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Summer Session I: June 2 – June 30, 2025
300- Level Literature 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. Generally, these classes require two shorter essays and one longer assignment or final paper involving research or reference to secondary materials.
ENGL 36201
20th Century American Poetry
3576 Sec. 1LL Tyson Ward M TU W TH 11:30am – 2:05pm
(Note: the class meets online synchronously)
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 36410
Abolitionist Literature
3577 Sec. 1MM Michael Druffel M TU W TH 2:30pm – 5:05pm
(Note: the class meets online synchronously)
Building on a long tradition of transatlantic thought, contemporary abolitionists ask important social questions like: What would a society without prisons look like? What does it mean to defund the police? Can the United States’ criminal justice system be reformed? “Abolitionist Literature” works backwards to uncover the philosophical, literary, and cultural currents that birthed the abolitionist movement today. In exploring abolitionism’s literary history, we’ll better understand the successes and failures of different abolitionist strategies, how contemporary abolitionism developed, and what an abolitionist future might look like. We’ll begin by reading contemporary non-fiction writers including Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Angela Davis, moving backwards to examine abolition in twentieth-century fiction by examining writers such as John Edgar Wideman and Chester Himes, before finally exploring the nineteenth-century roots of abolitionism through writers such as Frederick Douglass, James Williams, David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. We’ll supplement these primary sources with short, contemporary readings from scholars including Cedric Robinson, Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, and Katherine McKittrick. By the end of the course, we’ll have better understood how literature responded to and shaped abolition, how history influenced transatlantic writing, and the complicated relationship between capitalism and race. Class sessions will focus both on understanding course reading through discussion and ungraded, in-class written assignment and learning to make our own arguments about the literary history of abolition through writing.
Creative Writing Course
ENGL 22000
Introduction to Creative Writing
3575 Sec. 1LL Juliana Francis M TU W TH 11:30am – 2:05pm
(Note: the class meets online synchronously)
Introductory Creative Writing will be an intensive exploration of writing between and beyond the spectrum of poetry and prose. Students will be introduced to contemporary texts and devices to inform their own developing writing practice, which will culminate in a hand bound book in print.
Summer Session II: July 7 – August 1, 2025
300- Level Literature 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. Generally, these classes require two shorter essays and one longer assignment or final paper involving research or reference to secondary materials.
ENGL 37610
How to Watch Movies
3580 Sec. 2LL Chester Kozlowski M TU W TH 11:30am – 2:05pm
(Note: the class meets online synchronously)
This course examines film-watching from a literary and technical perspective. Additionally, we delve into storytelling and compare some movies to the literature that inspired it. What does it mean to be “cinematic”? How did film go from a “magic trick” to becoming a tentpole of popular culture? How are scenes constructed? What is the effect of lighting and music? How can you carry over these concepts into personal videos and posts on social media? Films and excerpts include classic films (Rear Window, The Godfather, Fight Club, Tár),) selected short subjects, and digital breakthroughs in special effects.
Creative Writing Course
ENGL 23000
Writing Workshop in Prose
3579 Sec. 2LL Matthew Gahler M TU W TH 11:30am – 2:05pm
(Note: the class meets online synchronously)
In this course the varieties of prose writing, excluding fiction, will be practiced. The class is devoted to exploring such nonfictional forms as personal essay writing, reportage, memoir and biographical writing, sketches and opinion pieces. Throughout the semester students will read exemplary works from each area of nonfiction and will also spend considerable time practicing the genre through continuous exercises given by the instructor each week. Students will also learn to revise their works, respond to their peers’ writing, and work toward one to two major papers assigned for the semester.