Summer 2026 Course Descriptions

200-Level English Courses

ENG 214 Shakespeare and Immigration 5 cr

CRN: 30627 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, MW 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM  Instructor: Jeremy Cornelius

Shakespeare and Immigration

Considering Shakespeare’s construction of “strangers” throughout his body of work, this course will focus on his work in relation to the politics and experiences of immigration. By centralizing this as a way of interpreting Shakespeare’s work, our course examines these representations of immigration and how this relates to and impacts notions of belonging and community more broadly across time. Historically speaking (as far as scholars are aware), Shakespeare never left England in his lifetime; and yet, many of his plays are set outside the boundaries of England and trouble borders as much as they reinforce them. His staging of these political situations during England’s emergent colonial project and crafting of national identity through art and poetry inform much of the ways that Shakespeare frames immigration across his body of work. Throughout the term, we will consider the nuanced aspects of how Shakespeare’s work crafts forms of social differences. Classes will meet two times a week over Zoom and two days will be asynchronous. Assignments include weekly writing assignments, small group work, reading quizzes, analysis essays, and a creative project.    

Reading List:  

• Titus Andronicus
• Henry V
• Othello
• Merchant of Venice
• The Tempest
• Sir Thomas More 

300-Level English Courses

ENG 301 Writing & The Public: Video Essays 5 cr

CRN: 30268 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Jeremy Cushman

ENG 301: Video Essays

Together, we'll obsess about Video Essays. We'll watch/read them, we'll compare and question them, we'll track the ways they circulate across digital spaces, and of course, we'll make them!

One magical thing about Video Essays is that they refuse to shy away from the fact that writing is embodied.  

Writing, especially writing meant to address a relatively large or abstract public, can feel disembodied. Indeed, writing for abstract publics can feel like it requires a writer to purposefully ignore their own body so they can participate in a "reasonable" or "logical" discourse that's devoid of all those pesky bodily "problems." Supposed problems like an itchy nose, blushing, elevated heart rate, sweat, shape, age, sex/gender identification, racial identification, visible or audible disability, and on and on.  

In other words, anything that is explicitly embodied seems to be out of place or, worse, inappropriate when it comes to writing for a relatively large or abstract public. Writing for a public seems to assume or even require an abstract or even an invisible body.  

But of course, what gets called an abstract body is also an actual body, one that is elite, white, "able," and more often than not, male—it's a body that doesn't get named or marked. It's the body of "reasonable," "logical" writing. It’s the supposed invisible (proper?) body.  

Then there's Video Essays! A kind of writing that foregrounds the body. Video Essays necessarily foreground the actual body, which no matter how invisible or abstract or unmarked, is always involved in writing. Foregrounding the body changes and challenges what it means to write to and/or for a public.  

In the end, my hope is that we'll create a 'writing culture' where you can stretch your understanding of writing for the public and engage in a kind of public writing of which you can be super proud.  

ENG 302 Technical Writing 5 cr

CRN: 30085 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Michael Bell

The course covers a variety of technical genres and focuses on the ethical and social implications of a technical writer’s choices. Students engage with rhetorical and technical practices to create meaningful communication that both advocates for change and helps others get things done.

CRN: 30091 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Rachel Sarkar

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.  

ENG 308 Seminar: Early Modern 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202  

During Summer Session, ENG 308 (Seminar: Early Modern) may be substituted for ENG 318 (Survey: Early Modern) for English majors. Email English advisor Elle.Starr@wwu.edu if you would like to take ENG 308 in place of ENG 318.

CRN: 30455 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Jennifer Forsythe

A research and writing intensive course in the context of the literary history of the Early Modern period. 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 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202  

During Summer Session, ENG 311 (Seminar: 20-21st C.) may be substituted for ENG 321 (Survey: 20-21st C.) for English majors. Email English advisor Elle.Starr@wwu.edu if you would like to take ENG 311 in place of ENG 321.

CRN: 30628 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Katherine Anderson

Literature and War  

This is an asynchronous course; you can complete it on your weekly schedule and from anywhere, so long as you have reliable access to the internet and a working computer. I will prepare everything you need and pace the course using weekly modules on Canvas, including opportunities for you to interact asynchronously with me and with your colleagues in the class.  

Course Description:  

War does more than unleash violence; it also disrupts everyday life and social norms. In times of severe crisis, societies undo themselves and are remade. War can make progressive social changes that were formerly unthinkable, such as the end of slavery or women providing medical care on the front lines, possible or even necessary. In this course, we’ll consider how humans wrestle with war and its reverberating effects through literature (both textual and visual). We’ll consider pressing questions such as what does it mean to possess the right to human dignity or to citizenship? How are individual, community, and national identities shaped not only by violence and atrocities, but by subsequent memory, trauma, dislocation, moral injury, loss, or even gain? How do our individual intersectional embodiments of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, class, and religious belief shape the way we experience war? What does it mean to live an ethical life in the face of violence and social upheaval – can we?  

Furthermore, we’ll ask what representing war does to the artistic act of creation itself. Why try to recreate the experience of war and social upheaval? At what point does the attempt to convey violence become an act of violence in itself?  

In exploring the ethics of creating and consuming representations of war and its effects, we’ll investigate some of the specific literary movements and innovations that have emerged over the last century in relation to significant transimperial conflicts, from World War I to the so-called War on Terror. Our investigation of Anglophone literature via evolving literary movements and forms such as modernism, postmodernism, the memoir, autofiction, the cosmopolitan novel, and the (sapphic) bildungsroman will consider the complex and dynamic relationship among these regional, national, and transimperial literatures, as well as the place of modernism, postmodernism, and various forms of “realism” in a global literary geography of violence, (post/anti) colonialism, and related social change.

Course Objectives:

As a Literature and Culture Requirement seminar for English majors, this course provides deep analysis of the literature, history, and cultural contexts of 20th/21st century Anglophone literature and is intended to help you prepare for advanced writing and research in 400-level seminar courses in English. Because literature is not written in a vacuum, the reading assignments in this course also go beyond the literature itself, including the scholarship you need to practice responsible analysis of historical texts. Assignments are designed to help you practice your analytical abilities, scholarly voice, and writing skills.  

We will continue honing your ability to evaluate written (and visual/audible) information both analytically and aesthetically, to recognize and scrutinize the aspects of creation that are, by definition or convention, “literary,” and to develop a critical vocabulary that enables you to articulate your ideas in more precise, complicated, informed, and interesting ways. Our sustained attention to the habit and craft of close reading will simultaneously attend to some of the major literary and historical movements and events of the past century.

Texts will likely include the following:  

• Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway  
• Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
• Steven Okazaki, White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  
• Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows  
• Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Flee
• Chinelo Okparanta, Under the Udala Trees  
• And required short texts that will be available as pdfs on Canvas.

ENG 314 Critical Theories & Prac II 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202.  

CRN: 30456 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Tony Prichard

This course will look at how practice and critical theory have intersected during the past fifty years.  Our main text Alexander G. Weheliye’s Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human will work to guide us through major components of thinking over the past two centuries.  By looking at the authors that Weheliye places his project in dialogue with we will examine not only what critical theory offers to English as a discipline but also to the intellectual lives of folks. 

Required text 

Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human

ENG 347 Studies in Young Adult Lit 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202 or instructor permission.  

CRN: 30338 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Anthony Celaya

Young adult literature (YAL) might conjure images of blockbuster successes (The Hunger Games) or superficial depictions of teenage drama (Pretty Little Liars); however, in this course we will explore this incredibly diverse field of literature to foster a more complex and critical understanding of young adult literature. We will learn about the history of young adult literature and explore a variety of contemporary topics and issues within the field, including reading for joy, dystopian novels, LGBTQ+ representation, nonfiction YAL, and addressing relevant sociocultural issues.  

We will read and discuss the following novels as a class. All our course books are available as a physical book, an eBook, or an audiobook through the Western Library and the Whatcom Public Library system.  

• With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
• The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera  
• The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg
• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brandon Kiely  
• Detained by David Esperanza and Geraldo Iván Morales

In addition to the required novels, you will read four young adult novels of your choice with at least two novels coming from the Walden and/or Printz award lists. Additional choice novels can be found through the libraries as physical, eBook, or audiobooks as well, and these books can also explore YA graphic novels and YA verse novels.  

ENG 350 Intro to Creative Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101  

CRN: 30064 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM  Instructor: Simon McGuire

In this course we will explore, discuss, practice and revise forms of poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction. I'll introduce you to exercises which could include ekphrasis (writing about art), traditional forms, poetry machines and current trends in contemporary poetics (visual poetry, collaborative writing methods, conceptual writing, multilingual pieces.). While we all will work remotely, participation may take place in small group discussion forums to read and responds to assignments and complete attentive peer reviews. 

ENG 351 Intro to Fiction Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350.  

CRN: 30339 DAY/TIME: Online Async  Instructor: Kami Westhoff

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 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 writing with the help of various writing exercises and assignments, revision, and most importantly, your imagination and individuality. 

ENG 354 Intro to Creative Nonfict Writ 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350.  

CRN: 30629 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, MW 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM  Instructor: Noam Dorr

The Edge of the Real

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers.     –James Baldwin

I felt a cleaving in my mind / As if my brain had split; / I tried to match it, seam by seam, / But could not make them fit.        –Emily Dickinson

It's all in my head, but I want nonfiction     –Chappell Roan

What does it mean to write about the real? How do we create writing that attends to the knowable world, using careful and deep attention, while also exploring the unpredictable possibility that takes place when we allow our writing to move wildly and unexpectedly? We will consider these questions in this introduction to the genre of creative nonfiction, specifically through the misunderstood essay form. If we think of the essay as “seeing the writer’s mind at work unfolding on the page” this class will allow us the opportunity to explore the far reaches of our minds. This course is about the process of asking questions, of experimenting with our writing in order to see what we can learn when we push our creative boundaries. Even if you’re interested in more conventional nonfiction writing, the tools you learn through these experiments will serve you in honing your writing skills and allow you to see what’s possible before choosing your form. The class exercises and readings will help us rethink the possibility of the essay, and in turn consider how expansive the essay form can be. Through these attempts we will work towards writing and revising publishable work, work that you can return to, work that you can send out into the world.  

ENG 364 Introduction to Film Studies 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101  

CRN: 30204 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, MW 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM  Instructor: Eren Odabasi

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the key components of film expression such as cinematography, sound, editing, and production design. We will closely analyze several canonical films from around the world, utilizing the fundamental concepts and definitions covered in the course units. Furthermore, we will explore cinema’s relationship to other arts and various media forms. 
More specific course objectives:

• Enrich your ability to look and listen closely to motion pictures
• Understand and apply a range of critical and cultural theories to the study of cinema
• Explore a range of film genres, national cinemas, historical periods, and auteurs, with an emphasis on expanding the frame from Hollywood to a more diverse world cinema
• Engage with local film cultures and other communities rooted in cinephilia

Textbook:

David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Jeff Smith. Film Art: An Introduction, 13th edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2024.

You are welcome to use an older edition, a used copy, or the e-book version.

Film screenings for this class are asynchronous. All the films will be made available for online streaming through WWU libraries.

• Before Midnight (d. Richard Linklater, 2013)
• Run Lola Run (d. Tom Tykwer, 1998)
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (d. Pedro Almodovar, 1988)
• The Triplets of Belleville (d. Sylvain Chomet, 2003)
• Dahomey (d. Mati Diop, 2024)
• The Devil’s Backbone (d. Guillermo del Toro, 2001)
• The Rider (d. Chloe Zhao, 2017)
• Sambizanga (d. Sarah Maldoror, 1972)
• The Battle of Algiers (d. Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
• Capernaum (d. Nadine Labaki, 2018) 

CRN: 30340 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM  Instructor: Felicia Cosey

What does it mean to truly watch a film?  In this course, we will explore how formal elements of film practice and technique, including cinematography, editing, sound, and mise-en-scène, work together to create meaning on screen.  We will also consider how critical perspectives such as genre, authorship, ideology, race, sexuality, and gender shape the way we understand film and media.  Along the way, we will screen and analyze a range of 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. 

400-Level English Courses

ENG 406 Topics in Crit/Cultural Theory: Contemporary Black Feminist Thought 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 313 or ENG 314; two courses from: ENG 307-347, ENG 364 or ENG 371.  

CRN: 30300 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, T 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM  Instructor: Jamie Rogers

Contemporary Black Feminist Thought
This course offers a deep engagement with contemporary Black feminist theory, focusing on three major figures: Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, and Katherine McKittrick. Drawing from feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, literary studies, media studies, art history,  human geography and more, each of these theorists investigates the complex entanglements of what Hartman describes as “the afterlife of slavery” within the conditions of our contemporary moment. The course will include close, collective readings of each of these theorists’ groundbreaking works, including Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection, Sharpe’s In the Wake, and McKittrick’s Demonic Grounds. Coursework will include formal and informal writing projects and an option to complete a final essay or creative project.  

ENG 410 Studies in Literary History 5 cr

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.  

CRN: 30630 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, MR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM  Instructor: Sean Golden

In Once Upon a Time: Adventures in Fairy Tale Adaptations, students will survey how fairy tales and folklore have evolved and adapted to meet the current trends of the changing times. Beginning in 1812, this class will be guided by the collections of the Brothers Grimm as we investigate their influential reach and dominance in modern day adolescent literature. This 200+year journey will culminate with the hope that students have a better understanding of how stories travel through time, and just what it takes for a story to adapt so it can survive. The final project will require students to choose one fairy tale from the Brother’s Grimm collection and create an original adaptation in any medium of the students choosing (depending on class size, a collaborative zine will be made). 

ENG 459 Editing and Publishing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354  

CRN: 30150 DAY/TIME: In person, MTWR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM  Instructor: Kelly Magee

English 459 will cover the editing of creative work as it pertains to two kinds of publishing: magazine and book production. Each student will choose a project that fits their interests, write and edit content for it, and learn how to create, publish, and market content for other writers. As writer-editors, you’ll work collaboratively in Editorial Groups and with members of the class to solicit creative work, provide feedback, and construct a final publication packet. You’ll pitch to a specific audience and design a marketable project. By the end of the course, you will have had practice editing and revising as writers, content editors, line editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers, marketers, and reviewers. The quarter will culminate in presentations of your final project, either a zine or chapbook proposal packet.  

ENG 466 Screenwriting 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or one from: ENG 350, ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354.  

CRN: 30459 DAY/TIME: Online Mixed, MW 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM  Instructor: Greg Youmans

Zoom Class Sessions: MW 4–5:50pm 

This course is an introduction to screenwriting with an emphasis on the art of storytelling. We will focus on the construction of both short and feature-length projects. To guide our efforts, we’ll explore and analyze a range of examples, both as screenplays and final films and ranging from art cinema to mainstream Hollywood movies. Although our focus will be on linear narrative storytelling for film, we may also look at examples of screenwriting for other genres and formats, such as television 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 work on outside of class. The term will culminate in substantial work toward an independent project, in most cases a treatment and at least three polished scenes of a feature-length screenplay.