274 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.
College freshmen at University Park will take ENGL/CAS 137H in the semester and ENGL /CAS 138T in the spring semester. These courses carry GWS designation and replace both ENGL 030 and CAS 100. Each course is 3 credits. At the discretion of the college, ENGL/CAS 138 satisfies the first-year seminar requirement.
An examination of English sounds, words, and syntax using traditional, structural, and transformational grammar. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
In ENGL 101 students will study a wide variety of forms of literature --- poetry, novel, short story, drama, graphic novels --- from different time periods and cultures to gain a better understanding of how literature explores human values and issues. Throughout the course, students might use the texts to ask such questions as: of what value is a play, a novel, a poem, or a short story? Is literature worthwhile for its ability to tell a good story or for its questions that do not lend themselves to easy answers? Can literature improve our lives, individually and collectively? The course may also take advantage of literary events occurring on campus each semester--such as poetry readings, dramatic performances, even films relating to the course --- to enrich the experience both of literature and of campus life. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Fred Lewis Pattee's career at Penn State marks the beginning of a heyday for the study of American literature. By the 1930s, prominent American critic Granville Hicks hailed what he dubbed "the great tradition of American literature" as a series of key themes in American writing, including folk traditions, politics, business, labor, social critique, fugitives, and flight. Since Hicks's time, literary scholars have contested the very notion of any "great tradition," because so many different authors have always participated in the American literary scene. This course examines American literature by looking at the dynamic and varied literary productions that, across time, have comprised the American literary canon, even as it calls into question the notion of whether America ever had a single literary canon, whether historically or in the present day. Students will learn how access to educational institutions, to writing equipment, and to printed and graphic materials all influenced who might become an author, and who, a reader. They will also learn how changing political and cultural institutions influenced writers' literary production and literary achievements. With text selection at the instructors' discretion, students will study poetry, fiction, non-fiction, oratory, and drama, and they will examine many of the most enduring themes in American literature: religion; moral and ethical ideals; the lure of mobility, especially upward mobility (or absence of it); gender dynamics; enslavement, abolitionism, and emancipation; race and ethnicity; the lure (and social complications) of the American West; American pragmatism; love and loss; hope and despair. Students will be asked to take up such questions as the following: Who has had a voice in American literary history? Why are some writers more frequently studied than others? Who determined what should be considered "great" literature
This course examines the literature of the Bible. Throughout this course, students will study the language, thought, images, and structures of the book that has arguably proved the central text of Western literature. Students will also actively explore the ways in which the Bible has shaped the literature of English-speaking cultures around the world. Students will read substantial portions of the Old and New Testaments, learning to read critically and to interpret the Bible as they would any other literary text. They will also learn about the historical construction of the Bible, some history of its translation, and contemplate the competing versions of existing Biblical texts. Accordingly, reading the Bible as literature by necessity requires critical engagement with different international cultures from different historical periods. Cross-listed with: JST 104 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
AMST 105 / ENGL 105 offers a survey of popular culture and folklife in America's past and present. The course synthesizes a broad scope of materials from areas such as literature, movies, television, sports, amusement parks, music, media, and advertising. While selected topics for readings, lectures, and discussion vary from class to class, all courses focus on a critical examination of a variety of popular and folk cultures in order to produce an enriched understanding of America, its past, its diverse cultures, its evolving values and traditions, and its inhabitants. To meet this goal, popular and folk cultures will be examined from a variety of perspectives, including race, gender, and class. AMST 105 may be taken by students pursuing the American Studies major; for them, the course provides preparation for more advanced courses in American folklore, American literature, and American cultural history. Non-American Studies students may use this course to fulfill the general education requirement (GH). Students will receive the US designation for this course, and it meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Cross-listed with: AMST 105 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking
/Maximum of 3 This course is offered in tandem with The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, sponsored and administered by Penn State University (the first prize of its kind in the United States). The Lynd Ward Prize is awarded annually to the best graphic novel, fiction or non-fiction, published in the previous calendar year by a living U.S. or Canadian citizen or resident. The course provides background for the history of the graphic novel in the United States, with a focus on Lynd Ward's woodcut novels from the 1930s. Students also study the winning book, attend the award ceremony and public talk from the creator(s), and meet with the creator(s) to discuss their work. This is a one-credit course with limited meetings.
This course focuses on Buddhism in the United States. We will overview the historical factors that led to the development of Buddhism in the U.S., the many traditions that currently exist in the U.S., the role of Buddhism in the daily lives of different types of Americans, and various problems or frameworks that have characterized American Buddhism (such as race, gender, technology, and media representations). One major theme of the course is literary expressions of American Buddhism, such as the writings of Jack Kerouac and bell hooks. A second major theme, Buddhist meditation, will be explored through interdisciplinary perspectives drawing from both the humanities and social sciences. In the final portion of the class, we will focus on Buddhism in Pennsylvania, involving students in an ethnographic exploration of the religious pluralism in our home state. Cross-listed with: RLST 105N, SOC 130N Bachelor of Arts: Humanities Bachelor of Arts: Social and Behavioral Sciences
/Maximum of 6 Practice in writing and editing articles for the campus newspaper. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
† requirement) ‡ † Quantification (GQ) 3 General Education Course 3 † First-Year Seminar or 3 General Education Course 3 †
This course introduces students to modern Paganism through the literary traditions that inform contemporary Pagan religions. From popular culture approaches to Norse myths to the ancient tales of Slavic folklore and Celtic Fairy Faith, this course builds understanding of the beliefs and foundational narratives of modern Pagan religion(s). Students will examine some of the stories of Norse, Slavic, Hellenic, Egyptian, and Celtic mythology from a Pagan perspective. Finally, this course will engage students in interpretation and analysis of the literary and religiou significance of these stories. General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course will familiarize students with expressions of love in Western arts and literature. Students will analyze the artistic, philosophical and literary representations of courtship, friendship, homoeroticism, sexuality marriage, adultery, and familial bonds and explore how the preceding phenomena are inflected by gender roles, race and miscegenation, and class and religious differences. We will also trace the way particular narratives about love have been adapted by different artistic media. Love is a universal human experience and its study transcends disciplinary boundaries. It is a linchpin of human existence, uniting and enriching nearly any subject worthy of serious study. Cross-listed with: ARTH 115N General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course explores depictions and inclusion of music in different literary forms over time, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and comics. Course topics can include the connections between poetry, song, and lyric; the presence of music in different kinds of drama; the textual, visual, and performative culture of specific musical traditions (such as opera, punk, hip-hop, and/or metal); ways to appreciate songwriters and performers as both musical and literary artists; and music as a medium for expressing identity and culture, primarily through written and visual texts. Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4097 General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course explores representations of identity and community in early literature, from classical traditions through the early modern era. How did early literature engage issues of cultural contact, conflict, and/or exchange, such as those created through trade, warfare, religious conflict, migration and/or travel? How did early writers conceive of and represent difference, and to what ideological and/or aesthetic end? Additionally, students will consider how these early representations have influenced later cultural productions and events, from modern politics (nationalism, neo-paganism) to popular entertainments (films, video games, graphic s novels).
This course explores intersections between literature and law, with , attention to issues of social justice. How are social concepts and procedures of law and justice represented in different texts and media over time, both fictional and nonfictional? How have texts worked to define and justify the law and its application at different historical moments in the United States? Course content includes select literary works with legal content and themes, and the ways in which those texts represent different forms of justice, crime, and punishment. Students may also analyze legal writing (judicial decisions, jurisprudence, statutes); examples of the 'true crime' genre (visual and textual); memoir; and/or essay writing. United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course explores representations of farming in literature, with a focus on American texts. How have literary and popular texts shaped cultural perceptions of agriculture in the United States? How have novels, poetry, drama, and films defined and challenged cultural understanding of the practices, participants, and values (economic, cultural, ethical) of farming? Topics might include representations of the family farm and its significance, concepts of property and cultivation, historical developments in agri-business, and/or the U.S. farm and farmer in the cultural imagination.
This course explores texts and traditions that were once considered non-literary but are now the object of critical inquiry and/or aesthetic appreciation. In other words, how does trash become literature? Course content includes texts and media once considered to be in bad taste or to have come from disreputable publishers and venues. Other considerations might include aesthetic and commercial issues (genre and series fiction, bestsellers); the presence of polemics and propaganda in fiction; and/or the formation and influence of different processes of critical exclusion and inclusion. General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think
This class studies how art, literature, film, and other media can help us to gain a perspective on one of the most horrific events in human history, the Holocaust: the genocidal murder of more than six million men, women, and children (mostly Jewish) under the Nazi regime during World War II. We will also examine the theoretical questions involved in any attempt to capture what appears to be beyond our comprehension, in terms of moral outrage and the sheer scale, inhumanity, and bureaucratic efficiency. To this end we will study literary works, such as Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, films such as Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, Roman Polanski's The Pianist, and Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, as well as photographs, poems, artworks, installations, museum architecture, the design of monuments and other artifacts. We will also examine questions of memorialization (Holocaust museums and memorials), national guilt, survivor's guilt, stigmatization, and the ethic of historical representation. Cross-listed with: CMLIT 128N, GER 128N, JST 128N Bachelor of Arts: Arts Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
English 129 constitutes a broad introduction to Shakespeare's dramatic works from a variety of thematic, historical, formal, and/or generic vantages. Students practice close reading Shakespeare's language while also learning how his plays reflect upon the social and theatrical conventions of the historical period in which they were written and performed. The class will consider issues such as gender, social class, politics, sexuality, and race, as students learn how early modern perspectives on these issues may differ from their own. In order to analyze how Shakespeare's plays continue to be adapted and transformed around the world, the class may also nvolve the study of modern stage and film performances of Shakespeare. This class prepares students for advanced courses in early modern literatures as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
English 129H constitutes a broad introduction to Shakespeare's dramatic works from a variety of thematic, historical, formal, and/ or generic vantages. Students practice close reading Shakespeare's language while also learning how his plays reflect upon the social and theatrical conventions of the historical period in which they were written and performed. The class will consider issues such as gender, social class, politics, sexuality, and race, as students learn how early modern perspectives on these issues may differ from their own. In order to analyze how Shakespeare's plays continue to be adapted and transformed around the world, the class may also involve the study of modern stage and film performances of Shakespeare. This class prepares students for advanced courses in early modern literatures as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
READING POPULAR TEXTS explores a variety of popular texts across various media with the goal of enabling students to sharpen their ability to interpret the social, political, and cultural significance of such texts in the contemporary world. Since these texts are primarily examples of popular culture-pervasive, selfreplicating, commercialized artifacts of the contemporary scene-they are familiar to the general student outside the classroom. Too often, however, students have not seen such texts subjected to the same kind of critical readings more elite cultural forms (e.g., canonized literature, art, and music). The purpose of the course is fulfilled if such students come away from it with a sharpened awareness of the role that pupular texts play in their daily lives and the means to discuss and explain their influence-in short, to read their culture more crirically. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course surveys the long tradition of literature that depicts the intrusion of supernatural forces into social order. The fantastic or horrific elements of these tales might be their best-known traits, but such literature can also express social desires and fears, as well as ruminate on personal and political history. The supernatural, in other words, works to reveal those individuals and institutions that face it. This course explores a range of horror writing, investigating issues raised by individual texts and considering possible connections between them. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course will provide an introduction to Jewish American literature through a historical survey of the tradition's key texts, figures, and themes. The course will focus on the defining aspects of the literature and on what the literature "thinks" about Jewish American culture and identity. But rather than assuming a unity to Jewish-American culture, this course will use Jewish literature to seek ways of articulating and representing both the points of cohesion and the points of divergence that characterize Jewish life in America. The United States has absorbed large numbers of Jewish immigrants hailing from many parts of the world, holding many different ideas about Jewish practice, and affiliating themselves with many different political, social, and cultural traditions. Moreover, Jews have settled and made homes in a wide variety of American communities. This course aims to explore Jewish American culture's marked diversity by offering a literary window onto the major fault-lines running through Jewish American culture: lines demarcated by gender, by political affiliation, by geography, by pre-immigration community by religious practice, by attitude toward world Jewry, by national allegiance, and by minhag (or custom), to name just a few. The class therefore provides an opportunity to consider the constitution, origin, and development of Jewish American's identity and social formations by looking at how that identity and those social formations exist and what they "do" in literature written by and about Jews in America. Materials will consist predominantly of primary texts, including prose fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, and film. Course methodology will emphasize the close reading of these texts. The course complements offerings in Jewish Studies and English, and it will satisfy the GH and US requirements. Most obviously, the course will offer students of Jewish literature, world literature, and American literature an opportunity for contextualization. It enables students in Jewish Studies to study the rich literature of American Jews, and it adds to courses covering Jewish American history, religion, and culture. The course offers students in English a valuable, sustained introduction to an important U.S. and world sub-culture. Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4099 Cross-listed with: JST 132 United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. ENGL 133 will constitute a wide ranging study of modernist American literature, and may include novels, short stories, poems, plays, and non-fictional prose, written roughly between the turn of the 19th century and the end of the Second World War. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Topics under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include a chronological introduction to the development of modernist American literature, a consideration of a principle theme or themes common to modernist American literature through a number of works from across the period, a consideration of a number of modernist works in the context of historical events central to the period, such as the American participation in the First World War and/ or the effect on American literature of the ensuing world-wide economic depression. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in modernist literatures as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts. The course may be used as English Major elective credit or as credit towards the English Minor. Non-English majors may use this course to fulfill a general education, U.S. cultures, or Bachelor of Arts/Humanities requirement. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
ENGL 134 serves as a survey of and introduction to strands of American comedy and satire from its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century roots through its many directions in the twentieth century. Students will read works from multiple literary genres-poetry, novel, short story, drama, and essay, for instance. The course will help students to understand how both formal and contextual considerations shape American comedy through the centuries. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but selected texts will represent many variations of comedy embodied in American literature and present across an evolving media landscape. ENGL 134 is a General Education course in the General Humanities domain. ENGL 134 can also be used as a requirement for the English major and minor. Cross-listed with: AMST 134 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
English 135 considers literature from diverse backgrounds (for example, Latinato, African-American, Asian-American, Native-American, Jewish, Muslim, working-class, lesbian, gay, or women's literature, or any other configuration that expresses an alternative literary heritage to traditionally canonized texts). Course content will subsequently vary. Cross-listed with: AMST 135 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course considers the contemporary graphic novel (also known as graphic fiction, comics, or sequential narrative) as a literary medium that joins image and text. Course texts engage issues such as contemporary identity, alienation, ethnicity, sexuality and history (personal, family, a national). The course explores the aesthetic of sequential narrative, its formal properties and generic range, its methods of production and consumption, and its place in a contemporary culture of reading. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think
Rhetoric and Civic Life (RCL) is a year-long honors course offering comprehensive training in oral, written, visual, and digital communication. It unites these various modes under the flexible art of rhetoric and uses rhetoric both to strengthen communication skills and to sharpen awareness of the challenges and advantages presented by oral, written, visual, and digital modes. Credit toward degree requirements is limited to one course from: ENGL 15, ENGL 15A, ENGL 15E, ENGL 15S, ENGL 30H, ENGL 30T, ESL 15, CAS/ENGL 137H, or LA 101 This portion of the course, CAS/ENGL 137 focuses particularly on two critical academic capacities: analyzing and contextualizing. In this semester, students learn to rigorously examine the rhetoric surrounding them, compellingly present their findings in various modes, and thoughtfully contextualize their research. In this course, students will: -Develop a rich understandin of rhetorical concepts -Practice application of concepts and terms in expressing understanding of effectiveness of rhetoric through analysis and contextualization of existing texts -Enhance communication skills by practicing and applying in a variety of communication modes (written, oral, digital) Cross-listed with: CAS 137H General Education: Writing/Speaking (GWS)
This course builds rhetorical skills in oral, written, visual, and digital contexts and introduces deliberation and advocacy in civic and disciplinary spheres. CAS (ENGL) 138T Rhetoric and Civic Life II (3) (GWS)ENGL/CAS 138T, Rhetoric and Civic Life II, expands knowledge and aptitudes built in ENGL/CAS 137H by asking students to use rhetorical skills and principles to develop strategies for persuasion and advocacy in the context of civic issues. The course continues the multimodal emphasis-the focus on oral, written, visual, and digital communication- used in 137H and adds new components as well. Students will develop a repertoire of communication skills through hands-on practice at composing and delivering speeches and essays, and they will work with digital media to create multimedia texts, podcasts, and websites. Students will reflect on these different modes as themselves rhetorical choices. The course's civic and ethical components take center stage as students learn how to deliberate important public issues thoughtfully and with civility and respect. They will learn the difference between persuasion and advocacy and develop strategies for both in the context of pertinent local, national, and global issues. They will participate in a public deliberation forum on topics they generate and vote on. The forum nd will be organized to allow small deliberative action groups as well as large forum-style meetings. The course focuses on ethics in many contexts, e.g., community action and public deliberation; ethics of persuasion; ethical controversies in the disciplines. Students will be encouraged to explore percolating disciplinary interests and to share knowledge in online disciplinary communities. Students will work throughout the semester to design and build a final electronic portfolio that represents their academic work with an eye to their imagined professional futures. The portfolio assignment offers students an opportunity to reflect on their work, assessing the merits and themes of inquiries, and to curate and present their work to both targeted and broad online audiences. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: CAS 138T
g This course offers an introduction to African American literature from the early writings of slavery and freedom to the works of present-day African American authors. We will explore the major themes, literary traditions and narrative strategies that merge and shape this body of literature, considering, for example, the influence of double-consciousness, questions of authenticity and performance, representations of blackness and whiteness, the significance of place, and the persistent presence of folklore and vernacular traditions. Our analyses of texts will be attentive to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and by the end of the course you will be able to discuss fluently several literary techniques and strategies including irony, satire, narration, voice, characterization,
Writers such as Baldwin, Beckett, Bellow, Ellison, Gordimer, Lessing, Lowell, Mailer, Naipaul, Pinter, Plath, Pynchon, Rushdie, and Walker.
ENGL 140H offers a wide-ranging study of contemporary literature written in English across different forms and/or media. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors and texts under consideration will vary by instructor. Topics under consideration will likewise vary from class to class, but may include a chronological introduction to the development of contemporary literature, a consideration of a principle theme or themes common to contemporary literature through a number of works, a consideration of a number of contemporary works in the context of historical events central to the period, a consideration of a number of contemporary works in the context of formal or aesthetic elements common to those works and their various effects. General Education: Humanities (GH)
/Maximum of 6 This course will allow students to study African American literature, culture, history, and arts in connection with an annual public event, the African American Read-In (AARI). The AARI, promoting literacy and appreciation of African American literature, is a national event established in 1990 under the auspices of the National Council of Teachers of English. It has become a regular feature of Black History Month celebrated by community, neighborhood, and church groups as well as schools and institutions of higher education throughout the United States and elsewhere on a given Sunday and Monday in February attracting more than a million participants annually. This course offers students an engaged learning experience in which they will produce original intellectual and artistic content to be presented publicly at an AARI event on campus. Students will study texts from a range of historical periods and/or genres, and thus gain a solid introduction to the African American literary tradition. At the same time, the primary organizing principle of the course will be a particular theme that both allows a broad and coherent overview of a significant cultural or historical topic and engages issues of cultural diversity in the United States. The specific theme, thus, will bring the study of African American literature into a broader interdisciplinary context that intersects with African American culture, history, identity, and the struggle for equality. Students will study texts that relate to this annual theme and participate in a relevant field trip (museum, theater, cultural site, library, etc.) to deepen their understanding of the significance and contexts, social, historical, cultural, artistic of these materials and this theme. They will then develop this knowledge through creative and critical engagements into exhibitions, presentations, or performances to communicate their insights about a particular author, text, or topic in in the African American literary tradition. As shapers of the AARI program on their campus, class members will also have a voice in designing and planning the AARI as well as a stake in its overall success. As this course necessarily spans semesters, students who enroll in the Fall course will be expected to enroll in the Spring course in order to present their projects at the AARI in February. Only students who were enrolled in the Fall course will be
The course explores two streams in parallel. Students will examine selected historic landmarks in science (e.g. evolution, atomic energy/ weapons, climate change, biotechnology), with a focus on common misconceptions about the facts and practice of science. The course will also examine the development of literary and popular portrayals of science and scientists in their political, economic, social and cultural contexts, paired to these particular scientific developments. By considering past and current scientific problems, students will refine their quantitative and analytical skills. By considering scientific writing, novels short stories, graphic novels, cinema, poetry, and other forms, students will refine their critical and reflective writing and speaking about both the rhetorical and discursive practices of science writing, and the social and cultural impact of literature in popular understandings of science. Cross-listed with: SC 142N General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Natural Sciences (GN) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course provides a general introduction to the practices and traditions of rhetoric, as well as its presence and use in daily life. How d speakers and writers use language to move audiences in strategic ways? How have different forms of technology facilitated or limited different modes of persuasion? Additional topics include the consideration of different rhetorical situations, the study of the enduring influence of established rhetorical traditions and devices, and the rhetorical analysis of current popular texts and media (written, aural, visual, digital). General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Students will learn about Irish literature in the twentieth century and beyond; focus on the interplay of poltical, social, and cultural forces brought to bear on Irish literature, history, and politics from the early twentieth century to the present. The course will begin with the socio- political implications of the Home Rule movement and the important figures associated with the rise of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Instructors will spend much of the course focusing on canonical figures of modern Irish Literature (such as Joyce, Yeats, Synge, Beckett, Shaw,O'Casey,O'Flaherty, and Lady Gregory). The course will introduce students to the political context and themes of Irish Literary Renaissance (Irish Literary Renaissance), including cultural nationalism. Instructors may draw upon contemporary literary critics, such as Declan Kiberd, Seamus Deane, and Terence Brown, by way of introduction to the ILR. The class will then move on to Post-World War II Irish Literature. In this component of the course, instructors will select literature from writers who began publishing in the Post-War era. These authors may be examined as they follow the legacy of the ILR, or as they challenge it and forge new courses for Irish literature. In other words, these authors can be writing within or against the traditions and themes of ILR artists' or, more likely, doing both things at once. This component of the course will help students see the enduring legacy of the themes and forms of , the ILR, as Irish authors continually reckon with its massive political and cultural inheritance. The course fulfills IL requirements in its emphasis on postcolonial relationships between Irish identity and culture and issues of British colonial occupation and the influence of American popular culture in the later twentieth century. The interpretive framework of postcolonial studies will inform the instructor's approach to the literature. Postcolonial studies seeks to examine the conditions and tropes of colonial and post- colonial writers and peoples. While postcolonial studies offers broad theories and concepts that can be applied to any postcolonial scene, the movement nonetheless has an interest in studying and honoring the regional particularities and the specific reaction of its writers to the postcolonial moment. This interplay of the unifying, international experience of colonialism with the particularity of individual nations and writers helps students to become sensitive to ideas of nation, unity, and difference. More so, the tropes of postcolonial literature, and Irish literature especially--focus on concepts of hybridity, the Other, contact zones, modernity vs. tradition, national identity, and personal identity, all on which seek to understand the self and others within an intercultural context. The literature of the IRL also explores the corrosive effects of o British imperialism, which helps students to consider whether might makes right; and interrogate various forms of cultural imperialism, then and now. The literature of the IRL also promotes themes of intercultural understanding, featuring examples of reconciliation and compromise between tradition and modernity, and, more importantly, between Irish, American, and British characters. Assignments will help students focus on issues of identity construction, and social and political conflicts within and between cultures (Ireland in relationship to British and American culture and influence) within a post-colonial context. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
3 Historical Literature and Modern Practice 3 ENGL 170N Introduction to American Folklore 3 3 ENGL 179 Exploring the Literature of Food: Current Trends in 3 3 American Food Writing and Environmentalism 3 ENGL 181A Adventure Literature: Exploring the Chesapeake 4.5 3 Bay 3 ENGL 181B Adventure Literature: Exploring Cape Cod 4.5 3 ENGL 181C The Beach: Exploring the Literature of the Atlantic 4.5 3 Shore 3 ENGL 181D Adventure Literature: Exploring the Literature of 3
Communicating Care ENGL 162N / SOC 162N / CAS 162N What do we talk about when we talk about health? Our states of well-being and illness are topics that, like the weather, drive our daily conversations, but we Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4103 rarely have time to study and practice these vital exchanges. Spoken in emergency rooms or on long-distance calls, by medical professionals, family members, or strangers making small talk, the languages we use to share pain and recovery require our knowledge of long-established scripts and our willingness to improvise. By exploring how these encounters draw from and work as textual and dramatic performances, this course will guide students to achieve a new level of literacy in the most essential communicative art of caring. Students will analyze health conversations in literary texts, such as short stories, poems, memoirs, and graphic novels. They will explore real-life scenarios drawn from their own experiences, fieldwork, social science theories, and published case studies. Developing skills in the humanities (GH), they will see how subjective, often individual experience, historical perspectives, and creative expression help people to communicate about health and care. Developing their abilities in the social and behavioral sciences (GS), they will see how theory provides insights to predict and understand health and practices of care, investigate objective perspectives and recognize the contributions of fieldwork and data-driven studies to analyzing and improving communication when health is a main concern. They will integrate these methodologies especially to pursue these fields' common goals of making beneficial connections between individuals and groups, and managing private and public life. Cross-listed with: CAS 162N, SOC 162N General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Social and Behavioral Scien (GS) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
Is it possible to comprehend the mind of another species? Can humans communicate with other animals? Do they have anything to say? In 1859, the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species set the stage for the scientific investigation of animal minds. This course studies both scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of thinking and emotion in animals. Students contemplate what researchers, artists, philosophers, writers and filmmakers learn by investigating the minds of animals, focusing on breakthroughs as well as misconceptions. Students conduct their own research on such topics as animal cognition and intelligence, animal language, anthropomorphism, animal testing and bioethics. Examples will be drawn from a range of disciplines in an effort to answer the central question: what is an animal, and what is a human? General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Natural Sciences (GN) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
If you get a job out of college, work eight hours a day, fifty weeks a year, and retire at age 65, at that point you have will spent roughly one third
This course introduces the verbal and nonverbal genres of folklore that have influenced literature, economics, politics and culture in North America. Approaching folklore as traditional patterns, practices, and performances, the course explains folklore to be fundamental to human cultural life, and therefore an intimate part of the identities and values that Americans express in contemporary society. It will explore these identities and values on various levels: the individual, the family, the community, the region, the nation, and the world. Folklore, you will discover, is not something confined to the past, but all around us in the present, and is continually emerging anew. Students will read and discuss a number of folk genres, including folk speech, narratives, beliefs and religious experiences, use of space, and material culture. Students will learn strategies for researching, "reading," and understanding the verbal and nonverbal folklore of diverse communities. The class may include readings on cultural traditions drawn from Native American, Latinx, African American, and immigrant cultures, as well as other folk groups defined by social identities such as age, occupation, gender, sexuality, or religion. By the end of the course, students will be able to recognize the cultural, political, and historical implications of such traditions. Assignments will include a fieldwork project; involving first- hand interviews, site observations, and archival research; to document, annotate, and analyze oral traditions. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class discussion, oral presentation and group exercises, in-class examinations, and the fieldwork portfolio. Cross-listed with: AMST 170N Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Social and Behavioral Scien (GS) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course explores what technological changes have been involved in efforts by society to think, organize, imagine, and build a world. New machines engender new kinds of image and story all the time, even as images and stories also affect which new machines get built, and toward which societal ends. Literary and artistic inventions thus provide significant models for building machines and planning society, even as new methods in the social and behavioral sciences often emerge in periods of intensive technological change. Students in this course read closely among significant cultural objects and foundational social theories of technology since industrialization, going both ways down this two-way street, passing from literature and art to political economy and psychology, then back again, on an explanatory tour of society and creativity in a technological age. General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Social and Behavioral Scien (GS) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
Food Writing and Environmentalism "Exploring the Literature of Food: Current Trends in American Food Writing and Environmentalism" begins by demonstrating the deep history of environmentally-minded agriculture in American thought. In the sample course, an understanding of the relationship between environmentalism and farming is developed through a consideration of thinking about food and food production in texts from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. These texts might touch on the importance of notions about the political importance of yeoman farmers, thoughts on the blending of cultivation and wildness, and late-nineteenth-century critiques of cruel and unsanitary industrial food production. The class might then turn to texts that argue for a return to sustainable agriculture in terms of Jeffersonian democracy and the ideal of the citizen-farmer. The topics raised in the first portion of the course include environmentalism, the role of labor in America, and the history of the industrialization of farming in the post-World War II era. From these origins, the course progresses into a consideration of the contemporary moment. It is clear that a great deal of change has occurred since mid-twentieth century critiques, and students are encouraged to trace the development of topics from the first portion of the syllabus in the later material. For example, the development of organic food standards by the FDA has resulted in a new system of organic industrial agriculture, which is compared to small scale agriculture by Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser updates muckraking investigations of labor and sanitation by turning
This course is an introduction to literature that takes as its subject the natural world. Students will practice the methods of ecologically oriented literary analysis (eco-criticism) and they will learn to contextualize the major historical periods, movements, and arguments for the necessity of literature about the natural world as it intersects with environmental studies. The course can cover anything considered "literature," but namely fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and drama. Students will examine not only strategies of description, but also literature's unique ability to showcase conflict, reflection, and insight when it comes to protecting our environment. The course should include literature that addresses the human impact on nature. Students should learn about familiar environments and unfamiliar environments. Students should also come to understand the motivations of the authors. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Examines the interconnection of culture and nature in the Chesapeake Bay region through the literature of the region. ENGL 181A Adventure Literature: Exploring the Chesapeake Bay (4.5) The course focuses on a specific place--the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed--that has generated a distinctive regional identity and literature from its natural and social context. The course begins consideration of the concept of watershed, both as a geographical concept and a literary metaphor, before turning to an examination of the culture(s) and nature of the largest and most important tributary of the Bay, the Susquehanna River. Students will read texts associated with the history and the development of the Susquehanna, with some emphasis on logging, rafting, mining, and hydropower development. Readings here should aim at helping students see how a regional cultural identity has evolved from the river's geography and economics. Focus on the Bay itself, students can learn similar lessons. We begin by looking at the rich native cultures that occupied the region before the advent of Europeans and then move to initial European exploration and settlement. The class might then focus on development (agricultural, cultural, and industrial) of the Bay Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4105 and Bay Region generally, through readings that might include regional histories and literary works like James Michener's Chesapeake: A Novel. Significant attention should be devoted to the sub-culture of the Chesapeake waterman, a regional identity that has generated its own mythology and folklore and has been the focus for numerous writers. Texts might be chosen to show the role nostalgia plays in conceptions of the Bay or the ways in which issues of race, class, and gender are raised by examining representations of the waterman culture. What students should see is how literature and culture are transformed over time, while resonances of former place identities remain. Finally, the course will turn to the Bay as it is today and how the representation of place and regional identity in literature has changed over time.This course was designed to include out-of-the-classroom educational experiences on the Susquehanna River and other tributes of the Bay and on the Chesapeake Bay itself. The trips should provide students opportunities to fully understand the interconnections of nature and culture in the Bay region. They should also allow students the chance to travel in the footsteps of the writers they read in venues throughout the region. The goal is to both see how a distinctive culture derived from the natural circumstances of the Chesapeake and to understand how that culture might continue (or not) into the future. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
Examines the interconnection of culture and nature on Cape Cod through considerations of texts in various literary genres that have contributed to development of a distinctive regional identity and culture. ENGL 181B Adventure Literature: Exploring Cape Cod (4.5) The purpose of this course is to teach students how natural and cultural contexts contribute to the production of meaning in literary texts. In this case, the locality that serves as the focus of study is Cape Cod, arguably the most written-about locale in the United States. The course begins with classes devoted to the Cape's natural history its formation and the ever-present effect of wind and water and then moves to its early human history. Readings in the first part of the course will focus on the period just before and after European settlement and readings could include selections from William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation or Mourt's Relation, both contemporaneous accounts of the Pilgrim's landing on and exploration of the Cape and appropriate chapters from Paul Schneider's history of the Cape, The Enduring Shore, and Nathaniel Philbrick's excellent account of the Pilgrim adventure, Mayflower. These readings could be enhanced with selections on the European settlement of the Cape in Robert Finch's anthology of writing about the Cape, A Place Apart. This introductory material will lead to the major part of the course, which will be devoted to reading and study of classic literature about the Cape, such as Thoreau's Cape Cod, Henry Beston's The Outermost House, Wyman Richardson's The House on Nauset Marsh, and John Hay's The Great Beach, as well as selections of poetry poets associated with the Cape. Each of these works, in its time, represents the writer's attempt to somehow capture and come to terms with the landscape and natural exigencies of the Cape. The focus will then turn to representations of the Cape in the work of contemporary writers, and might include work by Michael Cunningham,
begins with some exploration of the dynamic forces at work on the barrier beach, with special attention to the ways in which great literature has taken what is described in the scientific literature and turned it into art. Examples for discussion are drawn from the work of such writers as Rachael Carson and Henry Beston. The general concerns of the course then move to environmental ethics, specifically as ethical questions are embodied in literature's representation of the human relationship with the other-than-human world, from such difficult-to-personify species as starfish, snakes, and spiders. General ethical questions then lead to specific treatments of human and wild animal interaction by various writers. The point is to explore how writers represent the optimal sort of relationship humans can have with the wild world, and what such representation might mean to the ways we personally interact with nature. From these opening considerations, the course turns to an examination of the way in which writers who focus on a specific region of the coast--South Atlantic barrier islands, for example-- establish a sense of the place in their writing. The course then narrows its focus even more, moving from a consideration of a regional cultural identity to that of specific towns or narrowly defined areas within the general region. This narrowed subject is explored in specific detail, beginning with pre- European cultures, the first explorers and settlers and then moving on to other aspects of the American culture history that make the subject area distinctive. For example, a course on the Low Country of South Carolina might start with the accounts of John Lawson, who published his journal of his own trip up the Santee River in 1701, move to accounts of the rice culture so important to the region in the nineteenth century and to the an examination of the Gullah Geechee culture established by West African slaves on Low Country plantations, and then move to writing from more recent writers, all of which help to define the area¿s distinctive cultural and particularly its literary identity. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course examines literature written in English from countried that were once part of the British Empire or some other European empire. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/r generic perspectives. Topics under consideration will vary, but the course will often discuss matters of colonialism, race, and ethinicity, as well as matters of religion, gender, sexual orientation, and global contexts. The principle emphasis of the works in this course will be the consideration of non/European/ non-American societies and the differences between their culture and that of Europeans or Americans. This class will accordingly prepare students to consider social and culteral problems from a variety of cultural perspectives. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course may be used as English Major elective credits or as credit towards the English Minor. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Literature written in English from countries that were once part of the British Empire or some other European empire., e.g., India, Canada, South Africa, and others. ENGL 182A Literature and Empire (3) (GH;US;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. English 182A will constitute a wide ranging study of literature written in English, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose, from countries that were once part of the British Empire or some other European empire. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Alan Paton, David Malouf, Robertson Davies, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, J. M. Coetzee, R. K. Narayan, Amitabha Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Christina Stead, Thomas Keneally, Jill Ker Conway, V. S. Naipaul, Wilson Harris, and Michael Ondaatje. Topics under consideration will vary from class to class, but the course will often discuss matters of race and ethnicity, as well as matters of religion, gender, sexual orientation and global context, where appropriate. The principle emphasis of the works in this course will be the recognition of non-European/non-American societies and the differences between their culture and that of Europeans or Americans. The conflicts generated by clashing cultures will drive the choice of readings. By the end of the course, students will have studied works from a minimum of five different cultural perspectives. This class will also prepare students to consider social and cultural problems from a variety of cultural perspectives. The course may be used as English Major elective credit or as credit towards the English Minor. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Literature written in English from countries that were once part of the British Empire or some other European empire., e.g., India, Canada, South Africa, and others. ENGL 182C Literature and Empire (3) (GH;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. ENGL 182C will constitute a wide-ranging study of literature written in English, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose, from countries that were once part of the British Empire or some other European empire. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/ or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Alan Paton, David Malouf, Robertson Davies, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, J. M. Coetzee, R. K. Narayan, Amitabha Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Christina Stead, Thomas Keneally, Jill Ker Conway, V. S. Naipaul, Wilson Harris, and Michael Ondaatje. Topics under consideration will vary from class to class, but the course will often discuss matters of race and ethnicity, as well as matters of religion, gender, sexual orientation and global context, where appropriate. The principal emphasis of the works in this course will be the recognition of non-European/non-American societies and the differences between their culture and that of Europeans or Americans. The conflicts generated by clashing cultures will drive the choice of Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4107 readings. By the end of the course, students will have studied works from a minimum of five different cultural perspectives. This class will also prepare students to consider social and cultural problems from a variety of cultural perspectives. Students will be evaluated by means of essays written in and out of class, essay exams, term-long reading journals, and class participation. Students should expect to complete a minimum of three written assignments in the course of the term. The course may be used as English Major elective credit or as credit towards the English Minor and will be offered once a year, when staffing restrictions permit, with 35 seats per offering. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Adventure Literature (ENGL 183) students not only read Thoreau, but like him, they travel to the mountains, the river, or the seashore; they hike, climb, and/or kayak; they interview residents with a stake in the area; and they synthesize their experiences through writing. In this course, students analyze works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction (including scientific and historical texts) that interrogate human relationships with a specific natural environment or region. As part of the course, students visit the region that inspires that literature they explore its wild places on foot and/or by water, and meet authors, activists, and experts invested in its continued legacy. The course combines physical adventure with intellectual rigor; students of all majors will hone their writing and close reading abilities, enhance their analytical and integrative thinking skills, and gain unique insight into diverse US values, traditions, beliefs, and customs rooted in place and environmental practice. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
The course will focus on the history and politics of the Cold War and its depiction in literature and film, especially in British and American literature, but also in that of other countries. Students will read political science and history texts, novels, short stories, and poetry, and view films. Students will analyze the reasons that the Cold War has been and continues to be a major inspiration for literary production and a transformative influence on literary style. Students will be encouraged to explore alternative methodologies for research on cold war topics including the use of primary sources, for ex. documents from the intelligence community archives that have since been declassified. In addition to a class field trip, students will be encouraged to make
This course is designed to introduce students to the art of the short story and to acquaint them with some of its most talented writers. During the semester we will read short stories from various cultures and countries, ranging from stories written in the early nineteenth-century to those written within the last few years. Readings will include works from authors like Hawthorne, Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bierce, Chekhov, Kafka, Chopin, Crane, Gilman, James, Cather, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, Hemingway, Lawrence, Orwell, O'Connor, Baldwin, Olson, Silko, Erdrich, Ondaatje, Barth, Barthelme, Atwood, Mukherjee, Walker, Tan, Calvino, Garcia Marquez, and Cortazar. All readings will be in English. This course is intended to help one learn how to read fiction, how to understand it, and how to talk about it. The desire to tell stories and to be told stories is one of the most basic human needs, and all cultures have been defined in part by the stories they hear and the stories they tell. We are not born knowing how to read the short story or any fiction for that matter. Rather it is a skill that one acquires, and the more one does it, like playing tennis or any other activity, the better one becomes at it, for we learn what to look for. We will explore the historical development of the short story genre, and examine how historical contexts relate to the content and style of the stories under discussion. We will become familiar with how stories are put together and with the vocabulary that is used to discuss fiction--terms such as plot, narrative, character, tone, language, closure, irony, imagery. and so forth. CMLIT/ENGL 184 is not required for the CmLit major but may be selected to fulfill one of the course requirements for the major or the World Literature Minor. This course also fulfills the General Education Humanities requirement, the Bachelor of Arts Humanities requirement, and International Cultures requirement. Cross-listed with: CMLIT 184 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Development of the modern novel in the last century (outside the British Isles and the United States); lectures, discussions, readings in translation. CMLIT 185 / ENGL 185 The Modern Novel in World y. Literature (3) (GH) (BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. In this course, students will read examples of the modern novel from around the world. Focusing on novels written outside of America and England, this class will explore the development of the modern novel as a genre across a number of world cultures. As an example, moving from the beginnings of literary modernism (the late nineteenth century) through the early and mid twentieth century, the course will consider works by writers such as the following: Chinua Achebe, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, Simone deBeauvior, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Isak Dinesen, Marguerite Duras, Natalia Ginzburg, Herman Hesse, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kenzaburo Oe, and Marcel Proust. This course will address the ways in which the world novels under consideration constitute examples of various literary forms and styles. The class will examine the differences and distances between literary movements such as social realism and magical realism, modernism and postmodernism. The goals of this course will be to hone students' critical reading and writing skills while granting them the ability to think about the modern novel as a distinct genre in a comparative global context. This course will help students to develop the analytical skills necessary to analyze complex written texts.. Cross-listed with: CMLIT 185 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
In this class, students explore the contributions and challenges of young adult literature (YA), a field of increasing cultural power. Students will read and discuss popular young adult novels, analyze how authors address sensitive issues, and consider how these books reflect and shape teenage experiences. Some of our guiding questions: - General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
In English 190Q / INART 203Q students will gain an understanding of medievalism, defined by Leslie J. Workman in 1987 as "the study of the Middle Ages, the application of medieval models to contemporary needs, and the inspiration of the Middle Ages in all forms of art and thought." As this definition suggests, understanding medievalism and, thus, the popular works students know, such as Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings' benefit from learning something about the Middle Ages and the reach of its re-mediation across various kinds of expression. Therefore, ENGL 190Q / INART 203Q begins by introducing students to medieval works and a few of the forms that characterize it. More particularly, the medieval works to be studied are those combining more than one genre, media, and/or form. For example, students will read and listen to (or sing!) medieval lyrics, read and perform short medieval plays such as Robin Hood, be introduced to manuscripts of the bestiary with its illuminations, historiated letters, and scribal copying. They also will be
As a genre of literature, science fiction enables human beings to model themselves as a cosmic species, a life form that imagines and inhabits an entirely new scale of being. No longer confined to a tribe, nation or tradition, science fiction narrates and explores the galactic magnitudes of both the external world of astronomical exploration (billions and billions of stars) and the inner world of subjective reality and imagination (billions and billions of neurons). This course introduces students to the surprisingly long history of science fiction as a way of exploring both the microcosm and the macrocosm, mapping a species imagining themselves into the future. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
Perhaps more than any other genre of speculative fiction, fantasy is richly varied. This course examines the development of literary traditions in fantasy literature from their earliest origins in mythology and folklore, through the historical development of classic fantasy works, into the books, movies and other fictions of the modern day. The course specifically considers how the fantasy genre has incorporated a range of international traditions. The course also explores different critical and Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4109 theoretical approaches to the student of fantasy literature and related artistic traditions, as surrealism and magical realism. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course combines the literary analysis of comics and graphic novels with the creative practice of making comics. Students will learn through an integrated and ongoing process of interpreting select comics texts and also making their own work in that same medium. Students will gain a technical vocabulary for discussing and assessing comics, which they will then apply to formal analysis of compositional and narrative elements in select assigned texts. This analysis will occur first in class discussion, facilitated by the instructors, and then through a sequence of individual written assignments. At the same time, students will receive formal instruction in making comics as they create their own work over the course of the semester, workshopping with peers and instructors as a way of gaining further insight into the creative and technical processes of the studied texts. Formal analysis and creative work will be coordinated and progressive across the course of the semester. The culmination of this collaborative learning would be an integrated understanding and appreciation of comics art. Cross-listed with: AA 193N General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Short stories, novels, poetry, drama, and essays by English, American, and other English-speaking women writers. ENGL (WMNST) 194 Women Writers (3) (GH;US;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. English 194 will constitute a wide ranging study of works by American, British, and other English-speaking women writers, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Bradstreet, Wollstonecraft, C. Rosefti, M. Shelley, Austen, C. Bronte, E. Bronte, G. Eliot, D. Wordsworth, Dickinson, Wharton, Stowe, Freeman, Jewett, Fuller, H.D., Moore, Sitwell, Bishop, Brooks, Plath, Cather, Woolf, Stein, Lessing, Bowen, O'Connor, Welty, Porter, Oates, Olsen, Sarton, Gordimer, Atwood, Morrison, Kinkaid, McCarthy, and Churchill. The course seeks to make students aware of the extensive body of literature written by women through the analysis, evaluation, and appreciation of specific works by women writers. The course also seeks to help students understand the female perspectives- the varying values and interests of women--reflected in the texts at
English 194H will constitue a wide ranging study of works by American, British, and other English-speaking women writers, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Bradstreet, Wollstonecraft, C. Rosetti, M. Shelley, AUsten, C. Bronte, E. Bronte, G. Eliot, D. Wordsworth, Dickinson, Wharton, Stowe, Freeman, Jewett, Fuller, H.D., Moore, Sitwell, Bishop, Brooks, Plath, Cather, Woolf, Stein, Lessing, Bowen, O'Connor, Welty, Porter, Oates, Olsen, Sarton, Gordimer, Atwood, Morrison, Kinkaid, McCarthy, and Churchill. The course seeks to make students aware of the extensive body of literature written by women through the analysis, evaluation, and appreciation of specific works by women writers. The course also seeks to help students understand the female perspectives-the varying values and interests of women-reflected in the texts at hand and to position these perspectives within wider social, historical, and political contexts. The course also seeks to make students aware of the special problems faced by both women writers and the female inhabitants of the societies they describe in their work. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in women's literature as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 9 Formal courses given infrequently to explore, in depth, a comparatively narrow subject that may be topical or of special interest. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 9 Formal courses given infrequently to explore, in depth, a comparatively narrow subject which may be topical or of special interest. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Studies in English language and/or literature. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
or ENGL 201 What is Literature
Responses to a variety of literary texts written in English that evoke different approaches.
Responses to a variety of literary texts written in English that evoke different approaches. ENGL 200W Introduction to Critical Reading (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. When we read a work of literature, how do we determine what it means? Why do readers and critics come up with different interpretations of the same work? How do we decide if a literary work is valuable or not? This course addresses these and other questions by introducing students to the variety of literary questions on which critics and scholars base their interpretations of literature. Each theory poses different questions about a literary text's meanings and focuses our attention on different aspects of a text's language and background. We will examine the theory and practice the application of the following schools of criticism: formalism, psychoanalytic criticism, new historicism, Marxism, and feminism. We will apply different methods to particular literary texts, and students will practice different types of approaches in in-class writing assignments as well as in four papers (4-5 pages each). At the end of the semester, each
relevant to studies of narrative, lyric poetry, and drama. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. English 201 will familiarize students with theories and practices that are foundational for thinking about literature, and for studying narrative fiction, poetry, and drama. The course will pose such questions as what is narrative fiction?; what is poetry?; what is drama?; It will introduce students to how conventions of literary genres operate, how they generate meaning, and how they require and manipulate reader's responses. English 201 will also encourage students to explore whether or not literary discourse, as instanced in the genres that have been named, can be distinguished from other written or spoken discourses. While asking such questions, the course will acquaint students with technical vocabularies used by literary scholars and literary historians, and will provide students with sample scholarly rationales for hypothesizing the singularity of literary discourse, for constructing literary history, and for understanding literature's relation to life. It will teach students close analytic practices of reading, both those that have shaped the discipline of English studies and those emerging currently. The course will be required of all English majors and will be a part of their 36 credit degree requirement. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
ENGL 201H will familiarize students with theories and practices that are foundational for thinking about literature and for studying narrative fiction, poetry, and drama. The course will pose such questions as "what is narrative fiction?" "what is poetry?" and "what is drama?" It will introduce students to how conventions of literary genres operate, how they generate meaning, and how they require and manipulate readers responses. English 201H will also encourage students to explore whether or not literary discourse, as instanced in the genres that have been named, can be distinguished from other written or spoken discourses. While asking such questions, the course will acquaint students with technical vocabularies used by literary scholars and literary historians, and will provide students with sample scholarly rationales for hypothesizing the singularity of literary discourse, for constructing literary history, and for understanding literature's relation to life. It will teach students close analytic practices of reading, both those that have shaped the discipline of English studies and those emerging currently. As an honors course, ENGL 201H will introduce students to how conventions of literary genres operate, how they generate meaning, and how they require and manipulate readers' responses. English 201H will also encourage students to explore whether or not literary discourse, as instanced in particular genres, can be distinguished from other written or Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4111 spoken discourses. While asking such questions, the course will acquaint students with technical vocabularies used by literary scholars and literary historians, and will provide students with sample scholarly rationales for hypothesizing the singularity of literary discourse, for constructing literary history, and for understanding literature's relation to life. It will teach students close analytic practices of reading, both those that have shaped the discipline of English studies and those emerging currently. Students can expect to take a highly engaged role in seminar-style discussion, including prepared presentations intended to provide a basis for that session's discussion, and which may both draw on, and emerge from, written work for the course. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH)
General Education Course 3 15 13 Total Credits 120 * Course requires a grade of C or better for the major ‡ Course requires a grade of C or better for General Education # Course is an Entrance to Major requirement † Course satisfies General Education and degree requirement University Requirements and General Education Notes: US and IL are abbreviations used to designate courses that satisfy Cultural Diversity Requirements (United States and International Cultures). W, M, X, and Y are the suffixes at the end of a course number used to designate courses that satisfy University Writing Across the Curriculum requirement. General Education includes Foundations (GWS and GQ), Knowledge Domains (GHW, GN, GA, GH, GS) and Integrative Studies (Inter-domain) requirements. N or Q (Honors) is the suffix at the end of a course number used to help identify an Inter-domain course, but the inter-domain attribute is used to fill audit requirements. Foundations courses (GWS and GQ) require a grade of 'C' or better. All incoming Schreyer Honors College first-year students at University Park will take ENGL 137H/CAS 137H in the fall semester and ENGL 138T/CAS 138T in the spring semester. These courses carry the GWS designation and satisfy a portion of that General Education requirement. If the student’s program prescribes GWS these courses will replace both ENGL 15/ENGL 30H and CAS 100A/CAS 100B/CAS 100C. Each course is 3 credits.
‡† 202D General Education Course 3 General Education Course 3 (GA) (GN - No Interdomain) 15 15
*1 comment) Art Area I course (see 3 B.A. Knowledge Domain 3 *1 comment) Art Area II course (see 3 Elective 3 comment) *1 B.A. Knowledge Domain 3 World Cultures Course 3 General Education Course 3 Writing Across the 3
or ENGL 202D Effective Writing: Business Writing Supporting Courses and Related Areas Select 9 credits in Agriculture Supporting Courses and Related Areas Courses: Require a grade of C or better Select 18-21 credits for College of Agricultural Sciences Minor 18 Select any AGECO except X95 and X96, any AGRO except X95, X96, or any ENT except X95, X96. Select any AGBM except X95 and X96, any CED except X95, X96, or any RSOC.
400 level) General Education Course 3 General Education Course 3 (GA) (GN- No Interdomain) 15 15
ENGL 202H teaches the distinctive features of professional and scholarly writing across disciplines, while inviting students to develop their professional identities. Unlike existing 202 versions 202H is designed for students in all majors, with assignments that address more area- specific expectations while highlighting commonalities and the need to communicate with non-specialist audiences. 202H is intended as rigorous preparation for third-year students preparing for an honors thesis or project, by examining how to identify and develop a topic, how to contextualize it within wider scholarship, and how to convey its significance within and beyond the field. y Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: 4th semester standing and one of the following courses: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H General Education: Writing/Speaking (GWS)
As a child, what you read, or what is read to you, forms your first and foundational experience with literature. Moreover, what you read, and what is read to you, introduces you to the values that your culture holds dear. Despite its importance to individuals and their culture, we- instructors, students-only rarely approach children's literature with the same seriousness that we approach other works of literature. This course sets out to correct that. It assumes that texts like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, or Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! reward the kind of close and careful study that scholars and students usually reserve for more canonical works of literature. Students who take this course will leave it with a sense of the history and development of children's literature in English, the methods of studying children's literature, and, most of all, an understanding of how children's literature reproduces and occasionally challenges the values of the culture that produces and disseminates it. Its overall premise is that you can learn a lot about a culture-how it feels about childhood, race, gender, work, religion, and so on-by what that culture does and does not offer its children to read. General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
For many people, literature and business could not have less to do with each other. According to this view, literature escapes from reality to the imaginative, while nothing could be more focused on the real than business and its buying and selling of commodities and services. The problem is that no one told literary writers of this mutual incompatibility. For centuries, writers have peered into the world of business and brought back stories intended to document, inspire, and warn. True, writers have often, and sometimes unthinkingly, condemned business and those who follow it, but they have just as often had genuine insights into its workings. In this course, we will follow the relationship between literature and business over the course of modern history. Although one version of
The Beatles are the most significant musical group in the history of popular music. Their songs are derived from diverse sources, such as rhythm 'n' blues, rock 'n' roll, country 'n' western, Motown, soul, folk musi folk rock, the British Music Hall, and European and Indian classical music traditions. Two ideas define their work: an emphasis on freedom, and how song texts can be interpreted in different ways. The Beatles had a great impact not only on American popular music during their heyday in the 1960s but also on the country' s popular culture in which they were considered philosopher kings. Beatle albums mirrored changing trends in the culture, from the pre-Vietnam War youthfulness of A Hard Day's Night, to the psychedelia of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, to the countercultural mindset of The White Album. This inter-domain course will focus on how the Beatles influenced American popular culture from the 1960s to the present day. It will examine how the Beatles were a part of a mid-twentieth-century British youth subculture that was shaped by the cultural attitudes of American rock 'n' roll. The course will then turn its attention to the seismic shift initiated by the Fab Four in both music and pop culture in the US from 1964 to 1970, demonstrating how it has permeated the popular culture of the 1970s to the present day. The course will enhance the appreciation of the Beatles and their music through its interdisciplinary focus, contextualizing the Fab Four's work in order to show how both popular music and culture can influence one another. One way the course will facilitate this goal is through the inclusion of selected readings from English literature and popular culture upon which students will write reflection essays. Cross-listed with: MUSIC 209N United States Cultures (US) General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking
/Maximum of 12 A practicum in the editing and publishing of a magazine or journal. Depending on the nature of the publication, students might curate, edit, Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4113 and proofread content; communicate with contributors and subscribers; work in marketing and distribution; and work in production and design. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Examination of the relation between fiction and nonfiction; practice in principles common to all writing. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course introduces students to the most salient issues and theories in writing studies. Students explore contemporary theories and issues about writing in order to understand writing as a skill and a complex object of study in various professional contexts.
c, This course introduces students to the most salient issues and theories in writing studies. Students explore contemporary theories and issues about writing in order to understand writing as a skill and a complex object of study in various professional contexts. ENGL 211W Introduction to Writing Studies (3)Most students know that writing is something one does; they are less aware that writing is something one studies, and that doing so is a challenging and fascinating intellectual endeavor. In this class, students explore the multifaceted nature of writing. As the list of major topics indicates above, students study a broad range of contemporary theories and issues, from the socially-constituted self in the act of writing, to plagiarism as it is variably defined in professional settings, to the role of the writer in social change. The course is designed for both breadth and depth. Breadth is achieved through the many topics described above. The exams are designed to encourage students to make connections from one topic to another, to see how each builds on and intertwines with others. For example, early semester study on a writer’s individual agency is later complicated by issues of power determined by race, class, and gender. Writers’ ethical choices are made more challenging when confronted with questions of ideology and social justice. Depth is achieved through the written essays. Each essay requires that students examine a narrow topic in depth, building on an assigned reading with limited and manageable primary and secondary research. For example, students may study their own writing as intertextual, drawing conclusions about originality and creativity in the process. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to apply issues and theories to real-world situations, in such realms as professional settings, politics, media, and social justice. Several speakers come to class throughout the semester to expose students to the many kinds of writing professional writers do, the expectations and standards required of professional writers, and the avenues to success as professional writers. Writing Across the Curriculum
English 212 is a course for students who want to try writing fiction for the first time and for more seasoned writers who are ready to develop greater courage for expression, complexity of craft, and skills for analysis and revision. You will find new sources of inspiration and sharpen your senses for observation. You will master the core components of fiction, such as character, setting, point of view, dialogue, and plot, and you will learn to improve your writing by sharing and reworking it. The course typically involves short exercises designed to help you strengthen key areas of your writing; analysis of published short stories and essays for examples and advice; and, centrally, workshop settings, where you will gain experience giving and receiving generous, useful criticism. You will complete at least one longer, cohesive work of fiction, such as a short story or section of a novel. You will learn to take up the writing life with a spirit of adventure and play, even as you get serious about the disciplined work and vital stakes of making fiction. By inspiring the production, analysis, and appreciation of creative arts, this course satisfies Bachelor of Arts and General Education requirements for Arts. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Arts (GA) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think
Written exercises in the components and techniques of poetry writing in conjunction with selected readings. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Arts (GA) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think
Introduces lyric and narrative forms in memoir writing and the personal essay. ENGL 214 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing (3) Creative nonfiction borrows techniques from fiction and poetry while adhering to but also sometimes questioning notions of truth. It stretches the bounds of literary or narrative journalism by asking the reader to consider it as art, primarily, versus as testimony, fact, or information-delivery. Students taking this course will explore the genre's influences in fiction, research, and poetry; critical analyses will complement this exploration, and formal experimentation will prepare students to imagine novel relationships between form and content. Discussing traditional storytelling technique, the course introduces students to story rudiments including the inciting episode, rising and falling action, climax and denouement and the so-called swerve ending. The course also introduces students to the possibilities of the nonlinear "lyric essay" as outlined in Seneca Review and elsewhere, as well as to the "modular" essay; uses of blank space for communicating the unsayable; and how poetic style can circle elusive meaning.In exploring issues of nuance and implied or glanced- at meaning, the course also discusses the place of truth in nonfiction - differing constructions and conceptions of truth; reader expectations for factuality in a work of nonfiction; and the complications of unreliability when the fallibility of memory or a multiplicity of perspectives color testimony.Finally, the course examines the role of nontraditional structure in conveying a postmodern understanding of subjectivity, for instance by looking at the use of multiple voices and personae in the works of certain contemporary authors. While ENGL 215 teaches skills for the journalist in developing feature-style journalism and narrative personal essays, ENGL 214, alternatively, will explore and exploit the influence of fiction, poetry, and other lyric forms. Students in this course will produce writing more appropriate to a literary journal than a news magazine; their writing will concern broad, sometimes disjunctive themes, and stray away from the nut-graf, news-hook, or even an obvious narrative focus. Bachelor of Arts: Arts General Education: Arts (GA) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think
Students will be directed in a variety of commercial and professional nonfiction forms, including but not limited to blog posts, feature articles, reported narratives, investigative reporting, literary journalism, criticism, and commentary. Specifically, students will discuss the basic elements or building blocks of commercial and professional nonfiction, such as structure, setting, quotation, point of view, and narrative distance. Students will practice those techniques by producing writing exercises and longer pieces, and by reading a variety of published works that showcase these techniques and skills. Students will also participate in full-class workshops, in which each student's original writing is read and collectively discussed by the class. All students will participate in in- depth discussions of their peers' work. To hone their skills, students will practice, experiment, improvise, and revise, and in doing so, develop an appreciation for writing as a form of creative and social expression. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Introduction to literary history and analysis; Beowulf and writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Swift, Pope, and Fielding.
Focusing on major writers and their cultural contexts, ENGL 221W surveys British literature to 1798. A remarkable amount of important work was produced over this period. Students will read major texts like Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet, and Tom Jones; learn about renowned authors such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Fielding; and be introduced to influential literary forms, such as the epic, the revenge tragedy, and th picaresque novel. The tradition of British literature evolved over periods of significant upheaval and change. Students will also learn about the shifting historical and ethical orientations that energized this tradition, from the Heroic Ethos to Christian Humanism to Neoclassicism. As an introductory survey of British literature, English 221W welcomes non majors: no previous course in literature is required. By reading and discussing some of the best-known works in British literature, students will sharpen their skills of interpretation while surveying an important literary tradition. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Focusing on major writers and their cultural contexts, ENGL 222 surveys British literature from 1798 to the present. A remarkable amount of important literature was produced during this period. Students will read major texts like Pride and Prejudice, Hard Times, and Jane Eyre; learn about renowned authors such as William Blake, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf; and be introduced to influential literary forms, such as the dramatic monologue, the gothic novel, and stream-of-consciousness narrative. The tradition of British literature since 1798 evolved over periods of significant political and cultural upheaval and change. Thus students will also learn about the shifting historical and ethical orientations that energized this tradition, from rising industrialization and changing class and gender relations as manifested in Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. As an introductory survey of British literature, ENGL 222 welcomes non majors; no previous course in literature is required. By reading and discussing some of the best- known works in British literature, students will sharpen their skills of interpretation while surveying important literary traditions and gaining crucial critical insight into an international culture that literall influenced-through its imperial reach-countries around the world. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4115
Focusing on major writers and their cultural contexts, ENGL 222W surveys British literature from 1798 to the present. A remarkable amount of important literature was produced during this period. Students will read major texts like Pride and Prejudice, Hard Times, and Jane Eyre; learn about renowned authors such as William Blake, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf; and be introduced to influential literary forms, such as the dramatic monologue, the gothic novel, and stream-of-consciousness narrative. The tradition of British literature since 1798 evolved over periods of significant political and cultural upheaval and change. Thus students will also learn about the shifting historical and ethical e orientations that energized this tradition, from rising industrialization and changing class and gender relations as manifested in Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. As an introductory survey of British literature, ENGL 222W welcomes non majors; no previous course in literature is required. By reading and discussing some of the best- known works in British literature, students will sharpen their skills of interpretation while surveying important literary traditions and gaining crucial critical insight into an international culture that literally influenced--through its imperial reach--countries around the world. This is a WAC course Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course will explore the relation between literary analysis and both film and theatrical performance by asking students to approach a limited set of plays from multiple perspectives, using texts, film, and theatrical performance from around the world to integrate these methodologies. Students will work closely with Shakespearean texts, practice textual and poetic analysis, and will also examine critically different forms of international performance: film and live theatre. In particular, the course will explore the interrelation of these elements, revealing a deeper imaginative understanding of works that continue to influence English- speaking literature and culture.
This course explores the many links between modern art and literature, including fiction about artists, illustrations of fiction and poetry, efforts t write in the styles associated with modern art, and practices of ekphrasis (the evocation of visual art in language). These links between authors and artists have exerted a formative influence on the development of modern fiction and poetry as authors and artists in various avant-garde groupings collaborated and competed to generate modes of artistic expression appropriate to modernity. This course examines those interactions. Course objectives are to bring together for comparative examination: * Formal or generic relationships between texts and images at particular historical moments; under this rubric we will consider issues such as ekphrasis. * Creative collaboration and cross-pollination between writers and artists, which have been crucially important in the history of literature and poetry; examples include Pre-Raphaelite poetry and painting, Virginia Woolf and Post-Impressionism, Gertrude Stein and Cubism * Conceptions of creativity as these have been expressed by writers using the figure of the artist; texts in this category range from Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece, through Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, to Paul Auster's appropriation from the performance artist Sophie Calle This course explores the ways knowledge of literature and skills in critical reading can be rewardingly brought to bear on the visual arts, and considers how visual art can illuminate the workings of literature both for individual readers and in the classroom. Cross-listed with: ARTH 224N General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
ENGL 225N / ARTH 225N / WMNST 225N Sexuality and Modern Visual Culture (3) (GA;GH) An examination of the visual expression of gender and sexual identities in English-speaking cultures since the late nineteenth century. The terms "feminist" and "homosexual" were invented by the Victorians and reflect profound shifts in conceptions of identity. Another invention of the nineteenth century was the idea of the literary and artistic "avant-garde" as a minority contingent with politically and/or aesthetically advanced views. These ideas of minority culture were deeply enmeshed with one another, and have exerted profound influence ever since. This course explores that history with the objectives of expanding students' knowledge of modern art and literature, and of fostering more sophisticated understandings of how evolving socio- political ideas affect our sense of who we are and how we relate to texts and images. The course is relevant to students of American and English studies, art, art history, and women's, gender and sexuality studies. Cross-listed with: ARTH 225N, WMNST 225N General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
o English 226 will constitute a wide-ranging examination of contemporary texts (1960-present) central to the construction of contemporary Latino/ a culture. ENGL 226 Latina and Latino Border Theories (3) (GH;US;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course focuses on contemporary Latina/o cultural production, placing it in historical context and analyzing it through the framework of borders. We make connections between Latina/o groups, showing both similarities and differences. We examine the politics of representation, asking how artistic texts define community and individual identities that are coherent yet also embody the complexity of these identities. The texts cross and claim borders- cultural, sexual, gender, geographical, generational, spiritual, and institutional. We will ask how these art forms work to claim border spaces: How are cultural differences retained without constructing hierarchies of exclusion? What models of identity do these artists propose in response to structures of domination? We'll read novels, short stories, poems, history, and theoretical essays; we will also watch several films. Throughout the course, we will attend to particular histories and cultures of Latina/o groups; it is crucial to both maintain the specificity of each culture (Chicana/o, Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, and Dominican- American) and their connections to each other as Latinas/os in the U.S. Inquiring into these intersections leads one to ask the following: how can Latinos unite against the assault on immigrants and bilingual education without erasing very important differences among Latina/o populations? How can Latinas unite against ongoing sexism and homophobia within their communities and the U.S. in general? How should we view the marketing category "Hispanic" and/or "Latino" and how do artists offer alternative conceptions of group identity? Cross-listed with: LTNST 226 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
HIST/WMNST Family and Gender Roles in Modern History 116N HIST/WMNST History of Sexuality 166 HIST/WMNST Lesbian and Gay History 466 PHIL 14 Love and Sex
ENGL 228 provides a humanities-based interdisciplinary introduction to Disability Studies. This is one of two paired introductory courses developed as required courses for the Disability Studies minor. (The other is RHS 100.) Students will have wide exposure to both the lived experiences of disability, past and present, and to the unstable cultural norms that have traditionally stigmatized disability. The course explores valuable varieties of human embodiment and mindedness; it also asks central questions about what counts as "normal," and who gets to say why. Making use of historical tracts, novels, poetry, movies, plays, art exhibits, memoirs, youtube clips, and activist documents, ENGL 228 offers important new dimensions and challenges to traditional accounts of human value and political agency. United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course will introduce students to concepts, methods, and resources for digital studies, meaning both the study of culture using digital means and the study of digital culture and digital cultural objects in themselves. In some cases, digitization and digital production enrich existing approaches to English studies; in other cases, they present new paradigms and practices, requiring the cultivation of new analytic and theoretical approaches along with new technical skills. Accordingly, the course will emphasize both that enrichment of existing approaches to English studies, in the use of computers to present and analyze English-language materials preserved in the past, and the application of computing to the creation of expressive cultural artifacts unique to networked and programmable media (at the instructor's discretion, the creation of such artifacts may be incorporated into the course). Working in this balance of modes, students will also acquire familiarity with the intellectual history of digital studies and its key debates. Topics to be covered may include the fundamentals of the digital representation of linguistic, visual, and other cultural data; differences between language and code, including the difference between human languages and artificial languages, including computer programming languages; data storage methods and media; electronic archiving and digital preservation, both personal and institutional; issues and debates in electronic publishing, including intellectual property and open access; computer-assisted methods of cultural analysis; the history of creative and expressive computing, from video games to electronic literature, code poetry, glitch culture, esoteric programming languages, etc.; data privacy and security issues; differences between the traditional Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4117 qualitative approaches of humanities research and the quantitative approaches to the study of writing and language preferred by some social sciences, and what is at stake in blending these approaches. General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
This course offers students a broad introduction to key moments and authors in the literary traditions that shaped US literature up to 1865. While individual authors and works discussed in class will vary, the course addresses the overall development of literatures in the United States by time periods and genres that may range from pre-Columbian oral traditions to American fiction and poetry published until the end of the Civil War. The class may feature the study of representative examples of both oral traditions and written works. In addition to highlighting enduring literary voices, the class may also highlight the development of specific genres (such as slave narratives), literary movements (such as Transcendentalism), periods of literary production (such as the American Renaissance) or other groupings of authors (such as the Fireside Poets) over the course of US literary history. Likewise, the class may include works both by authors who were popular at the time when they published their works (and thus able to impact American literature and culture during their lifetime) and those whose contributions to literary history were recognized only later. While it should be expected that no version of this course will be able to cover all authors whose works emerged before 1865, selected authors and works might include the following: examples of Native American, African American, and other oral traditions; excerpts from works by authors such as Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Cotton Mather, Phillis Wheatley, Samson Occom, Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendel Holmes, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, or Emily Dickinson. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
This course offers students a broad introduction to key moments and authors in the literary traditions that shaped US literature up to 1865. While individual authors and works discussed in class will vary, the course addresses the overall development of literatures in the United States by time periods and genres that may range from pre-Columbian oral traditions to American fiction and poetry published until the end of the Civil War. The class may feature the study of representative examples of both oral traditions and written works. In addition to highlighting
Focusing on major writers and their cultural contexts, English 232 surveys American literature from 1865 to the present. A remarkable amount of important literature was produced during this period. Students will read major texts like The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Beloved; learn about renowned authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, and James Baldwin; and be introduced to influential literary forms, such as the imagist poem, the modernist novel, and New Journalism. The tradition of American literature since 1865 evolved over periods of significant upheaval and change. Students will also learn about the shifting historical and ethical orientations that energized this tradition, from Naturalism to Modernism and Postmodernism. As an introductory survey of American literature, English 232 welcomes non majors: no previous course in literature is required. By reading and discussing some of the most important works in American literature, students will sharpen their skills of interpretation while surveying an important literary tradition. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Supporting Courses and Related Areas Select 3 credits in American ethnic literature or African-American 3 literature from department list Select 3 credits in world literature or comparative literature from 3 department list Supporting Courses and Related Areas: Require a grade of C or better Select 3 credits in American literature at the 300 or 400 level from 3 department list
This pedagogically innovative course will be team taught by an instructor from the English department and one from the Chemistry department. Both instructors will be present in the classroom throughout the semester, providing joint presentations and leading discussions. The integration of humanities and natural sciences domain content will encourage students from humanities and natural science backgrounds, as well as other interested students, to take the course and learn how to integrate these two domains of knowledge in their education and their lives after leaving Penn State. This course teaches both basic concepts of chemistry and their cultural elaboration in literature, and it models a critical assessment of the implications of chemistry and literature emerging from a shared cultural field, rather than autonomously from two separate cultures. The course seeks to provide students with a nuanced understanding of how literature and science inform each other and negotiate cultural, religious, and political tensions. Understanding the origin and development of these ideas, perspectives, and discoveries is an essential component of science and scientific achievement, but too often our methods of teaching science focus almost exclusively on teaching facts and theories at the expense of the historical discovery, creation, and development of those facts and theories. This courses teaches both the scientific facts and theories and the contexts of their production in order to sharpen students' abilities at critical evaluation of facts. The literary and scientific focus will vary from class to class, but may include writings by literary authors such as Mary Shelley, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells, Garrett Serviss, Aldous Huxley, Roald Hoffmann, Carl Djerassi, Don DeLillo, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, D.H. Lawrence, A. E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion, and Rachel Carson, and scientific texts by scientists such as T.H. Huxley, William Crookes, William Ramsay, Frederick Soddy,
A passing glance at a newspaper sports page is enough to confirm how ethically fraught the sports world is. This course explores the ethical issues that arise in a culture of competition, and it uses a variety of literary texts to ground that exploration. It seeks to provide students with a nuanced understanding of how dependent sports are on narratives, and how a variety of ethical issues underwrite existing narratives about sports. With a focus on "the big three" (baseball, basketball, and football) the course has a U.S. focus but also has opportunities for students to write about other sports and in non-U.S. contexts. The course connects issues in literature to issues that arise in real time as the semester unfolds. Through the readings, students will develop a heightened awareness of how different a sport can look from the "inside," as an athlete or coach. The literature, that is, develops ethical imaginations and helps students think in a more complicated way about one of the most talked-about phenomena in American culture: athletics, at all levels. Units on baseball, basketball, and football focus on issues specific to those sports (e.g., the basketball unit features texts and discussions about Title IX and gender equity in sport; football on violence, injury, and athlete expendability. The course seeks to equip students to have more sophisticated conversations about sports issues, and to be more discerning as spectators and consumers of sports. General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
3 ENGL 237N Reading and Writing Documentary Poetry 3 3 ENGL 245 Introduction to LGBTQ Studies 3
, The Cubists were a group of painters including George Bracques, Pablo Picasso, working in Paris in the 1910s who, in addition to other painterly innovations, depicted objects not from one perspective but from multiple perspectives simultaneously. The final painting could sometimes look like a blur, but, or so the theory went, such multiplicity of perspectives could offer a truer, more complete representation of reality than any single perspective. In this class, we shall adopt a Cubist strategy of taking multiple perspectives. But instead of a guitar or a nude, our object of study will be inequality, and the multiple perspectives will not be different angles of seeing but different disciplines: economics, sociology, education, philosophy, and literature. How does each discipline define inequality? What does each have to say about it? And what does each argue, if anything, should be done about it? The class will mostly focus on economic inequality, but as you will discover, discussions of economic inequality quickly involve discussions of other forms of inequality (principally race and gender) besides economic inequality, and we shall consider those as well. General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education: Social and Behavioral Scien (GS) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
You've probably heard of documentary photographs and documentary films, but you may not be familiar with documentary poetry. In this course, we will discuss how poets can use letters, diaries, transcripts, and other materials to create poems that capture historical events and everyday life in order to bear witness to particular moments in time. An important element of the course will be the role of documenting our world in terms of social justice and ethical responsibility. Whether focusing on public education, poverty, race, class, disability, gender, environmentalism, or other subjects, documentary poets personalize issues that are typically represented with broader brushstrokes. As Paul Metres observes, documentary poets invite "the real life outside the poem" into the poem itself, thereby "testing" the boundaries of what Wallace Stevens called "the pressure of reality." We will begin by viewing and discussing documentary poetry within the context of photography and filmmaking. Next, we will read and discuss documentary poems, including persona, collage, and erasure poems. These readings will also include interviews with select documentary poets about their processes. An overview of poetry terminology, research methods, and the ethics of documentary art will provide you with the basis for composing your own documentary poems. The last third of the course will be spent writing and workshopping your original documentary poems. United States Cultures (US) General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason Writing Across the Curriculum
/Maximum of 6 The examination of specific literary traditions in English-language texts and an inquiry into the question of tradition itself. (Section subtitles ma appear in the Schedule of Courses.) Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
Select 9 credits: 3 credits each (including one course with a lab) from 9 biological science, earth science, and physical science (GN courses) , Requirements for the Option Requirements for the Option: Require a grade of C or better Select an option 30-37
y Introduction to theories and skills of successful peer tutoring in writing. Provides tutoring experience in a writing center. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Students will consolidate and extend their critical understandings of the creative process within their own writing and in relation to the works of other screenwriters. Through the course, students will build on the ideas, concepts and issues discussed in class and in assigned readings and viewings, to explore new theoretical orientations, extend knowledge, and refine their skills in script analysis and creative writing. The course will
/Maximum of 6 What is genre and why does it matter to the study of literature? This course takes up the question of genre - what it is and why it matters - using a particular literary form (the early novel, epic poetry, episodic drama, memoir detective fiction, etc.) as its focus. Students will examine specific genre iterations across time and media, with attention to how conventional forms can both value tradition and incorporate innovation. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
ENGL 262 examines the critical, theoretical, and practical issues that readers face when reading fiction. Students will examine critical concepts ranging from fundamental analytical concerns such as plot structure, characterization, and themes, to broader ethical, philosophical, social, and political questions raised by fiction. As a genre course, ENGL 262 will pay special attention to the critical issues and problems raised by reading fiction, as opposed to reading poetry, drama, or non-fiction. Authors might include the following: Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Walpole, Burney, Sterne, Smollett, C.B. Brown, Austen, J.F. Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Child, Chopin, Shelley, the Brontes, G. Eliot, Dickens, Hardy, Thackeray, James, Joyce, Woolf, Bellamy, Faulkner, Hemingway, Morrison, Delillo, Reed, Barthe, Coover, Ellison, Nabokov, Wright, Welch, Erdrich, and others. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
English 263 will take up the questions, problems, and delights involved in reading poetry in British, American, and other English-language traditions. Examining the fundamental tools of reading poetry (meter, rhyme, image, diction, poetic forms, figurative language, and other rhetorical devices), students in English 263 will pay special attention to the critical issues and problems raised by reading poetry, as opposed to reading fiction, drama, non-fiction, or social texts. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Herbert, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Pope, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Clare, Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4121 Browning, Hopkins, Rossetti, Wheatley, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, Dunbar, Justice, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Pound, Eliot, Moore, Loy, H.D., Cummings, Crane, Robinson, Yeats, Hughes, Cullen, Olson, O'Hara, Creeley, Duncan, Auden, Lowell, Plath, Ginsberg, Lorde, Atwood, Brooks, Baraka, GlOck, Doty, and many others. The course may be taught in a number of different ways, for instance, simply by breaking the course down into relatively equally weighted units on particular formal aspects of poetry (rhyme, meter, genre-epic, dramatic, lyric, and various sub- genres-fixed forms, and the like) and then moving on to units designed to explore how poetry addresses specific social, cultural, and historical contexts. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies GenEd Learning Objective: Soc Resp and Ethic Reason
Reading Nonfiction will provide students with a historical context and the reading skills necessary for this "fourth genre" of creative writing, with an emphasis on memoirs and the essays that have defined the genre across different eras. Biographies, autobiographies, travel narratives, science writing, and political writing could be included along with hybrid nonfiction such as graphic memoir and the video essay. As a reading (not writing) class, content will focus on the implicit contract of truth between the writer and the reader, with discussions to focus on the impact of a "true story" told creatively. What must the writer accomplish on the page in order for a reader to become engaged with this genre? The course will bring to the table questions of ethics and morals when applied to our latest understanding of the fallibility or reliability of memory and how authors use their memories to write nonfiction. Later weeks in the course will examine publishing trends in nonfiction and identify career paths for students wishing to further explore the scholarship of nonfiction. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities General Education: Humanities (GH) GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking
Reading Drama is a course that will cover elements of drama including plot, character, dialogue, staging, and dramatic forms in primarily British, American, and other English-language traditions. Students will explore different techniques for reading drama through a literary lense, including the overlap of reading for history, reading for theory, reading for pleasure, and reading as a preparation for the eventual staging of drama. Students can expect to encounter a range of drama presented in such a way that learning outcomes explore historical trends, artistic movements, critical reception, and drama's effect on culture, society, politics, and art. Students will by the end of the course have a solid foundation in comparing and contrasting styles of drama and will also be able to engage in the scholarly dialogue of analyzing dramatic literature to a
An introduction to the writing of scripts for television production. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Individual or small group instruction. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 18 Creative projects, including research and design, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 9 Formal courses given infrequently to explore, in depth, a comparatively narrow subject which may be topical or of special interest. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Courses offered in foreign countries by individual or group instruction. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
* CMLIT (except ENGL 50) ‡
/Maximum of 18 Supervised off-campus, nongroup instruction including field experiences, practica, or internships. Written and oral critique of activity required. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: prior approval of proposed assignment by instructor Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 9 Formal courses given infrequently to explore, in depth, a comparatively narrow subject which may be topical or of special interest. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Advanced studies in English language and/or literature. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Styles, cultural milieus, critical perspectives toward particular English- language authors and/or movements they represent, and the idea of authorship. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of Courses.) Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 English-language texts exemplifying particular genres, with attention to critical theories, historical development, rhetorical strategies, and social, cultural, and aesthetic values. (Section subtitles may appear in the
Theories of art and creativity which inform the making of literary works. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H
/Maximum of 6 Texts confronting social, political, technological, or other issues in the English-speaking world. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of Courses.) ENGL 402 Literature and Society (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. One variation will focus on Literature and Censorship by first considering general arguments for and against censorship and then by examining texts by writers who sought publication in their own country but whose books were censored or banned. The course will consider such questions as, Are there ever legitimate grounds for censorship? How do standards of censorship differ between countries? What is the relation between censorship on political and on moral grounds? What does artistic merit have to do with concern about moral or political subversion? Works from England, South Africa and the United States will be read and discussed, and where available, excerpts from trial transcripts will be read in order to examine arguments for and against publication. Readings will include works by Milton, D. H. Lawrence, Alan Paton, Nadine Gordimer, Athol Fugard, Eugene O'Neill, Henry Miller, and Alan Ginsberg.Another variation will focus on war and gender in 20th century American literature by examining the ways male and female authors write about war. Texts will vary from battlefield experiences to repercussions of war to the symbolic implications of war. Questions will be raised about literary authority: Does one need to be combatant to write about war? If not, how does one find the authority to speak, particularly as a woman? How does race and/or ethnicity complicate one's perceptions of American participation in war? Readings will include works by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Joseph Heller, Cynthia Ozick, Leslie Marmon Silko, Norman Mailer, Bobbie Mason, Tim O'Brien, and Toni Morrison.Another variation will focus specifically on the writings which emerged from the postwar African-American struggle for civil rights. The course will include not only fiction and poetry but also those speeches, sermons, editorials, and other forms of discourse to have emerged from the era. The emphasis will be both traditional literary concerns as well as on the various rhetorical strategies involved in each work. Ideally, the course would make visible to students the difficulties attendant upon any attempt to separate the concerns of rhetoric and persuasion too firmly from the concerns of literature. The course could conclude with a look at some of the various biographies, autobiographies, and histories written over the last twenty-five years, which attempt to shape our national memory.Other variations include literature as a response to Newtonian science or to Darwinism or to the American Depression or to postwar technology or to new dystopias or to AIDS or, as in the sample outline, the Civil Rights movement. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Historical, theoretical, and practical issues within cultural studies in relation to English-speaking texts. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of Courses.) ENGL 403 Literature and Cultural Studies (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Topics covered in this course will vary from semester to semester, but a broad framework will be to introduce students to literary and other Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4123 texts read in relation to cultural studies. Individual instructors may take up different historical periods, while other versions may suggest ways cultural studies draws on different theoretical discourses such as rhetoric, deconstruction, feminism, or the New Historicism for its problems. All Reading Culture courses should serve as an introduction to cultural studies, moving from theoretical to practical readings of literature and culture. In any case, a common goal would involve examining cultural studies as constituted by plural theories and ends. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Ethnicity, gender, class, race with reference to theoretical inquiry into identity, difference, and place in English-language literatures. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of Courses.) Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Students experience a Shakespeare play as a text to be explicated and as a script to be performed. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 This advanced Honors Seminar in literature, rhetoric, and cultural studies allows students to explore and research a topic related to recent literary culture. Topics will vary depending on the course instructor but may include the study novels, poetry, drama, theory, film, nonfiction, or rhetoric. Recent topics have included Alfred Hitchcock, contemporary novels, prison narratives, authors and artists, and apocalyptic fiction. Assignments will include extensive primary and secondary reading, participation in class discussion, and a substantial paper or final project. Departmental approval required (for more special information please refer to the notes section in LionPATH). Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or (ENGL 137H and ENGL 138T) Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course provides an accessible overview of the English language from its earliest beginnings as an insular language to its current place as a global language. One central issue will be the ways in which the external history (culture, political power, geography) of the language has impacted its internal history (spelling, pronunciation, dialect) over time. In the process, we will examine several representative English texts which illustrate significant moments in this long process of language change. Other topics will include the traces of early English vocabulary and structures in modern English, sound changes and pronunciation, English's heavy lexical borrowing from other languages, the politics of language and language use, longstanding debates over what constitutes standard English, the impact of prescriptive language guides, varieties of spoken and written English, the English language and colonialism, English as a global language, and the influence of technologies. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Post-1800 Literature
Students enrolled in Advanced Television Writing will have successfully completed ENGL 281, Introduction to TV Writing. In the advanced course, they will continue the project (a television pilot script) begun in the earlier course, with emphasis on further developing their understanding of concept, structure, character development, dialogue, and scene structure---in line with industry standards. Along with advanced reading and analysis of existing scripts, students will complete advanced writing exercises designed to aid in the completion of a full draft of their pilot script, the final project for the course. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 281
/Maximum of 12 Advanced Seminars in Creative Writing focus on a particular genre and/or topic. Genres include poetry, fiction, graphic novel, memoir, creative non- fiction, essay, or drama. Topics vary. Students work as apprentice writers, reading the work of published and expert authors, experimenting within the genre, engaging in structured peer review and group workshops, and preparing texts for publication and contest submission. Students discuss a number of issues relevant to the practice of creative writing and the production of literature, such as innovation and circulation, and numerous techniques, including the establishment of voice, creation of character plot development, pacing, and principles of prosody. Students may also consider the responsibilities of literary citizenship and the ethics of artistic representation. The courses offer an intense investigation of creative writing craft. Students develop skills in close, critical reading through the examination of exemplary works of contemporary literature and craft analysis, often reading an entire book per week. They also learn to read analytically and practically in workshop critiques of peer writing. In workshop discussion, students engage in a range of critical and editing tasks from close reading to broad conceptualization; they develop the ability to communicate ideas clearly and extemporaneously, and to negotiate meaning with others. Students experiment with and hone various writing techniques by executing focused exercises and drafting and developing pieces for final submission. They apply critical and analytical reading skills to revise and strengthen their own writing. The final project may include drafts and polished versions of two to three stories or essays, and up to a dozen poems. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or (ENGL 137H and ENGL 138T) Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Advanced study of the techniques of fiction writing; regular practice in writing the short story; group discussion of student work. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 212 and (ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H) Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Advanced study of the techniques of poetic composition; regular practice in writing poetry; group discussion of student work. ENGL 413 Advanced Poetry Writing (3 per semester/maximum of 6)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Students enrolled in the Advanced Poetry Workshop will have successfully completed ENGL 213, Introduction to Poetry Writing. In the advanced course, they continue their study of prosody through the close reading of published poems, including entire volumes of poetry by a single author. Students will also study articles and books that discuss various elements of craft. They can expect to prepare written reading responses and formal classroom presentations on the assigned readings. They will also draft
Writing of biography and autobiography, character sketches, "profiles," and literary portraits; analysis and interpretations of source materials. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 214 and [ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or (ENGL 137H and ENGL 138T)] Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 Advanced study of the principles of nonfiction; substantial practice in writing and submitting magazine articles for publication. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: (ENGL 212 or ENGL 215) and [ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or (ENGL 137H and ENGL 138T)] Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Prepares scientists and writers to gather, interpret, and present scientific information to the layman with clarity and accuracy. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
The process of editing from typescript through final proof. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Preparing and editing professional papers for subject specialists and for others interested in careers as writers or editors. Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4125 Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
3 ENGL 420 Writing for the Web 3 LHR/OLEAD Communication Skills for Leaders in Groups and 464 Organizations LHR/OLEAD Collective Decision Making 465
Some courses in this category have prerequisites that are not required in the program. Credits applied may not double count with any other major or option requirements. Courses may double count toward IL and US requirements. Only 6 credits combined maximum or COMM 1, COMM 2, COMM 3 may apply. Only 6 credits maximum of COMM 297 may apply. Only 3 credits maximum of COMM 299 or COMM 495A may apply.
Develops skill in writing expository essays, with particular attention to style. Intended for liberal arts majors. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Practice and criticism in the composition of the short story and the novel. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 412 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Supporting Courses and Related Areas Supporting Courses and Related Areas: Require a grade of C or better Select 6 credits from courses at the 200-level or above in CMLIT or 6
Creative writing workshop focused on the environment and related issues. ENGL (ENVST) 424 Creative Writing and the Natural World (3) American literature includes a long and rich tradition of writing that focuses on the natural world. From the oral stories of indigenous people to the journals of the first European settlers, many have looked for a way to understand their own place in the world based upon their relationship to the earth and its creatures. While Puritans often discerned the pleasure or wrath of God in the environmental changes they experienced, Transcendentalists like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson sought out moments of spiritual enlightenment by immersing themselves in the natural order. More recently, such poets as Galway Kinnell, James Wright, and Robert Bly have attempted to connect with the depths of collective unconsciousness by exploring the natural world, while others, like Mary Oliver, Dan Gerber, Jim Harrison, Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry, have used transcendental thought and melded it with Christian and Buddhist insights. Still others, like Gary Paul Nabhan, Rachel Carson, and Alison Hawthorne Deming have brought science to bear upon the riches that nature, art, and scientific exploration may offer when joined in the pursuit of a deeper understanding of, and relationship with, the natural world. This course will acquaint students with the tradition of American nature writing, as well as contemporary nature writing, in the genres of nonfiction, poetry and fiction. Students will be introduced to issues of style, philosophy, and content, as they produce their own essays, poems, and stories. The course culminates in the production of a portfolio of nature writing. Much of this work will begin in class with specific assignments, which will include field work, and feedback from other students in the class. As a workshop course in creative writing, the emphasis will be upon the production of literary texts that interact with the natural world and upon the revision of those texts. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 50 or ENVST 100N Cross-listed with: ENVST 424
and Music (3) (US)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. ENGL 426 will constitute an in-depth study of Chicano/a literature, film, and music from the inception of the Chicano movement (1965-1975) to the present. In addition to primary aesthetic texts, students will read historical, political, and theoretical essays designed to situate the Chicano/a cultural texts in historical and political context.The aim of the course is to give students a better understanding of Chicano/ a cultural production by situating these works of art against other U. S. artistic traditions and within wider historical and political movements. Authors and artists under consideration in this class will vary, but will likely include Luis Valdez, Tomas Rivera, Estella Portillo Trambley, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Corky Gonzales, Gloria Anzaldua, Norma Alarcon, Cherrie Moraga, Richard Rodriguez, Dagoberto Gilb, Rolando Hinojosa, Alfredo Vea, Charlie Trujillo, Diego Vasquez Jr., Joe Rodriguez, Tomas Almaguer, Jose Esteban Munoz, Manuel Ramos, Lucha Corpi, Rudolfo Anaya, Michael Nave. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in Latin/a literatures as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex texts. Students will be evaluated by means of essays written in and out of class, essay exams, group projects, term-long journals, and class participation. Students should expect to complete a minimum of three written assignments in the course of the term. The course may be used as ENGL major elective credit or as credit towards the ENGL minor and will be offered once a year with 40 seats per offering. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: ENGL 426 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) n LTNST 445: U.S. Immigration This class examines theories of U.S. immigration and immigrant adaptation, effects of immigration, and policy. SOC 445 U.S. Immigration (3) The United States has long been known as a nation of immigrants.
/Maximum of 9 An in-depth examination of important themes, writers, and/or historical developments in Jewish Literature of the United States. ENGL (J ST) 427 Topics in Jewish American Literature (3) This course will provide sustained examination of major themes, texts, and figures in the Jewish American literary tradition. The course will focus on depth rather than breadth in its analysis of the defining aspects of the literature and on what the literature reveals about Jewish American culture and identity. The United States has absorbed large numbers of Jewish immigrants from many parts of the world, holding many different ideas about Jewish practice, and affiliating themselves with many different political, social, and cultural traditions, and moreover Jews have settled and made homes in a wide variety of American communities. Close analysis of literature will therefore provide an opportunity to consider the constitution, origin, and development of Jewish America's wider cultural, political, and social contexts. Materials will consist predominantly of primary texts, including prose fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, and film, and the methodology will emphasize the close reading of these texts. The course complements offerings in Jewish Studies, English, and Comparative Literature. Most obviously, the course will offer students of Jewish literature, world literature, and American literature an opportunity for contextualization. It enables students in Jewish Studies to study the rich literature of American Jews, and it adds to courses covering Jewish American history, religion, and culture. The course offers students in English and Comparative Literature a valuable, sustained introduction to an important U.S. and world sub-culture and -literature. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: JST 427
/Maximum of 6 This course explores contemporary Asian American literary production by reading a wide variety of texts focused on the possibilities and limits of space and place. Our goal in this class is two-fold: to orient ourselves
New media literary genres; critical discussion of creative works in digital media. Cross-listed with: CMLIT 429 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
ENVE 460 3 FDSC/PHIL 280 3 3 GEOG 123 3
ENGL 461
Such writers as Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Mark Twain, James, Crane, Chopin, and others. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Such writers as Wharton, Dreiser, Cather, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Hurston, Wright, and others. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 99 Focused study of a particular genre, theme, or problem in American literature. (May be repeated for credit.) ENGL 434 / AMST 472 Topics in American Literature (3) This course will allow faculty and students to focus a semester's study on a particular genre, theme, or problem
Development of the short story as a recognized art form, with emphasis on major writers. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of novels and short fiction written in the United States since World War II, with attention to different movements, traditions, and genres. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
American poets such as Bradstreet, Taylor, Poe, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, Hughes, Brooks, Moore, Williams, Plath, Rich, Lowell. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Major prose writers such as Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Henry Adams, Mailer, Baldwin, McCarthy, Dillard, Didion, Angelou, and others. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Focused study of a single genre, topic, or critical approach to selected plays by Shakespeare and contemporaries. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course surveys the literary career of Geoffrey Chaucer, perhaps the most celebrated English-language poet of the medieval ear. The course primarily examines Chaucer's own writings, with consideration of the several international authors and traditions that informed his own literary productions. Selections may vary, but students will read texts from across Chaucer's career, including from major works like Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. Readings from Chaucer's sources and models may include translated selections from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy or from Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose, and/or examples from relevant literary genres such as romance, fabliaux, beast fable, sermon, tragedy, and exemplum. Accordingly, students will develop a knowledge and appreciation of how Chaucer shaped (and was shaped by) his continental influences and the ways in which he developed a poetic tradition in English that proved deeply influential for many centuries. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H
Study of major works and genres of medieval English literature, exclusive of Chaucer. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
or ENGL 444 Shakespeare
Selected tragedies, comedies, and histories.
Selected plays by Shakespeare's major predecessors and contemporaries: Kyd, Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, Marston, Middleton, and others. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Analysis of principal poems and their background. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of different English writers and traditions from the neoclassical ag (1660-1776), with attention to poetry, fiction, romance, and drama. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of different writers and traditions in the early English novel. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 12 This course offers honors students the opportunity to explore in depth a period of early English literature before 1800. Topics will vary from year to year, but may include Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon literature and culture, late medieval authors such as Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, sixteenth-century lyric poets, Shakespeare, Shakespeare and film, Elizabethan dramatists, authorship and book history, early women authors, seventeenth-century writers such as Donne, Herrick, Wroth, and Bacon, writers of the English Revolution, Milton, and eighteenth- century writers such as Pope, Dryden, and Swift. Assignments will include extensive primary and secondary reading, participation in class discussion, and a substantial paper or final project. Departmental Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4129 approval required (for more special information please refer to the notes section in LionPATH). Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Writers of the British Romantic period (roughly 1790 to 1832) often made sweeping claims for the power of poetry and imagination. Percy Bysshe Shelley contended that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world," while John Keats declared that "beauty is truth, truth beauty." Against the background of political revolution in France, the rise of industrialization and empire, and increasing social instability, Romantic writers turned to nature as a source of the self and looked back to childhood as a site of both innocence and ambivalence. Others turned their efforts to the supernatural and the gothic, hoping to inspire what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith." This course is designed to provide an introduction to the richness and diversity of Romantic- era literature. It is not intended to be an exhaustive overview of the entire period, but rather an introduction to the best known Romantic ideas' many of which still influence the way we think about art and literature in the present day as well as an invitation to further study and engagement. In that spirit, we will not work from a predetermined e definition of "romanticism," but instead will build a collective, working understanding of the concept. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
ENGL 452 The Victorians 3 FR 296 ENGL 453 Victorian Novel 3 FR 297 ENGL 454 Modern British and Irish Drama 3 FR 331 ENGL 455 Topics in British Literature 3 FR 332 ENGL 456 British Fiction, 1900-1945 3 FR 351 ENGL 457 British Fiction Since 1945 3 FR 352 ENGL 458 Twentieth-Century Poetry 3 FR 399 ENGL 459 Writing Palestine-Israel 3 FR 402Y ENGL 462 Reading Black, Reading Feminist 3 FR 409 ENGL 463 African American Autobiography 3 FR 410 ENGL 464M Honors Seminar in English: Multicultural 3-12 FR 417 ENGL 466 African American Novel I 3 FR 418 ENGL 467 African American Novel II 3 FR 430 ENGL 468 African American Poetry 3 FR 436 ENGL 469 Slavery and the Literary Imagination 3 FR 445Y ENGL 470 Rhetorical Theory and Practice 3 FR 452Y ENGL 471 Rhetorical Traditions 3 FR 458 ENGL 472 Current Theories of Writing and Reading 3 FR 460 ENGL 473 Rhetorical Approaches to Discourse 3 FR 470 ENGL 474 Issues in Rhetoric and Composition 3 FR 471 ENGL 475 Comics Studies 3 FR 487
The Victorian era is a rich, diverse period full of contradictory ideologies and cultural changes grouped together by the long reign of Queen Victoria. Students will study this fascinating period of cultural history through texts in every literary genre: poetry, drama, fiction, and prose. The course is a wonderful complement to both ENGL 222 and ENGL 453 and can be organized chronologically or by topics such as faith and doubt; poverty, labor, and the working class; the publication industry; women, gender, and sexuality; Arthurian Romance and Medievalism; Pre- Raphaelitism; imperialism and racism; science and evolutionary thought;
Study of texts and traditions in the nineteenth-century English novel. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
From Wilde and Shaw to the present season. ENGL 454 Modern British and Irish Drama (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. ENGL 454 will introduce students to some of the most exciting playwrights and important trends in modern British and Irish drama from the late nineteenth century to the present. The course will examine a number of plays, exploring not only how they work formally, but also how changing cultural and historical contexts helped to shape the plays and British and Irish drama more generally. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, John Synge, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Becket, Denis Johnston, Brendan Behan, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Martin McDonagh, Noel Coward, John Osborne, T. S. Eliot, Robert Bolt, Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill, and Tom Stoppard. The course will explore such topics as the role of drama in the Irish Revival, nationalism, and the revolution, the use of myth and folklore in drama, the emergence of realism, the function of Wilde and Shaw's humor in their plays, drama's response to the decline of the British empire, the modernist verse drama, post-modernism in drama, issues of stagecraft and performance, and the political function of such theaters as the Abbey Theatre or the Field Day Company. Students will write at least two papers on particular plays, and can expect to take a mid-term exam and a final exam.The course may be used as English Major elective credit or as credit towards the English minor, and will be offered once a year with 40 seats per offering. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 99 Focused study of a particular genre, theme, or problem in British literature. (May be repeated for credit.) ENGL 455 Topics in British Literature (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course will allow faculty and students to focus a semester's study on a particular genre, theme, or problem in British literature. The flexibility of a topics course will allow faculty a forum in which to share current scholarship or to relate issues in British literature to larger School-wide themes in a classroom environment. Offering such focused studies under a British literature umbrella will allow majors to apply these offerings to their upper-level British literature requirement. Because of the potential variety of topics and faculty members, specific evaluation methods will be determined by the instructor and specified in the syllabus.This course will be offered once every two years, with an expected enrollment of 20-25 students. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of writers and traditions in British short fiction and novels, 1900-1945. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Readings in British fiction since World War II. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of poetry written in English during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with attention to different writers, forms, and traditions. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Study of literary writing of and about the Israel-Palestine conflict. This course examines the Israel-Palestine conflict through an analysis of literature written by participants, victims, bystanders, and observers. We will read literature by Arabs, Jews, and Christian; by Israelis, Palestinians, and other populations affected by the conflict; and by writers in the Arab World, Europe, and the Americas in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the conflict, its history, what's at stake for its participants, antagonists, and victims. The course will emphasize close reading and aesthetic analysis, but it will also pay attention to the ways in which literature can be used to think about history, experience, and politics. The course will survey a wide array of writing from a diverse set of global traditions, including significant figures, themes, and
/Maximum of 3 An investigation into how writers and the cultures in which they write have represented business and those engaged in it. For many people, literature and business could not have less to do with each other. According to this view, literature escapes from reality to the imaginative, while nothing could be more focused on the real than business and its buying and selling of commodities and services. The problem is that no one told literary writers of this mutual incompatibility. For centuries, writers have peered into the world of business and brought back stories intended to document, inspire, and warn. True, writers have often, and sometimes unthinkingly, condemned business and those who follow it, but they have just as often had genuine insights into its workings. In this course, we will follow the relationship between literature and business over the course of modern history. Although one version of the course would begin with literature that dates back to the invention of capitalism in (more or less) the sixteenth century, our course will begin at the turn of the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution in England and the United States and follow the literature of business up to the present. Our aim in reading is not just to understand how writers have represented business and those who pursue it, which, it has to be admitted, has often been with contempt. But, rather, in reading more sympathetic works, to understand the drama of business, why those who pursue it find it so invigorating. Money, of course, is one answer to that question, but it is neither the only nor the most important one. Texts may vary, but they are almost certain to include Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son (1847); Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853); the "Economy" chapter of Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854); Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now (1875); Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class (1899); George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (1905); Theodore Dreiser's Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4131 The Financier (1912); Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt (1922); Edwin Lefevre's Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1922); James M. Cain's hardboiled masterpiece Mildred Pierce (1941); F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel The Love of the Last Tycoon (1941); Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949); Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955); Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957); Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion (1962); Joseph Heller's Something Happened (1974); William Gaddis's J R (1975); David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross (1984); Michael Lewis's Liars Poker (1987); and Richard Powers' Gain (1998). Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H
This course examines intersectional identity and its representations of gender, class, race, sexuality, and cultural difference in texts by black American women. The course also identifies analyzes major issues concerning the discovery and development of a black feminist tradition and the ways in which that tradition has engaged issues of racism, sexism, class exploitation, and/or heteronormativity. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: WMNST 462 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US)
The African American literary quest for identity and its adaptation to Euro-American culture and autobiographies. ENGL 463 African American Autobiography (3) (US)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Starting with the slave narratives which initiate the literary quest of African Americans for identity, this upper-division course will examine the trope of writing (the "talking" book) as the (w)rite of passage into the dominant Euro-American culture. The course will identify, describe, and analyze how the major elements of the "quest" found in the slave autobiographies have been adapted as textual strategies by many contemporary African American writers of autobiography, semi-autobiography, and fictional autobiography. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Alex Haley, Harriet E. Wilson, James Weldon Johnson, and Ernest Gaines. Topics explored will vary from class to class, but will likely consider slave narratives, the role of autobiography in the fashioning of identity and self, gender issues, genre questions, and the historical development of the genre and its shifting preoccupation from slave times through the early twentieth-century, the pre-Civil Rights era, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and the present. The course will prepare students for other courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts, and will also prepare students to consider the social and cultural issues involved in the role of race in American history. Students will be evaluated by means of essays written out of class, essay and short answer exams, a term-long reading journal reflecting upon issues of the student's own "autobiography," an oral class presentation, and class participation. The course may be used as English
/Maximum of 12 This advanced Honors Seminar in multicultural literature, rhetoric, and cultural studies allows students to explore and research a topic related to race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, queer theory, post-colonialism disability, minority literature, women's literature, world rhetorics, or other literatures reflecting the diversity of cultures and perspectives important to the English major. Topics will vary depending on the course instructor. Recent topics have included disability and literature, post- racial America, revolutionary writing, cognitive disability in literature, an early modern women authors. Department approval required (for more special information please refer to the notes section in LionPATH). Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
This course explores how the societal and artistic contexts of computing have changed which stories get told about human "reason" and "progress." By studying cultural narratives, both dominant and newly emergent, students will gain literacy in the range and risks of digital life and citizenship. In a world where each human expression is mediated by hardware and software, platform and code, what counts as human becomes a field of open questions. What is human culture? What are the humanities? What stories do we humans tell ourselves about how to live humanely alongside machines? The course addresses such questions, conjoining theories of narrative in cultural and literary studies to theories of accountability in law and politics, and to social history since the 1940s, a decade that saw dramatic changes in the status both of human beings (e.g. the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and of high technology. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H
This course examines the origins of the African American novel and follows the genre's evolution into the early twentieth century, outlining the relationships among the texts that form the body of African American narrative as well as the relationships of those texts to the constantly shifting cultural and political realities surrounding their writing. From the earliest novels, written during the period of slavery, through the Reconstruction era, the nadir of Black Codes and Jim Crow Supreme Court decisions, and into the Renaissance heralded by Alain Locke and others, course readings encompass a broad range of styles and genres, from early proto-documentary modes, through the realism and naturalism of a later time. The course takes up Robert S. Levine's claim that "the history of the early African American novel is not fixed or stable" by mapping the genre's early history and by developing an understanding of the novel as genre according to both early African American authors and later scholars. It addresses the fact that this history continues to be updated and that some texts whether in part or in whole remain lost. Authors covered in the course might include William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Frank J. Webb, Julia C. Collins, Hannah Crafts, Martin Delany, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sutton Griggs, James Weldon Johnson, Oscar Micheaux, Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset, and others. Scholarly , readings accompany primary texts in order to give students a sense of the critical work that has gone into and continues to go on in the study of African American literature. Course topics may include the issue of firsts; the challenges of publication and the attendant realities of early African American print cultures; questions of tradition and influence; d and the political, social, religious, and philosophical aims of early African American novels. Readings and discussions also attend to questions of form, specifically regarding intertextuality and generic blurring and hybridity. The study of early African American novels necessarily includes attention to issues of race, identity, nation, diaspora, and the question of authenticity, and each is taken up in turn. Course assignments and discussions engage students in critical work that demands careful attention to both content and context in order that all students might strengthen their close reading capabilities and engage with course figures and materials within their historical milieus. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: AFAM 466 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US)
This course examines the African American novel, its forms, and its traditions starting during the Harlem Renaissance. It follows the genre's evolution into the twenty-first century, outlining the relationships among the texts that form the body of African American narrative as well as the relationships of those texts to the constantly shifting cultural and political realities surrounding their writing. From the Renaissance heralded by Alain Locke, through the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements -and their attendant Black Arts Movement- and into the era of the Movement for Black Lives, course readings encompass a broad range of styles and genres, from realism, naturalism, and naturalist primitivism, through the experimental forms, magical realism, and "postrace aesthetics" of later times. The course invites students to think critically about the African American novel as a socially and politically engaged form, and to identify and analyze the long tradition of resistance that variously informs its development. Authors covered in the course might include major figures such as Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ann Petry, James Baldwin, Ishmael Reed, Earnest Gaines, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler, Gayle Jones, Samuel Delany, Charles Johnson, John Edgar Wideman, Colson Whitehead, and others. Still, the course gives due attention to lesser known/studied
Meta duEwa Jones argues, "We cannot afford to continue to treat black poetry and poetics as loose change among the more highly valued paper currency of fiction and nonfiction prose. . . . The myriad aesthetic forms and concomitant political functions of black poetry and poetics should be seriously considered as grounds for broader and more nuanced theoretical and sociocultural claims." This course takes as its subject matter these aesthetic forms and political functions of the poetry of black America. It surveys the broad history of African American poetry and poetics, tracing the evolution of formal structures and aesthetics, but also taking a critical view of the reception of African American verse. Whether reading Phillis Wheatley or the contemporary poet Ed Roberson, all the poets included in this course have contended within the writing itself with the racially striated nature of the literary spaces they occupy. Course readings may come from poets including Wheatley, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, John Coltrane, Ishmael Reed, Nathaniel Mackey, Rita Dove, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Natasha Tretheway, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Nikky Finney, Roberson, Claudia Rankine, and others. The course addresses works by many of the key figures of this American literary tradition so that students may develop an understanding of the various contributions and legacies formal, musical, cultural, critical, political of African American poetry from the eighteenth century to today. Scholarly readings accompany primary texts to give students a sense of the critical work that has gone into and continues to go on in the study of African American poetry and poetics. The course surveys early African American poetry through works from the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, and through contemporary movements and formations. Topics will cover a range of thematic and formal issues relevant to individual poets, to major movements and periods, to regions, and to various smaller organizations and collectives. Course assignments, lectures, and discussions engage students in critical work that requires careful attention to form, content, Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4133 and context such that all students might strengthen their explicatory skills and approach course figures and texts from an informed, analytical perspective. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: AFAM 468 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US)
The impact of slavery on the petitions, poetry, slave narratives, autobiographies, and novels of African Americans. ENGL 469 / AFAM 469 Slavery and the Literary Imagination (3) (US)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. ENGL 469 /AFAM 469 provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to examine African American petitions, poetry, slave narratives, autobiographies, and novels as literary reconstructions of the economics, politics, ethics, and poetics of slavery. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Phillis Wheatley, F. Harper, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Jacobs, W. W. Brown, Harriet Wilson, Margaret Walker, Arna Bontemps, D. Bradley, S. A. Williams, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, and Charles Johnson. The course will focus on the complex relationship of slavery to the literary imagination of Americans of African descent as they increasingly discovered the limitations and possibilities of reading and writing themselves into freedom, literacy, and wholeness as human beings and American citizens. Topics covered will vary, but will include issues of the legacy of slavery in the west; the political aims and rhetorical conventions of African- American autobiography; the myths and realities of slavery; economic, political, ethical, and aesthetic issues of the representation of slavery; understandings of black consciousness and black culture on the road from slavery to freedom; the rise of African American realism as a response to the legacy of slavery; Black Feminism and issues of slavery; the role of history and memory in the construction of slavery; post- modern configurations of slavery; and the like. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in African American literature, as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written forms. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Cross-listed with: AFAM 469 Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US)
Application of certain rhetorical principles to problems in composition. Writing exercise. Designed as preparation for the teaching of composition. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H
/Maximum of 6 This course introduces students to significant texts and movements in the history of rhetoric from antiquity to the present. The purpose of the course is to familiarize students with the role that rhetoric has played in shaping the attitudes of societies throughout the world. The content of the course may vary from semester to semester, as different aspects, movements, or periods in the history of rhetoric may be foregrounded for special attention. Any version of the course, however, will attend to central documents in the history of rhetoric and consider them within a broad historical perspective. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 6 Investigates models of textual production and reception current within English studies. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of
/Maximum of 6 Practices the criticism of written texts from selected rhetorical perspectives. (Section subtitles may appear in the Schedule of Courses.) Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
Supporting Courses and Related Areas Supporting Courses and Related Areas: Require a grade of C or better e Select 0-6 credits from a department-approved list 0-6 At least 3 credits of Additional/Supporting courses must be taken at the 400 level.
This course introduces students to the academic field of Comics Studies, that is, the scholarship of comics and graphic novels. The course surveys different methodologies and focuses of comics scholarship, with historical representation of different theorists and critics. In addition to reading widely in comics scholarship, students will also read several comics and graphic novels, for which they will produce their own analyses and criticism. Overall, the course provides a foundation in Comic Studies, with broad reading across primary and secondary texts. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: ENGL 15 or ENGL 15A or ENGL 15S or ENGL 15E or ESL 15 or ENGL 30H or ENGL 30T or ENGL 137H or CAS 137H Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
FR 488
Grants can do many things. Let's say you are a student who has always dreamed of combining help for food-insecure people with support for the mentally ill homeless. You've written papers about it for classes; you've read lots of research that points to past pitfalls and future innovative possibilities--but now you want to make it real by finding funding for the program you've envisioned. Or maybe you have your sights set on finding an existing non-profit foundation that might serve as a fiscal conduit for grants that will feed the cause you feel passionately about. These
Supporting Courses and Related Areas Supporting Courses and Related Areas: Require a grade of C or better Select 15 credits from the following courses; at least 9 credits must 15 be at the 400-level.
FR 494
FR 494H
FR 495
FR 496
FR 497
FR 499
GAME 160N
GAME 460
GER 83
GER 99
GER 100
or ENGL 487W Senior Seminar Supporting Courses and Related Areas Supporting Courses and Related Areas: Require a grade of C or better In consultation with adviser, select 18 credits in literature, writing, 18 or rhetoric. At least 9 credits must be at the 300/400 level. At least 3 of the 300/400 level credits must fulfill a departmental diversity requirement for a course related to race, gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, and/or postcolonial issues. Requirements for the Option Requirements for the Option: Require a grade of C or better Select an option 12 Requirements for the Option Traditions of Innovation Option (12 Credits) Available at the following campuses: Brandywine, Scranton, University Park Code Title Credits
/Maximum of 12 Supervised practicum in fields appropriate to the English major. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
/Maximum of 18 Formal courses given infrequently to explore, in depth, a comparatively narrow subject which may be topical or of special interest. Bachelor of Arts: Humanities
GER 143
GER 157N
GER 166
1 course in Pre-1800 3 1 course in Post-1800 3 1 course in Rhetoric or Media and Digital Studies 3 1 course in Historical Methods 3 1 course in Cultural Analysis/Theory 3 Electives 9
Study of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and style in their applicability to teaching composition.
s A problem-centered approach to literary and oral forms of English, utilizing historical and analytic perspectives.
An overview of composition studies, with particular attention to the schools of writing pedagogy. program
The term post-colonial within itself has manifold meanings and implications. It is also considered a controversial term as many wonder exactly what is post to colonialism. In this class, we will explore colonial discourse theory, the roots of European imperialism and racism, and feminist constructions in relation to post-colonial theory. We will engage with and read critical theory, literature, and film to analyze the relations power that (re)generate the roles of domination and dominated, and the in-between states of negotiation. Cross-listed with: AFR 510
Professional writing for graduate students. ENGL 511 Thesis Workshop and Professional Writing (3)This course helps graduate students in all fields develop a clear, professional, prose style. Every week they give the instructor five or so pages of their writing and get detailed feedback. Several times during the semester, their week's assignment is read and commented on by the whole class in workshop. By learning how to suggest improvements to their classmates, members learn how to see and fix their own writing problems as well. In addition to style, classes discuss organization, mechanics, formats, and any special problems pertaining to the students' projects and to writing in their specialties. Students must have approximately 30 pages of professional-level writing on hand to revise for this course. Evaluation is based on weekly assignments, on a test, and on a case study.
/Maximum of 15 Supervised workshop in advanced techniques of writing fiction.
/Maximum of 15 For the student with considerable experience in writing poetry; a workshop devoted to advanced poetic technique.
/Maximum of 15 Supervised workshop in advanced nonfiction techniques.
An introduction to the main features of the Old English language; readings in simple Old English prose and poetry.
Reading and critical analysis.
/Maximum of 6 Study of biographical and autobiographical theory and practice through analysis of major English and American works in each genre.
of This course offers students a working analytical familiarity with the history of Jewish writing in the United States (in North American context) and with both the history and the current state of professional study of it. Attention will be paid both to dominant and alternative narratives of this literature. Major historical topics include the earliest, pre-19th century Jewish writers in America; 19th century Jewish American writers; writers of the great Ashkenazi immigration wave of 1881-1924; interwar proletarian and modernist writers; postwar writers of assimilation; the mainstreaming of Jewish American literature in the 1950s and 1960s; post-"breakthrough" Jewish American writers; and 21st-century Jewish American literature and the new immigration. The course analyzes the development of the professional field of Jewish American literary study, including its prehistory and origins in Wissenschaft-based historicism; the professionalization of the field in the Viet Nam era; the growing dominance of so-called New Jewish Cultural Studies of the `80s and `90s; and new theoretical approaches of the first decades of the 21st century. Finally, the course examines the key debates and faultlines in the field today, including the divide between historicist and critical approaches; differences between English Department-based and Jewish Studies-based Jewish American literary study; the situation of Jewish American literary study vis-à-vis Americanist literary study and English Department-based literary study more generally; Cultural Studies- based approaches to the field vs. Literary Studies-based approaches; Comparativist approaches vs. non-Comparativist approaches; the move toward interdisciplinarity; and the ongoing struggle to theorize the field. Cross-listed with: JST 535
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include figures such as Spenser and Sidney.
/Maximum of 12 Studies in medieval English literature. Topics studied might include medieval romances, drama, or major figures aside from Chaucer.
A survey of Middle English literature, exclusive of Chaucer. ENGL 542 Middle English Literature (3) This seminar offers a survey of Middle English literature, exclusive of Chaucer, through a close study of some its characteristic forms and genres. The course begins with the linguistic features of Middle English, with attention to the major dialects of assigned texts (dialect instruction will continue throughout the semester as appropriate). Readings concentrate on several major forms and genres (such as romance, debate poetry, religious writing, lyrics) and authors (such as La?amon, the Pearl Poet, Margery Kempe, Lydgate, Malory). The
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Donne, Herbert, Jonson, Bacon.
/Maximum of 12 Major and minor works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The works studied will vary from year to year.
The poetry and prose of John Milton.
/Maximum of 12 English drama from 1558 to 1642, exclusive of Shakespeare.
/Maximum of 12 Special problems of sources, chronology, text, characterization, and motivation in the drama.
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Dryden, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Fielding, Gibbon.
An overview of current research on literacy, with particular attention to language, thought, and learning and their applications to writing. ENGL 553 Literacy Studies (3) ENGL 553 will present current research on literacy, with an emphasis on language acquisition, learning theory, and their applications for writing pedagogy.1. Instructional, Educational, and Course Objectives:As a result of having completed the course, students will be able to: Demonstrate a clear understanding of current theories of literacy, including the reciprocity of writing and thinking, speaking and reading. Articulate and discuss various approaches to instruction, including uses of writing in the classroom and writing to learn. Compare and contrast traditional and current approaches to teaching writing. Demonstrate and apply the concepts of the curriculum models for teaching writing. Utilize practical methods for identifying goals and applying theory to instructional plans.2. Students' evaluation will be based on their knowledge and understanding of instructional objectives, Graduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 1123 demonstrated in written assignments, class discussions, and other assignments. n of program
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Bradstreet, Taylor, Mather, Franklin, Edwards, Paine.
This course analyzes how gender identities relate to the creation, use, and analysis of visual artifacts and bodily practices. Visual texts condition and are conditioned by intersectional embodiments of gender. In an attempt to understand and critically evaluate the role visual culture plays in our gendered lives as a dominant conduit of knowledge and identity production, this seminar examines visual processes and objects as they are informed and shaped by a nexus of gender, race, sexuality, class, nationality, and other forms of identity. The visualization of gendered forms of identity involves codes that produce bodies as signifiers of chaos, order, beauty, disease, nature, culture, evil, and virtue, including actions bisected according to binaries of masculinity and femininity. The seminar employs analytical approaches to these dynamics, including feminist, queer, and critical race theories of the visual as ways of interrogating a range of visual artifacts and bodily practices. After surveying key foundational texts, the course predominantly engages contemporary works and practices along complex gender matrices, including new directions in visual culture from the 1990s onward. Cross-listed with: VSTUD 555
/Maximum of 12 A practical and historical approach to film theory and analysis. This seminar develops critical visual literacy by examining a range of practices in cinema study, with emphases on the relation of film to literature and the analysis of film meaning. The course asks how to read a film, and considers the multiple ways that films combine framing, movement, editing, narrative, character, and genre toward the production of culture, ideology, identity, desire, poetic imagery, and community. Students will explore a wide range of critical methods, and will view one to two films per week. Readings will range from novels to classic film theory, cultural studies, belles-lettres, film criticism, radical poetics, apparatus theory, media theory, and contemporary philosophy. Cross-listed with: COMM 556, VSTUD 556
This course explores formal and historical links between literature and art in modernist movements. "Ut pictura poesis" (like painting [is] poetry). This statement, originally articulated by the ancient Roman poet Horace, has been quoted and debated ever since. Links between art and literature have exerted a formative influence on the development of modern fiction and poetry as authors and artists in various avant- garde groupings collaborated and competed to generate modes of
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, George Eliot, Hardy.
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman.
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats.
/Maximum of 12 Figures will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Newman, Ruskin, Trollope.
/Maximum of 12 Writers will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Cooper, Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James.
/Maximum of 9 Studies of periods in African-American literature. Periods might include the Harlem Renaissance or the Black Arts Movement.
/Maximum of 9 Genre will vary from year to year, but will include categories such as poetry, fiction, essays, sermons, autobiographies, short stories.
/Maximum of 9 Exploration of key concepts in African-American culture as manifested in various literary discourses. ty
/Maximum of 9 Gender issues in African-American literature and culture. Issues may include the Black woman writer or Gay and Lesbian writers.
and Non-Fiction Students will write and revise book reviews of poetry, fiction, and non- fiction for a variety of newspapers and literary magazines. ENGL 570 The Writer as Critic: Reviewing Contemporary Poetry, Fiction, and Non- Fiction (3) In this class, students will read books and write reviews of those books, following a detailed schedule of readings and assignments established in the syllabus. Success in this class depends upon the student's ability to set priorities, organize materials, followup on initial contacts with presses and editors, and revise all reviews to publishable standards. Students begin by reading published book reviews and two texts (one poetry, one fiction) assigned by the instructor. Analyzing the structure of the published reviews, students draft model 200- and 550- word reviews, using the published reviews as guides. As the course progresses, students contact publishing houses and presses to request review copies, while simultaneously writing to editors with project proposals. With longer reviews--700 and 1,000 words--students engage complex issues about the economics and politics of publishing. Readings from the course Sampler (provided by instructor) inspire students to position themselves as literary citizens in the national conversation about contemporary writing. "The Writer as Critic" supplements the MFA course offerings in non-fiction. Students in all genres may practice advanced expository prose while gaining a practical skill. For students in the MFA program, this course fulfills a literature seminar requirement. Students will be evaluated on the quality of final reviews, the timely completion of all drafts, participation in editing teams, and final portfolio of correspondence. This course, for which MFA students have first priority, will be offered approximately every other year with a maximum of 12 students.
Students study the theory and practice of creative writing pedagogy in non-university settings.
/Maximum of 12 Major figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Yeats, Conrad, Joyce, Shaw, Lawrence, Auden.
/Maximum of 12 Figures studied will vary from year to year. Writers studied might include Dreiser, Wharton, Eliot, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, O'Neill, Williams.
and American Fiction 1-3 Credits/Maximum of 12 Figures studied will be drawn from the era of Joyce and Virginia Woolf to the present.
/Maximum of 12 Concentrated study in such major American writers as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald.
/Maximum of 12 Exploration of contemporary English language fiction.
A survey of comics and graphic novels, primarily in English. This seminar provides a survey of the comics medium and an introduction to the academic field of Comics Studies. Students acquire facility in the structural and formal analysis of comics and sequential narrative, as well as knowledge of significant critical theories and methodologies within the field of Comics Studies. Assigned primary texts may be targeted to a particular genre, mode, historical period, or creator(s). While the course has a general focus on North America, students may also read texts from European, Japanese, and/or South American traditions (all of which will be taught in translation), not to exceed 25% of the course. Discussion of assigned texts will be situated within relevant scholarship and criticism (current and historical). Cross-listed with: VSTUD 580
Exploration of the dimensions of discourse as reflected in recent theories of rhetoric, poetics, and literary criticism.
/Maximum of 12 Study of specific contemporary critical approaches to literature and application to English and/or American literary works.
/Maximum of 12 Specific rhetorical problems, issues, or figures; topics will change from year to year. Graduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 1125
Programs of readings designed to meet specific needs of individual students.
/Maximum of 12 No description.
/Maximum of 3 Continuing seminars that consist of a series of individual lectures by faculty, students, or outside speakers.
their culminating master's paper) Total Credits 30 In addition, M.A. candidates must demonstrate reading knowledge of one of the following languages: French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Latin, and Classical Greek. Other languages may be substituted with the approval of the Graduate Studies Committee. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Requirements listed here are in addition to Graduate Council policies listed under GCAC-600 Research Degree Policies. (https:// gradschool.psu.edu/graduate-education-policies/) The Ph.D. degree does not require a specific number of credits although all students are required to have completed: • ENGL 501 (or the equivalent) • One course in Pre-1800 • One course in Post-1800 • One course in Rhetoric or Media and Digital Studies • One course in Historical Methods • One course in Cultural Analysis/Theory Language requirement: Ph.D. candidates must demonstrate reading knowledge of one of the following languages: French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Latin, and Classical Greek. Other languages may be substituted with the approval of the Graduate Studies Committee. With the help of departmental graduate advisers, students select a program of seminars or reading courses. To complete their programs, students must pass a Ph.D. qualifying examination and pass a comprehensive examination (consisting of both written and oral components); and write a doctoral dissertation. The dissertation must
/Maximum of 18 Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered infrequently; several different topics may be taught in one year or term.
/Maximum of 999 No description.
0 Credits/Maximum of 999 No description.
/Maximum of 6 Supervised experience in teaching and orientation to other selected aspects of the profession at The Pennsylvania State University.
Source: Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Erie-Behrend College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
