Loyola University Chicago

Department of English

Spring 2018 Courses


Interpreting Literature (UCLR 100)

Section: 01L #3698
Instructor:  P. Randolph
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 - 9:05 AM LSC

This is a core course that will teach the fundamentals about critical thinking, reading, and writing with multi-cultural texts. This year in UCLR we will be reading poetry, prose, and plays from a Norton 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: 02L #3700
Instructor:  P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM 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: 03L #3701
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 – 10:10 AM LSC

Section: 04L #3702
Instructor:  P. Randolph
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 #3703
Instructor:  P. Warren
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

Whether you were told them as you fell asleep at night or you watched and re-watched every Disney film version until you knew them by heart, you have probably been reading and interpreting fairy tales most of your life. In this foundational course, we will closely read a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama; master key literary and critical terms and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the interpretation of literature through constructing and de-constructing various iterations of numerous fairy tales. Together, we will explore, analyze and reflect upon a variety of important conceptual questions about the intentions and impacts of literature through critical and creative modalities, and (perhaps) live happily ever after as well. 

Section: 06L #3704
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 - 10:10 AM 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 periods; pre-modern and modern. Texts will include works from Ireland, England and the U.S.A.

Section: 07L #3705
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 AM 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. 

Minority Narratives of Want

Section: 08L #3706
Instructor:  N. Kenney Johnstone
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 PM LSC

This foundational course in literary studies will familiarize students with a range of genres and forms including novel excerpts, short stories, poems, plays, and screenplays. Some of the questions we will consider are: What is literature? Why does it matter? Where does meaning come from in literature? 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? 

To explore these questions, we will study minority authors (in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio economic status, etc.) and examine their characters’ struggles and desires. You’ll read authors from the late 1940s through the 60s (like James Baldwin and Ann Petry) and late 1990s to the present (authors like Jhumpa Lahiri and Justin Torres). There will be short writing assignments and presentations, and a reflective essay for this course.

Section: 09L #3707
Instructor: J. Fiorelli
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM 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, this course examines literature about work.  Work is an essential part of human existence; while it is often a source of pleasure and satisfaction, work has predominantly been a site of exploitation.  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, and fiction.  Texts will be drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from twentieth-century American literature, including authors such as Ann Petry, Milton Murayama, and Helena Maria Viramontes.  Course requirements will include active reading, written homework and quizzes, and class participation; two close reading analysis essays; and midterm and final assessments.

Section: 10L #3708
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 that contend with the ways that ecology affects our relationship to the world and each other. We will be reading from an anthology of eco-poetics, exploring science fiction including Afro-futurism and thinking about what animals represent and teach us about our connection to the planet. You will be introduced to multiple strategies to approach and interpret challenging texts that range from the ancient to the contemporary, including both traditional and experimental forms. Materials include: Aristophanes’ The Birds, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a short story by Octavia Butler’s and the African film Pumzi. There is also 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: 11L #3709
Instructor:  P. Sorenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 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: 12L #3710
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 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: 13L #3711
Instructor:  J. Hastings
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 - 2:30 PM LSC

As UCLR-100 is the foundational CORE Curriculum course in literary interpretation at Loyola, these sections will focus on the essential role narrators play in the processes of signification inherent in reading and interpreting works of literature.  We will cover a broad chronological arc across English literature, beginning with the Old English epic poem Beowulf and ending with a recent novel by Margaret Atwood.  The readings will include examples of all three literary genres (prose, poetry, and drama).  The course will also cover important vocabulary related to literary hermeneutics, setting students up for success in their tier-two literature courses.

The following texts are required:

Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam. New York: Anchor, 2014. ISBN 978-0307455482.

Baldick, Chris, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 4th ed. Oxford Paperback Reference. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. ISBN 9780198715443.

Beowulf.  Howell Chickering, ed and trans.  New York: Anchor Books, 2006.  ISBN 978140096220.

Loos, Anita. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. New York: Liveright/Norton, 2014. Print. ISBN 087140317X.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Vintage. 1989.  ISBN 978069723165.

Shakespeare, William.  The Tempest, revised ed.  Vaughan and Vaughan, eds.  Arden Shakespeare Series.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2012.  ISBN 9781408133477

Thackeray, W. M.  Vanity Fair.  Peter Shillingsburg, ed.  Norton Critical Editions.  New York: Norton, 1994.  ISBN 9780393965957.

Section: 14L #4323
Instructor: T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM 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 periods; pre-modern and modern. Texts will include works from Ireland, England and the U.S.A.

Section: 15L #3712
Instructor: J. Hastings
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

As UCLR-100 is the foundational CORE Curriculum course in literary interpretation at Loyola, these sections will focus on the essential role narrators play in the processes of signification inherent in reading and interpreting works of literature.  We will cover a broad chronological arc across English literature, beginning with the Old English epic poem Beowulf and ending with a recent novel by Margaret Atwood.  The readings will include examples of all three literary genres (prose, poetry, and drama).  The course will also cover important vocabulary related to literary hermeneutics, setting students up for success in their tier-two literature courses.

The following texts are required:

Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam. New York: Anchor, 2014. ISBN 978-0307455482.

Baldick, Chris, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 4th ed. Oxford Paperback Reference. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. ISBN 9780198715443.

Beowulf.  Howell Chickering, ed and trans.  New York: Anchor Books, 2006.  ISBN 978140096220.

Loos, Anita. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. New York: Liveright/Norton, 2014. Print. ISBN 087140317X.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Vintage. 1989.  ISBN 978069723165.

Shakespeare, William.  The Tempest, revised ed.  Vaughan and Vaughan, eds.  Arden Shakespeare Series.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2012.  ISBN 9781408133477

Thackeray, W. M.  Vanity Fair.  Peter Shillingsburg, ed.  Norton Critical Editions.  New York: Norton, 1994.  ISBN 9780393965957.

Section: 16L #3713
Instructor: E. Datskou
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 - 3:35 PM LSC

This foundational course of literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a variety of Gothic fiction, poetry, and drama from the 19th century to today. Using a mix of informal and formal writing assignments and in-class discussion, we will ask what the Gothic is, how it has been represented over time, and what it says about its contemporary society. Within these discussions, we will explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature and master key and critical terms. Authors may include Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Flannery O’Connor, Anne Rice, and Edward Albee.

Section: 17L #3714
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 – 9:45 AM LSC

We have all read and interpreted literature before. For this course, however, we will strive to do so in 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: 18L #3715
Instructor: L. Enright
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 – 9:45 LSC

What is at stake in art and literature? Philosopher Giorgio Agamben says that it is the “fire in the tale,” the sense of wonder that language often obscures. But what can a philosopher possibly know about literature? That is the sort of question we’ll be asking this semester. Rather, we will be asking what literature does differently; whereas many disciplines try to lock down our knowledge about a topic, literature never seems to want to give up the knowledge it’s supposed to possess.

Author Greg Wolfe sums up this elusive knowledge in three words: “Art. Faith. Mystery.” Working our way through short stories, poems, essays, and a play or two, we will pay close attention to how works of art handle themes of faith and mystery, relative to their own contexts and to bigger questions. Everything is fair game, from myths and prayers to detective stories and horror stories; from authors as diverse as John Donne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and others. We will explore the ways in which faith and mystery demand we rethink things like truth, goodness, love and justice—sometimes with a lot of discomfort. As we read, we will employ and question many different methods and “theories” that have been used to demonstrate literature’s meaning and value. In the end, however, we will be most concerned with how literature provokes us well before we try to make any sense of it. 

Assessments will take the forms of reading quizzes, short investigative papers, occasional class presentations, a creative midterm, and a take-home final.

Section: 19L #3716
Instructor: M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 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.  

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? 

This course satisfies the first tier of Loyola University’s core Knowledge Area requirement in “Literary Knowledge.”

Section: 20L #3717
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM 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: 21L #3718
Instructor: D. Chinitz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 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, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, and Sharon Olds. The close-reading skills we practice will cultivate students’ critical thinking, understanding of literary texts, and appreciation of the craft of writing.

Section: 22L #5426
Instructor: A. Galus
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

Perhaps more than any other nation, the United States has imagined itself as a landscape of pure possibility, and much of our more recent literary output concerns itself with questioning this paradigm. The ever-shifting concept of the “American Dream” has been a source of yearning for a new kind of personal and national life. This course will give you the opportunity to read, enjoy, think about, and write about literature tied to the theme of the American experience. In this class, we will question how ideas of America are encoded, performed, and reproduced within contemporary novels, short stories, and non-fiction by authors including Toni Morrison, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Franzen, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Sandra Cisneros. How do authors and characters create, confront, change, or reify American mythologies? Class discussion as well as formal and informal writing will give you the chance to discover what you think and how best to share that thinking with others.

Section: 23L #5427
Instructor: M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM 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.  

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? 

This course satisfies the first tier of Loyola University’s core Knowledge Area requirement in “Literary Knowledge.”

Section: 24L #5428
Instructor: K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 - 2:15 AM 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: 25L #5429
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 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. 

Children’s Literature (ENGL 206)

Section: 001 #1549
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA LSC

Section: 002 #4518
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA LSC

Advanced Writing: Business (ENGL 210)

Section: 20W #1670
Instructor:  T. Kim
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM WTC

This course provides training and practice in various forms of writing (such as cover letters, résumés, e-mails, investment memos, grant proposals, group presentations and team reports) relevant to students who are considering careers in business.  In order to practice the art of business writing, this course will utilize a diverse range of materials from case studies on not-for-profit organizations, Fortune 500 companies, tech startups, crypto-currencies, artificial intelligence, investment banking, financial analysis and organizational behavior.  Learning Outcome: Students will demonstrate familiarity with genres and styles of writing commonly used in business, with the stages of the writing process, and with individual and collaborative methods of composition.

Section: 60W #1671
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 – 9:30 PM WTC

This course is writing-intensive.

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. Our class is a workshop. As such, much of our time will be devoted to small group discussions and exercises. You will plan and share some of your writing with your peers and with me in draft conferences.

Section: 61W #2365
Instructor:  M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 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 #2598
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

This course is writing-intensive.

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. Our class is a workshop. As such, much of our time will be devoted to small group discussions and exercises. You will plan and share some of your writing with your peers and with me in draft conferences.

Writing for Pre-Law Students (ENGL 211)

Section: 63W #1672
Instructor:  D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

In this course, students will learn to develop the writing skills used by law school students and attorneys to prepare case briefs, office memoranda, and pre-trial motions. Students will also learn how to answer essay examination questions of the type given in law school and on a state bar examination. In class, students will develop the verbal abilities necessary to take a legal position and defend it with statements of facts and conclusions of law. Realistic hypothetical fact patterns will be analyzed using the IRAC method: issue, rule, application, and conclusion. Learning how to cite to legal authorities is a central part of the course. Readings include judicial opinions, state and federal statutes, and law review articles. The course is taught by a practicing attorney, and assumes no prior legal studies by the students. 

Section: 64W #3468
Instructor:  D. Gorski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

In this course, students will learn to develop the writing skills used by law school students and attorneys to prepare case briefs, office memoranda, and pre-trial motions. Students will also learn how to answer essay examination questions of the type given in law school and on a state bar examination. In class, students will develop the verbal abilities necessary to take a legal position and defend it with statements of facts and conclusions of law. Realistic hypothetical fact patterns will be analyzed using the IRAC method: issue, rule, application, and conclusion. Learning how to cite to legal authorities is a central part of the course. Readings include judicial opinions, state and federal statutes, and law review articles. The course is taught by a practicing attorney, and assumes no prior legal studies by the students. 

Theory/Practice Tutoring (ENGL 220)

Section: 1WE #2599
Instructor:  B. Molby
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 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 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 two essays and a group research paper. 

ENGL 220-1WE is a writing intensive class.

Exploring Poetry (ENGL 271)

Section: 01W #3739
Instructor:  J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 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.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, and a final.

Section: 02W #3740
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 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.  Requirements will include participation in class discussions, several papers, and a final.

Section: 043 #3741
Instructor: S. Kucsera
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 - 1:25 PM LSC

Exploring Poetry will prompt students to strengthen their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills through the study of a variety of poetic forms. While our focus will be on poems in English, we will read poems from a wide range of periods, places, and genres and will develop a vocabulary for the understanding of poetry and effective tools for the analysis of it. This course will present poetry as literature intensely interested in the exploration and articulation of human experience and will encourage students to think deeply not only about how they interact with language and the world around them, but also about how those two ideas are mutually-informing: What is poetry? Where do we find poetry? What does poetry do? Why should we study poetry at all? 

Section: 044 #5430
Instructor: M. Lutze
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

In his own “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” William Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” This semester, we will attempt to reconcile and perhaps challenge Wordsworth’s vision of what poetry truly is with a selection of poems from the Western canon, all the way from Beowulf to contemporary poetry. We will focalize our own exploration on poems regarding the dynamics of religion and war. We will focus on poetry as catharsis; as a means of expressing devotion, ideology, or suffering; and often as a challenge to culturally-normative paradigms. 

This course is designed to not only assist you in learning how to read poetry well but also to foster a deeper appreciation for poetry as a literary genre. In order to accomplish this, we will start with the foundations of reading poetry through a study of various poetic devices. In order to grasp the creative and structural variety within this genre, we will also strategically read a selection of poetry that spans major poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets, elegies, epics, and odes. Throughout the semester, we will attempt to recognize the poetic devices and genres at play in the selections we choose; however, we will also endeavor to never overlook the importance of the poems’ content for its own sake. Requirements will include active participation in class discussions, brief reading quizzes, both a midterm and final exam, and two term papers.

Exploring Drama (ENGL 272)

Section: 03W #3742
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: 045 #3745
Instructor: P. Staidum
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:45 – 11:15 AM LSC

Exploring Fiction focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction.  In this section, The Horror of Race (ENGL 273-045), we read a sampling of Gothic and Horror fiction in order to explicate the long history of representing the scary Other via the nonwhite and foreign presence.  Through confrontations between good/evil, human/monster, and living/dead, the Gothic embodies societal anxieties regarding difference and the unknown.  In this course, we seek to reveal the myriad ways Gothic and Horror fiction incorporate marginalized racial, ethnic, and national identities as analogies for the terrifying and sublime.  We will consider thematic content, figurative and formal techniques, and short critical works in order to develop sophisticated, nuanced skills for exploring fiction.  Authors may include Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Jacobs, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Randall Kenan.

Section: 046 #5431
Instructor:  A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM LSC

Section: 04W #3744
Instructor:  J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 - 12:20 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.  Since this is a writing-intensive course, students’ weekly response papers will engage in the practice of “close reading,” which will provide a foundation for the mode of analytical writing employed in students’ longer papers for the course.

Section: 05W #4325
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 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.  Since this is a writing-intensive course, students’ weekly response papers will engage in the practice of “close reading,” which will provide a foundation for the mode of analytical writing employed in students’ longer papers for the course.

Exploring Shakespeare (ENGL 274)

Shakespeare’s England
Section: 047 #5432
Instructor: A. Ullmann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

England at the turn of the seventeenth century was in the midst of a decades-long debate about what it meant to be truly English. As major cultural, religious, and economic upheavals swept through Europe at the height of what would become known as the Renaissance, the English found themselves attempting to answer fundamental questions of identity. Who are we? Who have we been historically? What kind of government and ruler should we have? How do we establish ourselves as the preeminent Protestant nation of Europe, and what should that Protestantism look like? Shakespeare was among the countless writers who sought to explore these questions through literary expression and dramatic performance. This course will examine a range of Shakespeare’s “English” plays; that is, those set in an England either past or present (the distinction is often difficult to find). Through discussion of plays from a variety of dramatic genres we will explore the ways in which Shakespeare explored these questions of English identity and the answers—or not—that the plays offer, as well as how the commercial theatre could be a powerful form in itself for providing some answers. Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the connections between Shakespeare’s literary form and content and the political, religious, cultural, and personal identities with which he was engaged. Assignments will include quizzes, group work, short papers, and a midterm and final exam.

African-American Literature (ENGL 282)

Section: 048 #4328
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 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, in particular, 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 include weekly quizzes, a mid-term, short responses (1-2 pages), and a final exam. This course fulfills the multicultural requirement. 

Women in Literature (ENGL 283)

Section: 06W #4329
Instructor: J. B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM 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 literature written by 20th- and  21st-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. Analyzing representative works of fiction written by women authors, this course 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,  female friendships, and female aging in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and May Sarton.  There will be quizzes, papers, a midterm and a final exam.

Section: 07W #4330
Instructor:  P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 - 12:45 PM LSC

This course focuses on the feminist avant-garde, women writers and artists of the early to mid twentieth-century who produced experimental works and challenged conventional notions of gender. Our purpose will be (1) to learn to read texts (verbal and visual) in relation to their social and historical context, especially contemporaneous notions of gender, and (2) to analyze literature in terms of its narrative techniques. How do we read women’s literature that doesn’t provide a linear plot, stable characters, or positive images of women? What effect do these artworks have on our notions of ourselves as gendered subjects? What are the political implications of such radical texts? We will read Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and Djuna Barnes from the first half of the century, and Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson and Harryette Mullen from the second half. We will also read Nella Larsen, a more conventional novelist whose writing was indebted to Stein and has radical implications for our understanding of gender, race and class. And we will discuss visual artists as well. This course makes a case for why aesthetically difficult writers and artists like those considered “avant-garde” still matter.

The writing-intensive course combines informal lectures with class discussions. Frequent writing will encourage us to think critically as well as personally about the assignments and will help to initiate class discussion.  A series of structured writing assignments will focus on specific skills (such as summary and argument) and specific elements of writing about literature (such as close reading and comparison). We will share our writing in class periodically and will comment on one another’s papers in workshops.

Section: 08W #4331
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 literature written by 20th- and  21st-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. Analyzing representative works of fiction written by women authors, this course 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,  female friendships, and female aging in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and May Sarton.  There will be quizzes, papers, a midterm and a final exam.

Section: 09W #4332
Instructor:  S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

Memoir has garnered much critical attention in the last decade (both positive and negative). But what exactly is memoir? If an author is writing from memory, and oftentimes memory is hazy, or at least subjective, what is the “truth” in memoir? During the semester, we will read a selection of creative non-fiction memoirs by a wide range of contemporary female memoirists such as Maxine Hong-Kingston, Alison Bechdel, bell hooks, Alice Sebold, Marjane Satrapi, Ann Fessler, and Jeanette Winterson. Through discussion and analysis of these memoirs, we will more specifically consider how societal and cultural attitudes towards gender roles relate to the taboo nature and silencing of women’s sexuality and reproductive issues. 

Cross-listed with Women's Studies, English 283 is designed to meet the "literary knowledge and experience" requirements of the Loyola Core. This course counts towards the multicultural requirement for the English major.

Religion and Literature (ENGL 287)

Section: 10W #4333
Instructor:  M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course will introduce students to important works from various historical periods and cultures that speak to us through time to offer a variety of concepts of the human spirit and the idea of the holy. Assignments will consist of a mid-term, term paper, and final examination, as well as multiple short writing assignments designed to give practice in the essential elements of good writing and literary analysis. 

Text: Shadow and Light: Literature and the Life of Faith, ed. Tippens, et al., 3rd edition.

This course is Writing Intensive.

Nature in Literature (ENGL 288)

Section: 11W #3746
Instructor:  E. Bayley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35PM 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)

Section: 202 #6940
Instructor:  T. Kim
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25PM WTC

The stories we tell about money and finance are replete with the joys of success and the dangers of excess.  Yet, a careful look into American capitalism in both its economic and cultural aspects reveals a more elaborate process of how money traffics between the realms of pure finance and societal beliefs and customs.  This sequence of Loyola University’s Human Values in Literature will closely examine the relationship between the history of finance (from the mid-1980’s onward) and the narratives that circulate to “make sense” of capital as we know it.  We will tackle financial topics such as leverage, valuations, behavioral economics, and alternative investments noting the back-and-forth translations of these concepts into energizing cultural forms such as humility/excess, utopia/dystopia, chance/determinism, and prohibition/confession.   This interdisciplinary course should broaden a student’s breadth of knowledge regarding finance and its associated fictions by surveying the cultural languages used to decipher the evolution of contemporary capital.

Course Outline and Texts Under Consideration:

Part I               The End of Glass-Steagall and the Renaissance of Leverage

Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)

Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (1989)

Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street (1989)

 

Part II             The Aesthetics and Pedagogy of Contemporary Finance 

Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991)

Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991)

Robert Shiller, Irrational Exuberance (2000)

Roger Lowenstein, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management (2001)

Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis (2003)

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008)  

 

Part III            Financial Atonement and Money in Everyday Life 

Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager, n+1, and Keith Gessen, Diary of a Very Bad Year: Interviews with an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager (2010)

J.C. Chandor, Margin Call (2011)

Sheelah Kolhatkar, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street (2017)

Giacomo Corneo, Is Capitalism Obsolete?: A Journey through Alternative Economic Systems (2017)

Hoards and Other Stuff
Section: 049 #4334
Instructor: P. Jacob
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35PM LSC

Tablets, trinkets, pompoms, puzzle pieces, and plastic bags. We use objects to encode memories, reflect our identities, signal social status, provide haptic experience, and order our world. But we are also utterly overwhelmed by things: collections devolve into hoards, and the ocean spins trash through its currents. In order to better understand human values, tendencies, and systems, we will examine the many categories of object—relic, commodity, rubbish, keepsake, and fetish—as they appear in literature. The object has a critical place in literary history, from realism’s attempt to capture everyday life to the sensory pleasures of imagist poetry. We will discuss how we attribute meaning to things, but also how things escape our attempts at meaning-making. What do objects signify, if anything? How do things help us remember, and what do they allow us to forget? Why do we accumulate so much, and how has that tendency transferred into the digital age? Readings will include case studies of hoarders as well Marie Kondo’s bestselling decluttering guide; the novels Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, and The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk; poetry by Christina Rossetti and Jorge Luis Borges; nonfiction by Brian Thill and Teju Cole; and the films Wall-E and Finding Vivian Maier.

Section: 12W #2600
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

Adopting an international and cross-disciplinary perspective, this section of English 290 will examine the portrayal of human values in modern and contemporary works by selected non-western writers from Africa, the West Indies, South Asia, and USA. Our main aim will be to examine the extent to which the societies under study (and the individuals who constitute them) share universal values and the extent to which these societies and their values are predicated upon culture specific norms and expectations. To this end, we will consider the role of nationalism, tradition, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and class/caste in the conception and practice of such values. In addition, we will analyze the cultural bases of contributing literary techniques, including structure, language, narrative focus, and characterization among others, to arrive at comparative assessments of the portrayal of human values in modern world literature.

This course fulfills the Multicultural Requirement.

Section: 201 #4335
Instructor: C. Jergenson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course will explore “human values” as they are expressed, questioned, and critiqued by recent works of dystopian literature and science fiction. These genres allow authors to imagine the future consequences of contemporary social relations, economic practices, and technological innovations as well as the values associated with them. The course will be structured around questions including, but not limited to, the following: how do our readings (and works of literature, generally) engage with or participate in their historical contexts? What values do our works affirm and what values do they critique? How do they approach the very concept of “human values”? Assignments will include reading quizzes and essays.

Grammar: Principles and Pedagogy (ENGL 303)

Section: 050 #2077
Instructor: E. Weeks Stogner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

In a sense our language is something we already know, but do we understand how it really works? The goal of this course is to analyze the structure of the English language, to unlock the secrets behind the meaning we produce innately. We will explore English grammar not only as a list of rules and regulations that govern linguistic behavior but also as a means of clearly conveying ideas in speech and writing. This course will examine all elements of English grammar from parts of speech and how they function in a sentence to punctuation and how it enhances clear and precise prose. We will also gain an appreciation for the English language and investigate techniques for using language effectively in speech and writing. Course requirements include reading all assigned material, doing all assigned exercises, taking regular quizzes and tests, and giving a short teaching presentation. This course is required for students planning to teach high school English, but it is open to others and recommended for anyone who studies texts written in English.

Advanced Writing (ENGL 310)

Section: 13W #5433
Instructor: E. Hopwood
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 4:15 - 6:45 PM LSC

The focus of this Advanced Composition class will be Writing New Media. From text editors to Twitterbots, we will practice writing in and across modalities and technologies

that are both “old” and “new,” familiar and unfamiliar. We will consider how communication is mediated and remediated in the digital age, and we will draw connections between historical moments of print culture with that of contemporary technological advancement, considering, for instance, the many ways that technology has shaped the way we read and interpret (and, indeed, are ourselves read and interpreted). Some topics we will explore include emerging digital genres (websites, blogs, memes), digital storytelling, multimodal discourse, emoji poetry, type and typography, and interface theory.

The Writing of Poetry (ENGL 317)

Section: 051 #1360
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: 052 #1361
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Section: 601 #2601
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 – 9:00 PM LSC

This is a workshop class in poetry.  To get our bearings, we’ll read work by a wide range of poets including Basho, Seamus Heaney, Czeslaw Milosz, Mary Oliver, Tracy K. Smith, Frank O’Hara, Adrienne Rich, and Tomas Transtromer.  We’ll pay particular attention to form, sound, clarity, and meaning.  Each week, we’ll workshop student work in the hope of developing our ears as readers, so as to develop our voices as writers. 

The Writing of Fiction (ENGL 318)

Section: 053 #1362
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Students will learn the art and craft of writing fiction through (a) reading master writers such as Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Haruki Murakami, Donald Barthelme, 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: 054 #2602
Instructor: B. Harper
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 2:45 – 10:15 LSC

This course is an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction via a semester-long consideration of various short narrative forms including micro-fiction, “short-shorts,” and more traditional-length stories. Discussion will isolate the basic techniques and devices of effective storytelling, ranging from subjects as broad as plot arrangement and character development to more highly focused lessons on scene design, dialog, and word choice. Reading will highlight masters of short form like Raymond Carver, Kate Braverman, and Joy Williams, as well as newer voices such as Wells Tower and Anthony Doerr. Students will also be asked to write stories of their own throughout the term, submitting them for consideration in whole-class workshops.

Fulfills a Core Expressive Arts Requirement.

Section: 602 #2603
Instructor: C. Woods
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM LSC

Students in this fiction writing workshop will produce one piece of very short fiction and two short stories, all of which we will read and discuss together. To become better writers, we will sharpen our skills as readers, studying masters of the genre such as Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver as well as contemporary writers like Ha Jin, Jennifer Egan, ZZ Packer, and George Saunders. With these writers as guides, students will practice crafting plots that move, dialogue that crackles, and characters who live and breathe, and we’ll help one another learn along the way. Thoughtful participation in workshop will thus be crucial to students’ success in this course. At the end of the semester, we’ll leave time to revise stories with peer feedback, after which students will assemble a final portfolio.  

Writing Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 319)

Section: 055 #2078
Instructor: H. Axelrod
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

This is a workshop class in creative nonfiction.  Nonfiction means the given facts of the work are true—not courtroom testimony-level true, but fairly reliably-accurate true.  (The prison memoir is written by a former prisoner; the essay about the trip to the lake describes an actual lake the writer actually made a trip to.)  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.  To get our bearings in the genre, we’ll read personal essays and memoirs by some of the finest writers of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, and James Baldwin, but the bulk of the learning will come through doing.  We’ll workshop three student essays each week, with an eye towards clarity, creativity, and thematic insight.  

English Lit: Medieval Period (ENGL 320)

Section: 056 #6300
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

This course will trace the history of English drama from its Latin roots through the Middle Ages and into the sixteenth century. Readings will include examples of liturgical drama, cycle drama, saints' plays, morality plays, and humanist drama, as well as relevant literary criticism. The course will also examine each type of drama in light of the conventions and practices that governed its original production. Although some texts will be in modern English translation, others will be in the original Middle English. Requirements will include active class participation, weekly responses, one short essay, one oral report and an annotated bibliography, and a final essay.

Plays of Shakespeare (ENGL 326)

Section: 057 #1365
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

Students are often introduced to Shakespeare’s tragedies in high school, reflecting a cultural bias toward the genre that is credited with complex characters and philosophical depth. This course will focus instead on Shakespeare’s comedies, arguing that comedy puts just as much pressure on our analytical abilities. And, unlike tragedy, comedy must challenge plot, character, and language conventions in order to make us laugh. In comedy, that is, form becomes content. We will track Shakespeare’s perfection of comedy’s various trends in the Renaissance, as well as his experimentations. We will examine his 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. 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.

Studies in Renaissance (ENGL 328)

Section: 058 #1791
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 LSC

This course will examine how high and low culture, or elite and popular cultural, were constructed and defined in the Early Modern or Renaissance period.  Through readings in various literary genres (poems, ballads, plays, prose fiction), as well as in material not traditionally considered literary, we will take up such questions as: how "high" and "low" culture, or elite and popular culture, have been defined, separated, and combined; how canonical literary texts incorporate elements of popular culture; what functions literature performed within Renaissance culture; and why texts of various kinds have been excluded from the literary canon.

Requirements will include papers, a midterm, and a final 

This course counts toward the pre-1700 requirement for the English major.

Milton (ENGL 329)

Section: 14W #5436
Instructor: C. Kendrick
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

The course will cover Milton’s early poetry as presented in his 1645 Poems; his great Restoration works (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes); and at least two of his pamphlets (probably Areopagitica and A Treatise of Civil Power). We will also read some critical essays on Milton, representing recent work as well as the best that's been thought and said. Topics of discussion will include: ideas of marriage and appropriate gender relations in Milton; the relation between republican and godly aspirations; the relation of works to faith, and the idea of Christian culture as premised on and developing through arguments about the meaning of scripture; Milton's use of genre, and search for answerable styles. Two papers, in-class writing, a midterm and a final.​

Victorian Period Studies (ENGL 343)

Section: 059 #5437
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

William Makepeace Thackeray wrote that novels explore “matters quite as important as history” in an "easy and comfortable" form (“On Some French Fashionable Novels,” 1839). That is, novels are both interpreters of history and engaging works of art. In this course, we will read six major works in the great tradition of the nineteenth-century novel. We will examine their biographical and historical contexts, and will devote some time to the theory of the novel as a genre. Assignments will consist of a mid-term, a term paper, and a final examination, as well as occasional reflection papers. Texts:  William M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 1847; Charlotte Brontë, Villette, 1852; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1860; George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, 1860; Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd, 1874.

This course fulfills the pre-1900/post-1700 requirement for the English major.

Studies in Modernism (ENGL 344)

Section: 060 #5438
Instructor: J. Wexler
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 - 11:15 AM LSC

Definitions of modernism are hotly debated because the term has acquired so much prestige. Yet authors usually associated with the term are so distinctive that they do not suggest a common set of characteristics. We will read a selection of canonical texts from the first half of the twentieth century to test various definitions of modernism: poems by Hardy, Yeats, Owen, and Eliot as well as Heart of Darkness, The Rainbow, Dubliners, and Mrs. Dalloway. 

Longman Anthology of British Literature, 2 C Twentieth Century, 4th ed

Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul

Death of a Hero, Richard Aldington

Contemporary Literature (ENGL 351)

Section: 061 #5439
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

This course examines the issues of colonization and decolonization as depicted in selected twentieth and twenty-first-century fiction from Africa, the West Indies, and South Asia. To familiarize students with the debates informing the field of Postcolonial Studies and to apprise them of the political and aesthetic challenges that postcolonial texts pose for both writers and readers, western and non-western, students will investigate the following concerns among others: (a) the definition of "postcoloniality"; (b) the composition by postcolonial writers of fictional histories of their lands that counter imperial and neocolonial "master narratives"; (c) the use of English as a literary language, and the creation of experimental linguistic and textual structures based upon indigenous traditions; (d) the effects of writing simultaneously for a local and western audience; (e) the portrayal of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, caste, class, migration/diaspora, and globalization; and (f) the role of postcolonial literatures in the western academy.

 This course fulfills the Multicultural Requirement.

Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 354)

Section: 062 #2079
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 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 deconstruction, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonialism, and queer theory.  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 two required texts, Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies (ed. Robert Dale Parker) and How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies (Robert Dale Parker).

Lit: Writer’s Perspective (ENGL 357)

Section: 063 #1368
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

We will read from Chicago’s heritage of poetry and prose and compare what we discover there to our own experiences of the city—intellectually and emotionally, as well as at the most basic and essential sensory levels of sight, sound, taste, smell, etc.  As citizens of this city and as artists, we will observe, react, and create. A portion of the course will involve consideration of the idea of an “urban sensibility” in literature and the arts and an examination of how such a sensibility may compliment, conflict with, or complicate other ways of seeing the world.  In addition to reading work by Chicago writers such as Carl Sandburg,  Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks,  Aleksandar Hemon, and Stuart Dybek, we will take a longer historical view of urban literature and read selections by such figures as William Blake, Walt Whitman, Jane Jacobs, and Helene Johnson. Most importantly, we will use the city of Chicago itself as our muse and literary laboratory. There will be a midterm and final, as well as several creative assignments.

Studies in Poetry (ENGL 362)

Section: 15W #5440
Instructor: D. Chinitz
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

We will focus on several distinctive voices in modern poetry, ranging from the traditional to the experimental, from the late nineteenth century to nearly the present, and from writers who seem firmly canonical to some whose historical place is less certain. The reading list will depend in part on the availability of texts but tentatively includes W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, A. E. Housman, Philip Larkin, Sharon Olds, and John Crowe Ransom.

Studies in Fiction (ENGL 372)

Section: 064 #5441
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course is a study in narrative focused on fiction and memoirs by and about trans* subjects. Such writings disrupt narrative conventions by defying pronominal stability, temporal continuity, and natural progression, all elements of more conventional novels and memoirs that trace the course of a subject’s life. As such, trans* narratives can be read as a distinct genre, what I have called a “transgenre.” But they also require us to rethink the conventions of any life writing, raising the question, What are the consequences for living of telling a different kind of story? That is, these life writings do not just give us an account of a life lived, but also deliberately shape a narrative of a life that might be lived, and livable. 

Readings include various forms of life writing, fiction and nonfiction, as well as essays in transgender theory and sexological writings from the early 20th century. Primary works include Man into Woman (1933), the life narrative of Lili Elbe, and David Ebershoff’s novel based on that work, The Danish Girl (2000) along with Tom Hooper’s film version; Jan Morris’s Conundrum (1974); Jennifer Boylan’s She’s Not There (2003); Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts (2015); Juliet Jacques’s Trans: A Memoir (2015), and Susan Faludi’s In the Darkroom (2016). We may also read Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography (1928) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928), if we’re especially ambitious. We will also discuss recommended films. Along with participation, requirements for undergraduates include two short essays (app. 2500 words) and an exam; for graduate students, one class presentation and a seminar-length paper.

Note: This course can be taken for credit as an “engaged learning” course (ENGL 394/WSGS 398) for those students who would like to work approximately 10 hours per week on the comparative scholarly print and digital edition of Man into Woman, which I am co-editing with a German scholar. Contact me as soon as possible, no later than the first day of class, if you are interested in this option. (pcaughi@luc.edu)

American Lit: 1865-1914 (ENGL 376)

Section: 065 #5442
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

This course examines novels by selected U.S. writers from the Civil War to World War I, paying particular attention to theories of Realism, associated Regional forms, literary Naturalism, and the contribution of literary works to emerging notions of "the modern." Students will complete weekly one-page responses, two papers of medium length (5-6 pages), a mid-term exam, and a longer final paper (8-10 pages). Authors will include Howells, Twain, Davis, Chopin, James, Crane, Dreiser, Wharton, Chesnutt, and Johnson.

Advanced Seminar: (ENGL 390)

Section: 16W #2372
Instructor: I. Cornelius
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

In English, as in other languages, poetry was at first an oral form: it was passed down in recitation, not writing. The Anglo-Saxons (that is, the English-speaking inhabitants of early medieval Britain) learned to write when they converted to Christianity; soon thereafter, they used their new skill to record some of their vernacular poetry in writing. The poems that survive from this earliest period include tales of heroes and monsters, songs of loss and exile, saints’ lives, biblical narratives, visions, and riddles. Ever since the rediscovery of this poetry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has been prized for emotional depth, luminous detail, and intricate language. We read several of the best poems – among them, Beowulf, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Dream of the Rood, and Judith – in modern English translations, for the original language (termed “Old English”) is now comprehensible only after a prior course of language study. (This course assumes no prior knowledge of medieval English.) We then follow the poetic tradition forward, past the Norman Conquest, to forms of the English language somewhat closer to our own. We read an Arthurian romance (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, again mostly in modern English translation), a re-telling of the biblical story of Jonah (Patience), and Piers Plowman, a brilliantly surrealistic, restless sequence of dream visions, motivated by a single question: how should I live?(The poem was the life work of its author.) We read Patience and Piers Plowman in the original language, termed “Middle English.” Learning to read Middle English takes work, but the reward is an unusually fine-grained and intimate experience of literature.

Section: 17W #4340
Instructor: F. Staidum
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

How do we approach the creative and erudite output of those who have been “dehumanized”?  How do we understand the operations of gender and sexuality within texts composed by those who have been denied the attributes of normativity?  In this Advanced Seminar, we will engage a body of work that juxtaposes the human and the inhuman, the normal and the aberrant in order to wrestle with how early African-descendent authors articulated the precarity of Blackness within Western modernity.  We will read key critical works in both critical race theory and queer of color critique alongside important (specimens) of antebellum Black counter-discourse, specifically David Walker’s Appeal (1829); Victor Séjour’s "Le Mulâtre" (1837); Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845); Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853); Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig (1859); Martin Delany’s Blake; or, The Huts of America (1859-1862); and Julia C. Collins’s The Curse of Caste, or, The Slave Bride (1865).  In so doing, we will interrogate how the authors represented and subsequently theorized the coexistence of racial subjugation (i.e., commodification, objectification, enslavement, and second-class citizenship) beside Enlightenment-cum-American ideals of progress, democracy, liberalism, and nationalism, which are ideals believed to transcend the very practices of race and racialization.

This seminar will be of interest to students of critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, political philosophy, and 19th-century literatures and cultures.

Advanced Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 392)

Section: 18W #5443
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, Julian Barnes, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, Maggie Nelson, Ralph Ellison, David Foster Wallace, Olivia Laing, 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 #1397
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.  One student tutor said, “The Literacy Center has taught me the true value of giving, and this is perhaps the most valuable lesson I’ve learned at Loyola.”  

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, most of whom are immigrants, refugees, or international visitors 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.  Students also tutor some native English speakers preparing for the GED or improving their literacy skills.  

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.  In addition, there are 5 class meetings scheduled just before tutoring hours; 3 credit Core students meet for a 6th session. 

If students have never tutored at the Center, they must attend one evening of orientation.  Students keep a weekly journal of their experiences and reading responses; 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.  

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.  Another student-tutor wrote, "Tutoring at the Loyola University Community Literacy Center was easily one of the best experiences I have ever been granted at Loyola University. That is coming from a student who has studied abroad three times, has volunteered elsewhere, and has had a number of internships. Never have I felt so connected to my own values. Tutoring at the center reminded me of my passions and allowed me to help others and make friends in the process… I am truly privileged to have learned about my learners’ cultures and personal experiences. They’ve taught me to not judge cultures from an American standpoint and to instead take every culture at face value."

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)

Section: 19W #3747
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

Literary history is replete with characters on the move, traversing borders both literal and figurative (geographic, nation state, moral, cultural, spiritual, etc.). Consider, for example, classic works like The Odyssey, The Canterbury Tales, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver’s Travels, African American slave narratives by writers like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, and more modern works like Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! or Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out. Each of these texts, while they may seem to tell a universal story, are also deeply rooted in – and thus reflect -- the historical and cultural moment in which they were written. In our own time, such texts are deeply engaged with exploring the dramatic effects of globalization. They are particularly interested in how mobility, migration, displacement, and exile -- both voluntary and forced -- shape the experience of characters as they cross a variety of natural, nation-state, cultural, and personal borders. Whether displaced by political forces, economic collapse, war, religious disputes, or personal circumstances, the lives of all the characters in the texts we’ll read are shaped in one way or another by the forces of contemporary globalization. While we will explore some scholarly and critical material from the fields of border and globalization studies in order to develop a critical framework for the course, the bulk of the reading will be contemporary narrative fiction by writers working in English whose fiction deals with characters shuttling between the Caribbean, China, Africa, South Asia, and North America. Writers will include some mix of the following Junot Díaz, Chimamanda Adichie, Kiran Desai, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Cristina Garcia, Aleksandar Hemon, and Yiyun Li. Requirements include active participation in class discussion, two short critical essays, and a longer final paper.

Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry (ENGL 397)

Section: 21W #1588
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. 

ENGL 397-21W is a writing intensive class

Advanced Writing Workshop: Fiction (ENGL 398)

Section: 22W #1401
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 Steven Milhauser, Haruki Murakami, Joy Williams, Richard Ford, Aimee Bender, and others.  Class participation is emphasized. 

ENGL 398-22W is a writing intensive class.

Special Studies in Literature (ENGL 399)

Section: 066 #5625
Instructor: J. Cragwall