Loyola University Chicago

Department of English

Fall 2017 Courses

Interpreting Literature (UCLR 100)

Section: 01L #3575
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 - 9:05 AM LSC

Section: 02L #3576
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM LSC

Section: 03L #3577
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 - 9:05 AM LSC

Section: 04L #3578
Instructor:  M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM LSC

In this section of Loyola’s foundational course in literary studies we will focus on literature written in and about Chicago, from the 19th century to the present. Texts will include Simon Pokagon, The Red Man’s Rebuke, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, poems and short stories by Chicago authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Li-Young Lee, Carl Sandburg, Stuart Dybek, and Sandra Cisneros. 

This course will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to conceptual questions about literature and its study. What is literature? Why does it matter? How has it been conceived in different times and places?  Where does meaning come from in literature? What is literary interpretation and what role does it have in the production of literary meaning? How are literary works related to culture and society and how do they reflect—and reflect on—questions of value and the diversity of human experience?

Section: 05L #3579
Instructor:  J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM LSC

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms; and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature.  This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study, to help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner. 

To do this, we will be examining literature about work.  Work is an essential part of human existence, whether that work is paid or not.  While people often take pleasure in and find satisfaction in their work, most work by most people has historically been compulsory and exploitative.  Thus, literature about work often addresses the nature and effects of oppressive work conditions, the larger forces at play, and how workers respond to oppression.  Literature about labor therefore engages deeply in a range of factors affecting people’s lives, including race, class, gender, and immigration and migration, as well as various connections among these.  Finally, this literature raises important questions about its social function: How can literature represent the conditions and experiences of work?  How can it engage the audience in the interests of economic and social justice?  How can it help us consider the future of work?  We will address such questions as we examine a variety of works of poetry, drama, fiction, and film.  Texts will be drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from twentieth-century American literature, including authors such as Ann Petry, Milton Murayama, Clifford Odets, Sherman Alexie, and Gloria Anzaldúa. Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, and class participation; two close reading analysis essays; and midterm and final assessments.

Section: 06L #3580
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15 AM LSC

Section: 07L #3581
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15 AM LSC

Section: 08L #3582
Instructor:  K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

We have all read and interpreted literature before. For this course, however, we will strive to do so in a more complex, informed, and autonomous ways. We will work toward this goal by reading a lot of poetry, drama, and fiction, and then analyzing it in detail. Another of our goals will be to develop a better critical vocabulary and analytical approach to these types of literature. Writing assignments (both formal and informal) will emphasize individual engagement and literary analysis of the works we read but will also seek to improve general writing skills. There will be regular “low-stakes” writing exercises as well as some “creative” writing exercises intended to help us understand literature better by practicing literary writing. More broadly, however, I hope we will all learn to approach literature in a more attentive, engaged, and ultimately pleasurable manner. Ideally, we will not only learn about literature and literary techniques but will also try to relish the pleasure of literary reading. Readings will likely include a broad sampling of poets and poetry, an ancient Greek drama or two, a modern drama, short stories that are both realistic and experimental in form, and one short novel. 

Section: 09L #3583
Instructor: P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

Over the course of the semester, we will be exploring three principal literary genres: fiction, poetry, and drama. We will emphasize the historical contexts in which these stories, poems, and plays were written, and we will examine a variety of critical postures with which to interpret these texts. Students will also be asked to establish their own claims by way of shorter responses and longer formal essays. As we read, we will always ask why literature matters: Why do we choose to read? What can stories or lyrics teach us? How does literature participate in the building of our cultural and individual points of view? Our class’s theme will be “Self and Other.” We will be emphasizing international literature and exploring the concept of translation: How do we move ideas, scenes, meanings, and experiences across continents, across languages, across generations. We will be investigating borders and boundaries, such as the divides between fiction and nonfiction, meaning and nonsense, music and noise, and ourselves and others.

Section: 10L #3584
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

Section: 11L #3585
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

This is a foundational course that introduces key literary and critical terms and explores a variety of critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. In particular, we will be looking at the concepts of dying, death and grieving and discuss how these concepts are depicted in a number of different poems, plays and short stories. These topics are often difficult topics to discuss and yet, they are inevitable realities in each of our lives. Thus, we will use texts, by a number of different American authors, such as Willa Cather, Raymond Carver, Mary Oliver, Adrienne Rich and more, to explore what dying, death and grieving might consist of, not only personally but also politically. The method of assessment will include pop quizzes, papers, and classroom participation. 

Section: 12L #3586
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

Reading can be fun. Close reading can make the experience even more enjoyable. In this introductory course we will explore how writers tease the reader with multilayered texts, rich in imagery, clever word choices, and interesting insights into human behavior. During this course we will cover works of poetry, prose and drama from at least two different time periods; pre-modern and modern. Texts will include works from Ireland, England and the U.S.A.

Section: 13L #3587
Instructor:  L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

In this course, we will read, discuss and write about texts in the three major literary genres, as well as some contemporary literature that is harder (and exciting) to categorize. You will be introduced to multiple strategies to approach and interpret texts that range from the ancient to the contemporary, including both traditional and experimental forms. Materials include: Antigone, Othello and Venus (Plays), Kindred (Novel), and Citizen (Poetry/Mixed Genre). There is a strong focus on Race and Gender in this course. Writing assignments will include one short response, a midterm essay, and a final exam.

Section: 14L #3588
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

Section: 15L #3589
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

Section: 16L #3590
Instructor: T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

Reading can be fun. Close reading can make the experience even more enjoyable. In this introductory course we will explore how writers tease the reader with multilayered texts, rich in imagery, clever word choices, and interesting insights into human behavior. During this course we will cover works of poetry, prose and drama from at least two different time periods; pre-modern and modern. Texts will include works from Ireland, England and the U.S.A.

Section: 17L #3591
Instructor: I. Cornelius
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

This course is an introduction to literature and literary studies. We read poetry, drama, and prose fiction from a diverse range of cultural and historical contexts, and we develop skills, concepts, and strategies for responding to and interpreting this literature. As students in this class, you will consider how you allocate attention in literary reading (what do we focus on, and what do we look for, when we read literature?); you will also develop means for assessing interpretations of literature (what may we expect an interpretation to do?). 

Readings include short stories by James Baldwin, Edwidge Danticat, Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, and Amy Tan; poems by E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Adrienne Rich, William Shakespeare, and others; and plays by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Susan Glaspell, and August Wilson. Themes include the nature of doubt, certainty, and belief, the experiences of discovering, wanting, or opposing something, and dialectics of self and community. The course grade will be based on class participation, three essays, and mid-term and final exams.

Women and the Home

Section: 18L #3592
Instructor: E. Weeks-Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

This foundational course in literary studies will require students to closely read and carefully analyze a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms; and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study in order to help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner.

The theme of this course is women and the domestic sphere. Through an examination of literary texts from a wide range of genres and periods, we will explore the varied and rich ways in which authors have represented women’s relationships with the home and femininity. Texts covered will include Louisa May Alcott’s Behind a Mask, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and a selection of poems, essays, speeches, short stories, and television episodes. Course requirements include (1) engaged reading of all assigned texts, demonstrated through annotation assignments and reading quizzes; (2) active class participation; (3) a series of short literary analysis written assignments; and (4) midterm and final exams.

Section: 19L #3593
Instructor: E. Weeks-Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

(See above.)

Section: 20L #3594
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

Section: 21L #3595
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

Section: 22L #3596
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

Section: 23L #3553
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

Section: 24L #3825
Instructor: P. Randolph
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

This is a core course that will teach the fundamentals about critical thinking, reading, and writing. This year in UCLR we will be reading poetry, prose, and plays from an Anthology. In addition, we will read some short stories from contemporary authors along with classics, such as William Faulkner’s Barn Burning. We will discuss the six essential elements of fiction: Plot, Narration and Point of View, Character, Setting, Symbolism, and Themes. Some of the authors we will read include: Sherman Alexie, William Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Jhumpa Lahiri, and many others. When you leave this class you will have mastered key literary terms and be equipped with multiple critical lenses.

Section: 25L #3826
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

Section: 26L #3827
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

Why should we care about literature? We’ll start historically: who before us has cared about literature, and why? We’ll study the pressure texts put on their historical moment, and how they’re shaped by it in surprising ways: for example, our discussion of Shakespeare will start with the formation of “Shakespeare” as a figure, often at odds with the “evidence” of the poems, of canonical standards throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a program that affected even the spelling of his poems. We’ll read some authors who were white, male, and rich (and some who weren’t): how has literature been used to promote a series of questions and assumptions that they may have shared (sometimes called “the canon”), and how has it, even in these same authors, blown apart all the stereotypes and orthodoxies we’d expect to find?  We’ll watch the invention not only of English (and then British) culture, but of the English language itself, its twists and triumphs, detours and degenerations—and most importantly, we’ll watch as language, especially literary language, is fashioned into the greatest vehicle of social and aesthetic contest. We’ll read novels and poems, plays and pornography, ranging from 1600 to around 1900. We (well, you) will also write papers, take exams, and be flogged—the entire range of academic abjection, in one convenient course.  ​

Section: 27L #3829
Instructor: T. Koppang
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

It’s easy to find your comfort zone. It’s difficult to understand someone else’s. Engaging with literature can help to shape our sense of self-identity, but it can also provide a means to step outside of ourselves. It can present other people, other worlds, and other ways of understanding what makes us... well, us. 

This course will expose you to a variety of (mostly American) literature from the late 19th to early 21st centuries. Students will learn to read, analyze, discuss, and write about literature across a variety of genres, but especially prose and poetry. The focus will be on exploring the different ways in which literature can (and perhaps should) challenge your sense of comfort and self-identity. Finally, as this is a foundational course, you will learn the skills necessary to appreciate and write about literature at a college level.

Section: 28L #3830
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

In this foundational course in literary studies, we will ask how literature reflects, refracts, and even remakes the real world. Literature has long made space for everyday experience: our innermost thoughts and feelings, our bodily encounters, and our material environments. This course will feature texts from a variety of genres, including poetry, drama, short fiction, and the novel. Students will be introduced to the key terms and concepts of literary study and will have a chance to explore major critical approaches in the field. We will examine the cultural context from which each text emerges, as well as the new world each text creates. We will explore the different strategies writers use to convey “the real,” while also raising questions about the aims, ethics, and limits of representation. We will also pay special attention to how these works address questions of class, gender, sexuality, race, and geography. Students will gain extensive experience with the practice of close reading, attending to the form of the text as well as to its content. Students will develop their own arguments in short responses, formal essays, and presentations. Texts may include: Shakespeare’s The Tempest; poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, and Gwendolyn Brooks; George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Section: 29L #4246
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

Section: 30L #4247
Instructor: D. Chinitz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

This course will develop students’ ability to analyze literature at the college level. The texts we discuss will vary across genres (fiction, poetry, and drama) and historical time periods. Authors likely to appear on the syllabus include Jane Austen, LeRoi Jones, James Joyce, Flannery O’Connor, Bernard Shaw, and Tennessee Williams, among others. The close-reading skills we practice will cultivate students’ critical thinking, understanding of literary texts, and appreciation of the craft of writing.

Section: 31L #3828
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

Section: 32L #4494
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

This course fulfills the University’s core curriculum foundational level requirement in literary knowledge and experience. Such courses are designed to combine the teaching of key disciplinary skills with an exploration of some of the values central to a Loyola education (understanding diversity in the U.S. and abroad, understanding and promoting social justice, and nurturing a rich inner life that can be translated into social action in the world). All academic disciplines teach skills and engage in one way or another with some of these values. Our focus in this course will be on sharpening the skills a careful engagement with literature can facilitate – reading, analytical, interpretive, argumentative, and writing skills – broadly put: the ability to read, think, and write critically. We will read a variety of 20th and 21st-century fiction, drama, and poetry that deals specifically with issues related to diversity in the U.S. and in the world, works that explore a complexity of issues related to social justice, and which consider the relationship between interior lives and the social and political worlds they must navigate. This course will improve your ability to read closely, carefully, and imaginatively, to analyze literary works and the arguments they make, and to appreciate how our experience of literature – and of art in general – can enrich us both as individuals, and as citizens with social and political responsibilities. 

Section: 33L #4495
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

Advanced Writing: Business (ENGL 210)

Section: 60W #2916
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 – 9:30 PM WTC

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on particular types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including: memos, proposals, letters, and resumes. There will be individual and collaborative projects; you will also give a group presentation. Our course is writing intensive. We will use a process approach to writing, emphasizing problem-solving, prewriting strategies, and editing and revision skills. We will also discuss audience analysis and conduct research.

Section: 61W #3574
Instructor:  M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

Business Writing is a seminar designed to build and improve effective communication practices for use in the business community. The ideas of “personal professionalism” and “priority of purposes” guide an exploration of business writing genres ranging from correspondence to memos, and from employment documents to executive summaries. Collaboration, peer interaction, and individual economy direct the creation of a series of writing projects that use revision and research as a necessary step in the writing process.

Section: 62W #4522
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on particular types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including: memos, proposals, letters, and resumes. There will be individual and collaborative projects; you will also give a group presentation. Our course is writing intensive. We will use a process approach to writing, emphasizing problem-solving, prewriting strategies, and editing and revision skills. We will also discuss audience analysis and conduct research.

Writing for Pre-Law Students (ENGL 211)

Section: 63W #3972
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 – 9:30 PM WTC

Theory/Practice Tutoring (ENGL 220)

Section: 1WE #2535
Instructor:  B. Molby
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

English 220 is a seminar designed to prepare students to serve as tutors in the Loyola University Chicago Writing Center. This course is open to students from all majors who have a passion for clear written communication. We will explore the theory and practice of peer tutoring through reading and discussion of research as well as through practical experience. In this course you will learn how to help others become better writers while improving your own writing and critical thinking skills. You will become part of a vibrant community of fellow peer tutors and gain experience that will benefit you in a variety of careers. The service-learning component consists of approximately 20-25 hours of observation and tutoring in the Writing Center. The writing intensive component includes three response papers and a group research paper. 

ENGL 220-1WE is a writing intensive class. 

Exploring Poetry (ENGL 271)

Section: 01W #3726
Instructor:  J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15 AM LSC

This class will provide an introduction to the understanding and analysis of poetry through the study of a wide range of poems in English.  We will consider various motives for writing and reading poetry, and various methods of reading it.    Because this course is writing intensive, there will be frequent brief writing assignments, both in and out of class.  The required textbook is Introduction to Poetry, (13th Edition), edited by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, a midterm, and a final.

Section: 02W #3994
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

This class will provide an introduction to the understanding and analysis of poetry through the study of a wide range of poems in English.  We will consider various motives for writing and reading poetry, and various methods of reading it.    Because this course is writing intensive, there will be frequent brief writing assignments, both in and out of class.  The required textbook is Introduction to Poetry, (13th Edition), edited by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, a midterm, and a final.

Section: 03W #5680
Instructor: J. Jacobs
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

Exploring Drama (ENGL 272)

Section: 066 #3995
Instructor:  E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

This course surveys English, American, and Anglophone drama from the Middle Ages to the present, along with some plays and drama theory from beyond the Anglophone world that influenced writers in English. Special attention will be paid to literary, social, and historical innovations and conventions that have defined the genre, its performance, and its reception in various periods. The final grade will be based on class participation, essays, and mid-term and final exams.

Exploring Fiction (ENGL 273)

Section: 04W #5681
Instructor: A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

Most of us have experienced the pleasure that can be derived from a good scary story. We love to feel spine-tingling chills while sitting in the comfort of familiar surroundings. In this course we will explore some of the best horror fiction and try to figure out just how and why these stories produce such exciting and pleasurable effects. We will read short and longer works spanning the history of this genre, beginning with Homer’s Odyssey and Grimm’s fairy tales, traveling through the gothic traditions represented by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and others. We will also read some short critical works to help us consider the psychological and literary mechanisms behind the dreadful pleasures of the scary story.  Course requirements: consistent attendance and participation, three papers, and a final exam. This is a Writing Intensive course.

Section: 067 #3997
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM LSC

Section: 068 #3996
Instructor:  S. Sleevi
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

This course will focus on the analysis of twentieth and twenty-first century fictional narrative. We will read works in both the novel and short story formats, looking closely at their thematic content and formal features. In addition, we will develop a critical vocabulary for discussing and writing about the narrative fiction we encounter. Some authors likely to appear on the syllabus are William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, Jhumpa Lahiri, and George Saunders. Assignments for the course will include short papers, reading quizzes, and a final paper.

Section: 069 #3998
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

Why do people enjoy reading stories about made-up characters?  This course will offer students an introduction to prose fiction as a mode of literary representation.  It will aim to acquaint students with the historical development of fictional characters, as well as the many techniques authors use to creation fictional worlds.  Most of our energy will be devoted to reading and discussing short stories and novels, but we will range across genres from realism to science fiction.

Section: 070 #3999
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

This course examines works by important U.S. novelists from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Class discussions will address formal and thematic features of these writings. Based on these discussions, students will write papers that draw upon the readings to support original and consequential interpretations.

Section: 600 #4000
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:30 – 9:30 PM WTC

The course will focus on Great American Short Novels. We will read a short novel each week and the course will survey the long arch of the American novel from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Our organizing theme will be the American Dream and related issues of money and success, the individual and community, and gender, race, and identity. Readings may include novels by Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, Kate Chopin, Abraham Cahan, James Weldon Johnson, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel West, Nella Larsen, Saul Bellow, Gwendolyn Brooks, Julie Otsuka, Sandra Cisneros, and Jay McInerney. The course will be reading-intensive with regular quizzes, short essays, a midterm and a final exam.

Exploring Shakespeare (ENGL 274)

Section: 05W #3374
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

In numerous works that mastered and innovated the literary forms trending in the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare probed the major cultural and political topics of his day, from the nature of love and friendship to the nature of political leadership. Significantly, he returns again and again to the relationship between language and thought, and thought and action. We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. Shakespeare’s plays and poems represent a so-called common heritage yet they are utterly “foreign to us all,” distant from us in “time, language, and thought.” My assignments are designed to help students (1) overcome historical and linguistic barriers to comprehension, and (2) come to terms with material that resists simplification and assimilation. I present historical difference as an intellectual challenge and ultimately as an opportunity to reimagine the norms of current culture that can otherwise appear natural or inevitable.

Section: 071 #6280
Instructor: S. Kucsera
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

This course offers an introduction to the major dramatic genres of comedy, history, tragedy, and romance in which Shakespeare wrote his plays. Throughout the course, lecture and discussion of the material will not only move between formal analysis of the plays and introductions to critical approaches to interpretive problems, this class will place Shakespeare’s treatment of these dramatic genres in historical context: Shakespeare wrote in a period shaped by tumultuous religious reformation, shifting political realities, and widespread cultural change. With this situation in mind, this course will devote much of its thematic emphasis to exploring the ways in which Shakespeare used his drama to engage an early modern community in the midst of change. During this period, fundamental questions about group membership and social formation were posed repeatedly in England: What is a nation and what is ours like? What are the terms of citizenship? Who is in, who is out, and why? Who is my neighbor? Though we will be studying the written texts of the plays carefully, additional emphasis will be placed on the importance of performance as essential to the study and appreciation of Shakespearean drama as it participates in a wider conversation about what it means to be part of a community.    

African-American Literature (ENGL 282)

Section: 06W #4523
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

While the activist movement, Black Lives Matter, has garnered national attention since its inception in 2013, African-American literature has been concerned with asserting the value of black lives since the late 18thcentury. We will focus on the ways that black writers (in the past and in the “now”) have attempted to assert their humanity, citizenship, and freedom in the U.S. for over two centuries. To complement our readings we will incorporate films, music, and visual art to demonstrate the multiple and diverse ways that black artistic culture has served as a means of political resistance, reflection and inspiration. Requirements for the course may include weekly quizzes, short essays (3-5 pages), a mid-term, in-class writing assignments, and a final exam. This course is Writing Intensive and fulfills the multicultural requirement. 

This section is intended (and reserved) for first-year and sophomore English majors, who have fulfilled the University UCWR requirement.

Section: 097 #6415
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

Women in Literature (ENGL 283)

Section: 07W #1872
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

Until recently, women were regularly excluded from participating in most forms of public life, including pulpits, courtrooms, podiums, laboratories, and even voting booths, and so, when they were fortunate enough to be able to read and write, many turned to literature to express their ideas, emotions, ethics, and spirituality. This course will focus on writings by women, beginning with contemporary writers and moving back through history to trace the origins and evolution of a women’s tradition. This tradition includes a wide range of perspectives, and speaks to both women and men. Our readings will include poetry, fiction, essays, and speeches composed between the medieval through contemporary eras. 

Because it is writing-intensive, this course incorporates a variety of assignments that are specifically designed to help you become a better writer.  Assignments include reflection papers (some to be written in class and others at home), a term paper, mid-term and final examination. 

Section: 089 #2000
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

Section: 09W #4524
Instructor:  J. B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 LSC

“If women have learned many of the ways they interpret their lives from the narrative schemata of novels and stories,” writes Joanne Fry, “they can also gain from fiction new insights into the narrative processes of constructing meaning.”  Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 283 is designed to meet the “literary knowledge and experience” requirements of the Loyola Core.  Focusing on representative works of literature written by 20th- and21st-century women authors, this course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s lives and writings; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; to train them in the analysis of literature; and to teach them how to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments about literary texts. In this course, students will investigate the important cultural and gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works read, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent coming of age, the female body, romantic love, mother-child relationships, and the aging woman in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, and Toni Morrison.  There will be reading quizzes, papers, a midterm and a final exam.

Section: 10W #2253
Instructor:  S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

Memoir, as a literary genre, has garnered much critical attention in the last decade (both positive and negative). But what exactly is memoir? What characteristics does it have that are different than fiction? Do these genres ever intersect? If an author is writing from memory, and oftentimes memory is hazy, or at least subjective, what is the “truth” in memoir? These are some of the general questions we will address during the semester while reading a selection of creative non-fiction memoirs by a wide range of contemporary female writers. In terms of content, we will more specifically consider how societal attitudes towards gender roles and expectations relate to the taboo nature and cultural silencing of women’s sexuality and reproductive issues. Some authors included will be: Maxine Hong-Kingston, bell hooks, Jeanette Winterson, Kathryn Harrison, Margaret Atwood, Alison Bechdel, Marjane Satrapi, Anne Fessler, and Alice Sebold. 

Cross-listed with Women's Studies, English 283 is designed to meet the "literary knowledge and experience" requirements of the Loyola Core. Focusing on literature written by 20th century women authors, this course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women's lives and writings; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; to train them in the analysis of literature; and to teach them how to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments about literary texts. 

This course counts towards the post-1900 and multicultural requirement for the English major.

Nature in Literature (ENGL 288)

Section: 11W #5682
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

In this course we will use a number of different Ecocritical approaches to explore and interpret different pieces of fiction. Literature provides a vast account of how the natural world is represented, treated, understood, and further, misused or abused. In response to this there can be a direct correlation as to how people and animals are also written about and represented. The correlation between these ideas will be looked at in this class. Assignments in the semester will include writing papers, quizzes/in-class reflections, and classroom participation.

Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290)

“Horror”

Section: 073 #3239
Instructor: L. Enright
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 - 9:05 AM LSC

“Think of just about any horror film and you will find that it works upon us by tearing down some boundary we had in place, but perhaps forgot was there … The key element is a sense of violation … This is a discomforting aspect of horror, but there is also a desirable quality to it. It terrifies us and gives us a sense of moral, social, and aesthetic stability” (Philip Tallon, “Through a Mirror Darkly: Art Horror as a Medium for Moral Reflection”). 

According to Tallon, horror fiction is at its best when it transgresses or violates boundaries which we may have taken for granted, or even forgotten about. When this transgression occurs, we may find that we need to remember and reinforce those boundaries, giving a new account of them — Or, we may even need to let them collapse altogether. In this course, we will be using Tallon’s insight as a point of departure to examine the ways in which horror fiction and film both questions and clarifies human values across a number of historical periods from the Romantic to the Postmodern, including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Angela Carter, and others. Exploring stories written by both men and women, we will focus on how the mediations of both gender and history influence the horrors these authors imagine, and how they use fear accordingly in the service of broader social and ethical commentary. Expect brief reading quizzes, short review papers and/or blog posts, and a final 6-8 page conference paper.  

Section: 074 #5683
Instructor: A. Ullmann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 - 9:45 AM LSC

Social class is a timeless feature of human societies; it has often changed forms, but has remained a vital if sometimes under-recognized part of both individual identity and political and economic structures. In this course we will examine how literature depicts class status as an essentially human value. How have our values as a society impacted the way social classes have been formed throughout history? How does the individual’s class status influence their personal values? Why do we place so much emphasis on class, even if we don’t realize it? Using Karl Marx’s theories of social class as a starting framework, we will discuss how literature attempts to answer these questions. We will read works from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Dickens and J.K. Rowling, among others, to get a sense of how conceptions of social class have changed—or not—over time. Graded work will include occasional quizzes, a midterm and final exam, and two short (3-4 pg.) papers.

Women Writers Post-1900 (ENGL 306C)

Section: 12W #4236
Instructor: J. B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 306 will focus on literature written by twentieth- and twenty-first-century women authors. This course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s writings and to understand the ways in which women novelists use fiction to challenge inherited cultural and literary assumptions; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; and to help them become familiar with the application of feminist theory to works by women authors.  In English 306, the instructor will provide necessary background information on the works covered and will model how to perform close readings of literary texts as she guides students in the investigation of the structures and strategies of representative works of women-authored fiction. The instructor will also place emphasis on the gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works read in the course, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent coming of age, coming to age, the female body, romantic love, mother-child relationships, and female friendships in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and Nancy Mairs.  There will be reading quizzes, papers, a midterm and a final exam. 

This course fulfills the post-1900 period requirement of the English major.

Advanced Writing (ENGL 310)

Section: 13W #5684
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 4:15 - 5:30 PM LSC

This advanced writing course explores the dynamic forms and structures of composition beyond the classroom toward the purposes of professional publication and presentation. Composition offers a wide array of exciting forms, styles and structures beyond the academic essay, and this course develops an appreciation and capability for students’ choices of essay types in creating several for personal, professional and hybrid writing, and the accompanying professional documents necessary for the publication or presentation process. As a community of writers we research, draft, comment and prepare for submission together. The course features several guests to expand our community, namely published authors, professional writers, editors and other related experts. We will explore relevant readings from composition theory and pedagogy to inform our writing projects, as well as how we conceive of the writing process. Engaging, supportive and challenging, this course is ideal for writers in any discipline who wish to become better writers and to enjoy the process as they do so.

S. Asian Lit in Eng Post-1900 (ENGL 315C)

Section: 14W #5685
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

This course examines literatures in English from South Asia and the South Asian diaspora. Focusing primarily on the issues of modern-day colonization, independence and partition, decolonization, and globalization, this course also investigates the representation of multiple nationalities, ethnicities, classes and castes, religions, linguistic traditions, gender and sexuality, migration, and "terror" in the writings. In addition, the course assesses the role of the English language and the authors' locations and target audiences in determining the reception of the literatures both at home and abroad; and it analyzes the cultural bases of contributing literary techniques, including structure, language, narrative focalization, and characterization among others. Finally, the course addresses the disciplinary and pedagogical practices underwriting the study of South Asian literatures in English in the western academy. Readings will include novels written by authors from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, as well as some supplementary theoretical essays. 

This course meets the multicultural and post-1900 period requirements of the English major.

The Writing of Poetry (ENGL 317)

Section: 075 #1874
Instructor: L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

This course approaches the writing of poetry as both a study and craft that requires reading, exploration, practice, and sharing. We read a unique work of contemporary poetry each week as a framework for discussion, but the core of the course is student writing. The workshop element of the course includes in-class collective and collaborative writing experiments, prompts for writing in between sessions, and presentations of student poetry for review by the group. Students produce a final collection of poetry in a self-published chapbook and give a reading of their work for the final.

Section: 076 #1876
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 4:15 PM – 6:45 PM LSC

This course offers practice and instruction in the techniques and analysis of poetry through reading, writing, discussing, and revising poems. We will give particular attention to the unique challenges and opportunities  facing  beginning poets as we first seek to channel our ideas and life experiences into poetry, to find and then develop our own voices in relation to not only our own impulses but to "the tradition" and the aesthetically diverse and fascinating world of contemporary poetry. The poems you write will be carefully read and critiqued by both your classmates and the instructor. The culmination of the course will be to compile a portfolio of the work you have written over the term.

Section: 077 #3240
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

The Writing of Fiction (ENGL 318)

Section: 078 #1877
Instructor: U. Akpan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

Loyola University Chicago’s Fall 2017 Teilhard de Chardin visiting scholar, Uwem Akpan, is an award winning author. In his [fiction] writing workshop, Akpan will work with students of all backgrounds and levels of experience to hone their skills as storytellers. He will introduce strategies that create modes of suspense, entertainment, voice, style, and explore themes important and unique to the writer’s voice. The course will also examine the work of established writers of various races, religions, genders, colors and times. Akpan will integrate Ignatian Contemplation as a compositional practice--a way to be able to see more deeply into the characters, drama, and modes of storytelling.  He will also expose the students to the riches of Flannery O’Connor's fiction and the sacramental writing of Annie Dillard, American 20th century masters, and others. Akpan is the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) 2009 and PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009 and was finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. His short story collection, Say You’re One of Them, was Oprah Winfrey’s choice for her 63rd book club selection. 

This course covers the core Artistic requirement, and is cross-listed as Catholic Studies, African Studies, and fulfills the Multicultural requirement of the English Major.

Section: 079 #2754
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM LSC

Students will learn the art and craft of writing fiction through (a) reading master writers such as James Salter, Kelly Link, Richard Ford, Donald Barthelme, Mary Gaitskill, and others to analyze their craft; (b) writing three original short stories; and (c) having these stories discussed and critiqued by the instructor and by fellow students in a supportive workshop environment.  Class participation is emphasized.  Fulfills a Core Expressive Arts Requirement.

Section: 601 #1966
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM LSC

(See above.)

Writing Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 319)

Section: 081 #3270
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

This is a workshop course in creative nonfiction, the fastest growing genre in publishing.  It’s thriving in personal essay columns in magazines and newspapers, in memoirs, and in new hybrid forms.  Indeed, perhaps the only way to define creative nonfiction is to identify its constitutive elements: facts and subjectivity.  Nonfiction means the given facts of the work are true—not courtroom testimony-level true, but fairly reliably-accurate true—and subjectivity means that the writer is using those facts to get at more than the facts, to take a personally distinctive look at a topic, or issue, or period of her life, and often, whether explicitly or not, at some larger underlying question.  

In class, we’ll read, analyze, and discuss the works of creative nonfiction writers as models for your own writing. This is a workshop, so you’ll hear from each other what’s working on the page in your own writing and what isn’t—which will help develop your ear as you read and your instincts as you write.  You’ll learn about narrative distance, scene and exposition, and various elements of craft, with a focus on voice and diction.  You’ll also learn to offer thoughtful commentary on the work of your classmates.  The goal is for you to become a better reader and writer of creative nonfiction.   

Studies in Medieval Literature (ENGL 323)

Topic: Dreams and Visions

Section: 082 #4262
Instructor: I. Cornelius
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

This course will explore the medieval understanding and uses of dreams and mystical visions as exemplified in secular and religious writing. We will examine the conventions of the “dream vision genre” in four medieval writers—Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, the Pearl-poet, and Christine de Pizan. Students will also learn some linguistic history through an introduction to Middle English. The final grade will be based on class participation, a translation and critical commentary, two essays, and mid-term and final exams.

Brit Lit: The Renaissance (ENGL 325)

Section: 083 #1878
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

In this course we will study the works of selected English authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, examining the intellectual and social contexts in which their poetry was produced as well as the literary traditions they employed and transformed.  The required textbook is The Norton Anthology of English Literature (Ninth Edition) (Vol. B), ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al.  Requirements will include participation in class discussion, papers, a midterm, and a final. 

This course counts toward the “pre-1700” requirement for English Majors.

Plays of Shakespeare (ENGL 326)

Section: 084 #1879
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

In numerous works that mastered and innovated the literary forms trending in the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare probed the major cultural and political topics of his day, from the nature of love and friendship to the nature of political leadership. Significantly, he returns again and again to the relationship between language and thought, and thought and action. We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. Shakespeare’s plays and poems represent a so-called common heritage yet they are utterly “foreign to us all,” distant from us in “time, language, and thought.” My assignments are designed to help students (1) overcome historical and linguistic barriers to comprehension, and (2) come to terms with material that resists simplification and assimilation. I present historical difference as an intellectual challenge and ultimately as an opportunity to reimagine the norms of current culture that can otherwise appear natural or inevitable.

Brit Lit: Romantic Period (ENGL 335)

Section: 085 #5691
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 - 3:45 PM LSC

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the most powerful earthly king was beheaded, the institution of monarchy annihilated, and a God who had been heretofore supposed “Almighty” apparently overthrown.  “The French Revolution,” conceded even Edmund Burke, its greatest English opponent, was “all circumstances taken together … the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world.” In Britain, the early 1790s were convulsed by unprecedented contests over the nature of the subject and society, contests that we’ve inherited: over the political relationship between the sexes, in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the first sustained feminist argument; over the nature of race, in powerful abolition debates; over civil organization and class equality in Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, a tract that sold several hundred thousand copies in a country of only 8 million people; over the nature and even existence of the divine, and the role of the church, in Paine’s Age of Reason, the first popular argument for “atheism.” We’ll study this time of exuberance, dispute, and outburst, in which every inherited piety and orthodoxy seemed debatable.  We’ll read poets and novelists, of course—but we’ll also read lunatics and prophets, opium addicts and slave traders, peasant bards and the “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Lord Byron.  In William Wordsworth, we’ll find an experimental poetry of a “language really used by men”; in Percy Shelley, we’ll be seized by an art that announced itself a “sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it”; and in John Keats, and we’ll delight in verse dismissed as “mental masturbation.”  We’ll follow the rise of Napoleon, the fall of the Slave Trade, and the foundation of Australia—reading newspapers and magazine articles, political pamphlets and diaries, as well as more traditional “literature.”  

Fulfills the Pre-1900 and/or 1700-1900 Requirement for the English Major.

Brit Lit: Victorian Period (ENGL 340)

Section: 086 #1880
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

The purpose of this course is to guide students toward better understanding and appreciation of Victorian literature, that is, literature written in England between 1837 and 1901.  Its goals include helping students improve their ability to analyze and interpret literature, and to understand the ideas, attitudes, and techniques that characterize the literature of this. Lectures will provide information on intellectual and cultural contexts in which the literature was written, and class discussions will encourage students to reflect on and respond to the works that continue to have a presence in contemporary culture.  We will read essays, poems, short fiction, one play, and at least one novel written during the period.  This course fulfills the post-1700/pre-1900 period requirement for English majors. Assignments consist of in-class reflection papers (some to be written in class and others at home), a term paper, mid-term and final examination.  

British Lit Since 1900 (ENGL 345)

Section: 345 #087
Instructor: J. Wexler
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

Throughout the twentieth century writers had to represent the "nightmare" of history. They wanted to convey the horror of violence without appearing to find meaning in it. This course will examine this problem and consider the various ways writers solved it. Examples include Heart of Darkness, The Waste Land, Death of a Hero, A Bend in the River, Midnight's Children, Austerlitz. Requirements include informal responses, three formal essays, and a final.

Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 354)

Section: 088 #3241
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

This course, which is required of all English majors, introduces students to critical terminology and ideas in contemporary literary criticism and theory.  Readings will cover formalist, feminist, psychoanalytic, and Marxist approaches to literary analysis, as well as those associated with gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonialism, and deconstruction.  Students will learn to apply a variety of critical theories through class discussion, regular in-class exercises, brief papers, and two exams.  Readings will be drawn from three required texts, Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies (ed. Robert Dale Parker), How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies (Robert Dale Parker), and the Bedford Critical Edition of The Awakening (Kate Chopin). 

Studies in American Culture (ENGL 382)

Section: 001 #6414
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

Advanced African-American Lit Post-1900 (ENGL 384C)

Section: 090 #5694
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 PM LSC

This class will focus on African-American literature written after 2000.  The readings will be organized around four distinct categories/themes with which African-American literature in the new millennium is largely concerned, specifically, globalization/neocolonialism, contemporary novels of slavery, racial authenticity, and “new” black radicalism. Our discussion of literary texts will be complemented by films, visual art and essays. Requirements for the course may include weekly quizzes, a mid-term, short essays (3-5 pages)​, in-class writing assignments, and a final exam. This course fulfills the multicultural requirement. 

Advanced Seminar: (ENGL 390)

The Paper Trails of 19th c. Literature
Section: 15W #2255
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Before we went “paperless,” paper was the substance of our letters, our laws, and our literature. The Victorian period in particular saw a sudden outpouring of paper (and of paper litter), as innovations in paper production coincided with the expansion of print media, advertising, and a nationalized postal service. These ubiquitous bits of paper make their way into literature as well—from the torn clue to the well-timed love note. In this course, we will explore paper as a material, a medium, and a metaphor. We will examine the literary function of paper objects: the letters that ricochet through the long narrative poem; the crucial piece of paperwork that drives plots of blackmail, detection, and inheritance; and the multiplying documents of late-Victorian Gothic fiction. The paper object will provide us with an entry point into broader questions about social ties, authorship, law, the archive, and communication technology in the Victorian period. Toward the close of the semester, we will also consider the lingering place of paper in the digital world. Readings will include: Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Steven Moffat’s Sherlock paired with Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories; and contemporary works of literature and art such as Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself and Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go Bernadette

Section: 16W #5020
Instructor: V. Foster
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

What is time?  How do we experience time?  And how have dramatists represented time?  In this course we will consider how dramatists from Shakespeare to the present have explored time — and, more specifically, people in time — as subject and experimented with time as a dramaturgical element in their plays.  Our study will range from plays that observe the unity of time to those that make use of non-linear time and will examine the reasons for both kinds of temporal structures.  Texts will include Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Corneille, Le Cid, Strindberg, Miss Julie and A Dream Play, Wilder, The Long Christmas Dinner, Priestley, Time and the Conways, Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape and Play, Pinter, Old Times, Churchill, Top Girls, Stoppard, Arcadia, and Parks, The America Play.  We will augment discussion with video clips when possible.  Requirements:  Major research paper (2 drafts, 10-15 pages), short paper (5-6 pages), final exam, class participation, including in-class performance. This course fulfills the post-1900 course requirement.

Advanced Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 392)

Section: 91W #5696
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
F 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

In this advanced workshop in creative nonfiction, we’ll develop a keen sense of craft by reading each other’s work and the work of some of the finest writers in the genre, including Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, Teju Cole, Meghan Daum, and Leslie Jamison.  We’ll pay particular attention to questions of voice, narrative distance, narrative immediacy, personal research, hybrids, concept essays, dialogue, and story.  We’ll also have Skype visits from established authors working in the field, who will be willing to answer your questions about everything from writing habits to publishing.  Through writing, reading, and workshopping, we’ll work to build a common vocabulary and orientation in the genre, and you’ll also be working to develop your own individual orientation, so that you become more comfortable and innovative as a writer. 

Teaching English to Adults (ENGL 393)

Section: 01E #1881
Instructor: J. Heckman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MTWR 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM LSC

Engaging with Jesuit values.  This course offers an excellent opportunity for service learning and practical experience in tutoring adults in written and spoken English at the Loyola Community Literacy Center, located in Loyola Hall, 1110 W. Loyola Avenue, 2nd floor conference room, across the street from Mertz.

While the Literacy Center offers community adults an opportunity to improve their skills, it also gives student-tutors the chance to serve their community and to engage with their Jesuit education.  As one student-tutor wrote, "The Literacy Center is a program that enables students to truly embrace the Jesuit tradition.  It is a place that allows students to encounter something outside of themselves, . . . . . connecting the heart with the head."

No previous tutoring experience is necessary.  When taken for 3 credit hours, this course satisfies the Core Engaged Learning-Service Learning Internship requirement.  The course is open to second-semester freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, although incoming freshmen are always welcome to tutor as volunteers and take the course at a later date.

Students tutor adult learners, some of whom are native English speakers preparing for the GED or improving their literacy skills.  Other learners are international visitors, or immigrants or refugees whose skills in their native language range from their being highly educated professionals to being perhaps illiterate, even in their own language, and who may know some English or no English. 

The Center is open for tutoring M-Th evenings during the fall and spring semesters from 7-9:30 pm when the university is in session.  1 credit hour students tutor one evening per week; 2 and 3 credit hour students tutor two evenings a week. 

If students have never tutored at the Center, they must attend one evening of orientation.  All students attend bi-weekly class meetings (5 meetings per semester for 1-2 credit hour students, 6 class meetings per semester for 3 credit hour/Core students).  Students keep a weekly journal of their experiences; examine a textbook and journal articles concerned with literacy, language, and adult education; submit ten of their journals and five short papers throughout the semester; prepare a final paper or project; and, for 3 credit hour students, read and report on one additional text of their choice related to the work of the Center, to adult literacy, to the culture of their learners, or to any topic suggested by their tutoring experience. 

One student who was enrolled in one of our Literacy Center courses said, “I can’t say I’ve been in a nicer environment on Loyola’s campus.  Everyone is welcoming and treats everyone else with respect. And the time flies by because I love what I’m doing.”  Students who have taken this course have found it to be a challenging and exciting experience, even life changing as they help neighborhood adults improve their skills. 

More information can be found at www.luc.edu/literacy.  Follow the links to "tutoring" and then "course credit tutoring" for a complete description of English 393/Honors 290.

Internship (ENGL 394)

Section: 02E #1882
Instructor: J. Cragwall

Honors Tutorial: (ENGL 395)

Conspiracy Theories in American Literature and Culture
Section: 17W #1883
Instructor: J. Glover
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” went a famous piece of graffiti in the 1970s. This course will trace the persistence of conspiracy theories in American culture from the Revolutionary War to the present. Our focus will be on political conspiracies and their meaning for American democracy.  The early national period saw widely publicized conspiracy theories about threats to the republic from monarchical takeovers, Jacobin invasions, and slave revolts. These gave way in the twentieth century to beliefs that the American government itself had hidden crucial information from the public about communist infiltrations, presidential assassinations, and even extraterrestrial invasions. Yet throughout American history, conspiracy theories have offered an alternative way of thinking about politics that stands in stark contrast to the rational and fact-based debates that enable functioning democracy. With readings ranging from revolutionary-era newspaper articles, legal documents, and declassified files to poetry, fiction, and journalism, this course will assess the prospects of our republic in a world of conspiratorial thinking. Authors will include Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Phillip Roth, and Margaret Atwood.​

Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry (ENGL 397)

Section: 18W #2002
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

In this advanced poetry workshop, we will seek to deepen our engagement with poetry as an art form—both as readers and writers. Through reading, writing, and workshopping, we will grow more familiar with the anatomy and texture of poetry: image, word, voice, syntactical configurations, rhetorical devices— stanza, line, punctuation, and page. Your work will be given a great deal of individual attention in our workshops, and you will be offered the opportunity to work very closely with the instructor as you write and revise your final project for the course—a portfolio of your best work.

Advanced Writing: Fiction (ENGL 398)

Section: 19W #1884
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM LSC

A fiction writing workshop for those who have already taken English 318 (a prerequisite), which builds upon concepts of fictional art and craft studied there.  Students will write original stories which will be discussed and critiqued by the instructor and by one's fellow writers in a supportive workshop environment.  Students will also read and discuss the craft of master fiction writers, such as James Salter, Kelly Link, Richard Ford, Donald Barthelme, Mary Gaitskill, and others.  Class participation is emphasized.

Special Studies in Literature (ENGL 399)

Section: 093 #1885
Instructor: J. Cragwall