Courses

Course descriptions listed on this page for the Department of English are from the 2018-2019 College Catalog. For more information on the courses offered during the fall and spring semesters, please log in to the course schedule through STAR.

Introductory Courses

Upper-Division Courses

English 200 - Masterpieces of British Literature
Annually
A study of selected major works of British Literature. Non-majors only. One unit.

English 201 - Masterpieces of American Literature
Annually
A study of selected major works of American Literature. Non-majors only. One unit.

English 210 - Intermediate Academic Writing
Alternate years
Geared toward sophomores and juniors who aim to improve their academic writing. Focused on the student’s own writing with attention to developing arguments, critically engaging with sources, and improving organization and style. Students for whom English is a second language and students who come from a diverse or multicultural background are especially welcome. Students should expect frequent writing, revision, workshops, and conferences with the instructor. Class size limited to 12 students. One unit.

English 211 - Opposites Attract: Writing Science
Every third year
Focuses on the study and practice of various types of writing about scientific phenomena; considers fundamental questions about the relationship between scientific and humanistic modes of inquiry. One unit.

English 212 - Introduction to Screen Writing
Every third year
Covers the fundamentals of screenwriting (format, characterization, narrative arcs) through original creative work and close reading of example screenplays. Students will adapt a literary work to learn form, as well a draft, workshop, and revise their own scripts. Class size limited to 12. Permission of instructor required. One unit.

English 230 - Touchstones 1: Early British Literature
Fall, spring
This course examines the development of British literature from its beginnings to 1720, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Approved authors include Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Defoe. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics and before any 300 level offering. One unit.

English 231 - Touchstones 2A: American Literature
Fall, spring
This course examines the development of American literature from its beginnings to the present, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Approved authors include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Robert Frost, William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. One of two courses that can fulfill the English major Touchstones 2 requirement. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics and before any 300 level course. One unit.

English 232 - Touchstones 2B: British & Anglophone Literature
Fall, spring
This course examines the development of British literature from 1720 to the present, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Approved authors include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Woolf, Beckett and Ishiguro. One of two courses that fulfill the Touchstones 2 requirement. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics. One unit.

English 241 - Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Fall, spring
For students who have taken any introductory creative writing course. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of poems with emphasis on prosody, writing in closed and open forms, and writing various types of poems. Lecture and workshop format with more attention to student writing. Class size limited to 12. Prerequisite: English 141 or 142. One unit.

English 242 - Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Fall, spring
For students who have taken any introductory creative writing course. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of the short story with emphasis on refining the skills learned in the introductory course. Workshop format with lectures and readings. Class size limited to 12. Prerequisite: English 141 or 142. One unit.

English 243 - Intermediate Creative Non-fiction Workshop
Fall, spring
For students who have taken Introduction to Non-fiction. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of essays with emphasis on the structural composition of longer, more investigative pieces. Class size limited to 12. One unit.

English 312 - Medieval Romances
Every third year
A study of the flowering of the Romance genre in late medieval England. Exploration of Continental and Middle Eastern origins; focus on popular subject matters of Romance in England, including Robin Hood and King Arthur. One unit.

English 314 - Chaucer
Annually
A reading and critical discussion of the complete Middle English text of The Canterbury Tales and selected minor poems. One unit.

English 315 - Sex and Gender in the Middle Ages
Every third year
An exploration of gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages in popular works of Arthurian romance, warrior epic, and saint’s life, as well as in letters and trial records. The course also draws on classical, medieval and modern gender theory relevant to topics under discussion, such as virginity, homosexuality, chivalry, and romantic love. One unit.

English 320 - Age of Elizabeth
Every third year
An exploration of the “golden age” of English Renaissance literature during the reign of Elizabeth I, asking how texts interacted with the Queen, her court, the city of London, the English nation, and ultimately the New World. Readings include poetry, drama, and prose by Sidney, Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Harriot, Nashe, and Elizabeth herself. One unit.

English 324 - Milton
Alternate years
A study of Milton’s early poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, and selections from the prose. One unit.

English 329 - Shakespeare
Fall, spring
A one-semester survey of the major works of Shakespeare, focusing on individual texts as representative of the stages in his dramatic development, with some discussion of Shakespearean stage techniques. One section each for majors and non-majors. One unit.

English 330 - Shakespeare and Religion
Every third year
An examination of theological and philosophical issues in Shakespeare’s plays, with emphasis on tragedies. There will be additional readings from a number of sources, including the Bible, Luther, Montaigne, and major Shakespearean critics. One unit.

English 336 - 18th-Century Novel
Alternate years
A close examination of the novel as formal prose narrative. Novels by Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Smollet, the Gothic novelists, Sterne, and Austen are considered in detail with collateral readings. One unit.

English 337 - 18th-Century Poetry
Every third year
A study of the development of 18th-century English poetry from the canonical Augustans, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Anne Finch and Lady Montagu through the mid-century and later work of Gray, Collins, the Wartons, Smart, Cowper, Charlotte Smith, Joanna Baillie and Anna Seward, ending with Blake’s lyrics. One unit.

English 338 - 18th Century Satire
Every third year
The course will focus on a variety of 18th-century prose, dramatic, and verse satires, including works by Defoe, Swift, Pope, and others. Special attention will be given to modes of satire (burlesque, parody, travesty, mock epic, etc.) as well as to the objectives of satire (amendment, punishment). One unit.

English 339 - Restoration and 18th-Century Drama
Every third year
A survey of English drama from Dryden to Sheridan, including heroic drama, Restoration comedy, sentimental developments of the 18th century, and the re-emergence of laughing comedy. One unit.

English 344 - The Romantic Revolution
Alternate years
A study of the major writers of the Romantic movement – Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Keats, Hazlitt, Lamb, and DeQuincey. One unit.

English 345 - British Women Writers: 1780-1860
Every third year
A study of novels, poetry, and prose writings by women writing during and after the Romantic Movement — Frances Burney, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and others. One unit.

English 346 - Victorian Poetry
Every third year
A study of the British poetry and poetic theory composed during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). Authors treated may include Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. One unit.

English 347 - 19th-Century Novel
Every third year
A close examination of the British novel in the 19th century, including novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, and Hardy. One unit.

English 348 - Reality Hunger
Alternate years
A study of the evolution of contemporary American non-fiction narrative, which traces its roots to the 19th-century writing of Emerson and Thoreau. One unit.

English 349 - Mark Twain and Henry James
Alternate years
A comparative study of two 19th-century American masters, who revolutionized American writing and made modern fiction possible. Consideration given to works throughout each author’s career and to the ways in which the formal innovations of each can illuminate the other’s work. One unit.

English 350 - Early American Colonialism
Every third year
A study of the development of cultural contact between Native Americans and Europeans, the Puritan experiment, and the founding of the nation from 1600-1830. One unit.

English 352 - American Realism
Alternate years
A study of the rise of variant expressions of realism, its evolution into naturalism, the revival of local color and the flowering of regionalism, all in response to the changing American scene through immigration, segregation, business, technology and other forces between the Civil War and World War I. One unit.

English 353 - American Women Write the World
Every third year
A study of various genres in which 19th-century women engaged restrictive definitions of woman’s sphere. Authors treated may include Davis, Child, Stowe, Alcott, Dickinson, Phelps, and Wharton. One unit.

English 354 - Lincoln, Civil War, & Memory
Every third year
A survey of how the Civil War and Reconstruction periods have been described in American literature, from both the northern and southern perspectives. Possible works include selected Civil War poetry and speeches, Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. One unit.

English 355 - Poe’s Haunted Poetry
Every third year
This course examines Poe’s contribution as editor and critic; as pioneer of short fiction and science fiction; as inventor of the detective story; as author of strange and powerful poems; and as master of horror. It surveys recurrent topics such as doubleness, death, and insoluble mystery in Poe’s poems, essays, tales, and novel, within the broader context of 19th-century American culture. One unit.

English 357 - The United States of Poetry
Every third year
A close analysis of the development of American poetry from the early 20th century up to the contemporary period, including such poets as Pound, Eliot, Williams, Crane, Frost, Stevens, Bishop, and others. One unit.

English 358 - Tales of American Experiences
Alternate years
A study of the emergence of Modernism and other currents in the American novel from 1900 to the contemporary period. One unit.

English 362 - T. S. Eliot
Every third year
A close study of Eliot’s poetry, criticism, and drama, including unpublished and lesser-known writings. One unit.

English 363 - Joyce
Every third year
A close study of Joyce’s modernist epic novel Ulysses as an experimental narrative; preceded by a close reading of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Dubliners. One unit.

English 364 - Contemporary Irish Literature
Alternate years
A study of the prose, poetry, and drama produced in Northern Ireland and the Republic from the last quarter of the 20th century to the present. Writers studied include Boland, Doyle, Friel, Heaney, and Ni Dhomhnaill as well as those less familiar to American readers, and readings are explored in light of relevant contemporary cultural concerns such as sectarianism and secularization, globalization, gender and race, the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, and post-colonial identity, among others. One unit.

English 365 - Modern British Poetry
Every third year
A study of the major British poets in the 20th century, including Hardy, the Georgians, the Imagists, Lawrence, Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and Dylan Thomas. One unit.

English 366 - Modern British Novel
Alternate years
A study of developments in the British novel from 1900-1950, with an emphasis on Modernist texts, through an examination of works by novelists such as Forster, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Rhys, Greene, and Waugh. One unit.

English 368 - African-American Literature
Annually
A survey of the literary tradition from slave narratives to contemporary writing by authors of African and African-American descent, with emphasis on the tradition’s oral beginnings and the influence of the vernacular on the written literature. One unit.

English 369 - Modern Drama
Every third year
A study of developments in drama from 1890 to 1960 in England, America, and on the Continent through an examination of selected works of such playwrights as Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Pirandello, O’Neill, Brecht, Williams, and Beckett. One unit.

English 371 - Solving Sinister Mysteries
Every third year
A study of detective fiction from its 19th-century beginnings (Poe, Doyle) to the British Golden Age (Christie, Sayers), and recent metaphysical parodies of the genre (Pynchon, Auster). One unit.

English 372 - Contemporary African-American Literature and Culture
Alternate years
An investigation of literature by African-American authors dating from the 1970s to the present day in the genres of science fiction/fantasy, mystery, memoir, novels exploring gender and sexuality, and cultural theory, with emphasis on the issues of visibility and invisibility as well as the theme of the American Dream. One unit.

English 373 - Chesterton and Catholic Modernity
Every third year
A study of G.K. Chesterton as a novelist and essaying, in relation to other modern thinkers and writers, including Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Conrad, Walter Pater, Leo Tolstoy, and H.G. Wells. This course is especially recommended for students interested in the Catholic intellectual tradition. One unit.

English 375 - Asian American Literature
Every third year
A survey of representative Asian American literature from early twentieth century immigrant narratives to contemporary writings. Examines Asian American literary production and its main literary themes. One unit.

English 376 - Postmodern British Novel
Every third year
A study of the rise and development of the “postmodern” novel in Britain from the late 1960’s to the present, including works by Rhys, Fowles, Lodge, Rushdie, Weldon, Winterson, Amis, and Barnes. Topics to be discussed include: postmodernism, historicity, post-colonialism, pop culture, and constructions of race/gender/sexuality. One unit.

English 378 - 21st-Century Literature
Every third year
Explores award-winning British and American literature of the new millennium in an attempt to “take the pulse” of what’s going on in our most contemporary literature. Texts are read in the contexts of late 20th-century literary and theoretical movements such as: postmodernism, post-colonialism, gender studies, and multiculturalism. One unit.

English 381 - Rhetoric
Annually
A consideration of rhetorical theory in the classical texts of Plato and Aristotle, an analysis of some famous examples of persuasive eloquence, and the student’s own exercise of persuasive speech on subjects of public concern. One unit.

English 382 - Queer Theory
Every third year
Built upon but departing from the identity-based approach of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Studies, Queer Theory critically investigates cultural normativities related to sexuality, sex, and gender. This highly theoretical course introduces students to the foundational thinkers of the field, including Foucault, Sedgwick, and Butler. Readings will also include literary works that enact queer theory. One unit.

English 383 - Feminist Literary Theory
Every third year
An examination of major directions in 20th-century feminist literary theory, with study of works by writers such as Charlotte Bronte, Chopin, Gilman, Woolf, Atwood, and Morrison. Theory may address such issues as gendered reading and writing, representation of the body and sexuality, gender/race/class, feminism and ideology. One unit.

English 384 - Literary Theory
Every third year
A study of the aims and procedures of literary criticism and of representative approaches, both ancient and modern. Selected readings from influential critics from Plato and Aristotle to the late 20th century, with application to literary works. One unit.

English 385 - Contemporary Literary Theory
Every third year
An introduction to some of the major positions in modern and contemporary literary criticism: the “old” and “new” historicisms, formalism, reader-response criticism, structuralism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, critique of ideology, and cultural studies. Seeks to clarify literary criticism’s place among the contemporary disciplines. One unit.

English 387 - Composition Theory and Pedagogy
Annually
An investigation of how people learn to write, and how they can be helped to write better. Topics include individual composing processes, academic discourse constraints, and cultural influences on writing. This by-permission course is required for all students who wish to become peer tutors in the Holy Cross Writer’s Workshop. One unit.

English 399 - Stranger Things: Gothic Old & New
N/A
Frankenstein turns 200 this Fall. And yet the popularity of Netflix's recent Stranger Things series reaffirms the endurance of gothic as a relevant story form. This course will trace a genealogy of gothic tales from novels to poems to plays to films to serial television. Much of our attention will be devoted to the 18th- and 19th-Century gothic literary tradition in Britain, including authors such as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Christina Rossetti, and Bram Stoker. As we move into the 20th Century we will contend with the question of film, considering why early filmmakers were so fascinated by gothic stories, especially Dracula. We will also explore how American authors engaged and adopted gothic forms to suit their own aims. Our readings will provide a basis for rigorous examination of current popular versions of the gothic tale, culminating in an exploration of Stranger Things seasons 1 and 2. Fulfills Group B (19th Century) and Group D (Theories & Methodologies).
Class Notes:
Enrollment is limited to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students.
Exams and Assignments:
Final exam

English 399 - Renaissance Marvels & Monsters
N/A
In this course we will explore the literature of Renaissance England through its fascination with romance. Knights, dragons, magic, adventure, fair queens and foul seductresses, even a werewolf – all fill the pages, stages, and entertainments of the day. The course will consider how such excesses came to have value in an age that privileged classical learning and Reformed faith. We begin by considering poetic responses to the Protestant Reformation in such works as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and the first book of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, tracing how romance elements came to serve higher literary aims. Extravagant performances brought the realm of romance to life at court. We will think about what happens when the language of romance becomes the language of politics and power relations in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. In travel narratives, period writers transposed marvels and monsters into stories of modern ventures, both fictional, like Thomas Nashe's picaresque tale of The Unfortunate Traveller, and factual, like Thomas Harriot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. We will close with Shakespeare's version in The Tempest, his last romance and a test of the genre's limits. Fulfills Group A: Pre-1800.
Class Notes:
Enrollment is limited to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students.
Exams and Assignments:
Final exam

English 399 - Special Topics in English
Fall, spring
The study of a special problem or topic in literature or language, or a body of literature outside present course listings. Representative examples include: Renaissance Love Lyric, Arthurian Tradition, Contemporary Women Writers, Renaissance Women Writers, 19th-century Novel & Crime, Frost/Stevens. One unit.

English 399 - Irish Literary Activism
N/A
Irish Literary Activism explores how literature and writers act as effective agents of social and political change. Using modern and contemporary Ireland as a case study, the course looks to writers who have influenced culture in real and meaningful ways. We start by studying the early twentieth-century Irish Literary Revival, thinking about Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats, J.M Synge, and others who imagined poetry and drama might help the Irish obtain political independence. Their ideas worked: books and plays and other cultural objects and practices really did inspire the Irish to fight for and ultimately gain their freedom from England. Since independence in 1921, Irish writers have continued to intervene effectively in public culture to make us think harder about terrorism, clerical abuses, financial crimes, feminism, marriage equality, and abortion, among other momentous social concerns. By looking at new theoretical work on literary activism in tandem with riveting texts from all literary genres, this course will study texts and aesthetic practices that have meaningfully influenced Irish culture by asking citizens to think critically about "real life."
Class Notes:
Enrollment is limited to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students.

English 399 - Theories of English Language & Literacy
N/A
This course provides an overview of the study of the English language as it developed from Old English to Middle, Early Modern, and into contemporary American English. While tracing this history, we discuss the shift from oral (spoken) to literate (written) language/culture, examine key literary texts of each era, and explore the effects literacy has on English speakers/writers in regard to various social issues including class, race, regionalism, and gender. Course work includes exams and a research project. The course fulfills Group D-Theories and Methodologies for the major and additionally can be used to fulfill the Group A (Pre-1800) requirement if a student chooses a research project topic focused on pre-1800 material. Counts toward the Rhetoric & Composition minor.
Class Notes:
Enrollment is limited to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students.
Exams and Assignments:
Final exam

Advanced Courses

English 400 - Tutorials and Independent Study Projects
Fall, spring
Permission of the instructor and/or the department chair ordinarily required for such courses. One unit

English 401, 405 - Seminars
Annually
Advanced seminars are classes that offer the student an opportunity to pursue an ambitious independent project and to take more responsibility for class experience. Recent seminars have included: Global Modernisms, American Historical Romance, Transgender Memoir, Catholicism in Irish Literature, Dickens, Medieval Drama, Tolkien, Jane Austen, Nineteenth-Century Activist Rhetoric, Modernist Afterlives, The Brontes, and Shakespeare's Comedies. One unit each semester.

English 407, 408 - English Honors Thesis
Annually
Candidates selected from invited applicants to the English Honors Committee. Two semesters credit, granted at end of second semester. One unit each semester.

English 409 - English Honors Colloquium
Fall, spring
English Honors thesis students and College Honors English thesis students. One-half credit, granted at end of second semester.