56 courses with the subject ENGL H, 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 H101THEORIES OF THE NOVEL1.0
This course introduces students to the genre of the novel in English with a focus on desire, loss, and literary form. In order to ask the questions, ‘Why and how do we read novels? What does this experience enable?” we will interrogate theories of the novel, its early formation and contemporary forms. We will also consider changing cultural representations of subjectivity, nation, race, gender, and ways of reading. How is the reader variously constructed as witness to (and participant in) desire and its demise? How do developments in narrative voice influence the idea of fiction as a didactic, pleasurable, speculative and/or imaginative space? What is the novel’s role in effecting social change across centuries and geographies? Open to majors and non-majors—no prerequisites. Limit: 20 students.
Introduction to the most common types of poetry in English: narrative, dramatic, lyric. The working approach is that of close reading, often word by word, in order to investigate the poetic uses of rhythm and pattern; of sound and music; of appeals to the senses; of allusion to history, art, other literature; of connotation and denotation; and of metaphor.
ENGL H111INTRODUCTION TO POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE1.0
An introductory survey of English literature from regions that used to be part of the British Empire, focusing on topics such as the representation of first contact, the influence of western education and the English language, the effects of colonial violence, displacement, migration, and exile. Also considered will be the specific aesthetic strategies that have come to be associated with this body of literature.
This course introduces students to the study of literature through the art of borrowing, sampling, recycling, and remixing. Approaching the remix as a creative/critical practice rather than a fixed genre, we’ll read texts that foreground modes of cultural theft, refuse originality and authenticity as such, and mobilize the remix as an important source of knowledge production.
ENGL H113PLAYING IN THE DARK: FREEDOM, SLAVERY & THE HAUNTING OF US LITERATURE1.0
According to Toni Morrison, the relentless valorization of freedom in a nation built upon the enslavement of people of African descent created a literature full of ghosts and other spectral presences. This course looks at how horror, the Gothic, and the supernatural structure U. S. narrative (mostly) fiction’s engagement with race and history, focusing on how literature disorients our understanding of the “real” when that supposed real conceals histories of violence, terror, revenge, and subversion.
This introductory course will look carefully at what it is to be located in a particular place, environment, or cultural condition, from which one leaves, either by choice, necessity, or (violent) coercion. How does writing about travel, exile, and displacement force us to define, question, and rethink some of our basic cultural categories such as “familiar” and “different,” domestic and foreign, inside and outside? Possible authors include Conrad, Haggard, Forster, Rhys, Lamming, Salih, and Ghosh. Pre-requisite(s): none
ENGL H135INTRODUCTION TO INDIGENOUS LITERATURES: CONTEMPORARY POETRY AND PROSE1.0
This course is an introduction to contemporary Indigenous literatures that will include a variety of fiction, non-fiction, and poetic texts. You will read writers such as Natalie Diaz (Mojave), Joy Harjo (Mvskoke), and Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho). In addition, we will consider key concepts in Indigenous studies and Indigenous literary theory such as those from Joanne Barker (Lenape), Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee), and Craig Womack (Creek).
ENGL H200LITERATURE, POPULAR CULTURE, AND THE AMERICAN LEFT1.0
A study of how writers, cultural critics, filmmakers, and musicians of the 20th-century US left envisioned the relationship between art and politics in a mass-mediated culture, including attention to work by major theoreticians of the "popular. Prerequisite(s): Freshman Writing
An exploration of the Arthurian legend, from its earliest versions to most recent retellings. The tradition of Arthurian tales is complex and various, combining Celtic and Christian mythologies. Sometimes called the "matter of Britain" the Arthurian narrative has been critical in establishing national and ethnic identities ever since the Middle Ages. Medival notions of chivalry and courtly love also raise fascinating questions about the conflict between personal and private morality, and about the construction of both identity and gender.
An "introductory emphasis" study of the major tragedies and related histories, comedies, and romances, with special reference to the evolution of dramatic form, poetic style, characterization, and ideology as they are shaped by Shakespeare's persistent experimentation with dramas of extravagant will, desire, tyranny, skepticism, and death. Particular attention will be paid to key scenes in an effort to assess both Shakespeare's response to contemporary literary and cultural concerns and the internal reformation of his own craft. Prerequisite(s): First Year Writing
How are bodies and minds depicted as "normal" or "abnormal"? This course will address how bodily differences and impairments are given social meaning as disability, and how these disabilities are portrayed in literary genres including scripture, hagiography, poetry, drama, novels, short stories, and memoir. We study these depictions from the perspective of disability studies, a discipline that seeks to understand the cultural meanings and material realities of disability with respect to systems of oppression. Pre-requisite(s): Completion of the Writing Requirement
ENGL H229CONTAGION NARRATIVES IN AMERICAN CULTURE1.0
This course will examine depictions of contagions in American literature and film including yellow fever, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, and fictional outbreaks. We will focus on how these narratives illuminate the politics of infection, inoculation, quarantine, transmission, treatment, survival, and loss. How do these narratives reflect and exacerbate inequalities? How do writers and artists document collective care? How do stories shape how we remember a past crisis and influence our response to the next one? Crosslisted: HLTH, ENGL Pre-requisite(s): HLTHH115 Introduction to Health Studies
This course explores the role of poetry and other forms of creative expression in the history of prison abolition and related social justice movements. Focusing on incarcerated writers and artists who theorize life worlds in and beyond racial capitalism and the carceral state, the course approaches art-making as a practice of imagining abolitionist futures. Pre-requisite(s): First year writing seminar Lottery Preference: English majors and PJHR concentrators.
ENGL H232THE GRAPHIC NOVEL: NARRATIVES IN LONG-FORM COMICS1.0
This course will explore narrative representation in the comics medium, particularly the way graphic narratives accommodate multiple literary genres such as fiction, fantasy, memoir, biography, and history. By examining the interplay between image and text in graphic novels, it will consider the aesthetics and politics of visual literacy and multi-modality in relation to representations of history, memory, cultural difference, mental illness, gender, sexuality, political struggle, and trauma.
ENGL H233TOPICS IN CARIBBEAN LITERATURE: A NEW WAVE1.0
This course will focus on authors of the Caribbean and its diaspora, engaging fiction, theory, memoir, poetry and drama from the mid-twentieth century through the present. Core themes will include migration, class, colonialism, racial identity, gender and sexuality. Crosslisted: English, Africana Studies
What stories about queer and trans people circulated in the medieval period, and what does this body of literature tell us about the social construction of sexuality, gender, and embodiment? In this course, we will read medieval literature featuring lesbian, gay, transgender, and asexual characters alongside documents of historical queer and trans people and contemporary queer theory and trans studies scholarship. All texts will be read in modern English translation. Crosslisted: GSST.
ENGL H235APPROACHES TO INDIGENOUS LITERATURES: CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENTS AND IDEAS1.0
The main objective for this course is to provide a variety of literary methodologies for approaching Indigenous literatures. As Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee) writes, he “fundamentally believe[s] that the study of Indigenous writing offers us something different, a complementary but distinctive way of thinking about Indigenous belonging, identities, and relationships” (27). This course hopes to bring diverse perspectives together, alongside selections of poetry and prose, to lay out the critical landscape of Indigenous literatures. Pre-requisite(s): Freshman writing or a 100-level English course
A survey of Chicana/o/x literature and performance, including novels, personal essays and memoirs, drama, and film. This course privileges the stories, struggles, imaginations, and accomplishments of Chicana/o/xs in the United States, through an exploration of cultural identity and production. Key topics include El Movimiento, Chicana/x feminism, labor and exploitation, expressions of pride and joy, and performative traditions. In our exploration of Chicana/o/x life and culture, we will gain insights into the history and experiences of curanderismo, agricultural labor migration and incarceration, and social reproduction across Greater Mexico and the Northern Borderlands of Atzlán. Crosslisted: SPAN, ENGL
In this workshop-centered class, students will learn to generate and revise works of prose nonfiction such as memoir, long-form reporting, intellectual essays and reviews.
This course will explore how poets, philosophers, and early scientists imagined the planet from antiquity to the early modern period. We will investigate medieval and early modern representations of the planet Earth, from descriptions of the natural world to representations of the planet in space. We will examine these works from the perspectives of the fields of literary studies, environmental humanities, animal and plant studies, and history of science. Pre-requisite(s): Completion of the Writing Requirement Lottery Preference: English and Environmental Studies majors
ENGL H246BAD BUNNY POETICS: MEMORY AND WRITING IN PUERTO RICO1.0
This course examines the cultural, material, literary, and academic scholarship related to the study of Bad Bunny. Through a literary analysis of his music, which will be read as poetics of resistance and defiance, students will learn how Bad Bunny resists cultural norms and colonialism in Puerto Rico and how he has become a symbol for various Latina/o populations. His short films, performances, and concepts will be studied as current markers of Puerto Rican memory. Lottery Preference: ENGL majors
ENGL H249INTRODUCTION TO ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE1.0
This course will explore the diversity of Asian American experience by studying a selection of foundational and emerging works by Asian American writers. Assigned readings of various literary genres will address themes such as immigration, generational conflict, racism, assimilation, difference, and political struggle. Key lines of inquiry include: What does Asian American identity, culture, and aesthetic look like? How do writers represent them? What does the racial and literary category “Asian American” constitute? Crosslisted: ENGL. Pre-requisite(s): None
ENGL H255IN THE WRITERS’ ROOM: SCREENWRITING FOR TELEVISION1.0
In the TV world, stories are built in the “writers’ room,” where writers come together to create a successful show. In this course students will study the craft of episodic screenwriting by simulating the collaborative spirit of the writers’ room. As they learn screenplay structure and form, visual storytelling techniques, dialogue, character development, and story arc, students will produce one episode for a class anthology project and participate in a final community table read event. Crosslisted: ENGL. Lottery Preference: VIST minors, Creative Writing Concentrators, ENGL majors
ENGL H265AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: BLACK HORROR1.0
This course is an examination of literary and artistic horror by black artists. We will articulate the artistic genre of horror and its tendencies, with a particular focus on representations of racial Otherness and racism. We will also consider particular affinities between horror and modes such as black literary realism and naturalism, attentive to moments which collapse a fear of blackness and the terror associated with being black in America. We will study the work of authors and other artists, including Charles Chestnutt, Gwendolyn Brooks, Chester Himes, Edward P. Jones, Chesya Burke, Nalo Hopkinson, Tanananrive Due, The Geto Boys, Snoop Dogg, Childish Gambino and Jordan Peele. We will also consider white American literary representations of racial otherness and horror in the works of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Flannery O’Connor, as well as the 1968 George Romero film “Night of the Living Dead.”
SF—science fiction, speculative fiction—is the primary allegorical mode of the contemporary world and permits reflections upon and critiques of the world we inhabit today. This course explores the explosion of the genre in the decades since the WWII and the advent of atomic weapons. We will read classics of post-apocalyptic fiction from the ‘50s and ‘60s before turning to stories that engage queer identities, Afrofuturism and African Futurism, and the global threat of climate change. Crosslisted: ENGL. Pre-requisite(s): None
Readings in novels, short fiction, poetry, and some non-fictional prose by contemporary women writers. A study of the interrelations between literature written by female authors and the questions, concerns, and debates that characterize contemporary feminist theory. Readings by Elizabeth Acevedo, Kali Fajardo Anstine, Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Sandra Cisneros. Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Gabriela Garcia to reflect this semester's theme on Latina Women Writers.
Through the study of fiction, this course will explore how various writers negotiate questions of empire, nation, (neo)colonialism, displacement, and migration.,
ENGL H286LITERATURE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS1.0
We will examine memoirs, essays, and poetry by American writer/activists whose works illuminate the formation of -- and tensions between -- civil rights struggles, peace movements, feminist organizing, and LGBT movements. Readings include Baldwin, Rukeyser, King, Rich, Malcolm X, Lorde, Moraga and Stringfellow.
This course explores contemporary American poetry from 1950 to 2001 (from Ginsberg to Rankine). The class examines how poets continue a vital inquiry to redefine poetry in relation to culture, history, politics, sound, the body, and language itself. The Beats, the New American Poetry of the 1960s, the New York School, the Black Arts Movement, Feminist poetics, Queer Poetries, Ecopoetics and the Language Poets are read.
This is a creative writing workshop on poetry. Students will read and analyze a wide range of published poetry, write poems that respond to weekly prompts, and give feedback to classmates’ work. A final portfolio of revised poems is required. This course has an enrollment limit. Students will be admitted through lottery.
This is an advanced poetry workshop. Students will expand their repertoire and craft by modeling their writing on various book-length works of contemporary poetry. Coursework will include reading, drafting, researching, workshopping, and revising poems toward the composition of a cohesive final portfolio. Prerequisite(s): Completion of a poetry writing course and submission of a writing sample (no more than 5 pages of poetry) to ekim1@haverford.edu before the end of the pre-registration period.
This course is an introduction to the techniques and strategies of fiction writing, with particular emphasis on the short story. Weekly reading assignments will include both anthologized stories and student-generated ones. This course has an enrollment limit. You must submit a writing sample to asolomon@haverford.edu by the end of the preregistration period. Please send no more than 10pp – prose fiction if you have it or any piece that reflects your skill as a writer. Please include your name, year and major (if declared). You will hear about your status in the course at the beginning of next semester.
Students in the Advanced Fiction Workshop will not only continue to hone the basic elements of their fiction, including character development, dialogue, plot and prose style, but will focus much of their efforts on revision and the process of "finishing" a story. Prerequisite(s): One fiction writing course or instructor consent, and submission of writing sample to course professor
This course will introduce the craft of playwriting by with an interdisciplinary exploration of performance, design, and theatre in the generating of new work for the theatre. Coursework includes weekly writing assignments towards completing new play drafts, reading playscripts and watching recorded performances that highlight elements of writing for the stage. Class sessions center the workshopping of written text both for short-term and committed play idea assignments, as well as thedissection of noteworthy contemporary plays. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: Course roster will be set by professor using submission of writing samples.
Junior seminar comprises of a two part sequence that, through class readings, discussion, and writing tutorials, engage students in a study of (1) a series of texts representing the range and diversity of the historical tradition in British and American literature, and (2) critical theory and practice as it has been influenced by hermeneutics, feminism, psychology, semiology, sociology, and the study of cultural representation, and as it reflects the methods of literary criticism. Prerequisite(s): Only open to English majors
Junior seminar comprises of a two part sequence that, through class readings, discussion, and writing tutorials, engage students in a study of (1) a series of texts representing the range and diversity of the historical tradition in British and American literature, and (2) critical theory and practice as it has been influenced by hermeneutics, feminism, psychology, semiology, sociology, and the study of cultural representation, and as it reflects the methods of literary criticism.
Part II of the sequence focuses on narrative and its theorization and criticism. Readings include George Eliot's Middlemarch, stories by Henry James and Edgar Allen Poe, and James Joyce's Ulysses.
ENGL H303SITE WORK: PLACE-MAKING AND PERFORMANCE PRACTICE1.0
A hands-on exploration of the histories and methodologies of site-specific and land-based art and performance in continental American and colonial contexts. This course engages relevant literature from performance studies and related disciplines, considering the ways in which site work functions as a form of activist art. Pre-requisite(s): one 200-level course in relevant areas, broadly construed, or consent of instructor.
ENGL H305THE PREMODERN LIFE OF TREES: INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND LITERARY STUDY OF THE PAST1.0
This course seeks to examine premodern literary representations of the natural world alongside historical, scientific, and experiential ways of understanding the environment. Our case study will be the figure of the tree. In collaboration with the Haverford College Arboretum, we will study literature from the premodern world that depicts trees, forests, and gardens while cultivating botanical, artistic, and historical knowledge about the trees of Haverford. Pre-requisite(s): One English course or ENVS 101, 202, or 203 Lottery Preference: English majors
ENGL H306TOPICS IN ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: ASIAN AMERICAN HYBRIDITY1.0
This course will study the relationship between form and content in a diverse range of experimental and multi-media works by contemporary Asian American authors to explore the ways in which they address the hybrid identity marker “Asian American.” Through examining works of various genres paired with critical texts, we will analyze how authors combine media and what this reflects about Asian American identity, experience, and survival. Lottery Preference: None
ENGL H309AGAINST DEATH: OPPOSING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE1.0
Advanced inquiry into creative and critical responses to the death penalty in the United States from the 1830s to the 1970s. Our aim is to explore the relationship between art and social protest, and to examine how capital punishment has manifested U.S. histories of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality. Readings in primary historical materials, literary and cultural analysis, and critical theory. Pre-requisite(s): Freshman writing, plus one 200-level ENG course; or freshman writing plus PEAC101 or PEAC201. Crosslisted: ENGL and PEAC
ENGL H320TOPICS IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE: ANTI-HEROINES: OVID TO OPHELIA1.0
This course examines early modern anti-heroines, from their origins in classical antiquity to their resurgence in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English drama and verse. We will examine how women who want more and those who want differently––be they Renaissance poets or protagonists on stage––deploy their writing and speech to new ends, and determine what strategies our readings use to condemn, reclaim, or altogether explode unruly femininity. Prerequisite(s): two 200-level HU courses or instructor consent
This course will cover specialized topics in Indigenous studies as they are explored through Indigenous literatures. You will read creative works in a variety of genres from writers such as Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree), Deborah Miranda (Esselen/Chumash), Janet Rogers (First Nations Mohawk/Tuscarora), and Jake Skeets (Diné). These text will be accompanied by theory from scholars such as Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene), Audra Simpson (Kahnawà:ke Mohawk), and Shannon Speed (Chickasaw).
This course explores Latinx life, culture, and social movements through the field of Sound Studies. The course takes a multimedia approach to ideas of subjectivity and collectivity, political action and resistance, and forms of (self) representation and self-determination to ask how might we reconceive Latinx history, cultural production, and social justice movements through sonic concepts such as amplification, voice, gain, listening, resonance, and deafness. Crosslisted: SPAN, ENGL
This course will cover specialized topics in 19th century (Romantic and/or Victorian) British literature, such as empire, race, class, and gender, through the study of multiple genres. These readings will be put in conversation with key critical and theoretical debates in the field of 19th-century studies.
ENGL H361TOPICS IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIT: THE NEW BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT1.0
This course will begin with an exploration of the literary achievement of the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, engaging with its political and cultural context. We will then move into contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, theory and popular culture, articulating the relationship between mainstream artists of the late 20th and 21st century and the ideals of BAM. Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
ENGL H365TOPICS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: ROCK, SOUL, AND CULTURAL CRITICISM1.0
This seminar will examine the emergence of music writing in the 60s and 70s in the context of contemporaneous struggles in the politics of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Students will also develop their own writing on the politics of pop as a cultural form. Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or the equivalent
This course is a literary, theoretical, and cultural examination of how we conceptualize sound and listening, particularly after late 19th century technologies made it possible to reproduce sound with machine technology. We’ll look at a range of writings from the past 150 or so years that explore the creative, psychological, interpersonal, political, and cultural capacities of sound. Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
ENGL H373TOPICS IN BRITISH LITERATURE: MODERNIST NARRATIVES,TOPICS IN BRITISH LIT: THE MODERNIST ANTHROPOCENE1.0
A study of the historical, aesthetic, and epistemological implications of literary modernism in Britain. The course explores narrative strategies writers such as Conrad, Ford, Joyce, Woolf, Bowen, West, Rhys, and Durrell devised to bring coherence and resolution to the experience of crisis and fragmentation associated with modernity.
ENGL H377PROBLEMS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE: IMPERIAL INTIMACIES1.0
This course mobilizes the concept of “imperial intimacies” to theorize the rich historical, imaginative, and political horizons of imperialism. Taking our cue from Hazel Carby’s book of the same name—and from what Lisa Lowe has influentially described as The Intimacies of Four Continents—this interdisciplinary class will study literary works (novels, memoir, poetry, film) that bring into critical focus the lasting contradictions and critical challenges of colonial and postcolonial literature and culture. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
Students work closely with a faculty consultant over the course of their senior year in the research and writing of a 25-30 page essay or a piece of creative writing accompanied by a critical preface (for the creative writing concentration). The course culminates in an hour-long oral examination that covers the thesis and coursework done for the major. Prerequisite(s): Limited to senior English majors only
