ENGL 1000 Introduction to Creative Writing (4 Credits)

Basic techniques of fiction and poetry.

ENGL 1006 Art of Fiction (4 Credits)

An introduction to the appreciation of fiction as an art form through practice in interpretation and creation.

ENGL 1007 Art of Poetry (4 Credits)

An introduction to the appreciation of poetry as an art form through practice in interpretation and creation.

ENGL 1008 Art of Drama (4 Credits)

An introduction to the appreciation of drama as an art form through practice in interpretation and creation.

ENGL 1009 Art of Creative Non-fiction (4 Credits)

An introduction to the appreciation of creative non-fiction as an art form through practice in interpretation and creation.

ENGL 1010 Introductory Topics in English (4 Credits)

Various topics in literary studies approached at the introductory level.

ENGL 1110 Literary Inquiry (4 Credits)

Literary Inquiry introduces students to the variety of ways that poetry, fiction, and/or drama expand our understanding of what it means to be human. Topics vary to engage students in the rewarding process of interpreting the literary art form as a unique cultural expression. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 1200 International Short Fiction (4 Credits)

This class considers masterpieces of short fiction—stories and novellas—from around the world. Various linguistic communities, national traditions, and historical periods are represented through a wide-range of global texts. One goal of this course is synchronic: to identify significant themes, techniques, and conventions appearing in both western and non-western literary traditions. A second goal of this course is diachronic: to identify key developments in the forms of short fiction. Significant theoretical models are presented to provide a thorough overview of the concept of “world literature” and its associated problems.

ENGL 1988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

ENGL 2001 Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of poetry. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2002 Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of poetry. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2003 Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of poetry. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2004 Magical Realism in Literature and Cinema (4 Credits)

This course examines the relationships between human groups and their sociocultural environments through the conjunction of history and alternative ways of seeing/being or magical realism. Our study is region-specific in sociocultural details as well as global in scope and involves the exploration of magical realism as a technique in literature and cinema.

ENGL 2010 Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of fiction. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2011 Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of fiction. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2012 Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of fiction. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2013 Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Techniques and forms of fiction. Prerequisite: an introductory creative writing course.

ENGL 2020 Studies in Non-Fiction (4 Credits)

ENGL 2026 English Grammar (4 Credits)

ENGL 2031 Poetry Since 1945 (4 Credits)

ENGL 2035 History of Genre-Poetry (4 Credits)

ENGL 2036 History of Genre-Fiction (4 Credits)

ENGL 2040 Introduction to Publishing (4 Credits)

Through lectures and field trips, students will learn how books get published - with all the steps involved. Cross listed with ENGL 3040, MFJS 3140.

ENGL 2060 Modern and Postmodern Literature (4 Credits)

This course will introduce students to two key movements in 20th century literary culture: modernism and postmodernism. Dealing in distinct but related ways with pervasive crises of modernity, these movements continue to exert a tremendous influence over literary culture in the present. In the realms of media and technology, politics, gender and sexuality, among others, modernism and postmodernism both reflected and helped usher in an age of relentless change. While covering this broad terrain, the course will have a different thematic focus each year. Contact the instructor or the Department of English and Literary Arts for details.

ENGL 2061 Global Modernisms (4 Credits)

This course examines the nature of global modernisms with examples from different countries or regions and from at least three perspectives: race and gender; markets and empires; and modernism and mass culture. From both a stylistic and thematic point of view, the course also explores the links between some avant-garde movements (such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Expressionism) and modernism as well as connections between modernism and postmodernism.

ENGL 2070 Postcolonial Literature and Theory (4 Credits)

An examination of the phenomenon of postcolonialism, taking into account the ways in which it has been conceptualized. Key interests include the contexts of imperialism and decolonization as well as critical readings of pertinent literature.

ENGL 2090 20th/21st Century City Novels (4 Credits)

How do we imagine cities? What do cities, in turn, do to our collective imaginations of belonging, to our sense of self, to our images of the future? The history of 20th and 21st century novels is often the history of how the city is imagined in prose. As new technologies, new ways of connecting, and new flows of money and goods resulted in massive growth of cities from the late 19th century on, how did literature reshape itself in response to the increasing pressure of mass information, and of new forms of imagining the life of the community? Students in this course will encounter the breadth of literature since 1900, with a geographical focus on Britain. Conceptually, the course will focus on how changing modes of urban life alter literary fiction, ideas of subjectivity, and modes of belonging across the century.

ENGL 2100 English Literature I: Beowulf-Spenser (4 Credits)

A survey of English literature from the earliest extant texts through works written in the late 16th century, ending with Spenser. Its purpose is to give students a historical grasp of the development and continuity of English literature during the Middle Ages and the 16th century. Old English and most Middle English texts will be read in translation, but Chaucer and Middle English lyrics will be read in the original.

ENGL 2104 The Bible as Literature (4 Credits)

The Bible has been one of the most important works in all of Western society. In this course we read the Bible as a masterpiece of literature. Rather than focusing on theological questions about this work as inspired scripture, we instead focus on its rich literary qualities and explore some ways in which these stories have influenced modern society. Reading select passages, we discuss its literary genres, forms, symbols and motifs, many of which are important in literature today. Of the latter, we encounter stories of creation and hero tales, parables, apocalyptic literature, and themes of paradise and the loss of Eden, wilderness, covenant, and the promised land. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross listed with RLGS 2104 and JUST 2104.

ENGL 2110 The African Imagination (4 Credits)

Focusing mainly on Africa, this course explores and connects aspects of the African imagination. These aspects include oral performances, thought systems, literature, art, cinema, and critical discourses in different eras and in various places. Studied together, these existential and intellectual signposts provide an expanded insight into African aesthetics from a continental and an interdisciplinary perspective. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2120 Chaucer-Selected Poetry (4 Credits)

This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2130 World Literature (4 Credits)

A literary journey around the world, the focus of this course includes the study of modern literature from different parts of the world--such as Africa and the Caribbean, Asia and the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Textual analysis as well as cultural and transnational contexts are emphasized. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2200 English Literature II: Donne-Johnson (4 Credits)

This course explores the literatures of the 17th and 18th centuries. This 200-year period marks England's transition from a medieval, relatively static society bound by hierarchy, religion and shared cultural values into a restless early-modern society of cities, social mobility, civic unrest, colonies and cosmopolitanism. Students work on understanding genres and styles, the basics of scansion, and the terminologies, methods and ideologies of literary criticism. The course is divided into generic categories.

ENGL 2202 Renaissance Poetry & Prose (4 Credits)

ENGL 2221 Shakespeare Seminar (4 Credits)

This course traces Shakespeare's development by looking at representative plays from his early through to his late period and counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2222 Literary Careers and Community (2 Credits)

What is the role of literature during times of social, civil, and political unrest? What purposes can literature serve today, and how might we continue to participate in the literary community after graduation? Speaking practically, how might we pursue careers in the literary world? In this two-credit practicum, participants will discuss the role of literature in society while connecting with a range of writers and literary and publishing professionals. We will explore literary communities and resources at DU, in Denver, and across a national network of DU alumni. This course is part of the CAHSS 4D Career Fridays initiative, supporting CAHSS students in developing careers and lives of purpose.

ENGL 2230 Shakespeare and Film (4 Credits)

An examination of film adaptation and staging of Shakespeare's plays. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2300 English Literature III (4 Credits)

A survey of British literary works and contexts from the 19th century onwards. The course will include selected readings of British and Anglophone Romantic, Victorian and Modern writers across multiple genres. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2302 19th Century British Literature and the Empire (4 Credits)

The coronavirus pandemic has intensified our focus on globalization, giving renewed urgency to matters such as human rights, racism, migration, citizenship, hospitality, and cultural difference. This course approaches these questions by looking at various reflections on globalization and “empire.” While reading literary works in the nineteenth century, when the British empire extended its reach and control over literally every time zone, we also put them in dialogue with contemporary reports, databases, and fiction. We ask: How did nineteenth-century British and Anglophone authors react to issues directly relevant to and caused by imperial expansion and globalization? And how have their reflections shaped the way we think about power and inequality today? Apart from writers frequently taught in courses on British literature, we will also read British authors who are, ironically, often not classified under “British” (such as Mary Prince, an abolitionist born a slave in Bermuda, and Mary Seacole, also a woman of color, who traveled widely and served as a military nurse during the Crimean War). This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2311 English Novel to 1800 (4 Credits)

ENGL 2350 Early Globalisms (4 Credits)

A study of the commonalities and connections among cultures and texts across the world from the medieval and early modern periods. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2401 Blake, Wadsworth and Contemporaries (4 Credits)

The first generation of British Romantic writers came of age during a time of revolution (American, French, Haitian). The inheritors of radical eighteenth-century ideas about natural rights, the first-generation Romantics found optimism in human feeling as well as human reason. They believed that the capacity for sympathy and lyrical transport would lead to a new, benevolent society, but their belief in social progress was checked by revolutionary violence and the rise of a hyper-rationalism that seemed more dangerous than the superstition it was meant to replace.

ENGL 2402 Later Romantics (4 Credits)

This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2544 Globalization and Cultural Texts (4 Credits)

The focus of this course is on theory (drawn from the social sciences) of how cultures worldwide may be increasingly internationalized through the powerful effects of globalization and on cultural texts that present the human and aesthetic faces of globalization, as seen through literature and film, with particular reference to India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Japan. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2600 Edgar Allan Poe and the Birth of Horror (4 Credits)

This course follows the trajectory of Edgar Allan Poe’s development of the tale of horror. It begins by looking closely at some of his influences, chiefly the German romantics who invented the so-called kunstmärchen or literary fairy tale. There we see many of the familiar devices in Poe’s bag of tricks: automatons, doppelgängers, mad scientists (or magicians), and gothic spaces. It then moves into Poe’s famous poems and stories, beginning with “The Raven” and his remarkable essay describing its creation, “The Philosophy of Composition.” The required reading will include as many of the major fear tales as possible, including “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Black Cat,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and others. The focus will be on Poe’s mastery of the techniques of suspense, psychomachia, symbolism, and the uncanny.

ENGL 2700 Foundations of Early American Literature and Culture (4 Credits)

Introduction to foundational narratives and culturally formative ideas in North American literary history from the era of discovery and the beginnings of colonialization to the Civil War. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2703 Topics in English: International Literature (1-4 Credits)

Topics in literature reflecting an array of trends, aesthetic movements, historic periods, and discursive forms of International literary discourse produced by authors from outside the USA and the United Kingdom. These topics courses will count toward the diversity/distribution attribute within the English major curriculum.

ENGL 2704 Topics in English: Ethnic American Literature (1-4 Credits)

Topics in literature reflecting an array of trends, aesthetic movements, historic periods, and discursive forms focused on ethnic American literary discourse. These courses count toward the diversity/distribution attribute within the English curriculum.

ENGL 2705 Literature of the American South (4 Credits)

An introductory course on the literature emanating from the American south. Texts may include fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction primarily spanning the 18th through the 21st century.

ENGL 2706 Writing the American West (4 Credits)

An introductory course on the literature emanating from the American west. Texts may include fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction spanning the 19th through the 21st century.

ENGL 2707 Contemporary Literature (4 Credits)

The course surveys contemporary books. The novel has never been a coherent genre, but especially since the 1960s its features, in some practitioners, have begun to resemble history, anthropology, poetry, science writing, or all of these. The course will include readings from Asia, South America, Europe and North America.

ENGL 2708 Topics in English (1-4 Credits)

ENGL 2709 Topics in English (1-10 Credits)

ENGL 2710 American Novel-19th & 20th Century (4 Credits)

This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2711 20th Century American Fiction (4 Credits)

Students read, evaluate and discuss the genre of the American immigrant novel. Topics include how this is a uniquely American literary form and what it says about life in America; the similarities and differences in how ethnic groups understand their experiences; how language and narrative techniques are used to convey the life of a new immigrant; how the experiences of men and women differ; how the immigrant novel has evolved as a literary genre. The readings will be analyzed as a means to consider how the immigration novel in America became a genre that expressed a variety of topics related to the American experience. The class will consider how these works helped to shape and define what it meant to be an American, and how that definition has changed over the last 100 years.

ENGL 2712 American Short Story (4 Credits)

Wide range of American short stories, quintessential American genre, from the early 19th century to present.

ENGL 2715 Native American Literature (4 Credits)

Native American Literature explores the relationships between contemporary Native American narratives and Native American oral traditions. We will examine the intellectual underpinnings of Native American literary expressions, focusing on tribally specific Native American concepts of language, perception, and process in relation to Native cultural and political survival. This course aims to celebrate Native American cultural expression through lectures and discussion, group work and intellectual exercises.

ENGL 2716 American Poetry (4 Credits)

This course examines American poetry by way of historical, thematic, and/or formalist approaches. Possible topics could include: post-WWII poetry, the New York School, Self and Other in American Poetry, Language poetry, etc.

ENGL 2717 African American Writers (4 Credits)

Defines, describes and analyzes the African-American aesthetic.

ENGL 2718 Latina/o Literature (4 Credits)

This course surveys U.S. Latina/Latino literature, with an emphasis on groups of Caribbean, Central American, Mexican, and South American descent. Representative readings will introduce the field's major critical trends, themes, genres, works, and writers. Social, historical, and political topics for investigation may include border theory, experiences of diaspora and im/migration, mestizaje, pan-latinidad, bildungsroman, labor, gender and sexuality, and language. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2719 The Harlem Renaissance (4 Credits)

This course focuses on the flowering of African American literature, art, and music in the early 1900s known as the Harlem Renaissance. Referencing the works of artists, we explore the historical context, nature, and impact of the Harlem Renaissance. In examining racial consciousness and literary production during this era, the course emphasizes the study of representative African American writers.

ENGL 2722 Asian American Contemporary Literature: Fiction and Nonfiction (4 Credits)

This course surveys contemporary Asian American literature with a focus on fiction and nonfiction. By examining a range of texts from the past fifty years to the present, we will discuss critical concerns such as identity, the politics of representation, gender, class, and immigration and assimilation. A selection of memoirs, essays, short stories, novels, and graphic novels will help us expand our notion of Asian American literature, and our sense of what it is, who it’s for, and its forms and aesthetics. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2730 Borderlands Literature (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to literature and stories about regions and spaces defined by borders, especially the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The course engages with narratives that map the flows and fortifications of people and commodities, interrogate the politics of immigration, navigate the disputes over natural resources, and/or feature different contact zones or forms of encounter.

ENGL 2741 American Jewish Literature: Immigrant Fiction (4 Credits)

This course surveys over 100 years of American Jewish immigrant narratives beginning with the great exodus of Eastern European and Russian Jewry at the end of the 19th century and ending with recent arrivals from Israel and the former U.S.S.R. Canonical works by central authors reveal the great successes of Jewish immigrants alongside their spiritual failures. A selection of memoir, novels, short stories, and poetry in English and in translation from Hebrew and Yiddish demonstrate the multilingual character of the Jewish experience in America. While helpful, no knowledge of Jewish languages, religious tradition, or cultural practice is necessary to succeed in this course. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross listed with JUST 2741.

ENGL 2742 Modern Hebrew Literature in Translation: Against All Odds (4 Credits)

This course offers a survey of some of the most significant works of modern Hebrew literature available in translation. Students will consider how the development of Hebrew literature has contributed to the formation of contemporary Israeli identity, and how the conflicts that define the turbulent history of Israel are treated in works by canonical authors. The selection of diverse voices and literary materials exposes students to the social, political, and historical changes wrought by the rise of modern day Israel. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross listed with JUST 2742.

ENGL 2743 Jewish Humor: Origins and Meaning (4 Credits)

Writers, scholars, and comedians all claim to locate an identifiable strain of “Jewish humor” running from the Bible through to today’s literary humorists and provocative stand-up comics. This course takes humor seriously in an effort to reveal the development of “Jewish humor” in American from a comparative context. But is there such a things as Jewish humor? And if so, what are its sources and characteristics? Does it exist across cultures and in different linguistic communities? Through lectures, discussion, exercises and papers, students gain a broad understanding of the history, psychology, and philosophy of humor as it relates to Jewish arts and letters in America. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. This course is cross-listed with JUST 2743.

ENGL 2744 Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples in Film (4 Credits)

In this class we will be examining a wide range of representations of native American and indigenous culture, history, and society as presented through the medium of modern cinema. We’ll begin with some documentary filmmaking and critical texts to help build a foundation of applicable knowledge to assist us in formulating our critical engagements, before diving into what was one of the most influential genres in shaping perceptions of native peoples: the classic Western. From here we’ll explore subsequent films increasingly positioned outside the Western genre that strived (although not always succeeding) to represent native peoples and cultures in more accurate, sensitive, and nuanced ways. These studies will lead us into the realms of filmmaking in which native and indigenous people began to assert authority and representational control over their own cinematic portrayals. First through acting, and then through the realms of writing, directing, and producing—and ultimately with native and indigenous viewers as the implied audiences. Throughout this course, we will critically view and analyze the various ways in which native American and indigenous people have been portrayed through numerous cinematic genres and forms, with attention to relevant historical, political, and social issues and contexts. This will entail a consideration of the nature of cinematic images, while thinking about the influence they exert on societal attitudes and historical understandings of native and indigenous peoples and cultures. A portion of the course we will also be dedicated to comparative representations of indigenous (Aboriginal, Māori, and First Nations) cultures in Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Canada. Of particular interest to this class will be the production and reification of prominent native/indigenous tropes, metaphors, and stereotypes, such as the conceptions of primitive culture, the binary of the noble and the bloodthirsty savage, and the romanticized figures of the so-called ecological and spiritual indian. We will examine how these stock figures influence how native/indigenous peoples are perceived in historical and literary discourses, as well as in popular culture—while having opportunities to listen to songs and consider music videos as another site where such representations clash and merge with traditions and modern forms through their lyrical and imagistic content. Pulling back for the wide-angle shot, as it were, we will seek answer questions concerning cultural contestation and power, the relationship between film and historical and literary production, representations of the Other, cultural fetishism/colonialism, and the semiotics of popular culture.

ENGL 2746 Jerusalem: Stories of a City (4 Credits)

This course will offer literary visions of Jerusalem, a city holy to the three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Prose and poetry written in English and Hebrew (and some Arabic), predominantly from the 20th and 21st centuries, will guide the course’s explorations of the city known as al-Quds to Arabic speakers and Yerushalayim to Hebrew speakers. Israeli and Palestinian voices will both be heard. Maps, historical works, and memoir will also be used to navigate a divided cityscape at once ancient and modern, material and spiritual. This class fulfills an Analytical Inquiry (AI: Society) requirement for DU’s common curriculum, and required ethnic or international literature credits for the Department of English & Literary Arts. No knowledge of Middle Eastern history or religious culture is necessary to succeed in this course.

ENGL 2747 Anglo-Jewish Literature: Jews and Other Aliens (4 Credits)

This course offers a thematic approach to famous—and infamous—areas of London. We will focus on London’s immigrant East End before expanding to consider other areas of London, and further outward to British colonialism abroad. Significant works of fiction, fact, and criticism will provide a socio-historical context to our readings. The impoverished slums and tenements of the East End were notorious breeding grounds for crime, violence, and prostitution. Yet the East End also exerted a magnetic pull on bourgeois Londoners who toured these neighborhoods to witness first-hand the social miseries of the world’s industrial capital. “Aliens”—that is, immigrants—flooded the East End in the late 19th century to challenge England’s conception of itself. By the turn of the 20th century, the East End was a multiethnic haven, though one principally identified with Jewish newcomers. The East End forced Londoners to confront religion, race, and class in stark new ways which have continued to exert an influence on the city’s self-image. We will turn this psychogeography against the 20th century canon in subversive ways to read well-known authors such as Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, and Virginia Woolf alongside and in opposition to “marginalized” Anglo-Jewish authors. Our journey takes us from the aftermath of the dark days of Jack the Ripper in the 1880s, to the “abyss” of the first decades of the 1900s, to the working class struggles of the 1930s, and into the uneasy confrontation between tradition and modernity in the immediate postwar era of decolonial struggles. No knowledge of Jewish languages, religious tradition, or cultural practice is necessary to succeed in this course.

ENGL 2750 American Literature Survey I (4 Credits)

First part of American survey; introduction to major authors and genres.

ENGL 2751 American Literature Survey II (4 Credits)

Second part of American survey; further examination of major authors and genres.

ENGL 2752 American Literature Survey III (4 Credits)

A survey of American literature, including representative works of fiction, poetry and drama from the 1930s to the present.

ENGL 2816 Advanced Writing (4 Credits)

This class gives each student the opportunity to explore the humanities in an area of his or her particular interest. A research methods and writing course, this class guides students through the research and writing process from preliminary research to methodology to prospectus to drafting and finally revision. Class sessions operate as directed writing workshops, with students discussing their research and writing strategies. The final product of the course is a 15-page research essay on a subject of the student's choice. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2820 Philosophy and Literature (4 Credits)

Hermeneutics, sometimes called "the art of interpretation," offers us the opportunity to explore strategies of engagement and exegesis that seeks to observe, question, and celebrate the ways in which we read and write the world. By bringing critical and creative inquiry to bear on the event of interpretation itself we can consider the ethical implications of how we deal with our individual identities as well as our collective, national, and global identities. In this course we pose big questions--What are we talking about when we talk about existence? What does it mean to have a body? How does desire and memory construct history and identity? Walking these questions through a variety of literary and philosophical texts and artistic lenses, we consider how "the creative" (writing, the literary) performs, becomes, and is "the critical" and vice-versa. Students should be prepared to write, read, and participate in discussion.

ENGL 2825 Cultural Criticism (4 Credits)

This course will introduce students to some of the major moments in the development of cultural studies and will show how the discipline "works" to make sense of culture at large. Cross listed with ENGL 3825.

ENGL 2830 Representations of Women (4 Credits)

Consideration of images presented of and by women in works of English and American literature from Middle Ages to present. Cross listed with GWST 2830.

ENGL 2845 Politics and Literature (4 Credits)

ENGL 2850 Literature of Utopia/Dystopia: Dystopian Fiction (4 Credits)

This course addresses the concurrent and interrelated themes of utopian and dystopian thought and their primary expression through 20th and 21st century literary texts. As such, it critically engages and interrogates relationships between knowledge and power, and freedom and oppression that have long been expressed in world literature. At its core, utopian/dystopian literatures are always in conversation with historical, social, and cultural thought, expressing anxiety towards the relationship between social structures and institutions with the individuals and the imposition of coercive power. Texts addressed in this course include those by a range of diverse writers from Plato and Thomas More, to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Claire G. Coleman, etc. *In some years this course may count for international literature under the diversity/distribution attribute in the English curriculum. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ENGL 2855 Speculative Fiction (4 Credits)

This course explores topics in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction encompasses a wide range of genres, contexts, and forms, from science fiction to alternative history to futurity. Topics might include apocalypse, cyberpunk, space-time, revolution, new communities, cyborgs and robotics, worldmaking, Afrofuturism, Chicanafuturism, or theories of possibility in different forms of fiction. All ask us to consider the role of imagination and speculation in fiction. Each iteration of this course will be designated with a specific topic, repeatable only under a new topic.

ENGL 2980 Internship in English (1-5 Credits)

This course provides academic credit for off-campus internships in fields related to the English major. One paper is required at the end, articulating how the internship complemented the student's studies in English. Requires approval by director of undergraduate studies in English.

ENGL 2988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

ENGL 3000 Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3001 Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3002 Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3003 Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3010 Advanced Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3011 Advanced Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3012 Advanced Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3013 Adv Creative Writing-Fiction (4 Credits)

Technique, writing practice and criticism.

ENGL 3015 Advanced Creative Writing: Non-Fiction (4 Credits)

ENGL 3017 Travel Writing-Fiction & Fact (4 Credits)

A study of European, American and other narratives of travel. This course examines relevant postcolonial and literary theories of travel and nationhood.

ENGL 3030 Holocaust Literature: History & Memory (4 Credits)

This seminar-style course presents a multidisciplinary approach to literature of the Holocaust. Memoir, fiction, and poetry that depict the Nazi war against the Jews and its aftermath will be considered. These literary materials will be supplemented by socio-historical, philosophical, and critical texts that contextualize the history and memory of the Holocaust in the US and Europe. Yet this course also provides a comparative framework that allows students to understand how the Holocaust is remembered and historicized in Israel. Students will engage with case studies, such as the trial of Adolf Eichmann, to understand its impact on Holocaust representation in Israeli society. We will also analyze key theoretical texts to critically examine how survivors are often unable to fully testify to their trauma.

ENGL 3040 Introduction to Publishing (4 Credits)

Cross listed with ENGL 2040, MFJS 3140.

ENGL 3121 Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (4 Credits)

Life, culture, language and literary trends of Chaucer's age as reflected in "The Canterbury Tales".

ENGL 3320 Oral Literature and Orality in Literature (4 Credits)

The term "oral literature" generally refers to narratives and poems (including songs) performed and disseminated orally from one generation to the other. Oral literature is, in some respects, the foundational 'text' of written literature. The questions that we explore in this course include: How did oral literature develop, and what are the characteristics? How has oral literature been shaped by time and place? How is it distinct from as well as related to written literature? To answer these questions, we explore different forms of oral literature and also study the use of orality in written literature. Our studies involve the examination of material and texts from different parts of the world.

ENGL 3402 Early Romantics (4 Credits)

ENGL 3405 Postmodern Visions of Israel (4 Credits)

This course investigates how representation of Israel as a modernist utopia have been replaced in contemporary literature with images of Israel as a dystopia. The class discusses the historical context that gave rise to visions of an idealized Israel, and the role the Hebrew language played in consolidating and connecting narration to nation. Next the class considers how belles-lettres from recent decades have reimagined Israel as a series of multilingual “multiverses.” A selection of fiction translated from Hebrew forms the core of class reading. Theoretical exploration of postmodernism help us conceptualize the poetics of postmodern literature. No knowledge of Israeli history or Jewish culture is necessary to succeed in this course. Cross listed with JUST 3405.

ENGL 3525 Sexuality and Textuality (4 Credits)

This course explores literary, cultural, and theoretical texts that question and challenge concepts of gender and sexuality. Topics include gender roles and expectations, gender performance, the body, pleasure/desire, subject-object dynamics, queer and trans identities, and/or resistance to the normative. Particular attention will be given to texts and theories that intersect issues of gender and sexuality with questions of race, ethnicity, and marginalized subjectivities.

ENGL 3550 The Literature of Dissent in New England (4 Credits)

This course investigates writings related to various forms of dissent in New England, from 1630 to 1860. It focuses on moments of crisis such as the Antinomian Controversy, the Salem witchcraft trials, the Great Awakening, the Miracles Controversy, and the reaction to the Compromise of the 1850, among others. Related topics include the development of individualism, the lives and roles of early American women, the presence and influence of slavery on conceptions of reform, and the role of religion in the formation of political and social dissent.

ENGL 3600 American Romantics and Radicals, 1820-1865 (4 Credits)

This course covers the period of religious, philosophical, social, and political reform that runs from 1820 to the beginning of the Civil War. Focus will be on romantic ideas about nature, self-reliance, etc., as well as the contexts that surround and nurture these ideas, such as utopian social reform, the women’s rights movement, abolition, temperance, and various health movements. Authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglass, and others.

ENGL 3601 Literature of the Civil War (4 Credits)

Historically based survey of literature related to the American Civil War. Includes works by such authors as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and others.

ENGL 3602 American Realism and Naturalism, 1860-1920 (4 Credits)

This course addresses the period of post-Civil War American writing characterized by aesthetic theories that react against Romanticism and attempt to incorporate scientific (particularly Darwinian) thinking into artistic representation. It will present the development of these approaches in the historical contexts of Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era. Authors will include Mark Twain, Henry James, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, William Dean Howells, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Sarah Ornes Jewett, and others.

ENGL 3618 20th Century British Literature (4 Credits)

This course will explore the dramatic changes in culture and society that took place between the death of Queen Victoria and the start of the new millennium. The twentieth century transformed Britain from the center of a commercial and military Empire “on which the sun never set” to a multicultural island nation coming to terms with its colonialist past and seeking to redefine its place in the world. The same period also saw continual redefinitions of the concept of Britishness as the outcome of struggles over women’s rights, anticolonial and antiracist movements, LGBTQ+ activism, and workers’ demand for better conditions and the right to organize. These social changes emerged simultaneously with transformative effects of new media and transportation technologies.

ENGL 3703 Advanced Topics in English: International Literature (1-4 Credits)

Advanced topics in literature vary reflecting an array of specialized trends, aesthetic movements, historic periods, and discursive forms of international literary discourse produced by authors outside the USA and the United Kingdom. These advanced studies topics courses will count toward the diversity/distribution attribute within the English curriculum.

ENGL 3704 Advanced Topics in English: Ethnic American Literature (1-4 Credits)

Advanced topics seminars in literature reflecting an array of trends, aesthetic movements, historic periods, and discursive forms of ethnic American literary discourse. These courses will count toward the diversity/distribution attribute within the English major curriculum.

ENGL 3706 Writing the American West (4 Credits)

Explores historical and contemporary writing produced in and about the American West.

ENGL 3707 Posthumanism: Androids, Cyborgs, A.I. & the Future of Humanity (4 Credits)

As the term "posthumanism" suggests, the consideration of what may come ‘after’ or exist ‘beyond’ the conventional understanding of what it means to be human lies at the center of this emergent critical perspective. The literary and philosophic engagement with the complicated set of ideas around these questions call for a reevaluation of the notion of the corporeal human subject and a reconsideration of the limits of the human mind. Posthuman thought shifts the focus to a consideration of the ways in which embodiment and thinking are positioned in relation to technological advancements in fields as disparate as robotics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence to bioengineering and genetics. Given the issues under consideration, ideas emerging from sci-fi, speculative fiction, cyberpunk and contemporary philosophy have long been at the center of posthumanism, while also reflecting in classic works from Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, Julien Offray de La Mettrie's L'homme Machine (Man a Machine) and May Shelley’s Frankenstein, as well. Drawing on such a discursive foundation of works from around the world, our primary focus will be on texts produced by writers, thinkers and artists who best expand the possibilities and questions at the center of posthumanism, including Karel Čapek, Isaac Asimov, Stanisław Lem, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Shirow Masamune and Kazuo Ishiguro, with Hajime Sorayama, Donna J. Haraway, Manuel De Landa and N. Katherine Hayles. From this provocative (and evocative) foundation, this course will explore some of the most vital questions emerging out of posthumanism from innovations in robotics, computer technology and artificial intelligence, to ongoing developments in genetic modification, biomechanics, astrobiology and transgenic art.

ENGL 3711 20th-Century American Fiction (4 Credits)

Fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction on selected themes by 20th and 21st century American writers. Topics for study may include issues related to regionalism, ethnicity and gender, as well as specific social and historical concerns.

ENGL 3730 Literature and Medicine: Addiction and Modernity (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to accounts of substance use and addiction from the nineteenth century through the present day. We will examine canonical and contemporary literary texts, medical writings, visual representations, smartphone applications, and films alongside topics such as liberalism, inequality, imperial expansion, consumerism, “digital drugs,” and the pathologization of addiction. We will consider our readings in light of the following questions: What role do substance use and addiction play in constructing the modern self and society? What can representations of addiction teach us about our relationship with the external world? How does addiction act as a metaphor, a narrative device, or even a political sign? How do gender, class, and race affect narratives of addiction? How do accounts of addiction interact with philosophical texts, medical treatises, and imperial and colonial discourses? In addition to writing critical essays, students will evaluate smartphone addiction treatment apps and devise a creative project on a topic relevant to this course.

ENGL 3731 Topics in English (1-4 Credits)

ENGL 3732 Topics in English (1-4 Credits)

ENGL 3733 Topics in English (1-4 Credits)

Advanced topics in American or British literature reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the department and specialized areas of interest of the English and Literary Arts faculty.

ENGL 3742 Jesus in Jewish Literature (4 Credits)

This course surveys literary depictions of Jesus in Jewish literature. Readers are often surprised to learn that throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, major Jewish writers have incorporated the figure of Jesus of Nazareth into their work. This class explores the historical, aesthetic, and spiritual reasons for the many Jewish literary representations of Jesus and of his literary foil, Judas. A selection of materials including short stories, poems, novels, scholarly essays and polemics in English and in translation from Hebrew and Yiddish demonstrate the depth of Jewish literary culture’s engagement with Jesus’ life and teachings. Among the many writers we will read are: S.Y. Agnon, Sholem Asch, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Haim Hazaz, Emma Lazarus, Amos Oz, Philip Roth, and L. Shapiro. Ultimately, this class will consider how literary representations of Jesus can destabilize perceived distinctions between Jews and Christians. While helpful, no knowledge of Jewish languages, religious tradition, or cultural practice is necessary to succeed in this course. This course is cross-listed as JUST 3742.

ENGL 3743 Modern Jewish Literature (4 Credits)

Stories, novels and memoirs by 20th-century Jewish writers; consideration of issues of generation, gender and idea of Jewish literature as a genre. Cross listed with JUST 3743.

ENGL 3744 African American Literature (4 Credits)

This course examines fiction, poetry, autobiography, and drama by African American writers, with strong consideration on the socio-historical conditions that gave rise to and continue to inform this literary tradition.

ENGL 3800 Bibliography/Research Method (4 Credits)

ENGL 3803 Modernism/Postmodernism (4 Credits)

ENGL 3813 History and Structure of the English Language (4 Credits)

A composite course studying both the structure of modern English and the history of the English language.

ENGL 3817 History of Rhetoric (4 Credits)

ENGL 3818 Composition Theory (4 Credits)

ENGL 3819 Old English (4 Credits)

This class introduces students to Old English grammar, prose, and poetry. This course is a prerequisite for ENGL 3200.

ENGL 3821 Literary Criticism: 19th Century-Present (4 Credits)

ENGL 3822 Literary Criticism: 20th Century (4 Credits)

Critical methods and philosophies of 20th-century critics; their relationship to traditions.

ENGL 3823 Interpretation Theory (4 Credits)

ENGL 3825 Cultural Studies (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to the field of Cultural Studies, which includes theories from the Frankfurt School, the Birmingham School, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminism and Gender Studies, and other cultural theory.

ENGL 3826 Latinx Cultural Studies (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to cultural texts and theories by U.S. Latinx subjects and asks students to consider various forms of cultural and critical methodologies.

ENGL 3852 Topics in Poetics (4 Credits)

ENGL 3900 Senior Seminar (4 Credits)

The Senior Seminar is a deep, investigative course that takes students into a specific, usually narrow topic within a subject field. Such courses emphasize the further, more complex application of skills introduced in the department’s “Introduction to the Major” course. Faculty are encouraged to develop connections between theory and practice and provide an intense, challenging intellectual experience for senior English majors. Students should have taken ENGL 1010 and be in their final year of study before taking this course.

ENGL 3982 Writers in the Schools (2,4 Credits)

This course operates mostly "in the field." Following the models of California Poets in the Schools and Teachers & Writers Collaborative, students are in training with a poet-in-residence, observing him as he conducts a residency in a public school. In addition, we have our own meetings to discuss pedagogy, classroom practices and management, teacher-writer relations, and all other necessary logistical planning. Placement in public schools is facilitated by Denver SCORES, an education program dedicated to increasing literacy in Denver's at-risk school population. For those wishing to work with middle or high school students, or in other community settings (e.g., homeless or women's shelters), special arrangements can be made. This course is a collaborative effort between CO Humanities, Denver SCORES, and the University of Denver.

ENGL 3988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

ENGL 3991 Independent Study (1-17 Credits)

ENGL 3995 Independent Research (1-10 Credits)