English 103: Advanced Writing
Professor Patricia Stephens

In this course, we will explore the craft of non-fiction writing: essays, memoirs, diaries, biographies, auto-ethnography, investigative reporting, and much more. Some common texts will be assigned to the entire class, but students will also have the opportunity to focus their reading and writing projects in areas they wish to further develop. Since the course will operate as a reading and writing "workshop," writers will be expected to share works-in-progress with all members of the class. As we work together as readers and writers of texts, we will focus on how to engage in constructive criticism as we examine issues of style and form. The primary goal of this course is to provide a supportive atmosphere in which students can discuss and explore both published and unpublished non-fiction writing as they simultaneously begin to make conscious choices about their own preferred forms and styles. 

English 104:  Creative Writing
Professor Barbara Henning

In this writing workshop, students will read, study, and write poetry and short-short fiction, using various forms and approaches.  A writer's notebook will be an ongoing project from which students will gather material for their assignments.  Part of each class period will be devoted to reading poems and stories by published authors. The rest of the class period will be a workshop where students learn how to critique their work. A final portfolio will include an evaluation of the student's learning along with revised poems and stories. Books for the class will include The Handbook of Poetic Forms and an anthology of short-short fiction. 

English 129: British Literature II
Professor Melissa Antinori

This course covers the period from 1800 to the present.  Students are introduced to various genres, titlehough the emphasis is on narrative fiction, which flourished in this period.  Novels include Jane Austen’s Emma (supplemented by a viewing of the 1995 movie Clueless), Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone (the first detective novel and one of the most popular novels of its day), James Joyce’s Dubliners, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and one novel by a current writer, which will be selected by class vote.  In addition, we’ll read selections from Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern poetry and at least one play, George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House.  Through writing, reading, and discussion, students will be introduced to various critical and  theoretical approaches, including colonialism, feminism, and Marxism. 

English 137: Shakespeare
Professor Joan Templeton

This course is an introduction to the poems and plays of the greatest writer in the English language, including the love sonnets, A Midsummer's Night Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. Theatrical as well as thematic aspects of the plays will be stressed, and we will see videos, films, and go to a live performance. Non-English majors are very welcome to register for the course.

English 150: Latino-American Literature
Professor William Burgos

Americans of Latino descent form a substantial part of the United States population and have long contributed to the diverse culture of this country. In this course, we will be reading literary texts by Latino-Americans, analyzing the different ways they define Latino identity and their portrayals of contemporary Latino communities. The readings will reflect the cultural diversity of these communities (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Mexican and Central and South American) and will include texts by Junot Diaz, Ana Lydia Vega, Loida Maritza Perez, Christina Garcia, Gloria Anzaldua, and Ernesto Quinonez.

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