Please see the University Catalog for official descriptions.
ENGL 1010
A composition course emphasizing expository writing and close, analytical reading. A grade of C or better is required to meet the W1 requirement. Students may not have credit in both ENGL 1010 and ENGL 1210 or Honors English 1020.
ENGL 2005: Writing in Technology & the Sciences
Small
This COM2 course develops writing styles specifically suited to technological and scientific fields of study. In particular, we’ll focus on translating technical information for a variety of audiences, best practices for working in teams, techniques for data visualization, and delivery of oral presentations (for example, poster presentations). The class is designed to be hands-on and activity-based, so consistent attendance and participation will be important. Prerequisite: successful completion of COM1
ENGL 2020-40: Literature, Media, and Culture: American Sport
Bergstraesser
In this asynchronous online course, you will dive into American sport through the study of literature and different types of media (including film and art). You will acquire the tools for understanding, appreciating, and writing about sports—and get ready to share (through online discussions and essays) your own personal experiences in sport as well. By exploring a variety of authors and media, we will investigate the many ways sports are a part of our culture and lives. Online discussion, reading, and writing are equally important in this class, and you will hone your skills in each area by the end of the semester. This course fulfills your COM2 University Studies requirement. I will be offering one section of this course: ENGL 2020-40.
2020-41: Literature, Media, and Culture
Pexton
From Beowulf to World War Z, Hollywood continues to mine literature and culture for its audience. This tradition dates back from the very beginnings of horror cinema to the present–with F.W. Murnau’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula into one of the first silent films, Nosferatu, to the many remakes throughout the decades, ending in television shows like True Blood. In this class, we will explore what happens in this shift from written word to big screen, through the lens of the horror story. What do the additions and deletions of plot points, characters, and other “integral” aspects of a text mean for the stories that get told about a culture?
2025: Intro to English Studies
Fenton and Drummond
If you Google “Jokes for English majors,” you’ll get 75,000 results in 0.63 seconds. Most of these are based on grammatical errors, bad puns, and esoteric knowledge about famous authors such as Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway. But all joking aside, what does it mean to be an English major in 2022? What, exactly, do English majors study these days? What skills do you need to succeed as an English major? And, finally, what can you do with an English major after you graduate from UW? These are some of the many questions we will explore in this class. From Shakespeare's plays to poetry slams, from Dungeons and Dragons to Dune, from Taylor Swift to Kendrick Lamar, we will analyze and interpret the texts that both reflect and constitute our cultural landscape.
English 2025 is the gateway course to the English major. It is a prerequisite for upper-division study in the department.
2350: Introduction to African American Literature
Henkel
The African American experience, with roots in Africa, the international slave trade, and throughout the western hemisphere, was forged through forced migration, the mixing of diverse peoples, and the struggles against slavery and for freedom. The people of African descent who were brought to the United States created a rich literature, built through their own unique traditions, language, rituals, symbols, and experiences. The history they built did not always come about through circumstances of their own making, but the culture that came from that history made a profound impact on their communities, the nation, and the world.
This course is an introduction to African American literature and culture, with an emphasis on the voices and language used by Black people. The course is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to give a sample, which can be a guide to further study. The course is arranged chronologically, and intended to orient students to some of the major themes of the African American experience, including migration and mixing; slavery and freedom; labor and culture; and history and the continuing efforts to develop African American identities. The class is an intensive experience in reading and discussion; written and oral assignments will assess reading comprehension and be a guide to discovering ideas for class conversation. The goals of the course are to give students a broad overview of the African American literary tradition and to sharpen students’ writing and analytical skills. Texts may include Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”; Kyle Baker, Nat Turner; Frederick Douglass, Narrative; Ida B. Wells-Barnett, A Red Record; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Angela Davis, The Meaning of Freedom; and Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric.
ENGL 3000: Literary Theory
Anderson
An introduction to critical theory as a methodology within literary studies. The course covers major schools of theory and major figures within those schools. Students will read, discuss, and write about literary texts by placing them in dialogue with important works of both theory and literary criticism.
This is an introduction to some contemporary theories, which provoke new thinking about the ways in which we approach literature. We will read some primary theoretical texts, as well as some applications of theory. I am arranging the syllabus according to subjects in general terms: they overlap to a large degree. Students will present at least one theoretical text in class, e.g. Derrida, Marx. etc. This course in literary theory sums up some of the ideas you have seen in previous classes. We will use Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, King Lear, some John Donne poems (on course website ), and the film of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as examples of texts to think about the different theories we encounter. After this discussion of theories and texts, you will write a conference paper using theoretical and current critical materials. Students MUST buy the printed versions of the books.
Prerequisites: ENGL 2025 and junior standing.
ENGL 3010: Application to Rhetoric, Comp Ped & Prof
This course will focus on different ways of making knowledge in the broad discipline of writing studies, sampling methods from a variety of perspectives. We'll begin with a general introduction to "research" and its relation to theory, then we'll dig in to try three particular applications. Inspired by the study of rhetoric, we'll practice textual criticism, analyzing how persuasive power plays out via words and symbols. Next, we'll try out narrative methods which are often engaged in the study of composition and literacy. Finally, we'll learn about a form of inquiry used in technical communication: user experience studies. This class emphasizes hands-on practice as well as analysis of how data turns into knowledge (in other words, interpretive methods and writing styles). Students will complete the class with a solid introduction to methods, concepts, and theory emphasized across the discipline of writing studies, and will be prepared to design a thoughtful, well-crafted multimodal project. Pre-requisites include completion of English 2025 and at least junior standing.
ENGL 3500: 19th Century Literature: Romanticism
Marks
This course will study the great variety of works that come under the banner “Romanticism” like William Blake, Samuel Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Robinson, Joanna Baillie, Charlotte Smith, John Keats, and Mary and Percy Shelley, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Frederick Douglass. Assignments will include frequent reflections, presentations, exams, and essays. Authors and assignments might change.
ENGL 4010: Technical Writing in the Professions
Van Baalen-Wood
Enhances professional writing skills applicable to a variety of professions. Includes writing and communication that considers audience analysis and adaptation, information design and use of visuals, and a range of formats and genres. Emphasizes clarity and precision of language. May feature primary research and problem-based or service-learning projects. Prerequisites: WA and WB or COM1 and COM2; junior or senior standing.
ENGL 4040: Rhetoric, Media, and Culture
Drummond
What made Game of Thrones a worldwide phenomenon? How can Wicked still be popular after 19 years on Broadway? Why would Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett perform on the same stage? And why is Bodyworlds the most popular museum exhibit in history? Rhetoric, Media, and Culture will examine artifacts of popular culture (film, television, music, video games, comic books, etc.) as forms of persuasion. We’ll explore the choices authors, composers, curators and directors make to capture the attention – and the identity -- of millions of consumers. What cultural nerves do they touch? What techniques do they employ to do so? And what can we, as rhetoricians of our own careers and personae, learn from them?
ENGL 4067 (Race, Gender, Media & Rhetoric)
*There are graduate sections of this class in AAST 5067 and COJO 5067
This class encourages exploration of media (film, newspaper, radio, television, and social) through the lens of marginalized and disenfranchised groups. Media is one of the major institutions in the world that has the ability to persuade, and viewers often come to understand the world and their community through such mediated framing which can affect their attitudes, values, and beliefs. The goals of this course is to increase the understanding of and role media plays (past and present) in understanding framing of groups often left out of the center. You will be immersed in your own individual research and group projects where you will have a hands on opportunity to be creative. This class will challenge what you know and think about media and how you choose to interact with media in the future.
ENGL 4075: Writing for Non-Profits
In English 4075, students will read and learn about non-profit organizations and the
kinds of communication that enables them to function and pursue their missions. To
that end, we will seek to develop an understanding of nonprofit cultures and the stakes
that attend nonprofit work before turning our attention to some of the key rhetorical
genres that help organizations realize their goals (e.g., communicating mission, fundraising).
The course will be built, primarily, around a grant writing project designed to give
students an opportunity to practice the research and writing skills common to this
important genre; this project will involve engaging with a non-profit client organization.
Other projects will include a formal presentation and other informal presentations,
and, likely, rhetorical analysis essays, possibly a short ethnographic piece and/or
social media analysis, and shorter correspondence pieces.
ENGL 4640: Emerging Fields in Comics and Race
How often do you discover an artistic golden age only after it is long over? Right
now, a creative renaissance is occurring in a medium that had been mired in triviality
for the better part of a century. In the past 35 years, critics, artists, academics,
and mainstream culture have begun to recognize the growing artistic impact of comics,
comix, and graphic novels. From its infancy on the Sunday pages of the early 20th
century (with important historical predecessors), the comics medium has grown up through
its awkward (yet historically important) adolescence of superheroes, into a fully-fledged
adulthood that draws upon genres of novel-length fiction, fantasy, mythology, journalism,
history, and autobiography. This course will examine the rich offerings of comics
and graphic novels using race as their themes. We will study works ranging from the
superhero genre, Black Panther to the sober March, John Lewis’s personal recounting
of the Civil Rights Movement. Assignments include weekly reflections in response to
the readings, two exams, a group project, leading class discussion, and two longer
projects (which may be critical or creative), among others.
ENGL 4780: History of the English Language
Anderson
The History of the English Language is the study of English from its roots in Indo-European and Germanic languages to the varieties of Present Day English. I have divided the class into 2 broad elements (internal history, the pronunciation, sentence structure, and vocabulary), and external history (historical developments, such as the Viking invasions, the Norman conquest etc.) We begin with issues of sound and writing, and move from there to specific descriptions of the history of English. Methods of instruction will include in-class and out-of-class assignments responding to lecture, discussion, group work, and other activities.
Course outcomes:
By the end of term, students should be able to explain the characteristics of the English language during the various stages of its development, including the cultural and linguistic forces that shape English.
ENGL 4999: Senior Seminar (Rhetoric & Social Movements)
Patton
This course introduces students to scholarship on social movements, and it aims to do so from the perspective of movements themselves. Social movements occur when people take time away from their everyday lives to come together to make social change. We explore a variety of social movements over large spans of time, connecting them with 21st century issues; e.g., Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights Movements from the 1950s-1970s (Voting, Black Power, Chicano/a, AIM), LGBTQIA2S+ Movements, Standing Rock, Women Rights Movements and more. We will investigate when and how people band together to promote or resist social change through the counter-movements that often occur. We will also consider what it takes to make a movement successful and how and why movements fail. The course will address several key questions, including: Where do movements come from and who participates in them? What challenges do social movements face and what are the consequences—for individuals, institutions, and state policies? How are they shaped by their political, social, and cultural environment? Why, how, and to whom do social movements matter and more specifically, we will study various historical and contemporary social movements in the United States but also around the world. Furthermore, we will think and talk about how facts, concepts, and theories learned in such a class can help those who are interested in contributing to social change get involved in collective action, developing tools that can be useful within and outside of the classroom. You will have the opportunity to actively pursue your own scholarly endeavors as related to social movements.
ENGL 5010: Rhetoric & Composition: History, Theory, & Practice
Throughout this course, students read and write about language and writing instruction,
exploring the history behind best practices, controversies in the profession, and
intellectual traditions that inform writing program pedagogies. It examines the theories
that guide effective writing instruction, including classroom strategies to support
that instruction. The Summer 2023 version of the course introduces students to the
online graduate program in English; and the Fall 2023 on-campus version of the course
prepares graduate students to teach college composition and rhetoric at UW and beyond.
ENGL 5065-40 (Black American Rhetorics)
Patton
It is said that you can often judge a country by what it chooses to remember and erase. So, what does understanding Black American experiences mean for civil rights movements across the world, the U.S. as a diverse democratic republic, and why do we or should we care in 2023? To better understand U.S. history and where we are today, we must look to the past, by studying rhetoric through the eyes and experiences of Black American people beyond the narrow frames provided by media and politicians. We use rhetoric every day to persuade one another and it originates from the time of Ancient Africa and Ancient Greece. Rhetoric is the study and use of written, spoken and visual language. Rhetoric investigates how language is used to organize and maintain social groups, construct meanings and identities, coordinate behavior, mediate power, produce change, and create knowledge. Rhetoric is seen in art and graffiti, architecture, media, music lyrics, photography, poetry, protests, social justice movements, and speeches. Travel through time and see how voices so powerful led to a monumental Civil Rights Movement, changes in government, health, and business industry, and end in the present with the understanding of how Black people in the U.S. set the stage for a vision of change and inclusion through the power of speech that changed the world.
ENGL 5350: Contemporary Irish Literature
Obert
This course surveys Irish and Northern Irish literature (fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, and film) and criticism from 1960-present. We will begin by exploring Ireland’s struggle for self-definition mid-century, including its reckoning with its (relatively) recent independence from the UK, its engagement with its own postcoloniality, its place in relation to both tradition & modernity, its renewed relationship with the Catholic Church, and its indebtedness to/breaks from the earlier cultural nationalism of the Irish Literary Revival. We will then carry on to discuss present-day cultural concerns in the Irish Republic, including the role of the Irish language, issues of gender & sexuality in modern Ireland, the place of the border between Ireland & Northern Ireland in the Irish imagination, and the implications of the Celtic Tiger’s recent cycle of boom and bust. We will also spend a significant portion of the semester dealing with ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, examining how writers have responded to civil conflict, sectarian violence, and tentative peace.
5960: Thesis Research
This course aims to give second-year MA students a strong start on writing a thesis,
providing both intellectual scaffolding and community support for the project. Your
thesis is the culmination of your graduate work at UW: it is the expression of your
capacity for original research, your argumentative prowess, your organizational abilities,
and your professional development. It will help to propel you to success in a career
in the humanities, whether inside or outside academia. We devote a course to thesis
research because it is crucial to have guidance from both your professor and your
cohort as you undertake this important project.
In the course, we will consider how to make the most of your reading list exams; how to tackle a major project like the MA thesis, both conceptually and organizationally; how to develop, articulate, focus, write, and present a great idea; how to effectively participate in your field’s major conversations; how to contribute collegially to and gain from your intellectual community (the library, your colleagues, and your faculty); how to understand academia as a profession and English as a discipline; and how to build your career as you move forward (with a focus on applications to doctoral programs, conference-going, and publication, but also with attention to alternative/non-academic career possibilities).
By the end of the semester, you will have developed and planned your thesis project, devised a thesis proposal, submitted your first chapter to the class and to your MA committee chair, and presented your evolving work in conference format.