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The following information is subject to change.

The following information is subject to change. For the most up-to-date and comprehensive course schedule, including meeting times, course additions, cancellations, and room assignments, visit the Registrar’s website. See Banner Class Schedule for ENGL 6960, 8960, 9986, 9990, and 9996. Sections of ENGL 7976 Directed Study and ENGL 7990 Master’s Thesis are created upon successful petition.

For curriculum information, see the Academic Catalog.  The 2018-2019 catalog is due out in July 2018.

Courses by Curricular Area

ENGL 5103 Proseminar – 4 SH

Professor Patrick Mullen
Tuesdays, 6:15 p.m.

Proseminar introduces the history and current scholarly practices of English studies. Surveys theoretical, methodological, and institutional issues in the development of the discipline; introduces students to the research of the English department’s graduate faculty; and offers opportunities for the practice of key components of scholarly production, including formulating research questions, using databases, conducting literature reviews, and writing and presenting scholarship in common formats other than the long research paper, such as conference proposals, oral presentations, and book reviews. Prereq. English degree students only.

ENGL 7370 Introduction to Digital Humanities – 4 SH

Professor Julia Flanders
Tuesdays, 3:00 p.m.
Also fulfills Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities core requirement

This workshop course supports the project development component of the certificate in Digital Humanities, aimed at graduate students enrolled in MA and PhD programs in humanities and social sciences. Students in the course will engage in a sustained, interdisciplinary exploration of digital humanities methods and projects as they plan and develop their own research projects during their progress on the certificate. As needed, the course will also organize working groups on special topics to cover additional skills and methods. The course is designed to be taken in successive years by students in the certificate program, but may also be taken on its own. No prior technical experience or familiarity with digital humanities or digital tools is required, but participants should be prepared to identify an area of research interest that is connected in some way with the general domain of digital humanities, computational social science, and related fields.

ENGL 7351 Topics in Literary Study: Disability Studies and Literature – 4 SH

Professor Sari Altschuler
Thursdays, 6:15 p.m.
UPDATED 03-20-18: Can fulfill either the Theories & Methods, *New Curriculum* Literary Period 1700-1900 requirement

Approximately 20% of Americans are disabled. Nevertheless, for many years, the critical study of disability was not accorded the same status in the academy as other identity-based areas of inquiry including race, class, gender, and sexuality. In the past ten years, however, critical disability studies has become a vibrant area of inquiry in all fields of literary study. This course will introduce students to the key texts and concepts animating the current field of disability studies as well as the field’s history. In the second half of the course we will examine current theoretical approaches in relation to both canonical and non-canonical texts. This course will also take an explicitly intersectional approach, asking how the critical study of disability intersects with questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Medieval/Renaissance

ENGL 7282 Topics in Renaissance Literature: Becoming Human – 4 SH

Professor Marina Leslie
Mondays, 3:00 p.m.
Can fulfill either the Medieval/Renaissance or 17th Century/Restoration/18th Century requirement

The boundaries of the human came into visibility in the early modern period primarily through a series of border skirmishes. The relationship between human and beast, man and woman, human and machine, flesh and spirit, matter and mind were all subjects of fierce debate, whose terms did not generally resolve into strict or stable binaries. Indeed, early modern print culture is well-populated by monsters, faeries, sprites, savages, werewolves, hermaphrodites, talking animals, automata, and other multiform creatures who complicated notions of human exceptionalism, autonomy, and dominion. We will explore how neoclassical idealism, Cartesian dualism, New World exploration, and the New Science’s discoveries all contributed to the controversies over what it meant to be human.  The redrawing of the boundaries of the human lead directly to the production of whole new disciplines; and the newly emerging systems that described gender, racial, and species difference that resulted offer a fascinating and sometimes surprising prehistory of post-Enlightenment taxonomies.  Readings will include Pico, Descartes, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Aphra Behn, Walter Raleigh, John Webster, and Margaret Cavendish.  Assignments will include an archival exercise and presentation (with traditional or digital research options) and a final research paper. 

17th Century/Restoration/18th Century

ENGL 7282 Topics in Renaissance Literature: Becoming Human – 4 SH

Professor Marina Leslie
Mondays, 3:00 p.m.
Can fulfill either the Medieval/Renaissance or 17th Century/Restoration/18th Century requirement

The boundaries of the human came into visibility in the early modern period primarily through a series of border skirmishes. The relationship between human and beast, man and woman, human and machine, flesh and spirit, matter and mind were all subjects of fierce debate, whose terms did not generally resolve into strict or stable binaries. Indeed, early modern print culture is well-populated by monsters, faeries, sprites, savages, werewolves, hermaphrodites, talking animals, automata, and other multiform creatures who complicated notions of human exceptionalism, autonomy, and dominion. We will explore how neoclassical idealism, Cartesian dualism, New World exploration, and the New Science’s discoveries all contributed to the controversies over what it meant to be human.  The redrawing of the boundaries of the human lead directly to the production of whole new disciplines; and the newly emerging systems that described gender, racial, and species difference that resulted offer a fascinating and sometimes surprising prehistory of post-Enlightenment taxonomies.  Readings will include Pico, Descartes, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Aphra Behn, Walter Raleigh, John Webster, and Margaret Cavendish.  Assignments will include an archival exercise and presentation (with traditional or digital research options) and a final research paper. 

19th Century/20th Century

ENGL 7351 Topics in Literary Study: Disability Studies and Literature – 4 SH

Professor Sari Altschuler
Thursdays, 6:15 p.m.
Can fulfill either the Theories & Methods or 19th Century/20th Century requirement

Approximately 20% of Americans are disabled. Nevertheless, for many years, the critical study of disability was not accorded the same status in the academy as other identity-based areas of inquiry including race, class, gender, and sexuality. In the past ten years, however, critical disability studies has become a vibrant area of inquiry in all fields of literary study. This course will introduce students to the key texts and concepts animating the current field of disability studies as well as the field’s history. In the second half of the course we will examine current theoretical approaches in relation to both canonical and non-canonical texts. This course will also take an explicitly intersectional approach, asking how the critical study of disability intersects with questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Literature Pre-1700

ENGL 7282 Topics in Renaissance Literature: Becoming Human – 4 SH

Professor Marina Leslie
Mondays, 3:00 p.m.
Fulfills Pre-1700 requirement

The boundaries of the human came into visibility in the early modern period primarily through a series of border skirmishes. The relationship between human and beast, man and woman, human and machine, flesh and spirit, matter and mind were all subjects of fierce debate, whose terms did not generally resolve into strict or stable binaries. Indeed, early modern print culture is well-populated by monsters, faeries, sprites, savages, werewolves, hermaphrodites, talking animals, automata, and other multiform creatures who complicated notions of human exceptionalism, autonomy, and dominion. We will explore how neoclassical idealism, Cartesian dualism, New World exploration, and the New Science’s discoveries all contributed to the controversies over what it meant to be human.  The redrawing of the boundaries of the human lead directly to the production of whole new disciplines; and the newly emerging systems that described gender, racial, and species difference that resulted offer a fascinating and sometimes surprising prehistory of post-Enlightenment taxonomies.  Readings will include Pico, Descartes, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Aphra Behn, Walter Raleigh, John Webster, and Margaret Cavendish.  Assignments will include an archival exercise and presentation (with traditional or digital research options) and a final research paper. 

Literature 1700-1900

ENGL 7351 Topics in Literary Study: Disability Studies and Literature – 4 SH

Professor Sari Altschuler
Thursdays, 6:15 p.m.
ADDED 03-20-18: Can fulfill either the Theories & Methods or Literary Period 1700-1900 requirement

Approximately 20% of Americans are disabled. Nevertheless, for many years, the critical study of disability was not accorded the same status in the academy as other identity-based areas of inquiry including race, class, gender, and sexuality. In the past ten years, however, critical disability studies has become a vibrant area of inquiry in all fields of literary study. This course will introduce students to the key texts and concepts animating the current field of disability studies as well as the field’s history. In the second half of the course we will examine current theoretical approaches in relation to both canonical and non-canonical texts. This course will also take an explicitly intersectional approach, asking how the critical study of disability intersects with questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Literature Post-1900

See Spring 2019

ENGL 7395 Topics in Writing: Writing Center Studies – 4 SH

Professor Neal Lerner
Thursdays, 3:00 p.m.

Over the past twenty-five years, one-to-one conferencing and writing support in secondary and higher education and in community settings have been the subjects of research and theorizing from a wide variety of perspectives. In ENGL7395—Writing Center Studies, we will explore the ways writers have been and continue to be supported beyond classrooms and writing courses. We will explore the everyday practices and protocols of writing support programs, from the more familiar college and university writing center, to afterschool programs such as 826 Boston (826boston.org) and community literacy centers such as the Salt Lake Community College sponsored Community Writing Center (slcc.edu/cwc/). The texts we will read will reveal how individualized writing instruction is informed by theoretical, philosophical, and ideological stances toward writers’ literacies and identities that are more contested (and contestable) than we might think. Students will engage in primary research to explore the relationship of writing support to students’ language use, to educational access and gatekeeping, to disciplinarity, to teaching and learning, and to creative writing, among other topics, as well as learn about research methods best suited to these investigations.

ENGL 7370 Introduction to Digital Humanities – 4 SH

See Theories and Methods

INSH 7910 NULab Project Seminar – 2 semester hours

Professor Julia Flanders
Wednesdays, 2:30 p.m.

This workshop course supports the project development component of the certificate in Digital Humanities, aimed at graduate students enrolled in MA and PhD programs in humanities and social sciences. Students in the course will engage in a sustained, interdisciplinary exploration of digital humanities methods and projects as they plan and develop their own research projects during their progress on the certificate. As needed, the course will also organize working groups on special topics to cover additional skills and methods. The course is designed to be taken in successive years by students in the certificate program, but may also be taken on its own. No prior technical experience or familiarity with digital humanities or digital tools is required, but participants should be prepared to identify an area of research interest that is connected in some way with the general domain of digital humanities, computational social science, and related fields.

*Added 3/28/18* ENGL 7282 Topics in Renaissance Literature: Becoming Human – 4 SH

Professor Marina Leslie
Mondays, 3:00 p.m.

See Literary Periods for full course description. Students who wish to apply this course to the WGSS certificate should plan to write their final projects with a focus on women, gender, or sexuality studies and/or employ frameworks of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies in their approach to their final projects.

WMNS 6100: Theorizing Gender and Sexuality – 4 SH

Professor Carla Kaplan
Wednesdays, Time – See Banner
Fulfills Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies core requirement

Theorizing Gender and Sexuality challenges, expands, and interrogates our understanding of the relationship between biological sex, gendered identities, and sexual “preferences,” practices, and representations. This interdisciplinary course engages students with complex debates about sex, gender, sexuality, and the body in relation to a history of intersectional feminist thought.  Focus is placed on the dynamic and variable aspects of sexuality, sex, and gender, within and across cultures, representational forms, and historical periods, analyzing the ways that feminist theory has pushed beyond available binaries and limits; case studies will deepen our thinking about gender and sexuality in relation to race, class, ethnicity, and postcoloniality.  Together, we will ask what a queer/feminist/postcolonial lens entails and what new questions that lens make possible.

See the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities or Graduate Certificate in Womens, Gender and Sexuality Studies websites for course lists and more information.