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Gateway Course Required for the Beginning Major
Engl 25000
Introduction to Literary Study
20380 sec. C Gordon Thompson M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm 20379 sec. F Gordon Thompson M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm
A class in Literary Studies provides the skills necessary for appreciating, engaging with, and analyzing texts. Because literary studies is interdisciplinary in scope, the literary works in this class will focus predominantly on American literature that is chiefly concerned with the natural world as it impacts marginalized communities. This class can equip students with the tools to discuss texts from a cultural and aesthetic point of view. The ability to effectively engage with narratives and critically, communicate your observations are highly desired in many areas of study and by employers of all kinds.
20378 sec. H 20381 sec. M 20377 sec. R
Tyson Ward Robert Higney Harold Veeser
M, W 6:30 – 7:45pm
T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm 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.
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
20918 sec. B Olivia Wood M, W 9:30 – 10:45am
In what ways are languages, identities, and power dynamics entangled? To explore this complex question, we will begin this course by examining an array of linguistic myths, such as “everyone has an accent except me,” “bad grammar is slovenly,” “some languages are just not good enough,” “America is ruining the English language,” and many others. We will also survey linguistic scholarship on cultural perceptions of language, the bonds between identity and language, as well as histories of linguistic variance and change. Building from this knowledge, we’ll consider research illustrating how language is used in education, employment, children’s films, the media, and the courts to identify, subordinate, and discriminate against groups of people.
Engl 26000
Lifewriting: Comprehending our lives
43260 sec. C Janée Moses M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
This course invites students to engage the genre of lifewriting through various media including autobiography, biography, memoir, novel, poetry, lyrics, and oral history. Over the course of the semester, students will analyze and interrogate the genre of lifewriting in order to develop their own personal creative writing projects.
Engl 27000
Defining Womanhood: Memoir and Autobiography from 1861
TBD sec. D Janée Moses M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
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 Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) through the present with Michelle
Obama’s Becoming (2018). Throughout the course, we will engage authors of varied racial and
ethnic positions to analyze more deeply what the category of womanhood entails. The course is divided into five sections: Freedom Dreams, Emancipation, Girlhood, Radical Politics, and Motherhood. In each of
the sections, students’ engagement of literary texts will be informed by Autobiography Studies, American History, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Critical Race Theory.
Engl 27000
Cross-listed with JWST 21400
Angels and Demons in Modern Jewish Literature
TBD sec. C Amy Kratka M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
This course investigates the angels and demons both real and imagined that populate Jewish American texts of the second half of the twentieth century. We will discuss the various ways in which such manifestations may be understood. Do demons represent history’s calamities? Do angels stand in for the high moments? How are characters informed by their relationship to their heritage? How do they confront their inner angels and demons?
Engl 27000 Immigration Literature
43363 sec. P Grazyna Drabik T, TH 2:00 – 3:15pm
Over the past several decades, we have witnessed massive shifts of population; every year, millions of people leave their countries and move to a new place. This experience of dramatic dislocation and subsequent transformations is richly represented in North American literature. Numerous narratives, in fiction and non-fiction, chart the dynamic, variations, and stages of migrant experiences.
We focus our discussion on New York City as a port of destination, but place it in a broader, global context. We’ll observe the changing waves of arrivals: 1) largely from Southern and Eastern Europe during the period of 1890 -1920s (called “new” at the time in contrast to the earlier large-scale waves of emigrants coming from Northern and Western Europe); 2) from the Caribbean and South America in the 1960 – 1990s; and 3) the newest “new immigration” from Asia (Korea, India, Bangladesh) and Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia) from the 1980s to the present.
We’ll read Frank Mc Court’s memoir Angela’s Ashes; Juno Diaz’s collection of stories Drown; two novels: Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker; and a selection of poems and essays by Anzia Yezierska, Claude McKay, Edwidge Danticat, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Akhil Sharma. This selection offers insights to the diversity as well as the enduring common patterns and themes of immigration literature.
Engl 28000
Introduction to Comparative Literature
19043 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 31175
Cross-listed with JWST 31714
Italian Jewish Women Writers
19192 sec. R Corinna Messina-Kociuba T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
This course will explore the work of Italian Jewish women writers and their efforts to construct subjects through autobiographical writings. Students will engage in the reading of authors such as Natalia Ginzburg, Lia Levi, Clara Sereni, and Edith Bruck, among others, and analyze their representations of history, genealogy, trauma, and “self-construction.”
Engl 31915
Cross-listed with JWST 31915
Absurdist Jewish Film and Fiction
19196 sec. L Amy Kratka T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am
This course aims to introduce students to the concept of The Absurd in Jewish religion and culture. Emerging from a global pandemic seems an apt time to examine such a concept! We will begin the semester by offering some definitions of “The Absurd” as it relates to human experience, and we’ll move forward to incorporate philosophical, literary, cinematic, and religious connections to Absurdity.
Engl 34200 Advanced Grammar
20921 sec. G Nicole Treska M, W 5:00 – 6:15pm 20920 sec. S Nicole Treska T, TH 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
20919 sec. L Elizabeth Mazzola T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am
Shakespeare’s role in shaping the Western world’s ideas about heroism, individuality, and love seems huge and unmatched, but we might also read his plays as unusually critical of ruling powers and authoritative structures–like the family, heterosexuality, whiteness, and home. Think of the movie “Barbie” with equally fantastic costumes but no fancy cars!
We will look at a handful of early plays alongside Shakespeare’s sonnets to see how his ideas about maleness and femaleness, marriage and adultery, conformity and rebellion evolve. Readings include Henry IV Part 1, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night. We will also consider how the interpretations of other Shakespeare scholars respond to or resist Shakespeare’s invention of and challenge to the norm.
Engl 35413
The Politics of Gender in Early Modern Drama
21511 sec. D Doris Barkin M, W 12:30 – 1:45pm
This class will explore how dramatists such as Shakespeare Webster, Middleton and Dekker, Ford, and Cary represent gender, its anxieties and fantasies, and its performance in early modern culture. The course will examine the ways in which gender was constructed and challenged during this transformative period in English literature. We will investigate the intersectionality of gender with other identity factors, such as race, class, and religion, and its impact on characterizations and themes. Additionally, we will examine gender theory and constructions of gender identity and agency and how these shape our own world and structure our thought. How can these plays help us understand modern gender politics that are their legacies?
Engl 35422
The Global Middle Ages and its Outcomes
21301 sec. T Mark-Allan Donaldson T, TH 6:30 – 7:45pm
The Middle Ages, as a conceptualized period, is often forced to fight battles of misinformation on two fronts. The first, that it was a time of significant insulation between cultures which (if they interacted at all) were mainly throwing as many swords at each other as possible or were otherwise comprised of a bunch of white people waiting around for the Enlightenment. The second, that the period has had a negligible impact on contemporary cultures and is something that should be swept under the nearest rug available. Our course will interrogate these views of the Middle Ages through the literature it produced, and the literature, film, and music which is produced about it. We will attempt to construct a more nuanced view of the medieval period. One which, while including a fair share of sword throwing, also acknowledges cross cultural interactions which were decidedly less sharp. We will also examine how the medieval informs the modern in negative and positive ways so that we can recognize why some people are still throwing swords, and why so many books have something to do with a dragon.
Engl 35603 Revolutionary Poetics
31449 sec. S Jared Fagen T, TH 5:00 – 6:15pm
The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by widespread social and political unrest. Yet during this period, a revolution of the mind also took place. Marx envisions the end of class struggle through the awakening of consciousness, and Freud proposes that understanding unconscious thought can unlock inner desires. Both theorists share a radical awareness of oppression and a drive to expose hidden powers—our own and those which challenge us.
In this course, we will try to link the revolutions of modernity (sociopolitical, technological, and intellectual) with the transformations happening simultaneously within the world of poetry (formal, linguistic, and conceptual): the democratization of poetic language; the break from traditional literary conventions; the mixing of genres and blending of different speech types. We will consider how poetic reflection might be turned into practical action, and if there’s a relationship between emerging genres of “free verse” and the prose poem and the growth of the industrial working class. We will also explore the ways art succeeds or fails in shaping the tenets of revolutionary thinking.
Through close readings of poems, manifestos, and essays, and analyses of practices in poetics, critical theory, and genre theory, we will consider how poetry—once the “ruling class” of literature—can capture the fleeting quality of modern life and give expression to the urban atmosphere of poverty, alienation, terror, political corruption, and hypocrisy. Some literary forms/schools we will investigate include: Romanticism, narrative poetry, prose poetry, vers libre/free verse, Dada and Surrealism, Marxism, the Situationist International, and more. Some writers we will potentially read include: Schlegel, Shelley, Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Marx, Freud, Apollinaire, André Breton, Max Jacob, H. D., Mina Loy, Gertrude Stein, Leon Trotsky, Julia Kristeva, Aimé Césaire, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Will Alexander, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and others.
Low-stakes writing assignments, creative writing exercises, and a long formal essay.
Engl 35702
Victorian Literature: Writing in a Time of Globalization and Crisis
21281 sec. R Jarrett Moran T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
In this course, we will read Victorian novels, criticism, plays, and science as part of a period of globalization and crisis, marked by the unprecedented expansion of British imperial influence. How could this new world be represented meaningfully in language? What new accounts of personhood, sexuality, ethnicity, ecology, and art would it require? Over the course of the semester, we will unfold a conversation between Victorian writers around these questions, and we will consider what kinds of dialogues we might have with them, what unanswered questions from the nineteenth century we can return to in our own moment of globalization and crisis. As we discuss writing by Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, John Ruskin, Walter Pater, Rudyard Kipling, and Oscar Wilde, we will be attentive to context, to the ways in which Victorian readers would have encountered this writing, and we will also bring lesser-known voices from across Britain and its empire into conversation with them.
Engl 36201
20th Century American Poetry
19698 sec. F Tyson Ward M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm
In this course we will survey the exciting, labyrinthine progress of American poetry in the twentieth century. The schools or groups we will encounter, both through their poetry and criticism, will include: Imagism, Harlem Renaissance, High Modernism, New Criticism, Black Mountain, poetry of World War II, New York School(s), Beats, Black Arts Movement, Confessionals, Second-Wave Feminism and Language poetry. We may also look back occasionally to a predecessor poet who inspired or antagonized the 20th- century American poets under discussion. This will be a class on both interpreting poetry and on understanding poetics, along with the political and social implications of changing techniques. Students will compose critical essays on topics of their choice, as well as an original poem with an accompanying poetic manifesto.
Engl 36502
Literatures of Globalization: Forms of Transnational Intimacy
21282 sec. M Ashna Ali T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
This course introduces students to the concept of globalization through the frame of intimacy and emotions. What kind of new intimacies are born within transnational families that speak multiple languages? What kind of misunderstanding and alienation is produced when words like “homosexual” do not exist in one language but are crucial to the identity and growth of a multilingual character? When families and communities are affected by tragedies born of capitalism, what can and cannot be talked about, and what is the effect of those silences? When adults are traumatized by poverty, war, colonization, or migration to the point of avoiding talking about their experiences, how do their children understand themselves emotionally and culturally? When traditional family units are unable to provide the necessary support structures to meet a young person’s needs, what do those individuals have to do and understand to find different roots with their chosen kin? We’ll think together about issues of gender, sexuality, identity, food, and emotional connection through the novels and poetry that dramatize the impact of globalized experience.
Proposed texts include “What is Globalization” by Arundhati Roy, excerpts from theoretical scholars of postcolonialism like Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, and Ngugi Wa Thi’ongo, Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Fatimah Asghar’s When We Were Sisters, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. We will also be reading essays, short stories, and poems, and watching films that relate to these themes in conversation about the above novels.
This elective course will also provide opportunities for students to strengthen and refine their writing skills. There will be weekly response assignments and three major writing assignments. They will write a traditional academic paper, a publishable book review in the voice of a cultural critic, and a personal creative assignment that engages with the themes of the course. Each assignment will be assessed based on degrees of demonstrable improvement between two drafts.
Engl 36508
Virginia Woolf and her World
20905 sec. C Vaclav Paris M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm
All writers create their own world, but few are as rich, as strange, and as influential as that of Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s world is not easy to enter. Her novels, ranging from her early Voyage Out to her
late Between the Acts are complex psychological structures that make few concessions to lazy readers. Her networks were often private. Orlando, a fantasy about (among other things) transsexuality and living through centuries, is also a love letter to her friend, Vita Sackville-West. But once you get into Woolf, you’ll find that it’s even harder to get out. Woolf changes the way you see things. She gives you a vocabulary for what is going on under the surface, for understanding pervasive features of everyday life that you didn’t even suspect before. Reading most of Woolf’s major novels, a range of her essays and short fiction, and some of the works of those in her circle, this course offers a way into her world, which is also—as we will come to see—increasingly our world. Evaluation will be on the basis of participation in class sessions, in the online discussion board, and through a midterm essay and final paper.
Engl 36907
Introduction to Digital Humanities
31768 sec. H Stefano Morello M, W 6:30 – 7:45pm 31769 sec. M Stefano Morello T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
The course provides theoretical foundations and hands-on experience in the field of Digital Humanities. Students will familiarize with digital methods and tools for the humanities, including text analysis, archiving, mapping, and web development, while actively reflecting on the role technology plays in shaping their daily experiences. Throughout the term, they will work in groups to build small public-facing digital projects focusing on one or more literary texts set in Harlem and New York City. No prior knowledge of digital tools and methods is required.
Engl 37108
Environment in African American literature: Territory, Stomping Grounds, Turf
43366 sec. E Gordon Thompson M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm
Environmental criticism, or an analysis focused on the natural world, and as a burgeoning field of thought, will take a front row seat in this class as we discuss Black writers and their depiction of African American culture in the context of eco-criticism, i.e., nature imagery and the natural environment. As such, we will trace the many ways Black characters are affected, consciously or unconsciously, by the natural settings within which they move.
Students will be instructed on how to appreciate that certain characters are shaped by their proximity to the natural environment, and how such portrayals serve as an outlet for Black writers to explore race relations and the African American struggle for freedom and self-representation.
Writers to be discussed may include Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington Charles Chesnutt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ernest Gaines, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, among others.
Engl 37601
All Kinds of American Families: Modern and Contemporary American Dramas
21512 sec. P Estha Weiner T, TH 2:00 – 3:15pm
What’s a family? Who’s an American? Explore these questions and many more, as we read a wide variety of modern and contemporary American plays by playwrights of variant cultures, religions, and genders: Eugene O’Neill, (Beyond the Horizon); Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman);Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie); August Wilson, (The Piano Lesson); Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy, part III); Sam Shepard (Buried Child); Tina Howe (Coastal Disturbances); David Henry Hwang (FOB), Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive); Ayad Akhtar ( The Who and the What); Nilo Cruz,( Anna in the Tropics); and Stephen Guirgis ( Between Riverside and Crazy.) We’ll always read their plays aloud, discuss them, write about them, and even act a little bit.
Engl 49032
Global Autobiography
21279
sec. 2DE
Harold Veeser
TU 12:30 – 2:30pm
21280
tell.
21584
sec. 4PR
Pamela Laskin
TH 2:00 – 4:00pm
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.
This course will provide Literature and Creative Writing majors with a basic map of world-wide life- writing. Cultural diversity within the broad tradition of memoir and autobiography is crucial to the course. I will focus on three themes: (1) struggles with body image and weight loss or gain; (2) family and social pressure to conform to cultural norms in dress and relationships; and (3) special techniques for creating a vivid “self” in writing.
You will have a choice of projects: either a ten-page, 2500-word critical or creative paper; or else a group project to be presented to the whole class. This project will make up 48 points of your course grade. In addition, you will have to write thirteen discussion posts: these will make up 52 points of your course grade. These posts are to be a question and an insight about the readings for that week.
Engl 49033
Romping Through The Woods: A Capstone Seminar in Writing for Teens
Young adult fiction explores the vast landscape of writing for teens. Wonderful and diverse literature will
be dissected in this class with the explicit purpose of cultivating an understanding of this genre, and
demonstrating the deep, underground danger in the forest of a teen’s inner psyche. The beginning of the
journey starts with fairy tales. Writing for this age group requires following the same parameters for all
good writing: diction; plot; character; dialogue and detail. As we romp through the forest together, you will
be engaged with the skills of dissection, workshopping and revision in order to discover the primal scream
of a teen. Close inspection of the literature will enable you to find a voice suitable to the stories you want to
Engl 49034
Freedom Dreams: Race and Literature in America
sec. 3FG
Janée Moses
W 3:30 – 5:30pm
Robin D. G. Kelley’s
is an interdisciplinary, canonical
study of the black radical tradition and the intellectual and artistic pursuits for revolutionary change–
freedom. This course considers the literary contributions to the black radical tradition in 18th, 19th, and
20th centuries’ African American literature. Authors will include, Phyllis Wheatley, David Walker, Harriet
Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora
Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Joan Morgan, Hilton Als, and
Jesmyn Ward.
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Creative Writing Courses Introduction to Creative Writing
Engl 22000
20392 sec. B
- 20390 sec. C
- 20391 sec. E
20389 sec. F
- 20387 sec. L
- 20388 sec. S
TBA Doris Barkin TBA TBA TBA TBA
M, W 9:30 – 10:45am M, W 11:00 – 12:15pm M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm M, W 3:30 – 4:45pm T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am T, TH 5:00 – 6:15pm
While studying various forms of creative writing, emphasis will be placed on the creative process of writing while encouraging students to find their writing voice.
Engl 22100
Prerequisite: English 22000
Intermediate Creative Writing: Reading as Writers
20367 sec. G Emily Rosenblatt M, W 5:00 – 6:15pm
This intermediate creative writing workshop focuses on the continued improvement of student writing through reading and discussing models in literature. This will include poems, short stories, and novel excerpts. The emphasis of the course is on reading texts as writers, and discussion of craft, based on the work of a few published authors considered in-depth. It operates with the belief that writers must read deeply and extensively in order to hone their work.
20366 sec. M Estha Weiner T, TH 11:00 – 12:15pm
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, or, when possible, in-person readings as you can, within the College community or wherever, whenever!
Engl 23000
Prose Writing Workshop
20385 sec. B TBA 20384 sec. E TBA 20383 sec. G TBA 43256 sec. L TBA 20382 sec. R TBA
M, W 9:30 – 10:45m M, W 2:00 – 3:15pm M, W 5:00 – 6:15pm T, TH 9:30 – 10:45am T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
In this course prose will be explored through the study of nonfictional works such as critical texts, memoirs and various forms of essay writing. The course will include two major papers assigned. There will be reading and consideration of the strategies of established writers in the genre. Students may also be expected to write and revise several short papers, while receiving critiques from and responding to the works of their peers in the class.
Engl 32000
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Fiction 20371 sec. D
Dalia Sofer
M W 12:30 – 1:45pm
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 tension, 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.
20911 sec. R
Keith Gandal
T, TH 3:30 – 4:45pm
Students in this advanced workshop course will develop the art of writing and rewriting stories. It is only to be taken by those who have already completed English 220 and 221 — Intro. and Intermediate Creative Writing. Students will read a variety of exemplary published short stories over the course of the semester, learning the elements of short fiction and using the critical vocabulary of the craft. Students will also read each others’ work: they will submit their own original works for discussion and learn to critique their peers’ writing. The workshop trajectory of the class will be to move from short writing exercises to a rough draft of a short story to a polished story.
Just a reminder that Creative Writing differs from almost all other courses in several basic ways. First, you the student are a large part of the subject matter of the course. Your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perceptions are the stuff out of which your stories must be written. Second, your willingness to know yourself and explore who you are and how you understand the world are basic to developing as a writer. If you are not willing or able to engage in this kind of exploration, share it with other students, receive commentary on your writing, or give (honest yet constructive) reactions to other students’ writing, this course is not for you. Third, anything of value you may have to say is, in this course, directly dependent on your skill in using the English language. Thus much of the course will center on helping you to find what
you have to say that is worth saying and then discovering the best way to say it. Finding fresh ways to see and to say things is absolutely essential to good writing. Superficial perceptions and clichés are touches of death in creative writing.
Texts:
Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry and Other Stories, available online Collection of short stories – available online
Engl 32100
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Poetry 20370 sec. S
Michael Montlack
T, TH 5:00 – 6:15pm
Sometimes the muses just don’t show up. Or not as often as we’d like. This workshop is designed to lure them to your door and keep them coming back—through reading contemporary poets, discussing their techniques and styles, then incorporating them in some fashion into your own poems, even if it’s just as a source of inspiration. Drafts will be workshopped and revised on a weekly basis. Topics will include Portrait, Form, Imitation, Narrative, Repetition, and Direct Address. In addition, there will be some time spent on ways to revise more bravely, going beyond line edits and actually re-seeing poems.
There will be occasional in-class writing exercises and prompts to get things started. While each assignment is meant to develop an element of craft, you will be encouraged to forge your own voice and style. One aim might be to create a foundation for a chapbook or series. By the end of the semester, five (or more) revised poems will be submitted with a process paper that reflects on what you experienced and learned while creating them—whether it’s about poetry, craft, or yourself as an artist.
Engl 32300
Prerequisite: English 22100
Workshop in Film and TV
20369 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 course offered outside of the English Department will count toward the English major requirement
ART 31943: Afro-Latino Art and Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries PORT 40200: The Cultures and Literatures of Lusophone Africa
ANTH 31968: Language and Gender
ASIA 31179: Modern Chinese Literature and Films
SPAN 28300: Masterworks of Latin American Literature 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 or ccnypub@aol.com, and Assistant Director, Christina Marie Castro, at (212) 650-7927 or ccastro2@ccny.cuny.edu.
Engl 32501
Introduction to Publishing
20192 sec. 2LM Jennifer Buño T 9:30am – 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
20191 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
20190 sec. 1GH Nicholas Thomas M 5:00 – 7:30pm
A look at the world of publishing for children and young adults! Will include substantial reading and discussion of picture books, chapter books, middle grade, young adult, graphic novels, nonfiction, etc. Will cover all aspects of a publishing house and the business including Editorial, Marketing & Publicity, Sales, book finance, printing and production, contracts and negotiation, subsidiary rights, agents, international publishing and translation, etc. Strong focus will be given to helping students prepare for a career in publishing.
Engl 32700
The Editorial Process
20189 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 after completing 4 PCP courses. Permission of the Publishing Certificate Program directors is required. Email ccnypub@aol.com and ccastreo2@ccny.cuny.edu with your request for approval. Once approved, visit, call or write to the English Advising Office (NAC 6/219) to register.