English
Division of Humanities and Fine Arts
In the Washington College English department, you can do everything and anything with words: critical and creative writing; journalism, editing & publishing; analysis of literature and media, both old and new; how to read a book and how to make one. You will learn from celebrated visiting writers and scholars who join your classes or read at the Rose O’Neill Literary House. You will engage in a variety of experiential learning opportunities, from class trips to study abroad to internships in communications, editing, journalism, publishing, and other fields. You will be guided by a faculty mentor and develop independent research for your Senior Capstone Experience. As a critic, editor, essayist, journalist, poet, and storyteller you will become knowledgeable and skilled in analysis, creativity, inquiry, and persuasion.
From classes in literature and creative writing to the welcoming environment of the Rose O’Neill Literary House, writers and students of literature alike will find Washington College home to a vibrant literary community. Each year, thanks to the Sophie Kerr Endowment and its programs, the College brings to campus a succession of distinguished writers, editors, and literary scholars. Billy Collins, Junot Díaz, Nick Flynn, Jonathan Franzen, Neil Gaiman, Lauren Groff, Ted Kooser, Li-Young Lee, Colum McCann, Azar Nafisi, Maggie Nelson, Joyce Carol Oates, Claudia Rankine, Jane Smiley, Natasha Trethewey, Colson Whitehead, and Jacqueline Woodson are just some of the writers and literary scholars who have come to campus in the last decade to teach, lecture, and conduct writing workshops.
To read, to think, to write, to communicate: these habits of interpretation and expression are fundamental to a liberal arts education, to the mission of Washington College, and to the study of English. The mission of the English Department is to develop students who can read the variety of literature in English broadly, think through ideas critically, analyze texts closely, gather and communicate information effectively, and write clearly, creatively, and articulately.
Distribution Credit in English
Students who wish to fulfill the Humanities Distribution Requirement with one Humanities course may do so by taking any 100 or 200 level courses in English except ENG 103 Introduction to Creative Writing, which does not fulfill the Humanities Distribution Requirement.
Students who choose to take two courses in English to fulfill the Humanities distribution requirement are not required to take a sequence. They may take any two ENG courses from the same grouping (ENG 101 Literature and Composition and all 200-level ENG courses).
Courtney Rydel, Chair
Elizabeth O’Connor, Associate Chair
Sufiya Abdur-Rahman
Katherine Charles
Richard DeProspo
James Allen Hall
Roy Kesey
Sean Meehan
ENG SCE Senior Capstone Experience 2 Credits
The Senior Capstone Experience (SCE) in English is an opportunity for English majors to bring their research and interpretive abilities, their writing skills, and their understanding of the literary tradition to bear on a long-term, independent project in the form of an essay and annotated bibliography that serves as the culmination of their literary studies at Washington College. The SCE for English majors exemplifies each student's accumulated knowledge and mastery of literary analysis, developed under the mentorship of a departmental professor who challenges and guides you through the process. SCE preparation begins in Junior Seminar, where you develop the necessary skills for choosing a topic, articulating your ideas in an abstract, exploring the field in a proposal, summarizing researching through an annotated bibliography, and writing a 25-30 page essay. Upon completion of your SCE, you present your research and ideas in the English Thesis Lightning Talks.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 101 Literature and Composition 4 Credits
This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 103 Introduction to Creative Writing 4 Credits
A workshop introducing new writers to several forms of creative writing, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Students use classic and contemporary literature as models for their own efforts. Counts for Creative Writing minor, Journalism, Editing & Publishing minor, W2 requirement.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 190 English Internship 4 Credits
A learning contract is developed prior to enrollment in an internship. Evaluation of student performance is completed by the faculty mentor based on the fulfillment of the contract terms and written evaluation by the internship site supervisor. Students must work at least 45 hours for each internship credit and be enrolled in the course prior to beginning work. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 194 Special Topics 4 Credits
Topics not regularly offered in a department's normal course offerings, chosen based on current student interest and faculty expertise. Special topic courses can only be offered 3 times; after this, the course must be approved as a regular course. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 201 The Art of Rhetoric 4 Credits
Students study and develop the rhetorical knowledge readers and writers use to generate persuasive critical analysis and compelling expository prose in any discipline or field of inquiry. Topics chosen by the instructor (for example: the rhetoric of documentary, the rhetoric of science, the rhetoric of identity) explore the ways writers, artists, and thinkers use rhetoric to communicate in a range of circumstances and texts, both print and multimedia, literary and multidisciplinary. Guided by readings in classical elements of rhetorical study (the 5 canons of rhetoric, rhetorical tropes and figures) students develop knowledge of writing process and effective style; attention is also given to the oratorical delivery of composition in the form of speech and/or multimedia presentation. The guiding principle of the course is emulative: while students read and critique various models of rhetorical knowledge evident in the course texts, they also apply that knowledge to the texts they generate as writers.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 205 Shakespeare I 4 Credits
This course examines some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Using films and live productions it considers the plays as they have been and could be interpreted for performance. This class examines a number of these exciting works through a variety of lenses from gender to performance history.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 206 Shakespeare II 4 Credits
This course examines some of Shakespeare's best known later plays (those written after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Shakespeare's later plays are complicated portraits of people and societies going through incredible change. This class examines a number of these exciting works through a variety of lenses from gender to performance history.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 207 British Literature & Culture I 4 Credits
This course offers a survey of literature written in English between 700 and 1688, a timeframe that spans the evolution of Old, Middle, and Early Modern Englishes. Our reading focuses on major texts and authors, ranging from Caedmon and Chaucer to Margery Kempe and Shakespeare, and analyzes them in the context of their historical moment and aesthetic movements. Counts for Humanities distribution and the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Minor.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 208 British Literature & Culture II 4 Credits
This course offers a survey of literature written in English between 1688 and 1892, a timeframe that spans what scholars have retrospectively identified as four periods of literary activity: the Restoration, the Eighteenth Century, Romanticism, and the Victorian age. Our reading focuses on major texts and authors, and analyzes them in the context of their historical moment and aesthetic movements. In particular, we focus on the role that literature played in both representing and influencing the periods' barrage of social changes. For it is during this time that technology first made print cheaply reproducible, and the subsequent increase in literacy rates produced a new mass audience eager to consume newspapers, magazines, and the new prose genre of the novel.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 209 Introduction to American Culture I 4 Credits
Taught in the fall semester, the course is concerned with the establishment of American Literature as a school subject. Texts that have achieved the status of classics of American Literature, such as Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Thoreau's Walden, and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are read in the context of the history and politics of their achieving this status. Texts traditionally excluded from the canon of American literature, in particular early Hispano- and Franco-American texts, are considered in the context of their relative marginality to the project of establishing American Literature as worthy of being taught and studied in the American academy. Other-than-written materials, such as modern cinematic representations of the period of exploration and colonization of North America, as well as British colonial portraits and history paintings, are studied for how they reflect on claims for the cultural independence of early America. Other-than-American materials, such as late medieval and early Renaissance Flemish and Hispanic still lifes, as well as the works of nineteenth-century European romantic poets and prose writers, are sampled for how they reflect on claims for the exceptional character of American culture. Counts for the American Studies major and Humanities distribution.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 210 Introduction to American Culture II 4 Credits
Taught in the spring semester, the course is concerned with the establishment of American Studies as a curriculum in post-World War II American colleges and universities. Readings include a variety of written texts, including those not traditionally considered literary, as well as a variety of other-than-written materials, including popular cultural ones, in accordance with the original commitment of American Studies to curricular innovation. Introductions to the modern phenomena of race, gender, sexual orientation, generation, and class in the U.S. culture are included. A comparatist perspective on the influence of American culture internationally and a review of the international American Studies movement in foreign universities is also introduced.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 213 African Am Literature & Culture I 4 Credits
This course is a survey of African American literature produced from the late 1700s to the present. It is designed to introduce students to the key writers, texts, themes, conventions, and tropes that have shaped the African American literary tradition. Authors studied may include Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison and Walter Mosley. Counts for American Studies major, Black Studies minor, Communication and Media Studies major, and Humanities distribution.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 214 African Am Lit & Culture II 4 Credits
This course surveys African American authors from the Harlem Renaissance to the present. It is designed to expose students to the writers, texts, themes, and literary conventions that have shaped the African American literary canon since the Harlem Renaissance. Authors studied in this course include Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. Counts for American Studies major, Black Studies minor, Communication and Media Studies major, and Humanities distribution.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 215 Bible as Literature 4 Credits
In this course, we read and analyze the Bible as literature, with some attention to later art influenced by the Bible. We consider the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures (also known as the Old and New Testaments) within their historical context and survey the range of genres found in the Biblical canon: the Pentateuch, historical books, wisdom and poetic literature, prophetic books, gospels, Pauline letters and apocalypse. Through this course, students become familiar with the most influential images, stories, and characters from the Bible. No prior knowledge of the Bible is required.
Term(s) Offered: Other, All Years
ENG 216 Greek & Roman Mythology 4 Credits
This course explores the rich literary and cultural heritage of Greek and Roman mythology, exploring the stories that have inspired everything from the Percy Jackson series to DC's Wonder Woman, Disney's Hercules to Netflix's Blood of Zeus, and more. We explore classical mythology in several major literary genres, including drama, epic, and poetry, spending much of our time on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Homer's Odyssey. We discuss the history, geography, art and architecture of the ancient Mediterranean world to contextualize how Greek and Roman mythology spread through conquest and trade. Examining modern translations and adaptations helps us connect the world of antiquity to the present day. Counts for Humanities distribution and Gender Studies minor.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 217 Global Wisdom and Literature 4 Credits
An interdisciplinary, team-taught course with the Department of English and the Department of Philosophy and Religion that delves into the world's wisdom traditions through the lenses of literature, philosophy, and religion. Students examine renowned works such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Socratic dialogues, Stoic spiritual diaries, Christian and Islamic mystical texts, Hindu epics, Japanese Buddhist poetry, and more. Participants transcend the boundaries of history, geography, ideology, genre, and academic disciplines. The course aims to foster intercultural competence in students seen as crucial for a liberal arts education and meaningful contribution to real world settings.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Odd Years
ENG 220 Introduction to Fiction 4 Credits
This course introduces you to the study of literary fiction. This is not a creative writing workshop nor an introduction to fiction writing methods. This course surveys the rich tradition of prose fiction largely, but not exclusively, in English. Emphasis is placed on the enduring features of this genre as it evolved throughout the centuries as well as to the innovations introduced by individual writers. The literary works selected for this course draw upon a variety of fictional forms and styles. Class discussions include, along with close readings of the works themselves, an appreciation of the historical and cultural contexts out of which they arose and to which they gave a fictional rewriting. Counts for Creative Writing minor, Humanities distribution, and W2 requirement.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 221 Introduction to Nonfiction 4 Credits
This course introduces students to the genre of nonfiction writing. By exploring various ways to tell stories about a single true life-such as through essay, memoir, autobiography, journalism, and biography-students consider the power of documentation and the methods nonfiction writers use to shape the same facts for different purposes. Discussions will probe the impact that relating personal experience has on national discourse. Counts for Creative Writing minor, Humanities distribution, Journalism, Editing & Publishing minor, and W2 requirement.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 222 Introduction to Poetry 4 Credits
This course will provide an introduction to the study of various styles and forms of poetry. By reading a wide range of poetic styles from a number of aesthetic schools, students consider the ways in which poetry has become a conversation across centuries, how the genre may act simultaneously as a personal and a political voice, and how it may be interpreted not only as intimate confession but also as supreme fiction.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 223 Introduction to Drama 4 Credits
This course examines plays as literary texts. Students investigate drama in the English language theatre tradition from ancient Greece to the present day. The course considers how writers respond to each other as they develop genres such as comedy, tragedy, satire, morality plays, family drama, history, romance, and others. Attending at least one on-campus performance is required. The goal of this class is to enable you to understand the English language theater tradition so that you can better enjoy reading drama and attending live theater performances.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 224 Introduction to Journalism 4 Credits
This course covers the foundations of reporting, writing, fact checking, and editing. Students write a range of news and feature stories, including an obituary, an event, and a profile. We also discuss journalistic ethics and the way the field has been transformed by the Internet.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 290 English Internship 4 Credits
A learning contract is developed prior to enrollment in an internship. Evaluation of student performance is completed by the faculty mentor based on the fulfillment of the contract terms and written evaluation by the internship site supervisor. Students must work at least 45 hours for each internship credit and be enrolled in the course prior to beginning work. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 294 Special Topics 4 Credits
Topics not regularly offered in a department's normal course offerings, chosen based on current student interest and faculty expertise. Special topic courses can only be offered 3 times; after this, the course must be approved as a regular course. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 300 Global Middle Ages 4 Credits
Global Middle Ages explores literature from many languages and cultures that has been translated into English. Our goal is to gain depth in a few specific genres-- such as the lyric poem, short story collections, or travel narratives -- as well as acquire the breadth of seeing these texts in a larger multinational, multilingual context. Students survey the locales and literatures across the interconnected cultures on the Eurasian and African land masses, with occasional forays into the western hemisphere. Instead of culminating in a traditional research paper assignment, this course builds towards the students collaboratively creating public-facing scholarship and presentations.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Odd Years
ENG 301 Chaucer 4 Credits
Chaucer's fellow poets hailed him as the father of English poetry for his ability to transform diverse genres and sources into a living tradition of English poetry that continues to this day. This course focuses on The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer's most popular and beloved work, and its creation of fictional and real communities. We become comfortable with Chaucer's poetry in the original Middle English and acquaint ourselves with current scholarly debates and the historical and literary context of the Canterbury Tales. Counts for European Studies minor, Gender Studies minor, and Medieval and Early Modern Studies minor.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 302 Arthurian Literature 4 Credits
This class examines the development of stories about King Arthur and his court in the medieval literary tradition, and it considers the tradition of Arthuriana that continues in present day popular adaptations. We ask why these stories resonate so strongly with audiences from the Middle Ages up to today and consider the ideas and social problems they explore. Literary criticism and scholarly research will inform student presentations and essays. Counts for European Studies minor, Gender Studies minor, and Medieval and Early Modern Studies minor.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 303 Women Writers to 1800 4 Credits
Early women's writing, much of it highly popular when it was written, has a history of being forgotten. In this class, we explore texts authored by women from before 1800, from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Our readings provide ample material for exploring the role of gender in authorial identity, a wide variety of literary genres, the changing circumstances of literary production, and the contributions of women writers. The theoretical readings introduce you to generations of scholars who have preserved, studied, and championed this tradition.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 320 The Eighteenth Century 4 Credits
Aladdin. Ali Baba. Djinns and genies. Scheherazade and the sultan. These characters and their spellbinding narratives all originate in the Arabian Nights, a transcultural text whose embedded stories remain arguably unparalleled in their world-making and whose popular circulation has been world changing. This course focuses on readings from the long eighteenth century, known as an Age of Enlightenment when philosophers and scientists emphasized reason, but also the period when Arabian Nights was translated into English and became a cultural phenomenon. Oriental tales often provide alternative ways of knowing that value magic, orality, and folk practices, and they will provide us with a lens for interrogating the hegemonic relation between the British Empire and its others. Harry Potter and its modern-day magic serves as a coda.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 321 Romanticism 4 Credits
The movement from the late eighteenth century to 1832 considered as a revolution in the aims and methods of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, Non Conforming
ENG 322 The Victorian Age 4 Credits
Major poets, novelists, and essayists including Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Pater, Bronte, and Gaskill will be studied in conjunction with the culture of the age of Victoria.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 323 The 19th Century English Novel 4 Credits
Major writers such as Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy will be studied. Attention is given to the cultural and literary context of the novels.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 330 The Rise of Modernism 4 Credits
This course traces the rise of what we now call modernism beginning with the decadent movement at the end of the 19th century, its emergence during World War I, and its flourishing during the 1920s by reading a range of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, T.S. Eliot, H.D., James Joyce, Katharine Mansfield, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, J.S. Synge, and Virginia Woolf among others.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 331 Modernism and Its Discontents 4 Credits
A study of the fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama from the 1920s to the late 1930s paying close attention to the after effects of the experimentation of high modernism and how it, coupled with the rise of fascism and World War II, led to the fracturing of the movement and a return to more traditional prose and poetic structures. Writers include Djuna Barnes, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Marianne Moore, Flann O'Brien, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, and William Butler Yeats.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 332 Modern & Contemporary British Literature 4 Credits
This course covers a range of British and American writing from World War II and the retreat to realism in the 1950s through the postmodern turn and the current literary landscape. Writers include W.H. Auden, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bowen, Angela Carter, Caryl Churchill, Graham Greene, Edna O'Brien, Graham Swift and Zadie Smith.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 336 Postcolonial Literature 4 Credits
This course investigates the impact of British colonialism, national independence movements, postcolonial cultural trends, and women's movements on the global production of literary texts in English. Students read a diverse grouping of writers including Mulk Raj Anand, Kiran Desai and Salman Rushdie from India,Jamaica Kinkaid, Una Marson, and Sam Selvon from the Caribbean, as well as the Kenyan Nugugi Thiong'o and the Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga among many others. Careful attention is paid to ethnographic, geographic, and historical modes of understanding the multi-layered effects of colonialism and its' after effects.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 338 Narrative Journalism 4 Credits
A study of narrative journalism, what is required to tell a story thoroughly, and how to determine the best form for the story. Narrative journalism blends in-depth reporting and research, investigative journalism, first-person perspective, and narrative writing. Includes reading the genre, researching, reporting, writing, recording, giving constructive criticism, and revising.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Even Years
ENG 339 History of Journalism Ethics 4 Credits
Traces the history of journalism ethics through challenges to and practices of ethical journalism, as students research, report, present, analyze, write, and revise to demonstrate the knowledge they gain. Topics include yellow journalism, muckraking, new journalism, gonzo journalism, the use of anonymous sources, new new journalism, and fake news.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Odd Years
ENG 340 Women's Literature 4 Credits
Beginning with Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, and George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in the nineteenth century and ending with Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, and Zadie Smith in the 20th, this course covers a range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama by women up to the present. The course also introduces students to a range of feminist theory. Counts for Gender Studies minor.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 341 Native American Literature 4 Credits
This course is a consideration of contemporary Native American prose and poetry. Most of the readings focus on twentieth-century works and their sources in Native American and European American cultural and literary traditions. Students consider how complicated the process of defining Native American literature can be; how works by native people relate to or depart from other ethnic American literatures; how indigenous speakers/writers respond to and resist colonialism; and how Native American perspectives and narratives continue today. Emphasis is placed on the use of Native American myths and images of the natural world in the texts.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 342 Children's & Young Adult Literature 4 Credits
This course involves the reading and study of literary texts by notable authors, with children and young adults as the major audience. We will explore literary elements, evaluation criteria, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, literature response in print media and the arts, classics, and contemporary works. This course provides opportunities to examine various forms of communication and interpretation, implementation of technology, and divergent thinking in order to assist those interested in children's and young adult literature to become more reflective and effective communicators. This is an MSDE-approved reading course.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 343 American Short Story 4 Credits
Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Twain, Crane, James, Hemingway, Porter, and Sallinger are among the writers this course considers. The study is chronological and historical, placing emphasis upon the development of this genre.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 345 The African American Novel 4 Credits
This course examines the origin and development of the African American novel. We begin with the earliest novels and conclude with an analysis of contemporary novels by African American writers. We examine novels from multiple genres and give careful attention to the intersection of race, gender, class and environment in representative novels of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, Non Conforming
ENG 347 American Environmental Writing 4 Credits
The study of writing from an environmental perspective is both an emerging field in literary criticism and a rich tradition in American literary history. What does it mean to be green from a literary point of view? This course explores that question in looking at classic and contemporary authors of American environmental writing, from Henry David Thoreau to Annie Dillard to recent examples of eco-criticism. Though the primary focus is on nonfiction prose, the traditional home of nature writing, the course also explores environmental perspectives in poetry, fiction, and film as well as cross-disciplinary connections with the natural sciences and social sciences.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 351 Introduction to Playwriting 4 Credits
Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 353 Contemp Am Literature : Living Writers 4 Credits
This course focuses on the study of American poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from 1945 to the present. (The course focuses on poetry one year, novels and short fiction the next, and nonfiction the next rotating among them.) Emphasis includes an examination of the work of major American poets or fiction writers of the past half-century. The course is structured in a way similar to a traditional offering in literature with this difference: some of the writers whose work is studied in class will at some time during the semester come to Washington College to visit the class, discuss their work with course participants, and give a public reading.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 354 Literary Editing & Publishing 4 Credits
The Rose O'Neill Literary House is home to Cherry Tree, a professional literary journal featuring poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers of national reputation and staffed by Washington College students. In this course, students receive hands-on training in the process of editing and publishing a top-tier literary journal. They analyze literary markets even as they steward into print work from the nation's most prestigious emerging and established writers. This class includes extensive research and discussion of nationally recognized literary magazines and covers topics such as a publication's mission statement, its aesthetic vision, and its editorial practices. This is a required course for all students who wish to join the editorial staff and be included on the masthead of Cherry Tree.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 360 Lit. of Eur Colonies of N Am & Early US 4 Credits
Although the course counts as pre-1800 for the English major, it focuses on the difference between other-than-modern culture in the North American Colonies and the early US, which will unconventionally be dated to extend from Christendom's (the continent didn't become Europe universally until roughly the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) fifteenth- through eighteenth-century colonization of North America all the way through the US 1840s, and its modern and post-modern successor. In this course the reflexivity of modern and post-modern retrospect is continually emphasized. No matter how hard or for how long or by how many eminent modern and post-modern literary historians the past has been worked over to make the past seem familiar-the past as prelude to the present, to (mis)quote Shakespeare-in this course the past will always be (re)considered the proverbial foreign land. Counts for American Studies major.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, Non Conforming
ENG 361 Literary Romanticism in U.S. I 4 Credits
Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Stowe.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 362 Literary Romanticism in the U.S. II 4 Credits
Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 363 Gilded Age & American Realism 4 Credits
This course examines key prose fiction of the Gilded Age of American literary history, and culture (roughly 1878 - 1901). Careful attention is given to various treatments of Big Business,' industrialization, urbanization, regionalism and social inequality in the work of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Frances E.W. Harper, Charles Chestnutt, and others.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Odd Years
ENG 370 The Harlem Renaissance 4 Credits
This interdisciplinary seminar examines African American literature and intellectual thought of the 1920s and 1930s. Take this course and learn about different conceptualizations of the black aesthetic, and about the impact race, class, and gender had on key figures like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Wallace Thurman.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 371 Faulkner & Modernism in U.S. 4 Credits
The course concentrates on the novels of Faulkner as exemplifying modernism.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 377 2PACalypse Now! 4 Credits
There's something about Heart Of Darkness -- neither the most readable nor the most teachable of books, even of Conrad's books. And there's something about Conrad, too, a native Pole for whom English was a third language, a third language that he evidently spoke so poorly that when conversing with his American literary friend Henry James they both reverted to what was for both of them a second language: French. The course tries to explore what it is that has attracted so many white male Anglophone intellectuals -- and prompted the condemnation of one African writer, the mockery of one black rapper, and perhaps, the rivalry of a prominent, brown, novelist -- over the more than hundred years now since the original publication of Heart of Darkness in 1899 in England in Blackwood's Magazine. Class texts include Conrad's novella, Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Tupac's TUPAcalypse Now, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (which contains a prominent allusion to Heart of Darkness), Chinua Achebe's essays, V.S. Naipul's A Bend in the River, a sampling of the blizzard of journalistic quotations of the novel's title and of its most famous, four-word, speech, plus some theorizings of race and gender that might shed light on why the book has managed to appeal so strongly to a relatively homogenous cohort of readers and adaptors.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 390 English Internship 4 Credits
Internships in the English Department serve to give focus to a student's prospective employment in the world beyond Washington College, and they aim to integrate and develop the writing, thinking, and communicative skills acquired while completing an English Major, Creative Writing minor, or Journalism, Editing & Publishing minor. The specific conditions related to each internship will be developed among the faculty advisor, the representative of the institution offering the internship, and the student.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 394 Special Topics 4 Credits
Topics not regularly offered in a department's normal course offerings, chosen based on current student interest and faculty expertise. Special topic courses can only be offered 3 times; after this, the course must be approved as a regular course. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 396 Off-Campus Research 4 Credits
An individual research project chosen by the student in consultation with a faculty mentor. The student, with the help of the mentor, design a project to be implemented during a one- or two-semester period or during the summer. Students conduct an appropriate literature search, carry out the research, and submit a written report by the end of each semester. Students may earn up to 4 credits for summer research for a maximum of eight credits. Graded A-F.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 397 Independent Study 4 Credits
An agreement between a sponsoring faculty and a student letting the student study a topic of interest not offered at WC. 45 hours are required per credit.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 400 Junior Seminar 4 Credits
Junior Seminar fulfills the English department's W3 (Writing in the Discipline) writing program requirement. In this course you focus your attention on the methods and modes of writing and critical thinking specific to literary studies. While our main question is, in effect, what does literary study look like today?, we break that question down into its potentially infinite subsets, including questions surrounding what literary study should look like, what literary critics can do with texts, what texts do to literary critics, and how we can conceive of criticism as both a vocation and as a transferable skill. This course builds on the knowledge and skills you learned in your W1 and W2 courses, and helps you transition to the work you will need to complete for the W4 requirement (i.e., the Senior Capstone Experience). You practice developing research questions and assessing the applicability and relevance of different research methods, thus providing a foundation for developing compelling SCE projects, which you will be undertaking in the final year of your studies as an English major. In addition, we have aligned the Junior Seminar with Sophie Kerr programming in the fall, inviting scholars and writers to visit campus and join the class.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, All Years
ENG 452 Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction 4 Credits
Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 453 Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry 4 Credits
Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 454 Creative Writing Workshop : Nonfiction 4 Credits
In this upper-level nonfiction writing workshop, students explore the diversity of nonfiction forms in a kind of writing which combines elements of journalism, such as the feature article, with elements of the literary, such as the personal essay. In essence this course treats the various forms of the essay with a special emphasis on the creative ways the genre can be interpreted and rewritten. Readings of representative essays are included. Counts for Creative Writing minor and Journalism, Editing, & Publishing minor.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Non Conforming
ENG 460 Book History & American Print Culture 4 Credits
This course surveys the interdisciplinary field of book history, with an emphasis on American print culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Students explore topics related to the creation, publication, dissemination and reception of American print communication (e.g., books, periodicals, and newspapers). Students also learn and practice advanced research methods used by literary historians and print culture scholars.
Term(s) Offered: Other, Odd Years
ENG 470 Toni Morrison 4 Credits
This course focuses on the works of Toni Morrison, the first African American and the eighth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Students study the important motifs, tropes and themes of Morrison's writings, including her notable critical essays and short fiction. Students become well versed in Morrison's writings and develop an understanding of various contemporary critical approaches used to interpret her work. Counts for Black Studies minor and American Studies major.
Term(s) Offered: Fall, Non Conforming
ENG 471 Black Men & Women: Images 4 Credits
This course examines black masculinity and femininity in American literature, print culture, and the media. The course is structured around stereotypes like the Mammy, the Black Minstrel, the Jezebel, and the Black Menace. At the beginning of each unit, students practice reading stereotypical images of black men and women shown in print and non-print materials. Students read and analyze the treatment of the stereotype in a literary text. We also read and respond to critical secondary sources by literary scholars and cultural intellectuals. By the end of this course, students should be able to understand and critically analyze: the origins of different stereotypical images of black men and women; the way in which these images have influenced the literary imagination of 20th and 21st century African American authors; the notions of sex/sexuality, humor, violence, Black Power and Black Cool in African American literature. Counts for the American Studies major, Black Studies minor, and Communication and Media Studies major.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, Non Conforming
ENG 490 English Internship 4 Credits
Internships in the English Department serve to give focus to a student's prospective employment in the world beyond Washington College, and they aim to integrate and develop the writing, thinking, and communicative skills acquired while completing an English Major, Creative Writing minor, or Journalism, Editing & Publishing minor. The specific conditions related to each internship will be developed among the faculty advisor, the representative of the institution offering the internship, and the student.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 493 Journalism Practicum 2 Credits
The practicum has traditionally been attached to The Elm, but now welcomes any student working or interning on any campus publication! Over the course of a year, you'll learn the basics of publication reporting and writing-the who, what, when, where, why & how of story organization; getting quickly to the point; conciseness; straight forward exposition; accuracy; fairness and balance, and ethical issues. Students also receive one-on-one feedback about their articles from the instructor. The practicum is 2 credits, pass/fail only. Students may nor earn more than 4 credits for ENG 393, ENG 394 and may not count more than four journalism practicum credits towards the major in English. Counts for the Journalism, Editing & Publishing minor.
Term(s) Offered: Spring, All Years
ENG 494 Special Topics 4 Credits
Topics not regularly offered in a department's normal course offerings, chosen based on current student interest and faculty expertise. Special topic courses can only be offered 3 times; after this, the course must be approved as a regular course. Graded A-F or Pass/Fail.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years
ENG 497 Independent Study 4 Credits
An agreement between a sponsoring faculty and a student letting the student study a topic of interest not offered at WC. 45 hours are required per credit.
Term(s) Offered: All Terms, All Years