ENGL 5313 Studies in Twentieth-Century British Literature: 1922

This course will look at the most impressive year of High Modernist literary production, 1922, one hundred years after the publication of Jacob's Room, Ulysses, and “The Waste Land.” We will read a selection of texts from British and American authors, focusing mostly on fiction and on British writers. Work will include a conference paper/presentation, a weekly blog, and a class presentation.

Requirements Fulfilled: British Literature; Period: Later; Genre: Fiction

ENGL 5324 Studies in Twentieth-Century American Literature: Memoir, Trauma, and Ethics

In The Art of Time in Memoir, Sven Birkerts wrote that the trauma memoir can be understood and analyzed as a bildungsroman – the story of a self-renewal through mortal circumstances. This course will explore the evolution of the trauma memoir in North America from the late 20th into the early 21st century, including memoirs by Terese Marie Mailhot, Kiese Laymon, Lacy M. Johnson, Michael Herr, Alison Bechdel, Bhanu Kapil, and Alexander Chee. Framing questions include: What are the ethics of recreating trauma on the page? How careful must we be with others whose stories we are also telling? And do we agree with Birkerts that the arc of a trauma memoir is similar to a coming-of-age, or are we identifying other hallmark characteristics of craft? In order to deepen our conversation, we will also incorporate poetry, painting, craft essays, video art, and TikToks.

Students will be expected to complete a short project and class presentation on one of the memoirs, a 5-7 page midterm paper reflecting on and synthesizing two of the memoirs, and a final project based on their own proposal.

Requirements Fulfilled: American Literature, Period: Later; Genre: Non-fiction

ENGL 5327 Studies in Multicultural American Literature: Indigenous Futurism

This course will explore creative and scholarly works in the emerging field of Indigenous Futurism. We will read novels, a novel, and graphic narratives/comics as well as critical texts. All our primary texts and most scholarly articles are by Native American, First Nations, indigenous authors and/or artists from somewhere in the Americas. Among the questions we will consider are: Why has speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, alternative history, futurism, etc.) traditionally been so closely associated with white, Western, male authors and narratives of invasion and conquest? What happens when authors from cultures which have already survived an alien invasion and conquest claim speculative fiction to tell their own stories? Why are we currently experiencing a groundswell of publications in speculative fiction by authors/filmmakers of color, including native/tribal peoples?

Requirements Fulfilled: American Literature; Period: Later; Genre: Fiction or Film; Literature, Social Justice, and Environment (LSJE)

ENGL 5343 Studies in Literary Criticism: We Too Write Black Freedom: Gender, Consciousness, Power

In two distinct but mutually influential black freedom struggles in the last half of the twentieth century – against social and political inequality in the United States and apartheid in South Africa – there is sometimes an inordinate emphasis on male black leadership and ideas. Important as the revolutionary philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Steve Biko, Barney Pityana, and others were, women and queer activists played an equal and sometimes more than equal part in conceptualizing and actualizing black freedom. Some of this forgotten history has been uncovered in recent years by black feminist scholars. Much of it remains unacknowledged and unknown.

The political writings, speeches, life narratives, and first-person accounts emerging out of these important freedom struggles is the focus of this course. Beginning with narratives of women's leadership in desegregation efforts in the American South including sit-ins, freedom rides, and black electoral mobilization, moving on to the emergence of black power rhetoric by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) after the assassination of Martin Luther King, we will chart these influences on the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) rhetoric of community development popularized by the South African Student Organization (SASO). The final section of the course will focus on the writerly and activist legacies of SNCC and SASO in contemporary mobilization around #BlackLivesMatter and #RhodesMustFall. We will also address the formal elements of ‘autobiography,' and how these narratives imitate, subvert, or remediate that form to arrive at an expansive and inherently political definition of ‘life writing'.

Requirements Fulfilled: CLGT; Period: Later; Genre: Non-Fiction; Women's and Gender Studies Certificate

ENGL 5380 Special Topics in Literary Studies: The “Problem” with Cli Fi

Some of the best climate fiction, or Cli Fi is tangential or metaphoric rather than literally “about” climate change. A great deal of fiction concerned with environmental questions is cloaked in ethical and philosophical concerns and questions of time, space, and agency—as well as grief. Neologisms like eco-anxiety and solastalgia point to connections between interior and exterior landscapes that are difficult to articulate. As such, much of Cli Fi is cloaked in issues ranging from human overpopulation and habitat loss to colonial enterprise, bodily transformation, societal breakdown, and shifts in consciousness. In this course, we explore fiction shaped by the interplay of causality and connection between the environment and humanity's place in the natural world. Focusing our attention on perceptions, policies, and ways of life that shape identity and patterns of belonging, we begin by discussing early forms of “nature writing” and move into the 21st century to consider the thriving genres of Cli Fi and dystopia that reflect some unsettling realities of the Anthropocene. Some questions that will frame our discussions include: how has the nature of our humanity altered in our age of commodification, cybernetics, and catastrophe? How do social justice concerns inform dystopia, Cli Fi, and environmental writing? In our attempt to answer these questions (and others) we will develop critical perspectives integral to becoming conscientious citizens for the planet. Course readings are drawn from literature, philosophy, ecology, film, and cultural studies and include authors like Mark Fisher, E. O. Wilson, Margaret Atwood, Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia E. Butler, Katherine Hayhoe, Ursula K. Le Guin, J. G Ballard, Cherie Dimaline, and Rebecca Roanhorse.

Requirements fulfilled: American Literature, LSJE; Period: later; Genre: fiction