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Special Topics (ENGLISH 113) SPRING 2025

Catalog course ENGL 113 consists of multiple topics of focus that vary each semester. Current and/or forthcoming descriptions are listed below. To see course details, including dates, times and professors, please use the .

ENGL 113.01 Your Language, Your Culture
All writers begin with what the poet and theorist Ellen Bryant Voigt calls their 鈥渇undamental language鈥�: the language learned during the early stages of our language development, most often during infancy and our toddler years. This is often considered the basis of a writer鈥檚 core cultural identity. As adults and across different writing experiences at home and out in the world, we all manage to communicate with success. We even write differently from one place to another, depending on the context and goals 鈥� where and when we write, who we write to, and why we鈥檙e writing. This course will help us to explore:

1. Different contexts in which we use writing
2. Choices we make when we鈥檙e communicating in writing
3. How our abilities as creative people help us manage those different contexts

We will ground ourselves in our fundamental language, consider how we can adjust our goals as writers according to different cultural contexts, and establish a solid base for writing at the college level.

ENGL 113.02 Writing the Self: Identity, Culture and Voice

ENGL 113.03, 06, 12 Rhetoric in the Arts
The arts are concerned with beauty, but in their pursuit of beauty they often offer both implicit and explicit critiques of the society in which they are practiced. Thus, the arts can become a site of contention, power struggles and battles over interpretation. In other words, the arts have the capacity to provoke interesting and complicated rhetorical situations. In this class we will look at how the arts possess a persuasive force of their own, and how their appeals to both the intellect and the emotions have a unique ability to provoke spirited responses and debates. Students will not only read and respond to selected texts and engage in research projects related to the arts; they will also visit museums in Holland and/or attend arts events, experiences on which they will reflect through writing.

ENGL 113.04 Writing in Community
Writing sometimes feels like solitary, lonely work. We sit at our desks, close our doors to the world and grapple with our ideas in quiet. Though it may feel solitary, when we engage in the writing process, we aren鈥檛 really working alone: we鈥檙e joining bigger, broader conversations, something that Kenneth Burke calls the 鈥淯nending Conversation.鈥� In these conversations, we find the scholars and writers whose work we gather, read and analyze; we find our peers and mentors who write alongside us; and we find our intended audiences 鈥� those communities we are writing for.

This section of ENGL 113 will help you to see writing as a process 鈥� an ongoing 鈥渃onversation鈥� 鈥� and will ask you to practice the many parts of the writing process so that you can develop your own process that will work for you across the next several years of your education. You鈥檒l begin by proposing a 鈥渃onversation鈥� to join (a semester topic that you鈥檙e personally invested in). From there, you鈥檒l get focused experience and ample practice writing across a variety of contexts and genres, for different audiences, so that you can gain confidence and skill as a writer. In community with your professor and peers, this course invites you to become a more deliberate, intentional writer, thinker and listener.

ENGL 113.05 Stephen King: Trash or Talent?

鈥淚 think with the best writing you can actually feel the writer鈥檚 joy, the writer鈥檚 vision, or something like that.鈥� 鈥擲tephen King

Stephen King is a contemporary literary phenomenon: since the beginning of his career in the 1970s he has averaged at least one new title per year, and his books continue to sell like candy corn at Halloween. Some people dismiss his work as trash, just low-quality pop cult horror stories; even King has jokingly referred to himself as a 鈥渟alami writer.鈥� But other readers insist that throughout his page-turner fiction King addresses serious, even urgent concerns. What are we afraid of, both as a society and as flesh-and-goosebumped individuals? What are the problems of family life and interpersonal relations? How does American society deal with racial prejudice? What about the scourge of alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse? How has our history made us what we are as a nation? What explains our perennial attraction to the supernatural, even in its more ghoulish manifestations? How has the literature of the past 鈥� especially the Gothic tradition, spawned in 1764 and still proliferating 鈥� infiltrated the literature of the present?

These are some of the questions we will address in a course that is at its core an introduction to college-level writing: how to form sentences in a variety of modes, how to incorporate appropriate punctuation, how to compose a coherent and interesting academic essay, and how to produce a research project you can be proud of. King鈥檚 novels The Shining (1977) and The Green Mile (1996) will be our foundational texts, accompanied by a selection of shorter fiction that demonstrates his relation to other works of the supernatural. And we will also contemplate the transmogrification of his scenarios into film and other media (comic books, cartoons, even opera). 

ENGL 113.07, 08, 11 Writing as Self-Crafting: Composition and Coming-of-Age
In this core course, we will focus on writing as a tool for inquiry, expression and, above all, self-discovery. The word 鈥渆ssay鈥� comes from the French for 鈥渢o try鈥� 鈥� an essay is an attempt to get to the heart of a difficult matter. As we put words on the page and subject our opinions to various tests, we often realize that our views on a given subject are more complex than we previously thought. Sometimes we even find that we hold two seemingly contradictory beliefs at the same time, and that there is much 鈥渦npacking鈥� to do. In this sense, expository writing serves not only as a way to explain ourselves to others, but also as a way to explain ourselves to ourselves. And just as writing is never finished (only due), the self is never finished with the process of its own (re-)creation. Writing can be an important part of that process, and can help us become more conscious of it and intentional about it. This semester, we will explore the connections between writing and human development, often focusing on coming-of-age experiences. As a student, you will hone your academic writing skills, with the particular goal of learning to ask probing questions and to craft complex, well-supported arguments that matter in academic contexts. Working closely with your peers and instructor, you will develop your essays through workshops and extensive revision. The specific questions that you pursue in your essays will be guided by your own interests related to themes of coming-of-age and self-crafting.

ENGL 113.09, 14, 15 Outdoor Writing
Do you love the outdoors and want to grow in your writing skills? This outdoor-themed section of ENG 113 equips students to write with concision, power and persuasion 鈥� all while exploring our relationship to nature. We鈥檒l even journey to some natural areas on select class days for writing activities. Over the course of the semester, students will read fiction and nonfiction by modern outdoor writers including Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson, Latria Graham, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Richard Louv to study the intricacies of language and how to craft strong, thesis-driven works. Students will craft polished essays and gain new tools for organization, research, creative and collaborative writing, revision and critical thinking while exploring how people and places shape one another.

ENGL 113.10 Seminar in Academic Writing
This course will orient you to the world of expository writing and will provide a solid preparation for the written assignments you will encounter throughout your course work at 熊猫在线视频. Our work together will emphasize writing as a process and it will focus on exploring, planning and organization of complex ideas, editing and revising of drafts, and developing writing skills through effective means of organization, support and justification of ideas. As such, students will read intellectually intriguing essays, engage in writing workshops that focus on developing a clear and coherent expository style of writing, craft individual and critical responses, construct unified and coherent paragraphs, and contribute to the dialogue about writing that would emerge from our classroom responses. By the end of the semester, you should have generated at least 28 pages of polished prose.

ENGL 113.13 Language and Culture
This writing course explores how language creates and interprets culture. We will learn about how our attitudes about language shape our realities and about how language mediates the way we understand ourselves and our cultures. Readings and projects will cover a range of topics including the ways that language and culture influence one another, the rhetoric of social media and analyses of cultural phenomena. Students will also develop research projects in an area of personal interest.

Special Topics (Anchor Plan and Upper Level Courses) SPRING 2025

Several English courses consist of multiple topics of focus that vary each semester. Current and/or forthcoming descriptions are listed below. This is not a complete list of available English classes for the semester. For a complete list of upcoming classes or to see course details, including dates, times and professors, please see .

ENGL 110.01 Celestial Encounters: The World of Black Sci Fi
Greg Tate, a prominent critic of science fiction, insightfully remarked that 鈥淏lack people live the estrangement that science fiction writers imagine.鈥� In this course, we shall explore the captivating realm of Black science fiction, a genre that uniquely confronts the traumatic histories of African Americans while envisioning a future of empowerment. We will examine the works of Black sci-fi fiction and films, delving into their creative reimagining of mainstream science fiction tropes such as alien spaceships, time travel and shapeshifting. Through our study, we will uncover how these authors center the harrowing experiences of Black people within these tropes, infusing their narratives with themes of resilience and resistance. By the end of the course, students should have an understanding of how Black science fiction differs from mainstream science fiction.

ENGL 110.02 and 03 Apocalyptic Anxieties
This course covers literary texts that reflect fears about the end of the world. We will place fiction, poetry and drama about monsters, natural disasters and other catastrophes into conversation with descriptions of the real-life wars, technological developments, medical challenges, political conflicts and religious anxieties that inspired these visions of the apocalypse. After exploring the British Romantic period as a starting-point for modern apocalyptic literature, we will turn to modern and contemporary American literature, focusing on both the challenges that our texts depict and the strategies for hope and resilience that they reflect. Readings may include works by Mary Shelley, W.E.B. Du Bois, Thornton Wilder, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang and Joy Harjo. Analysis of these texts will center on the ways in which the study of literature can enable us to process some of the most difficult elements of human experience.

ENGL 110.05 Unauthorized Migration in Contemporary World Literature
At the end of 2023, according to the UN refugee agency, the number of forcibly displaced people across the globe surpassed 117 million 鈥� equivalent to one in every 69 people on earth. Despite the urgency of their need for physical and economic security, most of these individuals have no legal means to cross international borders into a country of refuge. And while irregular migration is a major topic of discussion and political debate in Global North countries, there are rarely opportunities for unauthorized migrants to tell their own stories on their own terms. In this course, we will search for exceptions to this rule, delving into complex narratives of exile, refugeehood, asylum seeking and clandestine border crossing. We will read recent migration-focused novels, short stories and essays translated from Arabic, French and Spanish, among other languages. Authors will include Hoda Barakat, Mahi Binebine, Edward Said, Rachid Nini and Ghassan Kanafani. Through literary and filmic encounters with people on the move, students will tackle pressing questions about voice, authorship, truth-telling and translation in today鈥檚 ever-globalizing world.

ENGL 130.01 African Novels, Music, and Film
Based on the apartheid system of racial discrimination and economic and cultural oppression of blacks in South Africa, the course explores the history of apartheid, its implementation, political and cultural implications, and indigenous struggles and resistance to it. Using two novels by Alex La Guma 鈥� In the Fog of the Season鈥檚 End and A Walk in the Night 鈥� Paul Simon鈥檚 Graceland: The African Concert of 1987, and Sarafina! of 1992, the course uses literature, songs and film to trace the process of resistance to apartheid and the path to political emancipation. It also draws from two documentaries 鈥� The June 16, 1976 Soweto Uprising in South Africa and Amandla! to depict the indignities of a system that dehumanizes millions of Africans in their own country. Carol Muller鈥檚 2004 essay 鈥淢usic and Migrancy鈥� and Louise Meintjes鈥� paper 鈥淧aul Simon鈥檚 Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning鈥� also provide additional context for literary engagement of the theme of oppression.

ENGL 230.01 Broadway Literature
Broadway shows are central to popular theater in the United States; both plays and musicals have the potential to reach wide audiences through New York鈥檚 Broadway theaters. While Broadway serves as the pinnacle of mainstream theater, it is also the site of many ambitious endeavors to challenge the norms of popular performance. This course will focus on these intersections of popular and experimental art through analysis of theatrical works that have brought new ideas and new approaches to performance to the Broadway stage. We will read late 20th/21st-century musicals and non-musical plays that address ideas like race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, relationships, family, labor and art. In addition to reading scripts, we will watch several recordings of performances and will explore the reactions of critics and fans.

ENGL 230.02 American Ethnic Perspectives
In this course we will examine the vibrant world of American Ethnic Perspectives, which centers the voices, narratives and cultures of diverse ethnic groups. Through an assessment of literary texts authored by individuals who have been historically marginalized, we will critically analyze the texts considering issues of race, tribe, religion and cultural backgrounds that shape the genre of 鈥淓thnic literature.鈥� This examination will enable us to appreciate individual differences and celebrate the shared humanity across cultures and races, as we study the works of writers from diverse backgrounds. We will consider the ways in which American ethnic literature forces us to rethink what it is to be American. One principal question our readings might raise is this: To what degree has ethnic literature influenced American culture and society? We will conclude by examining the future of ethnic literature in a multicultural society like America. Major topics and themes will include alienation, double consciousness, assimilation and ethnic pluralism.

ENGL 230.03 The Great American Novel
ENGL 230 contemplates the novel as it has emerged in the United States. Selecting texts for a semester course looms as an impossible challenge: who can possibly sift out the 鈥渂est鈥� or 鈥渕ost significant鈥� or even 鈥渞epresentative鈥� texts from the enormous heap of narratives the nation has produced since the Revolution and possibly even before? As a compromise, we look first at two mighty forebears, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James, partly because they consciously exemplify the tension between realism and fantasy in the tradition of prose fiction. We look next at classic works from what might be called the great age of the American novel, from the 1920s until World War II. From there we progress to an important theme laid out in American fiction, the attention to race. We begin with short selections of representative publications, then make our way to classics of the theme: Hemingway鈥檚 memorable war novel, A Farewell to Arms; Sinclair Lewis鈥檚 satire of the American middle class, Babbitt; F. Scott Fitzgerald鈥檚 The Great Gatsby, the archetypal statement of the American Dream and the selection for this year鈥檚 Big Read; Jean Toomer鈥檚 novel-in-stories Cane, a jewel from the Harlem Renaissance; John Steinbeck鈥檚 novel of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath; Faulkner鈥檚 short novel The Bear, included in Go Down, Moses, a tortured retrospective on slavery in the American South; then what is still the most powerful African American sob of protest, Richard Wright鈥檚 ironically titled Native Son. John Updike鈥檚 Rabbit, Run hit American readers hard as a beachhead in the liberated culture of the 1960s; Stephen King鈥檚 Misery actually faces head on a recurrent question regarding the genre itself, the great divide between highbrow/lowbrow or 鈥渓iterary鈥� versus 鈥減opular鈥� fiction. In addition, we will look at parallel genres, the comic book and the graphic novel 鈥� and we will hear from practitioners of the genre who are at work right among us!

ENGL 260.01 Harry Potter and Virtue Ethics
The Harry Potter series has been both praised and reviled for any number of reasons, but one thing most readers hold in common is the strength of their opinions: few hold merely neutral positions about it. In this course, we鈥檒l work through the series with a focus on examining its exposition of virtue ethics 鈥� that is, with a goal of seeing how various characters exemplify (or don鈥檛) the living-out of various virtues. To do this, we鈥檒l familiarize ourselves with the tradition of virtue ethics established by Aristotle, and we鈥檒l decide for ourselves whether the series will one day stand with other classics in children鈥檚 and young adult literature.

ENGL 370.01 Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen
鈥淚 never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.鈥� 鈥淚t is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.鈥� Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde are among the wittiest and most quotable writers in the history of English literature. Their writing also addresses some serious concerns about 19th century British culture, and their humor often enables them to challenge societal ideals about gender, romance, propriety, money and the role of the arts. We will use major texts by these two figures in order to explore their complex blend of hilarity and earnestness at the very beginning and very end of the 19th century. Austen鈥檚 novels will invite us into the century鈥檚 earliest years, at the high point of Regency-era culture and literary Romanticism. Wilde鈥檚 works will introduce us to the final decade of the 19th century鈥攁 decade marked by tremendous social upheaval and a literary culture starting to shift toward Modernism. We will also pay attention to more recent works based on the writings and life stories of these two figures in order to explore their legacies in the 21st century.

ENGL 374.01 Beginnings to the Civil War
In this course we survey American literature from its beginnings (whenever that may have been) through the 1860s, a period when the snide British taunt, 鈥淲ho reads an American book?鈥� was finally and forever laid to rest. To crush such a rich heritage into a single semester seems a travesty, particularly since the American literary canon 鈥� those works deemed worthy of study and perpetuation in the classroom 鈥� has undergone such a dramatic change since the establishment of American literature as an academic province not much more than a hundred years ago.

The study of American literature seems particularly urgent in these days of national discord: as the patriot Thomas Paine might be moved to repeat, 鈥淭hese are the times that try men鈥檚 souls.鈥� But seasons of national turmoil can also prove redemptive, forcing us out of complacency and demanding that we consider again the meaning of 鈥淎merica,鈥� that presumed citadel of liberty and justice for all, what Ralph Waldo Emerson revered as 鈥渁 poem in our eyes.鈥� How does our early history shed light on the meaning of our country, its uniqueness, its triumphs and its sins? Does it matter that the seventeenth-century settlers of New England were Puritans, or that our system of government emerged from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment? When did the stirrings of racial discord begin, and how is the great divide of the Civil War still active as shouting demonstrators brandish Confederate flags?