Spring 2024 Course Descriptions

Registration Questions?

Learn more about major restrictions, prerequisites, and other frequently asked questions on the English Department Registration FAQ page.

100-Level English Courses

ENG 101 Writing Your Way Through WWU 5cr

View CRNs and DAY/TIMEs on Browse Classes in Web4U.

Prerequisites Notes: May not be taken concurrently with ENG 100. GUR: ACOM.

A writing course designed to prepare students for college-level creative, critical, and reflective writing. Because writing looks and works differently in different contexts, this course teaches the rhetorical competencies that students need to write across multiple disciplines. The course introduces students both to the processes of building and analyzing ideas, and to ways of communicating those ideas in context-specific genres for targeted audiences. This course has the immediate goal of preparing students to succeed in their writing at Western, but it will also serve them personally and professionally. Students needing to satisfy Block A of the communications section of the General University Requirements, which ENG 101 does, are required to do so prior to completion of 45 credits. Students with a 4 or 5 AP score are encouraged to take this class so they can learn to adapt their test-taking skills to college coursework.

OVERRIDES / CAPACITY OVERRIDES ARE NEVER GRANTED FOR ENGLISH 101.

200-Level English Courses

ENG 201 Writing in Humanities: Reimagining Representation 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101 or 4/5 AP English Language Exam.

CRN: 22076 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

Against what do we measure? Who decides what matters? What’s “normal”? What’s right? How do we internalize those ideas and beliefs? How do contemporary authors help us redefine or reimagine “what counts”? In this course, we will examine representation, influence, and the ways in which we are “measured against” in the various fields of humanities. We will ground our work in contemporary literature (TBD) and venture from there to where our curiosity leads us. As a class, we will follow the same overarching questions, but where you follow them, down which rabbit-hole you go, will be up to you.

ENG 202 Writing About Literature 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101.

CRN: 20125 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Bridges, D'Angelo

In this course, students will learn strategies for the close reading of and writing about literary texts. We will primarily focus on works written by twentieth-century African American writers.

CRN: 20240 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Forsythe, Jenny Marie

A writing course designed to help students develop the skills of close reading and careful analysis of literary texts, with particular attention to how language, style, and form contribute to a text’s social or political claims. Introduces students to the challenge of situating themselves in relation to a literary text and the critical conversation about that text, and crafting multi-draft critical essays with a focused, arguable thesis supported by thoughtful sequence of claims and carefully selected textual evidence.

CRN: 20654 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Prichard, Tony

This course directs attention to where literature and madness overlap by examining texts that either include characters experiencing hallucinations or texts that claim to produce madness. We will inquire into the differences between madness, weirdness and that which is yet to be articulated and made habitual.

Required Texts
• Clark, P. Djèlí. Ring Shout
• Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Chambers, Machen, Poe,
and Other Masters of the Weird
• A People’s Future of the United States
• Solomon, Rivers & clipping. The Deep

CRN: 24214 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Lee, Jean

In this course, we will learn the close reading of literary techniques, literary interpretation, and literary argumentation by engaging deeply with Caribbean literature foregrounding how race, gender, and sexuality constitute feminist subjectivities. We will read poems, short stories, essays, song lyrics, and novels that respond to postcolonial and diasporic contexts. Throughout the quarter, we will query how Caribbean women define “freedom” from a racialized, gendered, and sexualized perspective that destabilizes ethnopatriarchal and heteronormative conditions of visibility and citizenship in postcolonial nations and abroad.

CRN: 20660 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Bell, Michael Patrick

This section of English 202 involves critical inquiry into the literary effect of “speculative fiction,” which for our purposes we can define as the literatures of the imagination: fantasy, science-fiction, horror, alternate history. Such fiction has become arguably the dominant mode of contemporary narrative production, so there is rich opportunity to explore the power these literatures have had on history and culture. The specific forms we will study will of course include the written word, but because so much of our contemporary culture is expressed and reflected in the visual realm, we will be making constant connection to TV, film, comics, and game narratives in our inquiries.

All of our study will assume that whatever form it takes, fictional narrative has the power to construct and inform our worldly experience, even our reality. To sometimes great extent, we model our identities on literary stories, and build our perspectives from them. By making connection to our experiences and histories, stories illuminate the world, permitting us to see more texture and variety and possibility in our lives. Through intensive reading, discussion, activity, and writing we will further develop our ability to make meaning from the texts we study, focusing our analyses through formal critical practices as well as rigorous play and experimentation. You will emerge from the course a stronger analytic writer and reader with greater appreciation of the power of literature to bring you to deeper self-knowledge and increased awareness of a wider, richer, more complex world.

TEXTS: The Fifth Season, N.K Jemisin, This is How You Lose the Time War, Max Gladstone, A Dreamer’s Tales, Lord Dunsany, Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente, A Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers

ASSIGNMENTS: In addition to reading assignments and participation in class activities, requirements will comprise one formal analytical paper, several informal writing assignments, and a final project.

CRN: 20661 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

Why do Indigenous Literatures matter? That is the question asked by Cherokee scholar and writer, Daniel Heath Justice in his book of the same name. In English 202, we will work to answer that question (and a few more) by carefully reading contemporary Indigenous Literature and responding, in writing and discussion, to all the work that Indigenous Literature is doing. We will learn to read and work closely with our course texts and produce writing that engages with the larger discourses of literature, storytelling, and representation.

CRN: 21081 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Wise, Christopher

Course Description
In this course, we will analyze and interpret various literary genres, including poetry, plays, films, as well as literary fiction and nonfiction, with the goal of preparing students for advanced work in literary study, especially writing college-level essays in literary criticism. In addition to studying prominent works of literature, student papers may sometimes be workshopped in class.

Course Requirements
Students will be required to regularly attend class, perform all reading and film assignments, and turn in all formal and informal assignments. No laptops or cellphones are allowed in the classroom. Students are also required to bring writing paper and pens to class, as informal written assignments will often be turned in during class. Students should come to class having already read the required literature and/or viewed required film listed on the course schedule.

Writing Assignments [70% of grade]:
Written assignments will include the following: (1) miscellaneous short story analyses; (2) miscellaneous poetry analyses; (3) translation exercises; (4) film analysis; (5) play analysis; (6) comparative formal paper on long narrative; (7) take-home final essay exam. Written assignments will comprise 70% of grade. There is not a set number of assignments we will perform, as the total number of writing assignments will depend upon how much we are able to accomplish during each class session; however, it is likely you will write approximately 5-7 different writing assignments that will be graded. An average will then be calculated based on these assignments to determine the 70% total average.

In addition to formal and informal writing assignments, students will select one long narrative and be assigned to a group comprised of approximately 3 students. Students will then meet in groups outside of class to prepare oral reports on their assigned long narrative. More instructions about oral reports will be forthcoming; however, students will divide the tasks in preparation for reports of approximately 25-30 minutes total per group. Students will also each select a short poem to memorize and recite to the class from memory. They will also write a brief essay on the poem that they have memorized that will be due the same day as their oral recitation.

Participation-Attendance [30% of grade]
Attendance will be taken for every class session. Participation-attendance will comprise 30% of grade. Sometimes, ungraded in-class writing will be factored into your class participation grade, rather than your written assignments grade. Class participation grade will also include poetry recitations, group meetings in preparation for group reports, and the group reports on your selected long narrative. You cannot receive the full class participation grade without fully participating. Informal writing assignments submitted during class cannot be made up.

Course Texts
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
James Joyce, Dubliners

CRN: 21822 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Rivera

“Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.” These words, voiced by Toni Morrison, whose work we will encounter this quarter, endow literature with a tremendous amount of value and power. Literature effects change, prompts reflection, and shapes minds. Yet how does it do this? What separates ‘literary’ texts – novels, short stories, poetry – from non-literary texts – instruction manuals, catalogs, hiking guidebooks? How does literature interact with the broader social, cultural, and political structures and systems that influence our daily lives? Why are some texts considered more beautiful than others? What makes some interpretations of literary texts stronger than others? In this class we will work together to answer these questions, or at least try to answer them, by examining literary texts across three distinct genres: short fiction, novels, and poetry. We will also center the work of Black writers in the United States, including Toni Morrison, Tracy K. Smith, Claudia Rankine, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

ENG 215 British Literature 5cr

CRN: 23923 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Amendt-Raduege, Amy Michelle

Analysis, interpretation and discussion of a range of texts in British literature with attention to cultural contexts.

ENG 216 American Literature 5cr

CRN: 23635 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Roach Orduña, José

Fight the Power – Contemporary American Writers Take on the Empire

In this class we will read literary essays, short stories, and poems written by contemporary US-based authors that dare to take on the systems of oppression in force in this country. We will examine how they do this in ways particular to literary art, how language and form can come together as a weapon in the struggle for justice, how writers participate in social movements through their literary output. We will read writers who write from different vantage points in relation to the US empire, writers like Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Kiese Laymon, Joe Bageant, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Solmaz Sharif, and Javier Zamora among others. We will read supplementary texts that engage the social problematics our literary texts do. Much of our class will be lecture and discussion based, but we will also have plenty of in-class activities and group work. We will write reading reflections, do group presentations, take weekly quizzes, and take a short answer midterm and final exam.

ENG 227 Queer Literature 5cr

CRN: 23637 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

This course will serve as an introduction to contemporary American queer literature. In it, will examine a variety of contemporary works of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, graphic nonfiction, film, and photography. Among many questions we’ll investigate in this course, we will constantly ask: in what ways do queer authors, texts and narratives intersect with broader social, political, and cultural contexts, and how do they contribute to discussions of identity and power?

ENG 239 Latina/o Literatures 5cr

CRN: 23638 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Rivera, Lysa

Analysis, interpretation and discussion of a range of texts in English and in translation by Latina/o authors.

300-Level English Courses

ENG 301 Wrtg Stds: Writing for Change 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101; junior status; or instructor permission. Major restrictions will be lifted on Thursday Feb 29 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 20072 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

In this section, we will examine the different forms in which people write to effect change. We will explore, among others, grant writing, op-eds, letters to your government, and stories representing unheard voices. What are the rhetorical strategies these writings use? What are the constraints or conventions of these genres? What is at stake in each situation? As a class, we will work to examine how, as writers, we can work to contribute to the worlds in which we live.

ENG 302 Technical Writing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101; junior standing. Major restrictions will be lifted on Thursday Feb 29 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 20135 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

Students engage with the rhetorical and technical practices for creating artifacts that help people do things with technology, such as usability testing, screencasting, web authoring, document design, and information architecture. The course covers a variety of technical genres and focuses on the ethical and social implications of a technical writer's choices.

CRN: 20319 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Forsberg, Geri

English 302 is the English department’s introductory 300-level workshop course in technical writing. It is for juniors and seniors. It is a 5-credit writing proficiency course. English 302 emphasizes the writer-reader relationship in a variety of nonacademic writing situations. Students learn to identify their audience, develop objectives, organize the content of their documents and revise documents for readability. Students write and design a resume, letters, memos, a proposal, a formal report, an infographic, and a visual presentation. Students also learn to work in small breakout groups, collaborate on writing, and give peer feedback. The final project in this course is a professional portfolio which provides examples of your strongest work. When you have completed this course, you should be ready to write in the professional world.

CRN: 20378 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Forsberg, Geri

CRN: 20402 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

CRN: 20432 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Sarkar, Rachel Diane

English 302 addresses the essential elements of technical writing—or writing in action. My underlying objective for English 302 is to explore the power of language to change people, events, and self. We’ll explore ways to use writing skills to accomplish personal, professional, and ideological goals. In the process, we’ll also consider the use of humor, empathy, ethics, and storytelling in technical writing.

CRN: 20520 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Bell, Michael Patrick

In this section of English 302 you’ll develop your skill in generating reader-centered documents that work: documents that do things as well as say things, performing specific functions for specific kinds of readers. Given that so much of our culture now communicates and conducts its business in the visual realm, your work in the course will be focused as much on document design as written language. Through this work you will gain an understanding of how all the elements of a document work together to communicate within specific contexts, for specific audiences. 

English 302 is not simply a skills-acquisition course however. We will use technical communication as a field in which to conduct analytic inquiry appropriate to study in the humanities. This quarter the analytic component of the course will take us into a study of games and the culture surrounding them: both table-top and video games. As a student of the course, you will be collaborating with other students on a series of documents, presentations, and prototypes leading to the development of an original tabletop game. The design of your game will be based in part on contemporary game studies and critiques. Every stage of this inquiry will generate documents in accord with the guidelines of effective technical and professional communication. (And yes, we will be playing games in class!) 

You will emerge from the course with the ability to respond effectively to the requirements of technical communication. You will also have a complex understanding of what is becoming a vital aspect of our contemporary culture. 

ENG 307 Seminar: Medieval 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restrictions lift for Creative Writing Majors (without an endorsement) on Monday Mar 4 by 10am. All major restrictions will be lifted on Tuesday Mar 5 by 10am.

CRN: 22354 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Amendt-Raduege, Amy Michelle

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 307 if you have taken ENG 307 or ENG 317.

The Middle Ages spanned 1000 years of some of the most dynamic and fascinating growth in world history. In this iteration of the class, we focus on the literature and culture of England, but this tiny island offers us a microcosm of the medieval period at large. We wrestle with ideas of kingship and heroism with Beowulf, watch the rise and fall of nations with Gildas and Bede, struggle with the purpose of life with the Wanderer and the Seafarer, and laugh at the double meanings of riddles. We’ll also experience tangible aspects of the period in the form of physical artifacts: you’ll get to touch a real medieval manuscript and even make your own masterpiece. The wonders of the medieval world await.

ENG 308 Seminar: Early Modern 5cr

CRN: 22078 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Lester, Mark M.

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. If you have taken ENG 308 or ENG 318, do not take ENG 308.

DESCRIPTION:
This course is a survey of 16th and 17th century fiction, poetry and drama focusing on the cultural significance of early modern representations of nature in general, and of the forest in particular. In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the forest is contrasted to the court and is said to have a great deal to teach us. The majority of the action of Loves’ Labours’ Lost takes place in the park surrounding the royal court. The manner in which such representations have shaped our relationship to the woods, our sense of our place in the world, will also be explored.

TEXTS:
Norton Anthology of English Literature: vol b – 16th Century/Early 17th Century; Shakespeare: As You
Like It and Love’s Labours’ Lost (Arden Shakespeare Editions). Additional materials will be distributed in
class or posted on Canvas.

ENG 309 Seminar: The Long 18th Century 5cr

CRN: 21283 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Loar, Christopher F.

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 309 if you have already taken ENG 319 or 309.

The long eighteenth century in Great Britain used to be thought of as a time of religious reconciliation. After the bloody religious conflicts of the 1640s and 1650s—which claimed tens of thousands of lives--the decades that followed have often been seen as a time of reconciliation. In this course we’ll challenge that assumption: this period’s writing and thought are still characterized by a conflicts between competing versions of Christianity, as well as by emerging forms of religious skepticism (including both deism and outright atheism), as well as an ongoing interest in supposedly “exotic” religious practices and beliefs found in Asia and among indigenous peoples in the Americas and the Pacific. 

These topics were of course addressed in somewhat dry theological works and sermons. We’ll look at a few of those, but most of our attention will go to the vibrant works of poetry, fiction, and autobiography that characterize this period. While the reading list is still taking shape, we will certainly engage with writings by Aphra Behn, this period’s most prominent female playwright and poet; John Milton, John Dryden, Anne Finch, and Alexander Pope, brilliant and controversial poets whose writing struggled over the relationship between religious belief and political life; Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved writer and political activist; and Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved poet whose writing challenged readers on both sides of the Atlantic.  

No special knowledge of Christianity or other religious traditions is needed for this course—lectures and readings will give you all the information you need. It should also be clear that no religious belief (or nonbelief) is expected, though respect for the beliefs of others in the classroom is of course a basic requirement of this course (as for any course at WWU). 

Course requirements will likely include regular engagement in class meetings; several informal response papers (2-3 paragraphs); and a longer culminating writing project.

ENG 310 Seminar: The Long 19th Century 5cr

CRN: 21284 DAY/TIME: TR 04:00-05:50 pm Instructor: Yeasting, Jeanne Ellen

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 310 if you have already taken ENG 320 or 310.

A research and writing intensive course in the context of the literary history of the long nineteenth century. Students will develop the skills to research and write about literary texts and participate in the critical conversations about them.

ENG 311 Seminar: The 20-21st Century 5cr

CRN: 21285 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Prichard, Tony

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 311 if you have already taken ENG 321 or 311.

A research and writing intensive course in the context of the literary history of the 20-21st century. Students will develop the skills to research and write about literary texts and participate in the critical conversations about them.

ENG 313 Critical Theories & Prac I 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20073 DAY/TIME: MWF 02:30-03:50 pm Instructor: Lester, Mark M.

In this course, we will examine a series of questions concerning the nature, function, and value of literature. What is a work of literature? How does it work? What is if for? On what grounds should it be judged or assessed? Under what circumstances might it be censored? Should the literary work of art be conceived of strictly as an object of analysis (something to be interpreted and explained) or do works of literature themselves have a distinct, dynamic, critical and constructive dimension in their own right? What can we say about the authors and readers of literary works and the sort of knowledge to which they lay claim? Using Plato as the starting point of our survey of theory and criticism from ancient times through the Enlightenment, we will follow a number of trajectories or threads that will allow us to explore the intersections of literature, philosophy, politics, and science.

Texts
Vincent B. Leitch, et al. (ed.),The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Third Edition); Benjamin Jowett
(trans.), Selected Dialogues of Plato. Other materials will be made available on Canvas.

CRN: 23121 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn Rajam

Course Description:
In this class we will explore and demystify some of the vocabularies and ideas that are the foundations of modern cultural thought and criticism. This course has some similarities with a philosophy class, because we are going to be exploring big and important concepts, breaking them down in our discussions to better understand them. But because this is an English class, we will be focusing our attention on how these ideas help us better understand language, literature, and other forms of human expression, and we will use these ideas for our own literary analysis and interpretation. ENG 313 and ENG 314 are organized in terms of time periods, so ENG 313 takes on the early history of the field, up to the 19th c. Theory classes can seem daunting to those who have never studied this kind of material before, so let me assure you: you can do this. You just need to be willing to engage with big ideas, to think about thinking, and to devote some time to learning unfamiliar terms and ways of expressing ideas.

Class expectations:

Consistent attendance, active engagement. We will be depending heavily on class conversation to help us work though and understand the texts.
Reading journal. I will ask you to keep a handwritten journal of your thoughts, questions, and reactions for each day’s text. (If you have a formal accommodation, we will discuss alternatives.)
Occasional in-class writing to review and reflect on the class texts.
One short paper (4-5 pages) drawing on one of our class theoretical texts to help you interpret a text of your choice.

Course Text:
The majority of our readings will be from The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd edition, which is a fantastic resource for the history of ideas (use ISBN: 978-0-393-60295-1 to verify you have found the right edition). This can be an expensive book when bought new, but used copies are widely available, and you may also be able to check out a copy from the library (double-check the edition!). If cost is a barrier, let’s talk about options.

ENG 314 Critical Theories & Prac II 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 22357 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (3rd edition), Leitch, Cain, Finke, et al.
Excerpts from A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader (2nd edition), Antony Easthope and Kate
McGowan (Canvas PDFs)

Course Description
Want to think about how we construct identities? Why gender, sexuality, and race matter? Why texts are political? How capitalism, immigration, and climate change are related? How power is embedded within our institutions and practices? And how to create meaningful change within our communities and the broader world? This class will utilize critical and cultural theories to help us think about literary texts and methodologies--as well as engage the pressing issues of our day. We will do so through so a wide range of readings and examples from contemporary culture.

The course will begin by providing an overview of structuralist and post-structuralist literary and critical theories, from Ferdinand de Saussure’s insights about language as a sign system to N. Katherine Hayles’ analysis of cognitive assemblages and Bruno Latour’s work on politics and climate change. We will engage a full range of readings and media selections from post-Marxism; new materialism/object-oriented ontology; eco-criticism/Anthropocene; feminism, gender and sexuality studies; disability studies; critical race theory; post-colonialism; and Indigenous knowledge systems. Course questions and themes will investigate the embodied perspectives we assume in the material world and how these perspectives shape our reading and writing practices as well as our behavior, generally. The digital context in which we find ourselves necessitates our thinking about our relationship to “things” and “machines” as well as peoples and cultures. And the current climate crisis requires us to think about the relationship of all systems and networks, including those involving non-human animals, geological processes, and inanimate objects. By the time you’ve completed this course, you will be able to identify the ideological perspectives and inherent biases embedded within texts, whether written, spoken (aural), or visual; and you will understand how to use critical thinking to inform your agency and advocacy in the larger, civic world.

Assignments
Course work will include the assigned readings; class discussions and small group problem-solving; and multimodal blog writing.

Evaluation
Course evaluation will be determined by writing critical/multimodal blogs, working with small group assignments, and engaging in workshops and peer response.

ENG 317 Survey: Medieval 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 22447 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn Rajam

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 317 if you have taken ENG 307 or ENG 317.

PRE-16TH CENTURY Survey

Course Description and Objectives: This course covers the first era in our Literature and Culture sequence, starting with the origins of English literature from its earliest surviving writings to the advent of the printing press in England. This is an exciting time in English literature and history when enduring literary conventions were being established, and iconic literary subjects such as King Arthur and courtly love were first being written down. This course celebrates the fascinating and sometimes bizarre (to 21st century readers) literature of the past and offers models for how any modern reader can develop expertise with a body of literature with which they may have little in common. To explore these subjects, this class will sample a broad array of genres, techniques, forms, and themes of the literature of medieval England.

By the end of the quarter you will understand the ways in which English language and literature waned and waxed over the course of the Old English and Middle English periods, and how English vied with French and Latin as a medium of communication. You will learn to recognize the characteristics of many of the common medieval literary forms, as well as the reasons for their use (e.g., polemical, pedagogical, recreational). You will learn about medieval culture and literary tastes, as they are reflected in the course readings.

This class aims at breadth of coverage (with course readings consisting of excerpts as well as whole texts), rather than depth, though this course could be designed productively either way. This class focuses on what it meant to read and write in Middle English, and therefore strives not only for a general understanding of the politics and other social factors that influence writing in English, but also examines the range of writing interests expressed by those who chose to compose in English.

Textbook: Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1: The Medieval Period (3rd ed. 2014, or Revised 3rd ed. 2023 – either one is fine) and supplements posted to Canvas.

Assignments and evaluation: This class uses contract grading to help you work toward a grade of your choosing. The assignments are a mix of daily reading and discussion preparation, small research or creative projects meant to help you explore connections between our class material and our contemporary lives, and a series of check-ins that let me see what you are learning and how. Your course grade will be determined by the grading contract as well.

ENG 318 Survey: Early Modern 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 22359 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Forsythe, Jenny Marie

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 318 if you have taken ENG 308 or ENG 318.

Analysis, interpretation and discussion of texts in English or in translation from the Early Modern period with an attention to literary history.

ENG 319 Survey: The Long 18th Century 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 21286 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Laffrado, Laura

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 319 if you have already taken ENG 309 or 319.

CONTENT: This courses focuses on the time period that scholars have recently named the long eighteenth century—that is, the era that extends from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. These are such dynamic years in the literature of what becomes the United States. We will read literary works by people of various races, ethnicities, religions, and economic positions that explore vital issues of the day such as liberty, literacy, revolution, and science. We will examine the various ways in which a dominant rich male Whiteness is challenged as America and American identities are formed and defined.

ASSIGNMENTS: Two essay exams (a midterm and a final), a participation grade, and much reading, writing, and thinking, along with steady attendance, group work, and various out-of-class assignments.

TEXT: Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A, Beginnings to 1865
ISBN 978-0-303-88617-7

ENG 321 Survey: The 20-21st Centuries 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 23639 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 321 if you have taken ENG 311 or ENG 321.

Analysis, interpretation, and discussion of texts in English or in translation from the 20th-21st centuries with an attention to literary history. We will explore the ways in which writers have confronted social, political, and racial conflict in their work in order to examine how revolutionary identities form.

ENG 334 TextsAcrossNAm&Eur: 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent.

CRN: 21612 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

Course Description
This course will introduce you to the radical creativity of the Indie comix scene that largely originated in Seattle. Focusing on handmade comics and contemporary Indie presses, we will explore the intersectional themes of identity, community, and agency. Through our diverse range of texts, we will try to articulate and understand the strange, the beautiful, the complex, and the interesting . . . in these graphic narratives. The selected texts feature marginalized and under-represented characters and themes, including topics such as love and friendship (relationship building), depression, sexuality, resiliency, and loneliness/isolation. We will celebrate comix as a potentially queer space where openness, fluidity, and non-conformity represent textual strategies as well as characters’ identities. The themes in these writers’ works intersect and overlap with politics and rebellion while highlighting the complex ways in which individuals are situated in larger generational, regional, and national contexts. We will also study comix form and technique and you will have the opportunity to write about comix and create your own small comix in the course. No artistic experience or illustrating talent is required for the Studio Comix assignments. Students receive full credit for playing with the prompts! I invite you to share your favorite comix or web comix on the Canvas Graffiti Board throughout the quarter.
*Please note: this class content contains adult language and themes.

Assignments and Evaluation
You will have the opportunity to read fabulous graphic novels and learn about the Seattle art scene. Reading comics requires a knowledge of the artform and an introduction to technical aspects of graphic art, which is super fun and interesting in itself. You will have the opportunity to write multimodal blogs during the quarter as well as practice your own comic-making with Studio Comix exercises that come with full credit for completing the assignment! No artistic experience or illustrating talent is required. This seminar is geared for both literature and creative writing students as well as students in other majors who are interested in comix.

Required Texts

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud (PDF available)
Comix Criticism (Selected PDFs available)
Comix Samples, Eroyn Franklin (in-class demonstration and online)
Skim, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
Megahex, Simon Hanselmann
Hot Comb, Ebony Flowers
My Favorite Thing is Monsters (vol. 1), Emil Ferris
Sabrina, Nick Drnaso

ENG 335 Global Texts Outside N.Am&Eur: Global Horror 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent.

CRN: 22698 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Prichard, Tony

We will examine the literature of horror and the weird throughout the world.

Required Texts
• Jenkins and Cagle eds, The Valancourt book of World Horror Stories Vols 1 and 2.
• Vandermeer, Ann and Jeff ed. The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

ENG 338 Women's Lit N Am and Europe 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101

CRN: 20388 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Giffen, Allison A.

This class will focus on Black and white American women writers, with a focus on the 19th century. At this time, large numbers of women began to self-consciously craft careers and literary identities as professional writers, and we will read their work in their historical and cultural context. Political, economic, and cultural forces profoundly affected the literary professionalization of American women writers: the Industrial Revolution gains momentum, the middle class begins to grow, literacy rates increase, and white middle-class women’s work becomes increasingly relegated to the home. We will consider how this context leads to a specifically racialized ideal of womanhood that becomes intimately associated with motherhood and domesticity. Finally, we will look to the strategies these women relied upon to participate in the more public work of reform, especially as it relates to slavery. Writers will include Ann Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Jacobs, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lydia Maria Child, and Zorah Neal Hurston.

ENG 342 Studies in Literary Genres 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 22079 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

Studies in literature from the perspective of genre and of topics in particular literary genres.

ENG 347 Studies in Young Adult Lit 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202 or instructor permission. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20366 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Hardman, Pam

In this course we’ll read a diverse array of texts written for young adults. These books all address complex notions about identity, power, race, sexuality, gender, class, love, and voice. We’ll explore the texts from a variety of angles, asking questions of the texts themselves and readers’ responses to the texts. In addition to exploring the books, we’ll think about the histories of childhood and adolescence, and how youth culture is represented. We’ll address issues of consumerism, popular culture, and technology, looking at their effects on this genre of literature and its target audience. You should expect much intensive reading and lively discussion.

TEXTS: may include: Trung Le Nguyen, The Magic Fish; Isabel Quintero, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces; Andrea Rogers, Man Made Monsters; Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep; Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam, Punching the Air.

ASSIGNMENTS: Reading responses; discussion questions; culminating mixed-media project

ENG 350 Intro to Creative Writing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20136 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Gulyas, Lee R.

This course will introduce you to the process of writing—the reading, drafting, craft elements, analysis, extensive revision, focus, and discipline that are essential. You will explore, develop, rethink, and revise with the final goal of a portfolio of creative work. This is a skills class, one that will require practice and participation. We will work in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry.

Assignments include: exercises, readings, analysis, discussions on a variety of topics, and extensive revision of your own drafts into your final portfolio, held together by an analytical discussion.

COURSE GOALS
You will practice reading published work as a writer.

You will work with craft elements and literary techniques in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and read examples from a variety of authors, perspectives, genres, and forms.

You will experiment and take risks to create drafts, then cut, hone, and explore possibilities through revision.

You will actively work to increase your knowledge and skills, aim for professional standards, participate effectively in our writing community through discussion, develop useful feedback, work with revision and deadlines, and locate resources and opportunities both in and out of our classroom.

CRN: 20438 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Pagh, Nancy

In this section of Introduction to Creative Writing we will examine and practice the fundamentals of craft:  imagery and figurative language; sound; character and setting; voice and perspective; form and structure. We will focus on “close reading” of model poetry and prose; brainstorm creative expression and response; draft poems, stories, and creative nonfiction personal essays; share some of these projects with peers; and revise selected works--learning how to communicate about and make practical use of feedback on drafts. Evaluation will be based on completion of a sequence of activities and full participation in the class.

Required Textbook: Write Moves: A Creative Writing Guide & Anthology

CRN: 21421 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Pagh, Nancy

Required Textbook: Write Moves: A Creative Writing Guide & Anthology

CRN: 22360 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Everyhope-Roser, Jemma

What does “write what you know” mean? How do we write what we know when we’re writing a novel about a demonically infested high school, a poem about environmental policy, a memoir that includes our grandmother’s immigration story, a game about fighting alien world conquest, or... anything else, really? Our real lives are filled with tedious waits in grocery store lines, frightening and sudden visits to the ER, long shifts at work, vibrant dreams that make no sense when retold, and anecdotes about our friends that are only funny if you were there.

In this Introduction to Creative Writing course, you’ll learn the foundations of creating memoir/essays, poems, and short stories. In our observation journals, we’ll make brief daily entries to learn how to draw on real-world details like sensory information, voice, character, and setting in our creative work. Each week, you’ll read and analyze a creative work, learning how to read like a writer. We’ll also write a reading response to a craft essay to situate our classwork within a larger writing community. You will write one story, one poem, and one essay and select one of these pieces to workshop in class. We’ll write feedback letters and revise in class. Through in-class writing, we’ll explore idea generation, tropes, and stylistic conventions. For our final project, I’ll work with you to create an individual work of creative written art that reflects your goals as an aspiring writer.

CRN: 22361 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Winrock, Cori Anne

The Observatory

‘The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.’ –Leonora Carrington

This Introduction to Creative Writing course will be an observatory in which we attempt to understand what it means to be readers and writers in this strange moment in time. You will learn to peer through the microscope to look at the nitty gritty of how pieces in different genres are crafted. And peer through the telescope to look out at the wider skies of yourselves and the world around you in relation to writing. Have we changed as readers and writers during the last three plus pandemic years? Can we imagine a different way of reading and writing the current world? Across the span of the quarter, you will study specimens of craft while witnessing and conversing with your classmates about your findings. You will consider what it means to read actively as writers, with intention toward discovery and curiosity and acceptable bewilderment—to admire the paintbrush hairs left in the painting, the traces of process. You will learn to read as thieves—to borrow and try out and try on different styles and elements. And lastly, to read with an eye toward the playful and what might be enjoyable precisely because it doesn’t make “sense.” You will, of course, also write and write and write—cataloging all this beauty and difficulty and constraint through notebooks + poems + essays + stories + hybrid forms.

ENG 351 Intro to Fiction Writing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20299 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Westhoff, Kami Dawn Marie

This course is designed to introduce you to the craft and culture of writing fiction as well as the complex world of critique and workshop. We will read established authors of various identities and study the ways they make their writing shine through unique use of voice, description, language, dialogue, character development, and experimentation. While reading and studying these authors, you will begin your own journey into short story fiction writing with the help of various writing exercises and assignments, revision, and most importantly, your imagination and individuality.

CRN: 20439 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Araki-Kawaguchi, Kiik

As a community of writers, we will strengthen our competencies through reading, writing, discussing and reflecting. You will be tasked with developing fictional worlds, characters and predicaments. We will have conversations about the fundamental elements of fiction (e.g. tense, pov, dialog, voice, conflict), as we examine a diverse body of published works and the early drafts (stories) written by you and your peers.

Expect this to be an exciting and challenging course. We hope you will develop new ways of thinking, working, writing and communicating. We hope you will take risks. Count on being brave, respectful, and a hard worker.

Participation in a 5-credit course is equivalent to 150 hours of work over the quarter. This will include 4 hours of classroom time weekly (lecture, discussions, workshop) and approximately 10 hours of outside preparation (reading, writing, investigating, reflecting, projects). You are also encouraged to visit me in office hours, attend literary events, and (safely) connect with your peers.

We will examine a diverse body of published work across genre boundaries. I attempt to keep course costs as low as possible, but I require access to a few critical materials:
• Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer
• An electronic device (e.g. smartphone) that will allow you to access podcasts

CRN: 23640 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Westhoff, Kami Dawn Marie

ENG 353 Introduction to Poetry Writing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20074 DAY/TIME: TR 04:00-05:50 pm Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

In this introductory course we will practice reading poetry and writing poems. Through in-class writing exercises and structured assignments, we will extend our sense of how poems work (on) and move (through) us. Each week we will attend to different elements of poetic creation – including imagery, metaphor, repetition, soundplay, traditional form, and -making and -breaking. Investigating how these elements and structures are woven together in poems we’ll read & write will both create a classwide understanding of poetic possibility and prompt us as poets to weave our own phonotextual tapestries.

Projects in this class require you to blend your reading and analytical skills with your poetic practice. Several assignments ask you to choose, read, analyze and present to the class poems and writing that engage you or are examples of forms or structures we’re studying. We’ll also spend classtime sharing and responding to the pieces of poetic practice you produce each week. As a class sharing work with each other, we’ll seek to listen carefully, be both considerate and critical, and open for each other potential avenues of revision and rewriting.

CRN: 21823 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Winrock, Cori Anne

Exquisite Forms

What are the forms a poem can take? What are the forms a poem can make? Is a poem a container? Is it contained? What is the velocity of a poem? What might be the motion of its form? In her essay “The Rejection of Closure,” Lyn Hejinian argues: “Writing’s forms are not merely shapes but forces; formal questions are about dynamics—they ask how, where, and why the writing moves, what are the types, directions, number, and velocities of a work’s motion.” This Intro to Poetry class will deep dive into the possible forms of poetry and what it means to consider these forms as forces. Across the course of the quarter, we will ransack the museum of poetics—from ancient forms up to the hyper contemporary moment. We will read widely and weirdly. We will explode sonnets, diagram lines, solve for X, and search for the self. We will consider video poems, create poetry comics, and carry one form over to another as we learn to riff and repeat and reform.

ENG 354 Intro to Creative Nonfict Writ 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20317 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Gulyas, Lee R.

Required Materials
Miller & Paola, Tell It Slant, Third Edition (only this edition will work), all other readings provided Canvas & Internet access, and ability to print out hard copies of your work
Paper and pen or pencil for in-class writing

Course Description
This is a beginning level creative writing class that combines a creative component and the study of literature. We will explore a broad spectrum of content and form, as we strive to translate personal experience, perspective, and research into effective work. Students will submit drafts, provide feedback, and practice discussions in critical exploration of readings. Coursework will include in-class writing exercises, reading responses, writing assignments, and extensive revision. Since this is a five-credit course, the university expects fifteen hours of work per week: five hours in class and ten hours on your own.

My goals for this class are that you will:
1) read a variety of creative nonfiction, grasp basic concepts about what the term implies, the variety of forms it can take, and the craft elements, reworking, and revision integral to its success.
2) begin thinking about the ethical implications involved when writing about your life and the lives of others.
3) read published nonfiction as models for your own work, and read your colleagues’ writing with empathy, compassion, and insight.
4) participate effectively in our writing community through discussion, developing useful feedback, working with revision and deadlines, and locating resources and opportunities both in and out of our classroom.
5) gain a better understanding of yourself as a writer, learn how to incorporate feedback into your revision process, and be able to critically analyze your own work.

CRN: 20517 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Westhoff, Kami Dawn Marie

Welcome to English 354. In this course, you will read the work of established creative nonfiction writers, engage in extensive practice of the techniques, forms, and styles they employ, participate in in-depth discussions and peer workshops, and eventually produce a portfolio of your own creative nonfiction.

ENG 364 Introduction to Film Studies 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101.

CRN: 20440 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Cosey, Felicia

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: T, 04:00-06:50 pm

In this course we will learn how the formal elements of film practice and technique such as cinematography, editing, sound, and mise-en-scène are employed to create meaning for the spectator. Moreover, we will investigate the ways in which critical perspectives such as genre, authorship, ideology, race, sexuality, and gender inform our analyses of film and media. As part of our study, we will screen and analyze excerpts from narrative and documentary films.

Assignments: Course work will consist of activities, quizzes, and writing assignments.

Required Textbook: Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2021.

CRN: 23641 DAY/TIME: MWF 02:30-03:50 pm Instructor: Youmans, Greg

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: M, 04:00-06:50 pm

The course introduces the foundations of film studies. We will explore core vocabulary, concepts, and skills that help us look and listen more closely to motion pictures. We will also develop practices of critical thinking, argumentation, and analysis through various writing exercises. Our course screenings will present films from around the world and from the historical beginnings of cinema to the present day. In the second half of the term, we will shift focus to a video-production project that will further enrich everyone’s understanding of how movies are put together.

Textbook: David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Jeff Smith. Film Art: An Introduction, 13th edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2023. (You are welcome to use the 10th, 11th, or 12th edition instead to save money.)

ENG 365 Film Hist: New Jack Cinema 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or ENG 202.

CRN: 21288 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Cosey, Felicia

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: M, 04:00-06:50 pm

New Jack Cinema

“New Jack” refers to a hip-hop sound called New Jack Swing created by musician, artist, and producer Teddy Riley during the late 1980s. It was a sound that combined rap and dance music and featured prominently in urban culture.

The phrase New Jack Cinema was coined by Steven D. Kendall in his book titled New Jack Cinema: Hollywood’s African American Filmmakers. He uses the phrase to connect Riley’s musical sound with a new movement in Hollywood cinema evolving around the same time. Kendall describes this movement as a time, the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a new crop of African American filmmakers served as the “cultural vanguard” for their generation. Kendall asserts they had to be the best at their craft “in order to survive the Hollywood system, as they were not often afforded the same access and opportunities as their white counterparts” (vi). And we indeed witness this cultural shift as more Black filmmakers are given opportunities to direct major Hollywood productions than ever before.

While New Jack Cinema gave voice to a marginalized group, it also inadvertently painted that group with a broad brush. Black films during this period prominently featured urban settings, eliding other Black voices in rural and suburban settings. New Jack Cinema would soon become identified not for its varied Black narratives, but for its gangster films.

The music, movies, and political climate that created New Jack Cinema serves as the impetus for this course. We will study the early films of such directors as John Singleton, Julie Dash, the Hudlin Brothers, and of course, Spike Lee. Some questions we will attempt to answer are as follows:

How did New Jack Cinema reflect and shape the socio-political climate of the late 1980s and early 1990s?
In what ways did New Jack Cinema provide a platform for marginalized voices, and how did it confront or perpetuate stereotypes?
How did the intersection of music, particularly New Jack Swing and rap, influence the thematic and stylistic elements of New Jack Cinema?
What were the challenges faced by African American filmmakers during this era, and how did they navigate the Hollywood system?
How has New Jack Cinema influenced contemporary filmmakers, and what is its lasting legacy in American cinema?

Assignments: Course work will consist of activities, quizzes, and writing assignments.

Required Textbook: Course readings will be provided on Canvas.

ENG 385 Sustainability Literacy II 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: One course from: UEPP 116, SUST 116, ENG 203, ENG 302, or SALI 201; or instruction permission.

CRN: 21454 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: MacIntyre Witt, Jill

Systems Thinking

This course will take a human-centered approach to understanding complex systems through research, story, and information sharing. By shifting focus from the parts to the whole and from nouns to verbs, this course offers an introduction to the specialized language, habits-of-mind, and methodology of systems thinking to understand human and beyond-human materialities as interdependent and co creative elements that form a complex and unified whole. Systems thinking can be applied to every discipline and context. It engages with different cultural, ecological, technological, and disciplinary perspectives to find problems, reframe stories, and discover leverage points for enacting systems change.

Course projects include weekly writing assignments that incorporate visual and verbal elements, including experimenting with new media and/or multi modal compositions. For the major project you will be a part of a team that applies a systems thinking approach to writing about sustainability issues in a professional or public context you care about. We will use these models to articulate solutions through written and oral proposals. The course also invites guest visits from social change leaders in our community. This broad spectrum of disciplinary viewpoints will offer unique perspectives on systems thinking as a practice and field of study and work. Together we will identify the properties and engage in the process of writing/building a viable, desirable, and sustainable future. You should leave the course with excellent writing samples: mappings, systems and rhetorical analyses, research displays, and proposals, as well as a new vocabulary and methodology to facilitate systems-based analysis, communication, and change.

400-Level English Courses

ENG 401 Writing/Rhetoric Seminar 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 302, ENG 313, ENG 314 or ENG 371, or instructor permission. Major restrictions will be lifted on Thursday Feb 29 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 23122 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Bridges, D'Angelo

In this course, we will examine the work of an array of nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century Black writers to consider the rhetorical, historical, and political contexts in which these writers produced formative poems and essays on the nature and significance of African American writing. Focused primarily on the study of how African American writers cast visions of the rhetorical force and power of their writing, students will learn about how Black writers have theorized the exigencies of their work. Essays from writers to be considered include James Baldwin, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Jesse Redmon Fauset, bell hooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wright.

ENG 406 Topics:Critical/Culturl Theory 5cr

***ENG 406 was cancelled by the English Department on 3/13/2024 after notifying all students registered via Western email. This course is no longer available for spring 2024***

ENG 410 Lit Hist: Arabism, Zionism, & Gaza 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202; plus three from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 313, ENG 314, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320, ENG 321, ENG 331, ENG 333, ENG 334, ENG 335, ENG 336, ENG 338, ENG 339, ENG 341, ENG 342, ENG 343, ENG 347, ENG 364, ENG 371. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20766 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Wise, Christopher

“Arabism, Zionism, & Gaza” is a course in the historical literature of Arab Nationalism (Arabism, Ba’athism, Nasserism), the Pan-Arab Movement, and Jewish Nationalism (Zionism), including discussion of US involvement in the region from the period of the Six-Day War of 1967 to Gaza. As a course in literary history, the literature we study will also be situated in the context of the era of decolonization and the rise of the post-colonial nation-state following WWII. We will read the literature of Arab and Jewish people in Israel and Palestine, including Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews. We will also explore non-Arab Muslim views of political Arabism and Zionism, including those of Amazigh, Black African, Fulani (“Black-Arab”), and Persian peoples. Course discussion will include the complex history of regional conflicts after the creation of Israel in the aftermath of the Shoah/Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, the Six-Day War of 1967, the Yom Kipper War of 1973, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East prior to the Gaza conflict of 2023, especially following 9/11. Significant time will be devoted to the analysis of poetic, literary, and theoretical texts in historical context. Two regional poets will occupy much of our attention, Mahmud Darwish and Yehuda Amichai. We will also read theorists and figures such as Freud, Herzl, Faisal, al-Husri, Rabbath, Nasser, Aflaq, Fanon, Khomeni, Shahak, Chomsky, Finkelstein, Vattimo, Said, Derrida, Shohat, Ngom, Rose, Gaddafi. Students will work in groups, give oral presentations on pre-assigned topics, write in-class, and perform significant independent research. Regular in-class attendance and participation is mandatory. Some documentaries will be viewed outside of class, and there will be some on-line lectures that will require written responses. However, this is a FTF course requiring active class discussion.

Texts:
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism
Edward Said, Freud and the Non-European & The Question of Palestine
Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion
Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem
Omar Dahbour (ed), The Nationalism Reader
Theodor Herzl, A Jewish State
Sylvia Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology
Christopher Wise (ed), Being Arab: Arabism and the Politics of Recognition
Gianni Vattimo, Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx
Mahmud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise
Israel Shahak, Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel

ENG 418 Sr Sem: Post-9/11 Literature 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: Senior status; ENG 313 or ENG 314; and one course from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310 or ENG 311. Opens to Literature juniors on Monday Mar 4 at 10am. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20389 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Anderson, Katherine J.

Important note: ENG 418 is not repeatable & cannot be used as an elective for the literature major.

Post-9/11 Literature: Narrative in an Age of Terrorism

Everything changed after the planes hit the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. We now live in a “post-9/11” world, defined by our obsessions with security, warfare, terrorism, ethnicity, and national identity. Certainly, 9/11 is frequently described as a defining event of the 21st century for the United States, but what about the rest of the world, Western and otherwise?

In this senior capstone seminar, we’ll examine the literary response to the events of September 11th, 2001 and their aftermath. Throughout, we’ll consider the distinctive identity of a body of twenty-first century writing (often called post-9/11 literature) that is transnational as well as American. Our discussions will be framed by our attention to both our writers’ aesthetic choices and their cultural and political claims. Our class will be different from (and perhaps more difficult than) many others because of the contemporary relevance of the material. Discussions will inevitably involve an attention to contemporary politics, both national and global, and I ask that you engage each other with mutual respect and sensitivity. Some of the topics we’ll consider include: the ability of literary writers to help us understand the consequences of terrorism and war on our imaginations the adequacy of language to represent this kind of world-shifting event; the extent to which representations of the events can be said to have changed as time has elapsed; how texts written by non-western authors present a challenge to the U.S.-centric narratives that have dominated the post-9/11 moment; and how historical events preceding 9/11 connect to and contributed to the event.

Course Objectives:
In addition to offering an introduction to critical terrorism studies, the concept of terrorism, and the production of knowledge about political violence, this course interrogates the influence contemporary writers have on the ways we shape our cultural narratives about 9/11, terrorism, warfare, security, ethnicity, religion, politics, globalization, and national identity, and conversely, the way cultural narratives about those things influence contemporary writers.

Student Learning Objectives (what you’ll get from your work in this class):

Advanced capacity to compare and contrast texts of different forms or genres, making connections between different literary texts and/or critical theories.
Advanced ability to analyze contemporary, transnational literature published since September 11, 2001 and to relate its concerns and its modes of expression to historical and cultural contexts.
Advanced ability to perform and then apply proactive research.
Advanced ability to write cogent literary criticism.
Increased autonomy in assessing literary texts and critical theories.
Increased ability to participate in an ongoing academic conversation.
Increased self-awareness of personal reading, writing, and methodological practices.

Content Warning: Some of our texts contain reference to sexual and/or racial violence, suicide, and/or various verbal denigrations. I did not assign these texts lightly, nor is it my intent for us to dismiss the problematic things they depict. Rather, it is my goal for us to confront those elements sensitively, thoughtfully, and deeply, as I hope we do when we encounter them in the real world. Literature exists in part to help us bear witness to, process, and cope with human crises, trauma, and atrocities, and in asking us to confront these things, it also actively encourages our empathy with and for others. Please be certain when signing up for this class that you can commit to reading and discussing this material and further, that you can do so in a mature, respectful way.

Required texts will likely include:

Don DeLillo, Falling Man
Laila Halaby, Once in a Promised Land
Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned
into a War on American Ideals
Ian McEwan, Saturday
Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows
Required theoretical/critical readings will be available on Canvas as PDFs.

ENG 418 Sr Sem: Literary Time 5cr

CRN: 20390 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Heim, Stefania F.

Important note: ENG 418 is not repeatable & cannot be used as an elective for the literature major.

Tense, duration, chronology, perception, memory, rhythm. Time travel, flash back, simultaneity, linear progression. Feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz has argued that “time remains the central yet forgotten force that motivates and informs the universe, from its most cosmological principles to its most intimate living details.” It is also, necessarily, a central component of literature. Time is literary structure, organizing principle, subject matter, emotional catalyst. From the “timeless” lyric to the immersive novel through whose duration you feel yourself to exist simultaneously in multiple planes, writers and readers play with time. In this senior seminar, time will not be ancillary to other literary or theoretical concerns: we will home in on the representation, manipulation, and creation of time. We will explore widely across genres and media and through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, engaging with writers and artists like Emily Dickinson, Claudia Rankine, Frank O’Hara, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Octavia Butler, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Chantal Ackerman, Ed Roberson, and Yoko Ono. We will also research political, cosmological, theological, and literary arguments about the organization and apprehension of time. Throughout the course, students will work through a set of scaffolded writing assignments (including creative experiments, low-stakes writing-to-think activities, peer workshopping, and revision) toward the completion of an original 10-15 page analytical paper.

ENG 423 Maj Auth: Hawthorne's Major Works 5cr

CRN: 20243 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Laffrado, Laura

“There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says No! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie.” Herman Melville, 1851

CONTENT: This course looks at the completed novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne, cultural icon and major US writer. We will read the texts in the order he wrote them, pay attention to their interactions with the larger culture, ask why Hawthorne often altered historical accounts, and watch him create characters who underread and suffer the consequences. We will consider issues of gender, history, symbology, and identity, among others. Our reading culminates with Hawthorne’s most complex, wonderful novel, The Marble Faun.

ASSIGNMENTS: This will be a small class devoted to reading and writing. The reading load, while full of interesting texts, will be heavy. There will be class presentations and a fifteen-page seminar paper, due at the end of the term. As part of the seminar paper process, expect draft days and in-class writing.

EVALUATION: Evaluation will be based on the criteria above.

TEXTS: Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun. We will also probably a look at a few early and later film revisions of the novels and other materials on how we read Hawthorne and why it matters.

ENG 423 Maj Auth: H.G. Wells and Ursula K. Le Guin 5cr

CRN: 20457 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Anderson, Katherine J.

Sci-Fi Shakespeares: H. G. Wells and Ursula K. Le Guin

This course provides deep analysis of the writing of two of the “Shakespeares” of Anglophone science fiction (SF): H. G. Wells and Ursula K. Le Guin. In the late-nineteenth century, the British Wells, an eventual socialist who staunchly advocated for free love, was perhaps the most famous contributor to a genre known as “scientific romance”: an early form of science fiction that placed science at the center of its plot, using it to create tension, anxiety, or fear, as well as revealing the darker desires of humanity and frequently attributing those darker desires to evolutionary inheritance. Although Wells himself eschewed the term “scientific romance,” the power of his early SF novels continues to resonate all over the world.

In the mid-twentieth century, British SF writers established a New Wave in the genre. New Wave SF was more literary and experimental, including a willingness to experiment with postmodernism. It strayed from the traditional focus on “hard” science in favor of the “soft” sciences, and it foregrounded sexual liberation. More women writers also appeared on the scene during the New Wave. Across the pond in the US, Le Guin, the daughter of anthropologists, began her career as an SF legend and literary giant by writing stories that blended British New Wave sentiment with American genre imagery and her own anthropological interests into tales of loss, companionship, isolation, redemption, and love.

Wells and Le Guin are two of the most influential SF writers of all time. You will exit this class with a more sophisticated understanding of their respective contributions to literature, including their representations of gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; class, capitalism, and socialism; utopia/dystopia; war; apocalypse; and scientific experimentation and technology, as well as a firmer grasp of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Anglophone cultural and literary history.

Student Learning Outcomes (what you’ll get from your work in this class):

Advanced ability to analyze nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and to relate literature’s concerns and modes of expression to its historical context as well as our present moment.
Advanced capacity to compare and contrast texts of different forms or (sub)genres, making connections while noting evolutions in form, style, and content over an author’s oeuvre.
Advanced capacity to analyze literary genealogy via a comparison of major authors working at different historical moments in the same genre
Advanced ability to perform and then apply proactive research.
Advanced ability to write cogent literary criticism.
Increased autonomy in assessing literary texts and critical arguments.
Increased ability to participate in an ongoing academic conversation.
Increased self-awareness of personal reading, writing, and methodological practices.

Required texts will likely include:

H. G. Wells
- The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
- The Time Machine (1895)
- The War of the Worlds (1898)
Ursula K. Le Guin
- A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
- The Dispossessed (1974)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Required visual text: Epix’s War of the Worlds, season 1 (2019, 8 episodes, streaming on Amazon with trial subscription)
Additional required short texts and secondary readings are available on Canvas as pdfs.

Content Warning: Some of our texts may contain reference to sexual and/or racial violence, suicide, and/or various verbal denigrations. I will not assign these texts lightly, nor is it my intent for us to dismiss the problematic things they depict. Rather, it is my goal for us to confront those elements sensitively, thoughtfully, and deeply, as I hope we do when we encounter them in the real world. These realities are particularly important to consider in relation to the intertwined histories of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, patriarchy, and white supremacy that accompanied the British Empire and literary canon and that continue in our present political moment. Literature exists in part to help us bear witness to, process, and cope with human crises, trauma, and atrocities, and in asking us to confront these things, it also actively encourages our empathy with and for others. Please be certain when signing up for this class that you can commit to reading and discussing this material and further, that you can do so in a mature, respectful way.

ENG 424 Major Directors: Jane Campion 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or instructor permission.

CRN: 23642 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Odabasi, Eren

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: W, 05:00-07:50 pm

Two-time Academy Award winner Jane Campion is one of the most significant and influential figures in contemporary world cinema. She became the first woman in history to win the prestigious Golden Palm, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1993 with The Piano. Her adaptation of celebrated author Janet Frame’s autobiography An Angel at My Table (1990) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize in the Venice Film Festival, where Campion also won the award for best director in 2021 with The Power of the Dog. She remains the only filmmaker ever to win the Golden Palm awards for both short and feature films. Throughout a career spanning more than 35 years, she has distinguished herself as the most decorated film director to emerge from New Zealand and Australia.

In this course, we will study Campion’s complete body of work through the lens of auteur theory. We will identify the central themes in all Campion films (such as female subjectivity and autonomy, desire and societal oppression, mental illness, painful family ties etc.), analyze her work in a variety of formats (multi-episodic series and short films in addition to her narrative features), and explore the unusual cinematic techniques that she frequently uses as a part of her visually inventive style. We will watch and discuss all the feature films directed by Campion, survey many scholarly accounts written about Campion’s cinema, and read Campion’s own comments about her films.

Throughout the course units, we will investigate the literary roots of Campion’s films, identify the notable artists with whom she collaborated repeatedly, and discuss her influence on contemporary films from around the world. The requirements for this course include two short film analysis papers and a substantial final essay that comparatively examines two or more works by Jane Campion.

TEXTS

All books are available as free e-books through WWU Libraries, no purchase is necessary.

“Jane Campion” by Deb Verhoeven, Routledge, 2009.
“Jane Campion: Authorship and Personal Cinema” by Alistair Fox, Indiana University Press, 2011.
“Jane Campion’s The Piano” edited by Harriet Elaine Margolis, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Additional readings will be available online on Canvas.

FILMS

Features:
Two Friends, 1986
Sweetie, 1989
An Angel at My Table, 1990
The Piano, 1993
The Portrait of a Lady, 1996
Holy Smoke, 1999
In the Cut, 2003
Bright Star, 2009
The Power of the Dog, 2021

Series:
Top of the Lake, 2013
Top of the Lake: China Girl, 2017

We will also see several short films directed by Campion.

ENG 441 Language and the Sec Classroom 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 302 or ENG 371; ENG 347; ENG 350, ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354; two from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320 and ENG 321. Major restrictions do not lift.

CRN: 22364 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: VanderStaay, Steven L.

This course will explore language structure and use in the Secondary Language Arts classroom, including cultural and equity issues, dialect and discourse style bias, ESL learners, and the challenges of standard grammar and conventions. We’ll spend some time addressing linguistic fundamentals as a means of understanding language diversity. This methods course requires the same kind of individual initiative, dedication, and professionalism that you will apply to your future work as a teacher.

ENG 443 Tch Eng Lang Arts in Sec Sch I 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 302 or ENG 371; ENG 347; ENG 350; ENG 441 or concurrent or MLE 444 or concurrent; and two courses from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320 and ENG 321. Major restrictions do not lift.

CRN: 20662 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Hardman, Pam

CONTENT: This course focuses on the teaching of writing in middle and high schools. Through the frames of various pedagogical theories, we will connect what we know about the diverse student population that secondary teachers face with what we know about ourselves as language arts learners and teachers in order to create useable teaching materials. This is a writing and reading intensive course. This methods course requires the same kind of individual initiative, dedication, and professionalism that you will apply to your future work as a teacher.

TEXTS: may include: Gallagher, Teaching Adolescent Writers; Gallagher, Write Like This

ASSIGNMENTS: Writing responses; unit assignments; mini-lesson plan and performance; target assignment project

ENG 444 Tch Eng Lang Art in Sec Sch II 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 443. Major restrictions do not lift.

CRN: 20082 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: VanderStaay, Steven L.

This course is the second of a two-quarter sequence designed to help you become a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and effective teacher of English language arts at the secondary level. In 444 we emphasize the teaching of reading and literature with whole-class, small group, and individualized methods. This methods course requires the same kind of individual initiative, dedication, and professionalism that you will apply to your future work as a teacher.

ENG 451 Creative Wrtng Seminar:Fiction 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20138 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Araki-Kawaguchi, Kiik

“Nine Challenges”

In this advanced fiction workshop, you will be issued nine challenges meant to stretch your competencies as a writer, reader and collaborator. Potential challenges include, “write a story that is 90% dialogue,” and “write a story one earth over from ours.” As a way to approach these challenges, we will discuss innovative texts, do in-class writing activities, and build an archive of reflections. Our most significant focus will be on workshopping the early drafts (stories) written by you and your peers.

We will examine a diverse body of published work across genre boundaries. I attempt to keep course costs as low as possible, but I ask that you obtain an electronic device (e.g. smartphone) that will allow you to access podcasts.

CRN: 20519 DAY/TIME: MWF 02:30-03:50 pm Instructor: Westhoff, Kami Dawn Marie

Seminar in Fiction Writing, is designed to encourage you to continue your exploration into the complex world of creating literary fiction. We will read the work of contemporary fiction writers and examine the ways in which they create compelling and innovative fiction through careful and unique attention to such elements as character development, setting, theme, format, and narrative focus. In addition to extensive fiction writing, you will be asked to engage with the literary world on a larger scale, including literary journal research, submitting your work, and presenting a live reading of your own work.

ENG 453 Creative Wrtng Seminar: Poetry 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 353. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20391 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Yeasting, Jeanne Ellen

Forms of Verse: This course is a seminar in learning about, and writing in, some of many poetic forms available to poets. Students will write and extensively revise their own verse. We will explore the histories of some forms (old and new) and undertake intensive reading of examples from different time periods. We’ll also talk about ways to make our own poems better through a direct application of our newfound knowledge. Class will be a mixture of discussion of assigned writing models, collaborative presentations, writing exercises, and workshops.
EVALUATION: Based on active class participation and fulfillment of assignments, including collaborative projects, writing literary reviews, and a Final Project.
REQUIRED TEXTS:

Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, editors. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. W. W. Norton & Company. 2001. ISBN (paperback): 978-0393321784
Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell: Poems. Graywolf Press, 2021. ISBN (paperback): 978-1644450598
Donika Kelly, The Renunciations: Poems. Graywolf Press, 2021. ISBN (paperback):‎ 978-1644450536
Rena Priest, Patriarchy Blues. Moon Path Press. 2017. ISBN (paperback): 978-1936657278

ENG 454 Creative Wrtg Sem: Nonfiction 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 354. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 21289 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Dorr, Noam

An advanced workshop course in the writing of nonfiction, building on skills learned in prior courses. Repeatable with different instructors to a maximum of 10 cr.

ENG 459 Editing and Publishing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20442 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Colen, Elizabeth Jane

This course will give students an overview of professional editing and publishing practices across a variety of genres and professional venues. Students will conduct an analysis and assessment of their own writing and publishing aims and engage in exercises and assignments geared towards individual goals. To that end, we will read, respond to, analyze, and try our hand at composing and refining a wide range of essential texts, including cover letters and query letters, synopses, back cover copy, blurbs, bios, book reviews, and interview questions. Additionally, students will exercise and cultivate research, copyediting, and proofreading skills and closely examine how an author may utilize and refine grammar, syntax, and other elements of style to improve their writing and begin to take part in wider literary community and conversations.

CRN: 23124 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Trueblood, Kathryn R.

Course Goals: This is a capstone course that offers practical information not only about the business of publishing books but also about literary careers that exist behind the scenes. The course will include a brief history of the book industry in the United States; corporate versus independent publishing; the roles of book reviewers and reps; agents, editors, and publicists. An overview of the literary arts scene in the Northwest will be included with a discussion of internship opportunities in the region. We will have guest speakers who are professionals in the field, so the syllabus will have to bend here and there to accommodate.

In this class, students will role-play the part of editor, publisher, and writer, learning the protocol and diplomacy of the industry. The course will offer an introduction to useful skills such as copyediting, proofreading, and promotional writing. The assignments for this course are designed to heighten students' awareness that publishing is key to the democratic process i.e., one of the ways ideas are disseminated in an open society. Historically, communities whose access to the public forum was limited have begun their own publishing movements; students will be encouraged to understand the roles of editor and publisher in that context.

As advanced workshop graduates, students are expected to be conversant with the principles and techniques of good writing and aim for the standards of professional copy. This is a course in professional development, and a high level of fluency in writing is expected.

Texts:
The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer, edited by Larimer & Gannon
A People's Guide to Publishing by Joe Biel
Copyediting & Proofreading for Dummies by Suzanne Gilad

ENG 460 MultiGenre: 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20656 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Dorr, Noam

Intensive study of topics in creative writing that cross genre boundaries, or that critique those boundaries. Opportunities to compose experimental or hybrid works. Repeatable with different instructors to a maximum of 10 credits.

ENG 460 MultiGenre: Odd Forms 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 20368 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Colen, Elizabeth Jane

In this generative, workshop-based class we will examine what it means to forgo the standard expectations of genre and venture into the space of attempting to allow content itself to generate form. We will read closely (as closely as possible, given the constraints of a 10-week quarter) many examples of odd forms and delve into them in our own writing through exercises in imitation and by questioning our own content in order to determine what odd forms might be possible for our work. This exploration will culminate in a portfolio (3 pieces) final of fully revised work of 10-15 pages.

ENG 461 Interns in Eng: Prof Identity 5cr

***ENG 461 was cancelled by the English Department on 3/4/2024 after notifying all students registered via Western email. This course is no longer available for spring 2024***

ENG 462 Professional Writing 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: One course from ENG 301, ENG 302, ENG 371; or equivalent experience and instructor approval. Major restrictions will be lifted on Thursday Feb 29 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 22462 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Cushman, Jeremy W.

Story-driven Podcasting

Before I even start this description, please know that while we will be making story-driven audio and podcasts in this class, you do not need any experience with audio editing software or with recording. We’ll all learn that stuff together, and it’s easier than you may think. You also do not need to buy any digital technology for this class; we’ve already got what you need.

Alright, here’s the class description:

Everybody seems to have a podcast. Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen have a podcast; Snoop Dogg has a podcast; the lovely middle-school kid down the road from me has a rad podcast. We are stumbling and tripping over so many podcasts!

And still, podcasting offers us ways to consider important notions related to digital circulation, the fascinating nature of sound, our own emotional and affective responses to ideas, and, most importantly for this class, the differing ways storytelling practices play a critical role in nearly every aspect of what the field of Technical Communication calls ‘community engagement.’

So in this class, we are going to get a bit obsessive about story-driven podcasting. I say “story-driven” because so many popular podcasts are interview shows where a host spends an hour talking with guests. Many of those are great, but we won’t deal much with interview shows. And quite a few popular podcasts sound like a group of friends hit the ‘record’ button and just chatted for an hour. In the podcasting industry, those get called, ‘chum-casts,’ and while some of those are pretty delightful, we won’t spend any time with those either.

Together, we’ll center story-driven podcasting.

What that means is that we’ll explore how podcasting can highlight the ways storytelling is baked into all (all!) our communication practices; we’ll wonder about the ways podcasting can challenge the traditional shape of story; we’ll obsess over the ways podcasting blurs the distinction between sound and writing, which allows us to better reflect on the supposed distinction between orality and literacy.

To help us chase after those fairly lofty goals, together we will:

Listen to heaps and heaps of story-driven podcasts
Listen to different types of music to help us think about storytelling in terms of melody and countermelody
Read a little in the field of Storytelling Research, which draws on Technical Writing and Sociology
Read a little in the field of Sound Studies
Create and share soundscapes, mini audio stories, and of course, story-driven podcast episodes.

ENG 464 Topics in Film Studies 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or instructor permission.

CRN: 22706 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Odabasi, Eren

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: T, 04:00-06:50 pm

Even though film festivals have been in existence in one form or another for more than ninety years (with the Venice Film Festival, initiated in 1932, often cited to be the first major one), scholarly work on the festival phenomenon is relatively recent. In the early 1990s, with the extremely rapid proliferation of film festivals around the world, many scholars have started to analyze the various types of festivals, the groups of agents who participate in this circuit, and the impact of festivals on filmmaking, film financing, distribution, and reception.

This course offers a comprehensive review of major theoretical and methodological approaches employed in the growing field of film festival research. The first unit of the course is devoted to the theoretical frameworks through which film festivals can be understood as subjects of academic work. The second unit considers the social and political aspects of film festivals, looking at the historical contexts under which major festivals were born and analyzing the influence of external factors on their structures, programming, and development. The final unit examines the economic and institutional dimensions of festivals, with a particular focus on their involvement in the funding, sales, and distribution of films. Various questions about the active role festivals play in forming a world cinema canon and cultivating local film cultures are raised throughout.

Requirements
Written requirements include 2 reading responses (approximately 1000 words each) and a substantial final project, which may take the form of a comprehensive literature review or original research (10-12 pages).

Books
de Valck, Marijke. “Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia.” Amsterdam University Press, 2007.

Wong, Cindy H. “Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen.” Rutgers University Press, 2011.

Both books are available as free e-books through WWU Libraries, no purchase is necessary.

ENG 466 Screenwriting 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or one from: ENG 350, ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restrictions lift on Tuesday Mar 5th by 10am.

CRN: 23125 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Youmans, Greg

Film Viewing DAY/TIME: M 04:00-06:50 pm

The course introduces screenwriting with an emphasis on the art of storytelling. We will focus on the writing of narrative screenplays, both short and feature-length. To guide our efforts, we’ll explore and analyze a range of examples, both as screenplays and final films, ranging from art cinema to indie films to mainstream Hollywood movies. Although our focus will be on linear narrative storytelling, we may also look at examples of screenwriting for other genres and formats, such as television, online video, and interactive storytelling.

You will often work collaboratively in class on exercises geared toward developing stories, characters, dialogue, and screenplays. Although some time will be set aside for in-class writing, most of our time together will be devoted to inspiring and guiding the projects you’ll be working on outside of class. The term will culminate in substantial work toward a full treatment and at least ten pages of a feature-length screenplay.

500-Level Graduate English Courses

ENG 504 Seminar in Writing of Poetry 5cr

CRN: 23645 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Wong, Jane

The Ghost Archive

“The living and the dead share an interest in the future.”

– M. NourbeSe Philip

Victoria Chang writes in Dear Memory: “Nothing is missing… /If I dip my hand in, /I will change history.” This graduate level seminar will explore the layers of writing poetry while deeply engaging and wrestling with the archive. How can we expand the definition of the archive to include the half-lit, the half-recorded, the speculative even, the act of the hand dipping itself? What happens when your archive is a ghost? How can we grapple with the difficulty of research while also placing lyrical pressure on the line? With rigorous attention to the relationship between form and content, we will engage the complexities and intersections of our personal and collective lives through poetic craft. We will write poems in dialogue with prominent contemporary poets (who will visit our class, including Diana Khoi Nguyen and others TBA!). As an active poetry community, we will revisit the stakes of poetry via seminar discussions, constructive feedback, and radical revision strategies. Some of our texts will include Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Root Fractures, Cornelius Eady’s Brutal Imagination, Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas, Mosab Abu Toha’s Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, Arisa White’s Who’s Your Daddy, Victoria Chang’s Dear Memory, and others.

ENG 505 Seminar in Writing Nonfiction 5cr

CRN: 23646 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Roach Orduña, José

Immersion – On the Line & In the Moment

As Robin Hemley writes in his book A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism and Travel, “Immersion writing engages the writer in the here and now in a journalistic sense, shaping and creating a story happening in the present while unabashedly lugging along all that baggage that makes up the writer’s personality: his or her memories, culture, and opinions.” In this class we will read and write literary essays that employ immersion as their primary mode of research and narrative structure. We will read and discuss literary essays that go out into the world with an eye toward understanding how a writer prepares for, plans, and executes immersion. We will take several “field trips” where, as a class, we will immerse ourselves in an experience, a performance, and a place and produce writing from these instances of immersion. And students will be asked to prepare for, plan, and execute their own immersion which will serve as the basis for a literary essay written for the class.

Some of what we’ll read will include:

Tim Z. Hernandez, All They Will Call You
Sophie Calle, Suite Vénitienne
Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

ENG 509 Internship in Writing, Editing & Prod 1 TO 5cr

CRN: 22083

ENG 550 Studies in American Literature 5cr

CRN: 23647 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Giffen, Allison A.

The Racial Politics of Childhood in the 19th Century

What is childhood and how has it been variously defined and understood? This is one of the central questions of Critical Childhood Studies, a growing field within the humanities. Along with the history and construction of childhood, Critical Childhood Studies also examines textual and visual representations of childhood, exploring, for example, how childhood functions metaphorically in literature and culture. New ideals about childhood emerge in the nineteenth century that are shaped by Romantic notions of childhood innocence and informed by thinkers like Locke and Rousseau. Our work this quarter will focus particularly on the role that race played in these new conceptions of childhood. We will begin with the racialized construction of girlhood in the novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Wilson, then explore seduction and consent in the figure of the tragic mulatto, in the work of Lydia Maria Child and Harriet Jacobs. We will then direct our attention to boyhood as it is represented in the popular children’s periodical St Nicholas Magazine reading representations of Black and white boyhood through the lens of critical disability studies.

ENG 560 Studies in British Literature 5cr

CRN: 23648 DAY/TIME: TR 04:00-05:50 pm Instructor: Loar, Christopher F.

When we talk about British fiction in the eighteenth century, we often think about the domestic novel, courtship, and the epistolary form. But the funny thing about fiction in this period is that there are no rules–at least, nothing hard and fast—and this situation allowed literary experimentation to flourish. Many authors wrote in highly experimental modes, offering up fantastic tales of magic, rambling narratives of plagues survived, or sprawling satires on the very nature of consciousness.

This course offers a sampling of some of the wild, fantastic, discordant, distorted, and highly experimental writing to appear between 1660 and 1830. Some of these experiments were influential and leave marks on the present; others were fascinating but abandoned–perhaps awaiting excavation and exploration in the present day.

Expectations:

•   regular and engaged discussion in the classroom
•   informal writing assignments (short response papers or something similar)
•   a final project (for most students, this will be a substantial essay, but I am willing to entertain proposals for creative projects from MFA students, or for alternative presentation media)

Possible Texts:

Fictions about consciousness and narration:

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Denis Diderot, Jacque the Fatalist

Social fictions:

Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year
Eliza Haywood, a selection of short fiction
Aphra Behn, a selection of short fiction
Jane Barker, a selection of short fiction
Sarah Scott, Millennium Hall

Fantastic fictions:

Selections from The Arabian Nights
Clara Reeve, The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt

ENG 594 Practicum in Teaching 2 TO 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 501

CRN: 20083 TBD TBD Staff

ENG 597 MA Capstone Seminar 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 501

CRN: 23716 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Heim, Stefania F.

Bookending graduate study as a closing companion to ENG 501, this course is designed to support second year MA students in English as they work toward the development and completion of their Capstone Projects. In this collaborative, interactive writing workshop, students will generate significant original work in a variety of media and share and critique works-in-progress—pushing classmates’ projects farther and questioning their own. Together, we will also explore research methodologies, sustainable writing practices, and strategies for framing and presenting work in a variety of professional, academic, and creative contexts. Course activities will include weekly written reflections on project processes and practices; leading a class discussion around a theoretical text important to your project; and the development of a culminating presentation.

ENG 598 Seminar Teaching English: 5cr

CRN: 21584 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Miller, Brenda

In this seminar, we will explore the various ways one might envision, develop, and teach an Introduction to Creative Writing course, as well as courses in individual genres. As an entry-level instructor at a community college or university, you may be asked to teach such a course, and this class will aim to prepare you not only for this scenario, but also for teaching in the community. We will explore how a creative writing classroom can be a space to practice inclusivity and anti-racism for all our teaching scenarios.

There is no one “right” way to teach creative writing. In fact there may be no “right” way at all. There are merely options, designs, and intentions that will keep evolving.

This course will be a smorgasbord. I have organized several visitors who will share with us their approaches to teaching creative writing in diverse settings. We will also study a variety of articles, textbooks, syllabi, and assignments, and you will have the opportunity to both lead and practice creative writing exercises. In the end, you will come up with your own syllabus, as well as a reflection on your creative writing teaching philosophy and practice.

Required Texts

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, by Felicia Rose Chavez.

Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping, by Matthew Salesses.

Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor, by Lynda Barry.

You will also be choosing articles or book chapters to explore on your own and bring into the classroom.

Spring 2024 Course Descriptions

Table of Contents

100-Level English Courses

200-Level English Courses

300-Level English Courses

400-Level English Courses

Graduate English Courses

Registration Questions?

100-Level English Courses

ENG 101 Writing Your Way Through WWU 5cr

200-Level English Courses

ENG 201 Writing in Humanities: Reimagining Representation 5cr

CRN: 22076 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

ENG 202 Writing About Literature 5cr

CRN: 20125 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Bridges, D'Angelo

CRN: 20240 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Forsythe, Jenny Marie

CRN: 20654 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Prichard, Tony

CRN: 24214 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Lee, Jean

CRN: 20660 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Bell, Michael Patrick

CRN: 20661 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

CRN: 21081 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Wise, Christopher

CRN: 21822 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Rivera

ENG 215 British Literature 5cr

CRN: 23923 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Amendt-Raduege, Amy Michelle

ENG 216 American Literature 5cr

CRN: 23635 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Roach Orduña, José

ENG 227 Queer Literature 5cr

CRN: 23637 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

ENG 239 Latina/o Literatures 5cr

CRN: 23638 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Rivera, Lysa

300-Level English Courses

ENG 301 Wrtg Stds: Writing for Change 5cr

CRN: 20072 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Redwoman, Zoe

ENG 302 Technical Writing 5cr

CRN: 20135 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

CRN: 20319 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Forsberg, Geri

CRN: 20378 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Forsberg, Geri

CRN: 20402 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

CRN: 20432 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Sarkar, Rachel Diane

CRN: 20520 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Bell, Michael Patrick

ENG 307 Seminar: Medieval 5cr

CRN: 22354 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Amendt-Raduege, Amy Michelle

ENG 308 Seminar: Early Modern 5cr

CRN: 22078 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Lester, Mark M.

ENG 309 Seminar: The Long 18th Century 5cr

CRN: 21283 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Loar, Christopher F.

ENG 310 Seminar: The Long 19th Century 5cr

CRN: 21284 DAY/TIME: TR 04:00-05:50 pm Instructor: Yeasting, Jeanne Ellen

ENG 311 Seminar: The 20-21st Century 5cr

CRN: 21285 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30-12:50 pm Instructor: Prichard, Tony

ENG 313 Critical Theories & Prac I 5cr

CRN: 20073 DAY/TIME: MWF 02:30-03:50 pm Instructor: Lester, Mark M.

CRN: 23121 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn Rajam

ENG 314 Critical Theories & Prac II 5cr

CRN: 22357 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

ENG 317 Survey: Medieval 5cr

CRN: 22447 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn Rajam

ENG 318 Survey: Early Modern 5cr

CRN: 22359 DAY/TIME: MWF 08:30-09:50 am Instructor: Forsythe, Jenny Marie

ENG 319 Survey: The Long 18th Century 5cr

CRN: 21286 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Laffrado, Laura

ENG 321 Survey: The 20-21st Centuries 5cr

CRN: 23639 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

ENG 334 TextsAcrossNAm&Eur: 5cr

CRN: 21612 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

ENG 335 Global Texts Outside N.Am&Eur: Global Horror 5cr

CRN: 22698 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Prichard, Tony

ENG 338 Women's Lit N Am and Europe 5cr

CRN: 20388 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Giffen, Allison A.

ENG 342 Studies in Literary Genres 5cr

CRN: 22079 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Roach Orduña, Caitlin

ENG 347 Studies in Young Adult Lit 5cr

CRN: 20366 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Hardman, Pam

ENG 350 Intro to Creative Writing 5cr

CRN: 20136 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Gulyas, Lee R.

CRN: 20438 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-11:20 am Instructor: Pagh, Nancy

CRN: 21421 DAY/TIME: MWF 01:00-02:20 pm Instructor: Pagh, Nancy

CRN: 22360 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Everyhope-Roser, Jemma

CRN: 22361 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Winrock, Cori Anne

ENG 351 Intro to Fiction Writing 5cr