Courses

The English department offers introductory literature courses, courses in creative writing and journalism, and intermediate and advanced literature courses in all genres. We offer two courses designed especially for first-year students: 101, a writing-intensive seminar, and 200, an introduction to English literature and practical criticism.

We encourage our majors to explore the creative process by taking writing courses. We also urge them to link the study of literature in English with the study of history, art, and other literatures. Courses in classical and modern languages and literatures, art history, philosophy, religion, and history complement and supplement courses in English.

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Meet the Department

Cormac McCarthy ... James Joyce ... Cyberpunk? Ask Bill Quillian.

Corinne Demas is the author of two novels, two collections of short stories, and numerous books for children.

Poet Robert Shaw also writes essays and books about John Donne, George Herbert, and the history and use of blank verse.

At present Shakespeare scholar Frank Brownlow is working on a new book about Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite torturer.

Lois Brown’s research and teaching focus on nineteenth-century African American and American literature and culture, abolitionist narratives, and evangelical juvenilia.

How have modern Jewish writers and makers of popular culture responded to the challenge of adjusting to America? Donald Weber knows.

Interested in women’s writing during the American Civil War or the role of Frankenstein?—that’s right, the monster—in America’s complex racial history? These are some of Elizabeth Young’s areas of interest.

Peter Berek’s recent scholarly work focuses on Shakespeare and early modern theatre, with a particular interest in representations of Jews, gender and sexuality, and the history of the book.

Where’s Christopher Benfey? In Slate, the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement.