!
Engl 31915
Cross-listed with JWST 31915
Absurdist Jewish Film and Fiction
20021 sec. C Amy Kratka M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
It’s post-pandemic and we have developed a taste for the absurd. This course explores Jews onscreen and in texts navigating a wildly improbable and highly unusual reality.
Engl 31923
Cross-listed with JWST 31923
Fantasy Dreams & Madness in Yiddish Literature
20019 sec. P Elazar Elhanan T, TH 2:00 – 3:15pm
Using a trove of Yiddish novels, poetry, film, and comics we will examine the literary representation of the alienated mind. We will question how “mad” protagonists and their creators explore the possibility of self-revelation through fantasy, dreams, and inverted realities.
Engl 31950
Film Noir
21311 sec. B Chester Kozlowski M, W 9:30 – 10:45am
Film Noir is an American movie genre that developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Noir (French for “black”) delves into the darkness of men’s souls and such digressions as lust, adultery, murder, larceny, and insurance fraud. The genre developed iconic cinematic motifs and tropes that inspire filmmakers today. This course explores Film Noir’s European influences, its treatment of gender roles and post-war challenges, and its role in the myth of The American Way. Literature studies, film techniques, history, sociology, and character psychology provide perspective on these stories of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Expect to watch a film a week as homework, and compare at least three classic movies to the pulp literature from which they were adapted.
Engl 31975
Archival Education and Outreach
54586 sec. H Marissa Vassari M, W 6:30 – 7:45pm
“Archives are tools; like all tools they are kept to be used” (Pugh, 2010).
This course introduces students to the emerging field of archival education and will build a foundation for using primary sources as learning tools for inquiry-based learning in K-12 classrooms and undergraduate settings, and for public programming. Students will be introduced to professionals in the field who facilitate outreach in a variety of cultural institutions, and they will use what they learn to create practical tools for their “professional toolbox.”
This course will model to students how to become well-rounded information professionals. They will be exposed to pedagogical approaches, create primary source educational resources, learn about and develop innovative outreach initiatives, and be provided with practical strategies for working with groups in a variety of public settings.
Engl 34200
Advanced Grammar
21321 sec. E Nicole Treska M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm
21320 sec. G Nicole Treska M, W 5:00 – 6:15pm
Advanced Grammar reviews principles of traditional English grammar and usage (parts of speech, sentence structures, punctuation, pronoun/verb form/agreement, etc.) for English majors and minors, especially for those who plan to teach or work as tutors or editors. It is not a remedial course for non-majors who struggle with writing problems, though many non-majors take it. There is a custom-published workbook for the course, and used copies of it are not allowed.
Engl 35301
Shakespeare I
21272 Sec. F Doris Barkin M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm
This course constitutes a general introduction to Shakespeare’s earlier works, (1590-1600) from a variety of genres and historical and thematic perspectives. We will consider the development of Shakespeare’s work chronologically as well as through an examination of themes and protagonists from across his plays. Works will include Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Part 1, and Othello, a later play. We will also read from a selection of the Sonnets written roughly over the same period. We will explore these plays and poems from various critical perspectives, and also examine issues of staging, costumes, theatrical space, props, and bodies. We will consider how the historical and cultural climate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — the religio-political conflicts, the changing view of patriarchal marriage, and the emerging mercantile economy and class system informed Shakespeare’s work.
Engl 35409
Medieval Modernity
20657 sec. T Mark-Allan Donaldson T, TH 6:30 – 7:45pm
The consensus of the Early Modern Era seemed to be that closing the door on those dank and dark Middle Ages was for the betterment of humanity, art, culture, and intellectualism. Despite this, medieval stories and ideologies have continued to be a popular mode of expression, an abundant wellspring from which people pull adaptions and continuations which remain relevant well into the contemporary moment. In all media and mediums, the medieval lurks; from popular video games such as The Witcher and Dark Souls series; to international T.V. phenomena like House of the Dragon and Kingdom; to the silver screen in adaptions like The Green Knight; to the countless literary productions which reinvent, recycle, reinterpret, and readapt medieval narratives, characters, and themes found in comic books like Once & Future and novels such as The Buried Giant. This class will explore medieval texts through the lens of relevance, building a foundation of knowledge through readings of medieval material before moving onto later and more contemporary literature to explore why we just can’t seem to shut the book on the Middle Ages.
Engl 35501
Milton
21329 sec. C András Kiséry M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
Milton is hard. The sentences are complex, the ideas rich, challenging, and sometimes infuriating–but always fascinating. After Shakespeare, Milton is the most influential poet in the English language. His great epic, Paradise Lost, is a visionary retelling of the story of the creation and the fall, of the rebellion of Satan and of his defeat. His Samson Agonistes is a tragedy based on the story of the legendary hero Samson and his destruction of the temple of Dagon. These works are inspired by the Bible, influenced by Greek and Roman literary tradition, informed by the most advanced science of the 17th century, and they also speak to the revolutionary moment in English history, when Milton participated in political quarrels about tyranny, about the freedom of the press, and about the right to divorce. We will read all of Paradise Lost, Samson, selected other poems and some of Milton’s journalism. It will be a challenging semester, but hopefully well worth the effort.
Engl 36510
Kafka and The Kafkaesque
21281 sec. E Václav Paris M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm
What do CUNY administration, waking up as a beetle, insurance, suffocating families, airport security, and the law have in common? One answer is the “Kafkaesque.” Defined briefly as “characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka’s fictional world,” the Kafkaesque originates with the German-language Prague-based Jewish writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Its applications, however, are much broader than simply to Kafka’s work. Taken up in various ways by writers, artists, philosophers, and filmmakers, the Kafkaesque has become one of the defining symptoms of modern life.
This course is dedicated to exploring the meanings of the Kafkaesque, theorizing the term, and staking out its creative potentials. We will begin by reading Kafka’s major works: a selection of his stories, including “Metamorphosis,” his novel, The Trial, as well as extracts from his letters. We will then move on to other expressions of the Kafkaesque in literature and film (both earlier and later), including Hermann Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and Basma Abdel Aziz’s 2013 novel, The Queue. We’ll also read theorists of the Kafkaesque including Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, and Gilles Deleuze. The questions that we’ll ask include: is the Kafkaesque a historical formation? How does it relate to modernity? What is its genre? Is it a form of comedy? Does it have a particular place (the city, the West), or relation to a given identity (Jewishness, linguistic minority)? What are its existential and psychoanalytic ramifications? Why has such an apparently inane set of topics and affects proved so fascinating to writers and theorists of the last century? What does it teach us about life today, and about the future? And what isn’t Kafkaesque… at least not yet? Evaluation will be based on participation, weekly written critical responses, as well as midterm and final essays.
Engl 36806
Global Autobiography
21290 sec. D Harold Veeser M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
This course offers an introduction to the life writing in a global frame. We will read a sampling of popular memoirs, recovery narratives, substance-abuse sagas, trauma memoirs, conversion narratives, stories of struggles with parents and lovers, and stories of displacement, immigration, and rebellion. Most of these required readings will be drawn from non-U.S. traditions and will include writings by memoirists from the Caribbean, Africa, Morocco, Algeria, the Middle East, China, Japan, India, and Pakistan. You will complete the writing requirement by writing in response to prompts that will allow for experiments in criticism and memoir. These experiments sometimes will involve writing about yourself, your family, and your life experience. English majors and non-English majors are both very much welcome.
Engl 37106
Making a Monster: Race and Monstrosity in the US Imagination
20861 sec. M Janée Moses T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
How has mainstream, white audiences’ “fictitious” fear of angry black masses impacted the genres of horror film, fantasy, and science fiction? This seminar, which begins with D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, explores the making of racialized and gendered monsters in the aftermath of enslavement in the American cultural imagination through literature and film of the 19th and 20th centuries. Using the intervention of Christina Sharpe’s Monstrous Intimacies (2010) concerning the contemporary repetition of familiar and familial violence that shaped black and white life during colonial slavery, we will explore difference and otherness based on race, gender, sexuality, and power to consider the potential for the monster and the non-monster to be identified through formulations that resemble black and white subjects. The course ends with the critically acclaimed film, Get Out (2017), and the push for further conversations about the ways in which monstrosity and otherness continue to be recognizably black. Throughout the semester, students will learn to place literature and film into their corresponding historical contexts and complicate concepts of racial and national identities with attention to America’s histories of monstrous intimacies.
Engl 37505
Hybrid Experimental Poetics
21325 sec. F Laura Hinton M W 3:30 – 4:45pm
Can you use a smart-phone camera, video, or voice-recording app? Do you like writing creative poetry and experimental prose in tandem with using various software technologies? In this experimental course (second time offered), we will be using the mixed-media technology readily available to us through phones, digital tablets, and computer software to write and produce our own creative multi-media literary works. We will also be reading, viewing, listening to and writing about 20th and 21st century writers who work either solo in the hybrid literary arts or in collaboration with other visual and musical artists.
This new critical practice course for the undergrad level will require students to both read and analytically study contemporary ”hybrid writing and poetics,” and also ask students to try their hand at creating literary pieces that combine poetry or storywriting with the visual or performance arts. We will start with discussing the concept of the prose-poem, move to examining poetry-music hybrids. We will work with the video poem, live performance, and other forms of visual-verbal collaborations. Dance and choreographed movement will be encouraged in combination with poetry.
Some of the experimental poets and writers we will study include jazz and spoken-word poets like Jayne Cortez, video artists and filmmakers like Theresa Cha, and multi-media performance poets like Ann Waldman. Black women poets like Duriel E. Harris and Giovanni Singleton have been particularly active in creating multi-media work with a political as well as aesthetic purpose. We will also study the 18th century English poet William Blake, whose visual-verbal printmaking practice was ahead of his time, and writer-cartoonist Lynda Barry, who combines graphic novel techniques with prose narration.
Requirements include short critical as well as creative assignments, and a final creative project that will be presented to the class. The course will be conducted both through creative writing workshops and text-based discussions over required readings. Come to class prepared to expand your minds, and to reconsider just what is literature or art.
Capstone Seminars – recommended after 24 credits in the major
These courses are strongly recommended upon completing 24 credits in the major and can only be registered with an English Advisor.
Engl 49010
New World Seminar
21284 sec. 2NP Grazyna Drabik T 12:30 – 2:30pm
Immigration literature offers a rich range of texts that invite us to reflect upon and discuss such important themes as processes of forging new individual and communal identities; conflicting loyalties that shape lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of origins; redefinition of gender roles and of inter-generational relations under the impact of immigration; the transformative role of education; and relationship between language, identity, and place. The immigrant narrative constitutes a fundamental part of American literary canon and at the same time questions and broadens it in challenging ways.
We start with a couple of classic, ethnic-based novels and continue the discussion in an open-ended, exploratory manner. The majority of our writers are our contemporaries, who confront on-going transformations, including the massive and prolonged displacement of millions of people, in imaginative and constructive ways. Their novels and short stories, poems and essays often contest dominant cultural concepts and established versions of national histories. They highlight the pain of displacement and conflicts resulting from culture clashes, but they also bring to attention new options and possibilities, including the complexity of bi-cultural, in-between, and trans-national identities.
Willa Cather, My Ántonia (novella, 1918).
Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea (novel, 1961).
Tomás Rivera,…y no se lo tragó la tierra/…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (novella, 1992).
Thomas King, One Good Story, That One (short stories, 1993).
Martyna Majok, Ironbound (play, 2016).
Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers (novel, 2016).
Dohra Ahmad, ed., The Penguin Book of Migration Literature (collection of essays, short stories, poems, 2019).
Engl 49017
Modern Literature, Illness and Medicine
21330 sec. 2RS Keith Gandal T 4:00 –6:00pm
The meteoric rise of modern medicine, starting in the late 19th century, with its strictly “materialist” approach to health—and its separation from (what is now called) psychology—has greatly transformed the very conception of the human being. From that period until now, literature, which is of course centrally concerned with characters and human experience, has not only reflected but also contested this modern medical understanding of human illness. We will consider representations of illness and doctors—and their relation to the medical versions of these—in American works, as well as a couple of European works that were immediately imported to the US, from the 1890s to the present.
This class initiates a new project in literary studies, which will involve discussions usually outside the purview of literature courses: about the nature of the scientific method and the history of science. This is not the typical course on “Literature and Medicine,” which, even when it focuses on modern literature and medicine, does so in an ahistorical way. Standard courses might, for example, “raise questions about ethical behavior in the face of sickness” (to quote a random course description at another university) or discuss “narratives or metaphors of illness.” But, as these phrases indicate, such courses takes “sickness” as a given; in other words, it doesn’t raise questions about the ethics of the modern medical construction of sicknesses themselves. Sicknesses for which we are still seeking a cure cannot be said to be fully understood. The treatments of sicknesses that have no cure have a significant social history because our medical ideas about such sicknesses are, by necessity, at an experimental stage, which is to say, they are not scientifically proven—as only a cure is scientific proof. To take perhaps the most important example, doctors have for centuries recognized cancer, but the conception of the cause of cancer is very different today from what it was even in the late 19th century.
Warning: “Chronic” and “terminal” illness, perhaps especially cancer, autoimmune disorders, and now COVID-19 as well, is a troubling subject for many people. It can be a source of fear and post-trauma; a lot of us know people who have had cancer or COVID or have an autoimmune disorder; many of us fear it. Fear of cancer is a serious social issue and one we will be discussing; arguably, in fact, the promotion of fear is a major tactic deployed by the medical profession in the management of cancer as well as COVID. This course, by contrast, will not promote fear of cancer or COVID, but just the opposite. However, in this class, there is no getting around discussing cancer, heart disease, other chronic illnesses, and COVID; in fact, such discussions are central to the course. We can’t shy away from issues because they are disturbing. So, if you have a problem reading or talking about chronic illness or COVID—which is understandable—you should not take this course.
Literature:
Herman Melville, excerpt from Moby Dick
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (and “The Story of an Hour”)
Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
Willa Cather, One of Ours (Book IV)
Katherine Anne Porter, “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” (novella)
William Burroughs, Junky
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Criticism:
Ivan Illich, “Medical Nemesis”
Robert Aronowitz, Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society (chapter excerpt)
Engl 49029
Introduction to Language
21282 sec. 4RS Barbara Gleason TH 4:00 – 6:00pm
We will explore traditional core areas of language study (phonetics, syntax, morphology, pragmatics, discourse analysis), survey geographic and social varieties of American English (including Standard English) and discuss register (adapting language styles to social situations). In addition, we’ll consider language from a global, 21st century perspective by taking a close look at multilingualism, code-switching, code meshing and translingualism. While engaging in a formal study of language, students will be invited to reflect on their own language styles, uses and experiences.
Engl 49035
Restitution: Aftermaths of Trauma in Literature, Psychology and Law
20865 sec. 3GH Mikhal Dekel W 5:00 – 7:00pm
This seminar will center on works that depict re-entering and living in the world after mass enslavement, genocide or/ and dispossession. Its emphasis will be on the political, emotional and financial implications of this re-entry. We will look at the psychology of memory and the psychology of money in the aftermath of mass trauma, genocide and slavery: at reparations, war trials, commemorations, monuments and memoirs.
Who, if anyone, is responsible for restoring lives upended by mass traumas? For compensating for the loss of years of one’s life? For impairments to body and mind? For the death of loved ones? For properties owned and now enjoyed by others? For the fruits of slave labor? For commemorating what happened? Or is no one responsible? These are the kinds of questions we will discuss in this seminar.
Weekly reading responses and two papers will be assigned.
Creative Writing Courses
Engl 22000
Introduction to Creative Writing
21023 sec. B Sherry Hamlet M, W 9:30 – 10:45am
21022 sec. C TBA M W 11:00 – 12:15pm
20658 sec. F Kayle Nochomovitz M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm
21021 sec. H TBA M, W 6:30 – 7:45pm
21019 sec. M Alexander Moser T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
25147 sec. R TBA T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
21018 sec. S TBA T, TH 5:00 – 6:15pm
This course is an entry-level overview of creative writing, introducing students to various genres and techniques as they study the works of a diverse array of authors, and learn to produce creative work and provide feedback on the work of their peers.
Engl 22100
Prerequisite: English 22000
Intermediate Creative Writing: Reading as Writers
36409 sec. 1BC Megan Skelly M 9:30 – 12:15pm
20029 sec. P Shamecca Harris T, TH 2:00 – 3:15pm
This course offers students a chance to expand on the fundamentals learned in Introduction to Creative Writing and focus more exclusively on their own craft and peer critiques.
20659 sec. F Estha Weiner M W 3:30 – 4:45pm
Reading and Writing go together. This Intermediate Creative Writing class, Reading as a Writer, links reading and discussing poems, short fiction, and drama with improving your own writing in those three genres. You will read the texts as readers and writers, becoming more aware of the tools of each genre, as you do so.
In addition to the readings, our one required text is the aptly titled, Reading Like a Writer, by the aptly named, Francine Prose. The readings should act as a catalyst/prompt for your own work. Be prepared to discuss them. Then comes presentation of your own first drafts in a workshop format, culminating in a final manuscript, and a required Reading Day. If we are able to workshop or privately meet about your final drafts, we will. And, of course, attend as many on-line and in-person readings as you can, within the college community, or wherever, whenever!
Engl 23000
Prose Writing Workshop
21017 sec. D Chester Kozlowski M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
The Prose Workshop concentrates on nonfiction writing: memoirs, essays, journalism, and criticism, from inspiration to final draft. We’ll closely read professional samples, and discuss the elements of craft in composing clear, concise and coherent prose. We’ll study the style and content of authors such as David Thomson, Roxane Gay, Ashley C. Ford, Ocean Vuong, and David Sedaris, with an eye toward students developing their own way with words. Discussions of the minutiae of sentences and paragraphs will be encouraged, so bring your love of words, your stalwart opinions, and an open mind.
21016 sec. E Rebecca Minnich M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm
21015 sec. G Amir Ahmadi M, W 5:00 – 6:15pm
21014 sec. L TBA T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am
21013 sec. R TBA T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
This course is an introduction to the various forms that comprise creative nonfiction, from the personal essay and memoir to narrative journalism and beyond. Students enrolled in this course will learn to tell “true stories,” while also interrogating what a “true” story is.
Engl 32000
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Fiction
24812 sec. 3D Dalia Sofer M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
21318 sec. P Lyn Di Iorio T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
This biweekly workshop aims to support you in becoming a more astute reader and writer of fiction. It is only to be taken by those who have already completed ENGLISH 22100 OR ENGLISH 22101. In the first part of the course, we will read and discuss a range of short stories and novel excerpts, focusing on various elements of craft—including point of view, character, narrative, form, and language. You will also complete brief writing exercises (sometimes in class) and assignments inspired by the readings. In the second part of the course, we will critique your manuscripts—short stories or excerpts from longer works—and again we will address questions of narrative and craft. The aim of our discussions will be to support you in your writing process, spark new ideas, and help you become a better editor of your own work.
Engl 32100
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Poetry
20017 sec. S Kamelya Youssef T, TH 5:00 – 6:15pm
Course description is forthcoming.
Engl 32300
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Film and TV
21295 sec. 1DE Marc Palmieri M 12:30 – 3:15pm
We will examine the storytelling possibilities of writing for this highly technical and collaborative art form. Students will develop a script for the large or small screen – either film, television or webseries, and participate in brief “read-alouds” of portions of the drafts, and feedback discussions of classmates’ work. Those interested in adapting one of his or her works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry to a screenplay form are encouraged to do so. This process comes with its own interesting set of expectations and strategies, and can be an enlightening exercise in the general honing of your story structure.
List of Interdisciplinary Electives that will be counted toward major requirements
Only one literature course offered outside of the English Department will count toward the English major requirement
ARAB 30100: Selected Topics in Arabic Literature and Cultures
ASIA 33200: Modern Chinese Literature
FREN 28300: Literature of Contemporary France
JWST 23200: Jews in Film/Fiction
THTR 21700: Queer Theatre
Publishing Courses
NOTE: Publishing courses do not count toward English major or minor requirements, but only toward fulfillment of the publishing certificate program, or as general electives. For more information, contact the Director of the program, David Unger at (212) 650-7925.
Engl 31131
Digital & E-Book Publishing
20522 sec. 4ST Philip Rappaport TH 4:50 – 7:20pm
This course will examine the rise of the eBook from the advent of the internet and Google’s plan to digitize all books in print to the current debates about eBook formats offered via Kindle, the Sony Reader, the nook and the iPad. Rights, pricing and formats will be addressed. Ultimately, the future of publishing and the “book” will be discussed.
Engl 32501
Introduction to Publishing
20520 sec. 2LM Jennifer Buno T 9:30 – 12:15pm
Introduction to Publishing introduces students to trade books (books for the general consumer) and their publishers. The course is designed to give an overview of the book business–from how manuscripts are made (role of the author, agent and acquiring editor); to how books are made (design, production and distribution of the finished book); to how books are sold (publicity and marketing).
An important aspect of the course is helping students find their potential niche in the publishing business, should they continue on for the Publishing Certificate. The course concludes with how to get a job, stressing resume preparation, writing query letters to publishers, and preparing for interviews. The course aims at inculcating professionalism in students as it prepares them for satisfying careers in book publishing.
Engl 32502
Publishing Practicum
20518 sec. 2ST Yona Deshommes T 5:00 – 7:30pm
Students simulate the complete book-publishing process from contract negotiations to bound book.
Engl 32600
Books for Young Readers
20517 sec. 1GH Nicholas Thomas M 5:00 – 7:30pm
A look at the world of publishing for children and young adults. Licensing, merchandising, sales and marketing to all age groups and reader categories will be discussed. Includes substantial reading of children’s titles.
Engl 32700
The Editorial Process
20515 sec. 3HJ Daniel Vazquez W 6:30 – 9:00pm
An in-depth look at the editorial process from a corporate and employment-seeking perspective. Includes visits from authors and industry professionals.
Engl 31003
Independent Study (3 credits)
Students may register for a three-credit independent study that represents an internship in the Publishing field. Permission of the Director of the Publishing Program, David Unger, is required. Please fill out an independent study form with Mr. Unger and submit it to the English Advising Office (NAC 6/219) before registering through an English Advisor.