Department of English and Comparative Literature
BEVERLY W. TAYLOR, Chair
Professors
Daniel Anderson, William L. Andrews, Christopher M. Armitage, David J. Baker, A. Reid Barbour, James W. Coleman, Marsha Collins, Eric S. Downing, Rosa Palmer Durban, Connie C. Eble, Marianne Gingher, Darryl J. Gless, Philip Gura, Minrose Gwin, Mae Henderson, Joy S. Kasson, Clayton Koelb, Laurie Langbauer, George S. Lensing Jr., Megan Matchinske, Michael A. McFee, John P. McGowan, Jeanne Moskal, Patrick P. O’Neill, Ruth Salvaggio, James Seay, Alan R. Shapiro, Bland Simpson, Beverly W. Taylor, Todd Taylor, James P. Thompson, Joseph S. Viscomi, Daniel Wallace, Joseph S. Wittig.
Associate Professors
Inger S.B. Brodey, Erin G. Carlston, Pamela Cooper, Tyler Curtain, Jane M. Danielewicz, María DeGuzmán, Gregory Flaxman, Mary Floyd-Wilson, Jordynn Jack, Randall Kenan, Ritchie D. Kendall, Theodore H. Leinbaugh, Diane R. Leonard, Allan R. Life, Thomas J. Reinert, Eliza Richards, Jane F. Thrailkill, Jessica Wolfe.
Assistant Professors
Neel Ahuja, Florence Dore, Danielle G. Eliott, Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Laura Halperin, Jennifer Ho, Heidi Kim, Shayne Legassie, Matthew Taylor.
Adjunct Professors
Robert Cantwell, Dino Cervigni, James L. Peacock, William Race, Monica Rector.
Adjunct Associate Professors
Sharon James, Federico Luisetti, Anne MacNeil, Timothy Marr, Hassan Melehy, Alicia Rivero, Robin Visser.
Adjunct Assistant Professors
Donna Bickford, Randi Davenport, Janice Koelb.
Professors Emeriti
Laurence G. Avery, Doris W. Betts, Paul Debreczeny, Alan C. Dessen, Joseph M. Flora, J. Lee Greene, William R. Harmon, Howard M. Harper Jr., Trudier Harris, Fred Hobson, George A. Kennedy, Edward D. Kennedy, J. Kimball King, Erika Lindemann, C. Townsend Ludington Jr., Fred H. MacIntosh, G. Mallary Masters, Jerry L. Mills, Margaret A. O’Connor, Daniel W. Patterson, Julius R. Raper III, Mark L. Reed, Louis D. Rubin Jr., Richard D. Rust, Richard A. Smyth, Philip A. Stadter, Albrecht B. Strauss, Thomas A. Stumpf, Weldon E. Thornton, Linda Wagner-Martin, David Whisnant, Charles G. Zug III.
Introduction
The study of English and comparative literature has undergone exciting transformations in the past few decades. One such transformation is the merging of the Department of English and the Curriculum in Comparative Literature into one vibrant and diverse department with a global reach. Our course offerings reflect those changes by presenting a rich diversity of approaches to the study, production, and appreciation of literary and nonliterary texts. In our undergraduate program, we pursue a four-fold mission to 1) explore the history and significance of American, British, and world literatures; 2) promote interdisciplinary connections and incorporate the study of culture, theory, and history into our research and courses; 3) offer training in rigorous thinking, precise analysis, and critical reading; and 4) foster practical skills in rhetoric, composition, and expression in essays, creative pieces, even emerging forms of digital media.
Working with texts is at the core of our program of study. We ask our majors to appreciate the sweep of literature from seminal works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare’s plays, Austen’s novels, and Dickinson’s poetry to the works of authors and artists of the modern era such as Alfred Hitchcock, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Seamus Heaney, and Gabriel García Márquez, to name only a few in a large and inclusive canon. The canon extends even further in the hands of comparative literature students, who explore major works of literature and theory from across the world, engage multiple disciplines, and cross national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Students in comparative literature pay particular attention to the critical issues of translation and study authors such as Homer, Sappho, Dante, Ibsen, Kafka, Duras, Achebe, and Murakami in the original languages whenever possible.
English and comparative literature both encompass the study of poetry, plays, books, films, and new forms such as graphic novels and blogs; we draw our materials from sources as varied as the media in which they were created. Students also explore the relationships between important texts and their contexts: from politics to economics, from aesthetics to psychology, from religion to biology, and from history to theory. Our teachers and scholars recognize and seek to explain how literature contributes to the making and re-imagining of the world. The focus on reading and culture helps majors and minors make connections with many other fields, including African American studies, anthropology, art history, communication studies, folklore, gender studies, classical and modern languages, Latina/o studies, linguistics, and philosophy. Majors also explore the connections between literature and other aesthetic forms including film, music, and the visual and dramatic arts.
The Department of English and Comparative Literature emphasizes the development of students’ skills in reasoning and in oral and written communication. We ask questions about reading. What makes a text a poem? Why study this novel over that one? What happens when a play moves from page to stage? We also ask questions about how to speak and write. What can we say when we persuade people about issues or interpretations? How do we write about ourselves, or about others? What compositional moves go into a podcast? What can Ernest Hemingway or Jhumpa Lahiri tell us about writing? What claims can we make when we study a text in translation? As a major or minor, you learn to analyze and produce texts with an eye toward their aesthetic, rhetorical, and cultural dimensions.
Our majors work with engaged professors and talented fellow students who share a passion for reading and writing. We guide students to become careful readers and strong communicators, and to use their educations to make connections among ideas and with the greater world. When we recently surveyed graduating majors about our Department’s strengths, one student voiced a sentiment that resonates with many: “Every single [faculty member] has been passionate and enthusiastic about the subject matter, an effective teacher, and very willing to see me when I have needed help or just wanted to talk outside of class.” This enthusiasm translates into dynamic classrooms filled with dedicated and inquisitive students. In short, when students choose to major or minor in English and comparative literature, they keep company with “a lot of great professors who are passionate about what they teach, inspiring students to feel the same way.”
Programs of Study
The degrees offered are the bachelor of arts with a major in comparative literature and the bachelor of arts with a major in English. The comparative literature major can be either in international literature or international film and literature. Minors are offered in English, comparative literature, creative writing, and Latina/o studies. The minor in writing for the screen and stage is an interdisciplinary program drawing on the faculties and resources of the Department of Dramatic Art, Department of Communication Studies, and the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English and Comparative Literature. For information on the minor in writing for the screen and stage, see the Department of Communication Studies in this bulletin.
Majoring in Comparative Literature:
Bachelor of Arts
B.A. Major in Comparative Literature: International Literature Track
Core Requirements
• One course from Literary Traditions I (courses numbered between CMPL 120 and 129)
• One course from Literary Traditions II (courses numbered between CMPL 130 and 139)
• CMPL 250 or 251
• Three literature courses (200 level or higher) in a single foreign/classical language (List A below), one of which may be a course of literature translated into English from that same language (List B below)
• Three CMPL courses 200 level or higher
• CMPL 500
Additional Requirements
• Foreign language through level 4
B.A. Major in Comparative Literature: International Film and Literature Track
Core Requirements
• One course from Literary Traditions I (courses numbered between CMPL 120 and 129)
• One course from Literary Traditions II (courses numbered between CMPL 130 and 139)
• CMPL 143 or IDST 256
• CMPL 250 or 251
• Four courses in film 200 level or higher (List C below). These must include courses focusing on at least two different national/language traditions (List D below). At least one of the four courses must demonstrate the student’s ability to work with films in the original foreign language, either by choosing a course in List E (below) or by special arrangement with an instructor of a course in List D.
• CMPL 500
• ENGL 142
Additional Requirements
• Foreign language through level 4
To major in comparative literature is to explore major works of literature and theory from across the world, crossing disciplinary as well as national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Depending upon which track within comparative literature students choose, they focus upon either interrelations among literatures or the international study of film and literature. Majoring in comparative literature enables students to acquire a broad, liberal arts-based education and equips them to live in a multicultural world. Sophomores planning to major in comparative literature should take one course under the Literary Traditions I rubric (courses numbered between CMPL 120 and 129, which treat ancient and premodern literatures) and one course under the Literary Traditions II rubric (courses numbered between CMPL 130 and 139, which treat literature from 1750 to the present). One of these courses can be used to fulfill the General Education literary arts Approaches requirement.
Students may choose to take comparative literature as a second major, a particularly attractive option for students majoring in a foreign language because two of the foreign language major requirements can also count toward the ten-course major requirement in comparative literature.
Undergraduates majoring in comparative literature may minor in any department, curriculum, or school in which a minor program is offered. The two foreign language literature courses required for the major in comparative literature may not also be counted as part of a minor in any of the foreign language departments.
Students majoring in comparative literature choose between two tracks: international literary studies and international film and literature. Majors should expect to work closely with the undergraduate advisor to design and follow a coherent and cohesive plan of study.
All majors, regardless of their chosen track, must obtain at least a level 4 proficiency in a foreign language relevant to their individual area of interest.
B.A. Major in Comparative Literature: Course Lists
List A: Literature Courses in a Foreign/Classical Language
ARAB 407, 408, 681; CHIN 407, 408, 464, 490, 510, 590; CLAS 254, 257, 258, 259, 362, 396, 409; FREN 250, 260, 370, 371, 372, 375; GERM 279, 303, 330, 350, 370, 371, 380, 390, 615, 616, 625, 630, 640, 645, 650, 655, 685; GREK 509, 510; ITAL 340, 345, 370, 371, 382, 511, 512; JAPN 384, 409, 410, 490, 517, 518, 590; PORT 501, 502, 503, 504; SPAN 260, 362, 371, 372, 373, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 387, 389
List B: Literature in Translation Courses
ARAB 433, 434; CHIN 451, 452, 551, 552, 563; CLAS 363, 409; CMPL 474; FREN 275, 277; GERM 216, 245, 246, 252, 290; ITAL 240, 241, 242; PORT 275; ROML 229; SPAN 270, 275, 280
List C: Courses in Film
AFAM 276, 396; AMST 268, 336, 483; ARAB 453; ASIA 333, 379, 435; CHIN 464, 544; CMPL 254, 255, 332H, 379; COMM 440, 450, 452, 543, 546, 547, 566, 651, 656, 658; CZCH 426; ENGL 380, 381, 478, 580, 665, 680; FREN 332H, 373; GERM 250, 265, 275; HUNG 280, 411, 426; ITAL 333, 340; JAPN 378; PLSH 280, 426; PORT 388; RUSS 281, 426; SECR 426; SLAV 281, 426; SPAN 361, 388; WMST 250, 285, 437, 656
List D: Courses from National Traditions in Film
AFAM 276; AMST 268, 336, 483; ARAB 453; ASIA 333, 379, 435, 451; CHIN 464, 544; CMPL 255, 332H, 379; COMM 546, 651, 658; ENGL 280, 478, 580, 665; FREN 332H, 373; GERM 250, 265, 275; HUNG 280, 411; ITAL 333, 335, 340; JAPN 378; PLSH 280, 394; PORT 388; SPAN 361, 388; WMST 250, 285
List E: Film Courses Taught in a Foreign Language
CHIN 464; GERM 204; SPAN 362
Majoring in English: Bachelor of Arts
Core Requirements
• ENGL 120 British Literature, Medieval to 18th Century
• ENGL 121 British Literature, 19th and Early 20th Century, or ENGL 150 Introductory Seminar in Literary Studies
• ENGL 225 Shakespeare
• One pre-1660 course: ENGL 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 285, 319, 320, 321*, 325, 326, 327, 328, 330, 423, 424, 430, 525
• Two 1660–1900 courses: ENGL 278*, 321*, 331, 332, 333, 338, 339, 343, 344, 347*, 367, 373*, 374*, 387*, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 444
• One post-1900 course: ENGL 262, 266, 278*, 279, 280, 287, 288, 289, 345, 347*, 348, 350, 351, 355, 356, 360, 364, 368, 369, 373*, 374*, 375, 378, 379, 387*, 445, 462, 479
• Three elective courses: Students may choose elective courses numbered between ENGL 200 and 699. Students should view these courses (which may include any of the courses listed among the core requirements) as an opportunity to further their work in historical periods or to explore other fields, methods, themes, and approaches to literature. The three courses can share a common ground—organized, for example, around a theme; a historical period or periods; a genre; a critical approach; a national, regional, or ethnic grouping; or a writing focus—or they can combine a range of different interests.
The major requires 10 courses. All General Education requirements apply. ENGL 101 and 102 are prerequisites to all other English courses unless exempted by placement exams. ENGL 120 and a sophomore seminar (ENGL 121 or 150) are required for the major. Two of the 10 courses for the major must focus primarily on American literature (ENGL 343, 344, 345, 347, 348, 350, 351, 356, 360, 367, 368, 369, 443, 444, 445).
Courses marked with an asterisk may fit more than one category. However, such a course may be counted only once; e.g., ENGL 347 may count as fulfilling either the 1660–1900 or the post-1900 requirement but not both.
English majors may choose additional courses, though they should keep in mind that no more than 45 semester hours of English (excluding English 100, 101, and 102) may be used toward the B.A. graduation requirement.
Students must have a grade of C or better in at least 18 semester hours in courses numbered ENGL 120 and above to satisfy the major requirements.
Majors in English in the School of Education
A student interested in teaching English in public high schools can apply to the M.A.T. program for certification after completing a B.A. in English. To meet special certification requirements, students should take the following courses as part of, or in addition to, the English major (remaining within the 45-hour limitation referenced above):
• Three required courses: ENGL 313, 368 or 369, and 373
• Two recommended courses: ENGL 314, 374, 400, 401, or 446
Minoring in Comparative Literature
Students who wish to minor in comparative literature must take
• One course from Literary Traditions I (numbered between CMPL 120 and 129)
• One course from Literary Traditions II (numbered between CMPL 130 and 139)
• Three additional courses numbered between CMPL 200 and 699
Courses cross-listed between comparative literature and classics may not be counted for a minor in comparative literature by students majoring in classics.
Minoring in Creative Writing
The Creative Writing Program, centered in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, offers a minor in creative writing. The minor requires 15 hours, a total of five courses, and may be earned in one of two ways: 1) by completing introductory, intermediate, advanced, and two-semester senior honors classes in one genre; or 2) by completing five courses in any combination of genres.
Students need to begin work toward the minor at least by their sophomore year and may take one creative writing class per semester. Enrollment in courses beyond the introductory level is by permission only. Students must seek permission from the program’s director to declare the minor once they have taken two creative writing courses and are on track to graduate. Completion of a minor in creative writing is contingent on the student’s successful advancement through the sequence.
The Creative Writing Program also gives credit toward the minor for several courses offered in other departments, such as DRAM 231, playwriting; COMM 330 and 433, screenwriting; and JOMC 256, feature writing. To qualify for receiving a degree with honors or highest honors in creative writing, students must maintain a 3.2 grade point average and meet all requirements both to enter and to complete the senior honors seminar (ENGL 693H and 694H). Students minoring in creative writing and planning to study abroad must plan carefully so that they meet all submission and deadline requirements for applying to successive courses. Writing classes offered by the UNC Friday Center for Continuing Education (correspondence, independent study, online) DO NOT count toward the minor.
The courses for the fiction track and poetry track are as follows:
• Fiction: ENGL 130 or 132H, 206, 406, and 693H and 694H (a yearlong, two-semester senior workshop, which counts as two courses and can lead to graduation with honors or with highest honors in creative writing)
• Poetry: ENGL 131 or 133H, 207, 407, and 693H and 694H (a yearlong, two-semester senior workshop, which counts as two courses and can lead to graduation with honors or with highest honors in creative writing)
Other creative writing courses include ENGL 208 Creative Nonfiction, 209 Writing Children’s Literature, 210 Writing Young Adult Literature, 306 Playwriting, 307 Stylistics: Studies in Fiction, Poetry, or Nonfiction, and 412 Creative Writing—Contemporary Issues.
ENGL 130, 131, 132H, and 133H, the introductory classes, are prerequisites to other Creative Writing Program classes. ENGL 130 and 131 are open for registration by rising sophomores only during spring semester for the following fall and for current sophomores only during fall semester for the following spring. Rising or current sophomores may register for ENGL 130 or 131, not both. Demand by sophomores regularly exceeds the number of seats available. Enrollment of juniors and seniors is on a space-available basis by permission of the instructor, and students may inquire of the instructor during the first week of classes to see if seats are available. ENGL 130 and 131 are sometimes offered during summer sessions with no registration restrictions. Please always review summer session course listings for any changes or updates.
Advancement to successive courses in either the fiction or poetry sequence is by recommendation of the student’s previous instructor(s) and by application for both the advanced workshops and senior honors seminars. If possible, the student is assigned to a different instructor for each course. Should students not advance beyond the intermediate level, they may choose to finish the minor with other classes offered in creative writing. Creative writing minors receive priority in all creative writing classes and usually fill all seats.
Students completing the five courses for the minor may take additional creative writing courses only by permission of the director, providing that all other students still completing the minor are served first.
Again, please note that online courses do not count towards the creative writing minor.
Transfer Students: Important Information
The requirement for taking a minor in creative writing is five courses or 15 semester hours. Students are limited to one creative writing course per semester. Most junior transfer students have four semesters remaining. Junior transfer students wanting to minor in creative writing must either
1. Have an introductory course already on their record that will transfer to Carolina as credit, e.g., an introductory course in fiction writing or poetry writing taken previously at a college or university that is transferring in as credit for ENGL 130 or 131; OR
2. Take an introductory course via UNC–Chapel Hill Summer School prior to their first fall term at Carolina and be promoted to the next level or to another creative writing class (on a space available basis) in the fall of their junior year.
Permission to move forward with transfer credit for an introductory course requirement (Option 1 above) will require a review by the creative writing faculty of the syllabus and work completed in the course and is dependent on space availability, which cannot be guaranteed. Students must provide hard copies of syllabi and samples of course work as early as possible in order to ensure time for review and to schedule a meeting with the director.
Junior transfer students fulfilling one of these two options would be eligible for Advanced Fiction or Poetry (ENGL 406 or 407) and the senior honors seminars (ENGL 693H and 694H) if there is space available in Intermediate Fiction (ENGL 206) or Intermediate Poetry (ENGL 207) their first fall semester, and if—on the basis of submitted work reviewed by a committee—they are chosen for those classes. If not, they would need to complete the minor using the multigenre approach.
Note: No more than two creative writing courses from other schools may be counted for credit at UNC–Chapel Hill. At least three of the five courses taken for the minor—a majority of the classes—must be Creative Writing Program courses taken at Carolina.
Minoring in English
The English minor consists of five courses:
• ENGL 120
• Four courses numbered between ENGL 200 and 699, one of which must be an American literature course selected from ENGL 343, 344, 345, 347, 348, 360, 367, 368, 369, 443, 444, or 445
Minoring in Latina/o Studies
Requirements for the five-course minor in Latina/o studies are as follows:
• One humanities/fine arts course in Latina/o literatures and cultural production chosen from AFAM 293; DRAM 288, 487, 488; ENGL 267, 364, 465, 665, 666, 685; ENGL/INTS 265; HIST 241, 390, 561, 574; MUSC 147; RELI 245; SPAN 389, 398
• One course in social sciences or Latina/o communities and cultural space chosen from AFAM 140, 190, 278; ANTH 130; GEOG 56 (first-year students only), 423, 452; INTS/PLCY 249; JOMC 443.
• Three elective courses chosen from the list above or from AFAM 254 or DRAM 486. At least one elective must be from the humanities and at least one from the social sciences.
Latina/o studies is constituted from the transdisciplinary study of Latina/o cultural production and experience in terms of a whole variety of factors. Latinas/os are defined as people of Latin American and Iberian descent living and working in the United States or U.S.-based, but also moving between the United States and the rest of the Americas. Latina/o studies takes as its primary concern the presence of Latin America, Spain, and the myriad combinations of Hispanic-Native-African-Asian and Euorpean non-Hispanic cultures within the borders of the United States. However, Latina/o studies is not confined within those borders to the extent that its subjects of study (and the very creators of the field itself) are in motion and in flux, coming and going, crossing borders and boundaries. In this respect it does share some of the transnational and transcultural scope, momentum, and issues of Latin American studies but with its own foci, its own perspectives. Latina/o studies does not duplicate the work of Latin American studies; it draws on it and complements it.
Latina/o studies is characterized by heterogeneity. Latina/o studies encompasses Chicana/o studies, Puerto Rican studies, Cuban American studies, Dominican studies, Central American studies, and so forth. It takes into account the cultural production and the socioeconomic and political experiences of a diverse population located in many parts of the country, not just in the Southwest borderlands. As such, it offers plenty of opportunity for both diversification and specialization.
The main stipulation of the minor is that students must take a combination of courses in the humanities (literatures and cultural production) and the social sciences (communities and cultural space), some of which have been designated as core courses and others as electives. Students who feel they need a basic introduction to Latina/o studies should take ENGL 364 Introduction to Latina/o Studies.
Honors in Comparative Literature
Majors with an overall 3.2 grade point average may elect to write an honors thesis by applying for permission to the director of undergraduate studies in the spring semester of their junior year. Students then register for CMPL 691H and 692H during their senior year. These courses may count as credit towards completion of the major. Students write the thesis on a comparative topic under the direction of any faculty member. The first semester involves regular tutorial sessions with the faculty advisor relating to the topic. In the spring students defend the completed thesis at an oral examination.
Honors in Creative Writing
See “Minoring in Creative Writing” above.
Honors in English
The Department offers at least two English honors seminars each semester. Students seeking a degree with honors in English (3.6 grade point average required) undertake a yearlong independent project during their senior year (ENGL 691H and 692H) and usually produce a 40- to 50-page thesis. Students pursuing a degree with honors normally meet every week with the professors supervising their projects. This opportunity for individually directed research and writing often proves to be a high point of the student’s academic career.
Special Opportunities in English and Comparative Literature
Creative Writing
One of the special strengths of the Department of English and Comparative Literature is in creative writing. Excellent fiction and poetry writers are members of the permanent staff, and because many accomplished writers live in or near Chapel Hill, others periodically teach in the Creative Writing Program.
Departmental Involvement
The department provides opportunities for students to get to know each other and faculty members in informal settings. Each year the department sponsors events that mingle social, educational, and career-oriented discussions and activities. Visit the department’s Web page for information. The Student Organization for Undergraduate Literature (SOUL) hosts regular formal and informal events for students and faculty. SOUL sponsors an annual undergraduate conference that invites students to present their research to peers and faculty. English majors and minors lead the organization and enjoy the community it provides. Find out more at uncsoul.org. Comparative literature students organize and participate in special lectures, colloquia, and conferences, including events sponsored by CLOUD (the Comparative Literature Organization for Undergraduate Discussion) such as the annual Comparative Literature International Film Series. For information on CLOUD’s activities, see englishcomplit/cloud.
Study Abroad
Some of the best programs offered at the University for study overseas are especially appropriate and useful to majors in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. These include semester or yearlong programs at Bristol, Manchester, Sussex, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and certain Australian universities. Students who have a minimum grade point average of 3.3 at the end of their sophomore year can participate in the King’s College Exchange Program at King’s College, London (either representing English or comparative literature). Special opportunities are also available at Oxford University and through the Joint Degree Program with the National University of Singapore. Comparative literature students most frequently travel to non-English-speaking destinations. For information on all overseas programs, see the Study Abroad Office or visit the Web site studyabroad.unc.edu.
Graduate School and Career Opportunities
As in the past, many English and comparative literature majors go on to graduate programs in business, law, medicine, education, and other fields; some pursue careers as college professors. Chapel Hill English and comparative literature majors have been welcomed by the best graduate programs in the country, including those at Berkeley, Chicago, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Virginia, and Yale. The University’s own strong graduate programs admit undergraduates who have majored here. The English or comparative literature major provides essential preparation for numerous career paths in business and government as well as in educational, legal, and medical professions in a society whose leaders increasingly value breadth of information; the capacity to comprehend complex situations from multiple perspectives; and readiness to describe, evaluate, and promote, in clear and forceful language, new ideas as well as civilizing influences of a shared past or an increasingly global present.
Recent English and comparative literature majors have consequently found profitable careers in virtually all professions, including business and government consulting, investment banking, financial management, journalism, law, medicine, magazine and book publishing, and teaching (elementary, middle, secondary, and university levels). Majors should take General Education and elective courses in fields that bear on careers they may wish to pursue. For instance, the combination of an English or comparative literature major with some courses in economics and business has long been recognized as one of the best ways to prepare for careers in the business world or in law. Today’s business leaders often prefer to hire people who have such preparation rather than an undergraduate degree in business administration.
The possibilities are limitless, though first-time job seekers must plan to search energetically to locate jobs after graduation. Work experience and serious extracurricular activities undertaken during college years often prove especially helpful for liberal arts majors seeking to enter the work force directly after college. A bachelor of arts degree with a major in comparative literature may be particularly useful to anyone considering a career that involves cross-cultural communication or international perspectives, including a career in international business or international law. Students wishing to pursue a teaching or research career within English or comparative literature generally must do graduate work, preferably at the Ph.D. level; however, some students have used their degrees as part of their preparation to teach literature in secondary schools.
For the student wishing to continue towards graduate study in comparative literature, the importance of foreign language preparation cannot be overemphasized. Requirements for admission to most M.A. programs in comparative literature include mastery of English and one other language, and most Ph.D. programs require mastery of English and two other languages. Thus a second major in a foreign language offers good preparation for graduate study in comparative literature.
English and comparative literature majors have many opportunities for graduate study. Not only is the major excellent preparation for graduate programs in many areas of the humanities, but it is also ideal for those students wishing to enter professional schools. For example, the interpretation of literary texts is analogous to the interpretation of legal texts that a student will encounter in law school. Medical schools often search for students who can understand the human side of medicine. English and comparative literature can provide special insights into the human condition in its various cultural and historical settings, preparing the prospective physician for dealing with the larger ethical issues of medicine.
Contact Information
For information concerning the major or minor in comparative literature, contact Dr. Inger S.B. Brodey, CB# 3520, 434 Greenlaw Hall, (919) 843-0965, brodey@email.unc.edu. Web site: englishcomplit.unc.edu.
For information concerning the major or minor in English, contact Dr. Tyler Curtain, CB# 3520, 211 Greenlaw Hall, (919) 962-6922, tyler@unc.edu. Web site: englishcomplit.unc.edu.
For more information concerning the creative writing minor, contact Michael McFee, CB# 3520, 416 Greenlaw Hall, (919) 962-3461. Web site: english.unc.edu/creative/index.html.
For more information concerning the Latina/o studies minor, contact Dr. María DeGuzmán, CB# 3520, 429 Greenlaw Hall, (919) 962-4031, deguzman@email.unc.edu. Web site: english.unc.edu/latina-o/index.html.
CMPL
55 First-Year Seminar: Comics as Literature (3). Comic books, Manga, and the graphic novel have almost vanished from the realm of serious literature. Recently, graphic literature has addressed controversial topics and reached readers across the globe. We will explore graphic literature’s unique ability to be a medium for the marginal and oppressed in the 21st century.
89 First-Year Seminar: Special Topics (3). Specials topics course. Content will vary each semester.
120 Great Books I (3). Major works of literature central to the formation of Western culture from antiquity to 1750. Considers epic, lyric, drama, and prose; core authors such as Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton.
121 Romancing the World (3). This course focuses on the literary mode of romance, with particular attention to cross-cultural contact and exchange from classical antiquity to the present in both European and non-European literature.
122 Literature and the Visual Arts from Antiquity to 1750 (3). This course offers students a survey of mutually supportive developments of literature and the visual arts from classical antiquity until around 1700.
123 Literature and Politics from Antiquity to 1750 (3). This course examines comparative literary texts in literature and political philosophy in the context of developments in political thought and practice from classical Greece through the French Revolution.
124 Literature and Science from Antiquity to 1750 (3). This course examines developments in literary and scientific thought, including the literary depiction of disciplines of natural philosophy, including magic, cosmology, natural history, and physiology.
130 Great Books II (3). An introduction to some of the major texts of 19th- and 20th-century literature, focusing on periods of romanticism, realism, and modernism and with some attention given to parallel developments in the arts and philosophy.
131 Savage, Native, Stranger, Other (3). Using readings in literature and philosophy, as well as film screenings, this course explores comparative literature’s reconciliation over time of its own, predominantly Western, lineage with other non-Western textual traditions.
132 Performance and Cultural Identity in the African Diaspora (3). The focus of this course is inquiry into how we theorize the existence of the African diaspora, cultural identity/-ies, and the role that performance plays in the articulation of experiences.
133 Imaging the Americas: Late 18th Century to the Present (3). This course studies the intersection between word and image, especially verbal and photographic cultural production, in the representation of the Americas in the hemispheric sense from the mid-18th century to present.
134 Travel and Identity (3). Introduces students to representative literary and intellectual texts from 1750 to the present and to relevant techniques of literary analysis. Works originally written in foreign languages are studied in translation.
143 Introduction to Global Cinema (3). This course is designed to introduce students to the field of global cinema and, thence, to the methods of comparativist film study.
151 Literature and Society in Southeast Asia (ASIA 151) (3). See ASIA 151 for description.
198H Literature in Eastern Europe (3). An introduction to the literatures of Eastern Europe, including consideration of political influences on literary creation within different cultural traditions.
250 Approaches to Comparative Literature (3). This communications-intensive course familiarizes students with the theory and practice of comparative literature: the history of literary theory; translation; and literature combined with disciplines such as music, architecture, and philosophy.
251 Introduction to Literary Theory (3). Familiarizes students with the theory and practice of comparative literature. Against a background of classical poetics and rhetoric, explores various modern literary theories, including Russian formalism, Frankfurt School, feminism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, new historicism, and others. All reading in theory is paired with that of literary texts drawn from a wide range of literary periods and national traditions.
252 Popular Culture in Modern Southeast Asia (ASIA 252, INTS 252) (3). See ASIA 252 for description.
254 Horror and the Global Gothic: Film, Literature, Theory (3). This course traces the development of horror in film and writing from the 18th-century European novel to contemporary Asian film. Theoretical readings will embrace a range of disciplines, from literary and film theory to anthropology, feminism and gender studies, and psychoanalysis.
255 The Feast in Film, Fiction, and Philosophy (3). Comparative and interdisciplinary study of feasting and its philosophical underpinnings, with special attention to the multiple purposes and nuances of food and feasting in literature, film, and the visual arts.
268 The Medieval Frame Tale: Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the Arabian Nights (3). A consideration of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in light of other medieval frame tale collections, such as Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Arabian Nights.
269 Representations of Cleopatra (CLAS 269, WMST 269) (3). See CLAS 269 for description.
270 German Culture and the Jewish Question (GERM 270, JWST 239, RELI 239) (3). See GERM 270 for description.
271 Vampires and Empires: An Introduction to Transylvania (3). The thousand-year history of a multi-ethnic corner of Eastern Europe, focusing on why (and how) it has come to be identified in the West with the vampire. Course materials include films, slides, and music. All lectures and readings in English.
272 Global Queer Cinema (COMM 272, GERM 272) (3). See GERM 272 for description.
277 Myth, Fable, Novella: The Long History of the Short Story (3). Traces the development of European short fiction from the 12th through the 17th centuries, taking brief looks backward toward the ancient world and forward to the modern short story.
279 Once upon a FairyTale: Fairy Tales and Childhood, Then and Now (GERM 279) (3). See GERM 279 for description.
281 Holocaust Cinema in Eastern Europe (3). A critical look at varieties of cinematic representation and memorialization of the Holocaust, from those countries of Europe where it mostly took place. All films in (or subtitled in) English.
282 Russian Literature in World Cinema (3). Survey of masterpieces of Russian literature in the context of their cinematic adaptations.
321 Medieval and Modern Arthurian Romance (ENGL 321) (3). See ENGL 321 for description.
332H Cultural Identities in European Cinema (EURO 332H, FREN 332H) (3). See FREN 332H for description.
364 The Classical Background of English Literature (CLAS 364) (3). See CLAS 364 for description.
365 Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the Birth of the Imagination (3). Close study and analysis of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and its reception and relation to the growth of the modern concept of the imagination.
374 Modern Women Writers (WMST 373) (3). The development of a women’s literary tradition in the works of such writers as George Sand, George Eliot, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Marguerite Yourcenar.
375 New Wave Cinema: Its Sources and Its Legacies (3). The challenge the New Wave presented to postwar cinema by pointing to Hollywood and other European films; the New Wave’s influence on United States and European cinema beginning in the 1970s. Taught in English.
379 Cowboys, Samurai, and Rebels in Film and Fiction (ASIA 379) (3). Cross-cultural definitions of heroism, individualism, and authority in film and fiction, with emphasis on tales or images that have been translated across cultures. Includes films of Ford, Kurosawa, and Visconti.
380 Almost Despicable Heroines in Japanese and Western Literature (ASIA 380, WMST 380) (3). Authors’ use of narrative techniques to create the separation between heroines and their fictional societies and sometimes also to alienate readers from the heroines. Austen, Flaubert, Ibsen, Arishima, Tanizaki, Abe.
383 Literature and Medicine (3). Examines the presentation of medical practice in literature from the mid-19th century to the present. Readings include some medical history, novels, stories, and recent autobiographies of medical training.
385 Modernist and Postmodernist Narrative (3). A study of the structure of various types of modernist and postmodernist narrative, including texts by such writers as Proust, Faulkner, Camus, Hesse, Duras, Mann, Woolf, Robbe-Grillet, Kundera, Simon.
390 Special Topics in Comparative Literature (3). Course topics vary from semester to semester.
392 Women and Work, 1850–1900 (WMST 392) (3). An explanation of the problems of work for women in the later 19th century, drawing on historical and fictional materials to illuminate each other.
393 Adolescence in 20th-Century Literature (3). An analysis of the literary portrayal of adolescence by major 20th-century English, American, and European writers, focused on dominant themes and modes of representation.
411 Critical Theory (3). Overview of those realms of modern and contemporary thought and writing that are known as, and closely associated with, “critical theory.”
435 Consciousness and Symbols (ANTH 435, FOLK 435) (3). See ANTH 435 for description.
450 Major Works of 20th-Century Literary Theory (3). Comparative study of representative works on literary and cultural theory or applied criticism to be announced in advance.
452 The Middle Ages (3). Study of selected examples of Western medieval literature in translation, with particular attention to the development of varieties of sensibility in various genres and at different periods.
453 The Erotic Middle Ages (3). Readings of major works of medieval European literature in translation from the 12th to 15th centuries, focusing on topics such as courtship, marriage, adultery, homoeroticism, domestic violence, mystical visions, and prostitution.
454 Literature of the Continental Renaissance in Translation (3). Discussion of the major works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Ariosto, Tasso, Rabelais, Ronsard, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Erasmus.
456 The 18th-Century Novel (3). English, French, and German 18th-century narrative fiction with emphasis on the epistolary novel. The relation of the novel to the Enlightenment and its counterpart, the cult of sentimentality, and on shifting paradigms for family education, gender, and erotic desire.
458 Sense, Sensibility, Sensuality, 1740–1810 (3). The development of the moral aesthetic of sensibility or Empfindsamkeit in literature of western Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
460 Romanticism (3). An exploration of the period concept of Romanticism, using selected literary works by such writers as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Goethe, Novalis, Schlegel, Hugo, Nerval, Chateaubriand.
462 Realism (3). An exploration of the period concept of Realism through selected works by such writers as George Eliot, Dickens, James, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Zola.
464 Naturalism (3). The Naturalist movement in European and American literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on its philosophical, psychological, and literary manifestations in selected plays and novels.
466 Modernism (3). An exploration of the period concept of modernism in European literature, with attention to central works in poetry, narrative, and drama, and including parallel developments in the visual arts.
468 Aestheticism (3). Aestheticism as a discrete 19th-century movement and as a major facet of modernism in literature and literary theory. Authors include Kierkegaard, Baudelaire, Nietzche, Huysmans, Wilde, Mann, Rilke, Nabokov, Dinesen, Barthes, Sontag.
469 Milan Kundera and World Literature (3). This course traces Milan Kundera’s literary path from his communist poetic youth to his present postmodern Francophilia. His work will be compared with those authors he considers his predecessors and influences in European literature. Taught in English. Some readings in Czech for qualified students.
470 Concepts and Perspectives of the Tragic (3). History and theory of tragedy as a distinctive literary genre and as a more general literary and cultural problem. Authors include Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Racine, Goethe, Nietzsche, Wagner, Mann, Samuel I and II, Faulkner. Also engages theorists, ancient and modern.
471 Classical Rhetoric and Modern Theory (3). Explores how the theory and practice of classical, medieval, and early modern rhetoric continue to challenge and stimulate contemporary theory. Two-thirds of the course examines texts written before 1750.
472 The Drama from Ibsen to Beckett (3). The main currents of European drama from the end of the 19th century to the present. Includes Chekhov, Strindberg, Pirandello, Lorca, Brecht, Anouilh.
473 Drama, Pageantry, and Spectacle in Medieval Europe (3). An exploration of different expressions of medieval drama and pagentry, including plays, tournaments, public executions, and religious processions.
474 Cannibals, Kings, and Holy Men: Ethnography and Early European Literature (3). An examination of the development of and the relationships between ethnography and literature, from antiquity to the conquest of the Americas.
476 Autobiography as a Literary Form (3). The rise and evolution of interest in the self in literary forms from St. Augustine’s to Rousseau’s Confessions and from Abelard through Dante, Petrarch, Cellini, and Montaigne.
481 Rhetoric of Silence: Cross-Cultural Theme and Technique (ASIA 481) (3). The uses of literary silence for purposes such as protest, civility, joy, oppression, nihilism, awe, or crisis of representation. Authors include Sterne, Goethe, Austen, Kawabata, Soseki, Oe, Toson, Camus, Mann.
482 Philosophy in Literature (PHIL 482) (3). See PHIL 482 for description.
483 Cross-Currents in East-West Literature (ASIA 483) (3). The study of the influence of Western texts upon Japanese authors and the influence of conceptions of “the East” upon Western writers. Goldsmith, Voltaire, Soseki, Sterne, Arishima, Ibsen, Yoshimoto, Ishiguro.
485 Approaches to 20th-Century Narrative (3). An examination of central trends in 20th-century narrative.
486 Literary Landscapes in Europe and Japan (ASIA 486) (3). Changing understandings of nature across time and cultures, especially with regard to its human manipulation and as portrayed in novels of Japan and Europe. Rousseau, Goethe, Austen, Abe, Mishima.
487 Literature and the Arts of Love (3). Love and sexuality in literary works from various historical periods and genres. Authors include Sappho, Plato, Catullus, Propertius, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, LaClos, Goethe, Nabokov, and Roland Barthes.
490 Special Topics (3). Topics vary from semester to semester.
492 The Fourth Dimension: Art and the Fictions of Hyperspace (3). An exploration of the concept of the fourth dimension, its origins in non-Euclidean geometry, its development in popular culture, and its impact on the visual arts, film, and literature.
496 Reading Course (3). Readings vary from semester to semester. The course is generally offered for three credits.
500 Senior Seminar (3). This seminar allows comparative literature majors to work on an independent project to synthesize their curricular experience, and it introduces them to current, broadly applicable issues in comparative literature.
558 The Lives and Times of Medieval Corpses (3). An investigation of the social, political, and literary uses of corpses in the Middle Ages.
560 Reading Other Cultures: Issues in Literary Translation (SLAV 560) (3). See SLAV 560 for description.
621 Arthurian Romance (ENGL 621) (3). See ENGL 621 for description.
622 Medieval Cosmopolitanisms (3). An examination of medieval engagements with the foreign and the extent to which those engagements challenged conventional ways of thinking about the world.
624 The Baroque (3). Required preparation, one course from CMPL 120–129. Analysis of the Baroque as an aesthetic movement, including major, representative literary works, comparisons of literature and the visual arts, and the study of theories of the Baroque and Neo-Baroque. Authors studied may include Tasso, Racine, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, among others.
685 Literature of the Americas (AMST 685, ENGL 685) (3). See ENGL 685 for description.
691H Comparative Literature Senior Honors Thesis Part I (3). Required of all students reading for honors in comparative literature.
692H Comparative Literature Senior Honors Thesis Part II (3). Prerequisite, CMPL 691H. Required of all students reading for honors in comparative literature.
ENGL
50 First-Year Seminar: Multimedia North Carolina (3). Each student will complete a service-learning internship and compose a multimedia documentary about the experience using original text, photos, audio, and video.
52 First-Year Seminar: Computers and English Studies (3). How do computers change the study of literature? How do images tell stories? How is writing evolving through photo essays, collages, and digital video? Students investigate these and related questions.
53 First-Year Seminar: Slavery and Freedom in African American Literature and Film (3). The seminar’s purpose is to explore the African American slave narrative tradition from its 19th-century origins in autobiography to its present manifestations in prize-winning fiction and film.
54 First-Year Seminar: The War to End All Wars? The First World War and the Modern World (3). Examination of literary and cinematic works that expose the cultural impact World War I had on contemporary and future generations.
56 First-Year Seminar: Projections of Empire: Colonial and Postcolonial Fiction and Film (3). The course covers a range of fictions about colonialism and its aftermath, exploring both narrative and filmic depictions of empire and its legacies.
57 First-Year Seminar: Future Perfect: Science Fictions and Social Form (3). This class will investigate the forms and cultural functions of science fiction using films, books, and computer-based fictional spaces (Internet, video games, etc.).
58 First-Year Seminar: The Doubled Image: Photography in U.S. Latina/o Short Fiction (3). Course will examine the aesthetic and cultural functions and implications of textual images of photography and photographs in United States Latina/o short stories from the 1960s to the present.
63 First-Year Seminar: Banned Books (3). This course will focus on issues of intellectual freedom and censorship, with particular attention to the ways in which these issues are racialized.
64 First-Year Seminar: Ethics and Children’s Literature (3). An investigation of how the tradition of children’s books addresses and negotiates central questions of existence and conduct, focusing on the ways ethical problems are formed in such literature.
65 First-Year Seminar: The Sonnet (3). Students will read more than 100 sonnets, learn the sonnet’s different forms, and relate them to the cultural environments in which they were written over the past four centuries.
66 First-Year Seminar: William Butler Yeats and Irish Independence (3). A consideration of Yeats’ poetry, plays, and political activities in relation to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and its aftermath.
67 First-Year Seminar: Travel Literature (3). Students will read examples of several kinds of travel literature, e.g., voyage, pilgrimage, exploration, tour, and mission. Special attention to North Carolina as a tourist venue.
68 First-Year Seminar: Radical American Writers, 1930–1960 (3). The evolution of leftist American literature from the Depression through the early Cold War. Authors include Mary McCarthy, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, and others.
69 First-Year Seminar: Entrepreneurial Writing on the Web (3). This course explores trends in online communication, emphasizing composition for the Web. The study of these writing activities is linked with a focus on innovation and on entrepreneurship.
70 First-Year Seminar: Courtly Love, Then and Now (3). Study of the medieval concept of courtly love, tracing its classical antecedents, its expression in Renaissance literature (especially Shakespeare), and its influence in modern culture.
71 First-Year Seminar: Doctors and Patients (3). This course explores the human struggle to make sense of suffering and debility. Texts are drawn from literature, anthropology, film, art history, philosophy, and biology.
74 First-Year Seminar: Epic/Anti-Epic in Western Literature (3). In this course, students will study epic and anti-epic strains in Western literature, reading key texts in the epic tradition from Homer and Virgil through the 20th century in light of various challenges to that tradition and tensions within it.
75 First-Year Seminar: Interpreting the South from Manuscripts (3). The aim of the course is to give beginning university students the requisite research skills to allow them to appreciate and to contribute to an understanding of the past by directly experiencing and interpreting records from the past. Students will work with historical documents, some more than 200 years old.
76 First-Year Seminar: Decadence, Nihilism, and Aestheticism: 1870–1910 (3). This course will explore four writers of this period in order to examine a range of responses to what each writer saw as a crisis in the West’s ability to provide both a prosperous and a meaningful life for all people.
77 First-Year Seminar: Seeing the Past (3). This course will introduce students to practices of critical analysis that inform academic work in all the core humanistic disciplines: how do we ask analytical questions about texts, artwork, and other cultural artifacts that come down to us from the past or circulate in our own culture?
79 First-Year Seminar: Globalization/Global Asians (3). This course will explore the concept of globalization by focusing on the Asian diaspora, particularly the artistic and cultural productions that document, represent, and express Global Asians.
80 First-Year Seminar: The Politics of Persuasion: Southern Women’s Rhetoric (3). Narratives of women spies, social reformers, missionaries, teachers, blockade runners, and escapees from slavery help uncover persuasive strategies used to challenge the limited roles to which women were assigned.
84 First-Year Seminar: Into the West (3). This course explores fiction as a particular form of cultural narrative and thinks about its deployment in the construction of a core American identity—the cowboy.
85 First-Year Seminar: Economic Saints and Villains (3). Our objective throughout will be to analyze how literary art simultaneously demonizes and celebrates the “miracle of the marketplace” and those financial pioneers that perform its magic.
86 First-Year Seminar: The Cities of Modernism (3). This course is a cross-cultural and intermedial exploration of the imagery of the Great City in high modernist works of literature, art, and film.
87 First-Year Seminar: Jane Austen, Then and Now (3). This course focuses on the fiction of Jane Austen and its representations in film.
88 First-Year Seminar: The Legacy of the Japanese American Internment from WWII to 9/11 (3). This course will explore stories about the Japanese American internment from first-person memoirs to contemporary fiction. We will also examine the ramifications, historic and legal, of the internment post-9/11.
89 First-Year Seminar: Special Topics (3). Content varies by semester.
100 Basic Writing (3). Required for incoming students with SAT I Writing scores of 460 or lower. Provides frequent practice in writing, from short paragraphs to longer papers, focusing on analysis and argument. Workshop format.
101 English Composition and Rhetoric (3). Required of all students except those exempted by placement tests. Students practice the writing conventions that define social, cultural, and professional communities. Up to nine papers, including research projects.
102 English Composition and Rhetoric (3). Required of all students except those exempted by placement tests. Students practice the writing conventions that define various academic disciplines. Up to nine papers, including research projects.
102I English Composition and Rhetoric (Interdisciplinary) (3). Required of all students except those exempted by placement tests. Students practice the writing conventions that define various academic disciplines. Up to nine papers, including research projects.
120 British Literature, Medieval to 18th Century (3). Required of English majors. Survey of medieval, Renaissance, and neoclassical periods. Drama, poetry, and prose.
121 British Literature, 19th and Early 20th Century (3). This course (or ENGL 150) is required of English majors. Seminar focusing on later British literature. Students learn methods of literary study and writing about literature.
122 Introduction to American Literature (3). Representative authors from the time of European colonization of the New World through the 20th century.
123 Introduction to Fiction (3). Novels and shorter fiction by Defoe, Austen, Dickens, Faulkner, Wolfe, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and others.
124 Contemporary Literature (3). The literature of the present generation.
125 Introduction to Poetry (3). A course designed to develop basic skills in reading poems from all periods of English and American literature.
126 Introduction to Drama (3). Drama of the Greek, Renaissance, and modern periods.
127 Writing about Literature (3). Course emphasizes literature, critical thinking, and the writing process. Students learn how thinking, reading, and writing relate to one another by studying poetry, fiction, drama, art, music, and film.
128 Major American Authors (3). A study of approximately six major American authors drawn from Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Whitman, Clemens, Dickinson, Chesnutt, James, Eliot, Stein, Hemingway, O’Neill, Faulkner, Hurston, or others.
129 Literature and Cultural Diversity (3). Studies in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, Native American, Anglo-Indian, Caribbean, gay-lesbian, and other literatures written in English.
130 Introduction to Fiction Writing (3). Sophomores only. A course in reading and writing fiction. Close study of a wide range of short stories; emphasis on technical problems. Class criticism and discussion of student exercises and stories.
131 Introduction to Poetry Writing (3). Sophomores only. A course in reading and writing poems. Close study of a wide range of published poetry and of poetic terms and techniques. Composition, discussion, and revision of original student poems.
132H First-Year Honors: Introduction to Fiction Writing (3). First-year honors students only. A close study of the craft of the short story and novella through a wide range of reading, with emphasis on technical strategies. Class discussion of student exercises and stories.
133H First-Year Honors: Introduction to Poetry Writing (3). First-year honors students only. A close study of a wide range of published poems and of the basic terms and techniques of poetry. Composition, discussion, and revision of a number of original poems.
134H First-Year Honors: Women’s Lives (3). First-year honors students only. This course focuses on women’s life writing, including autobiography, biography, autoethnography, personal essay. Includes theories of life writing. Students will read contemporary works in each genre and write their own versions.
135H First-Year Honors: Types of Literature (3). First-year honors students only. Study of literary forms (epic, drama, lyric, novel), beginning in the fall term and concluding in the spring, with three hours credit for each term. Students should consult the assistant dean for honors or the Department of English and Comparative Literature for offerings.
139 Currents in Sexuality Studies (3). This course provides a systematic introduction to the field of sexuality studies, using a broad range of disciplinary perspectives to study human sexuality in its various functions and forms.
140 Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Culture and Literature (WMST 140) (3). Introduces students to concepts in queer theory and recent sexuality studies. Topics include queer lit, AIDS, race and sexuality, representations of gays and lesbians in the media, political activism/literature.
141 World Literatures in English (3). This course will be a basic introduction to literatures in English from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Anglophone literary traditions.
142 Film Analysis (3). This course offers an introduction to the technical, formal, and narrative elements of the cinema.
143 Film and Culture (3). Examines the ways culture shapes and is shaped by film. This course uses comparative methods to contrast films as historic or contemporary, mainstream or cutting-edge, in English or a foreign language, etc.
144 Popular Genres (3). Introductory course on popular literary genres. Students will read and discuss works in the area of mystery, romance, westerns, science fiction, children’s literature, and horror fiction.
145 Literary Genres (3). Studies in genres including drama, poetry, prose fiction, or nonfiction prose, examining form, comparing that genre to others (including popular genres), placing works within a tradition or a critical context.
146 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Utopia (3). Readings in and theories of science fiction, utopian and dystopian literatures, and fantasy fiction.
147 Mystery Fiction (3). Studies in classic and contemporary mystery and detective fiction.
148 Horror (3). From its origins in Gothic and pre-Gothic literatures and arts, this course examines the complexities and pleasures of horror. Topics include psychology, aesthetics, politics, allegory, ideology, and ethics.
150 Introductory Seminar in Literary Studies (3). Sophomore English majors only. This course (or ENGL 121) is required of English majors. Introduces students to methods of literary study. Students learn to read and interpret a range of literary works, develop written and oral arguments about literature, and conduct literary research.
190 Introduction to Literary Studies (3). Introduces students to the field of literary studies while emphasizing a single writer, group, movement, theme, or period. Students conduct research, develop readings, and compose literary interpretations.
202 Introduction to Folklore (ANTH 202, FOLK 202) (3). An introduction to the study of creativity and aesthetic expression in everyday life, considering both traditional genres and contemporary innovations in the material, verbal, and musical arts.
206 Intermediate Fiction Writing (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 130 or 132H. Permission of the program director. Substantial practice in those techniques employed in introductory course. A workshop devoted to the extensive writing of fiction (at least two short stories), with an emphasis on style, structure, dramatic scene, and revision.
207 Intermediate Poetry Writing (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 131 or 133H. Permission of the program director. An intensification of the introductory class. A workshop devoted to close examination of selected exemplary poems and the students’ own poetry, with an emphasis on regular writing and revising.
208 Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 130, 131, 132H, or 133H. Permission of the program director. A course in reading and writing creative nonfiction, focusing on three of its most important forms: the personal essay, nature writing, and travel writing.
209 Reading and Writing Children’s Fiction (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 130, 131, 132H, or 133H. Permission of the program director. A course in reading and writing children’s fiction, focusing on five important forms: folk tale, fairy tale, picture book, young adult, and biography.
210 Writing Young Adult Literature (3). Prerequisites, ENGL 130, 131, 132H, or 133H. Permission of the program director. A course in reading and writing young adult fiction, with a focus on the crafting of a novel.
225 Shakespeare (3). A survey of representative comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances by William Shakespeare.
226 Renaissance Drama (3). A survey of Renaissance drama focusing on contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
227 Literature of the Earlier Renaissance (3). Poetry and prose of the earlier Renaissance, including More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Bacon, and Marlowe.
228 Literature of the Later Renaissance (3). Poetry and prose from the late Elizabethan years through the “century of revolution” into the Restoration period after 1660: Donne, Jonson, Bacon, Herbert, Burton, Browne, Marvell, Herrick, and others.
229 Renaissance Women Writers (3). This course introduces students to a variety of Renaissance English texts authored by women. Topics include historical perspectives on women and gender and methodological approaches to Renaissance feminist study.
230 Milton (3). A study of Milton’s prose and poetry in the extraordinary context of 17th-century philosophy, politics, religion, science, and poetics, and against the backdrop of the English Civil War.
240 Caribbean Literature (3). An introductory exploration of key topics in the literatures of the Caribbean basin, Bermuda, and the Caribbean diaspora.
246 Introduction to American Indian Literatures (3). Students will develop a working knowledge of American Indian cultural concepts and historical perspectives utilizing poetry, history, personal account, short stories, films, and novels.
260 Creative Reading (3). Practice of “close reading” over a diverse selection of novels, short stories, and lyric poems. Intended for students who have declared, or who will soon declare, the English major.
261 An Introduction to Literary Criticism (3). An introduction to literary criticism in English studies, with an emphasis on historical developments from Plato to the present.
262 Literature and Cultural Difference (3). Studies in the diversity within and between African American, Asian American, Latina/o, Native American, Anglo-Indian, Caribbean, GLBTQ, feminist, proletarian, and other literatures in English. Intended for English majors.
263 Literature and Gender (WMST 263) (3). Intensive study, focused on gender issues of criticism and writing.
264 Literature and Sexuality (3). A literary and cultural critical examination of the role sex plays within the creation, consumption, and regulation of literature.
265 Literature and Race, Literature and Ethnicity (INTS 265) (3). Considers texts in a comparative ethnic/race studies framework and examines how these texts explore historical and contemporary connections between groups of people in the United States and the Americas.
266 Science and Literature (3). Introductory exploration of the relation between science and literature, as well as the place and value of both in the contemporary world.
267 Growing Up Latina/o (3). This interdisciplinary course will examine what it means to grow up Latina/o through an exploration of childhood narratives, linguistic debates, education policies and legislation, and censored books.
268 Medicine, Literature, and Culture (3). An introduction to key topics that focus on questions of representation at the intersections of medicine, literature, and culture.
270 Studies in Asian American Literature (3). This course introduces students to the study of Asian American literature and culture. The focus of the course may include examining coming-of-age novels, immigration narratives, or other genre explorations.
271 Mixed-Race America: Race in Contemporary American Literature and Culture (3). This service-learning course is partnered with a charter school, and together UNC–Chapel Hill and high school students will explore issues of race in American literature and culture.
278 Irish Writing, 1800–2000 (3). This course introduces major texts and current themes, from Joyce to the postcolonial, in Irish writing from 1800 to 2000.
279 The Irish Literary Revival (3). Course will examine the roots and development of the Irish literary revival in the work of Yeats, Joyce, Lady Gregory, and Shaw, from 1890 to 1930.
280 The Western (3). This course offers a broad overview of the western as a literary and especially cinematic genre.
281 Literature and Media (3). This course investigates the rich and complex relationship between literature and other mass media.
282 Travel Literature (3). Students will analyze various types of travel literature, such as voyage, pilgrimage, and tour, in terms of literary conventions, historical conditions, and considerations of gender, ethnicity, economics, empire, and religion.
283 Life Writing (3). Exploration of different forms of life writing such as autobiography, biography, and autoethnography. Readings will include theories of autobiography and selected literature.
284 Reading Children’s Literature (3). An overview of the tradition of children’s literature, considering the ways those books point to our basic assumptions about meaning, culture, self, society, gender, economics.
285 Classical Backgrounds in English Literature (3). A survey of Greek and Roman epic and lyric poetry, literary criticism and philosophy designed for the undergraduate English major.
286 Nature Writing (AMST 286) (3). Introduction to the field of nature writing surveys historical periods, authors, and a variety of genres; cross-cultural and multidisciplinary; study of classics in the field.
287 Another Country: Homoeroticism in British Literature (3). This course will examine themes of homoeroticism, gender identity, class relations, and the changes in cultural norms precipitated by World War I in literary works by British men.
288 Literary Modernism (3). In this course students will read early 20th-century poetry, fiction, films, and criticism, and consider the ways these works constituted, defined, and challenged the phenomenon known as literary modernism.
289 Jewish American Literature and Culture of the 20th Century (JWST 289) (3). Through readings in a wide range of genres, this course will examine major factors and influences shaping Jewish American literature and culture in the 20th century.
290 Children’s Picture Books: Texts and Illustration (3). An investigation of children’s picture books within the context of illustrated texts in Britain and America.
300 Advanced Expository Writing (3). Advanced practice with critical, argumentative, and analytic writing, including forms of the essay. Special attention to style, voice, and genre.
300I Advanced Expository Writing (Interdisciplinary) (3). Advanced practice with critical, argumentative, and analytic writing, including the essay. Special attention to writing in the disciplines of life and applied sciences, social sciences (including business), and humanities.
301 Advanced Expository Writing for the Humanities (3). Advanced practice with the oral and written discourse of the humanities. Special attention to disciplinary rhetoric, style, genre, format, and citation.
302 Advanced Expository Writing for the Social Sciences (3). Advanced practice with the oral and written discourse of the social sciences. Special attention to disciplinary rhetoric, style, genre, format, and citation.
303 Advanced Expository Writing for the Natural Sciences (3). Advanced practice with the oral and written discourse of the natural sciences. Special attention to disciplinary rhetoric, style, genre, format, and citation.
304 Advanced Expository Writing for Business (3). Advanced practice with business and professional oral and written discourse. Special attention to disciplinary rhetoric, style, genre, format, and citation.
305 Advanced Expository Writing for Law (3). Advanced practice with legal oral and written discourse. Special attention to disciplinary rhetoric, style, genre, format, and citation.
306 Playwriting (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 130, 131, 132H, or 133H. Permission of the program director. A workshop for people interested in writing plays, focusing on elements that make them work on stage, such as characterization, climax, dialogue, exposition, momentum, setting, and visual effects.
307 Studies in Fiction: Style and Stylistics (3). Permission of the program director. Creative writing minors only. Close study of language and grammar as tools of style. Numerous short exercises. Collaborative development and production of a language-arts show based on original exercises.
313 Grammar of Current English (3). An introductory course in descriptive English linguistics that studies the sounds, word-building processes, and sentence structures of current English as well as general notions of correctness and variation.
314 History of the English Language (3). A study of the development of English from its Proto-Indo-European origins to modern English, with emphasis on how events and contacts with other languages influenced the vocabulary of English.
315 English in the U.S.A. (3). A historical and critical examination of regional, social, and stylistic variation in English in the United States, including correctness, legal and educational issues, and the influence of mass media.
316 Rhetorical Traditions (3). Examines histories of rhetorical theory and practice. Students will develop original research projects that expand our understanding of rhetorical traditions. Historical periods, critical perspectives, genres, and topics will vary.
319 Introduction to Medieval English Literature, excluding Chaucer (3). An introduction to English literature from the eighth to the 15th century, focusing on the primary works of Old English and Middle English literature.
320 Chaucer (3). An introduction to Chaucer’s major poetry: Troilus and Criseyde, the “dream” poems (e.g., Parliament of Fowls) and The Canterbury Tales.
321 Medieval and Modern Arthurian Romance (CMPL 321) (3). Representative examples of Arthurian literature from the Middle Ages and 19th and 20th centuries, with some attention to film, art, and music.
322 Medieval England and Its Literary Neighbors (3). A study of the external literary influences which shaped Old and Middle English, notably the vernacular literatures of England’s Celtic neighbors (Wales, Brittany, Scotland, and Ireland) and/or France.
325 Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (3). This course explores the wide range of drama produced in England between the 1570s and 1640s, including work by Shakespeare and his many rivals.
326 Renaissance Genres (3). This course traces the historical evolution/devolution of Renaissance literary genres. Each offering will focus on a single generic kind or set of kinds.
327 Renaissance Literature and Its Intellectual Contexts (3). A focused study of one or two intellectual movements of the Renaissance through the literary and nonliterary texts of the period.
328 Renaissance Authors (3). This course involves the detailed study of a substantial author of the English Renaissance, such as Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Raleigh, Bacon, Jonson, Donne, Browne, or Herbert.
330 Perspectives on the Renaissance (3). Students will study Renaissance literature while assessing the usefulness and status of a theoretical approach, such as feminist theory, queer theory, cultural materialism, new historicism, or psychoanalytic theory.
331 18th-Century Literature (3). A survey of British literature from Dryden to Paine.
332 18th-Century Drama (3). A survey of Restoration and 18th-century drama from Etheredge to Sheridan.
333 18th-Century Fiction (3). A survey of 18th-century fiction from Behn to Austen.
337 The Romantic Revolution in the Arts (3). This course examines the technical and aesthetic revolutions in the fine arts of the English Romantic Period, focusing on lyrical poetry, landscape painting, and original printmaking and works by Wordsworth, Turner, and Blake.
338 19th-Century British Novel (3). Important novelists in the tradition, from Austen to Wilde.
339 English Romantic-Period Drama (3). Covers the history of the British theater, 1780 to 1840, with representative plays and closet dramas by playwrights such as Holcroft, Cowley, Inchbald, Baillie, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, and Byron.
340 Studies in Jane Austen (3). This course focuses on both the novels of Jane Austen and their fate since publication in the early 19th century. They have inspired countless imitations, over 150 sequels and continuations, and more than 30 full-length films. We will trace the transmission and transformation of the original texts across time and cultures.
343 American Literature before 1860 (3). Selected topics or authors in American literature from the period of European colonization of the New World through the onset of the Civil War.
344 American Literature, 1860–1900 (3). Instructors choose authors or topics from the period 1860 to 1900. The course may be organized chronologically or thematically but is not intended as a survey.
345 American Literature, 1900–2000 (3). Instructors choose authors or topics from the period 1900 to 2000. The course may be organized chronologically or thematically but is not intended as a survey.
347 The American Novel (3). The development of the American novel from the late 18th century through the 20th century. May proceed chronologically or thematically.
348 American Poetry (3). Content of course varies with instructor, but students are given a sense of the chronological, stylistic, and thematic development of American poetry over two centuries.
350 20th-Century British and American Poetry (3). Poetry in English from the middle of the 19th century to the present, approached historically, thematically, technically, politically, and aesthetically; concentration on analysis, comparison, and synthesis.
351 British and American Drama of the 20th Century (3). The course focuses on modern drama in English. Most of the plays will come from the British and American theaters, though a few may exemplify the European background of modern drama or the colonial reach of the English language.
353 Modern Women’s Literature (3). This course will examine literature written in English by women, focusing on issues of style and genre and their relation to gender.
355 The British Novel from 1870 to World War II (3). Students will read novels in English, including Joyce, Woolf, and Proust, to explore how writers from across cultures created new strategies to represent the late 19th- and 20th-century worlds of imperialism, science, and experiment.
356 British and American Fiction since World War II (3). Course studies contemporary British and American fiction through representative works. Intellectual and aesthetic, historical and cultural emphases. May include works from the Anglophone diaspora.
360 Contemporary Asian American Literature and Theory (ASIA 360) (3). This course will explore contemporary Asian American literature and theory and will examine how Asian American literature fits into, yet extends beyond, the canon of American literature.
361 Asian American Women’s Writing (3). This course covers writings by Asian American women and examines issues of gender, race, and sexuality.
362 Theories of Language (3). A sustained examination of what is meant by “language,” this course reads major philosophical and critical-theoretical texts from Plato to contemporary evolutionary biological accounts of language/representation.
363 Feminist Literary Theory (WMST 363) (3). Theories of feminist criticism in relation to general theory and women’s writing.
364 Introduction to Latina/o Studies (3). Introduction to the major questions within Latina/o studies in terms of transnationalism, transculturation, ethnicity, race, class, gender, sexuality, systems of value, and aesthetics.
365 Migration and Globalization (3). Covers literary works associated with one or more of the major historical migrations, forced and voluntary, and present-day works engaged with globalization.
366 Literature and the Other Arts (3). Course examines relationship of literature to the other arts, especially music and the visual arts, in terms of similar period characteristics, distinct material, and formal constraints.
367 African American Literature to 1930 (3). Survey of writers and literary and cultural traditions from the beginning of African American literature to 1930.
368 African American Literature, 1930–1970 (3). Survey of writers and literary and cultural traditions from 1930 to 1970.
369 African American Literature, 1970 to the Present (3). Survey of writers and literary and cultural traditions from 1970 to the present.
371 The Place of Asian Americans in Southern Literature (3). This course will consider the themes of globalization and regionalism through an examination of narratives featuring Asians/Asian Americans in the American South.
373 Southern American Literature (3). An introduction to Southern literature, with emphasis on 20th-century fiction, poetry, drama, and essays. Representative authors include Faulkner, Wolfe, Williams, Warren, Hurston, Wright, Ransom, Tate, Welty, Chappell, McCullers, O’Connor.
374 Southern Women Writers (WMST 374) (3). The study of fiction, poetry, plays, and essays by Southern American women writers of the past 200 years, continuing to the present.
375 Contemporary North Carolina Literature (3). A study of the novels, short stories, and poems produced by North Carolina writers during the literary renaissance of recent decades.
377 Introduction to the Celtic Cultures (3). A broad survey of the cultures of the Celtic-speaking areas, notably Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Brittany, with special emphasis on language and literature.
378 Contemporary Irish Poetry: Heaney and After (3). Students will read modern Irish poetry from Seamus Heaney to the present, addressing issues of language, culture, and society.
379 Irish Prose from Joyce to Doyle (3). Twentieth-century Irish prose is committed to experiment in form, language and representation, gauging cultural pressure from James Joyce to Roddy Doyle.
380 Film History (3). The course offers an introduction to the history of cinema and, in particular, to a period of film history.
381 Literature and Cinema (3). The course introduces students to the complex narrative and rhetorical relationship between literature and cinema.
382 Regionalism (3). This course introduces students to the organization and conceptualization of American literatures by geography and local culture. The course looks at literature from a diverse array of groups and locales.
383 Literary Nonfiction (3). An introduction to the many forms of creative nonfiction by contemporary writers. Will include nonfiction literature as well as theoretical and critical responses to such literature.
384 The Lesbian Novel (3). In this course students will discuss the formation and evolution of lesbian identities as manifested in novels in English in the 20th century.
385 Literature and Law (3). Explores various connections of literature and law, including literary depictions of crime, lawyers, and trials; literary conventions of legal documents; and/or shared problems in interpretation of law and literature.
387 Canadian Literature (3). A study of Canadian literature in English from the late 18th century to the present, with emphasis on 20th-century writing and on the novel.
388 Modernism: Movements and Moments (3). What was modernism? When was modernism? Where was modernism? Reading literature and visual art from 1890 to 1940 in Europe, America, and Africa will be key to finding answers.
390 Studies in Literary Topics (3). An intensive study of a single writer, group, movement, theme, or period.
396 Directed Readings in English or Creative Writing (3). Permission of the department. Intensive reading on a particular topic under the supervision of a member of the staff.
400 Advanced Composition for Teachers (3). This course combines frequent writing practice with discussions of rhetorical theories and strategies for teaching writing. The course examines ways to design effective writing courses, assignments, and instructional materials.
401 Advanced Composition for Elementary Teachers (3). This course combines frequent writing practice with an introduction to teaching writing and reading in the elementary grades. Students explore composition theory and learn about effective practices for improving writing.
402 Investigations in Academic Writing (3). This course considers learning to write from three vantage points: personal, social, and contextual. Emphasis on theory, reflective practice, and pedagogy for peer tutoring.
405 Writing Literary Genres (3). Focuses on producing writing in a particular genre or form such as personal essay, autobiography, or creative nonfiction.
406 Advanced Fiction Writing (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 206. Permission of the program director. A continuation of the intermediate workshop with emphasis on the short story, novella, and novel. Extensive discussion of student work in class and in conferences with instructor.
407 Advanced Poetry Writing (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 207. Permission of the program director. A continuation of the intermediate workshop, with increased writing and revising of poems. Extensive discussion of student poetry in class and in conferences with instructor.
412 Creative Writing—Contemporary Issues (3). Permission of the program director. An occasional course, which may focus on such topics as editing and revising, short-short fiction, contemporary poetry, short stories of the modern South, the one-act play, the lyric in song.
418 The English Language—Contemporary Issues (3). Focused study of a specific subfield or issue of current or historical English linguistics not covered in depth in other courses, e.g., dictionaries, North Carolina dialects, language of advertising.
423 Old English Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). This course investigates themes or issues in Old English literature, thought, and culture.
424 Middle English Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). This course investigates themes or issues in Middle English literature, thought, and culture.
430 Renaissance Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). This course investigates cultural themes or problems across a wide spectrum of Renaissance authors.
436 Contemporary Approaches to 18th-Century Literature and Culture (3). Focuses on particular forms, authors, or issues in the period.
437 Chief British Romantic Writers (3). Survey of works by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Keats, and others.
438 19th-Century Women Writers (3). An investigation of important texts by 19th-century British women writers that considers issues of gender in relation to other important considerations: tradition, form, culture.
439 English Literature, 1832–1890 (3). Poetry and prose of the Victorian period, including such writers as Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, the Brontës, Dickens, G. Eliot.
440 English Literature, 1850–1910 (3). The Pre-Raphaelites, Wilde, Conrad, Shaw, and Yeats.
441 Romantic Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). Devoted to British Romantic-period literature’s engagement with a literary mode (such as the Gothic) or a historical theme (such as war or abolition) or to an individual author.
442 Victorian Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). The study of an individual Victorian writer, a group (such as the Pre-Raphaelites), a theme (such as imperialism), or genre (such as Victorian epic or the serialized novel).
443 American Literature before 1860—Contemporary Issues (3). A junior- or senior-level course devoted to in-depth exploration of an author, group of authors, or topic in American literature to 1860.
444 American Literature, 1860–1900—Contemporary Issues (3). Intensive study of one or more authors or a topic in American literature from the Civil War through 1900.
445 American Literature, 1900–2000—Contemporary Issues (3). A junior- or senior-level course devoted to in-depth exploration of an author, group of authors, or a topic in American literature from 1900 to 2000.
446 American Women Authors (WMST 446) (3). American women authors from the beginnings to the present.
447 Memory and Literature (3). This course brings together theories of collective and individual memory with questions of aesthetics and narrative while exploring global connections between memory and literature.
461 Aesthetics (3). Examines the question of what defines art and what describes art’s social and human significance through a reading of classic texts on these issues.
462 Contemporary Poetry and Theory (3). This course introduces the student to historical and contemporary thinking about poetry and poetic language. Examines the place of poetry in theoretical thinking and theoretical thinking about poetry.
463 Postcolonial Literature (3). This course is a multigenre introduction to postcolonial literatures. Topics will include postcolonial Englishes, nationalism, anti-imperialism, postcolonial education, and the intersections between national and gender identities in literature.
464 Queer Texts, Queer Cultures (3). The literary and cultural critical arts of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, and other communities of sexual dissidents of the contemporary United States, United Kingdom, and other Anglophone cultures.
465 Difference, Aesthetics, and Affect (3). Examines interrelations between cultural difference, aesthetic form, and the representation, production, and conveyance of subjectivity (in particular affect or states of feeling) in texts, other media, and material culture.
466 Literary Theory—Contemporary Issues (3). Examines current issues in literary theory such as the question of authorship, the relation of literary texts to cultural beliefs and values, and to the formation of identities.
472 African American Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). Study of particular aspects of African American literature, such as the work of a major writer or group of writers, an important theme, a key tradition, or a literary period.
475 Southern Literature—Contemporary Issues (3). The study of a particular topic or genre in the literature of the United States South, more focused than students will find in ENGL 373.
478 Projecting Ireland (3). This course will examine the relationship between literary and cinematic versions of Ireland, exploring how written and visual texts negotiate the difficulties of representation in a decolonizing society.
479 Ireland and Modernism (3). This course explores Ireland’s contribution in literature and art to movements in 20th-century modernism.
481 Media Theory (3). This course investigates the ramifications of the development of mass media and popular culture, paying special attention to the transformation of literature.
486 Literature and Environment (3). Multidisciplinary, thematic investigations into topics in literature and environment that cut across boundaries of history, genre, and culture. Junior/senior level.
487 Folk Narrative (FOLK 487) (3). The study of three genres of folk narrative (fairytale, personal narrative, and legend) and their distinctive roles in contemporary life.
489 Cultural Studies—Contemporary Issues (3). The student will have an opportunity to concentrate on topics and texts central to the study of culture and theory.
525 Senior Seminar in Renaissance Literature (3). Seniors only. Senior-level survey of one or two key themes or issues in the literature of the English Renaissance.
564 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature (3). Examines the ways knowledge from other disciplines can be brought to bear in the analysis of literary works. Questions of disciplinary limits and histories will also be addressed.
566 Literature and Psychoanalysis (3). This course offers an introduction to the theoretical intersection of psychoanalysis and literature and to the spectrum of what is called “psychoanalytic theory.”
578 Irish Americas, American Irelands (3). Course will explore the cultural connections between Ireland and America in literature and film to examine how each has imagined the other.
580 Film—Contemporary Issues (3). This course is designed to introduce students to a particular historical or cultural aspect of the cinema.
581 Contemporary Approaches to Fiction (3). Examines the formal features of narrative and its role in shaping social values, groups, and identities through readings in literary theory, short stories, and novels.
582 Contemporary Approaches to Poetry (3). The course is an introduction to the genre of poetry and its subgenres, to the practice of reading it in both form and content, and to the work of selected poets or individual poets.
583 Drama on Location (3). Offered as part of summer study abroad programs in Oxford, London, and Stratford-on-Avon. Students experience plays in performance and as texts, and discuss their literary, dramatic, cultural, and historical aspects.
585 British and American Folksong (FOLK 585) (3). Explores the forms, functions, and relationships of British and American folksongs, charting the emergence of Anglo- and African American vernacular musics and the dynamic processes of tradition, creolization, innovation, and revival.
587 Folklore in the South (FOLK 587) (3). An issue-oriented study of Southern folklore, exploring the ways that vernacular artistic expression (from barns and barbecue to gospel and well-told tales) come to define both community and region.
589 African American Folklore (FOLK 589) (3). Focuses on the richness and variety of oral traditions that define African American culture, with some emphasis on African origins.
600 Advanced Expository Writing (3). The course, restricted to graduate students in English, offers students practice writing vitae and job application letters, grant or conference proposals, dissertation or thesis chapters, book reviews, or journal articles.
601 Academic Writing for International Students (3). Designed to help international graduate students improve skills in academic writing. Attention to organization, flow, and presentation of an academic paper.
603 Oral Communication for International Students (1–3). Designed to help international graduate students refine oral communication skills in academic contexts. Attention to pronunciation, participating in group discussions, and making presentations.
605 History of Rhetoric and Composition (3). A survey of major figures in the history of rhetoric, beginning with classical rhetoric, but emphasizing contemporary rhetorical theory.
606 Rhetorical Theory and Practice (3). A study of rhetorical theories and practices from classical to modern times. Emphasis is on translation of theories into instructional practice for teaching in the college writing classroom.
607 Theory and Practice of Writing in the Disciplines (1–3). Introduction to theories of teaching writing in the disciplines for graduate instructors. Students will study discipline-specific conventions of argumentation, genre, and style with attention to pedagogical techniques, assignments, and activities.
613 Modern English Grammar (LING 613) (3). A study of current English structure and usage using a traditional approach modified by appropriate contributions from structural and generative grammar, with some attention to the application of linguistics to literary analysis.
619 Survey of Old and Middle English Literature (3). An introduction to English literature from the eighth to the 15th century, focusing on the primary works of Old English and Middle English literature.
621 Arthurian Romance (CMPL 621) (3). British and continental Arthurian literature in translation from the early Middle Ages to Sir Thomas Malory.
625 Shakespeare (3). A study of selected plays and poetry by Shakespeare and some of the key critical and theoretical approaches to his work.
626 Renaissance Drama (3). A study of a representative group of plays by dramatists writing between the establishment of the permanent theaters in the 1570s and the closing of those theaters in 1642.
627 Literature of the Earlier Renaissance (3). A graduate-level survey of the literature of the earlier Renaissance in England.
628 Literature of the Later Renaissance (3). In this course, students will interrogate the social, historical, and representational dimensions of 17th-century literature and culture in England.
629 Milton (3). A study of Milton’s prose and poetry in the extraordinary context of 17th-century philosophy, politics, religion, science, and poetics, and against the backdrop of the English Civil War.
630 Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (3). This course will examine drama written and performed in England from 1570 to 1640, situating Shakespeare’s plays in relation to others in his generation.
631 18th-Century Literature (3). Studies in a variety of British writers from Rochester to Cowper.
637 Chief British Romantic Writers (3). A survey of the major British Romantic writers, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Keats, with an introduction to the chief scholarly and critical problems of this period.
639 Victorian Literature (3). Survey of major Victorian writers such as Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, Dickens, the Brontës, G. Eliot, Mill, Ruskin.
643 Introduction to American Literature to 1860 (3). A graduate-level survey of American literature from the European settlement of the New World through 1860. Consideration of authors in their aesthetic, historical, and contemporary critical contexts.
644 Introduction to American Literature, 1860–1900 (3). A graduate-level introduction to the range of American writing from the Civil War through 1900. Attention given to major critical concerns, e.g., the cultural force of realism, etc.
651 British and American Drama of the 20th Century (3). A survey of British and American drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism.
657 English and American Literature of the 20th Century (3). A survey of 20th-century English and American drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism.
659 War in 20th-Century Literature (PWAD 659) (3). A study of literary works written in English concerning World War I, or the Spanish Civil War and World War II, or the Vietnam War.
660 War in Shakespeare’s Plays (PWAD 660) (3). The focus is on Shakespeare’s various treatments of war in his plays: all his Roman histories, most of his English histories, all his tragedies, even some of his comedies.
661 Introduction to Literary Theory (3). Examines contemporary theoretical issues and critical approaches relevant to the study of literature.
662 History of Literary Criticism (3). A history of literary criticism from the Greeks to mid-20th century, focusing on recurrent concerns and classic texts that are indispensable for understanding the practice of literary criticism today.
663 Postcolonial Theory (3). This course covers major works of and topics in postcolonial theory.
664 The Challenge of Queer Theory to Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, and the Humanities (3). An advanced-level investigation of queer theory’s challenges to literary criticism, cultural studies, and questions of critical methodology in the humanities. Cutting-edge research and just-published articles will be used.
665 Queer Latina/o Literature, Performance, and Visual Art (WMST 665) (3). This course explores literature, performance art, film, and photography by Latinas and Latinos whose works may be described as “queer” and that question terms and norms of cultural dominance.
666 Queer Latina/o Photography and Literature (WMST 666) (3). This course explores Latina/o literature about photography in relation to photography by “queer” Latina/o artists and through this double focus poses certain questions about identity, subjectivity, and culture.
673 Literature of the United States South (3). A study of the literature of the United States South, in most cases focusing on 20th-century Southern literature and on prose fiction.
680 Film Theory (3). This course offers a rigorous introduction to the various theories (aesthetic, narratological, historiographic, ideological, feminist, poststructuralist) inspired by the cinema.
684 Women in Folklore and Literature (FOLK 684, WMST 684) (3). An exploration of representations of women in oral traditions as well as in literature based on oral traditions.
685 Literature of the Americas (AMST 685, CMPL 685) (3). Two years of college-level Spanish or the equivalent strongly recommended. Multidisciplinary examination of texts and other media of the Americas, in English and Spanish, from a variety of genres.
686 Readings in Literature and Environment (3). Readings course selects an author, genre, or method as a means of deepening awareness of the politics, poetics, and paradoxes in the field of literature and environment.
687 Canadian Literature in English (3). A study of Canadian literature in English, with emphasis on writing since 1940, particularly the novels by, for example, Margaret Laurence, Robertson Davies, Mordecai Richler, and Margaret Atwood.
691H English Senior Honors Thesis, Part I (3). Restricted to senior honors candidates. First semester of senior honors thesis. Independent research under the direction of an English department faculty member.
692H English Senior Honors Thesis, Part II (3). Restricted to senior honors candidates. Second semester of senior honors thesis. Essay preparation under the direction of an English department faculty member.
693H Creative Writing Senior Honors Thesis, Part I (3). Prerequisite, ENGL 406. Restricted to senior honors candidates. The first half of a two-semester seminar. Each student begins a book of fiction (25,000 words) or poetry (1,000 lines). Extensive discussion of student work in class and in conferences.
694H Creative Writing Senior Honors Thesis, Part II (3). Prerequisites, ENGL 406 and 693H. Restricted to senior honors candidates. The second half of a two-semester seminar. Each student completes a book of fiction or poetry. Extensive discussion of student work in class and in conferences with instructor.