English

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The English Department encourages the study of the historical and cultural contexts of literature and language, the aesthetic pleasures and values of texts and writing, and the variety of voices and experiences represented in the global literary tradition.  The department also believes that acquiring superior reading, writing, and research skills is essential to a liberal arts education. 

Within the department, students may pursue special interests in literature, creative writing, and journalism. The English major offers study in the areas of American, British, and world literature.  The creative writing major features course work in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and journalism.  It is designed for any students with a serious interest in writing, including those who wish to enter a Master of Fine Arts program.  Because of the overlap in required courses for the English and Creative Writing majors, students cannot double major in these areas. 

Outside the regular curriculum, the department allows students to hone and extend their rhetorical, analytical, and research skills through independent studies on topics of particular personal interest.  In addition, through internships with local businesses and agencies, through work on the student-run college newspaper and literary magazine, or through departmental research and employment opportunities, students can apply their skills (and develop new ones) in practical settings.  Interdisciplinary courses, off-campus programs, and work with professional writers enrich the curriculum.

English Major

Consists of 33 credits (excluding ENG 100, 101, 301, and JOU 301.1) to include: 

• At least one 200-level Topics in Literature course
• ENG 308 Origins & Traditions of the Literature of the United States
• ENG 309 Constructing World Literatures
• At least two Seminars in Literature from the ENG 380 series
• ENG 325  Introduction to Literary Theory & Criticism
• ENG 326 Author Course 
• ENG 498 Senior Thesis Seminar in Literature,
  
  AND

The Foreign Language Requirement

Students electing a major in English or Creative Writing can meet the Department’s foreign language requirement in one of two ways: 1) satisfactorily completing the second year of language study at the college level (or passing a second-year equivalency test), or 2) satisfactorily completing the first year at the college level (or passing a first-year equivalency test) in two different languages. If available, Latin or Greek may be used in the second option. The equivalency tests must be agreed upon by both the Modern Foreign Language and English departments.

English Teaching Certification

Students seeking certification as teachers of English develop a program in consultation with the faculty member in charge of secondary education as well as an English advisor. Students planning to teach are encouraged to take additional courses in English beyond the 33 credits required above. A carefully planned and executed program will give the prospective teacher a rich variety of theoretical and applied knowledge and skills helpful in  securing a teaching position.

Creative Writing Major

Consists of 33 credits (excluding ENG 100W, 101W, 301, and JOU 301.1) to include:

• One techniques course from
  • ENG 202 Techniques of Contemporary Poetry
  • ENG 203 Techniques of Contemporary Fiction
  • ENG 204 Techniques of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction
• Two writing workshops (only one of which may be Journalism) from
  • ENG 218 Poetry Writing Workshop I
  • ENG 219  Fiction Writing Workshop I
  • ENG 220  Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop I
  • JOU 200 Principles and Practices of Journalism
  • JOU 301.1 The Documentary
• One subsequent writing workshop from
  • ENG 318 Poetry Writing Workshop II
  • ENG 319 Fiction Writing Workshop II
  • ENG 320 Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop II
• One 200-level Topics in Literature course
• One Seminar in Literature from the ENG 380 series
• ENG 307 Origins & Traditions of English Literature
• ENG 308 Origins & Traditions of the Literature of the United States
• ENG 309 Constructing World Literatures
• ENG 325 Introduction to Literary Theory & Criticism
• ENG 496 Creative Writing Capstone Seminar. 

English Minor

Consists of 18 credits (excluding ENG 100, 101, 301, and JOU 301.1) to include:

• ENG 307
• ENG 308
• ENG 309
• ENG 325

Journalistic Writing Minor

Consists of 19 credits to include

• ENG 220
• JOU 200
• JOU 301.1
• JOU 497
• ART 123
• ART 130 or ART 363

Creative Writing Minor

Consists of 18 credits (excluding ENG 100, 101, 301 and JOU 301.01) to include

• two courses from
  • ENG  218
  • ENG  219
  • ENG  220
• one course from
  • ENG 318
  • ENG  319
  • ENG  320
• one techniques course from
  • ENG 202
  • ENG  203
  • ENG  204
• two courses from
  • ENG 307
  • ENG  308
  • ENG  309
  • ENG  325

Interdisciplinary (IND)

IND-310.1 Many Thousands Gone: The History, Literature & Politics of Slavery in the US South & the Caribbean 1.0 cr.

Fall 2003.  This course is a prerequisite for the winter session off-campus study course (IND 310.2) of the same name.  (LITERATURE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE)

IND-310.2 Many Thousands Gone: The History, Literature & Politics of Slavery in the US South & the Caribbean 5.0 cr.

Winter 2004. This course is designed to expose students from various disciplines to the literary, economic and political histories of slavery, particularly as it was practiced in the southern United States and in the Caribbean. The field experience portion of the course will take students through the American South and Barbados.  (LITERATURE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE)

Composition and Linguistics (ENG, WRI)

LOWER DIVISION

The First-year Book Program is an essential part of the First-Year-Experience.  This program is a component of all first-year writing courses that meet during the fall term--ENG 100, ENG 101, WRI 150--and attendance at the program's evening presentations is required.

ENG-100 Basic First Year Composition 3.0 cr.

Fall. Coreq.: HIS 101 or 102 or 103 or 105 or 106.  A course in the essential elements of critical thinking and rhetorical strategies necessary for effective college writing. The course emphasizes writing as process and focuses extensively on revision. A research paper, which involves library work and instruction in research techniques, is required. This course, followed by WRI 150, fulfills the First Year Writing requirement and provides more individualized instruction than the ENG 101 courses. Required of all students scoring at or below the 30th percentile in either column of the descriptive Test of Language Skills. Students enrolled in ENG 100, whose native language is English, are encouraged to enroll in STS 110, Effective Studying. Students whose native language is not English may be required to do work in English as a Second Language (MFL 101, 102) prior to enrolling in ENG 100.  All students enrolled in ENG 100 are required to have one hour of individual tutoring per week through the college Writing Center.  All first-year students are required to attend the evening programs.

ENG-101 Writing the First Year Experience 3.0 cr.

Fall, spring. Coreq.: HIS 101 or 102 or 103 or 105 or 106.  A course in the essential elements of critical thinking and rhetorical strategies necessary for effective college writing. The course emphasizes writing as process and focuses extensively on revision. Participation in the First Year Book Program is required.  All first-year students are required to attend the evening programs.

WRI-150 Finding a Voice 2.0 cr.

Fall, winter, spring. Prereq.: ENG 100 or placement. Six weeks. This course completes the writing segment of the First Year Experience. Students apply and practice the techniques of writing and the rhetorical skills acquired in ENG 100 or prior to admission through sustained intellectual inquiry.  All first-year students are required to attend the evening programs.

UPPER DIVISION

ENG-301 Advanced Writing 3.0 cr.

Fall, winter, spring. Prereq.: WRI 150 and junior standing. The study of modern forms of writing; course requires weekly writing assignments, totaling 50 to 60 pages of original work by the end of the term and develops lifetime writing skills. The course emphasizes writing as process and focuses extensively on revision.

ENG/MFL/EDS-446 Linguistics for Language Teachers 3.0 cr.

Spring. Alt. years. Not taught in 2004. Prereq.: junior or senior standing. A study of the central concepts of linguistic theory. Includes the theoretical areas of pragmatics, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology; and the applied areas of language variation, first language acquisition, second language acquisition, written language, and the neurology of language. Students will acquire the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as an essential tool for disciplined examination of linguistic phenomena. Issues of socio-linguistics will be addressed as students wrestle with the relationship between language, thought, and culture, and the nature of the cognitive and brain systems that relate to language learning, language teaching and language use.

Creative Writing (ENG)

LOWER DIVISION

ENG-202 Techniques of Contemporary Poetry 3.0 cr.

Fall. An investigation of traditional poetic meter and techniques of scansion and a survey of stanzaic forms exploited across the centuries, with attention to the diverse possibilities of form, rhythm, diction, subject matter, and voice available to poets writing today. Writers may include Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Wilbur, Pattiann Rogers, Thomas Lux, and Garrett Hongo.  (LITERATURE) 

ENG-203 Techniques of Contemporary Fiction 3.0 cr.

Fall. An examination of selected classic and contemporary narrative. Readings may include works by Angela Carter, Tobias Wolff, Tim O'Brien, Carolyn See, and Italo Calvino.  (LITERATURE) 

ENG-204 Techniques of Contemporary  Creative Nonfiction 3.0 cr.

Fall. An examination of the various forms, methods (including fieldwork), and subject matter of nature writing. Writers studied may include Diane Ackerman, Stephen Jay Gould, Barry Lopez, Gary Nabhan, and Terry Tempest Williams.  (LITERATURE) 

ENG-218 Poetry Writing Workshop I 3.0 cr.

Spring. An opportunity for students to read widely in and begin writing poetry.

ENG-219  Fiction Writing Workshop I 3.0 cr.

Spring. An opportunity for students to work in a variety of fictional forms.

ENG-220  Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop I 3.0 cr.

Spring. An opportunity for students to write creative nonfiction focused on natural history, nature, environment, conservation, science, medicine, landscape, or place.

UPPER DIVISION

ENG-318 Poetry Writing Workshop II 3.0 cr.

Spring. Prereq.: ENG 218 or permission. An opportunity for students to continue reading and writing poetry. Students are expected to demonstrate continued development as writers and to submit work for publication.

ENG-319  Fiction Writing Workshop II 3.0 cr.

Spring. Prereq.: permission. A continuation of ENG 219, intended primarily for students who have already taken that course. Students are expected to show evidence of continuing development as writers and to submit their work for publication.

ENG-320  Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop II 3.0 cr.

Spring. Prereq.: permission. A continuation of ENG 220 intended primarily for students who have already taken that course. Students are expected to show evidence of continuing development as natural history writers and to submit their work for publication.

Journalism (JOU)

LOWER DIVISION

JOU-200 Principles & Practices of Journalism 3.0 cr.

Fall. A study of news gathering and news writing, to include journalistic forms, diction, and conventions. Students will assist with the publication of The Coyote.

UPPER DIVISION

JOU-301.1 The Documentary 3.0 cr.

Spring. Practice in and critical analysis of documentary print journalism, documentary film and radio scripts, and text in conjunction with photography. The amount of writing expected is equivalent to that expected for ENG 301. 

JOU-497 Internship 1.0 to 3.0 cr.

Fall, winter, spring.  Prereq.: permission.  Individually arranged internship designed to provide practical experience in journalism.  (INDEPENDENT WORK)

Literature (ENG)

LOWER DIVISION

ENG-205.1 Uncharted Territories 3.0 cr.

(Same as BIO 205.1) Winter. Analysis of texts that both concern biology and literature and challenge existing literary/biological paradigms. Requires a reading and travel journal and a final comprehensive written project that reflect the ways in which the winter Sawtooth experience informs the assigned texts and vice versa. Assigned texts include works by Oliver Sacks, Peter Hoeg, Diane Ackerman, Loren Eiseley, John Horgan, and Michel Foucault. (LITERATURE ONLY)

ENG-294 Independent Study 1.0 to 3.0 cr.

Fall, winter, spring. Prereq.: permission. A special research project on a selected topic. This course will not fulfill the general graduation requirement for independent work. See independent study guidelines.

ENG-299T.4 Thief-Making and Thief-Taking 3.0 cr.

Winter.  Through an exploration of nineteenth century crime fiction and a few celebrated real criminal cases, this course will examine how criminals and their counterpart, the detective, were constructed in British culture.  Students will study both literary theories offering explanations for why mysteries are fun to read and consider how the nineteenth century fascination with crime and criminal investigation was shaped by preoccupations with men's and women's roles, class dynamics, and the tension between the didactic and entertainment functions of popular fiction.  Texts include Charles Dickens' Newgate novel, Oliver Twist; Wilkie Collins' sensation novel, Woman in White; selected short stories featuring the exploits of Sherlock Holmes and Loveday Brook (one of the first female detectives), and a late twentieth century mystery novel set in Victorian England.  (LITERATURE)

ENG-299T.7 Postmodern Memories & Seriously Twisted Storytelling 3.0 cr.

Spring.  This course is not about quiet remembrances of days past!  Instead, postmodern literature, with disruption of time and space; utterly irreverent concepts of authority and self; and complete disbelief in the veracity of any memory, creates new methods of representing the non-representational (i.e. memories of past, present, and the future).  The course will intersect with several movies.  Possible authors include Ondaatje, Ishiguro, Calvino, and Cortazar.  Possible movies include Memento, Prime Suspect, and Daughters of the Dust.  (LITERATURE)

ENG-299T.9 Visions of Environment 3.0 cr.

Spring 2004.  This course focuses on writers who have shaped thinking about the environment in the United States.  The course first examines the historical and philosophical bases for American conceptions of nature, and then analyzes literary treatments of concepts such as bioregionalism, wilderness, sense of place, and environmentalism.  Authors include Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and others.  (LITERATURE)

ENG-299T.13 The Russian Short Story 3cr.

We will read nineteenth and twentieth century examples of the Russian short story genre through a variety of historical and aesthetic lenses: stories that are categorized as fantastic, grotesque, realistic, romantic, and post-modernist.  Authors may include Gogol, Leskov, Remizov, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, Pelevin, Tolstaya, and Petroshevskaya. (LITERATURE)

ENG 299T.14 Weird Shakespeare 3.0 cr.

Winter. A study of the Shakespeare nobody told you about.  We will approach some of the underexposed plays and poems on their own terms, rather than ignoring them, dismissing them as failures, or treating them as background for better known plays.  Texts may range from the early Ovidian narratives Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, to the troubling plays of the middle period (like Troilus and Cressida, listed in different early versions as a comedy, a history, and a tragedy, or All's Well That Ends Well, one of the world's unhappiest comedies) to late experiments like the austere tragedy Coriolanus or the over-the-top Cymbeline. (LITERATURE)

ENG-299T.15 The Great War and Modern Literature 3cr.

World War I may well have been the most literary war in British history and permanently altered the landscape of British literature through its poetry and prose. This course will examine the war poets’ verse; soldiers’ and nurses’ memoirs; Virginia Woolf’s modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway; T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land; and Pat Barker’s recent fictional account of the relationship between a military psychiatrist and shell-shocked soldiers, Regeneration. (LITERATURE)

ENG 299T.16 Science Fiction 3.0cr

This course will serve as both an introduction to the literary genre of science fiction and as an introduction to the strategies and techniques of literary analysis. We will focus especially on how writers use this genre of the fantastic to develop philosophical and political critiques of their own real-life societies. Writers may include H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson. (LITERATURE)

ENG-299T.17 Islam through Literary Gazes 3.0 cr.

This course will be an exploration of Islam's diverse literary expressions from the time of Muhammad to the present within their social, cultural, historical, political and religious contexts.  Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between literature and more explicitly Islamic philosophical and cultural formulations.  Readings will include selections from The Holy Qur'an, travel narratives, Layla and Majnun, Madhumalati, autobiographies and hagiographies, and contemporary narratives from the Middle East, the Subcontinent, Central and East Asia.  (LITERATURE AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY).

UPPER DIVISION

ENG-307 Seminar: Origins & Traditions of English Literature 3.0 cr.

Fall or spring.  Prereq.: ENG 101, WRI 150 or permission.  A survey of landmark poetry and prose from the Anglo-Saxon Era to the Enlightenment, with special emphasis on how the assumptions, concerns, and techniques of these texts came to be seen as the kernel of a coherent national literary tradition.  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.

ENG-308 Seminar: Origins & Traditions of the Literature of the United States 3.0 cr.

Fall or spring.  Prereq.: ENG 101, or WRI 150 or permission.  This course features a range of  "literature," including transcribed Native American oral stories, colonial promotional tracts, sermons, speeches, captivity narratives, political pamphlets, personal letters, and slave narratives.  The class will explore personal and cultural issues that concerned early Americans, and discuss how texts both define and complicate some of the terms associated with this period, including "Puritan," "Enlightenment," "Transcendental," "liberty," and even "American."  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.

ENG-309 Seminar: Constructing World Literatures 3.0 cr.

Fall or spring.  Prereq.: ENG 101, WRI 150 or permission.  In order to see the picture, one must step out of the frame.  In this course, students will step out of their own cultural frames by studying how and why genres, politics, trade/war, religion (and also how we ourselves) construct global culture and identity.  The texts will provide not only vicarious experiences of lands and cultures but will also reflect the dialogic nature of specific cultural and cross-cultural literary traditions.  Possible traditions covered may include those of the Ancient Near East, the Ottoman Empire, the Subcontinent, Mogul and Persian poetry, Greco-Roman culture, North Africa, Native America, and the Caribbean-African-Asian heritage.  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.  (CULTURAL DIVERSITY ONLY)

ENG-325 Introduction to Literary Theory & Criticism 3.0 cr.

Fall or spring.  Prereq.: WRI 150 or permission.  This course introduces the principal theoretical traditions that inform advanced literary study.  Students will evaluate the major figures, schools, and concepts of literary theory and criticism through intensive reading and application.  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.

ENG-326.1 Author Seminar: Dostoevsky/Nabokov  3.0 cr.

Spring.  Prereq.: WRI 150 or permission.  This course examines the work of two writers from the Russian tradition: one coming immediately before and one right after the revolution.  We will study ways in which these writers echo and diverge from that tradition by locating the socio-historical context of each.  Dostoevsky, a xenophobe, probed the melodrama of the human psyche.  Nabokov, an émigré, went on to bridge Russian and American sensibilities and to experiment with narrative forms.  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.

ENG-368 The Prison Experience 6.0 cr.

(Same as SOC 368)  Winter 2004.  Prereq.: permission.  An opportunity to learn firsthand about prisons and prison life as students read prison-related texts in sociology and literature and as they write in response to what they read and what they see at local correctional institutions.  Authors will include Jimmy Santiago Baca, Jerome Washington, Malcom X, and Agnes Smedley.  (LITERATURE AND 3 CREDITS SOCIAL SCIENCE).

 ENG-380.1 Seminar: World Dramatic Literature 3.0 cr.

(Same as THE 380.1). Spring.  Alt. years.  Prereq.: WRI 150 or permission.  A study of selected plays of significant periods and movements of world drama from Greek tragedy to Japanese Noh and Indian, African theatre to Theatre of the Absurd. This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature. (FINE ARTS THEORY ONLY).

ENG 380.2 Seminar: 19th Century English Literature 3cr.

Fall.  A study of English poetry and prose from the emergence of Romanticism in the 1790's to the beginning of the 20th century.  Authors may include Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, Eliot, Dickens, and Hardy.  This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in literature.

ENG 380.3  Seminar: Literary Lives  3.0cr

Winter. Prereq: ENG 101 or WRI 150 or permission. Authors’ lives, as constructed in both biographies and autobiographies, become significant, and often contested, artifacts in the study literature. This course interrogates the idea of authorship and its place in literary studies. The lives covered may include William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Lord Byron, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. This course does not fulfill the general graduation requirement in Literature.

ENG-380.4 Seminar: The American Renaissance 3.0 cr.

Spring 2004. This course explores the literary movement that scholars have designated as crucial to the development of a truly "American" literature, focusing roughly on the years 1836 to 1865. In addition to studying canonical authors, we will explore those writers who worked, in the words of one recent critic, "beneath" the American Renaissance, focusing on issues of concern to women, Native Americans, and African Americans. Authors will include Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, Whitman, and Lydia Maria Child.

ENG-494 Independent Study 1.0 to 3.0 cr.

Fall, winter, spring. Prereq.: permission. Research project on selected topics.  See independent study guidelines.  (INDEPENDENT WORK)

ENG-496 Creative Writing Capstone Seminar 3.0 cr.

Spring.  Prereq.: senior standing and completion of lower-division poetry, fiction, and/or nature writing course.  A cross-genre course for Creative Writing majors, in which students will propose and work on independent projects.  Creative writers will begin to approach writing and their works as professionals--i.e., thinking long-term beyond the classroom, and considering marketing their works (scouring journals and framing rejection letters!).  In addition to writing intensively, students will help design the reading list, contextualize their works/writing styles within a literary tradition/genre, and create a community of writers.  (INDEPENDENT WORK)

ENG-497 Internship 1.0 to 3.0 cr.

Fall, winter spring. Prereq.: permission. Individually arranged internship designed to provide practical editorial and writing experience. An extended analysis of the experience is required and periodic reports may be assigned.  See internship guidelines.  (INDEPENDENT WORK)

ENG-498 Senior Thesis Seminar in Literature 3.0 cr.

Spring. A capstone course for senior literature majors designed to help students move toward post-college study. Students will propose, research, write, and revise a senior thesis for formal presentation. In addition, students will research and compose an individualized reading list based on their interests and post-graduate plans. Lists may focus on American, British, or world literature, graduate record exam preparation, or literature ancillary to secondary education teaching.  (INDEPENDENT WORK)