Spring 2027
ENGL 10500 Introduction to American Literature
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Hansom, Muller 321
ENROLLMENT: 25 per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class will focus on literature produced by American writers Post-1945. This modern and contemporary American literature draws its subjects and creative materials from the enormous and bewildering changes that have taken place since the end of World War Two. While the obliteration of Germany and Japan certainly placed America in an unprecedented global position, this was by no means a coherent or a comfortable one. Rather, these historic realignments, economic dislocations, constant wars, and rapid technological and demographic shifts produced a reality that was astonishing, terrifying, and almost beyond belief. Modern and contemporary American literatures embody a tremendous creative energy and force in response to these social and historical dynamics. The sheer range of their forms and the power of their visions, images and metaphors have not only shaped writing, reading, and thinking on an international scale, but have changed the very idea of culture, history, fact, and fiction.
This class will examine some of the ways in which American writers and artists have contributed and responded to these seismic shifts, exploring the relationships between multi-cultural perspectives, post-industrial realities, and the complex connections between mass media and national identity. To help us with our investigations into these cultural shifts, we will focus on a range of American literatures ( mostly stories, poems and plays) by the likes of Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Don Delillo, Philip Roth, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Leslie Silko, and Paul Auster. To name just a few.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion with limited lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Students will closely examine course materials, engage in class discussions, write response papers, formal essays, and keep a reading journal.
ENGL 11200: Introduction to Poetry
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Jeong Yeon Lee, Muller
ENROLLMENT: 25 students
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: TR 3-4:15pm, W 3-3:50pm.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This introduction to poetry begins at its current end, the present. What is a poem? How do you read poetry? What is poetry for? Many of us have answers to these questions, even if we haven’t studied poetry formally. Where does this common sense come from? Or to state it differently, how and why do we know what we know about poetry? In attempting to answer this question, this course will function as an introduction to poetry in two ways. First, it will teach students how to read poetry. Second, it will tell a story about poetry in America that will bring us into contact with some of the poetry from elsewhere places and otherwise times that frame our understanding of poetry in the present.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Attendance and participation, short writing assignments, poetry analysis.
ENGL 11200-01 INTRODUCTION TO SHORT STORY: THIS AMERICAN LIFE
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Hugh Egan, 306 Muller
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read a wide range of American short fiction, gathered loosely around the themes of childhood, adolescence, adult relationships, aging and death. In the course of our reading and discussion, we will traverse issues related to American identity, especially as they are inflected by gender, race, and ethnicity. We will also become familiar with formal elements of the short story, including point of view, plot, tone, and dialogue. Over the course of the term, we will read a combination of classic and contemporary American stories, with a mini-unit on canonical fiction from the 19th and 20th century, and another on Alexander Weinstein’s contemporary collections of short stories, Children of the New World and Universal Love.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two short essays (2 pages), two longer essays (5-6 pages), a mid-term, a final writing exercise, and class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of a student’s final grade.
ENGL 18200 The Power of Injustice and the Injustice of Power
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT: 25 per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Many individuals continue to feel as though they live at the margins of society, despite the “melting pot” rhetoric of inclusivity and acceptance that dominates narratives of American identity. While we commonly consider purposeful exclusion an act of injustice on the part of the powerful, we are often unaware of the way that subtle, hidden forms of power render particular groups and individuals powerless. American literature is one of the most widely utilized platforms for articulating the specific issues that arise in response to these forms of power. This course will use an array of American literary texts to explore the complexities of the life experiences of those who are forced by the powerful to live at the margins. We will read the work of Rebecca Harding Davis, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Junot Diaz, Adam Mansbach, ZZ Packer, and Tommy Orange.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion with the occasional lecture
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Students will closely examine course materials, actively engage in class discussions, write short textual analysis essays.
ENGL 21900 SHAKESPEARE
4 CREDITS
DESIGNATIONS: CSA, DLIT, EP19, HM, TIDE, TIII
INSTRUCTOR: Christopher Matusiak, Muller 326
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing.
MEETING TIMES
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Shakespeare was a poet of enormous talent and insightfulness, however because he wrote for audiences four centuries ago his elevated status in present-day education and culture are increasingly subject to critical and social reassessment. Why study Shakespeare now? Does he still ‘speak’ to 21st-century concerns? Do the plays have anything meaningful to teach us about political authoritarianism by a gerontological elite? The eruption of military conflict? Social and economic inequality? Environmental crises or technological transformation? We will work to answer such questions collectively; no prior knowledge of Shakespeare is necessary to succeed in the course, only intellectual enthusiasm, and a readiness to study four major plays intensively—Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest —in Shakespeare’s contexts and our own.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; reader-response journaling; take-home final exam.
ENGL 22100-01 African American Literature Survey
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT:
PREREQUISTES:
MEETING TIMES
COURSE DESCRIPTION : This survey course traces the development of African American literature from the colonial era to the present. It is organized through the conventions of genre and also chronology. Primarily our interest will be in how authors represent what is commonly (and problematically) known as “the black experience.” Our exploration will consider the role of violence, cultural memory, trauma, folklore, signifying, home, humor, and family in shaping this experience. As we go, we will also focus on the unique relationship between this body of literature and the American literary canon overshadowing it. We will examine fiction, non-fiction, critical essays, poetry/prose, speeches, and music and cover a variety of writers across roughly three centuries.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE:
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
ENGL 27401 The Golden Age of Children's Literature
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Kittredge
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: MW 12-1:15, Thursday 1-1:50, MW 2-3:15; Thursday 2:00-1:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class looks at a wide range of literature written for children from the 16th to 19th centuries. We start with the Pious Death Narratives, and go on to Fables, Fairytales, Didactic Fiction, and Nonsense Verse. Major texts include Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Pollyanna, and The Secret Garden. On Thursdays we will be doing a slow read of the first three books of The Wizard of Oz series.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: A short presentation on a film or story that you love; a mid-term, and a final project of your choice
ENGL 28100 Romantic and Victorian Literature
4 CREDITS
ICC ATTRIBUTES: Writing Intensive
ENGL ATTRIBUTES: EP 19
INSTRUCTOR: Dan Breen
ENROLLMENT: 22 students per section
PREREQUISITES: WRTG 10600 or ICSM 10800
RESTRICTIONS: One course in the humanities or sophomore standing
MEETING TIMES: Monday, 9:00-9:50 AM, and Tuesday and Thursday, 10:00-11:15 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will present a broad-based chronological survey of primarily English writing from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. In literature, this period witnessed the eruption of Romantic aesthetics and philosophy, an ever-expanding and ever more diverse Anglophone readership, and the ascendancy of the novel as the dominant popular literary mode. The period also witnessed the emergence of Britain as virtually an uncontested global superpower, the eclipse of the aristocracy by the middle classes as the nation’s political center, and the development of discourses surrounding gender and race that continue to shape our understandings of these subjects in the twenty-first century. We will attend carefully to the ways in which Romantic and Victorian literature reflect, engage with, affirm, and resist aspects of Britain’s cultural and political ascendancy between roughly 1780 and 1900.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: One major essay requiring drafting and revising; several short writing assignments, both inside and outside of class; midterm and final exams; lively participation.
ENGL 28500 Queer Lit
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Spitzer, Muller 305
ENROLLMENT: 22 per section
PREREQUISITES: Sophomore Standing
MEETING TIMES: T/Th 1:00-2:40, T/TH 3:00-4:40
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will survey key works of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer literature, and it will introduce you to some key debates in queer literary studies. We will familiarize ourselves with the social, political, and legal, contexts of our readings as we explore their representations of sexuality, gender, intimacy, sociability, and desire. Specific topics and themes include queer and trans identities, bodies, love, sex, found families, intimate partner abuse, literary censorship and the “sad gay ending,” coming out narratives and the structure of the closet, queer time, joy, activism, humor, drag, camp, queer pessimism and utopianism.
Authors include Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, Justin Torres, Carmen Maria Machado, Danez Smith and J. Jennifer Espinoza. We will read these authors in conjunction with short critical readings on queer theory by Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, Judith Butler, and José Esteban Muñoz.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Some short lectures, but the class is primarily discussion based.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Short in-class reading responses and enthusiastic class participation, group presentation, one midterm essay (3-5 pages) and one non-conventional final writing assignment (4-5 pages).
ENGL 29401 SLOW READ: MOBY-DICK
1 CREDIT
INSTRUCTOR: Hugh Egan Muller, 306
ENROLLMENT: 20
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this class we will join Ahab, Ishmael and the crew of the Pequod in their search for the elusive white whale. We will open the novel to a wide variety of interpretive possibilities—classic quest, American epic, capitalist critique, queer text, traumatic memory, and more.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Students will read Moby-Dick and write short weekly responses.
ENGL 29402 Slow Read: The Corrections
1 CREDIT
INSTRUCTORS: Chris Holmes
ENROLLMENT: 20
PREREQUISTES: None
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: We will be reading this now foundational novel of the Twenty-first Century on its 25th anniversary. Published in 2001 just months before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Jonathan Franzen's magnum opus is credited for capturing the ethos of a new century, particularly the dissatisfaction with the American Dream that began to leak the structure of the nuclear family. A story of a midwestern family trying to have one final Christmas with all adult children in attendance, The Corrections borrows much of its form from the 19th century novel, rich with character development and domestic drama. It is often referred to as the first great American novel of the century, but we will see for ourselves just how well it holds up to scrutiny. And we won't forget to have a peek behind the curtain at the cartoonish feud that sprung up between Oprah and Franzen when the great dame of literary book clubs tried to put her sticker on his "serious" novel.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Intense discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; attendance at all class sessions
ENGL 29501 The New Voices Seminar
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTORS: Chris Holmes and Jacob White
ENROLLMENT: 18
PREREQUISITES: BY APPLICATION ONLY!
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is the course that prepares admitted students to plan and implement the annual new voices festival at the college that is held each April. Students read the works by the seven invited writers (poets, novelists, essayists, playwright), become experts in one writer to which they act as the guide, and plan the social media, community outreach, create and design merchandise, develop themes for panel topics, plan logistics for each of the major readings and events, write an original introduction for the writer, and then deliver that introduction at one of the major readings. A life changing experience. Apply in Nov. each year.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Student-led discussion, team-centered event planning
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; original introduction for writer; participation in all aspects of the festival
ENGL 29700 Professional Development: Graphic Novels
.5 - 2.0 CREDITS (may be taken up to 6 times)
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Kittredge
ENROLLMENT: 15 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: MW 4- 4:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is a course that gives you professional experience and an opportunity to do community service as part of your coursework on the IC Campus. You do not need to have an extensive background in comics or graphic novels to take this class, although most of our projects are comics or manga based. We do a mix of writing reviews, editing a national newsletter, giving informative presentations, and doing kids' programs in local libraries. We also play a substantial role at ITHACON.
For more information, see https://www.ithaca.edu/graphic-novel-advisory-board
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, collaboration, independent work and planning, prepping (this involves much sorting of crayons and stickers) and coordinating events for kids.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: You must submit two to three reviews of graphic novels or manga of your choice. There is an opportunity to present on manga/comics for an adult audience during the first week in March. There will be 2-3 events for kids either on weekends or in the afternoons. You will need to help out at ITHACON.
ENGL 33300 Joan of Arc, 1412-2027
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Alexis Becker
ENROLLMENT: 22
PREREQUISTES: Three courses in Literatures in English or permission of instructor
MEETING TIMES: MW 4:00-5:15, F 3:00-3:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Joan of Arc, now a patron saint of France, heard divine voices, participated in the Hundred Years’ War, suffered through a heresy trial, and was ultimately burned at the stake at the age of nineteen In this course, we will read and watch a range of texts and films that attempt to adapt, adopt, think through, or think with this mysterious and compelling figure, ranging from sources written during her fifteenth-century lifetime to texts from the 2020s. These include the records of Joan’s trial; ostensibly straightforward retellings of her story; experimental poetry; imaginings of Joan as a labor leader or an eco-terrorist; trans readings of Joan; and more. Among other topics, we will think about gender, nationalism, sainthood, how someone becomes an icon, and what makes a figure like Joan available for so many different kinds of appropriation and projection.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Ardent participation, writing assignments, student-led discussions, final project
ENGL 38000 STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE: IN THE AGE OF THE GLOBAL NOVEL
4 CREDITS
ATTRIBUTES: HU LA4
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Holmes
ENROLLMENT: 20
PREREQUISITE: 9 credits of English
MEETING TIMES:
COURSE DESCRIPTION: “Globalization” most often refers to the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and is characterized by intense cross-cultural interaction, facilitated by technology and the mass migration of peoples across national territories. Our seminar will consider how the contemporary novel in English grapples with globalization in its broadest political, economic, and cultural terms, and how an emergent literary genre, the “global novel,” may or may not be the most sensitive form for describing our particular historical moment. We will be reading some of the most influential global stories of the last three decades, looking to India and Pakistan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, Sub-Saharan Africa and the West Indies, and the US and the UK for innovation of form and content. And we will put these narratives into the context of a literary world system, a system of circulation of goods and ideas that is particularly interested in texts that translate linguistically and culturally outside of their place of origin. Through close engagement with novels written since 1988, we will be considering the ways in which developments in globalization are affecting literature—reshaping both the style and form of literary works themselves and the larger system of literary readership. Novelists may include: Tash Aw, Mohsin Hamid, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, Junot Diaz, Karen Te Yamashita, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two formal essays, mid-term, frequent short response papers, and class participation.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion and lecture
ENGL 397000 ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
.5-2.0 CREDITS (may be taken up to 5 times)
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Kittredge
ENROLLMENT: 10 students per section
PREREQUISITE: ENGL 29700 Professional Development
MEETING TIMES: MW 4:00-4:450
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is to be taken in sequence with ENGL 297000 Professional Development. After having taken ENGL 29700 once, students choose to take this class at this higher level are expected to take on leadership roles within the class which include editing our publication, managing teams of students, doing marketing and promotional activities, conducting site visits and coordinating community events.
For more information, see https://www.ithaca.edu/graphic-novel-advisory-board
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, collaboration, independent work and planning, prepping (this involves much sorting of crayons and stickers) and coordinating events for kids.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: You must submit two to three reviews of graphic novels or manga of your choice. There is an opportunity to present on manga/comics for an adult audience during the first week in March. There will be 2-3 events for kids either on weekends or in the afternoons. You will need to help out at ITHACON.
ENGL 46900: Seminar in Contemporary African American Literature: James Baldwin
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Jeong Yeon Lee
ENROLLMENT: 10 students
PREREQUISITE: Four English courses; Junior or senior standing
MEETING TIMES: TR 10-11:40am
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In her eulogy for James Baldwin, Toni Morrison writes, “The difficulty is your life refuses summation—it always did—and invites contemplation instead.” Our aim in this course is to contemplate, rather than summate, Baldwin’s life. Rather than approaching Baldwin’s life as a finished historical artifact, we will approach it as it was: a real life lived by a real person. Through a serious engagement with his writing, we will endeavor to think with, not just about, Baldwin, and be attentive to all that makes his writing so vital. Our readings will be drawn from the full array of Baldwin’s corpus. As a 400-level seminar, this course will have a significant reading load and culminate in a research paper.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Attendance and participation, short writing assignments, final paper.
ENGL 48002 Seminar in Literary Criticism: “Getting Political”: Literary Criticism, History, and Ideology
4 CREDITS
ENGL ATTRIBUTES: 400-level elective
INSTRUCTOR: Dan Breen
ENROLLMENT: 12 students per section
PREREQUISITES: Four ENGL courses OR permission of instructor
MEETING TIMES: Monday, 8:00-8:50 AM, and Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00-2:15 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Is there a literature without politics? This course will begin with current discussions in the popular press of literature and literary criticism “getting too political,” and proceed into an examination of a series of case studies focusing on the relationship linking specific works of literature with literary criticism and politics. We will read a wide selection of theoretical and educational works (such as Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy), histories of literary criticism (such as Chris Baldick’s The Social Mission of English Criticism, 1848-1932), and works of literary theory in order to assess what in our view the aims and goals of literary criticism might be, and how literature shapes, reflects, and participates directly in political and social discourses.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Consistent participation; several short assignment; one 12-15-page research paper due at the end of the semester.