Catalog Course Descriptions
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Courses
Undergraduate
Close analysis of literary texts, including but not limited to poetry, fiction, and drama. Emphasizes reading and writing exercises to develop basic interpretive skills. Examines figurative language, central ideas, relationship between structure and meaning, narrative point of view. Limited to three attempts.
Studies literary texts within the framework of culture. Examines texts within such categories as history, gender, sexuality, religion, race, class, and nation. Notes: Builds on reading and writing skills taught in ENGH 101. May be repeated within the term.
Major works of Western literature in historical progression. Focuses on writers such as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Dante, Cervantes, Machiavelli, and Montaigne. Notes: All readings are in modern English. Courses build on reading and writing skills taught in ENGH 101. Limited to three attempts.
Major works of Western literature in historical progression. Covers writers such as Moliere, Mme. de Lafayette, Goethe, Ibsen, Flaubert, Dostoyevski, Tolstoy, Mann, Kafka, Borges, and Soyinka. All readngs are in modern English. Notes: Courses build on reading and writing skills taught in ENGH 101. Limited to three attempts.
Studies literature by topics, such as women in literature, science fiction, and literature of the avant garde. Notes: Topic varies. May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
Explores experiences of women as both authors and subjects of imaginative literature. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Introduces Middle English literature, with emphasis on the social, cultural, and political contexts that guided its production and preservation. Readings include selected English narrative, poetry, and drama written between 1300 and 1500, exclusive of Chaucer. Limited to three attempts.
Poetry and prose of early Renaissance in England. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces the works of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Studies a broad range of Shakespeare’s writings, including at least one comedy, one tragedy, and one history. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the works of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Studies select aspects of Shakespeare’s writing or critical issues surrounding it. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 9 credits.
Major dramas and dramatists of English Renaissance, such as Lyly, Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and Ford. Limited to three attempts.
English poetry and prose from 1603 to 1688, excluding Milton. Limited to three attempts.
English literature from late 17th century to mid-18th century. Includes Dryden, Rochester, Behn, Defoe, Swift, Pope, and Montagu. Limited to three attempts.
English literature of later 18th century, time of American and French Revolutions, including new developments in novel, drama, biography, and poetry. Includes Johnson, Boswell, Blake, Goldsmith, Sterne, Gray, Cowper, Burney, Godwin, and Wollstonecraft. Limited to three attempts.
Restoration comedy of manners, sentimental comedy, and neoclassical and bourgeois tragedy. Theories of drama and conventions of staging. Includes writers such as Wycherley, Behn, Congreve, and Cowley. Limited to three attempts.
English novel from its beginnings through turn of 19th century. Covers works by Behn, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Smollett, and Austen. Limited to three attempts.
Works of major poets of Romantic period: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Limited to three attempts.
Poetry and nonfiction prose by such authors as Carlyle, Arnold, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Ruskin, Mill, and Wilde. Limited to three attempts.
Works by Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot, Trollope, and Hardy. Limited to three attempts.
Emphasizes Hardy, Yeats, Lawrence, Graves, Auden, Thomas, and Hughes. Fiction works employing poetic techniques, such as Joyce's Ulysses, may also be studied. Limited to three attempts.
Works by Conrad, Forster, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Greene, Lessing, Spark, and Fowles. Limited to three attempts.
English or Irish drama from Yeats to the present. Plays by authors such as Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Osborne, Wesker, Pinter, Friel, Churchill, and Gems. Limited to three attempts.
Works of first 200 years of American literature, including Edwards, Franklin, Irving, Cooper, and Bryant. Limited to three attempts.
Major writers of American Renaissance (1830-1865), with emphasis on Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Poe, Stowe, Douglass, and Dickinson. Limited to three attempts.
Major American novels of the pre-World War I period with emphasis on Brown, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Howells, James, Crane, Dreiser, Norris, and others. Limited to three attempts.
Works by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Wolfe, Bellow, and Nabokov. Limited to three attempts.
American drama of 20th century, with special attention to playwrights such as Glaspell, O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Fornes, and Albee. Limited to three attempts.
Emphasizes work of Robinson, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Pound, Crane, Eliot, and Lowell. May include work of fiction employing poetic techniques, such as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury . Limited to three attempts.
Concentrating on such poets as Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Lucy Terry, and George Moses Horton, examines significant African American literary, social, and political texts produced through 1865. Special attention to narrative accounts of enslavement and freedom by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Olaudah Equiano; political writings and orations of David Walker and Sojourner Truth; fiction of Harriet Wilson and William Wells Brown; and nonwritten cultural artifacts such as slave songs and spirituals. Limited to three attempts.
Emphasizes several major writers from Reconstruction to beginning of 20th century, concluding with W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk . Concentrating on evolution of African American fiction and poetry as well as political and social discourses on "race," explores how authors such as Frances E.W. Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Booker T. Washington, and DuBois shaped the foundation for 20th-century African American literary art and aesthetics. Limited to three attempts.
Focusing on fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography, explores evolution of African American literature and aesthetics and major social, cultural, and historical movements such as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and emergence of black naturalism, realism, and modernism in the 1930s-40s. Major authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Margaret Walker, Chester Himes, Richard Wright, and Ann Petry. Limited to three attempts.
Encompassing array of genres and forms, examines black writing from mid-20th century to present. Engages textual, critical, political, and theoretical issues related to cardinal literary movements, such as Black Arts Movement of 1960s and Third Renaissance of 1980s-90s. Examines how musical forms such as blues, jazz, and rap shaped literary production. Major authors include Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines, Gloria Naylor, August Wilson, and Toni Morrison. Limited to three attempts.
Studies particular ethnic American literatures. Focuses on literatures such as Asian American, Native American, Latino/a, Arab American, or Jewish American. Notes: May be repeated when topic (expressed by course subtitle and content) is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
American short story writers and novelists from World War II to present, including Mailer, Barth, Cheever, Oates, Gass, Beattie, Updike, and Morrison. Limited to three attempts.
Major American poets from World War II to present, emphasizing Roethke, Brooks, Rich, Dickey, Lowell, Ammons, Kizer, Sexton, Clifton, Plath, and Piercy. Limited to three attempts.
Selected European novels in translation. Focuses on continental novel from 18th century to end of 19th century. Includes works of Balzac, Goethe, Gogol, Stendhal, Turgenev, Flaubert, Dostoievski, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Limited to three attempts.
Offered in cooperation with the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Focuses on continental novel from beginning of 20th century to present. Includes Proust, Mann, Gide, Kafka, Yourcenar, Beauvoir, Calvino, and Garcia Marquez. Attention to influence of this literature on novel in English. Limited to three attempts.
Studies two cultures other than contemporary British or American culture through exploration of several textual forms such as written literature, oral literature, film, folklore, or popular culture. Specific cultures vary, but at least one is non- Western. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree.
Examines history and current status of conceptions of world literature, considering such topics as non-European influences on Western literature, shifting horizons of comparative literature, rise of postcolonial literature, place of translation, and role of international institutions such as UNESCO and the Nobel Prize. Focuses on degree to which these initiatives have been successful in promoting global understanding of literary production. Limited to three attempts.
Study of selected topics, periods, genres, or authors in literature written in English, originating in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Asia, or Africa, for example. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Representative plays of most influential European and American dramatists, with emphasis on dramatic styles such as realism, expressionism, epic, and existentialism. Studies Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Brecht, and Beckett. Limited to three attempts.
Studies selected approach to literary criticism, as announced, with exercises in critical analysis. Includes new criticism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term.
Theory and practice of such modes as tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, romance, and satire, considered in separate semesters and drawn from variety of periods ranging from biblical times to present, with examples from drama, poetry, and fiction. Notes: May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Studies specific topic or theme in popular literature. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Studies selected topics, genres, themes or authors in medieval or Renaissance literature and culture. Notes: May be taken for credit by English or history majors. Specific topic may vary. Primary emphasis is literary or historical, depending on discipline of instructor. May consider relevant material from philosophy, theology, and art. May be repeated when topic is different. Equivalent to FRLN 431.
Major works of Chaucer, with emphasis on The Canterbury Tales . Limited to three attempts.
Milton's major poetic works, with emphasis on Paradise Lost . Limited to three attempts.
In-depth study of selected period of British literature. In addition to literary examples, materials may be chosen from art, philosophy, or popular culture of the time. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Study of one or two major figures in British literature. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Study of one or two major figures in American literature. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
In-depth study of selected period of American literature. In addition to literary examples, materials may be chosen from art, philosophy, or popular culture of time. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Major works of science fiction in terms of mode, themes, and narrative techniques, especially role of hypothesis in science fiction. Focuses on novels, short stories from early 19th century to present. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the history and criticism of children's literature and the strategies used by authors of children's literature to address their audience. Selected readings range from Puritan to contemporary writing for children, as well as influential works in educational philosophy, such as those by Locke and Rousseau. Limited to three attempts.
Study of selected topics, periods, or authors. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Study of selected topics, periods, or poets. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Studies selected topics, periods, or playwrights. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Special studies in literary nonfiction by topic, such as the personal essay, New Journalism, the "nonfiction novel," the memoir, or historical traditions of literary nonfiction. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Topic-based course in research methods. Students conduct advanced research in literary studies using traditional and digital research tools and approaches. Notes: May be repeated when the topic is different. May be repeated within the degree.
Studies selected topics, genres, themes or authors in medieval or Renaissance literature and culture. Notes: May be taken for credit by English or history majors. Specific topic may vary. Primary emphasis is literary or historical, depending on discipline of instructor. May consider relevant material from philosophy, theology, and art. May be repeated when topic is different. Equivalent to FRLN 431.
Graduate
Advanced survey of selected genres, periods, areas, styles, and theoretical issues in literature. Notes: Baccalaureate degree highly recommended. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Intensive study of topics involving literary or other texts such as film, television, opera, and folklore. Notes: May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.
Introduction to selected critical theories pertinent to textual analysis. May not be repeated for credit.
Methods of teaching literature. Includes study of methods of literary analysis, and ways of developing student responses to literature, with some classroom practice. Notes: Does not satisfy Virginia certification requirement in diagnostic or developmental reading. May not be repeated for credit.
Intensive study of a selected period, movement, or genre in British or world Anglophone literature. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 24 credits.
Intensive study of a selected period, movement, or genre in American literature. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 24 credits.
Intensive study using research methods associated with specific topics, archives, or databases. Notes: Topics vary. May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Intensive study of a period in African-American literature between 1800 and present with focus to be determined by instructor. Considers different genres including autobiography, fiction, drama, poetry, essays, and oral artifacts such as slave songs, spirituals, and hip-hop. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Examines various cultural texts such as literature, drama, film, and folklore in terms of transnational circulation or production and reception in locations around the world other than Britain and United States. Engages with issues arising from globalization of English and interplay of global cultures. Notes: Texts studied in English or English translation. May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Presents historically based introduction to major debates within feminist theory and criticism. Stressing gender in literature and its interpretation, explores diverse collection of feminist interpretive practices. May not be repeated for credit.
Advanced introduction to theoretical practice known as cultural studies, with attention to role in textual studies. Part of interdisciplinary cultural studies PhD and MA in English programs. May not be repeated for credit.
Content varies. Notes: May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.