English (ENGL) | Academic Catalog

ENGL 1198 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 1199 Independent Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 1998 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 1999 Independent Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 2000 Disciplinary Research: The Literary Life (4 semester hours)

An introduction to the field of English that focuses on research methods and critical analysis of literary texts in which students learn to read, write, and research for the English major. The course instructs students in the tools, data sets, search strategies, reading methods, and disposition literary scholars use to develop and answer research questions. Students will develop transferable research, reading, analytical, and composing skills.

Open to English majors and minors.
Lower-division major requirement: Disciplinary Research.

ENGL 2105 Creative Writing for Non-Majors (4 semester hours)

A genre-based writing workshop (fiction, poetry, and drama).

University Core fulfilled: Explorations: Creative Experience.

ENGL 2107 Introduction to Poetry (4 semester hours)

A course designed to develop an appreciation of fiction through critical analysis and creative writing.

University Core fulfilled: Explorations: Creative Experience.

ENGL 2108 Introduction to Fiction (4 semester hours)

A course designed to develop an appreciation of fiction through critical analysis and creative writing.

University Core fulfilled: Explorations: Creative Experience.

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 2109 Introduction to Drama (4 semester hours)

A course designed to develop an appreciation for drama through critical analysis and creative writing.

University Core fulfilled: Explorations: Creative Experience.

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 2122 Creativity through Constraints (4 semester hours)

A study of creative and critical texts on constraint-based writing as well as a workshop in writing texts under constraints.

Upper-division major requirement: Creative Artistry.
University Core fulfilled: Explorations: Creative Experience.
This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 2300 History of Literature, Media, and Culture (4 semester hours)

Courses that study the relationship between history and literature, media, and/or culture through texts from particular historical periods.

Open to English majors and minors and Screenwriting majors.

ENGL 2400 Reading and Writing Genres (4 semester hours)

English majors/minors and Screenwriting majors only.

ENGL 2500 Theory, Power, and Rhetoric (4 semester hours)

An introduction to key concepts within literary, rhetorical, and cultural theory that examine power and empowerment in the context of literature, culture, and media.

English majors/minors and Screenwriting majors only.

ENGL 2998 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 2999 Independent Studies (1-4 semester hours)

ENGL 3100 Pre-1800 Literature (4 semester hours)

Courses that focus on literature from the third through the eighteenth century C.E.
Junior or senior standing required.
Upper division major requirement: Pre-1800 Literature.
Area may be repeated up to 4 times with different subtitles.

ENGL 3101 Medieval Romance (4 semester hours)

This course will investigate the largest body of fiction to be produced in English before
the rise of the novel.

ENGL 3102 Shakespeare's Power Plays (4 semester hours)

How is drama political, and how do plays reveal the workings of power and authority? This course will explore these questions and others through the study of Shakespeare’s plays.

ENGL 3103 Saints, Fiends, and Virgin Queens (4 semester hours)

Devils and werewolves, saints who walled themselves inside churches, and a Queen who never married: England in the pivotal years from 1450-1650 saw upheaval, radical transformation, and imaginative anomalies. This course covers 200 years of transition from the English Middle Ages to the early modern.

ENGL 3104 Monsters, Heretics, and Poets (4 semester hours)

This course examines the constructions of otherness in medieval theological and English literature.

ENGL 3105 Crisis and Criticism: Ecological Approaches to Early Literature (4 semester hours)

This course asks what it means to engage in literary study in an age of environmental crisis, with a focus on the first millennium of writing in English (8th-17th centuries).

ENGL 3106 Crusaders and Their Critics (4 semester hours)

An examination of literature used not only to promote the idea and practice of crusade in the Middle Ages (as in so-called "chivalric romances") but also to criticize and condemn it (as in some works by Chaucer and state-declared heretics).

ENGL 3198 Special Studies in Pre-1800 Literature (4 semester hours)

A course focused on pre-1800 literature

ENGL 3199 Independent Study in Pre-1800 (4 semester hours)

An independent study in pre-1800 literature

ENGL 3600 Race, Intersectionality, and Power (4 semester hours)

Courses that challenge racism in the contemporary U.S. through the study of literature. Within this context, participants study literatures and audio-visual media that counter white supremacy and explore other racial formations and imaginaries. They also explore other literatures that embody resistance to and protest against racial oppression; that challenge religious persecution and its racialization; and that explore how gender, class, sexuality, and other social formations intersect with race.

Juniors and seniors only.
Upper-division major requirement: Race, Intersectionality, and Power.
Area may be repeated up to 4 times with different subtitles.

ENGL 3601 Studies in World Literature (4 semester hours)

A study of literature(s) written outside the United States and Britain.

ENGL 3602 Into the Desert (4 semester hours)

This interdisciplinary course encourages students to reflect on the meaning of the desert as it has been conceived in the literatures of ancient Christian monasticism and contemporary contemplative practice; through the art, literature and politics of the American West and Borderlands; and as a site of ecological sublimity, complexity, and precarity.

ENGL 3603 Race and Ethnicity in Journalism (4 semester hours)

This course is offered to Journalism and English majors and minors. The course encourages
students to understand media production as an act of social justice that crosses disciplinary
boundaries of journalism, creative writing, literary studies, history, and rhetoric.

ENGL 3604 Prison Literature (4 semester hours)

Surveys literature written by political prisoners to examine its artistry as well as its attempt to intervene in a culture of incarceration.

ENGL 3605 Chicano/a Latino/a Literature (4 semester hours)

Examines Chicana/o-Latina/o literature, its criticism as well as its various artistic genres, introducing students to its aesthetic and social value/s

ENGL 3606 Languages of Liberation (4 semester hours)

This course will study how Pan-African literature, music, and art both rebelled against and re-enforced colonial ideals of race, class, and identity during Black Liberation Movements from the Cold War to present day.

ENGL 3607 American Gothic (4 semester hours)

This course will study how American gothic literature and film have constructed and challenged
racialized fear.

ENGL 3608 Contemporary Literatures of Hawaii (4 semester hours)

Using the contemporary literatures of Hawai‘i as an organizing framework, participants study how race—or a racial imaginary—was formed in Hawai‘i from the the time of Western contact to present (from European discovery, through Hawai’i’s sugar plantation era, through U.S. annexation/colonization, through World War II and statehood, and to present times of a globalized tourist economy.

ENGL 3609 Narratives of Migration (4 semester hours)

This course investigates human migration in the contexts and subjectivities of diasporic communities in the United States.

ENGL 3610 Asian American Literature (4 semester hours)

In this course, we will read a selection of contemporary fiction, poetry, essays, and journalism by Asian American writers.

ENGL 3611 African American Literature (4 semester hours)

A study of the major themes in selected works of African American literature; examination of their social, historical, cultural, and contemporary significance.

ENGL 3698 Special Studies in Race, Intersectionality, and Power (4 semester hours)

A course on topics related to Race, Intersectionality, and Power

ENGL 3699 Independent Study in Race, Intersectionality, and Power (4 semester hours)

An independent study on topics related to Race, Intersectionality, and Power

ENGL 3998 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

Juniors and seniors only.

ENGL 3999 Independent Studies (1-4 semester hours)

Juniors and seniors only.

ENGL 4500 Creative Artistry (4 semester hours)

Courses in which students develop intermediate and advanced artistry in one or more of the following genres: fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and drama.

Juniors and seniors only.
Upper division major requirement: Creative Artistry.
Area may be repeated up to 4 times with different subtitles.

ENGL 4501 Writing for Stage and Screen (4 semester hours)

This workshop is a masterclass in dramatic writing for students interested in telling stories for theater, film, and television. It introduces students to the craft of writing for stage and screen with an eye toward professional development.

ENGL 4502 Fiction Workshop (4 semester hours)

Exercises, experiments, and creative construction in classic narrative fiction styles.

ENGL 4503 Unconventional Fiction (4 semester hours)

This course offers an opportunity to break the so-called “rules” of writing fiction, focusing on experiments in form. We will explore unusual point of view (you/we), experiments in structure (fragment, reverse chronology), atypical modes of dialogue, flash fiction, micro-fiction, and more innovative forms that will help you push your writing further and develop a stronger understanding of the relationship between form and content.

ENGL 4504 AfroPresentism: African & Indigenous Eco-Poetry (4 semester hours)

This course will introduce students to the genre of eco-poetry through African and Indigenous lenses to better appreciate the role of eco-poetry in addressing climate crises.

ENGL 4505 On Movement: The Intersections of Dance and Verse (4 semester hours)

This course will introduce students to contemporary and ancient poetic forms that incorporate movement and dance such as Yoruba Masque theatre, Ghanaian dirge culture, as well as contemporary experimental spoken word.

ENGL 4506 Memoir and Personal Essay (4 semester hours)

This course will look at works of memoir and personal essay by people of color and members of other marginalized communities. We will address topics like colonization/decolonization, intergenerational and historical trauma, survivance, and the racial imaginary.

ENGL 4507 Speculative Fiction (4 semester hours)

This course, we will read and discuss published work from each of these genres, try out different forms of speculative fiction with in-class and at-home writing exercises, and engage in a full-class workshop for your own piece of speculative fiction.

ENGL 4508 Style in Writing (4 semester hours)

Style in Writing examines the problem of literary style in the 19th- 21st centuries from both fictional and theoretical perspectives. We will study a range of writers characterized by stylistic peculiarities and experimentation, who display a self-reflexive interest in investigating the nature of language.

ENGL 4509 Playwriting: One Acts (4 semester hours)

Writing monologues, ten-minute, and one-act scripts for the stage.

ENGL 4510 Writing and Place: Prose Workshop (4 semester hours)

Participants study diverse texts—social/cultural/political criticism, nature and scientific writing, fiction, film, memoir, creative non-fiction—that emerge from sense of place in its full diversity: the desert, urban neighborhoods, suburbia, the Great Plains, islands and atolls, landmasses of volcanic activity, gardens and garages, highways crisscrossing continents, and childhood neighborhoods.

ENGL 4598 Special Studies in Creative Artistry (4 semester hours)

A course exploring some aspect of Creative Artistry

ENGL 4599 Independent Study in Creative Artistry (4 semester hours)

An independent study exploring some aspect of creative artistry.

ENGL 4600 Electives: Topics in Lit (4 semester hours)

Topics in Literature and Language.

Upper division major requirement: Electives
Repeatable for credit with different subtitles up to 4 times.

ENGL 4601 Literature, Photography, and the Uncanny (4 semester hours)

A course exploring the complex interactions of literature, photography, and the uncanny.

ENGL 4602 Children's Literature (4 semester hours)

A study of children's literature and the critical discussions it raises across literary and educational studies. Open to Liberal Studies majors who are juniors or seniors.

ENGL 4603 Global Jewish Literature (4 semester hours)

This course introduces students to classic stories in the modern Jewish literary canon through close reading, reflection, discussion, interpretation, evaluation, comparison, and analysis, providing students with a conceptual framework for understanding and deriving aesthetic pleasure and cultural understanding from these vivid stories.

ENGL 4604 Banned Books (4 semester hours)

This course considers women’s rights literature from the long-19th century in its specific historical/cultural contexts.

ENGL 4605 At the Center of Controversy: Irish Drama (4 semester hours)

This course traces the development of Irish drama from 1897 to the present, in order to better understand the establishment, rise, and current status of one of the most important national dramatic traditions. We will read plays by Yeats, Gregory, John Millington Synge, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Marina Carr.

ENGL 4606 Imprisonment to Suffrage—Women's Rights Literature (4 semester hours)

ENGL 4607 Books on Film (4 semester hours)

This course examines select novels and short stories which have been made into a film. We will practice close readings of representative stories by writers from a variety of cultural and national backgrounds from the 20th to the 21st centuries.

ENGL 4608 Oscar Wilde (4 semester hours)

This course considers the literary career of Oscar Wilde in its various contexts—biographical, literary, and cultural, with particular emphasis on class, gender, and sexuality—in order to discern the importance of Wilde’s work in the literary canon.

ENGL 4609 Hemingway's Problems (4 semester hours)

In this course, we will study Hemingway and his time to understand why his writing and his characters became models for so many.

ENGL 4610 Holocaust in American Film and Literature (4 semester hours)

This class examines the ways in which the disciplines of film and literature shape American consciousness about the European catastrophe of the Holocaust. Key to these interpretations is the role of culture, art, and society.

University Core fulfilled: IINC Interdisciplinary Connections

ENGL 4611 Longing and Belonging: The Literatures of Israel (4 semester hours)

This course investigates modern representations in literature and film of longing for and belonging in the land of Israel.

ENGL 4612 Twentieth-Century Women's Writing (4 semester hours)

A study of literary and critical texts written by women in the 20th century.

ENGL 4613 American Literature, 1865-Present (4 semester hours)

A survey of American literature from 1865 to the present.

ENGL 4614 Reading "The Dead" (4 semester hours)

A semester-long exploration of the historical, cultural, and literary contexts that shape James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.”

ENGL 4615 Reading Methods (4 semester hours)

A survey of various methods of reading literary texts.

ENGL 4698 Special Studies in Elective Topics in Literature and Rhetoric (4 semester hours)

Special Studies that fulfills the Elective Topics in Literature and Rhetoric requirement

ENGL 4699 Independent Studies in Elective Topics in Literature and Rhetoric (4 semester hours)

An independent study that fulfills Elective Topics in Literature and Rhetoric.

ENGL 4998 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

Juniors and seniors only.

ENGL 5000 Seminars - Advanced Studies (3,4 semester hours)

Courses in a seminar format that are distinct from 2000, 3000 and 4000-level courses offering advanced proficiency in research and writing.

Junior or senior or M.A. candidate standing required.
Upper division major requirement: 5000-level seminar.
Area may be repeated up to 4 times with different subtitles.

ENGL 5001 Contemporary Rhetorical Theory (3,4 semester hours)

Textual analysis and production based on contemporary rhetorical theory.

ENGL 5002 Theory of Teaching Writing and Literature (3,4 semester hours)

A course for current and future teachers of composition designed to facilitate the application of theory to pedagogy.

ENGL 5003 Chaucer (3,4 semester hours)

The works of Chaucer, particularly The Canterbury Tales.

ENGL 5004 Archeology of the Gothic Book (3,4 semester hours)

This course will delve deep into the sciences, scholarly sub-disciplines, and related critical/theoretical arts used to facilitate the understanding of the physical books, manuscripts, scrolls, and other objects that preserved the first examples of literature in English produced between 500 and 1500 years ago.

Fulfills 5000-level seminar requirement.

ENGL 5005 Cultivating a Planetary Perspective (3,4 semester hours)

This course engages a range of materials from across the disciplines designed to cultivate a planetary perspective, an ecological awareness of the human species’ present situation, as well as its history and prospective futures.

Fulfills 5000-level seminar requirement.

ENGL 5006 Reading the Ocean (3,4 semester hours)

This class will delve into oceanic studies, emergent, multidisciplinary group research in literary studies, art, maritime history, geology, marine science, and geo-humanism that examines how Eurowestern representations of the ocean—whether as a benevolent or an adversarial entity—contributed to a broad public perception of the oceanic as Other-- sometimes alien, but always fundamentally different than the human.

ENGL 5007 Fugitive Music: The Poetics of Rhythm, Resistance, and Self-Revelation (3,4 semester hours)

This course delves into the hidden histories of black musical forms and explores how black music, poetry, and spirituality have been used to confront systems of anti-black oppression.

Fulfills 5000-level seminar requirement.

ENGL 5008 Black Women Writers (3,4 semester hours)

This course will cover a selection of fiction, poetry, essays, and critical theory by Black diasporic women writers.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5009 Frankenstein to AI (3,4 semester hours)

This course takes a deep dive into arguably the first novel expression of our fear and fascination with artificial intelligence—Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5010 Point of View (3,4 semester hours)

In this course, we will read and discuss published works of fiction that employ innovative uses of point of view, experiment with point of view with in-class and at-home writing exercises, and engage in a full-class workshop for a longer piece of your writing.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5011 Engaging LA and Latin America (3,4 semester hours)

This course reads the cities of Los Angeles and Mexico City through their literary and journalistic representations and engaged-learning activities, including a week-long BCLA Global Immersion experience in Mexico City. Critical frameworks include borderlands theory, liberation theology, spatial theory and post-colonial theory.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5012 Assemblage (3,4 semester hours)

This course examines Los Angeles Assemblage Art, literature, and film through the theoretical lens of assemblage.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5013 Survivalism in American Fiction and Film (3,4 semester hours)

This course will offer a theoretical, literary, and cultural history of survivalism in American culture, particularly literature and film, since the 1960s.

ENGL 5014 Literature and Food (3,4 semester hours)

Do you like to read? Do you like to eat? Do you like to read and eat? Combine two of the most
pleasurable forms of consumption in this course, where we will devour both works of literature and food. Through novels, cookbooks, memoirs, food criticism, poetry, and essays, we will discuss topics such as commensality, commodity fetishism, cultural capital, foodways, memory, and more.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5015 Invention of English (3,4 semester hours)

Using a variety of theoretical models—some modern and some written more than six
centuries ago—the course will examine the rise of the idea of English as a literary medium, beginning with the growing anti-Norman sentiment of the 12th century, and concentrating especially on the “English explosion” that occurred after the devastating 14th-century pandemic of the Black Death.

This course is not repeatable for credit.

ENGL 5016 First Novels (3,4 semester hours)

In this generative novel workshop, we will work toward writing a first novel together.

ENGL 5017 Jewish Literature and Faith Abroad (3,4 semester hours)

This annual summer course travels abroad to countries with a strong foundation of Jewish faith and culture, including a vibrant literary history.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.
Fulfills: IINC INT: Interdisciplinary Connections

ENGL 5018 Modern American Fiction (3,4 semester hours)

A semester-long study of representative modernist novelists.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5019 Literature of the Holocaust (3,4 semester hours)

A study of the literature of the Holocaust including fiction, poetry, drama, and film.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5020 American Naturalism (3,4 semester hours)

A semester-long study of representative writers of American naturalism.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5021 The Art of Rhetoric (3,4 semester hours)

A survey of rhetoric from the classical to the modern period.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5022 James Joyce and the Modern (3,4 semester hours)

A semester-long exploration of the work of James Joyce, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. We will focus on three key texts: Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses.

Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement.

ENGL 5023 Survey of Literary Criticism (3,4 semester hours)

The principles and practice of literary criticism from the Ancient Greeks to World War II.
Fulfills 5000-level Advanced Seminar requirement

ENGL 5025 A Course About Nothing (3,4 semester hours)

This course is about nothing. We will examine nothing from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, including literature, film, mathematics, philosophy, theology, and art.

ENGL 5098 Special Studies in Advanced Seminar (3,4 semester hours)

A special studies offered as an Advanced Seminar

ENGL 5099 Special Studies in an Advanced Seminar (3,4 semester hours)

An independent study offered as an Advanced Seminar

ENGL 5595 Capstone Seminar (4 semester hours)

A seminar in which students are supervised in developing a portfolio of work in their area of specialization.

Seniors only.
Fulfills Specialization course requirement.
This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 5998 Special Studies (1-4 semester hours)

Junior, senior, or M.A. candidate standing required.

ENGL 5999 Independent Studies (1-4 semester hours)

Junior, senior, or M.A. candidate standing required.

ENGL 6600 Critical Methodology (3 semester hours)

Prolegomena to Graduate Studies in English (must be completed in the first semester).

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 6601 Seminar in a Literary Period (3 semester hours)

Intensive study of a formative era in the history of English Literatures.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6602 Seminar in a Genre (3 semester hours)

Exploration of one of the types or categories into which literary works are conventionally grouped.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6603 Seminar in a Major Writer (3 semester hours)

Intensive study of an influential writer.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6604 Seminar Literary Theory (3 semester hours)

Exploration of theoretical approaches to literature and its production.

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 6605 Contemporary Critical Theory (3 semester hours)

Exploration of theoretical approaches to art, thought, and culture (must be completed in the first year).

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 6606 Seminar in Rhetoric (3 semester hours)

Intensive study of the arts of persuasion.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6607 Seminar in Composition Theory (3 semester hours)

Exploration of theoretical approaches to the disciplines of Rhetoric and Composition.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6608 Reading and Writing the Other (3 semester hours)

A hybrid reading and writing seminar that explores otherness and difference as an aesthetic, political, theoretical, and subjective experience.

This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 6610 Seminar in Creative Writing (3 semester hours)

Intensive practicum in Creative Writing.

This course is repeatable for degree credit up to two times provided new course material is covered and a new subtitle has been designated.

ENGL 6694 Capstone Portfolio (0 semester hours)

The capstone portfolio is a culminating project that requires students to work under the supervision of an advisor to create a critical or creative portfolio that highlights his/her research or creative interests.

Students should register in their final semester of coursework.
Credit/No Credit only.
This course may not be repeated for degree credit.

ENGL 6998 Special Studies (1-3 semester hours)

ENGL 6999 Independent Studies (0-3 semester hours)