English Spring 2024 Course Offerings
English Spring 2024 Course Offerings
100 level courses
124. Intro to Poetry
NO SENIORS Does poetry tend to baffle you, although you know there's something enticing about it that you'd like to understand better? Or have you enjoyed poetry before and would like to learn more about it? This is the course for you. We will explore many of the ways poets make art out of language, including the visual vistas, soundscapes, and mind-opening ideas that poems can give to their readers. Occasionally we'll try out some of their creative techniques ourselves, but our consistent focus will be on appreciation and enjoyment. No Seniors.
152. Intro-Greek & Roman Myth
NO SENIORS. Do you know who the Olympian gods are, who recovered the golden fleece, or who founded Rome? Or maybe you've heard the names Athena, Hercules, and Aeneas but aren't quite sure what they did? In this course we'll learn about the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome, starting with how the world was created out of chaos and ending with the founding of one the most impressive empires in history: Rome. In between, we'll get to know who the gods and heroes from Antiquity are and learn about the stories that record their deeds of fame. Readings will include epics focusing on the exploits of heroes such as The Aeneid and The Works and Days as well as poems like The Theogony and the Homeric Hymns that preserve the actions of gods like Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and Apollo. No Seniors
190-02. Fairy Tales
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, / Who’s the fairest one of all?” As anyone who has read the Brothers Grimm knows, the answer is “Snow White.” With skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony, she surpasses her wicked stepmother in beauty and therefore seals her death warrant. But why does the stepmother sit around talking to a mirror? Why does Snow White have to escape from her stepmother by moving in with seven dwarfs? And why must she die before she can meet her prince? What’s really going on in fairy tales? We will answer such questions by analyzing a range of fairy tales, from classics (such as the Grimms’ “Snow White”) to new hybrids (such as the graphic novel series Fables) to film adaptations (such as Maleficent). In doing so, we will explore what a fairy tale is, how fairy tales change to meet the needs of different cultures, and why fairy tales continue to appeal to us. Assignments will include critical essays, a group research project and presentation, and the creation of your own fairy tale. No Seniors.
200 Level Creative Writing Courses
209. Athlete Media Relations
PERMISSION ONLY COURSE. Internships in Sports Writing. This internship course is designed for students who are interested gaining real-world experience writing about sports. Students will learn how to track statistics while covering a game, write game stories and feature stories, and will cap the semester with an in-depth piece that explores an issue that affects collegiate student-athletes here at St. Lawrence. Reading assignments will be primarily from The Athletic and The Best American Sports Writing series, and exemplary student work may be featured on the Saints Athletics website. The small-group setting allows for intensive peer group review and students should expect to participate in a collaborative editing process. The internship counts as a creative writing course and is completed in addition to the five courses required for the introductory level of the major.
241. Techniques of Fiction
NO SENIORS In this introductory course on the basics of writing prose fiction, we will read and analyze a variety of short stories with an eye toward becoming better fiction writers ourselves. By reading diverse authors, periods, and approaches to storytelling, we will become more adept at important techniques such as narrative form, characterization, and point of view. We will compose a series of short exercises that may be reviewed in workshop for possible inclusion in a portfolio of significantly revised and polished work.
242. Techniques of Poetry
Techniques of Poetry.An introductory study of prosody and poetics. Class attention is divided among student writing, theory and published models. Weekly writing assignments address a variety of technical issues connected with both traditional and experimental verse, while reading assignments providing examples to follow or possibilities for further study. Matters of voice, affect, intuition, chance and imagination are given as much attention as those analytic skills necessary for clear communication. All students are required to share their oral and written work for group discussion and critique.
243. Techniques of Creative Non-Fiction
NO SENIORS Techniques of Creative Non-Fiction. In this introductory course on the basics of writing literary nonfiction, we will read and analyze a variety of examples of creative nonfiction, including memoirs and personal essays, with an eye toward becoming better nonfiction writers and readers ourselves. By encountering diverse authors, periods, and approaches to storytelling and sharing insights and knowledge about our personal encounters with the world around us, we will improve our application of various important techniques such as form, structure, persona, characterization, and voice. We will compose a series of short exercises that with revisions may become longer memoirs and personal essays to share with the class workshop, and assemble a final portfolio of revised and polished work.
200 Level Literature Courses
225. English Literature I
Survey of English Literature I. In this course, students will learn about the history of British literature from the 8th through the 17th centuries. The course invites students to explore developments in British literature through the lens of history and its relation to the development of the concept of the individual as well as competing philosophies of religious, political, and social life. Within this context, the course traces literary movements and the evolution of literary forms. It features a variety of drama, poetry, and some fiction and nonfiction from writers whose gender, class, and cultural outlook vary widely from historical era to era. Some of the texts we read are by famous authors like Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton; others are composed by less well-known and even anonymous authors. Some of the texts we read are in languages other than English, so we'll read those in translation, with the exception of Chaucer, whom we'll discover in his original middle English; others employ syntax that, though the same as our modern English, differs in exciting and beautiful ways. With each new text, students will gain a deeper appreciation of the volume, breadth, and variety of written work created in the British archipelago from the Medieval Period to the Restoration. Students contemplating graduate study in English are strongly recommended to take this course.
226. English Literature II
Survey of English Literature II. In this course, students will learn about the history of British literature starting at about 1700 and extending into the twentieth century and beyond. The course invites students to explore developments in British literature through the lens of history and its relation to competing philosophies of political and social life. Within this context, the course traces literary movements and the evolution of literary forms. It features a variety of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry from writers of different social classes, genders, and cultural traditions. Some of the texts we read are by famous authors like Jane Austen or T. S. Eliot; others are composed by less well-known authors. Students contemplating graduate study in English are strongly recommended to take this course.
237. American Literature I
In this course, we'll study a variety of American literature written between the founding of the Jamestown colony and the U.S. Civil War. Historically, these two events book-end a dramatic period of cultural contact, political conflict, scientific enlightenment, and artistic production in the transatlantic world. To give shape to our survey of American literature, we'll focus on a few primary issues-colonialism, race and slavery, and gender politics-and consider how these issues shaped literary expression in this era. We'll revisit some famous "American" legends, encounter the major thinkers of the "American Enlightenment," and read several works by the canonical writers of the "American Renaissance." We'll also discuss how writers from different backgrounds invoked the idea of "America," how they represented the "American" project, how (or if) a distinctly "American" literature emerged, and why the notion of "America" continues to carry so much cultural baggage.
238. American Literature II
These courses offer an overview of American literature from the early colonial era to the present, with selections from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Both courses invite students to view American literature through the lens of different historical and literary contexts and both feature writers who helped define the American literary canon. The courses examine the American literary imagination by focusing on a set of key issues that preoccupied the nation: colonial contact and resistance; slavery and abolition; women's rights; environmental politics; the rise of capitalism; modern cities and travel; movements for social justice and equality; and the shifting relationship between self, community, nation, and world. ENG-237 covers writings from the colonial period to 1865; ENG-238 concentrates on literary texts from the Civil War until the early 21st century.
245. Dystopian Fiction
What is a dystopia, and what does dystopian fiction do? Why is dystopian fiction so popular now? And how do recent contributions to this subgenre build on and/or depart from earlier dystopian masterpieces? These are among the questions we will address in this seminar focused on several classic and recent examples of dystopian fiction. In each class, a discussion leader (a rotating position among you) will pose questions to initiate discussion, and you will each contribute your insights based on careful reading of the texts. Our goal is not to reach a consensus but to engage in meaningful dialogue while honing marketable skills. Through asking questions, discussing answers, and writing papers, you will improve your skills in analysis and communication. Through writing your own dystopian fictions, you will convey your sense of why this dystopian fiction matters.
250-01. Paradise Lost
In this section of Methods of Critical Analysis, we’ll read (most of) John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. While we relish the rich narrative and deeply textured verse, we’ll also treat Milton’s world-building remix of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as an opportunity to try out some of the conceptual lenses contemporary literary critics employ. We’ll consider what the poem can tell us about attitudes towards gender, imperialism, and the environment in 17th century England—as well as whether and how the poem speaks to the present.
250-02. The Making of James Joyce
In this iteration of 250, we will read three works by James Joyce - Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), and selections from Ulysses (1922) - tracing how the same characters and setting evolve through different genres, styles, and a complex publication history. Alongside, we will read critical texts that have shaped Joyce studies, evaluating their arguments for Joyce's literary contribution to feminism, postcolonial studies, Marxism, and queer theory to name a few. Your papers will respond to both critical and textual scholarship.
200 Level Special Topics (3,000-3,999)
3076. The Cyborg in Literature and Film
Part human, part machine, the cyborg is more than a feature of science fiction—representations of cyborgs in literature and film have a lot to say about our present reality and the future of public health. Using examples from the previous and current centuries, we will explore this fascination with human-machine hybrids, and how it informs ongoing debates about technology and its relationship to humanity.
3080. Queer Feelings
Is it high time we lean into our unpleasant feelings: exhaustion, loneliness, shame, melancholy, anxiety? Can interrogating our feelings help us better know, even see through, the world as it exists? How do we navigate society, relationships, our own selves with and against feelings? In turn, how might understanding ourselves as entities of feeling first and foremost – as the locus of desires, energies, and reactions – free us from traditional categories of identity and being? Starting with the premise that the way bodies get coded parallels the way feelings and desires get coded (‘you’re a man, so you must want or like these things’), this course explores how a sustained and rigorous study of feelings might shake loose the sex/gender system in which we find ourselves and open up the room to exit in more fluid, multiple, and compassionate ways. A brief introduction to “queer theory” and “affect theory” will provide us with some methods and terms to engage with the works of queer writers such as Maggie Nelson, Quentin Crisp, Thom Gunn, Olga Broumas, Christopher Isherwood, Audre Lorde, and Jeanette Winterson, to name a few. Cross-listed with Gender and Sexuality Studies.
3082. Growing up Star Wars
Anakin Skywalker. Padmé Amidala. Jin Erso. Han Solo. The names of STAR WARS characters infiltrate modern American culture. But have you thought about what it really means to grow up as a Jedi knight? Or to study at a political academy so that you can become queen by age fourteen? Or, more extreme still, to enlist for military service when you’re not yet sixteen? The STAR WARS galaxy offers may routes to children and young adults to educate themselves in a chosen profession, exploring the positive and negative impacts that such an education can create for a society. In this way, STAR WARS participates in the genre of the bildungsroman, a story about the formative years shaping a person as they grow up. In this class, we will focus on the coming of age stories for characters in the STAR WARS galaxy, both reading novels and watching films, to emphasize how psychological, moral, ethical, and spiritual developments shape these characters on their journeys into maturity, on their journeys to becoming forces on their own planets and in the galaxy at large. On the way, we will also tackle questions of gender, race, equality, environmentalism, and age, studying how these issues contribute to the personalities that the STAR WARS universe creates. Weekly writing assignments, presentations, and a final project will comprise the majority of work for this class. Cross-listed with Education.
3083. The Lyric Essay & Hybrid Genre
This creative writing course allows students the intellectual freedom, and creative space to explore essay writing through the lens of poetry/poetics, memoire, text/image, experimentation, collage, and typographic design. Throughout the semester students will engage a series of writing assignments focusing on found forms, while developing idiosyncratic methods of composing lyric prose. First Years welcome!
300 Level Creative Writing Courses
306. Advanced Screenwriting
An extension and intensification of English 244. Students are expected to work independently on the preparation of two feature-length screenplays. Workshop format emphasizes the revision and editing process. Pre-req: DMF/ENG/PCA-244 or DMF-3099 or DMF-4001 or ENG-241 or ENG-243.
308. Advanced Creative Non-Fiction
CW: Advanced Creative Non-Fiction Writing. Building upon the techniques that we acquired in ENG-243, Techniques of Creative Nonfiction, we will seek to deepen our exploration of writing, reading, and analyzing literary essays by reading a diverse range of authors who challenge basic approaches to writing memoirs and literary essays. We will focus on more nuanced concerns, such as style,voice, narrative stance, and structure, and we may experiment with forms and sub-genres such as the lyric essay, the segmented essay, and other hybrid forms. We will also read theory and criticism on creative nonfiction so as to better understand the possibilities this genre offers writers. In a workshop setting, we will analyze our own work in depth with an eye toward deep, comprehensive revision. Preparing the final portfolio will allow us to learn how to line -edit our prose as well as how to critically situate our own work within the genre. Prerequisite: ENG-243.
310. Advanced Fiction Writing
Building upon the craft techniques acquired in ENG-241, Techniques of Fiction, students encounter authors who challenge basic assumptions about the nature of fiction through writing narratives that experiment with the givens of traditional story forms. Discussion of student-produced manuscripts in a workshop setting is one of a number of pedagogies employed. Emphasis is on writing improvement through increasing awareness of the technical dynamics of the short story genre and through cultivating an understanding of contemporary idioms and the uses of the imagination. Prerequisites: ENG-241.
311. Advanced Poetry Workshop
An extension and intensification of ENG-242. The class combines workshop critique of student poems with discussions of readings in twentieth century and contemporary poetr (including Modernism, Confessionalism, the Beats, the Black Mountain School, the New York School, and Ellipticism). Poetic theory is also discussed. Students are required to submit a formal manuscript of poems, an arts poetica or manifesto, and to read from their work in public. Prerequisite: ENG-242.
300 Level Literature Courses
363. Harry Potter
This course explores the Harry Potter series, famous for the magice of the Wizarding World as well as the development of it's eponymous hero. Our goal is not so much to master charms such as Lumos! but the light of these novels brings to the ethical, political, and economic challengers we face. How does Rowling's novels in relation to the philosophical works--such as Adam Smith's Theory of the Moral Sentiments--illuminate the ways in which these novels focus on the goal Rowling stresses above all: living " very good lives "? Pre-req: ENG-250.
366. Planetary Modernisms
This course explores Anglophone fiction from late-nineteenth through mid-twentieth century, paying attention to the ways literary culture in modernity has been formed through the double-edged sword of colonialism and capitalist economy. We will consider issues like ecological imperialism and indigeneity, apartheid and immigration policies, transnational and diasporic public sphere, and the hegemony of the English language itself. Primary works may included writings by Chinua Achebe, Ahmed Ali, Muk Raj Anand, J.M. Coetzee, Joseph Conrad, Wilson Harris, Jean Rhys, Tayeb Salih, Njugi wa Thiong'o, and Amos Tutuola. These experimental and visionary writers encourage us to imagine literary geographies free from the terms of globalization and cosmopolitanism, towards perspectives that are sensitive to ecosystems beyond human life. In turn, we will reflect on the relevance of their insight in our era of intensifying political and environmental disaster. CBL.
300 LEVEL PROJECTS FOR JUNIORS
389, 390. Projects for Juniors
Student-initiated projects involving significant study and writing carried out through frequent conferences with a faculty sponsor. These projects are completed in addition to the five courses required for the advanced level of the major. Prerequisites: junior standing, a 3.4 GPA in English, and approval by the departmental Honors/Independent Projects committee. Proposals must be submitted to the committee by March 1 of the semester preceding the beginning of fall projects, and by November 1 of the semester preceding spring projects.
300 Level Special Topics (4,000-4,999)
4056. Ecopoetry
Can poetry save the planet? Can it speak for the trees and rivers, give voice to bears and bobcats, or embody the agency of sun and storms? Can it capture the beauty of birdsong and weirdness of whalesong? How might poetry shift our perspective from anthropocentric to ecocentric ways of seeing and being, enter the umwelten of our animal kin, and honor the biodiversity of the more-than-human world? Can it advance environmental justice or recover forms of traditional wisdom lost in the industrial world? How do poets confront the climate crisis, reckon with environmental disaster, and grieve for the age of extinction unfolding before us? And to what extent can poetry itself be ecological, either by incorporating scientific insights or adopting forms of expression that decenter the lyric self? This course will consider such questions by surveying the twentieth- and twenty-first-century fields of environmental poetry. We’ll develop a working definition of the genre of ecopoetry, map its conventions, explore its different branches, and encounter a variety of poets working both at the center and periphery of North American poetry traditions, with a few voices from elsewhere around the globe. Students will write a critical essay defining the genre of ecopoetry, choose a contemporary ecopoet and profile their work in a feature story, and experiment with crafting their own ecopoetry. Cross-listed with Environmental Studies.
Senior year experiences
450. Senior Seminar
SENIORS/ENGLISH MAJORS ONLY. Jane Austen Longbourn, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: these are only a few of the recent adaptations of Jane Austen's novels. What is it about Austen's writings that intrigues us? How is it that a woman who died in 1817 continues to influence our culture? And to what extent are we actually reading-or misreading-her novels? In this senior seminar, we will explore these questions first by returning to Austen's novels and situating them in their historical contexts. We will then consider recent adaptations of Austen's works, trying to determine what they mean for us.
489, 490. SYE: Projects for Seniors
Projects for Seniors. Student-initiated projects involving significant study and writing carried out through frequent conferences with a faculty sponsor. These projects are completed in addition to the five courses required for the advanced level of the major. Prerequisites: senior standing, a 3.4 GPA in English, and approval by the departmental Honors/Independent Projects committee. English majors who complete a senior project will earn the Honors in English designation if, at the conclusion of the semester they complete their project, their English GPA (including the project grade) is at least 3.7. Proposals for fall projects must be submitted to the committee by March 1 of the semester preceding the beginning of fall projects, and by November 1 of the semester preceding the beginning of spring projects.