Undergraduate
Course Offerings
For course descriptions, see the ßŮßÇÂţ» . For individual section descriptions of our course offerings, view the course bulletin and the flyers below.
To request a permit into a closed or restricted course, contact your advisor for more information.
fall 2024 flyers & Descriptions
Creative Writing
CRW 3013: Intro to Creative Writing
The introduction to creative writing is a course for any student who wishes to learn how to build a healthy creative process. In this welcoming course, you will learn how to generate new writing, how to deal with doubt and procrastination, and how to revise and edit creative writing effectively. You’ll experiment with fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, working from weekly prompts. You will read and respond to published work by diverse, lively contemporary authors, and bring your drafts to small peer groups for review.
This course can be substituted for any one Form and Technique requirement.
CRW 3013: Intro to Creative Writing
The introduction to creative writing is a course for any student who wishes to learn how to build a healthy creative process. In this welcoming course, you will learn how to generate new writing, how to deal with doubt and procrastination, and how to revise and edit creative writing effectively. You’ll experiment with fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, working from weekly prompts. You will read and respond to published work by diverse, lively contemporary authors, and bring your drafts to small peer groups for review.
This course can be substituted for any one Form and Technique requirement.
CRW 3013: Intro to Creative Writing
The introduction to creative writing is a course for any student who wishes to learn how to build a healthy creative process. In this welcoming course, you will learn how to generate new writing, how to deal with doubt and procrastination, and how to revise and edit creative writing effectively. You’ll experiment with fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, working from weekly prompts. You will read and respond to published work by diverse, lively contemporary authors, and bring your drafts to small peer groups for review.
This course can be substituted for any one Form and Technique requirement.
CRW 3013: Intro to Creative Writing
The introduction to creative writing is a course for any student who wishes to learn how to build a healthy creative process. In this welcoming course, you will learn how to generate new writing, how to deal with doubt and procrastination, and how to revise and edit creative writing effectively. You’ll experiment with fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, working from weekly prompts. You will read and respond to published work by diverse, lively contemporary authors, and bring your drafts to small peer groups for review.
This course can be substituted for any one Form and Technique requirement.
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
Form and Technique of Fiction focuses on generating original work by the course participants and the study of work of established fiction writers. You’ll learn the how the different elements of fiction (scene, summary, dialogue) work together and you will practice narrative writing techniques (imagery, tension, characterization, etc.) used to create effective poetry. The forms and techniques presented in this course will enhance your writing skills across the board. If you choose to continue on as a storyteller, you’ll have an excellent foundation. This course serves as a pre-requisite for Fiction I and II and Nonfiction I and II.
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
How do we utilize surprising details in our writing? How can we continue to craft original work, whether it's realism or science fiction?
All writing makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. In this craft class, we will explore the essential elements that make up short fiction. Through analysis, reading, and quick-paced writing experiments, we'll think outside of the box to condense and heighten the stakes of our stories. This course is open to all writers regardless of genre or experience!
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
Form and Technique of Fiction focuses on generating original work by the course participants and the study of work by established fiction writers. You’ll learn how the different elements of fiction work together, and you will practice narrative writing techniques used to create effective fiction. All are welcome- no prior creative writing experience necessary.
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
Form and Technique of Fiction focuses on generating original work by the course participants and the study of work of established fiction writers. You’ll learn how the different elements of fiction (scene, summary, dialogue) work together and you will practice narrative writing techniques (imagery, tension, characterization, etc.) used to create effective poetry. The forms and techniques presented in this course will enhance your writing skills across the board. If you choose to continue on as a storyteller, you’ll have an excellent foundation. This course serves as a pre-requisite for Fiction I and II and Nonfiction I and II.
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
This course will focus on understanding the short story form, wrestling with ideas of what a story ought to do, and experimentation and play. We will use craft advice from Anders and Saunders to analyze stories and to push us to try new things in our work. Students will write two original stories, a craft analysis, many short exercises, and will do one intensive revision. Toward the end of the semester, we will workshop student stories.
CRW 3111: Form & Technique of Fiction
Form and Technique of Fiction focuses on generating original work by the course participants and the study of work of established fiction writers. You’ll learn the how the different elements of fiction (scene, summary, dialogue) work together and you will practice narrative writing techniques (imagery, tension, characterization, etc.) used to create effective poetry. The forms and techniques presented in this course will enhance your writing skills across the board. If you choose to continue on as a storyteller, you’ll have an excellent foundation. This course serves as a pre-requisite for Fiction I and II and Nonfiction I and II.
CRW 3112: Fiction I
This course is designed to teach students how to write effective short fictions that hold the attention of the reader through suspense, credible plotting, three-dimensional characters, vibrant dialogue, and significant description. A key component of all good stories – a “central dramatic question” – will be emphasized. We’ll also discuss and interpret a wide variety of modern stories and see what they can tell us about the successful writing of fiction. Assignments will highlight conflict, mystery, and the use of an unreliable narrator. At the end of the class, student writers will have a portfolio of works that they can send to magazines and journals. If you have any questions, please contact me at: mleib@usf.edu.
CRW 3112: Fiction I
In this asynchronous, fully online course, we will aim to improve our skills as readers and writers of fiction. Through close readings of published short stories, we will examine the choices made by the authors and experiment with a wide variety of techniques and styles in our own work. This class is first and foremost a workshop, meaning you will be reading the stories of your fellow students and then thoughtfully and constructively providing feedback on their work via online discussion. Above all, the course aims to provide a rigorous and nurturing environment in which the primary goal is to make our writing better.
CRW 3121: Fiction II
This Fiction II workshop will include story-writing, peer critique, and group discussion of original manuscripts. We will discuss how to write fiction well—focusing mostly on structure, conflict, and character—and will examine what techniques we can learn from examining single-author collections by Lauren Groff and Marjorie Liu. Revision will focus on sweeping structural changes and an openness to rethinking assumptions. As this is an advanced class, we will also consider the effect of technical moves on the reader and how stories can elicit a powerful emotional response.
CRW 3211: Form & Technique of Nonfiction
Creative nonfiction exists on a spectrum from writing about the self to writing about the world. In this class we will explore forms that range from memoir to travel writing and everything in between. This class will teach you how to use craft techniques from fiction and poetry (scene, character, setting, imagery, metaphor, etc) to write true stories.
CRW 3211: Form & Technique of Nonfiction
Nonfiction gives creative writers the opportunity to use craft techniques from fiction and poetry (scene, character, setting, imagery, metaphor, etc) to write true stories. In this Form and Technique of Nonfiction course, we will learn about this popular genre, exploring various forms, including micro memoir, flash nonfiction, the list essay, visual narratives, and other forms. Considering the work of contemporary nonfiction writers, we will discuss a range of nonfiction craft techniques, and you’ll write and receive feedback on your own narrative nonfiction. As you’re writing your stories, you can speculate, use your imagination, and play with form. This course provides a wonderful opportunity for cross-training for both poets and fiction writers.
All are welcome in this supportive, friendly, introductory course. No previous nonfiction experience is assumed or expected.
CRW 3212: Nonfiction I, Writing Stories with Photographs
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera,” wrote documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. In this section of Nonfiction I: Writing Stories with Photographs, we’ll use cameras and photographs to teach us how to craft our scenes with vivid details, zoom in on our characters and settings, and frame our stories effectively. Like a photograph, a good story is as much about what you decide to include within the frame as what you leave out of it. In creative nonfiction, writers use craft techniques from fiction and poetry to write true stories, so writers from all genres are encouraged to sign up for this creative writing course.
CRW 3221: Nonfiction II, Love, Desire, & Heartbreak
In her graphic memoir Good Talk, Mira Jacob writes, “We think our hearts break only from endings—the love gone, the rooms empty, the future unhappening as we stand ready to step into it—but what about how they can shatter in the face of what is possible?” In this Nonfiction II workshop, we will read, write, and workshop nonfiction about love, desire, and heartbreak. From friendship, to familial love, to romantic love, to complicated love, to the love of basketball and the places we call home, we will discuss how different authors write about their own experiences and cultural expectations around love, desire, the body, and loss. We will use fiction and poetry craft techniques to write true stories. Writers from all genres welcome!
CRW 3311: Form & Technique of Poetry
“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals.” —Sylvia Plath
This course is the room that introduces you to the world of poetry without any prior experience required. We'll explore various poetic forms and techniques, nurture our love for poetry, and build a creative community. The second edition of the Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett is required.
CRW 3311: Form & Technique of Poetry
“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals.” —Sylvia Plath
This course is the room that introduces you to the world of poetry without any prior experience required. We'll explore various poetic forms and techniques, nurture our love for poetry, and build a creative community. The second edition of the Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett is required.
CRW 3312: Poetry I
Poetry I is an introductory poetry course that builds upon the skills students have developed in Form and Technique of Poetry. Students will write weekly poetry exercises, read poems by a variety of contemporary poets, present a poem to the class in a group presentation, and participate in a poetry workshop. Our primary focus will be contemporary poetry, much of which is written in free verse, but we will also attend to important aspects of poetic form. Students will write frequently and a significant portion of class will be devoted to workshop. In addition to writing exercises aimed at generating new poems, we will also cover strategies and methods for revision. At the end of the term, students will submit a final portfolio of revised poetry and a reflective essay.
CRW 3321: Poetry II
A poetry workshop that provides individual and peer guidance for the student's writing and that encourages the development of critical skills.
CRW 4930: Screenwriting
This course is an introduction to the writing of screenplays. The six key features of any screenplay – action, character, dialogue, description, concept, and format – will be emphasized, as will the creation of scripts in three-act form. By the time the course is finished, the student should be on the way to writing a full-length screenplay ready to submit to agents and producers. In some class meetings, students will watch sections of movies like Erin Brockovich and Fargo, which we’ll analyze and discuss. Eventually, students will learn how to become effective self-critical writers and thinkers. If you have any questions, please contact me at: meleib@usf.edu
CRW 4930: The Poet in the World
In this course we will explore the power that poetry can have when taken out of the classroom, off the page, and into the world. Students will study different kinds of literary curation as defined by writers like Nick Nowak, Audrey Lorde, and Michael Bhaskar, among others. We will also speak to literary arts organizations like the O’Miami Poetry Festival, Poets in the Schools, zine and chapbook making workshops, traditional reading series, and more on their tenets of literary curation and community building. This course will work closely with the Department of English’s Michael Kuperman Memorial Poetry Library to put into practice and publish individual students’ varied literary curations. The final project for this course will ask students to design their own projects that engage in a form of literary curation in the Tampa Bay area. In this way, students will not only study how to enact community poetry events that make a lasting difference, but also go into their own communities and put these ideas into practice.
CRW 4930: Micro Memoir
The ability to tell a riveting story, beautifully, in a small space, is a profoundly useful skill for any writer. This friendly, supportive course focuses on generating and revising micro memoir. Micro memoirs are ultra-brief true stories, drawn from your life experience. Because of their size, micros are reader-friendly and therefore extremely publishable. Poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction students—beginners to advanced—are invited to come and play and experiment with a range of exciting, miniaturized forms in our micro memoir sandbox.
Each week, we’ll study the craft elements in published micros. And, you’ll receive a micro writing prompt. Over the course of the semester, you’ll bring these drafts to class and respond to peer work-in-progress.
Ultimately, the goal of this course is to help you improve your story telling skills, while carefully attending to the powerful, intentional movement of language and syntax, in a tight container. Workload: weekly reading responses, weekly writing assignments + peer responses. Final Project: micro sequence or braided micro memoir, live reading. Attendance: in person, required.
CRW 4930: Writing the Novel
In this course, students will endeavor to draft a novel. The class will focus on intensive, marathon writing with weekly word count goals. Students will begin by choosing a model novel as their guiding star, articulating what techniques they want to borrow and what elements they will make new. We will look at ways authors organize and outline such a big project, borrowing some useful tricks from screenwriting. Through discussion, we will express the difficulties of novel writing and try to help one another find a path when we get lost. Later in the course, we will workshop partial drafts. Mostly, we will write.
English (General)
ENG 3014: Intro to Literary Methodology
“What can you do with a major (or minor) in English?” If you get that question from parents, grandparents, and business-major friends, this is the class for you! We’ll explore careers for English majors (and minors) and you will get to choose the major assignments you wish to complete. No “one-size-fits-all” in this course! ENG3014.001, code 96123, totally online, asynchronously. Dr. Cynthia Patterson, cpatterson@usf.edu.
ENG 3014: Intro to Literary Methodology
This course prepares English majors and minors with the basic critical and technical skills and understanding for subsequent literary study in 3000- and 4000-level courses towards the major. Substantial writing. Required of LIT majors. Recommended during first 2 semesters of LIT major.
ENG 3674: Film & Culture
This course will examine various films by significant filmmakers, especially those films that illustrate popular culture(s). We will consider different perspectives of popular culture according to shifts in cultural and intellectual assumptions over time that are represented in the cinematic tradition. Our class time will be spent viewing films and discussing cinema as well as discussing their development and importance, with particular attention paid to discussing various ways of "reading" films in terms of the ways they reflect popular culture. Careful reading of the textbook is essential to success in the course.
ENG 4060: Histoy of the English Language
Have you ever wondered how English came to be as it exists today? Why does English spelling seem so unpredictable? How long have people used “they” as a singular pronoun and in what situations? How have other languages—from Latin to Yoruba to Japanese—influenced English? Who writes and speaks in English now, and why?
English began as a set of low-prestige dialects on a small island near the edge of the world known to Europe but has now become a global language. In this course, we will study how historical and contemporary variants developed from the pre-history of the language to today and how dialects relate to geography, class, race and ethnicity, and other factors. We will explore some of the many different Englishes in use now as well as characteristics and cultural settings of English in different eras. History of the English Language will also introduce you to valuable resources that can help you in this class, in other courses, and in life and work beyond the university. You will gain insights into the richness and variety of Englishes as you improve your critical thinking, research, and writing skills. No previous experience with linguistics or the history of English is required.
ENG 4934: Senior Seminar, Middlemarch
“Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.” George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
Virginia Woolf called George Eliot’s Middlemarch “one of the few novels written for grownup people.” Whether you regard Middlemarch as the greatest novel of the nineteenth century, or the greatest realist novel in English, it is a text well worth knowing.
This Senior Seminar is something of an indulgent treat: a semester-long study of a single text. We will explore Middlemarch in-and-out, top-to-bottom. As we revel in the novel’s rich, layered language in the company of its engaging characters, we will consider the novel within multiple cultural and critical contexts. With the assistance of contemporary documents, modern scholarship, and literary theory, we will investigate the novel’s engagement with the cultural, social, and political concerns of its day, and we will assess its enduring relevance.
ENG 4935: English Honors Seminar I. Transformations of the Medieval
The Middle Ages are often depicted as a boring, static time of boring, moralizing literature. Yet twentieth- and twenty-first century artists have found inspiration in medieval literature—because when we look closely, we find dynamic works depicting the full range of emotions, cultural clashes, and human dilemmas. We’ll dive deeply into Beowulf and then Maria Dahvana Headley’s story of a modern-day US veteran who retreats from civilization with her son only to find a subdivision encroaching on her realm (The Mere Wife, 2018). Our selection of Old English poems embraces everything from crude humor to transcendent religious vision; we’ll move from there to Miller Oberman’s poetry of estrangement and transformation in The Unstill Ones (2017). We’ll sample from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Middle English Canterbury Tales, with their earthy fabliaux and elevated romances, and then we’ll read Gloria Naylor’s tales of pilgrims finding their way to Bailey’s Café (1992). These texts share many of the same questions, about which we will talk and write: when is violence justified? Revenge? What can love accomplish—for good and ill? How much do we shape our own lives, and how are we constrained by God, fate, destiny, class, race, family, and sex and gender? What do contemporary artists keep, alter, and add as they create their own works with an eye toward medieval sources?
This course is open only to English Honors majors (and required for first-semester English Honors students).
Literature
AML 3031: American Literature from the Beginnings to 1860
AML 3031 is a survey of early American literature to 1860. It will, therefore, introduce students to works by both popular and lesser-known authors central to early American literature. Our readings will progress in roughly chronological order through novels, novellas, poetry, tracts, and essays from the “beginnings” to the middle of the nineteenth century—a period that scholars have termed the “American Renaissance.” As we work our way through the semester, we will be guided by the following questions: what role does literature play in our understanding of this era’s history and culture? And what national narratives, originating in this period and in part from this literature, influence the national narrative today?
University Course Description: AML 3031: A study of representative works from the period of early settlement through American Romanticism, with emphasis on such writers as Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville, Thoreau, and Poe, among others. 3 credit hours.
AML 3604: African American Literature
AML 3604, African American Literature, explores writing produced by Black Americans from the late 18th century to the present, including genres such as poetry, fiction, nonfiction prose, and drama. We’ll cover authors from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and more.
AML 3674: Asian American Literature and Film
This course is a critical survey of Asian American popular culture, especially literature and film. We will emphasize the social and political contexts out of which these productions emerge by analyzing political cartoons, news articles, and discourses.
ENL 3015: British Literature to 1616
ENL 3015 In this course, we will explore representative literary texts from Beowulf to 1616 within their cultural, historical, and artistic contexts through readings, video viewings, class lecture/discussion, in-class activities (collaborative work—informal presentations or performances), discussion posts, quizzes, out-of-class essay tests, and an Adaptation Project. We will focus primarily on the connections between assigned texts and four key topics that are prevalent in the literature of this time period, the Middle Ages up through the early seventeenth century: 1) Love and War: Race, Chivalry, and Courtly Love; 2) Conjuring Infinite Worlds: Faith, Magic, and the Play; 3) Early Modern Genders: Conflict, Queens, and Courtiers; 4) Renaissance Love and Desire: Pleasure, Pain, and Petrarchan Love.
ENL 3016: The Origins of Gothic Fiction
Crazed madmen...secret passages...ghosts and werewolves.... This course takes a longer-than- usual look at the origins and development of British Gothic Fiction—and its characteristically spooky literary devices—by situating its roots in the bloody, supernatural revenge plays of the English Renaissance. It also adopts as a central metaphor the idea that successive iterations of Gothic Fiction are haunted in some way by the writers, texts, and ideas that came before. The reading list traces these ghostly literary transmissions across three centuries of creepy writing, from Hamlet to Heathcliff to Sherlock Holmes. Along the way, though, it also considers how these stories, for all their preoccupations with the buried secrets and crimes of the past, are remarkably adept at speaking to the contemporary circumstances in which they appeared. As we explore these texts and their connections, we will also grapple with a few central questions: What is Gothic Fiction? Why did it arise when it did? What does it do— what is it for? And what does it mean today?
ENL 3017: Studise in 19th Century Literature
Students in this course will explore nineteenth-century British literature and culture through the study of selected texts, films, and other cultural productions. This semester our focus will be the multi-generic progeny of two nineteenth-century novels: Great Expectations and Jane Eyre. We will examine these texts as examples of their form, and we will explore the cultural afterlives as we look at some of the ways in which they have been re-visioned by novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers. Along the way, we’ll develop a better understanding of literary adaptation—the forces that drive the adaptive impulse and that shape the resulting adaptations. We will consider literary adaptations as forms of cultural re-articulations, as artistic works in their own rights, and as forms of critical engagement with originary literary texts.
Course requirements include active participation in class discussions (synchronous), a series of short writing assignments, and a final research paper.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature, Aesthetics of American Gothic Literature
The American Gothic literary canon is rife with hauntings, paranoia, perversion, and familial dissolution, among other assorted hardships and miseries. The authors who have shaped this genre hail from Revolutionary-era New England, the twentieth-century South, and the contemporary Midwest.
The past two-plus centuries have given rise to distinct, regional interpretations of the Gothic. This class explores the development of American Gothic literature from its colonial roots up to its modern manifestations with the goal of distinguishing the defining aesthetic traits of the Gothic across each of these time periods and geographic locales, culminating in a firm understanding of each of these particular Gothic subgenres as well as their impact on our contemporary perspective of the genre as a whole and how these works inform our understanding of the cultural practices of these distinct periods and regions.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature, Queer Kinships & Performances
In this course, we'll explore various fictional and real-world presentations of queer kinships and performances.
We will analyze these relationships and performances within drama, poetry, novels, short stories, films, manga, anime, and art.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literatur, Apocalyptic Narratives
This individual section of LIT 2000 is dedicated to "Apocalyptic Narratives of Plague and Pandemic: Death, Fear, Contagion, and Confinement” in literature. Themes of disease, death, fear, pestilence, and plague have dominated literature for centuries. Plague arrived in Europe in 1347, and by 1400 this “Black Death” had diminished Europe’s total population by at least half. These events produced an array of pestilence narratives which helped to establish the cannon of plague literature. These narratives reveal how outbreaks of catastrophic disease have affected humankind throughout history. They reflect our longstanding cultural and literary fascination with the idea of diseases and pandemics, real or imagined. This course examines popular apocalyptic narratives of death, fear, plague, contagion, and confinement to discover what feeds humanity’s everlasting obsession and fear of pandemic, death, and disease. We will use our course readings to evaluate what is plaguing our minds and what contemporary societal issues and “illnesses" keep ravaging our communities and our lives.
LIT 2000: There & Back Again, Tales of Adventure & Travel
Have you always wanted to go to new places? To take a trip and explore the world? To meet new people and bring home lasting friendships? Or just to find yourself out there? In this class we are going to read stories of adventure, travel, and how and why we come home again. Writers and creators have been thinking about this since the beginning. Through prose, poetry, and drama we will work our way to the far corners of the earth and begin asking questions about what makes us different and what
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature, Women & Madness
Literature and Madness: In this course, we will examine representations of women's madness and hysteria. We will look at novels, plays, poems, songs, and film written by Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Taylor Swift, Carmen Maria Machado, Gillian Flynn, and more to examine how these authors deal with madness in their work.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature, Literature of War
Throughout time war has profoundly shaped the history of mankind reminding us of the fragility of our existence. In an attempt to make sense of this conflict, writers like Ernest Hemingway, Homer, and William Shakespeare, among others, have given us their interpretation of war as depicted in their works. Through the study of fiction, poetry, and drama this course will explore certain ways in which these authors have dealt with the theme of war in their respective time periods.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature, Delving into South Asian Women's Writing
Prepare to embark on a literary odyssey through the vibrant tapestry of South Asian women's literature. In this course, we will delve into the intricate narratives penned by women writers from the Indian subcontinent and explore historical and contemporary debates about gender and sexuality in South Asia, which further provides a unique opportunity to explore and appreciate the rich voices that contribute to the global literary landscape. We'll revisit concepts such as “woman,” “sex,” “femininity,” “home,” “family,” “community,” “nation,” “identity” and “civilization,” while also delving into themes of revenge, agency, struggle and more in this engaging and thought-provoking journey. From the colonial era to the present day, we'll traverse the shifting landscapes of gender, society, and personal agency through a diverse selection of poems, short stories, novels, culinary memoirs, and autobiographies. Through close readings and in-depth analysis, we will unravel the complexities of South Asian women's experiences, shedding light on the multifaceted intersections of tradition, modernity, and cultural identity. Throughout the course, we'll examine how women writers challenge and redefine societal norms, offering unique perspectives on what it means to be a woman in South Asian society. From tales of resilience and retribution to intimate reflections on family, community, and belonging, each reading will serve as a window into the rich diversity of South Asian women's voices.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature
This course will introduce students to the three major literary forms of prose, poetry and drama as well as to various “schools” of literary criticism.
LIT 2000: Intro to Literature
This course will introduce students to the three major literary forms of prose, poetry and drama as well as to various “schools” of literary criticism.
LIT 3103: Great Literature of the World
A survey of world literature including samples from the ancient and modern era, Western and Eastern traditions, male and female writers, and various ethnic cultures. Focus on values/ethics, race, ethnicity and gender; thinking and writing skills.
LIT 3301: Cultural Studies & Pop, Taylor Swift's Eras
Calling all mad women, heartbreak princes, and tortured poets! In this course, we’ll
do a close and
critical study of the current cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. Often praised
as one of the
greatest songwriters, Swift takes her artistic heritage not just from other musicians
but from major
literary figures: William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Dickinson, and more.
Together, we’ll
explore the cultural history behind Swift’s career, and we’ll interpret her lyrics
as poetry, using a
range of approaches. We’ll also consider Swift as a performer and self-marketer: how
does she fashion
herself as a writer, musician, and cultural icon through both art and public life?
This course will be team-taught, with one weekly large session led by Drs. Cook, Jones,
and Taylor, and
one weekly smaller discussion led by one of us individually.
LIT 3301: Culturl Studies & Popular Arts
Looking for Mr. Darcy? Gentle Reader, you will find him—and many headstrong Lizzies—right
here! In
this online section of Cultural Studies and the Popular Arts, we will focus on the
persistence of
romance first popularized with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In 1813 Austen published
the novel
that would provide the template for the rude, rich, and alluring romantic lead who
embarks on
unwanted and unlikely path to marry the spunky, articulate but less culturally elite
main character
through whom the story is told. Families clash, ethical issues complicate, but the
sexual attraction
between the couple prevails. In LIT 3301, we will study Austen’s novel, two contemporary
novel
adaptions (Eligible and Longbourn), one film (Bride and Prejudice), one streaming
video series
(Netflix’s Bridgerton), and one web series (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) to analyze
how the plot line and conventions of Pride and Prejudice change with race, class,
and ethnicity to become the grist of
popular culture and internet sensation. Our coursework will include readings, video
viewings, quizzes,
blog and summary posts, a Research/Argument Essay, an Adaptation Project, and a final
exam.
LIT 3621: iterature of Climate Change, Climate Fiction
A study of literature about climate change in the new genre of Climate Fiction, including works by Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, Kim Stanley Robinson and the like.
LIT 3451: Literature & the Occult
This course begins by exploring answers to a deceptively simple question: what is
occult literature? We
will investigate conventions of the genre, read fiction from a variety of historical
contexts, and discuss
ways in which occult literature illuminates cultural fears and anxieties. Readings
include Carmilla, The Haunting of Hill House, Mapping the Interior, The Ballad of
Black Tom, and more!
LIT 4386: British and American Literature by Women
Women and the Body: How have female authors represented the female body? How has gender
shaped understanding of the body? How have women violated taboos and challenged norms
by portraying the
female body? To consider these questions, we will read significant works by women
in a variety of
genres. Note: You must be able to attend this class in person on the Sarasota campus.
Professional & Technical Communications
ENC 3250: Professional Writing
Why does an email at a tech startup feel different from a memo in a law firm? What makes a presentation in a creative agency stand out from one in a healthcare organization? The answer is in the distinct norms and cultures of each organization. Through interactive lectures, case studies, and hands-on projects, you will learn to analyze and engage in any organization more effectively, crafting messages that resonate with others.
ENC 3371: Rhetorical Theory
In this course, we will learn and apply rhetorical ideas to various texts. First, we will explore rhetorical concepts, from antiquity to the present, that have traditionally helped rhetors make persuasive arguments. Then, we will apply those concepts to a series of real-life scenarios occurring in the professional workplace and beyond, exploring the role multimedia technologies play in our everyday lives. Finally, we will reflect on the process of putting theory to practice as we invent the world through contemporary communication. This course emphasizes the embeddedness of rhetoric in quotidian communicative acts, including but not limited to current work cultures. Assignments include participation in exercises and discussions, essays and other forms of technical writing, concept exams, and professional multimodal presentations.
ENC 3376: Multimodal Composition
Explore the world of multimedia storytelling. In a digital environment where the lines between text, image, and sound increasingly blur, your ability to communicate across various platforms is crucial for engaging audiences. ENC 3376 focuses on combining moving images, color, music, sound, and gesture to create effective communication. Over the semester, you’ll learn to craft compelling narratives that resonate across an array of sensory experiences. Whether your goal is to influence, entertain, inform, or persuade, this course will help you become a better digital storyteller.
ENC 4212: Professional & Technical Editing
When authors edit their work, they must negotiate between what is mechanically “correct” and what is rhetorically effective. Authors write within rhetorical situations that consist of their purpose and target audience. Professional editors, however, work within rhetorical situations that include an additional layer of complexity: the author. As professional editors review a text, they must balance their own expertise and the author’s vision.
ENC 4212 introduces students to the different types of editing, including copy editing, content editing, organizational editing, digital editing, indexing, and final proofing. Along the way, students will learn common editing tools including hand editing marks, Microsoft Word’s TrackChanges, and Google Docs’ Suggestion Mode.
In this course, students will edit professional documents, creative writing, informative articles, recipes, and more. In addition to editing assignments, students will practice communicating through genres that editors commonly use, including author queries, letters, and style sheets. Major projects include a style guide analysis, editing collection, comprehensive short (visual) edit, and comprehensive long (technical) edit.
ENC 4264: Managerial Communication
Managerial Communications is designed to develop written, oral, and non-verbal skills in the context of managerial communication tasks. Enhancing your managerial communication skills enables you to become more competitive in the professional job search and more successful in the workplace.
ENC 4940: Professional Internship
This class consists of supervised professional work-and-learning experience under the direction of a University faculty member and an employee of a participating firm. Ten to 12 hours per week of student time is expected during a standard 16-week semester, while 13 to 16 hours per week is expected during a 10-week Summer C semester.
Internships are available for all students in the Department of English or any other program in the School of the Humanities, including Communication, History, Humanities & Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and World Languages.
Enrollment is contingent upon the availability of suitable internship sponsors based upon the student’s academic and career goals. Students are placed according to specific academic and experiential qualifications, including GPA, courses taken, previous employment history, recommendations, and interviews with the Director of Internships and a representative of the prospective internship sponsor. This internship course may be repeated one time with approval of the internship coordinator and the department chair.