142 courses with the subject ENGL, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ENGL 101AIntroduction to Reading literature: The Hero's Trek: An Expedition Through Literature4
ENGL 105Introduction to Analytical and Rhetorical Writing4
Analytical reading, writing, and critical reasoning for a variety of rhetorical purposes, including argumentation (broadly conceived). Practice in developing ideas, insights, and claims through the use of both personal observation/experience and external texts and perspectives. From this workshop-oriented course, you should gain awareness of the composing processes of invention, drafting, and revision; the rhetorical concepts of audience and purpose, methods, for developing, organizing, and editing y your writing; and strategies for reading and analyzing various texts. Equivalent courses: ENGL 112
ENGL 111BIntroduction to Narrative Practice: Business4
Introduction to Narrative Practice develops creative-writing skills in service of students’ professional pursuits. Applying skills from creative- writing to their future careers allows students to develop their own imaginative lives, explore questions of identity, amplify underrepresented voices in their professional fields, and to develop programming utilizing creative-writing and close-reading to benefit their future colleagues, clients, and patients. This course employs community-based experiential learning to meaningfully connect narrative practices to systems change outside of the classroom. Intended for Business majors. Permission of instructor required. Equivalent courses: ENGL 111, ENGL 111A Attributes: CSD: Identity (CI)
This course will both hone and investigate our literary interpretive practices, focusing on some of the most inventive and influential literature to emerge from Ireland in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We’ll read both past masters and current practitioners of the literary arts (some in translation), including, W.B. Yates, Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Evan Boland, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. We will pay particular attention to the way these and other writers imagine(d) their work in conversation with that of their peers, creating and complicating notions of cultural and artistic identity. Equivalent courses: ENGL 233 Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Encounter1/2 - Truth
English 206 is a creative writing course for pre-health science majors. Students participate in a sustained clinical experience, delivering creative writing sessions to a clinical population, while developing their own writing lives. This course helps students increase their capacity for working with ambiguity (moral, creative and narrative), while helping them see “patients” as people who are not defined by their diseases. Additionally, this course helps future clinicians learn to communicate with precise imagery and metaphors, while revealing connections between the practice of medicine and the arts of poetry and fiction. Attributes: Artistic Expression (AE), Experiential Engagement (EX)
English 207 is a creative writing course for pre-health science majors. Students participate in a sustained clinical experience, delivering creative writing sessions to a clinical population, while developing their own writing lives. This course helps students increase their capacity for working with ambiguity (moral, creative and narrative), while helping them see “patients” as people who are not defined by their diseases. Additionally, this course helps future clinicians learn to communicate with precise imagery and metaphors, while revealing connections between the practice of medicine and the arts of poetry and fiction. Attributes: Human Experience (HE)
Craft and practice of writing creative nonfiction. Students write original works of creative non-fiction, including forms such as memoir, personal essay, photographic essay, and literary journalism. Students closely examine published essays, and participate in peer-review workshops. This course prepares students for advanced writing courses at the 300 level. Attention to style, grammar, paragraph development, etc. Equivalent courses: ENGL 211Z
Craft and practice of writing short fiction and poetry. Students write original works of fiction and poetry, closely examine published short stories and poems, and participate in peer-review workshops. This course prepares students for advanced creative writing workshops at the 300 level. Consult the English Department Course Description Booklet for a specific description of each semester's offering. Attributes: Artistic Engagement (AR), Artistic Expression (AE), Thematic Encounter1/2 - Truth
ENGL 216Introduction to Screenwriting & Playwriting4
This class presents a unique, real-world opportunity for students to express themselves while also building key writing, creativity, and problem-solving skills needed for life. This course is designed to give students the opportunity to learn the skills of writing both plays and screenplays. It will explore the skills and qualities of effective stage and film craft by both reading and watching plays and films as well as having students write their own scripts in a supportive and challenging environment, with the goal being to create one short play and one short screenplay. Attributes: Artistic Expression (AE)
Exploration and incorporation of research into creative and critical works of original writing. Students examine research as a part of the creative and critical processes of writing-in genres including poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Students evaluate and experiment with approaches to research as well as ways of incorporating it into their writing. This course is an excellent preparation for an Honors Thesis in the humanities. Identity (CI). CI course may be taken prior to or concurrently with Focus Course. Equivalent courses: ENGL 220 Attributes: Artistic Expression (AE), Thematic Focus - Truth CSBSJU Undergraduate Academic Catalog 2026-2027 285
Professional development of leaders takes many forms; however, there is a common thread: Leaders read. Leaders read not only self-help texts, they read fiction. Lots of fiction. Professional texts on leadership are written to give us specific strategies to deal with many types of situations in the world beyond the academic, whereas reading and experiencing fiction puts into context how those specific professional tools work with power, understanding, and empathy. This class aims to balance these tools, inviting students to make their own personal leadership journey. Leaders you might encounter on this journey include historical figures of ancient literature and religious texts, medical leaders of all historical ages, historical and modern leaders of exploration, current leaders of political movements, business leaders vying for wealth, and future leaders in the vast unknown. Attributes: Human Experience (HE)
This literature course starts in the ancient world and travels to the medieval as we read foundational works of world literature. We read the famous Greek poets Homer and Sappho, and the later Roman poets Virgil and Ovid. We see how Virgil changes Homer in his later version to fit with the values of the Roman Empire. (We also look at some contemporary poems to see how modern writers retell Ovid’s classical myths.) In the Medieval period we see how Dante and other Christian writers transform the ancient, “pagan” stories into Christianized versions. Students see how a story changes over time as each writer turns old material into something new—Students in this course may expect to learn ways of reading literary texts, how to conduct literary research and analysis, as well as how to recognize allusions in later literature—a strong basis for future literary study. Equivalent courses: ENGL 221A, ENGL 221B, HONR 250M, HONR 250O Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Encounter1/2-Movement,
In this course we will read some Masterworks of Western literature and drama in translation from the Early Modern period to the present day. Our reading list includes some very famous texts, and other equally fascinating reads that may be less familiar to you. Our texts come from Europe, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil and may include: Voltaire’s Candide, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Machado de Assis’ The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, Kafka’s The Trial, Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, Camus’ The Plague, De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Rulfo’s Pédro Páramo, García Márquez’ Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Lispector’s Hour of the Star, and Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Equivalent courses: ENGL 221C, HONR 250Q Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Encounter1/2 - Truth,
In this course we will read fiction and poetry written by a variety of modern and contemporary authors who incorporate mythology and/or legends into their writing. As we begin each piece of fiction or poetry, we will simultaneously read versions of the myths or legends being accessed in the writing; in this way, we can see how the author may be re- imagining and translating the myth into his or her contemporary social, political, and artistic contexts. Students may expect to read writers from several different cultures and countries, to gain skills and confidence reading both poetry and fiction, and to explore the imaginative and critical dynamics of re-writing myth—both in our course readings and in multiple creative and critical writing exercises that we will undertake throughout the semester. Equivalent courses: ENGL 122A Attributes: Human Experience (HE)
This course will both hone and investigate our literary interpretive practices, focusing on some of the most inventive and influential literature to emerge from Ireland in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We’ll read both past masters and current practitioners of the literary arts (some in translation), including, W.B. Yeats, Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Evan Boland, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. We will pay particular attention to the way these and other writers imagine(d) their work in conversation with that of their peers, creating and complicating notions of cultural and artistic identity. Equivalent courses: ENGL 122F Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Encounter1/2 - Truth
ENGL 246Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism4
Introduction to literary and cultural theory. Students apply theoretical texts or concepts to literary or cultural texts (e.g., novels, films, televisio popular arts, clothing, architecture, and public spaces). Equivalent courses: ENGL 243, ENGL 279A Attributes: CSD: Systems (CS)
Supervised reading or research at the lower-division level. Permission of department chair required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year students.
On this May term, CSBSJU students travel to Pavia, Italy for an intercultural writing workshop to develop writing skills and intercultural competencies. While living in a beautiful and historical residential college, CSBSJU students take this course together with English-speaking students at the University of Pavia. Our creative writing course centers on writing exercises and workshops within a larger thematic framework: the ethics of creative writing. What ethical crises—moral, political, ecological —do American and Italian poets write about? What concerns do our cultures share and in what ways might we approach the same concerns differently? Through reading and discussion, we examine our diverse perspectives about challenges we share as humans in the modern age. Through generous support from the CSB Literary Arts Institute, the course incorporates a visiting Italian writer who meets with our class to discuss writing and to host us for a tour of Pavia to discuss its literary past and relationship to the writer’s own work. Students workshop together in small groups to help one another negotiate a foreign language (reading a few poems in English and a few in Italian); undertake creative writing exercises; and discuss one another’s work in a context the promotes intercultural writing and communication skills. Each student is supported in developing a writing portfolio in which they explore their own concerns in their own words. Equivalent courses: COLG 280K Attributes: Global Engagement (GL)
Introduction to film as a medium of communication and representation. Possible topics include but are not limited to a survey of the development of film and the movie business, techniques of acting, directing, cinematography, narrative style, and film theory. The vocabulary of cinema and representative films of the first hundred years of filmmaking is covered. Recent titles have included "An Introductory Guide to Active Spectatorship" and "Introduction to Film Techniques, Meanings, and n,
Additional ENGL courses 12 Total Hours 44 At least 16 credits of total ENGL coursework counted toward the major must be 300-level. • COMM 245 Introduction to Media Writing and ENVR 300P Environmental Writing count as electives towards this major. • No more than 8 credits at the 100 level can be applied towards this major Additional Requirements: General Education Requirements: All undergraduate students must complete the requirements of the Integrations Curriculum (IC) which is designed to ensure all of our students receive a liberal arts education. Please review details of the Integrations Curriculum (p. 23) requirements here (p. 23). Graduation Requirements: In addition to the Integrations Curriculum, all undergraduate students must meet the following minimum degree requirements to earn their degree from CSB and SJU. Credits: 124 total credits, 40 of which must be from upper division coursework GPA: 2.0 or higher* Residency: At least 24 of your last 32 credits must be completed at CSB and SJU Please visit Graduation (p. 23) under the Academic Policies and Regulations (p. 14) portion of the catalog for additional details regarding degree requirements. s 4 * Cumulative GPA as well as major(s)/minor(s) GPA. Please note some majors/minors may require a higher GPA to earn their degree. Suggested Plan of Study Course Title Hours
In this semester of Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction, we will delve deeply into reading and writing fiction with even greater attention to language, voice, and form. You will explore and better understand the practice of your own fiction writing, as well as study and attempt together to understand why a particular story works in a particular way. What makes this character engaging? Why does dialogue in this piece leap off the page while in another story the dialogue feels static? We will also expand our expectations of narrative and narrative conventions, while asking what makes a good story. You will strive to, as Lidia Yuknavitch writes in The Chronology of Water, “Make up stories until you find one you can live with. Make up stories as if life depended on it.” Workshop will be an essential component of the class. We will also perform writing exercises based on the readings, experiment with our texts, and work to stay present in the world and in the word. Restrictions: Students with the 2026-2027 Registration Cohort attribute may not enroll. Attributes: Artistic Engagement (AR) CSBSJU Undergraduate Academic Catalog 2026-2027 287
In Arthurian Romances and medieval epics, the heroic knight commonly encounters dangerous folk and creatures that pose threats to his life and virtue. These monstrous figures threaten the knight with violence and with the allure of their otherworldly difference. Yet these monsters also reflect fears and attitudes about historical “Others” such as women, the Islamic East, Judaism, and the Orient. In this course we will examine these encounters with an eye to cultural anxieties surrounding difference. To better understand these anxieties, we will read and discuss the history and culture of the Middle Ages in relationship to our primary texts: Le Morte D’Arthur; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes; The Lais of Marie De France; Tristan and Isolde; and The Song of Roland. Reading critical texts such as Said’s Orientalism and Frye’s The Secular Scripture, we will explore the “line between ‘the West’ and ‘the Other’,” the quest as nightmare, the uncanny, and fears surrounding mixed blood. (If you are a fan of Game of Thrones, dragons, Lancelot and Guinevere, or medieval mystics, you’ll be among your people). Equivalent courses: ENGL 340A Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Encounter3 - Justice,
Geoffrey Chaucer, legendary author of The Canterbury Tales, is considered to be the “father” of English Literature, English Poetry, and even the English Language. But who was he, and why is he important to us? This course explores Chaucer’s life and writing, examining the paradoxes and mysteries that surround his identity: what is known about his contemporaries, social networks, and political intrigues. We discover Chaucer writes about concerns pressing in the medieval period that remain relevant today: marriage; sex; political corruption and tyranny; Christianity and Islam; the mistreatment of women; anti-Semitism; refugees; loss; and the human longing for consolation. We read and listen to his writings in Middle English so we can appreciate the humor, beauty, and brilliance of his verse. We tour the genres that Chaucer incorporates into his Tales—including the fabliau (bawdy tale), saint’s lives, beast tales, and romances—both to deepen our understanding of medieval literature and to gain a clearer view of Chaucer’s innovations. The course also examines manuscript culture (looking at how his poems were first collected) as well as the most recent commentaries on his work, such as “Chaucer at Ground Zero,” to understand why his writing still matters now. In-class discussions and readings will support student learning throughout the course, and students will receive individual guidance in a critical and/or creative research project designed around their interests. Restrictions: Students with the 2026-2027 Registration Cohort attribute may not enroll. Equivalent courses: ENGL 351
During the Middle Ages, commonplace depictions of women portrayed them as all-powerful temptresses or husband-destroying nags. Yet women enjoyed little to no sexual freedom or legal authority in marriage. In this course, students examine the gap between these images and gendered realities as we study complex relationships between women and power in medieval literature. We look carefully at women as writers of and as subjects in medieval texts, reading for instance the romances of Marie de France and the defense of women written by Christine de Pizan. We read medieval women Christian mystics as well, Julian of Norwich among other, often surprisingly powerful, female visionaries. The course provides historical context for reading these figures and specifically draws attention to the material conditions in which different genders were able to write. Students explore how gender affects a writer’s ability to communicate in writing and to make their voice heard. Restrictions: Students with the 2026-2027 Registration Cohort attribute may not enroll. Equivalent courses: ENGL 385J Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Focus - Truth
This course will focus on reading closely, discussing, and writing about key representative plays from Shakespeare’s career. We’ll consider how his work both contributed to, and moved past, the conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical genres. We will move in a roughly chronological order, in order to consider the trajectory of the plays as well as historical and cultural shifts. Plays will likely include The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry IV Part One, As You Like It, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Winter’s Tale. Restrictions: Students with the 2026-2027 Registration Cohort attribute may not enroll. Equivalent courses: ENGL 352 Attributes: Human Experience (HE)
This course traces recurrent subtexts of illicit desire, the dreamwork of the forbidden, in the American Modernist Novel from the turn of the 19th to the mid-20th century. We meet outrageous dreamers, ambitious climbers, plotting lovers, and would-be tycoons for whom illicit desires are set against social prescription, with generally violent results: think body panic and revenge, American style. These novels are a punch to the gut, and sometimes darkly funny. We will read a wide sampling of the most brilliant writers of this literary period and watch as they invent new ways to describe the precise anatomy of the thing just out of reach. We explore both well-known works and more recently celebrated works written by writers variously marked by race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, toggling between them to see how they echo and transform one another. Readings may include Chopin, James, Wharton, Wright, Larsen, Fitzgerald, West, McCoy, Baldwin, Faulkner, DiDonato, and Ellison. Attributes: CSD: Systems (CS), Writing Requirement (WR)
CSBSJU Undergraduate Academic Catalog 2026-2027 289 ENGL 370FA French Writers: Transformations in French & Francophone Society from 1945 to the Present (3 Credits) Through the lens of literature, this course explores the changes in French society from the period of the Second World War to the present day. Beginning with the trauma of the Nazi occupation, students will look at how French literature over the years has served as a mirror on society, reflecting cultural, social, and political evolutions. Students will examine key moments in France’s history that have left a mark: the period of Nazi occupation and the conflict between collaborators and resistance fighters (as portrayed in Tatiana de Rosnay’s Sarah’s Key), France in Indochina and the underpinnings of its postcolonial legacy (Marguerite Duras’s Sea Wall), the cultural revolution of May 1968 (Annie Ernaux’s The Years), evolving family models and changing visions of the world in the 1980s (Tahar Ben Jelloun’s The Sand Child), social upheaval and exclusion from the 1990s to the present day (Edouard Louis’s Ending Eddy, Michel Houellebecq’s Platform, Mounia Meddour’s Papicha). Recent texts and film will engage with an exploration of contemporary France around issues such as francophone multiculturalism, societal unrest (the yellow-jacket movement) and the terror attacks (Marie N’Diaye’s Ladivine, Jacques’s Audiard’s Un Prophète, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables, Emmanuel Leconte’s Humour à mort—the Charlie Hebdo attacks), but also France’s continuing mission to promote literature through the Prix Goncourt. The course aims to provide students with tools for understanding a culture through an exploration of its creative artifacts. Attributes: Human Experience (HE) ENGL 370LA Harry Potter - London (4 Credits) Magic, like literature, is a way of finding meaning in the mayhem and maelstrom of life, a way of imposing order on, or even creating the world around us. Using other texts (Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Greek myth and Arthurian legend) this course will analyze how J.K. Rowling, by using an alchemy of intertextuality, conjured a world that explores our interconnected myths, magical rituals, archetypes and shared histories to make meaning of our selves. Attributes: Human Experience (HE) ENGL 370LB The Nature of Story: Creative Writing (4 Credits) Do you fancy yourself a novelist or a writer of short stories? Not sure how do you develop your main characters? How should you structure the plot? What point of view should you choose? The focus of this course will be decidedly practical as students learn to read as writers, gleaning tips on the craft. Students will consider the processes of writing, aiming to uncover various methods of confronting potential issues. London’s own vibrant arts scene and literary traditions form a fascinating focus and locus for the study of creative writing. Class members will engage with local novelists, poets and playwrights through guest lectures and readings.
ENGL 370SB Banned and Censored: Literary Scandals from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century - Austria (3 Credits) Writing has always been the fuel for social change and revolution, and censorship is the favorite tool of rulers to control their subjects. There are many reasons why books have been banned throughout the ages; most official reasoning centers around obscenity or being unsuitable for the age or taste of the audience. The real reasons for censorship are more political: incitement for revolt, unwanted language around social issues, religious or gendered aspects of the piece of writing. This course examines selected books from the Middle Ages up to the 21st century and discusses both the official and the real reasons for censorship. Attributes: Human Experience (HE)
Supervised reading or research at the upper-division level. Permission of department chair and completion and/or concurrent registration of 12 credits within the department required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year students.
This course analyzes film through one or more theoretical aspects. Psychoanalytical, feminist, cultural studies, and reader-response theories are among possible approaches offered. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. COMM 286 or ENGL 286 recommended. Identity (CI). CI course may be taken prior to or concurrently with Focus Course. Restrictions: Students with the 2026-2027 Registration Cohort attribute may not enroll. Equivalent courses: COMM 386 Attributes: Human Experience (HE), Thematic Focus - Justice
300-Level ENGL electives 8 Additional ENGL courses 12 Total Hours 40 At least 16 credits of total ENGL coursework counted toward the major must be 300-level coursework. No more than 8 credits at the 100 level can be applied towards this major
Integration of the skills of the English major, a liberal arts background an the expectations of a career. Individually tailored by the student with the advice and approval of a department advisor and the college's director of internships. S/U grading only. Attributes: Experiential Engagement (EX) English as a Second Language (ESL) Courses fulfill Global Language Proficiency requirement for eligible students: ESL 101/102/103/104; ESL 105/106/107/108
