Past Course Descriptions

ENGL 071 Introductions to Academic Writing
CRN: 37889
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
Writing Legacy: First Generation Students Revolutionizing Academia.
This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources, and they will develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. In short, his course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.

ENGL 101 Understanding Literature
CRN: 41731, 41732
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
This course will consist of two “modules”: the first will focus on poetry and prosody. Our exploration of poetry will be supplemented by critical and creative texts ranging from antiquity to the recent past. For the second module, we will turn read and study a variety of short fiction, much of which will be representative of the modernist period. The primary critical method we will employ will be the close reading. A close reading is a careful, sustained interpretation of a part, or parts, of a literary text. A close reading “emphasizes the singular and the particular over the general, effected by close attention to individual words, the syntax, the order in which the sentences unfold ideas, as well as the formal structures” of a literary work. (For more on close readings, see “close reading” on Wikipedia). As we think more about how to understand the works under discussion, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and theory of critical interpretation, such as “What constitutes a literary text?” “How do we make sense of or arrive at meaning within a text?” “How can the practice of literary criticism help us draw connections between the study of literature and other disciplines and modes of thinking?
ENGL 103 Voices in History: Poetry and Poetics in British and American Poetry
CRN: 20878, 14328
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this course we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.
This course will help you to develop skills that are particularly relevant for both the study and the appreciation of poetry (both reading it and writing about it), but also of art and literature of other forms—and it will prove useful for any academic or professional activity in which understanding someone else and expressing yourself is important.

ENGL 104 Understanding Drama
CRN: 29789
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Ibsen, Hansberry, Beckett, Brecht, Soyinka, Churchill, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.
ENGL 105 Understanding Fiction: A World Dreamt: Interpreting Liminality in Fiction
CRN: 14332, 20941
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Sibyl Gallus-Price sgallu2@uic.edu
There are perhaps few things as universal and elusive as dreams. But do our dreams mean anything? What do dreams have in common with fiction? Memory? Altered states? Waking life? How do dreaming and representing go hand in hand? Across a set of global texts, we’ll consider how dreamlike states function as part of a work’s meaning. Reading fiction from authors like Borges, Cortázar, Saer, Kafka, Maupassant, James and others we’ll look at the way literature mobilizes the mind’s liminal possibilities. In doing so, students will master key literary terms and critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. Evaluation will consist of weekly journals, short close readings, and a single analytical paper. Students are encouraged to use texts in their own dialect or language alongside translation for their final paper.

ENGL 132 Understanding Film
CRN: 46156
Days/Time: M 3:00 – 4:15/ W 3:00–5:45
Instructor: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to understanding film as a culturally, politically, and historically significant medium. We will read about and discuss the technological, aesthetic, social, and ideological aspects of (mostly) Euro-American mainstream film, from the inception of cinema to today. Our objectives will be to become attentive viewers, to track the ways that meaning is made in films, and to develop our skills in film analysis. We will also explore the formal elements of film (e.g., lighting, sound, editing, cinematography) and determine the ways that they alter meaning. While not a film history course, we will attend to the important developments of the medium and its genres over the last 125+ years. At a minimum, we will discuss one film and one reading each week.

ENGL 135 Popular Genres and Culture
CRN: 46157
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
This course will focus on stand-up comedy as a popular genre with a particularly dynamic relationship between performer and audience. In the first section we’ll examine storytelling in stand-up. In the second section we’ll shift to satirical argument. And in the final section we’ll explore joke telling. Mostly what we’ll do in this class is watch and analyze stand-up comedy with the purpose of getting up in front of the class and doing a version of all this stuff ourselves. With this purpose in mind, you’ll present three times this semester: you’ll tell a story, present a satirical argument, and tell a string of jokes. These presentations will function as public speaking practice and as exams that represent your engagement and understanding of each section. My hope is that this course will help you become more comfortable with public speaking and maybe even more artful about it too.

ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 46158
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jeffery Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Politicians and pundits regularly use the word rhetoric as a negative term for describing the empty or devious words of their opponents: “their proposals were ‘mere rhetoric,’” some might say. But rhetoric as a field of study has played a central role in educational systems around the world for thousands of years. In the fifth century BCE, Aristotle defined rhetoric practically, as a lawyer or politician might, as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” His teacher Plato, however, cast a more suspicious eye on the practitioners of rhetoric, comparing them to chefs of fine cuisine who flatter the senses with “what is most pleasant for the moment,” with little care for “what foods are best for the body.” In this course, we will approach rhetoric from both perspectives, as a practical art of persuasion – used by such inspiring speakers as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Greta Thunberg – and to excite our passions, our desires, and our sense of political community, which also has the potential to put our rational, thinking minds on hold. Readings will include selections from the history of ancient and modern rhetoric and several test cases that challenge our assumptions of what it means to be a worker, a citizen, and a member of a community. **Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Literature, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 158 English Grammar and Style
CRN: 46161
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
Is grammar a clump of rules that defines your intelligence? No freakin’ way. Is grammar a system of laws that cannot be broken? Fuggedabawtit. This class will focus on form and function but also get us to question why we care about it. In his book Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” While this seems lofty, it speaks to grammar being the most communicative tool built within language. Preference will be given to examining grammar uses as intentional choices made by authors to aid audiences in comprehending the goals of textual communication. In both individual and group contexts, students in this course will learn the structures of English grammar and analyze texts containing those functions. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to use grammatical terms and processes to better understand written communication and take with them a skill that aids in revision and reflection. So grammar is more about this: You do you, but with a bit of help.
English 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 47503 GLOBAL
Days/Time: T 12:30-1:20
Instructor: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help you as you complete the required writing for English 160. In this course, you should expect to be supported and challenged as you work to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. In this course, you will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review your English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

English 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 47504
Days/Time: R 12:30-1:20
Instructor: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help you as you complete the required writing for English 160. In this course, you should expect to be supported and challenged as you work to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. In this course, you will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review your English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 46438
Days/Time: ARR Online asynchronous
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
This online asynchronous course takes place fully online through Blackboard (uic.blackboard.com) and there are no live classes scheduled throughout the semester.
To access this course, you will log into our course site using your NetID and password. On our course site, you will find the syllabus with all activities and course material. Over the semester, our course is organized into weekly modules containing lecture videos, reading, and writing assignments and activities as we write our four major projects: the literacy narrative, rhetorical analysis, argumentative essay, and reflective essay.
Please note that this is not a self-paced course. While none of this course work will require you to be online at a particular time, we will have firm, weekly deadlines for completing activities and assignments along with two required writing center visits. In this course, you will learn genre conventions of academic writing, citing in MLA Style, and rhetorical concepts to prepare you for your university coursework and beyond. I look forward to working with you!

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 46441
Days/Time: ARR Online asynchronous
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
This online asynchronous course takes place fully online through Blackboard (uic.blackboard.com) and there are no live classes scheduled throughout the semester.
To access this course, you will log into our course site using your NetID and password. On our course site, you will find the syllabus with all activities and course material. Over the semester, our course is organized into weekly modules containing lecture videos, reading, and writing assignments and activities as we write our four major projects: the literacy narrative, rhetorical analysis, argumentative essay, and reflective essay.
Please note that this is not a self-paced course. While none of this course work will require you to be online at a particular time, we will have firm, weekly deadlines for completing activities and assignments along with two required writing center visits. In this course, you will learn genre conventions of academic writing, citing in MLA Style, and rhetorical concepts to prepare you for your university coursework and beyond. I look forward to working with you!

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Pop Music and Politics
CRN: 14367
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Pop Music and Politics
CRN: 29527
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I:Writing Across Genres
CRN: 41435
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I:Writing Across Genres
CRN: 14379
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing Across Genres
CRN: 14356
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts “Where are you going? Where have you been?”
CRN: 19835
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Sarah Primeau sprimeau@uic.edu
The title of this course is, “Where are you going? Where have you been,” but it could also be called something like “Rhetorical practices of our past, present, and future selves.” The term rhetoric may sound formal and even stuffy, but rhetoric is part of our familiar everyday experiences and also a way to study the new and possibly unfamiliar ways of writing, reading, and thinking that are expected of college students. In this class, we will discuss how we influence the people and places around us and how they influence us in turn — whether we are writing, speaking or even just existing in a particular place and time.
Studying rhetoric and rhetorical strategies in first-year writing classes has been a tradition for decades, but this class does not take a traditional approach to the study of rhetoric. At the beginning of the class, we will reflect on our own lives to examine the people and places that have influenced us. And after reading and writing about rhetoric and communication strategies from a variety of cultures, we will shift our thinking toward examining and practicing the rhetorical strategies used in academic writing and research. We will study both familiar and unfamiliar rhetorical practices; in other words, we will study “where we have been” and “where we are going” in order to learn from each other, ourselves, and texts that describe a variety of rhetorical traditions.
The course readings include examples of the kinds of writing you are being asked to do in the four major writing projects, and also articles that discuss various approaches to rhetoric or argument (e.g. indigenous rhetorics, African communicative practices, the features of academic analysis and argument.) The four major writing projects each conclude with a paper: a narrative, a rhetorical analysis, argumentative essay, and a reflection on your learning in the course. Leading up to the draft in each project, you will have several smaller assignments designed to prepare you for writing each paper, and you will also receive feedback from me and your classmates. The purpose of this class is to provide opportunities to examine and practice a variety of rhetorical strategies while honoring our past, present, and future selves.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 41136
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15 Online
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (the syllabus, weekly plans, reading, Panopto videos, assignments, etc.) on our Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the purpose of writing, audience, and context. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a specific purpose: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 26189
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal?
What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”
While the five-paragraph essay can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that it doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.
Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, writing for simplicity and concision, and finding, identifying, and working with sources. Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 27288
Days/Time: TR 2:30-3:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal?
What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”
While the five-paragraph essay can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that it doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.
Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, writing for simplicity and concision, and finding, identifying, and working with sources. Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14361
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In an increasingly globalized world and with the abundance of diverse modes of communication, what does being “literate” mean? Is it the ability to read and write? Are these abilities sufficient in the 21st century? In this course, we are going to explore what the term “literacy” entails in a rapidly developing world. This exploration will include examining the conventional view of literacy and how this view has evolved to include new literacies and multiliteracies such as information literacy, digital literacy, cultural literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and more. We will look at how literacy is conceptualized from opposing theoretical perspectives; is the construction of literacy a cognitive activity or a social practice? We will also tackle different literacy-related issues and investigate ways to overcome or mitigate these issues. Hence, using the theme ‘Literacy in the 21st Century’ and the process approach to writing, we will navigate different academic and public genres by engaging in four writing projects: (1) a literacy autobiography; (2) an extended definition essay, a digital listicle, and a cover letter; (3) a problem-solution proposal and an open letter; and (4) a reflection. The course will also involve in-class activities, oral presentations, mini reading quizzes, and shorter writing assignments to enhance your critical reading skills, build knowledge of genre conventions and the elements of the rhetorical situation, and help you prepare for the writing projects.

ENGL 160 Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14355
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45 Online
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (the syllabus, weekly plans, reading, Panopto videos, assignments, etc.) on our Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the purpose of writing, audience, and context. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a specific purpose: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 46437
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15 Online
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (the syllabus, weekly plans, reading, Panopto videos, assignments, etc.) on our Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the purpose of writing, audience, and context. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a specific purpose: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 27287
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will write about the art and social context of stand-up comedy. The first writing project is a descriptive summary where you will summarize a satirical argument by George Carlin. In addition to summarizing what the comic says, this kind of summary asks you to try and capture the mood and atmosphere of live performance by including details of delivery and audience reaction. The second writing project is a rhetorical analysis where you will analyze Joey Diaz through the lens of ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos. The point of this project is to become familiar with a specific method of analysis. The third writing project is an argumentative essay where you will make an argument about a stand-up comic of your choice. This argument will include descriptive summary and analysis as well as an additional focus on social context. The idea here is to try to persuade an audience that might likely disagree with your argument to take your argument seriously. The fourth and final writing project is a Reflection where you will make an argument about your work as a writer in this course. Your argument will include summary and analysis of the three papers that you wrote leading up to this project. And finally, in addition to the writing projects, you will participate in a presentation where you will tell a story.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 14357
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will write about the art and social context of stand-up comedy. The first writing project is a descriptive summary where you will summarize a satirical argument by George Carlin. In addition to summarizing what the comic says, this kind of summary asks you to try and capture the mood and atmosphere of live performance by including details of delivery and audience reaction. The second writing project is a rhetorical analysis where you will analyze Joey Diaz through the lens of ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos. The point of this project is to become familiar with a specific method of analysis. The third writing project is an argumentative essay where you will make an argument about a stand-up comic of your choice. This argument will include descriptive summary and analysis as well as an additional focus on social context. The idea here is to try to persuade an audience that might likely disagree with your argument to take your argument seriously. The fourth and final writing project is a Reflection where you will make an argument about your work as a writer in this course. Your argument will include summary and analysis of the three papers that you wrote leading up to this project. And finally, in addition to the writing projects, you will participate in a presentation where you will tell a story.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Who or what is college for?
CRN: 14395
Days/Time: ARR Asynchronous
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
The British writer C.S. Lewis once said that “[t]he task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” Yes, this is a really harsh analogy that implies that you, the students, are like deserts and that the job of your professor is to water you so that life can bloom in an otherwise desolate place. Many of your professors don’t think that way anymore—Lewis wrote these words almost eighty years ago—but think that you arrive in college with all the right tools already in place. Their job, then, is to foster what are commonly called your “critical thinking” skills. Who could be against that? Well, some thinkers are, and we’ll encounter one of them in a course reading this semester.
But whether you lean toward the one or the other perspective, the point of this all is to show you that even such matters as what the goal of education ought to be are in dispute and that reasonable people can disagree respectfully over them. So why not turn the question over to you—or another question broadly related to the topic of higher education—and have you develop a thoroughly researched essay on that? That’s what our entire class will be building toward in a step-by-step fashion—the academic research paper with an arguable thesis, logical construction, regular citations, and correct grammar and spelling. This being the 21st century, our class will be entirely online and asynchronous, i.e. we’ll irrigate that desert with bits and bytes as much as with books and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Who or what is college for?
CRN: 47378
Days/Time: ARR Asynchronous
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
The British writer C.S. Lewis once said that “[t]he task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” Yes, this is a really harsh analogy that implies that you, the students, are like deserts and that the job of your professor is to water you so that life can bloom in an otherwise desolate place. Many of your professors don’t think that way anymore—Lewis wrote these words almost eighty years ago—but think that you arrive in college with all the right tools already in place. Their job, then, is to foster what are commonly called your “critical thinking” skills. Who could be against that? Well, some thinkers are, and we’ll encounter one of them in a course reading this semester.
But whether you lean toward the one or the other perspective, the point of this all is to show you that even such matters as what the goal of education ought to be are in dispute and that reasonable people can disagree respectfully over them. So why not turn the question over to you—or another question broadly related to the topic of higher education—and have you develop a thoroughly researched essay on that? That’s what our entire class will be building toward in a step-by-step fashion—the academic research paper with an arguable thesis, logical construction, regular citations, and correct grammar and spelling. This being the 21st century, our class will be entirely online and asynchronous, i.e. we’ll irrigate that desert with bits and bytes as much as with books and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Who or what is college for?
CRN: 47379
Days/Time: ARR Asynchronous
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
The British writer C.S. Lewis once said that “[t]he task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” Yes, this is a really harsh analogy that implies that you, the students, are like deserts and that the job of your professor is to water you so that life can bloom in an otherwise desolate place. Many of your professors don’t think that way anymore—Lewis wrote these words almost eighty years ago—but think that you arrive in college with all the right tools already in place. Their job, then, is to foster what are commonly called your “critical thinking” skills. Who could be against that? Well, some thinkers are, and we’ll encounter one of them in a course reading this semester.
But whether you lean toward the one or the other perspective, the point of this all is to show you that even such matters as what the goal of education ought to be are in dispute and that reasonable people can disagree respectfully over them. So why not turn the question over to you—or another question broadly related to the topic of higher education—and have you develop a thoroughly researched essay on that? That’s what our entire class will be building toward in a step-by-step fashion—the academic research paper with an arguable thesis, logical construction, regular citations, and correct grammar and spelling. This being the 21st century, our class will be entirely online and asynchronous, i.e. we’ll irrigate that desert with bits and bytes as much as with books and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Academic Research & Inquiry
CRN: 21585
Days/Time: ARR Online Asynchronous
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives.
You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Academic Research & Inquiry
CRN: 26879
Days/Time: ARR Online Asynchronous
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives.
You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Academic Research & Inquiry
CRN: 26883
Days/Time: ARR Online Asynchronous
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives.
You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 42683
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45 Online synchronous
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: The End of Men and the Rise of Women?
CRN: 14427
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Adam Jones ajones72@uic.edu
English 161 is designed to provide you with the tools that you will need to engage academic inquiry. During the first half of the semester, you will complete three writing assignments in which you will learn to summarize, analyze, and synthesize class readings. In the second half of the semester, you will write a research proposal about one aspect of the course you’d like to research. You will spend the remainder of the semester turning your proposal into research assisted essay using the skills we learned in the first half of the semester.
As we do this, we will read and analyze excerpts from Hanna Rosin’s recent book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women (Riverhead, 2012), which is one among many recent texts preoccupied with how female and male gender roles are currently changing. The 1990s saw, for the first time in US history, more women attend and graduate from college than men. Since then, it has become increasingly common for men to stay at home, and for women to take up the role of primary breadwinner for their households. This has been accompanied by a shift in popular conceptions of what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a man. In this class we will examine the validity and import of these claims, as well as the economic and educational conditions underlying them. We will also investigate to what extent certain portions of the culture have remained the same. (What jobs still remain gendered? Does a rise in women earning potential mean the end of male/female income inequality, or the historic glass ceiling?) Finally, we will look at how these shifts are being discussed and debated not only by academics, but in the popular culture. In sum, this class will enable you to contextualize your own experiences within this broader debate, and thus enter what is a significant and still unresolved conversation in contemporary American culture and politics.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “Mad at School”: Mental Health and Mental Disability in the Classroom CRN: 32285
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Lauren Keeley mkeele6@uic.edu
In her book, Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life, Margaret Price studies the way that mental disability impacts the academic culture of higher education. This semester-long, student-driven research course will launch from Price’s purview to give you the opportunity to probe issues on the politics, manifestations, and ethics surrounding mental health and mental dis/ability at all levels of education. You will learn about and produce an annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, and academic research paper on a topic of your choice, given it falls under the course topic of inquiry. Subjects we will consider include: the impact on mental health of the American hyper-focus on standardized tests and grade-obsessed pedagogy, the causes and consequences of increasingly inadequate university counseling services, the politics of IEPs and accommodations for mentally disabled students, the debate over ADD/ADHD over/under-diagnosis in elementary school-aged children, and the logic of implementing “trigger warnings” in education curricula.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 42684
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 40110
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 14447
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15 Online synchronous
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 14431
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “”social justice””—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.
Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both research and revision. All semester long you will work step-by-step towards the completion of an academic research paper, and you will do so not only with my help, but also with the help of your fellow classmates. Our class will function as a collective “writing community” where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: The End of Men and the Rise of Women?
CRN: 26194
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Adam Jones ajones72@uic.edu
English 161 is designed to provide you with the tools that you will need to engage academic inquiry. During the first half of the semester, you will complete three writing assignments in which you will learn to summarize, analyze, and synthesize class readings. In the second half of the semester, you will write a research proposal about one aspect of the course you’d like to research. You will spend the remainder of the semester turning your proposal into research assisted essay using the skills we learned in the first half of the semester.
As we do this, we will read and analyze excerpts from Hanna Rosin’s recent book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women (Riverhead, 2012), which is one among many recent texts preoccupied with how female and male gender roles are currently changing. The 1990s saw, for the first time in US history, more women attend and graduate from college than men. Since then, it has become increasingly common for men to stay at home, and for women to take up the role of primary breadwinner for their households. This has been accompanied by a shift in popular conceptions of what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a man. In this class we will examine the validity and import of these claims, as well as the economic and educational conditions underlying them. We will also investigate to what extent certain portions of the culture have remained the same. (What jobs still remain gendered? Does a rise in women earning potential mean the end of male/female income inequality, or the historic glass ceiling?) Finally, we will look at how these shifts are being discussed and debated not only by academics, but in the popular culture. In sum, this class will enable you to contextualize your own experiences within this broader debate, and thus enter what is a significant and still unresolved conversation in contemporary American culture and politics.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: The End of Men and the Rise of Women?
CRN: 26193
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Adam Jones ajones72@uic.edu
English 161 is designed to provide you with the tools that you will need to engage academic inquiry. During the first half of the semester, you will complete three writing assignments in which you will learn to summarize, analyze, and synthesize class readings. In the second half of the semester, you will write a research proposal about one aspect of the course you’d like to research. You will spend the remainder of the semester turning your proposal into research assisted essay using the skills we learned in the first half of the semester.
As we do this, we will read and analyze excerpts from Hanna Rosin’s recent book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women (Riverhead, 2012), which is one among many recent texts preoccupied with how female and male gender roles are currently changing. The 1990s saw, for the first time in US history, more women attend and graduate from college than men. Since then, it has become increasingly common for men to stay at home, and for women to take up the role of primary breadwinner for their households. This has been accompanied by a shift in popular conceptions of what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a man. In this class we will examine the validity and import of these claims, as well as the economic and educational conditions underlying them. We will also investigate to what extent certain portions of the culture have remained the same. (What jobs still remain gendered? Does a rise in women earning potential mean the end of male/female income inequality, or the historic glass ceiling?) Finally, we will look at how these shifts are being discussed and debated not only by academics, but in the popular culture. In sum, this class will enable you to contextualize your own experiences within this broader debate, and thus enter what is a significant and still unresolved conversation in contemporary American culture and politics.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 29121
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “”social justice””—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.
Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both research and revision. All semester long you will work step-by-step towards the completion of an academic research paper, and you will do so not only with my help, but also with the help of your fellow classmates. Our class will function as a collective “writing community” where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 43492
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45 Online synchronous
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 22115
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 26192
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Humans, Climate Change & Endangered Species
CRN: 14434
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Daniel McGee dlmcgee2@uic.edu
Every year, more and more animal species are going extinct around the world. As climates change, animals need to adapt, whether it’s through changing migratory patterns or finding a new biome to live in. While climate change may register as a colossal antagonist of biodiversity around the world, it is not the first major event that has driven wildlife populations to the brink of extinction. For centuries, human activity has decimated wildlife through various tactics. In this class, we will investigate and track the complicated history surrounding wildlife endangerment to better understand our own relationship with the ever-changing natural world around us.
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the history of human- and climate-driven wildlife endangerment and extinction. You will read/watch several sources including popular films, commercials, research articles, books, government websites, and many others to get a holistic understanding of the effects of both human activity and climate change on wildlife populations. As you investigate wildlife endangerment in this research-central course, you will compose several writing assignments, including an annotated bibliography, research proposal, and literature review. The culmination of these writing projects will help you develop the fourth and most important writing project of this semester: the research essay. No prior information on animal science, biology, or climate studies is required.
The goal of using this wide-but-shallow content approach is to cover enough material on various causes of endangerment in different wildlife species that you will find a topic that is meaningful, which will serve as your basis when researching and composing the research essay.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Affects of Horror
CRN: 47381
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Horror as a genre is often considered escapist fiction, meant to be enjoyed to forget, or to get away from, what is bothering us in the real world. In other words, it is seen as a genre built specifically on, and for, the thrill of feeling fear, while allowing us to distance ourselves from what haunts us in everyday life. This class seeks to challenge this concept of escapist fiction and highlight how the genre can actually be a useful tool in understanding, and dealing with, a range of political and cultural issues that we encounter in everyday life, as well as the emotions that come with them. It will examine the way that horror, in its various forms, mediums, and subgenres, gives us a set of ways to contend with the emotionally charged moments in our society and in ourselves.
While looking at specific examples and types of horror, as well as academic sources discussing the genre and subgenres, you will be tasked with researching and writing a long form research paper discussing one of the many topics that come up in horror and enter the conversation of the genre that is currently happening. During the semester, the writing that you do, including the annotated bibliography, the research proposal, and the literature review, will serve as steppingstones that culminate in the research paper and the presentation of your research to the class. This is a student-driven exploration of horror, and what the genre has to offer to our current society and the individuals within it.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Media, Mythmaking, and Contemporary Culture
CRN: 14398
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: William Wells wwells3@uic.edu
This course explores the myriad ways we come to know ourselves through storytelling. Through the analysis of a diverse range of genres spanning from the “academic” (literature, theory, and philosophy) to the everyday (TV and film, online content), we will come to understand the compulsion toward meaning making in the modern world, as well as its benefits and risks.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Madness and Formalization
CRN: 41600
Days/Times: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
In this course, we will be thinking about the forms of academic writing, of course. To become familiar with and to interrogate these forms, we will be thinking through the figment of madness. The distinctions between scholarly practices and the epistemic routines of the madman are notoriously vaporous at times, but these similarities are, on further investigation, only on the surface. Their appearances may be sometimes the same, but this is only page deep. We will also be thinking through some of the academic anxieties about madness and its forms as they relate to academic texts. The crowning ideal of this section is that we might carve out a space in which to think the why of the academic forms and procedures, with a view to deciding together on our conceptual vocabulary for thinking writing over time.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Be Real: Culture, Influence, and Reality
CRN: 14465
Days/Times: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: James McKenna jmcken22@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore and expand our understandings of culture, reality, and influence specifically through the lens of pop culture, reality television, and influencers. However close or distant these subjects are to us, we will work to locate how they factor into our own worlds. By identifying our own unique intersections with these subjects, we will write with the goals in mind of better situating and defending our stakes in these continually, and spontaneously, evolving fields.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Alternative in Alt Lit
CRN: 14388
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Moriana Delgado mdelga31@uic.edu
In this course, you will learn about the Alt Lit Movement, a current that reached its literary splendor circa 2013. Characterized by style, this movement created unique nooks within the Internet. It relied on auto fiction, self-publication, internet culture, fastness, instantaneity, and drug use. Throughout a series of writing projects, and readings of Alt Lit main exponents, you will learn to understand the components of a kind of writing that profiles the self into the given forms that compose our lives online. We will ponder what it is that makes this movement “alternative,” while looking at its historical context: 9/11, the Iraq War, and the 2008 financial crisis. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Book Review, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.
ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Be Real: Culture, Influence, and Reality
CRN: 14392
Days/Times: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: James McKenna jmcken22@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore and expand our understandings of culture, reality, and influence specifically through the lens of pop culture, reality television, and influencers. However close or distant these subjects are to us, we will work to locate how they factor into our own worlds. By identifying our own unique intersections with these subjects, we will write with the goals in mind of better situating and defending our stakes in these continually, and spontaneously, evolving fields.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Madness and Formalization
CRN: 14470
Days/Times: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
In this course, we will be thinking about the forms of academic writing, of course. To become familiar with and to interrogate these forms, we will be thinking through the figment of madness. The distinctions between scholarly practices and the epistemic routines of the madman are notoriously vaporous at times, but these similarities are, on further investigation, only on the surface. Their appearances may be sometimes the same, but this is only page deep. We will also be thinking through some of the academic anxieties about madness and its forms as they relate to academic texts. The crowning ideal of this section is that we might carve out a space in which to think the why of the academic forms and procedures, with a view to deciding together on our conceptual vocabulary for thinking writing over time.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Humans, Climate Change & Endangered Species
CRN: 14386
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Daniel McGee dlmcgee2@uic.edu
Every year, more and more animal species are going extinct around the world. As climates change, animals need to adapt, whether it’s through changing migratory patterns or finding a new biome to live in. While climate change may register as a colossal antagonist of biodiversity around the world, it is not the first major event that has driven wildlife populations to the brink of extinction. For centuries, human activity has decimated wildlife through various tactics. In this class, we will investigate and track the complicated history surrounding wildlife endangerment to better understand our own relationship with the ever-changing natural world around us.
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the history of human- and climate-driven wildlife endangerment and extinction. You will read/watch several sources including popular films, commercials, research articles, books, government websites, and many others to get a holistic understanding of the effects of both human activity and climate change on wildlife populations. As you investigate wildlife endangerment in this research-central course, you will compose several writing assignments, including an annotated bibliography, research proposal, and literature review. The culmination of these writing projects will help you develop the fourth and most important writing project of this semester: the research essay. No prior information on animal science, biology, or climate studies is required.
The goal of using this wide-but-shallow content approach is to cover enough material on various causes of endangerment in different wildlife species that you will find a topic that is meaningful, which will serve as your basis when researching and composing the research essay.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: All Work and No Play: Horror and Class
CRN: 14473
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Melissa Macero mmacer2@uic.edu
How does the Horror genre represent class dynamics in our society? This is the main question that will guide our inquiries throughout the semester. In order to answer this question, we will examine both primary and secondary sources that offer us a way into this discussion. Furthermore, in order to fully understand class dynamics in our society, we will also have to examine how other societal issues, such as race, gender, and sexuality, intersect with class and how that intersection has changed over time. Our inquiry will culminate in a research paper in which each student will attempt to answer our overarching question by analyzing at least one horror text, film, video game, or television show and through that analysis enter into the scholarly conversations surrounding the Horror genre.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Affects of Horror
CRN: 47382
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Horror as a genre is often considered escapist fiction, meant to be enjoyed to forget, or to get away from, what is bothering us in the real world. In other words, it is seen as a genre built specifically on, and for, the thrill of feeling fear, while allowing us to distance ourselves from what haunts us in everyday life. This class seeks to challenge this concept of escapist fiction and highlight how the genre can actually be a useful tool in understanding, and dealing with, a range of political and cultural issues that we encounter in everyday life, as well as the emotions that come with them. It will examine the way that horror, in its various forms, mediums, and subgenres, gives us a set of ways to contend with the emotionally charged moments in our society and in ourselves.
While looking at specific examples and types of horror, as well as academic sources discussing the genre and subgenres, you will be tasked with researching and writing a long form research paper discussing one of the many topics that come up in horror and enter the conversation of the genre that is currently happening. During the semester, the writing that you do, including the annotated bibliography, the research proposal, and the literature review, will serve as steppingstones that culminate in the research paper and the presentation of your research to the class. This is a student-driven exploration of horror, and what the genre has to offer to our current society and the individuals within it.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: The Politics of Beauty: Image and Appearances
CRN: 32291
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the saying goes. But the truth is, we are inundated by images; from print and online advertising to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and whatever new social media is on the horizon, we live in a world crammed with messages about beauty and appearance. In this course, we will examine a range of texts about idealized standards of beauty and the ways they intersect with race, age, and other factors that contribute to external and internal social biases. Through this particular lens, we will explore rhetorical situations, learn what it means to take a position on a topic and investigate what makes for persuasive arguments. This course will help you develop the essential skills to better express yourselves in a variety of writing genres, improve your ability to analyze texts and other media forms as well as understand how they are constructed to impact your thoughts and opinions.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: The Politics of Beauty: Image and Appearances
CRN: 14459
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the saying goes. But the truth is, we are inundated by images; from print and online advertising to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and whatever new social media is on the horizon, we live in a world crammed with messages about beauty and appearance. In this course, we will examine a range of texts about idealized standards of beauty and the ways they intersect with race, age, and other factors that contribute to external and internal social biases. Through this particular lens, we will explore rhetorical situations, learn what it means to take a position on a topic and investigate what makes for persuasive arguments. This course will help you develop the essential skills to better express yourselves in a variety of writing genres, improve your ability to analyze texts and other media forms as well as understand how they are constructed to impact your thoughts and opinions.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Arguments in Art, Society, and Culture
CRN: 14467
Days/Times: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Rebecca Fishow rfisho2@uic.edu
This course is a dedicated, collaborative space for you to practice the art of academic research and writing. Regardless of your previous writing experience, the four writing projects, assigned readings, and class activities you will encounter in this course will help you strengthen your relationship with research and writing as modes of inquiry and communication, and help prepare you for future academic work. We will think of academic writing as the process of thinking, in addition to a form of expression. In the classroom, we will learn through full-class discussions, group activities, and individual writing projects. In the first two weeks of the course, you will choose a focused research topic that interests you, and explore it throughout the semester, by completing four writing projects (annotated bibliography, research proposal, literary review, and academic essay). Each project is designed to build from the previous one in order to take you through the full academic essay-writing process.
Our class theme is “Arguments in Art, Society, and Culture.” How should teachers grade student artwork? Should cities invest money in public art projects when there are other pressing matters at hand? Is art crucial for social change? How is technology changing the way art is created and consumed? Can art combat ableism or racism? Is makeup an art? Does artistic greatness excuse bad behavior? Is art dangerous? These are only some of the topics you might choose to research and write about in this course.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 14445
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14420
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Josie Visser jvisse2@uic.edu
In this course, we will analyze, argue, and conduct research within the overarching theme of “Dystopias.” Looking at a variety of work within the Dystopian genre, you will read and discuss materials in terms of their overall reliability, effectiveness, and quality. Some overarching questions we will discuss throughout the course include: What drives the writing and discussion of Dystopian Literature? Why and how has the genre thrived? What do the works discussed in class say about the past, present, and future of society?
Throughout the semester, you will both evaluate and write work about Dystopias in hopes of becoming better readers and writers. There are four different writing assignments throughout the semester, all of which build up to a final research paper. You will write roughly 20 pages of work total in the following forms: annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, and the final research paper. The goal of this course is to familiarize you with conducting research, analyzing sources for their reliability, synthesizing, and utilizing research to construct an argument.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Great Gatsby and Its Influence
CRN: 14474
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Denise Waite dwaite2@uic.edu
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby has become an American classic and arguably the great American novel. It has left an indelible impression on American culture, becoming synonymous with Jazz Age decadence, riotous parties, and excess. The Great Gatsby has spawned two celebrated Hollywood movies, given its name to a statistical curve, generated decades of opulent Gatsby themed parties, and several musicals are even in the works. It has inspired contemporary plays, opera, and performance art. At its heart it gives expression to the disillusionment of a generation ravaged by war and its view of the dissolution of the American Dream. But its enduring appeal speaks to the openness of the text that allows new generations to cast its dreams onto the novel and its legend. In this course you will read Fitzgerald’s highly experimental novel, The Great Gatsby, while analyzing criticism and response to this seminal work. We will discover what all this creative outpour and scholarship says about capitalism and contemporary culture. Each student will find some aspect of the text or its influence on culture to analyze in an 8–10-page research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: All Work and No Play: Horror and Class
CRN: 43494
Days/Time: MWF 11:00 – 11:50
Instructor: Melissa Macero mmacer2@uic.edu
How does the Horror genre represent class dynamics in our society? This is the main question that will guide our inquiries throughout the semester. In order to answer this question, we will examine both primary and secondary sources that offer us a way into this discussion. Furthermore, in order to fully understand class dynamics in our society, we will also have to examine how other societal issues, such as race, gender, and sexuality, intersect with class and how that intersection has changed over time. Our inquiry will culminate in a research paper in which each student will attempt to answer our overarching question by analyzing at least one horror text, film, video game, or television show and through that analysis enter the scholarly conversations surrounding the Horror genre.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: What’s The Deal with Comedy? Understanding Comedians and their Comedy Styles
CRN: 47385
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Wesley McGehee wmcgeh2@uic.edu
In this course, we will be learning and practicing the process of scholarly, academic research in English. We will be discussing stand-up comedy and styles of comedy, with the focus of the course being comedians themselves. During this course, you will be able to pick a comedian from the list provided—or one that you find on your own if you do not wish to choose any from the list—and you will create a research paper on this comedian concerning his/her/their early life, career, and comedy. We will also be studying a variety of well-known comedians during the course—most of which you will be able to choose for your research—to get you accommodated with well-known terms and definitions in comedy, as well as discussing how sources were found on these comedians, their comedy styles, and how the overall process of research was conducted. After completing this course, you will know how to conduct your own research for your future college-level assignments and work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Issues in Higher Educations
CRN: 14450
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
What are we doing here in an institution of higher education? What issues about higher education affect our class and how do our experiences of higher education vary? In our section of English 161, a writing course situated in academic inquiry, we will take up these questions through an exploration of academic research and public debate. The course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by forms of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 14457
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: All Work and No Play: Horror and Class
CRN: 14397
Days/Time: MWF 12:00 – 12:50
Instructor: Melissa Macero mmacer2@uic.edu
How does the Horror genre represent class dynamics in our society? This is the main question that will guide our inquiries throughout the semester. To answer this question, we will examine both primary and secondary sources that offer us a way into this discussion. Furthermore, to fully understand class dynamics in our society, we will also have to examine how other societal issues, such as race, gender, and sexuality, intersect with class and how that intersection has changed over time. Our inquiry will culminate in a research paper in which each student will attempt to answer our overarching question by analyzing at least one horror text, film, video game, or television show and through that analysis enter the scholarly conversations surrounding the Horror genre.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14414
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Following the Current: Rivers, How They Connect and Divide Us
CRN: 43519
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Dan Barton dbarto6@uic.edu
What is water? On the surface, this should be easy to answer; however, a simple definition would be incomplete. Water is simultaneously a biological and ecological necessity, economic input, cultural icon, mode of transportation, and so much more. Rivers embody all these traits, driving the development of cities and nations while also absorbing their histories, whether of prosperity or violence. They are impact sites of climate change and environmental degradation—issues ranging from flooding to forever chemicals that have mounting consequences for communities around the world—as well as sites of conflict. In this class, we will explore the ways rivers connect and divide us: ecologically, socially, and spatially. Using the Chicago River as a primary example among others, we will employ an environmental justice lens to examine not only the importance of rivers in the development of both rural and urban spaces, but also how politics and water influence each other, often perpetuating inequalities. We will also examine the presence of rivers in art and culture, interrogating their significance from a range of perspectives. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project culminating in a final research paper, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14404
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Climate Crisis: The Rhetoric of Emergency
CRN: 42682
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Eliza Marley emarle2@uic.edu
The course topic is Writing Climate Crisis: The rhetoric of Emergency. This class will look at different areas of climate crisis to determine how rhetoric around these issues has changed (or not changed) historically. We will examine areas of climate crisis and how they are treated by media, communities directly affected, academia, and others. What motivates people towards change? What is the role of art in this age of climate crisis? How can we make the structures of climate crisis more visible? Students will pick an aspect of climate crisis to center their research around.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: War and Peace
CRN: 44763
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
There’s only one way to become a better writer: read a lot and write a lot. And if you’re going to read a lot this term, would you rather it be something good… or something great? Great books come in all shapes and sizes but ask pretty much anyone who’s read it and they’ll tell you books don’t get much greater than WAR AND PEACE. While intimidating in page-count, the novel is captivating, engrossing, and fascinating, a magisterial, encyclopedic look at human existence during a world-shaking conflict of international powers — Imperial Russia, France under Napoleon — and the ripples that warfare sends through the whole of Russian society, all the way from the serfs to the nobility. Over the course of the term, we will read this masterwork of world literature, closely and carefully, following its interlocking plot lines, layers of themes, its dozens of unforgettable characters, its ruminations on the movement of history, its nuanced explorations of the search for meaning in an unforgiving world of random chance and fragile love. On the way, you’ll propose, conduct, and write up your own original research project, in stages, deriving from a facet of the novel of your choosing. Look, you didn’t come to UIC to be coddled. You came here to be challenged, and once you read this book, you’ll never be the same. Let’s do this.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Following the Current: Rivers, How They Connect and Divide Us
CRN: 14413
Days/Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Dan Barton dbarto6@uic.edu
What is water? On the surface, this should be easy to answer; however, a simple definition would be incomplete. Water is simultaneously a biological and ecological necessity, economic input, cultural icon, mode of transportation, and so much more. Rivers embody all these traits, driving the development of cities and nations while also absorbing their histories, whether of prosperity or violence. They are impact sites of climate change and environmental degradation—issues ranging from flooding to forever chemicals that have mounting consequences for communities around the world—as well as sites of conflict. In this class, we will explore the ways rivers connect and divide us: ecologically, socially, and spatially. Using the Chicago River as a primary example among others, we will employ an environmental justice lens to examine not only the importance of rivers in the development of both rural and urban spaces, but also how politics and water influence each other, often perpetuating inequalities. We will also examine the presence of rivers in art and culture, interrogating their significance from a range of perspectives. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project culminating in a final research paper, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Happiness
CRN: 14428
Days/Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So, what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 41601
Days/Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
This section of ENGL 161 focuses on film and society. Whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), films tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, read articles in-depth, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a research proposal, 3) a literature review, and 4) a research essay. You will choose the film and most of the sources for your semester-long research project. You will conduct research using the UIC library databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14406
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
This section of ENGL 161 focuses on film and society. Whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), films tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, read articles in-depth, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a research proposal, 3) a literature review, and 4) a research essay. You will choose the film and most of the sources for your semester-long research project. You will conduct research using the UIC library databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Following the Current: Rivers, How They Connect and Divide Us
CRN: 14381
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Dan Barton dbarto6@uic.edu
What is water? On the surface, this should be easy to answer; however, a simple definition would be incomplete. Water is simultaneously a biological and ecological necessity, economic input, cultural icon, mode of transportation, and so much more. Rivers embody all these traits, driving the development of cities and nations while also absorbing their histories, whether of prosperity or violence. They are impact sites of climate change and environmental degradation—issues ranging from flooding to forever chemicals that have mounting consequences for communities around the world—as well as sites of conflict. In this class, we will explore the ways rivers connect and divide us: ecologically, socially, and spatially. Using the Chicago River as a primary example among others, we will employ an environmental justice lens to examine not only the importance of rivers in the development of both rural and urban spaces, but also how politics and water influence each other, often perpetuating inequalities. We will also examine the presence of rivers in art and culture, interrogating their significance from a range of perspectives. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project culminating in a final research paper, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Happiness
CRN: 14438
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: War and Peace
CRN: 44769
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
There’s only one way to become a better writer: read a lot and write a lot. And if you’re going to read a lot this term, would you rather it be something good… or something great? Great books come in all shapes and sizes but ask pretty much anyone who’s read it and they’ll tell you books don’t get much greater than WAR AND PEACE. While intimidating in page-count, the novel is captivating, engrossing, and fascinating, a magisterial, encyclopedic look at human existence during a world-shaking conflict of international powers — Imperial Russia, France under Napoleon — and the ripples that warfare sends through the whole of Russian society, all the way from the serfs to the nobility. Over the course of the term, we will read this masterwork of world literature, closely and carefully, following its interlocking plot lines, layers of themes, its dozens of unforgettable characters, its ruminations on the movement of history, its nuanced explorations of the search for meaning in an unforgiving world of random chance and fragile love. On the way, you’ll propose, conduct, and write up your own original research project, in stages, deriving from a facet of the novel of your choosing. Look, you didn’t come to UIC to be coddled. You came here to be challenged, and once you read this book, you’ll never be the same. Let’s do this.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: War and Peace
CRN: 14453
Days/Time: MWF 5:00-5:50
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
There’s only one way to become a better writer: read a lot and write a lot. And if you’re going to read a lot this term, would you rather it be something good… or something great? Great books come in all shapes and sizes but ask pretty much anyone who’s read it and they’ll tell you books don’t get much greater than WAR AND PEACE. While intimidating in page-count, the novel is captivating, engrossing, and fascinating, a magisterial, encyclopedic look at human existence during a world-shaking conflict of international powers — Imperial Russia, France under Napoleon — and the ripples that warfare sends through the whole of Russian society, all the way from the serfs to the nobility. Over the course of the term, we will read this masterwork of world literature, closely and carefully, following its interlocking plot lines, layers of themes, its dozens of unforgettable characters, its ruminations on the movement of history, its nuanced explorations of the search for meaning in an unforgiving world of random chance and fragile love. On the way, you’ll propose, conduct, and write up your own original research project, in stages, deriving from a facet of the novel of your choosing. Look, you didn’t come to UIC to be coddled. You came here to be challenged, and once you read this book, you’ll never be the same. Let’s do this.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Happiness
CRN: 14400
Days/Time: MWF 5:00-5:50
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So, what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14396
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research | Public Health Writing
CRN: 42687
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Devyn Andrews dandre20@uic.edu
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how major structural weaknesses within the U.S. public health and healthcare systems fail the American public, too often with devastating consequences. In this section of ENGL 161, we will investigate pressing issues facing public health, including access to care, globalization and contagion, health inequities, noncommunicable diseases, the social determinants of health, and more. We will discuss differing conceptions of illness and wellbeing across cultural and socioeconomic lines; links between the environment, education, and health; implications of multidisciplinary policy decisions; and issues of social justice and structural violence. You will be encouraged to creatively explore your interests within this topic throughout the semester. Using our text Writing for Inquiry and Research, you will conduct academic research, build evidence-based arguments, and complete progressive writing assignments on your chosen topic. The four major writing assignments will include an Annotated Bibliography, Research Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry & Research: Show Me Your Teeth, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are.
CRN: 14401
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 14415
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15 Online
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will be a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Walk/er
CRN: 14422
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
What happens when we go for a walk or, for people who use wheelchairs, a roll? What or whom do we encounter? What if we do more than just passively move through the world? What if we find inspiration or even purpose? In this course, we will investigate these questions and others as we look at the impacts of walking in contemporary literature, art, and social issues like protests and migration. As a group and separately, we will walk. Walking will serve as the theme of the four major writing assignments required for English 161: an annotated bibliography, a literature review, a research paper proposal, and a research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good for?
CRN: 43520
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: The Revolution (Still) Comes From Within: Autofiction, Literary Analysis, and Narrative Mode
CRN: 42528
Days/Times: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Dan White dwhite44@uic.edu
Locating the boundary between fiction and nonfiction implicates questions of craft, personal history, narrative technique, and creative writing as a method of social inquiry or engagement. Another way to conceive of this question is the definition of ‘autofiction,’ a term of considerable speculation and even controversy in the current literary landscape. This course will interrogate that definition and the surrounding questions to better understand the art and purpose of narrative form. There is clearly a difference between fiction and nonfiction, but how can we define them when every piece of creative work is inherently idiosyncratic and individual? How does narrative mode, and the relationship between the what and the how of a book, enter this discussion? Why does it matter, and how does the terminology we use about a book influence the way we read it and the way it speaks to us and our lives? Through the prism of a novel by the English writer Rachel Cusk, make a sophisticated argument about the question of autofiction and its associated implications, drawing upon scholarly sources and specific textual examples to help illustrate your points. Academic research—including an annotated bibliography and traditional scholarly paper—will provide the nexus between critical thought surrounding autofiction and your own literary textual analysis. The use of the novel should be seen as an aid to your task, giving you a plethora of examples to show how your definitions of fiction, nonfiction, and autofiction occur in writing. Ultimately, we will risk a definition, or at least a reduction in mystery, around the boundary of fiction vs nonfiction.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: The Revolution (Still) Comes From Within: Autofiction, Literary Analysis, and Narrative Mode
CRN: 14463
Days/Times: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Dan White dwhite44@uic.edu
Locating the boundary between fiction and nonfiction implicates questions of craft, personal history, narrative technique, and creative writing as a method of social inquiry or engagement. Another way to conceive of this question is the definition of ‘autofiction,’ a term of considerable speculation and even controversy in the current literary landscape. This course will interrogate that definition and the surrounding questions to better understand the art and purpose of narrative form. There is clearly a difference between fiction and nonfiction, but how can we define them when every piece of creative work is inherently idiosyncratic and individual? How does narrative mode, and the relationship between the what and the how of a book, enter this discussion? Why does it matter, and how does the terminology we use about a book influence the way we read it and the way it speaks to us and our lives? Through the prism of a novel by the English writer Rachel Cusk, make a sophisticated argument about the question of autofiction and its associated implications, drawing upon scholarly sources and specific textual examples to help illustrate your points. Academic research—including an annotated bibliography and traditional scholarly paper—will provide the nexus between critical thought surrounding autofiction and your own literary textual analysis. The use of the novel should be seen as an aid to your task, giving you a plethora of examples to show how your definitions of fiction, nonfiction, and autofiction occur in writing. Ultimately, we will risk a definition, or at least a reduction in mystery, around the boundary of fiction vs nonfiction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14409
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good for?
CRN: 26882
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry & Research: “Show Me Your Teeth, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are.
CRN: 42686
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14471
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine the concepts of Crime through the lens of students’ individual academic majors. This is designed to not only define the terms “crime” and “punishment”, but how these definitions shift over time and between social groups. Students will be afforded opportunities to examine these shifting definitions and apply them to research focused around their own academic disciplines. Working with research methods that encourage personal and academic exploration, we will discover and elaborate on the cultural relevance of these definitions as they apply to the ethics, motives, and individual behaviors. We will examine modes of presentation (text, film, comic) that engage us with these cultural concepts and allow for students to discover research topics that will benefit both critical writing and reading skills as their college careers progress.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14443
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine the concepts of Crime through the lens of students’ individual academic majors. This is designed to not only define the terms “crime” and “punishment”, but how these definitions shift over time and between social groups. Students will be afforded opportunities to examine these shifting definitions and apply them to research focused around their own academic disciplines. Working with research methods that encourage personal and academic exploration, we will discover and elaborate on the cultural relevance of these definitions as they apply to the ethics, motives, and individual behaviors. We will examine modes of presentation (text, film, comic) that engage us with these cultural concepts and allow for students to discover research topics that will benefit both critical writing and reading skills as their college careers progress.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 14442
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15 Online
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will be a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Walk/er
CRN: 41131
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
What happens when we go for a walk or, for people who use wheelchairs, a roll? What or whom do we encounter? What if we do more than just passively move through the world? What if we find inspiration or even purpose? In this course, we will investigate these questions and others as we look at the impacts of walking in contemporary literature, art, and social issues like protests and migration. As a group and separately, we will walk. Walking will serve as the theme of the four major writing assignments required for English 161: an annotated bibliography, a literature review, a research paper proposal, and a research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing about the relationship between Gender/Sexuality and Film/Television
CRN: 14451
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these and other readings, and using this information we will develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing About the Intersection of Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 14394
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Louise Bourgeois, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry & Research: “Show Me Your Teeth, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are
CRN: 14389
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32293
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and industries and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will inquire into and examine the impact of American corporations and industries on the government, economy, environment, our mental/physical health, the justice system, and more. We will also look closely at how corporate branding, advertising, and social media shape and impact perceptions of beauty, success, health, race, gender, justice, etc. These and other such inquiries will inform your own research endeavors. Over the course of the semester, you will learn about and put into practice the necessary elements of a sound, evidence-based argument with the aim of constructing a thorough, properly documented, and well-crafted argumentative research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Toward a Queerer Nation
CRN: 14382
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Asexual, Intersex, Plus (LGBTQ+) Civil Rights Movement is a contentious development in the United States, teeming with social support & criticism, economic theories, sociological studies, and legal proceedings. In this writing course, you will enter contemporary discussions about some of the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ populations. Over the course of several writing projects, you will develop your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. As you focus your inquiry into a specific issue, you will immerse yourself into contemporary queer literature. Throughout the semester, you are invited to critically examine and actively participate in the discourse surrounding the LGBTQ+ communities.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness, and Medicine
CRN: 14472
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data? At the heart of this opposition between medicine and the humanities is the view that the body and the mind exist as separate entities and must be treated accordingly.
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding the incorporation of the humanities into a medical context. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course, you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENG 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy
CRN: 14435
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
The human capacity for empathy—or the ability to feel and understand another person’s emotions—has long been considered a defining characteristic of the human race. Many have argued that it is what defines our humanity, and what separates good people from bad people.
Recent research, however, has cautioned that our abilities to recognize and understand other people’s emotions are deeply flawed, and that using empathy to make decisions has and will lead to systemic societal problems.
This class will explore, then, the human capacity for empathy—it’s strengths, weaknesses, benefits and shortcomings. As this is a writing course as well, we will also learn how to articulate your thoughts about empathy in a variety of academic and public genres, how to do effective research, and think critically about the rhetorical considerations a writer needs to make when communicating about a broad, interdisciplinary topic.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research (Prison Reform)
CRN: 32289
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
This class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections between contemporary prison reform movements and politics, including content found on the following websites: The Marshall Project (news outlet), The Sentencing Project (no political affiliation), Right on Crime (conservative), and Critical Resistance (progressive). You will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, you will write and revise several drafts before you submit work for a grade. The emphasis, here, is on the process of writing; it paves the way to clear thinking. We will experiment with Artificial Intelligence at different stages of our writing. Our open-source text, Writing for Inquiry and Research, explains how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources and facts, construct a thesis, test the thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research (Prison Reform)
CRN: 26881
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
This class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections between contemporary prison reform movements and politics, including content found on the following websites: The Marshall Project (news outlet), The Sentencing Project (no political affiliation), Right on Crime (conservative), and Critical Resistance (progressive). You will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, you will write and revise several drafts before you submit work for a grade. The emphasis, here, is on the process of writing; it paves the way to clear thinking. We will experiment with Artificial Intelligence at different stages of our writing. Our open-source text, Writing for Inquiry and Research, explains how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources and facts, construct a thesis, test the thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness, and Medicine
CRN: 42529
Days/Time: TR 2:00- 3:15
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data? At the heart of this opposition between medicine and the humanities is the view that the body and the mind exist as separate entities and must be treated accordingly.
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding the incorporation of the humanities into a medical context. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course, you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Walk/er
CRN: 22116
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
What happens when we go for a walk or, for people who use wheelchairs, a roll? What or whom do we encounter? What if we do more than just passively move through the world? What if we find inspiration or even purpose? In this course, we will investigate these questions and others as we look at the impacts of walking in contemporary literature, art, and social issues like protests and migration. As a group and separately, we will walk. Walking will serve as the theme of the four major writing assignments required for English 161: an annotated bibliography, a literature review, a research paper proposal, and a research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing about the relationship between Gender/Sexuality and Film/Television
CRN: 14390
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these and other readings, and using this information we will develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good for?
CRN: 14464
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 32292
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing About the Intersection of Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 29119
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Louise Bourgeois, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14446
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 32287
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15 Online
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will be a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14444
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and industries and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will inquire into and examine the impact of American corporations and industries on the government, economy, environment, our mental/physical health, the justice system, and more. We will also look closely at how corporate branding, advertising, and social media shape and impact perceptions of beauty, success, health, race, gender, justice, etc. These and other such inquiries will inform your own research endeavors. Over the course of the semester, you will learn about and put into practice the necessary elements of a sound, evidence-based argument with the aim of constructing a thorough, properly documented, and well-crafted argumentative research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Toward a Queerer Nation
CRN: 14458
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Asexual, Intersex, Plus (LGBTQ+) Civil Rights Movement is a contentious development in the United States, teeming with social support & criticism, economic theories, sociological studies, and legal proceedings. In this writing course, you will enter contemporary discussions about some of the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ populations. Over the course of several writing projects, you will develop your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. As you focus your inquiry into a specific issue, you will immerse yourself into contemporary queer literature. Throughout the semester, you are invited to critically examine and actively participate in the discourse surrounding the LGBTQ+ communities.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: What is Culture? Criticism, Circulation, Commodification
CRN: 32295
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.edu
In his 1976 book, Keywords, literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams calls culture “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” Throughout this course, we will explore the stakes of such an assertion. We will attempt to address the following questions, among others: What is culture? What differentiates historical phases of cultural production? What are the genres of cultural criticism? What is the relation between cultural production and the economy? In doing so, we will, following Williams, attempt to understand culture through “the central question of the relations between ‘material’ and ‘symbolic’ production.” We will engage with a variety of cultural objects, across the literary and visual arts. Additionally, we will read cultural criticism and try to untangle its contemporary contradictions and iterations—across emergent genres. Ultimately, our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will provide the foundation for the four writing projects required in English 161, culminating in a research paper on a topic of your choosing based on our course theme. The skills you will learn and practice in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness, and Medicine
CRN: 14468
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data? At the heart of this opposition between medicine and the humanities is the view that the body and the mind exist as separate entities and must be treated accordingly.
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding the incorporation of the humanities into a medical context. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course, you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing about the relationship between Gender/Sexuality and Film/Television
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: What is Culture? Criticism, Circulation, Commodification
CRN: 14425
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.edu
In his 1976 book, Keywords, literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams calls culture “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” Throughout this course, we will explore the stakes of such an assertion. We will attempt to address the following questions, among others: What is culture? What differentiates historical phases of cultural production? What are the genres of cultural criticism? What is the relation between cultural production and the economy? In doing so, we will, following Williams, attempt to understand culture through “the central question of the relations between ‘material’ and ‘symbolic’ production.” We will engage with a variety of cultural objects, across the literary and visual arts. Additionally, we will read cultural criticism and try to untangle its contemporary contradictions and iterations—across emergent genres. Ultimately, our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will lead to four writing projects required in English 161, culminating in a research paper on a topic of your choosing based on our course theme. The skills you will learn and practice in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14460
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: What is Culture? Criticism, Circulation, Commodification
CRN: 14418
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.edu
In his 1976 book, Keywords, literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams calls culture “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” Throughout this course, we will explore the stakes of such an assertion. We will attempt to address the following questions, among others: What is culture? What differentiates historical phases of cultural production? What are the genres of cultural criticism? What is the relation between cultural production and the economy? In doing so, we will, following Williams, attempt to understand culture through “the central question of the relations between ‘material’ and ‘symbolic’ production.” We will engage with a variety of cultural objects, across the literary and visual arts. Additionally, we will read cultural criticism and try to untangle its contemporary contradictions and iterations—across emergent genres. Ultimately, our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will provide the foundation for the four writing projects required in English 161, culminating in a research paper on a topic of your choosing based on our course theme. The skills you will learn and practice in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing About the Intersection of Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 14437
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Louise Bourgeois, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Bleep That: Censorship in Contemporary American Society
CRN: 29120
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Brennan Lawler blawle3@uic.edu
The concept of “censorship” is often constructed as a problem of bygone eras and backwards political regimes – a supposed casualty of America’s steady march toward liberal progress and ever-increasing freedoms. In this course, we will examine the history of American censorship, from the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts to Tumblr’s 2018 ban on adult content, to unwind the ways in which censorship continues to function in American culture today.
Over the course of the semester, we will examine the ways in which censorship and the concept of free speech have evolved over time, eventually taking up specific issues of censorship in the realms of television and film, music, literature, and the Internet. As the major assignment in the course, you will conduct your own original research in relation to the course theme, writing an 8–10-page researched argument based on a specific censorship-related issue of your choosing.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46009, 46163
Days/Time: MW 3:00–4:15
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to how people, often literary scholars, and critics, analyze and interpret literature and other creative works using different approaches. In this class, we will become familiar with some of those approaches by reading works of literature and criticism and experimenting with them ourselves. Throughout the semester, we will use different methods of critical analysis as lenses or frameworks for evaluating narratives and the choices authors make in the process of creating them. We will consider the strategies that scholars use to agree and disagree with each other as they engage in conversation about texts and about their work more generally. Although the course will focus on new and evolving theories that shape much of scholarly conversation in the twenty-first century, we will also pay attention to the history of literary criticism. Since conversation is a vital part of literary discourse, everyone should be ready to engage in discussion of the assigned readings for each session.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46613, 46168
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizon Palomera earrizon@uic.edu

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 46583
Days/Time: MW 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Mark Canuel mcanuel@uic.edu
This course surveys literature in English by authors from the enlightenment to the present. Beginning the course with Augustans in Britain, we focus on literary works as imaginative resources for exploring personal development and political communities. From great chains of being to dreams of imperial conquest and decay, our travels through literary works will track the changing face of literary English as a global phenomenon. We will account for the history of English as a British national literature and as an ever-mutating literature of colonial expansion, revolution, and resistance. Along the way, we’ll emphasize skills of both close and distant reading, focusing on formal characteristics of poetry and fiction, while expanding our view to contextualize literary writing within ages of revolutionary change. Topics to be considered will include Britain’s actual and imagined connections with different peoples, regions, nations, and empires; the connection between literary imagination and constructions of national and imperial spaces; and the interactions between literary genres and political affiliations, constructions, and constitutions. Works that we will study will include Alexander Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Jane Austen’s _Pride and Prejudice_, and poems by Walt Whitman and Derek Walcott. Lecture classes on Monday/Wednesday are followed by a required discussion section on Friday. Requirements include regular attendance, 2 essays, occasional other assignments or quizzes, mid-term, and final examinations.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare: The Raw and the Cooked
CRN: 46628, 46497
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50 AM
Instructor: Jeffrey Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Subtitled “The Raw and the Cooked,” this course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies and tragedies from the height of his career. We will juxtapose the early slapstick humor of The Taming of the Shrew with Twelfth Night’s gender-bending plot twists to understand better different kinds of comedy and different forms of social negotiation. Although T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” recent scholarship on gender, race, and trauma challenges us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge. “To be or not to be” will certainly be one of the questions when we turn to the author’s tragic masterpiece Hamlet – written a decade after Titus – but so will be the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to be the avenging warrior that his father was. These pairs will help us to understand different approaches to storytelling during the years that Shakespeare was most devoted to experimentation and refining his craft.
ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 46629, 46498
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Gary Buslik gbusli1@uic.edu
Shakespeare is fun! This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We’ll read a lively biography about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We’ll read and discuss plays and sonnets. We’ll also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We’ll have a great time learning a lot about the most famous writer who ever lived!

ENGL 223 The Literature of Decolonization: A Global Perspective
CRN: 46499
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Sunil Agnani sagnani1@uic.edu
Dive into the multifaceted realm of postcolonial literature through an exploration of the literary narratives emerging from the shadows of imperial dominance. This course delves into the rich tapestry of 20th-century writings from regions affected by European colonialism, through a spectrum of fiction, essays, and cinematic expressions that mirror the colonial period and its aftermath.
We begin with works by key European authors—Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling—then shift to those in the colonies to examine the cultural impact of empire, anti-colonial nationalism (Gandhi, Frantz Fanon, Aime Césaire), and the role played by exile and diaspora communities. What challenges do works from writers on the receiving end of empire—such as Assia Djebar, J.M. Coetzee, Michael Ondaatje, and Salman Rushdie—pose to the conventional idea of justice? How do they reveal contradictions within the languages of liberalism and progress that emerged in 19th-century Europe? How do such writers rework the classic forms of the novel? Finally, how does the Black Atlantic shade into the Indian Ocean, with the abolition of slavery and the rise of indentureship in the 1830s? We will read Amitav Ghosh to find out.

ENGL 230 Film and Culture: Science Fiction and Society in the twentieth century
CRN: 46500
Days/Time: T 3:30-4:45/ R 3:30 -6:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Film and its visual media outgrowths (such as television series, cable and now YouTube and TikTok) have become an integral part of daily modern life. And these films are fascinating to study as they can not only reflect culture but can also help propel cultural change. Films and related media are the form we use for much of our modern storytelling that perpetuates and shifts our cultural history and myths. Science fiction is interesting in this way, as it envisions and fictionalizes a future, while actually examining and commenting on the present. We will begin my viewing a pair of films from the early twentieth century, Metropolis and Things to Come, in order to ground ourselves in some media and cultural theory. We will then continue watching and examining other populist science fiction films from the 20th century (with one or two possible exceptions) as cultural artifacts that reflect the historical moment, deep-seated social beliefs, and whose analysis may ultimately help us better understand the world we currently live in. Requirements for the class include weekly film responses, a group project analyzing a set of films, as well as a take-home midterm and final. After this class, viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels: Comics and Cognitive Literary Theory
CRN: 46172
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
In 2013, a pair of social researchers from the New School made the astonishing claim that reading improved a person’s ability to empathize. The researchers found that fiction that focuses on the characters interiority—emotions and states of mind—gave readers the space to practice Theory of Mind, or the capacity to recognize the mental states of people around us, a cognitive ability tied to our empathy. This course will test that hypothesis with comics. We will read and discuss a variety of what might be called “literary” comics in a different genres and formats. We will explore how reading impacts our brain, if our ability to understand the emotional and mental states of others in the real world improves, and the way language limits and complicates this very exploration.
ENGL 245 Being and Becoming LGBTQ+ in 20th century American Literature
CRN: 46174
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Jared OConnor joconn28@uic.edu
In this course, we will read a wide selection of LGBTQ+ texts from 20th century America. We will explore the development of LGBTQ+ representation by engaging several intersectional voices integral to (and often forgotten in) the American literary canon. To develop a deeper understanding of LGBTQ+ literary contributions to the American canon, we will read across genres, including theatre, poetry, and novels. In our focus on LGTBQ+ subjects and their representation through a variety of literary genres, we will attempt to unravel the complex social, cultural, aesthetic, and political realities of the LGBTQ+ community in 20th century America.
ENGL 247 Women and Literature: Chicana Literature
CRN: 46178
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizon Palomera earrizon@uic.edu
This course is an introductory survey of Chicana literature. Students will read a variety of texts such as novels, memoirs, short stories, poetry, plays and films by Chicana writers. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and discuss key concepts and major themes in Chicana literature, examine Chicana literature with attention to aesthetic movements, cultural traditions, and historical context, and determine Chicana literature’s contribution to the development of Chicana Feminist Thought.

ENGL 251 Literature and Environment
CRN: 47358
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jay Yencich jyenci2@uic.edu
When speaking of environmental advocates, the portrait in our minds is often of an upper-middle class male defending his right to access mountains, forests, or lakes, an image which has changed little since the Romantic poets were tromping around England’s Lake District or Thoreau camped out at Walden Pond. However, environmentalist literature was not something “invented” in the 19th century, nor is it predominantly a concern of the white or wealthy, nor is it preoccupied with questions of access alone. There are deeper historical origins to the movement, along with diverse representatives speaking up on behalf of a wide range of ecosystems, a complexity one should expect when talking about a system as intricate as nature! While we will be engaging with works written in English or in translation, this course aims to take a broader account of how and why literature reflects the environment using a variety of forms / media, perspectives, and styles.

ENGL 264 Introduction to Native American Literature
CRN: 46180
Days/Time: MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Still here today” is a phrase meant to remind people that Native American communities and cultures are all around us. Too often the study of these literatures is treated as a historical exercise in analyzing creation myths and trickster tales. Although we will read some of these older stories, the texts we will focus most of our attention on are those building upon earlier traditions and showing readers how Native American culture is experienced and expressed in more modern times. Readings for this class will include some criticism to guide us in our analysis such as Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, which will serve as our main text for this purpose. Fiction readings will include works by authors such as Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Tommy Orange, and Joy Harjo. We will also watch episodes of the FX streaming series Reservation Dogs. Assignments will involve a research paper focused on a specific Native American narrative technique and a short biography of a Native American author. You will also be asked to complete in-class writing assignments that we will use to guide class discussions on the assigned readings.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46187
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Jeffrey C. Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and digital media. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46185
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and digital media. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 46587, 46189
Days/Time: W 9:30 – 10:45
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels.
The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.
Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in
other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 46193
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15 Synchronous
Instructor: Eni Vaghy evaghy2@uic.edu
It was Percy Bysshe Shelley who defined poetry as the thing that “…lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” Shelley’s description of crafting poems endows a writer with something akin to a magical power, awarding them with the ability to perceive experiences, objects, and people in a more thorough, experimental, and vibrant manner. This remarkable way of looking at and responding to the world will carry us through the course as we analyze approaches to description, imagery, voice/tone, form, the stanza, etc. and implement these techniques in our own work and critically assess them in brief reflection essays. As our course will be following the workshop format, you will be given the opportunity to share your poems and thoughts on poetry with your peers and hear theirs in return. By this, you will be given the precious opportunity to form a community of emerging writers committed to the strengthening of their interests in the literary arts and the facilitation of each other’s work.\

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 46194
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
The oldest extant written poems with a named author are by Sumerian poet Enheduanna who lived and died four millennia ago. Since Enheduanna’s era, written poetry has gone through staggering changes, yet it always spirals back to its main sources: voice, body, and community. In this course, students will study individual poems and single-author collections published online and in print, and they will draft, revise, and polish their own poems, giving each other feedback throughout the process. Making poems is also a form of play, and students will get to partially erase or chop up other texts and remix them, accompany words with images, sound, and/or movement, and they’ll go for walks in order to draw inspiration from the outdoors.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction. The “Many Hats” model: the critic and the creative.
CRN: 46197
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Andrew Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
As fiction writers, we get used to the wardrobe changes. We wear many hats. We write. Then we edit. We read, then we rewrite. We develop our critical voice. Then we learn to quiet the critic so we can write in peace.
Just as an actor watches a movie with an eye to how a given performer delivers a line, for a writer, reading is every bit as technical as the reading you might do in a literature class. But a writer isn’t just the actor; a writer is also the director, cinematographer, camera operator, set designer, dialogue coach, and, well, the writer.
Each of these hats helps to dramatize your story. To turn them into skills that you can use in your fiction, the first half of this course will help develop your critical reading skills. You go from reading only for pleasure or for literary analysis to being a reader who also reads for technique, who reads to measure the effect of the writing on another reader, who reads with the goal of beginning or improving your own creative fiction writing. As such, even if you don’t see yourself as a fiction writer, in 291 you’ll learn more about how fiction works by trying your hand at it. In the first half of the course, you’ll read a few short stories and novel excerpts a week and then write a page or two of your own fiction in imitation of these.
In the second half of the course, each of you will use your newfound skills to write two of your own stories and workshop them with your classmates.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 46195
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Rebecca Fishow rfisho2@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. We will study the fundamentals of literary storytelling, with a particular emphasis on the mechanics of characterization, point of view, plot, theme, and other elements of literary craft. During the first half of the semester, you will read and discuss short stories by established authors. Rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, we will be learning to “read like writers,” with a goal of gleaning insight into how stories work from the ground up, and how the “moving parts” of fiction form something complete and meaningful. In addition to these readings, you will participate in craft lectures and explore in-class creative writing activities. This analytical and imaginative work will transition into an in-person workshop in the second half of the semester. You will submit two original short stories to your peers, who will provide you with substantive feedback and constructive criticism to help you further refine your writing. You will be expected to provide thoughtful commentary on your peers’ work, just as they do for your work.
ENGL 316 British Romantic Literature: Romantic Nature
CRN: 35392
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Mark Canuel mcanuel@uic.edu
Romantic writers are perhaps best known for their interest in nature: they wrote poems and novels that continue to thrill us with their vivid representations of sublime mountains or winding rivers recollected in tranquility. In our own age of visible climate change and increasingly politicized focus on the environment, Romantic nature seems as relevant as ever, even if often misunderstood. What was the Romantic interest in nature really about? In this course, we examine the multiple facets of “nature” in the literature of the 1770s to the early 1820s, beginning with influential scientific writing on the natural world; we follow this with an exploration of the connections that arose among the fields of science, politics, religion, and literature. From Anna Barbauld’s meditations on cosmic structures to Victor Frankenstein’s ambitions for eliminating diseases and defects in human bodies, our studies will focus on literature as a creative arena for exploring the natural world and its interactions with human imagination and construction. Both the value of natural environments, and controversial opinions that swirl around them, were as alive in the Romantic age as they are today. Requirements: attendance, short quizzes, or other exercises, 2 short papers, one research paper, midterm, and final examinations.

ENGL 331 Studies in the Moving Image: Film Noir
CRN: 4672 3
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
The fast-talking, morally ambiguous detective. The seductive femme fatale, or dangerous woman. Dark and rainy city streets. Plot twists and betrayals. Cigarette smoke and deep shadows. These are some of the familiar tropes of film noir, a cycle of Hollywood crime films made in the 1940s and 1950s that continues to fascinate viewers, engage scholars, and influence filmmakers. In this course, we will examine the origins of film noir, its evolution, and its intersections with other genres and movements. We will explore the formal aspects of film noir, including its distinctive mise-en-scene and story-telling techniques, and analyze its representations of gender, sexuality, and race. Assigned films include representative film noir from the classical period (The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past), more recent interpretations or “neo-noir” films (Chinatown, Devil in a Blue Dress), and noir hybrids (Mildred Pierce, Blade Runner). Students will read key texts, participate in class discussion, and complete frequent writing assignments.

ENGL 350 Disability Studies
CRN: 46990
Days/Time: W 3:00-5:30
Instructor: Lennard Davis lendavis@uic.edu
The aim of this class is read and comprehend disability and Deafness and their application to literature, film, and other media. We will understand the social model of disability and its limitations. We will look at issues around identity, gender, race, class, sexuality, and representation.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 38558
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 42600
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 383 Writing Digital and New Media
CRN: 39948
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10-45
Instructor: Philip Hayek
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.” Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop. You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. When you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources, and I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of digital media.

ENGL 383 Writing Digital and New Media
CRN: 38535
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Philip Hayek
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.” Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop. You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. When you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources, and I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of digital media.

ENGL 384 technical Writing
CRN: 43679
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 388 Writing For the Health Professions: From Madness to Mental Health
CRN: 46602
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Kim O’Neil kimoneil@uic.edu
This is a course designed for pre-health profession students, psychology students, English students and all students interested in the field of health humanities as ways of investigating how structural racism, social inequities, and medical biases perpetuate health disparities, and the different ways writing can advocate for health justice.
In this course we will ask who decides how mental illnesses are narrated–diagnosed, attributed, and treated? How have gender, race, class, ability, and sexual orientation affected the treatment and experiences of people deemed “mad”? To answer these questions, we will look backward to the history of psychiatric discourse from degeneracy to hysteria, shell shock to paraphilia, and protest psychosis. We will consider how theoretical lenses from fields such as disability studies, medical anthropology, and public health can help us think in complex ways about the root causes of mental health inequity. We will “read as writers” texts ranging from patient narratives, memoirs, and journalism to creative non-fiction to consider how the formal and rhetorical choices across these genres can inform our own writing about these topics.

ENGL 435 Images of Asia in American Culture
CRN: 46866 UG , 46867 GRAD
Days/Time: R 3:30-6:00
Instructor: Mark Chiang mchiang@uic.edu
This course will trace discourses and representations of Asia in American culture from the colonial period to the 20th century, including art, material objects, cultural practices, literature, film, and music. We will examine the purposes, functions, contradictions, and consequences of Asia and Asians in the American racial imaginary, beginning with the commercial trade with Asia in the early history of the Americas, the arrival of Chinese in the US and the development of the anti-Chinese movement in the 19th century, the period of Asian exclusion, World War II, the postwar occupation of Japan and the Cold War, and ending with the rise of Japan and the “Asian economic miracle” of the 1970s and 1980s. The course will explore questions of race, gender, sexuality, labor, immigration, capitalism, imperialism, eugenics, and the family, among others. Texts for the class will include anti-Chinese plays, the various permutations of Madame Butterfly, writers such as Jack London, Lothrop Stoddard, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sui Sin Far, and Don Delillo, and such films as Piccadilly, Sayonara, Flower Drum Song, Lawrence of Arabia, and Rising Sun.

ENGL 446 Afro pessimism: A Critical Overview
CRN: 24820, 24821
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke ac57@uic.edu
Afro pessimism is a provocative and increasingly influential current of black critical theory that reassesses and contests the theoretical investments that have dominated cultural studies over the last generation. Identified principally with the work of Frank Wilderson and Jarod Sexton, Afro pessimism proposes a “different conceptual framework,” one that dispenses with the “theoretical aphasia” it argues marks cultural studies and that informs the latter’s inability to genuinely consider the question of power. The aim of this course is to interrogate the theoretical assumptions on which these claims rest and situate Afro pessimism in relation to other important currents in black critical theory. Along with the work of Wilderson and Sexton, we will be reading Saidiya Hartman, Katherine McKittrick, Fred Moten, Kevin Quashie, and the recent work of Christina Sharpe, amongst others.
ENGL 454 Rhetoric: Rhetoric, Technology, Metaphysics
CRN: 46995 UG, 46996 GRAD
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Robin Reames rreames@uic.edu
Technology—including social media and AI—is by turns critiqued and praised. Critics blame technology and social media for the destruction of civil society, democracy, discourse, and thought. Advocates, by contrast, laud it as the herald of a utopian age of meta-intelligence and super-consciousness, or what Google’s Ray Kurzweil has named “the singularity.” This course explores these critiques and commendations by placing them within their context in the history of ideas. We will examine how technology’s opponents and proponents alike implicitly engage in the foundational questions of rhetoric and metaphysics. How does faith in a future technological singularity re-envision the West’s metaphysical search for pure Being? How does the suspicion of technology reiterate the critique of literate and rhetorical technologies that arise at the very beginning of the rhetorical tradition with the “literate revolution” in Greece? And how do both attempt to define—both with and against the history of rhetoric and metaphysics—an ideal notion of what it means to be human? And what, if anything, is the difference between a techne, a technique, and a technology? We approach these and other questions from the present day, where our own “technographic revolution” transforms how we communicate, think, and live.
To pursue these lines of inquiry, we turn to a range of authors: Hannah Arendt, Ted Chiang, Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Marshall McCluhan, Alondra Nelson, and Walter Ong, as well as ancient thinkers Plato, Heraclitus, and Parmenides. Students will gain a solid understanding of the intellectual origins of critical perspectives of technology in the history of ideas, as well as a foundational understanding of rhetoric and metaphysics.

ENGL 466 Topics in Multiethnic American Literature: Racial Capitalism: Money, Magic and Anti-modernity
CRN: 46997 UG, 46998 GRAD
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Mark Chiang mchiang@uic.edu
Following the groundbreaking work of Cedric Robinson, theorists of racial capitalism have proposed radical revisions of Marxist theory, opening up new questions regarding the racial dynamics of capitalism and what constitutes the capitalist economy. This expanding body of work intersects with revisionist accounts of economic activity deriving from fields such as anthropology, sociology, and history, among others. This class will examine questions of value across its various transformations, from material, to symbolic, to moral, to aesthetic, in literary texts spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. Rather than conceiving of race, gender, and sexuality as issues that must be articulated to an autonomous and self-governing capitalist economy, we will explore how struggles around those issues are simultaneously social, cultural, and economic, both internal and external to capitalism itself. Texts for the class will include Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Bulosan, The Laughter of My Father: Kingston, The Woman Warrior; Reed, Mumbo Jumbo; Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek; Doctorow, Ragtime; Lee, Native Speaker; and Yamashita, Tropic of Orange.

ENGL 487 Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 46220 UG, 46282 GRAD
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Abby Kindelsperger akinde4@uic.edu
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for diverse learners and English language learners. Major assignments include lesson plans, discussion leadership, and a teaching demonstration.
Field work required.

ENGL 488 Methods of Teaching English
CRN: 47113, 47114
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 488 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. Although this course is for both undergraduate and graduate students, B.A. students should register for CRN 47113, and M.A. students should register for CRN 47114. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long- and short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 488 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design

ENGL 492 Advanced Writing of Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 14549, 19262
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This is an advanced creative nonfiction course for students who have taken Engl. 201 or the equivalent. Students will continue to develop the techniques of writing creative nonfiction, including assimilating features of fiction and poetry, experimenting with voice, structure, style, creative integration of research, and revision. Student work will focus on three subgenres of creative nonfiction: personal essay, nature writing, and literary journalism. Published essays will provide models of technique and form for students’ own work. This class will be primarily run as a workshop: students will both receive and contribute constructive feedback on their own and their peers’ essay drafts. Students will be expected to write three essays, as well as brief but thorough critiques of their fellow writers’ essays. Tips on submitting creative nonfiction work for publication will be discussed toward end of semester.

ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 26976, 26977
Days/Time: R 3:30-4:45 Hybrid
Instructor: Linda Landis Andrews Landrews@uic.edu
What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites, social media, and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people, and their skills are needed.
Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.
In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship.
Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest. Many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. During the pandemic, one intern worked for an organization in Denver, and another worked from home in Ho Chi Minh City.
First, register for ENGL 280, Media and Professional Writing, to launch your writing career. Procrastination is not advised.
Credit is variable: three or six credits
Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.
Come, jump in- you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

ENGL 496 Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 41077
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations. In order to prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education in order to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.
This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as a young professionals well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 380, 382, 383, 384.
Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.

ENGL 498 Student Teaching with Seminar
CRN: 36162
Days/Time: ARR Online
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete lessons and units they are responsible for designing, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 498 Student Teaching with Seminar
CRN: 14554
Days/Time: ARR ONLINE
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the lessons and units they’re preparing in their student teaching placement, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 499 Student Teaching with Seminar
CRN: 14560
Days/Time: W 4:00-5:50 ARR ONLINE
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the lessons and units they’re preparing in their student teaching placement, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 499 Student Teaching with Seminar
CRN: 36163
Days/Time: ARR Online
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers’ complete lessons and units they are responsible for designing, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 517 Remember English: The Renaissance and World Literature
CRN: 47000
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Raphael Magarik magarik@uic.edu
Playing on the title of Aamir Mufti’s critique of English hegemony in the study and circulation of literature globally, this course places a long-running debate over the category of world literature—from antecedents like Goethe and Auerbach through Mufti, Damrosch, Apter, and contemporary scholarship—in conversation with test cases from the Renaissance—as print, vernacular English literature is first coming into being; as the British empire is only beginning to export the language overseas; and in a context sufficiently remote from our own that its great literary texts typically require translation, editing, and curation to be legible and palatable o university students (let alone the general reader!).
We will ask not only whether our representative test cases—some Shakespeare, some Milton, perhaps a little Margaret Cavendish—is world literature, but also, if so, how it was made into that—the work that went into constructing, say, Hamlet as a great figure of psychological interiority, existential confrontation, and modern alienation (characteristics, it has been argued, largely lacking from Shakespeare’s text); how an intensely religious poet like Milton came to be read as an icon of secular, critical consciousness; what it means to call Cavendish the progenitor of “science fiction” as a genre.
Our quarry will thus include four types of texts— (1) indisputable classics, works of literature as canonical as can be (all, I sincerely believe, absolute bangers), though we will kick the tires as hard as we can, trying to figure out exactly where that canonicity comes from and what funny business was involved in its manufacture; (2) theoretical work on the category of world literature, trying to get a handle of what exactly this category is, and how it relates to the funny, simultaneously central and marginal, case of pre-novelistic literature in English; (3) historico-critical readings of these texts, intended especially to make legible to non-specialists both the chasms that separate them from us, and how those chasms have been bridged or effaced in the texts’ moments of heroic reception; and (4), time permitting, some delightful instances of global reception, translation, film adaptation and so on of Renaissance texts, which also ask in what improbable, quirky ways Milton, Shakespeare and company circulate as “world literature” beyond the rarified, and perhaps somewhat stale, air of the Anglophone academy.
Students will leave the course with a new acquaintance with some hits of the English Renaissance; a theoretical grounding in a broad, ongoing debate in literary studies generally; and ideally, a sense of what can happen when you force these first two phenomena into dialogue.

ENGL 535 Seminar in Victorian Studies
CRN: 35412
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Lennard Davis lendavis@uic.edu
This course will cover the complex issue of representation by looking at novels by Victorian writers and allied writers non-British writers of the period and adjacent periods. The issue of representation will be explored theoretically and critically through the lens of “realism” which is a hallmark of the Victorian novel. Is a representation simply a mirror held up to world? Is it a social and political statement about poverty, class, and revolution? Or is it a belief in the ability of literature to capture the “authentic?” Perhaps it is a denial of the possibility of art ever being able to capture the real. Readings will include works by Bronte, Dickens, Eliot, Gissing, Zola, Balzac, Hardy, and others.

ENGL 554 Seminar in English Education: Navigating the Field
CRN: 34331
Days/Time: M 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Dave Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
English 554 is a seminar in English Education traditionally focused on doctoral level work in literacy, pedagogy, social justice, and democracy with particular relevance to the teaching of English. This semester it will cater to students in the graduate program working in ongoing reading and writing projects, students working on prelims, students working on dissertations. Reading will be selected by those who sign up for the class, based as much as possible on shared interests. Former EE students who have completed dissertations with the program will serve as guests, talking about their career trajectories, sharing their processes of moving from coursework to completed dissertations. We’ll read from their work, as well. Doctoral students in related fields of interest should contact the professor of record, David Schaafsma, about joining the class.

ENGL 570 Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
CRN: 35448
Days/Time: R 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Daniel Borzutzky dborz2@uic.edu
A workshop, in one of its original definitions, is a “place in which things are produced or created.” A place where you use tools, techniques, and equipment to make things. Another definition is “a room or place where goods are manufactured or repaired.” We will be driven by this spirit of making things, as artists, in a classroom together. In other words, this workshop is much more about generating new work than it is about critique. Nevertheless, our discussions will revolve around questions of process, poetics, aesthetics, language, voice, and helping each writer develop individualized approaches to writing about what is most important to them. Students will be encouraged to write from research, to create documentary projects, to employ unconventional formal constraints, to use found text, to write across genres, to write in response to visual art, to translate or write in multiple languages, to write for performance, to incorporate video and sound, among other approaches. We will read a broad range of poems and essays by canonical and contemporary authors with the aim of figuring out how we can apply what we learn about this writing to our own poetry. This class welcomes graduate student poets, and writers and artists of other genres and media as well. Writers with different aesthetic styles are also welcomed.

ENGL 585 Psychoanalysis and the Interpretation of Culture
CRN: 47425
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Anna Kornbluh kornbluh@uic.edu
The present omni crisis manifests at the personal scale in abject psychic misery: depression, anxiety, fascistic rage, narcissist wound, and deaths of despair. Its extent is prompting what many have chronicled as a “renaissance” of psychoanalysis in clinical therapy. Is there any attendant change in the psychoanalytic valence of contemporary cultural production? Do 21st century aesthetics demand psychoanalytic interpretation? What are the contemporary aesthetic repertoires of lack, anxiety, and enjoyment? How is psychoanalytic cultural criticism advancing? What critical approaches can explain our current intolerance for mediation? What critical approaches can amplify the marginal mediums for joy, pleasure, and the desire called utopia? Why might scholars of modern aesthetics need to engage psychoanalytic concepts, methods, and insights? To explore these questions, this course juxtaposes classic works of psychoanalytic theory and highlights of psychoanalytic cultural criticism with contemporary aesthetic objects and emergent popular critical approaches. We will try to formulate psychoanalytic contributions to the critique of omni crisis, and to practice cultural criticism that metabolizes psychoanalytic theory dynamically.

ENGL 060 ESL Composition II
CRN: 37556
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
ENGL 060 is a course that introduces students to the structure of English compositions and provides practice in critical reading, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics of basic writing. This will be a workshop-based course that functions to create clear and direct sentences that build to effective paragraphs. This will be achieved through close reading exercises that act as models for effective writing and consistent practice in and out of class collaborating with the instructor and classmates.

ENGL 070 Introduction to Academic Writing for the Nonnative Speakers of English
CRN: 47235
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In this course, you will acquire the knowledge and skills that help you approach, navigate, and compose texts confidently and effectively. More specifically, you will advance your critical reading skills and develop rhetorical awareness through reading about and analyzing texts in a variety of genres on topics related to current events and contemporary issues that impact our society and the world. You will also enhance your academic writing skills through engaging in the different phases of the writing process to compose summary-response, argumentative, and reflective essays.

ENGL 070 Introduction to Academic Writing for the Nonnative Speakers of English
CRN: 35041
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In this course, you will acquire the knowledge and skills that help you approach, navigate, and compose texts confidently and effectively. More specifically, you will advance your critical reading skills and develop rhetorical awareness through reading about and analyzing texts in a variety of genres on topics related to current events and contemporary issues that impact our society and the world. You will also enhance your academic writing skills through engaging in the different phases of the writing process to compose summary-response, argumentative, and reflective essays.

ENGL 070 Introduction to Academic Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English
CRN: 35040
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Deanna Thompson dthomp20@uic.edu
This course will help you to develop the necessary skills that will allow you to express yourselves through writing. The writing that you do in this course, including a summary-response, an argumentative essay, and a reflection, will help to develop your reading, critical thinking, and writing skills, helping to prepare you for success in a range of writing situations, both academic and beyond.

ENGL 070 Introduction to Academic Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English
CRN: 30497
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Deanna Thompson dthomp20@uic.edu
This course will help you to develop the necessary skills that will allow you to express yourselves through writing. The writing that you do in this course, including a summary-response, an argumentative essay, and a reflection, will help to develop your reading, critical thinking, and writing skills, helping to prepare you for success in a range of writing situations, both academic and beyond.

ENGL 071 Introduction to Academic Writing: Writing Legacy for First Generation Students (Legacy)”
CRN: 30521
Days/Time: TR 11:00 -12:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources. Student writing projects will include evaluations of UIC resources and reflections on their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.

ENGL 071 Introduction to Academic Writing: Writing Legacy for First Generation Students (Legacy)”
CRN: 30519
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources. Student writing projects will include evaluations of UIC resources and reflections on their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.

ENGL 071 Introduction to Academic Writing: Writing Legacy for First Generation Students
CRN: 30507
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources. Student writing projects will include evaluations of UIC resources and reflections on their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.

ENGL 071 Story as Rhetorical Practice
CRN: 30512
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Sarah Primeau sprimeau@uic.edu
The themes of this class are rhetoric, story, and argument. We all tell stories in our everyday life, right? We talk about how our day is going, retell an event from the weekend, or reminisce about the past with old friends or family. Telling stories and listening to them is a way that we know ourselves and each other. Examining story as a rhetorical practice can also show us how researchers and journalists use story in writing to motivate social change in public spaces.
When we walk through a museum to learn about an ancient culture, whose story are we hearing – the story of a culture being told on its own terms or an interpretation of that culture from by outsiders or colonizers? When it comes to public health, whose stories are heard and whose are silenced? How do public policies protect some people and make others more vulnerable? How does codeswitching and code meshing tell the story of a writer or a community? How does biography and autobiography demonstrate a need for change in education? Together, we will examine how rhetorician Lisa King, journalist Steven W. Thrasher, linguist Suresh Canagarajah, and researcher Steven Alvarez amplify voices that have been ignored or silenced in public spaces and, ultimately, use story in their writing to argue powerfully for social change. By the end of the course, you will have read and analyzed articles by scholars from multiple disciplines, and you will have written three major projects: a non-traditional story about yourself, a response to an argument, and your own argument related to the course theme.

ENGL 071 Introduction to Academic Writing: Your Futures
CRN: 30505
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Vainis Aleksa vainis@uic.edu
The future has not been written yet! In this class, we will work together to find topics about the future that are important to you, whether it be finding out more about making choices about a major and how that connects with future careers or planning next semester or even the next week. Class activities will include presenting your writing to others, reflecting on what you can learn from your own writing, and learning how to be a good respondent to other people’s writing. This course gives you the option to work toward placing out of English 160 and signing up for English 161 by submitting a portfolio of writing you did for this class. Writing will include research on a topic related to the future and an argumentative essay based on your research. The portfolio would also include a reflective essay discussing the most important things you learned in the course and how you might use what you learn in the future.

ENGL 101 Understanding Literature as a Game of Telephone
CRN: 25642
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Andrew Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
Some argue that fiction and, especially, poetry can’t be translated. I argue that they always are. Fiction, when going from preindustrial novelist to postmodern reader, might be written in what we’d call the same language. Still, it must be translated between the mind of one writer to that of many readers, readers sometimes from a different century, country, or at least with different cultural backgrounds and understanding of the language. Many writers admit that they don’t fully know their own work until it is reflected in what their readers understand.
Translation — from the Classical Latin meaning, “carried across” — gives our lives happiness and wisdom we would not have without it. This course looks at literature carried across time (from the ancients to now), carried across nations (from all continents but one), and carried across genres (from canonized forms like novels, short stories, essays, memoir, poetry, and drama to those less often taught in school, like song lyrics and stand-up comedy).
My goal in this class is not to tell you what I think so much as to get you to ask each other questions about all this. Two questions we may come back to are these: To what extent is all literature a game of telephone? In other words, does all writing that we’d call “literature” bear some sign of translation?

ENGL 101 “The book was better”: Literature and Adaptations
CRN: 47254
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Rana Awwad rawwad2@uic.edu
What role do books and movie adaptations play in the consumption and sharing of stories? This course will explore various works and their adaptations across genres and mediums. Together, we will analyze the ways different modes have enhanced or complicated storytelling by adding (and sometimes removing) the various elements that make up the books, movies, shows, and video games we have come to adore.

ENGL 101 “The book was better”: Literature and Adaptations
CRN: 20578
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Rana Awwad rawwad2@uic.edu
What role do books and movie adaptations play in the consumption and sharing of stories? This course will explore various works and their adaptations across genres and mediums. Together, we will analyze the ways different modes have enhanced or complicated storytelling by adding (and sometimes removing) the various elements that make up the books, movies, shows, and video games we have come to adore.

ENGL 103 Understanding Poetry
CRN: 20646
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In this course, students will read a wide array of English and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, though the bulk of our readings will derive from the modern to the present eras. In addition to becoming familiar with poetic genres, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text or problem and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments. Students enrolled in this course should expect to do a substantial amount of reading and to come to each class fully prepared to engage those readings through class discussion and/or short response papers which may be shared with the class. Other course requirements may include two formal analysis papers, a midterm exam, quizzes, discussion leaders, and a final exam.

ENGL 103 Voices in History: Poetry and Poetics in British and American Poetry
CRN: 22348
Days/Time: TR 11:00 -12:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this course we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.
This course will help you to develop skills that are particularly relevant for both the study and the appreciation of poetry (both reading it and writing about it), but also of art and literature of other forms—and it will prove useful for any academic or professional activity in which understanding someone else and expressing yourself is important.

ENGL 104 Understanding Drama
CRN: 26201
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Ibsen, O’Neill, Beckett, Soyinka, Churchill, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105 Cybertexts and History of Fiction
CRN: 11129
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
This course is designed to introduce students to the major theoretical approaches and debates that comprise “cybertexts” as an academic discipline in relation to fiction and literary history. Throughout the semester, we will traverse history of fiction and examine how it has changed its appearance. By situating cybertext, such as electronic literature, interactive fiction, hypermedia, and video games, in history of fiction, we will examine how fiction has evolved into new forms of text, building upon its tradition in literary history. The goal of the course will be writing a cogent paper about cybertexts and fiction in multiple academic contexts.

ENGL 105 Studies in Fiction: Growing up Chicago
CRN: 33745
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Dave Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
English 105, Understanding Fiction, will focus on the reading of various fiction and non-fiction coming-of-age or growing up stories that take place in various Chicago (and the surrounding area) neighborhoods, from local authors. The central text for the course will be Growing Up Chicago, edited by David Schaafsma (me!), Roxanne Pilat and Lauren DeJulio Bell, all who have a long history with UIC. Megan Gallardo, a major in English Education, is our editorial assistant and will somehow be part of the class, assisting in some ways. We will be writing our own growing up fictions and memoirs in the class. We’ll be involved in an exchange with the Elmhurst English class of Erica McCombs, who will be teaching a similar course. We will be visited via zoom by several local authors whose texts we will be reading.

ENGL 131 Introduction to Moving Image Arts
CRN: 47486
Days/Time: M 3-5:45, W 3-4:15
Instructor: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
This course will explore the history and influence of the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague), a tremendously popular art film movement that emerges from France in the late 1950s. It will carefully examine a selection of films from its auteur directors and their contemporaries, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, and Věra Chytilová. It will consider the influence of some of its precursors, from the films of Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles to those of Maya Deren and Jean-Pierre Melville, and it will also consider the influence of La Nouvelle Vague upon its successors around the world, from the films of Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis to those of Yorgos Lanthimos and Bong Joon-ho. There will be no final exam in this course, but students are expected to complete a series of short response papers and regular quizzes.

ENGL 132 Understanding Film
CRN: 47454
Days/Time: T 3:30-4:45 / R 3:30-6:15
Instructor: Kaitlin Forcier
This course will provide an introduction to watching, thinking about, and analyzing film, with an emphasis on how film as a medium produces meaning. We will consider the formal elements of film – cinematography, narrative, editing, sound, mise-en-scene, performance, rhythm – alongside major theoretical questions about spectatorship, representation, and ideology. Questions we will consider include: what are the unique characteristics of film as a medium, an industry, and an art form? how do films relate to the social, political, and ideological contexts in which they are made? how do we analyze, reflect upon, and write about film? In addition to these formal and theoretical considerations, this course will provide an introduction to key film genres and movements, such as classical and post-classical Hollywood cinema, documentary, Third Cinema, the musical, film noir, and animation. We will analyze a spectrum of film texts, including historically significant works such as Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936), Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941), Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954), Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), and Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993) as well as lesser-known and more recent films, such as Illusions (Julie Dash, 1982), Cameraperson (Kristen Johnson, 2016), Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018), and Time (Garrett Bradley, 2020).

ENGL 135 Popular Genres and Culture
CRN: 47462
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
This course will focus on stand-up comedy as a genre with a particularly dynamic audience and a history of playing with social norms. With this focus in mind, the course will be divided into three sections. In the first section we’ll examine some things that are important to a basic appreciation of stand-up comedy: jokes, timing, stereotypes, persona, cursing, argumentation, and storytelling. In the second section we’ll look at stand-up comedy as historically and culturally situated, establishing the 1970’s and 80’s as a background context for a sustained focus on George Carlin’s longer form satirical bits in the 1990’s. And finally, in the third section, we’ll focus on the 2000’s, starting with Louis C.K. as a way into an exploration of contemporary stand-up comedy and its newer, possibly most interesting figures.
ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47488
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, we will define and examine rhetoric in its many forms, with an emphasis on contemporary cultural and political debates, as well as some focus on historical precedents of similar conflict and/or competing systems of persuasion. We will examine, among other things, how rhetoric influences our habits and behavior, our individual and collective selves, our policies as a polity, and the forces behind rhetoric’s creation and propagation. Through readings and other media, we will analyze everything from radically divergent ideas of our Constitutional rights to how and why we consume popular culture. It’s possible we might even have actual fun (no guarantees).

ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47489
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
The word “”rhetoric”” is often associated with things that anger or upset us. We tend to use it and see it used when one feels that they are being degraded or misrepresented. Well, the discipline of rhetoric has a lot more to do with HOW we say something than just WHAT is said. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient texts to those of the twenty-first century we will wrestle with the term “”rhetoric”” to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine narratives, films, comic books, and other delivery systems that communicate and shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How do we use rhetoric in our lives both purposefully and incidentally? How do communicators interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? Rhetoric will be examined through lenses of race, gender/sexuality, disability/ablism, and other social factors we as communicators interact with daily This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we encounter daily.
This course is ideal for English, Pre-Law, Education, Professional Writing, and Communications Students.

ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47490
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: James Sharpe jsharp21@uic.edu
We’re all born into a social and historical context that deeply shapes our way of thinking and speaking. One of the goals of this course is to increase your ability to unearth the assumptions you make every day, the assumptions that have so far shaped your life in innumerable ways. Another goal is to increase your capacity for thinking about those assumptions both critically and creatively. If humans exist not just among rocks, trees, and cities, but among other persons, their ideas, emotions, memories, and socially constructed norms, all tangled up in the confinements and affordances of language, then rhetoric is, among other things, that mode of thought and speech which seeks to illuminate those invisible realities so that we can see them (figuratively speaking). We will immerse ourselves both in rhetorical theory and in case studies drawn from our contemporary moment, and chosen in part by you, the student.

ENGL 158 Understanding English Grammar and Style
CRN: 47492
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will not be your conventional “grammar drill” or “right and wrong” class. Instead, we will approach grammar and style as analytical and creative tools. Our goal will be to use grammatical forms to be more aware of the choices we make when we read and write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, Black English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will complete analyses to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 158 English Grammar and Style
CRN: 29782
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Jeff Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives so that rules will become tools to help you speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use grammatical and stylistic terms to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing comes more naturally to you.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41705
Days/Time: M 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41706
Days/Time: W 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41707
Days/Time: F 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46708
Days/Time: M 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Katie Brandt

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46709
Days/Time: W 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Katie Brandt

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46711
Days/Time: F 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Katie Brandt

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40315
Days/Time: M 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40316
Days/Time: W 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40317
Days/Time: F 1:00–1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 160 Gentrification
CRN: 46867
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Sian Roberts srober39@uic.edu
Gentrification is sweeping through America. Perhaps you have observed it yourself in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Critics of gentrification see it as the destroyer of neighborhoods, believing that it represents a form of social cleansing and institutionalized racism. Supporters of gentrification think it is the savior of cities and claim that change is inevitable. They believe that the renovation of certain neighborhoods brings prosperity and increased public safety.
In this ENGL 160 class, we will enter the debate about gentrification through class discussions and four writing projects. This course aims to give you opportunities to practice the kind of writing and speaking skills that will serve you for a lifetime.

ENGL 160 Gentrification
CRN: 21630
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Sian Roberts srober39@uic.edu
Gentrification is sweeping through America. Perhaps you have observed it yourself in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Critics of gentrification see it as the destroyer of neighborhoods, believing that it represents a form of social cleansing and institutionalized racism. Supporters of gentrification think it is the savior of cities and claim that change is inevitable. They believe that the renovation of certain neighborhoods brings prosperity and increased public safety.
In these 160 classes, we will enter the debate about gentrification through class discussions and four writing projects. This course aims to give you opportunities to practice the kind of writing and speaking skills that will serve you for a lifetime.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts Environments
CRN: 11841
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
Critical thinking begins with an environment. To understand something, we first must understand something about its surroundings and conditions of possibility. A phenomenon takes place within a given context, an environment, and thinking critically requires that we first understand something about this context and the conditions under which the taking place of the phenomenon is possible. A human being, for example, lives within a certain natural environment, and to think critically about being human requires that we first understand something about the environmental conditions in which a human being lives and under which a human being flourish.
This course is devoted to the study of environments. From the air and water of the natural environment to the social media platforms and cellphone apps of the digital environment, it will focus on environmental contexts and conditions to foster independent critical thinking and writing skills. It is divided into four sections: natural environments, built environments, cultural environments, and digital environments. The first section will address various questions concerning ecology, climate change and the Anthropocene; the second will touch on issues of urban living and combined and uneven geographical development; the third will discuss language use, the culture industry, and politics and ideology; and the fourth will touch on the Internet, social media, and technological advances.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 23296
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
This course will explore the central questions regarding Otherness as a concept and phenomenon. What do we mean by the ‘other’? How and why do people, cultures, and societies create others amongst themselves? How are these others understood and represented in different mediums and across time?
In seeing how the other as a category is self-created and one that fluctuates, we will try to critically reflect upon our own selves. The other is never created in a vacuum and is always described against and through ‘the self’. Reflection upon the self is crucial to understand what historic and present functions categories of ‘others’ play in our lives. To begin to think about these questions this course will largely be divided into four thematic modules. Each module will try to grapple with these questions whilst we focus on different forms of otherness.

ENGL 160 Writing Home
CRN: 11828 Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
How do we define ‘home’? Where are the limits of a home? How do we transition from one home to the next? Is home a feeling? Is it a place? Is it people? This course will take these as its guiding questions. We will explore the concept of home through the process of writing and develop our writing process through the concept of home. While this course will broadly instruct on principles of academic writing, you will specifically learn about and demonstrate competence in writing within four genres: personal narrative, photo essay, argumentative essay, and reflective essay. These four writing projects will be the focus of the units in this course, all designed to prepare your writing for entering public and academic spheres.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 41816
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
In this section of English 160, we will examine non-fiction literary genres. As a tutorial composition course designed for freshmen who came to the university to try to carve a new life, through the next fifteen weeks, you will be guided to the world of fundamental writing by working on four projects: Memoir, Editorial, Indie Game Review, and Reflection. All semester long you will work step-by-step writing about yourself, your community, what you love, and ultimately, what you want to do as a young scholar. Our class will function as a collective writing community where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily. Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both creative and critical thinking.

ENGL 160 Writing Home
CRN: 38996
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
How do we define ‘home’? Where are the limits of a home? How do we transition from one home to the next? Is home a feeling? Is it a place? Is it people? This course will take these as its guiding questions. We will explore the concept of home through the process of writing and develop our writing process through the concept of home. While this course will broadly instruct on principles of academic writing, you will specifically learn about and demonstrate competence in writing within four genres: personal narrative, photo essay, argumentative essay, and reflective essay. These four writing projects will be the focus of the units in this course, all designed to prepare your writing for entering public and academic spheres.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Talking Back: Reading, Writing, and Daring to Disagree
CRN: 46866
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor:
Talking Back: Reading, Writing, and Daring to Disagree: To bell hooks, “talking back,” or “back talk,” is a “courageous act” that means “speaking as an equal to an authority figure” (5). This course will orient students to genre-writing and the rhetorical situation through a framework of “daring to disagree” with systems of oppression and injustice. Students will read and analyze different mediums and genres of writing, including podcasts, speeches, films, songs, memes, TikToks, as well as academic articles and scholarly monographs. We will engage these texts through in-class discussion, journaling, group activities, as well as formal and informal writing assignments. By the end of the semester, students will have created a portfolio of work that reflects the different ways in which writing can be a “political gesture that challenges the politics of domination” (8).

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 30663
Days/Time: MW 9.30-10.45
Instructor: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
“This course will explore the central questions regarding Otherness as a concept and phenomenon. What do we mean by the ‘other’? How and why do people, cultures, and societies create others amongst themselves? How are these others understood and represented in different mediums and across time?
In seeing how the other as a category is self-created and one that fluctuates, we will try to critically reflect upon our own selves. The other is never created in a vacuum and is always described against and through ‘the self’. Reflection upon the self is crucial to understand what historic and present functions categories of ‘others’ play in our lives. To begin to think about these questions this course will largely be divided into four thematic modules. Each module will try to grapple with these questions whilst we focus on different forms of otherness.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11572
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Eman Elturki
In an increasingly globalized world and with the abundance of diverse modes of communication, what does be “literate” mean? Is it the ability to read and write? Are these abilities sufficient in the 21st century? In this course, we are going to explore what the term “literacy” entails in a rapidly developing world. This exploration will include examining the conventional view of literacy and how this view has evolved to include new literacies and multiliteracies such as information literacy, digital literacy, cultural literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and more. We will look at how literacy is conceptualized from opposing theoretical perspectives; is the construction of literacy a cognitive activity or a social practice? We will also tackle literacy-related issues such as identity, power, gender as well as the impact of literacy/multiliteracies on health, socioeconomic status, and the economy at large. The course will involve in-class activities, student-facilitated discussions, and mini reading quizzes. These learning tasks and shorter assignments will enhance your critical reading skills, build knowledge of genre and writing, offer opportunities to expand areas of literacy such as information and digital literacies, and help you prepare for the major writing assignments. These assignments involve composing multiple drafts of a literacy autobiography, a definition essay, an evidence-based problem-solution paper, and a final reflection. By engaging in this course work, you will advance your critical reading and academic writing skills.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11575 Global
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 30965
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
Movies, music, and stories are something we all love to watch, listen to, and read. They soothe us, make us laugh, and make us cry. What we don’t often think about, though, beyond the way they make us feel, is the fact that these feelings are always accompanied by an interpretation. In this class, we will slow down our process of consuming media and think carefully about the ways in which we interpret it, as well as train ourselves to pay extremely close attention to the ways these works are constructed and the choices the artists and authors make as they create them.

ENGL 160 Deep Fried & Delicious: A Taste of the Fast-Food Industry
CRN: 38997
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Travis Mandell tmande2@uic.edu
In this course, we will engage in a semester-long investigation of the Fast-Food Industry and its impacts on society at large (both in the U.S and Globally). We will read texts that interrogate the industry’s influence on culture, economy, environment, and physical health. We will discuss countering points of view on the different issues, ranging from worker minimum wage to the impact of “”food swamps”” in varying communities, and analyze the various debates taking place across different fields of inquiry. Argument is the lifeblood of knowledge and being able to present your own voice is essential to furthering the conversation.
Through lectures, in-class discussions, group writing sessions, debates, and writing projects, this class will prepare you to participate in the academic discourse surrounding any subject you may choose in the future. By understanding rhetoric and the conceptualization of argument, conducting comparative analytic techniques, accessing scientific scholarly content, writing an argumentative essay, and reflecting on your own writing process, you will become well versed in the art of academic writing. We will be reading scholarly essays (peer-reviewed) as well as popular articles to help broaden our understanding of genre/audience regarding the Fast-Food Industry. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to prepare you for the rest of your academic career at UIC (and beyond), fostering a strong foundation for your academic writing skills and argumentation that can be used in whatever specific discipline/major you pursue.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 42864
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
In the mid-1960s, Marshall McLuhan made the then controversial claim that “the medium is the message.” For McLuhan, he was concerned about the use of the TV as a means for disseminating information, and he argued that the device used to communicate will necessarily change the content and the character of the message. In this course, we will continue McLuhan’s line of inquiry, examining the past, current and (potential) future communication technologies to see how these might influence what we say and how we say it, both in academic and public contexts.

ENGL 160 Second City: Space & Place in and Around Chicago
CRN: 29462
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Margaux Brown mbrow32@uic.edu
We are all members of the UIC community, and we come to UIC with our own unique social and cultural backgrounds that shape our experiences, beliefs, and values down to how we express ourselves through written and spoken language. In this course we will explore and consider the spaces and places that are around us from the broad range of the city of Chicago to smaller neighborhoods and communities like UIC. You will write a profile and review that will draw attention to local communities and though an argumentative essay you will draw important attention to an issue that affects a specific local community. Through these different genres and engaging in rhetorical situations around them you will explore and learn the necessary critical reading and writing skills to be successful in your academic career.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts; Writing Towards the Arts
CRN: 11759
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jay Yencich jyenci2@uic.edu
While much of the buzz of the last twenty years has been about the STEM fields—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—many universities and secondary schools have recently recognized that a creative component is necessary to spur innovation in those same disciplines. Hence, many have argued for a “Arts” to fill out the acronym—STEAM—thus re-integrating humanities elements traditional to higher education. In this section of English 160, we will be using the foundations of the UIC composition program, focusing on genre and situation, to explore the world of the arts. We will begin with photography and build up writing involvement and critical scrutiny through the worlds of music and film before finally concluding with a work of literature spanning a few hundred pages, be it a novel, a play, a collection of short stories, a book of poems, or a set of essays. Through these lenses, we will examine the status of these art forms, what goes into evaluating them, and their relationship with society at large.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Haunted People, Places, and Spaces
CRN: 46717
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Carla Barger cbarge2@uic.edu
In this class you’ll think and write about hauntings in film and literature. You’ll look at adaptations of authors like the Brontes, Dickens, and Poe and films like The Others. You’ll also read and discuss ideas by thinkers like Sigmund Freud and Avery Gordon as well as folklore from cultures around the world that attempt to explain how and why people and places are haunted.
Our theme is hauntings, but your main concern will be learning to identify and analyze different genres so that you can communicate effectively to various audiences. By the end of the semester, you’ll be able to discern genre conventions and deploy them successfully in both academic and professional settings, and you will have gained valuable project and time management skills that will prove useful to you throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 160 Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Pop Music and Politics
CRN: 41625
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Race, Gender, and Digital Culture
CRN: 11551
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Dez Brown dbrown66@uic.edu
In this course, we will use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate complex issues present in digital and popular culture. Students will engage in an intersectional analysis that considers the ways in which race and gender (as well as class, sexuality, age, disability, and other socially constructed categories of identity) are formed, embodied, and policed in the United States, especially in digital spaces and productions. Careful investigation of the hegemonic structure and intent behind technology and digital culture (e.g., AI reproduction of human-created art, avatar creation in video games) through course readings and sustained exploration of popular genres (e.g., television, video games), will prepare students for writing projects and other major assignments in the course. Our goal will be to gain tools to be able to write and communicate effectively in general, but especially about the relationships between socially constructed identities and a myriad of technologies.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing the Image
CRN: 46725
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Kabel Mishka Ligot kligot2@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore the many and varied ways humans see, read, and engage with the still image, particularly paintings, illustrations, and photographs. In our meetings, will discuss and question how still images create meanings and arguments out of the world we live in. Through ekphrastic essays, reviews, and comparative genre studies, you will learn to articulate your thoughts and feelings about visuals that we encounter online, in museums, in books, in popular media, and in everyday life. We will also discover ways to integrate meaningful visual aspects in our own rhetorical and argumentative moves. This is not an art history course: you are not required to have any background in art theory or visual art to sufficiently participate in the class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Haunted People, Places, and Spaces
CRN: 46715
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Carla Barger cbarge2@uic.edu
In this class you’ll think and write about hauntings in film and literature. You’ll look at adaptations of authors like the Brontes, Dickens, and Poe and films like The Others. You’ll also read and discuss ideas by thinkers like Sigmund Freud and Avery Gordon as well as folklore from cultures around the world that attempt to explain how and why people and places are haunted.
Our theme is hauntings, but your main concern will be learning to identify and analyze different genres so that you can communicate effectively to various audiences. By the end of the semester, you’ll be able to discern genre conventions and deploy them successfully in both academic and professional settings, and you will have gained valuable project and time management skills that will prove useful to you throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 160 Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Pop Music and Politics
CRN: 11570
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 42863
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
Information is not knowledge. – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing the Image
CRN: 46716
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Kabel Mishka Ligot kligot2@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore the many and varied ways humans see, read, and engage with the still image, particularly paintings, illustrations, and photographs. In our meetings, will discuss and question how still images create meanings and arguments out of the world we live in. Through ekphrastic essays, reviews, and comparative genre studies, you will learn to articulate your thoughts and feelings about visuals that we encounter online, in museums, in books, in popular media, and in everyday life. We will also discover ways to integrate meaningful visual aspects in our own rhetorical and argumentative moves. This is not an art history course: you are not required to have any background in art theory or visual art to sufficiently participate in the class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Music and Popular Culture
CRN: 11803
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Andrew Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
In Writing About Music Is Like Dancing About Architecture, we use music as an inspiration for our writing in a few ways. The two styles of writing we’ll work in are the personal essay (aka. memoir) and the argumentative or critical essay. In these, you can use the song’s lyrics to reflect on yourself or events in your life; they can also help you talk about the broader world (e.g., violence, racism, sexism). We’ll also learn how to make arguments (and counterarguments) about the music itself. This course often helps students realize what a large role music has in their world.
Writing often does not start with writing. Writing often does not start with words at all. Often writing starts with a feeling and the writing of words is an attempt to capture that feeling. It can be elusive, but therefore good writing is hard and there is so much bad writing. Everyone has feelings; not everyone takes the time or has the skill to make those feelings into words that evoke feelings in other people. This is one thing writing shares with music. Kind of magic in both cases.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Art and Social Change
CRN: 46732
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Mohammed AlQaisi malqai3@uic.edu
Words are the only tools you will be given. Learn to use them with originality and care. Value them for their strength and diversity. And remember that somebody out there is listening.” – William Zinsser
In this course you will learn how to effectively express yourself through writing using works of art that address important social issues; you will do this primarily by utilizing and honing your writing skills in four writing projects: a review, an analysis, an argument, and a reflective essay. Through individual and partner work, you will sharpen your ability to edit and revise your writing. You will learn how to navigate and use various academic resources available to you on campus and online. Your assignments will focus on art, specifically movies, paintings and works of literature. By the end of the semester, you should come away with knowledge of writing strategies that will be useful to you throughout your college career.

ENGL 160 Gangsters on Film
CRN: 11784
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Sibyl Gallus-Price sgallu2@uic.edu
As Scarface sits in his whirlpool tub smoking a Cuban cigar, he shouts at a financial planning ad on tv: “You know what capitalism is? Getting f****ed!” Montana’s statement not only raises questions about America’s attachment to ideas of sound investment, prosperity, and financial responsibility, but capitalism’s complex and often concealed relationship with the economic underworld of organized crime. In looking at films like Scarface (1983), Goodfellas (1990), City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002), and American Gangster (2007) we’ll discuss how this major genre serves as a lens to magnify the contradictions of our social conditions. In doing so we’ll address the kind of characters that have become central to the genre: How is the gangster represented, who’s being represented, who isn’t, and why? Does gangster film call us to admire these cowboys of capitalism or offer us a view of the hollowness of the American Dream? Our major writing projects will include the film review, the photo essay, the analytical essay, and a multimodal final reflective project.

ENGL 160 Second City: Space & Place in and Around Chicago
RN: 25927
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Margaux Brown mbrow32@uic.edu
We are all members of the UIC community, and we come to UIC with our own unique social and cultural backgrounds that shape our experiences, beliefs, and values down to how we express ourselves through written and spoken language. In this course we will explore and consider the spaces and places that are around us from the broad range of the city of Chicago to smaller neighborhoods and communities like UIC. You will write a profile and review that will draw attention to local communities and though an argumentative essay you will draw important attention to an issue that affects a specific local community. Through these different genres and engaging in rhetorical situations around them you will explore and learn the necessary critical reading and writing skills to be successful in your academic career.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Treat Yo Self: Self-Care and Self-Help in 2023
CRN: 27283
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-1250
Instructor: Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11788
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
Movies, music, and stories are something we all love to watch, listen to, and read. They soothe us, make us laugh, and make us cry. What we don’t often think about, though, beyond the way they make us feel, is the fact that these feelings are always accompanied by an interpretation. In this class, we will slow down our process of consuming media and think carefully about the ways in which we interpret it, as well as train ourselves to pay extremely close attention to the ways these works are constructed and the choices the artists and authors make as they create them.

ENGL 160 Deep Fried & Delicious: A Taste of the Fast-Food Industry
CRN: 11809
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Travis Mandell tmande2@uic.edu
In this course, we will engage in a semester-long investigation of the Fast-Food Industry and its impacts on society at large (both in the U.S and Globally). We will read texts that interrogate the industry’s influence on culture, economy, environment, and physical health. We will discuss countering points of view on the different issues, ranging from worker minimum wage to the impact of “”food swamps”” in varying communities, and analyze the various debates taking place across different fields of inquiry. Argument is the lifeblood of knowledge and being able to present your own voice is essential to furthering the conversation.
Through lectures, in-class discussions, group writing sessions, debates, and writing projects, this class will prepare you to participate in the academic discourse surrounding any subject you may choose in the future. By understanding rhetoric and the conceptualization of argument, conducting comparative analytic techniques, accessing scientific scholarly content, writing an argumentative essay, and reflecting on your own writing process, you will become well versed in the art of academic writing. We will be reading scholarly essays (peer-reviewed) as well as popular articles to help broaden our understanding of genre/audience regarding the Fast-Food Industry. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to prepare you for the rest of your academic career at UIC (and beyond), fostering a strong foundation for your academic writing skills and argumentation that can be used in whatever specific discipline/major you pursue.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11330
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
Crime, Detection, and Scandal:
In this course we will examine the representations of illegality within texts presented in popular form. We will interrogate the complex definitions of each genre and how we use it to understand illegality in and written, visual, and verbal context. Working with texts that range from mystery, scandal history, graphic novels, and film adaptations, this course will attempt to produce plausible answers to the following questions: What defines a crime or scandal? What value is placed on the detective or investigator as a hero? Who benefits from creating objects of illegality? How do the separate modes of presentation (text v. film v. comic) engage us with these cultural concepts? Students in this class will be able to use these concepts to examine our cultural and legal systems, which produce, value, and challenge these genres and use those skills to produce texts that interrogate and investigate those systems.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11327
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
In the mid-1960s, Marshall McLuhan made the then controversial claim that “the medium is the message.” For McLuhan, he was concerned about the use of the TV as a means for disseminating information, and he argued that the device used to communicate will necessarily change the content and the character of the message. In this course, we will continue McLuhan’s line of inquiry, examining the past, current and (potential) future communication technologies to see how these might influence what we say and how we say it, both in academic and public contexts.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 11496
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
Information is not knowledge. – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 This, Not That: The Art of Making Distinctions
CRN: 11339
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Joseph Staten jstate2@uic.edu
This class is based on two core ideas: 1. Good, clear writing is nothing other than good, clear thinking. 2. The basis of good, clear thinking is the ability to distinguish—to make “”distinctions””—between two things that are different from one another. Distinctions can be as trivial and ordinary as “”basketball vs. baseball,”” or as complex as “”good vs. evil,”” and it doesn’t take long to discover how foundational distinctions are not only to thinking and writing but to society itself. In this class, we will develop and sharpen our capacity for distinction making—and therefore our capacity for understanding our world as well.
Readings will be drawn from a diverse range of clear thinkers (and wonderfully clear writers), from ancient philosophers such as Aristotle to contemporary essayists such as Joan Didion and James Baldwin. We will apply the lessons learned from these writers to four genre-based writing assignments, which may include memoir, arts criticism, argumentative essay, reflective essay, and/or others.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 11792
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
Information is not knowledge. – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 Unfinished Business: How the Past Shapes the Present
CRN: 46713
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
This synchronous online course will explore key events in the United States that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century that have ties to present-day social issues. This is a heavily history-oriented writing class. Topics discussed in class with include (but are not limited to): vaccines, civil rights, key Supreme Court cases, education, environmental protections, LGBTQ+, political corruption, reproductive rights, unions, and voting. In this class, you will write an op-ed piece, a film review, and an argumentative essay. The final paper for this class will be a reflective essay. Short writing assignments and peer reviews are also incorporated into the class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing on Social Issues in Film
CRN: 46739
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Eric Pahre pahre2@uic.edu
In this course, you will examine how popular films explore and portray different facets of common social issues, and how the discourse of film critics and academics further examine these topics and create important conversations between creators, critics, and the viewer or reader. You will watch several 21st-century films, some offering direct social satire or commentary and others working on a more subdued level. These topics include racism, gender inequality, classism, income inequality, and capitalism. Over the course of the semester, you will work to thoughtfully interpret and discuss the challenging content of these films and learn to write about deeper meaning while bringing films and reviews into conversations with one another. You will write multiple reviews of films with the goal of engaging with the ideas behind the films, and you will write an argumentative essay advocating for the presence, importance, details, or meaning of these ideas. The final goal of this class is to use these topics to become a more thoughtful and articulate academic writer. By the end of course, you should feel more confident in writing not only about challenging topics in film but also about the real-world issues that we find present in all types of media we encounter throughout our lives.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I:
CRN: 41620
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Harry Burson
In this course, we will consider the “multiverse” as it has appeared in recent films and television shows. In disparate media including the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, the sci-fi sitcom Rick and Morty, and the ever-expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the multiverse has become an increasingly ubiquitous strategy for building fictional worlds on screen. From its emergence as a scientific hypothesis in the twentieth century, the multiverse has been reimagined as a narrative trope to contend with a perceived surfeit of possibility, contingency, and multiplicity in contemporary life. Through the close analysis of twenty-first century multiversal media we will delve into how the multiverse reflects broader cultural concerns in an era of overlapping global crises. Examining how these audiovisual texts relate to questions of identity, history, and technology, we will explore the aesthetics and politics of the multiverse as a means of making sense of the world.
This class is designed to introduce students to college-level writing with an emphasis on genre and context as constitutive components of composition. The primary goal is to develop the core skills and techniques necessary to write for a variety of audiences. Over the course of the semester, students will work on four major writing assignments. By the end of the course, students should understand the key concepts from the course materials; draw connections among readings and case studies; create original arguments that address the larger themes of the course; and strengthen their writing by incorporating feedback from classmates and the instructor. This will help prepare students not only for professional and academic writing, but also for critically engaging with the media they encounter every day.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I:
CRN: 27284
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Harry Burson
In this course, we will consider the “multiverse” as it has appeared in recent films and television shows. In disparate media including the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, the sci-fi sitcom Rick and Morty, and the ever-expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the multiverse has become an increasingly ubiquitous strategy for building fictional worlds on screen. From its emergence as a scientific hypothesis in the twentieth century, the multiverse has been reimagined as a narrative trope to contend with a perceived surfeit of possibility, contingency, and multiplicity in contemporary life. Through the close analysis of twenty-first century multiversal media we will delve into how the multiverse reflects broader cultural concerns in an era of overlapping global crises. Examining how these audiovisual texts relate to questions of identity, history, and technology, we will explore the aesthetics and politics of the multiverse as a means of making sense of the world.
This class is designed to introduce students to college-level writing with an emphasis on genre and context as constitutive components of composition. The primary goal is to develop the core skills and techniques necessary to write for a variety of audiences. Over the course of the semester, students will work on four major writing assignments. By the end of the course, students should understand the key concepts from the course materials; draw connections among readings and case studies; create original arguments that address the larger themes of the course; and strengthen their writing by incorporating feedback from classmates and the instructor. This will help prepare students not only for professional and academic writing, but also for critically engaging with the media they encounter every day.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing on Social Issues in Film
CRN: 41621
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Eric Pahre pahre2@uic.edu
In this course, you will examine how popular films explore and portray different facets of common social issues, and how the discourse of film critics and academics further examine these topics and create important conversations between creators, critics, and the viewer or reader. You will watch several 21st-century films, some offering direct social satire or commentary and others working on a more subdued level. These topics include racism, gender inequality, classism, income inequality, and capitalism. Over the course of the semester, you will work to thoughtfully interpret and discuss the challenging content of these films and learn to write about deeper meaning while bringing films and reviews into conversations with one another. You will write multiple reviews of films with the goal of engaging with the ideas behind the films, and you will write an argumentative essay advocating for the presence, importance, details, or meaning of these ideas. The final goal of this class is to use these topics to become a more thoughtful and articulate academic writer. By the end of course, you should feel more confident in writing not only about challenging topics in film but also about the real-world issues that we find present in all types of media we encounter throughout our lives.

ENGL 160 Dystopia & the Modern World
CRN: 11505
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Margo Arruda marrud2@uic.edu
Covid 19. Climate change. Police brutality. Government surveillance. Artificial Intelligence. The line between reality and dystopia is becoming increasingly blurred. From images of nuclear holocaust to Philip K Dick’s pre-crime division, we will examine popular depictions of dystopia in the modern world to help us better understand what it is, why we engage with dystopic tropes, and what we stand to learn from engaging with them. To better understand the power of tales of dystopia to spur social change, we will examine movies, movie reviews, short stories, emergent narrative video games, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation. In this English 160 course, you will learn how to effectively express yourself through writing and gain the tools necessary for success in a range of writing situations both in your academic career here at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 11583
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Ryan Croken rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, activism, ecopsychology, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 46721
Days/time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Sammie Marie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis Essay, the Definition Essay, the Argumentative Essay, and the Reflective Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society. 

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11458
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu This course will be taught fully online for the entire Fall 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to you by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, and context. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 30664
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this online synchronous class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life?
You will write about these questions and more in the form of online journal entries, short in-class writings, and 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, a persuasive essay, and a digital story.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Bad Ideas About Good Writing
CRN: 39029
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal?
What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”
While the five-paragraph essay can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that it doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.
Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, writing for simplicity and concision, and finding, identifying, and working with sources. Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Writing the Body and Understanding Empathy
CRN: 23461
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Lauren Keeley mkeele6@uic.edu
The term “empathy” has become a buzzword of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what exactly does it mean to share and understand the feelings of another? How do we communicate pain, and why is doing so important? In this course, we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. We will explore how language functions to communicate what is seemingly inexpressible (physical and mental pain) but fundamentally human and shared. You will get to write in a variety of genres, such as memoir, op-ed, and argumentative essay as we chart the boundaries between sickness and health. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160 Imagine That: Writing About Sci-fi and Speculative Fiction
CRN: 32837
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Rana Awwad rawwad2@uic.edu
In this class, you will engage with a variety of different mediums (short stories, graphic novels, TV shows, films, critical engagements, etc.,) that explore the various themes and tropes that make up science fiction and speculative fiction. What role do the themes of (dis)connection, loneliness, found family, estrangement, etc. do for these genres? What kind of tropes are at play in sci-fi and speculative fiction and what do they do to complicate or reproduce the genres? Is there even a clear difference between these two genres? Centered around four major writing projects, this course will strengthen the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills you will need to write in academic and public contexts.

ENGL 160 Writing About Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 11534
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to act on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture, and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short- and long-term goals.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 46718
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Sammie Marie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis Essay, the Definition Essay, the Argumentative Essay, and the Reflective Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.

ENGL 160 Academic WRITING i: Mapping the Multiverse
CRN: 46865
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Harry Burson
In this course, we will consider the “multiverse” as it has appeared in recent films and television shows. In disparate media including the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, the sci-fi sitcom Rick and Morty, and the ever-expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the multiverse has become an increasingly ubiquitous strategy for building fictional worlds on screen. From its emergence as a scientific hypothesis in the twentieth century, the multiverse has been reimagined as a narrative trope to contend with a perceived surfeit of possibility, contingency, and multiplicity in contemporary life. Through the close analysis of twenty-first century multiversal media we will delve into how the multiverse reflects broader cultural concerns in an era of overlapping global crises. Examining how these audiovisual texts relate to questions of identity, history, and technology, we will explore the aesthetics and politics of the multiverse as a means of making sense of the world.
This class is designed to introduce students to college-level writing with an emphasis on genre and context as constitutive components of composition. The primary goal is to develop the core skills and techniques necessary to write for a variety of audiences. Over the course of the semester, students will work on four major writing assignments. By the end of the course, students should understand the key concepts from the course materials; draw connections among readings and case studies; create original arguments that address the larger themes of the course; and strengthen their writing by incorporating feedback from classmates and the instructor. This will help prepare students not only for professional and academic writing, but also for critically engaging with the media they encounter every day.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Bad Ideas About Good Writing
CRN: 27373
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal?
What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”
While the five-paragraph essay can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that it doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.
Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, writing for simplicity and concision, and finding, identifying, and working with sources. Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 19880
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This class will provide you the opportunity to engage in the process of writing in different situations and genres as well as help you become self-aware learners. The topic of this class involves U.S. immigration, with a focus on migrants and undocumented immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well other Latin American countries. We will explore the reasons migrants attempt to enter the U.S. from Mexico, either through seeking asylum or unlawful entry; the experiences of and challenges for undocumented immigrants from Latin America who have settled down and built lives in a country in which they’re not recognized or welcomed as citizens (including DACA recipients); the related politics, policies, and contention; and the potential (or not) for actual “immigration reform.” Through readings and writing assignments on this topic, you will gain skills in the strategies of writing in a variety of genres, including an academic argumentative essay. You will be responsible for four writing projects, the last of which will be a reflective essay that thoughtfully and thoroughly analyzes your own learning process as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 41808
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This class will provide you the opportunity to engage in the process of writing in different situations and genres as well as help you become self-aware learners. The topic of this class involves U.S. immigration, with a focus on migrants and undocumented immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well other Latin American countries. We will explore the reasons migrants attempt to enter the U.S. from Mexico, either through seeking asylum or unlawful entry; the experiences of and challenges for undocumented immigrants from Latin America who have settled down and built lives in a country in which they’re not recognized or welcomed as citizens (including DACA recipients); the related politics, policies, and contention; and the potential (or not) for actual “immigration reform.” Through readings and writing assignments on this topic, you will gain skills in the strategies of writing in a variety of genres, including an academic argumentative essay. You will be responsible for four writing projects, the last of which will be a reflective essay that thoughtfully and thoroughly analyzes your own learning process as a writer.

ENGL 160 Writing About Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 39062
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to act on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture, and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short- and long-term goals.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 11343
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ryan Croken rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, activism, ecopsychology, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11331
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be taught fully online for the entire Fall 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to you by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, and context. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 38998
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this online synchronous class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life?
You will write about these questions and more in the form of online journal entries, short in-class writings, and 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, a persuasive essay, and a digital story.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 11512
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ryan Croken rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, activism, ecopsychology, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 46738
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Sammie Marie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis Essay, the Definition Essay, the Argumentative Essay, and the Reflective Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society. 

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Writing about Sound
CRN: 27280
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Eniko Vaghy evaghy2@uic.edu
In this course, you will investigate the significance of sound at the personal, social/cultural, and political level. Through discussions, analyses, and assignments focused on environmental sound, personal sound/speech, music, as well as other topics concerning sonic production, we will approach questions such as: “Is it possible for sounds to represent the cultural or political landscape of a certain place?” “Can you discern unrest and strife—or, conversely, joy—just by listening to the world around you?” “What are the politics contained in code-switching and personal dialect alterations?” “What biases do we inflict on others based on the way they speak?” To answer these questions, you will participate in sound walks, listen to podcasts, read articles and stories about sound, contribute to in-class discussions, and write informal reflections as well as longer papers on sound. By this, you will strengthen and diversify your writing, reading, and listening skills.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11543
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be taught fully online for the entire Fall 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to you by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, and context. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 38999
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this online synchronous class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life?
You will write about these questions and more in the form of online journal entries, short in-class writings, and 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, a persuasive essay, and a digital story.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 30669
Days/Time: ARR ONLINE
Instructor: Jenna Hart jhart28@uic.edu
We live in a time when we’re inundated with media reports on any number of catastrophic things, almost daily. How can we determine what is worth our attention? How can we know which ones are solid reporting? What issues should we be paying the most attention to? We’ll be using these questions to look at texts and other media in a critical way, as a tool to begin learning about academic dialogue. The course will consist of layered assignments—an annotated bibliography, literature review, proposal, outline— that lead up to a longer academic research paper on a topic of your choosing.

ENGL 161 Society, Multimedia, and Groupthink
CRN: 21838
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
At its core, this course will explore the ways in which we craft and consume ideas. We exist in a complex ideological ecosystem that allows us to have a great amount of mental dexterity and individualization — but how we wield this dexterity has a lot to do with our environment. This course will have you read, write, and research with the goal of understanding how everyday consumption of information influences our collective trajectories.

ENGL 161 Reading and Writing About the Arts
CRN: 25953
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jared O’Connor joconn28@uic.edu
How do we understand art? How do we even approach it? When we see, read, or hear a piece of art, how do we know what it means? How do we explain it? And most importantly, why can it be so meaningful to us and others? In this class you will learn how to read and write about many different types of art objects, including literary, visual, and moving arts. This course will provide the tools for interpreting, evaluating, and writing about art in academic and non-academic settings. Ultimately, our goal is to recognize how pervasive and significant art is not only for this course but also in our everyday lives.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Contemporary Issues in Higher Education
CRN: 11861
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
What are we doing here in an institution of higher education? What issues about higher education affect our class and how do our experiences of higher education vary? In our section of English 161, a writing course situated in academic inquiry, we will take up these questions through an exploration of academic research and public debate. The course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by forms of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing IICRN: 11979
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
ENGL 161 is a continuation and extension of the work you completed and the strategies you learned in ENGL 160. We’ll learn about academic writing through arguments about the United States national security strategy. How does America define its place in the world, and how do the executive branch and the Department of Defense respond rhetorically? In this course we will analyze current United States National Security Strategy (NSS), using the framework of Michael Walzer’s Just War Theory. You will choose an issue in the NSS to explore further with library research, culminating in a 10-page research paper on an issue of your choosing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 22420
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is
particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of
stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class
readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible
research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and
audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness.
argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms
and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a
Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Research and Inquiry
CRN: 11950
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: T. Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research “Chicago Works?” Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 11961
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: jennifer lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Contemporary Issues in Higher Education
CRN: 11932
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
What are we doing here in an institution of higher education? What issues about higher education affect our class and how do our experiences of higher education vary? In our section of English 161, a writing course situated in academic inquiry, we will take up these questions through an exploration of academic research and public debate. The course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by forms of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research “Chicago Works?” Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 11956
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: jennifer lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 27376
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is
particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of
stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class
readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible
research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and
audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness.
argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a
Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Research and Inquiry
CRN: 24055
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research “Chicago Works?” Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 11924
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: jennifer lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Course description and goals: In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as class discussion, group work and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Research and Inquiry
CRN: 11854
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: T. Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Baby. Wisdom. Eye. False. No matter their condition, we’ve all got teeth. And that’s the topic of conversation for this course on Academic Writing. We’ll be using Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.
ENGL 161 Prison Reform
CRN: 21700
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
Although we begin with an analysis of Emma Goldman’s highly romantic and wildly impractical theory of anarchism, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections to contemporary movements and politics and examine The Marshall Project (news outlet), About – The Sentencing Project (no political affiliation), Right On Crime (conservative) and other webpages. You will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.

Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, in this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our text Writing for Inquiry and Research (About This Book – Writing for Inquiry and Research) is divided in chapters on genres and explains how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 29283
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Writing about Environmental Issues
CRN: 30670
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Kate Boulay kboulay@uic.edu
This course approaches academic inquiry through examination of environmental issues. Reading a range of work by and about environmental activists, students write a research paper in which, after reviewing the relevant literature, they take a stance and support it with evidence from recent academic research.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Critical Thinking in 2023
CRN: 40446
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: James Sharpe jsharp21@uic.edu
In this course, we will take as our point of departure urgent, relevant topics from contemporary public sources such as magazine and newspaper articles. These topics may include, for example, artificial intelligence, modern science, global capitalism, climate change, or more. You, the student, will help select the topics of our class discussions. And we will use these topics to generate research questions and to illustrate fundamental compositional concepts such as organization, argument, genre, citational formats, and multi-media presentation. Ultimately, students will be expected to conduct their own research in library databases in the second half of the course, finally producing a researched argumentative paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 28749
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 11958
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 21668
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 28747
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetoric’s of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Contemplating the Now
CRN: 30674
Days/Time: TR 3.30-4.45
Instructor: PENDING
This course will focus mainly on the contemporary issues facing us today politically and socially, and how we position ourselves in relation to those issues at hand, whether it be by fervently adopting a particular ideology or remaining ignorantly ambivalent. Quite simply, this course will not necessarily have a concrete topic on which to focus on, but will emphasize, and perhaps provoke, interest in contemporary issues that inevitably saturate our everyday lives. And hopefully, in discussing these difficult issues, in taking the time to write about them in a critical manner, we will find something to say and maybe even care about.

ENGL 161 Contemplating the Now
CRN: 25879
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6.15
Instructor: Pending
This course will focus mainly on the contemporary issues facing us today politically and socially, and how we position ourselves in relation to those issues at hand, whether it be by fervently adopting a particular ideology or remaining ignorantly ambivalent. Quite simply, this course will not necessarily have a concrete topic on which to focus on, but will emphasize, and perhaps provoke, interest in contemporary issues that inevitably saturate our everyday lives. And hopefully, in discussing these difficult issues, in taking the time to write about them in a critical manner, we will find something to say and maybe even care about.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing about Popular Film and Social Movements/Social Change/Social Stagnation
CRN: 32676
Days/Time: TR 8-9:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Media theorist Stuart Hall said that when producers create media (such as popular film) they “encode” messages as part of that creation process. These messages may reinforce expected social norms, as well as challenge them. For example, think about how films depict gender and gender expectations, and how these depictions might vary from traditional to progressive. These can be considered encoded messages. From an audience perspective, the messages might be obvious, loud, and direct, or they might be so quiet, subtle, and well-integrated into a film that you don’t even notice them. However, all of these messages have an impact and influence both us and society in general. If you consider how many films you have seen and how many messages they contain, you begin to understand why this is important and how it impacts social movements and change. We will begin by reading some theoretical work, including an essay by Hall, as well as applications of these theories. In our exploration of the relationship between popular film and social change/stagnation, we will be reading widely, considering how the different readings intersect, and using this information to develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 11875
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
Although we begin with an analysis of Emma Goldman’s highly romantic and wildly impractical theory of anarchism, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections to contemporary movements and politics and examine The Marshall Project (news outlet), About – The Sentencing Project (no political affiliation), Right On Crime (conservative) and other webpages. You will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, in this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our text Writing for Inquiry and Research (About This Book – Writing for Inquiry and Research) is divided in chapters on genres and explains how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing about Popular Film and Social Movements/Social Change/Social Stagnation
CRN: 25973
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Media theorist Stuart Hall said that when producers create media (such as popular film) they “encode” messages as part of that creation process. These messages may reinforce expected social norms, as well as challenge them. For example, think about how films depict gender and gender expectations, and how these depictions might vary from traditional to progressive. These can be considered encoded messages. From an audience perspective, the messages might be obvious, loud, and direct, or they might be so quiet, subtle, and well-integrated into a film that you don’t even notice them. However, all these messages have an impact and influence both us and society in general. If you consider how many films you have seen and how many messages they contain, you begin to understand why this is important and how it impacts social movements and change. We will begin by reading some theoretical work, including an essay by Hall, as well as applications of these theories. In our exploration of the relationship between popular film and social change/stagnation, we will be reading widely, considering how the different readings intersect, and using this information to develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Prison Reform
CRN: 23990
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
Course Description
Although we begin with an analysis of Emma Goldman’s highly romantic and wildly impractical theory of anarchism, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections to contemporary movements and politics and examine The Marshall Project (news outlet), About – The Sentencing Project (no political affiliation), Right On Crime (conservative) and other webpages. You will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, in this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our text Writing for Inquiry and Research (About This Book – Writing for Inquiry and Research) is divided in chapters on genres and explains how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Inquiry and Research Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness, and Medicine
CRN: 25972
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data? At the heart of this opposition between medicine and the humanities is the view that the body and the mind exist as separate entities and must be treated accordingly.
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding the incorporation of the humanities into a medical context. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course, you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENGL 161 Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 42939 Global
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “”social justice””—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.
Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both research and revision. All semester long you will work step-by-step towards the completion of an academic research paper, and you will do so not only with my help, but also with the help of your fellow classmates. Our class will function as a collective “writing community” where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily.

ENGL 161 Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 11853
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “”social justice””—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.
Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both research and revision. All semester long you will work step-by-step towards the completion of an academic research paper, and you will do so not only with my help, but also with the help of your fellow classmates. Our class will function as a collective “writing community” where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 11958
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 21668
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Literary Analysis
CRN: 47520, 45721
Days/Time: MWF 9:00- 9:50
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
The process of reading literary texts gives us pleasure because it allows us to enter another world and to imagine what it is like to be someone else. In this sense literature encourages us to empathize with others. But how do we make sense of this experience which reading enables and how is it connected to the “real world”? What methods can we use to better understand or decipher the meaning of a novel, short story, poem, or play? In this course we will study different theoretical approaches to literature, including Marxist, psycho-analytical, historical, structuralist, and post-structuralist literary and social theory to gain skills of literary analysis, but also to learn about different ways of “seeing” or understanding the world around us. After completing this course students will have a better understanding of literary analysis and interpretation, what literary theory is and how to apply it, and will also know how to formulate their own thesis based on this understanding.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47523
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the foundations of literary study—how to read a text, interpret it, and then provide a clear evaluation. We will also explore a few of the methodologies or “theories” that allow us to engage in those activities. A wide variety of theories will be discussed that focus on the reader, the text, and the social conditions surrounding the reading and writing of literature. These will include Reader-Response, Digital Humanities, Queer Studies, Marxism, and Post-Colonialism. Assignments for the class consist of short weekly response papers and two essays in addition to the required readings. The first of these essays will be a “critical etymology,” an analysis of a term associated with a specific methodology for reading literature. The second paper will provide a reading of a literary text of your choice using one of the theoretical approaches discussed in class. This text must be pre-approved by the instructor.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis: Madmen and Ghosts and Liminal Spaces
CRN: 47516
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Dave Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
English 207 is a required course for the English major, though it is open to anyone. It’s intended as an introduction on how to read, interpret, analyze, and write critically about texts. The focus in this course will be on stories and theories about liminal spaces, including ghost stories and stories of madness. We’ll read, among other things, Claire Keegan’s Foster, Tarjei Vesaas’s The Ice Palace, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. We’ll see the film The Others, we’ll read some graphic novels, informed by various relevant critical lens from Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization to Jacques Derrida’s Hauntology.

ENGL 207 Literary Theory and Analysis
CRN: 47526
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Natasha Barnes nbbarnes@uic.edu
“This course is designed to teach English majors how to read literature, specifically in relation to the construction and analysis of literary realism. We will explore the form and narrative language of realism as a springboard to understanding some of the main tenets of twentieth-century literary theory. As we examine how “English literature” became an academic pursuit, we will recognize schools of literary interpretation (liberal humanism, new criticism, narratology, etc.) and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category. Literary texts studied will include Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Atonement, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Excerpts from Peter Barry’s Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory and Robert Dale Parker’s How to Analyze Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies will guide our theoretical studies.
There is about 75-100 pages of reading per week for this class. Students are expected to read ALL assigned texts carefully and to take difficult literary fiction seriously.
IMPORTANT: I would prefer that students intending to choose academic literature as their concentration in the English major take this course. This is a rigorous course and I expect every student who elects to take this class should apply themselves with due diligence.
If you’re *not* an English major and want to take an English class to practice academic writing, this course is probably too specialized for your needs.
Textbooks: All books will be available at the UIC Bookstore, articles and short stories will be uploaded on Blackboard
Students will be required to write 2 short papers and take midterm and final exams

ENGL 208 Monsters, Dragons, and Sinful Knights: A Survey of English Literature from the Beginnings to the 17th Century
CRN: 47258
Days/Time: MW 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Alfred Thomas alfredt@uic.edu
This course offers an overview of writing in English from the Old English heroic epic Beowulf to the poems and plays of the Elizabethans. Readings include the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; selected tales from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales; the writings of the female mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe; the prose stories of Sir Thomas Malory known as the Morte Darthur that trace the decline and fall of King Arthur’s Round Table, and the rise of secular drama by Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare as well as the development of the sonnet form.

ENGL 209 English Studies I: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 47533
Days/Time: MW 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Anna Kornbluh kornbluh@uic.edu
This course tracks how literary forms emerged and changed in response to events like the expansion of global capitalism, the development of mass literacy, revolutions and the rise of democracy, and the growth of cities. We will study authors from England, the British Colonies, and the United States, and focus on the development of the novel as the literary form unique to modernity. We will also practice close reading to carefully appreciate the specific formal strategies involved in writing literature.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 47460, 47461
Days/time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Gary Buslik gbusli1@uic.edu
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, midterm, and summary exams.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare: The Raw and the Cooked
CRN: 47458, 47459
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jeff Gore jgore1@uic.edu Subtitled
“The Raw and the Cooked,” this course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies, tragedies, and histories from the height of his career. We will juxtapose the early slapstick humor of The Taming of the Shrew with Twelfth Night’s gender-bending banter to understand better different kinds of comedy and different forms of social negotiation. Although T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” recent scholarship on gender, race, and trauma challenges us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge. “To be or not to be” will certainly be one of the questions when we turn to the author’s tragic masterpiece Hamlet – written a decade after Titus – but so will be the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to be the avenging warrior that his father was. With the histories, we will examine two kinds of leaders, the villain Machiavel Richard III, and the unifying warrior-king, Henry V: although the former cruelly murders his way to the top, the latter draws a subtler approach from the Machiavellian playbook. These pairs will help us to understand different approaches to storytelling during the years that Shakespeare was most devoted to experimentation and refining his craft.

ENGL 223 Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
CRN: 47474
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Hanna Khan hkhan22@uic.edu

ENGL 230 Film and Culture: Embodying Difference in the Horror Film
CRN: 47484
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45/6:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Horror is one of cinema’s most enduring and iconic genres, reflecting individual and collective fears about monstrosity, difference, and the body. In this course, we will study how the American horror film has evolved over time, viewing representative examples of its most important subgenres and they ways they are influenced by historical context, social movements, and human psychology. We will also devote class time to a basic understanding of film and cultural studies, including major concepts, techniques, and terminology. Weekly film screenings include Cat People (1942), Carrie (1976), Jennifer’s Body (2009), Get Out (2017), Candyman (1992), and The VVitch (2015). Assignments include discussion board posts, film response videos, online quizzes, and a final writing project.

ENGL 230 ENGL230: Cinema of Logistics
CRN: 47482
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15/5:45
Instructor: Pending
Cinema of Logistics: Of the many things ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global supply chain has shifted from the mundane to the meme-d. Quarantined at home, we ordered online and had boxes delivered to our door. In the first year of the pandemic, Amazon saw record profits and Bezos added nearly $70 billion to his net worth. The news blares about a supply chain in crisis. From panicked broadcasts about mask and toilet paper shortages in 2020 to the looping newsreels of the Ever-Given stuck cattywampus in the Suez Canal in 2021, we’re in the midst of a growing critical awareness of how the seemingly banal global processes of manufacturing, production, and circulation actually encapsulate some of the most urgent crises of our time. How can film help us understand the global supply chain—and what’s at stake? In this class we will unpack depictions of global supply and logistics in film. We will inventory the crises, contradictions, paradigms of security, uses of law, and cultural representations of logistics. We will map the network of infrastructures, technologies, and sites of global logistics, and will deliver—just in time for the end of the semester—critical analyses of logistics in works which construct, congest, pack, pirate, jam, and hack logistics networks. We will engage with films including Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, Allan Sekula and Noel Burch’s The Forgotten Space, Todd Phillips’ War Dogs, Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, and Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, as well as HBO’s Station Eleven and Season Two of The Wire.

ENGL 232 History of Film I: 1890 to World War II
CRN: 12114, 12118
Days/Time: MW 1:00-2:50
Instructor: Martin Rubin mrubin1@uic.edu
An exploration of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. The journey begins with the eruption of a vigorous early cinema based on variety, spectacle, and sensation. This is followed by the rise of story-based movies and the emergence of the film director to better tell those stories. The less rigid structure of the early film industry opens a space for women filmgoers and filmmakers. Meanwhile, scattered queer filmmakers challenge sexual orthodoxies, and African American “race movies” offer an alternative to Hollywood racism. In the 1920s, filmmakers in Germany fashion dazzling images to express the psychological and political turmoil of their time, while Soviet directors use dynamic editing to make revolutionary films in tune with their revolution-forged society. The coming of sound provides filmmakers with new expressive tools and spurs a trend toward realism, culminating in the Italian neorealist movement, which creates a more open form of film storytelling whose influence is still felt today. There is no textbook; requirements include written assignments and online quizzes. This course is cross listed as AH 232 and MOVI 232.

ENGL 236 Young Adult Fiction
CRN: 48468
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Kate Boulay kboulay@uic.edu
Focusing on a specific theme, subgenre, period, etc., this course provides an overview of young adult fiction.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels
CRN: 47578
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
This class in the Graphic Novel will begin by examining some basic questions such as, “What is a Graphic Novel,” and “How do we read and understand graphic novels.” We will begin by grounding our exploration with texts about comics, such as Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and Comics and Sequential Art by William Eisner. We will then move on and examine questions like, “How have graphic novels reflected our society” and “Why have they become an important and recognized literary form?” Readings will focus on work produced since the 1960’s and include both full graphic novels and specific selections. Additionally, while we are mainly interested in American Graphic Novels, we will include some influential works from Japan and Europe. Examples of International graphic novels we may examine for the course include Tintin by Herge, works by Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy), Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, and I Hear the Sunspot by Yukio Fumino. American Graphic Novels will include both literary and populist works, such as Maus by Art Spiegelman, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Fun House by Alison Bechdel. Assignments will include online discussion boards, weekly Journals, midterm and final, and an independent research paper examining a specific graphic novel.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels—Comics and Cognitive Literary Theory
CRN: 48469
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
In 2013, a pair of social researchers from the New School made the astonishing claim that reading improved a person’s ability to empathize. The researchers found that fiction that focuses on the characters interiority—emotions and states of mind—gave readers the space to practice Theory of Mind, or the capacity to recognize the mental states of people around us, a cognitive ability tied to our empathy. This course will test that hypothesis with comics. We will read and discuss a variety of what might be called “literary” comics in a different genres and formats. We will explore how reading impacts our brain, if our ability to understand the emotional and mental states of others in the real world improves, and the way language limits and complicates this very exploration.

ENGL 238 Banned Book Club
CRN: 48450
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Margo Arruda marrud2@uic.edu
Over the past several years, we have seen an unprecedented sweep of book bans across American public education institutions. This new hysteria surrounding the types of stories we allow our children to access is best encapsulated by new legislation in Florida allowing parents to sue public educators for third degree felonies for disseminating restricted books. The interwoven genres of dystopia and science fiction have historically been a bastion of analysis for the social and political risks of information control and the road from book bans to totalitarianism. Throughout this course, we will be asking ourselves: Why do we tell stories? What makes this act so dangerous? What kinds of stories and experiences are being censored? How can stories build a foundation of connection rather than division? We will begin with two of the most iconic novels on books bans: Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and George Orwell’s “1984”. We will then examine more subtle methods of information control through Ursula LeGuin’s “The Dispossessed” and culminate with Emily St. John’s “Station Eleven” as we explore the restorative and healing capacity of literature. Join us as we dedicate ourselves to the power that can be found in the telling and sharing of stories. How can this communal act bring us together across lines of difference? Can stories ever be the thing that saves us?

ENGL 245 Queer Literature & Contemporary Culture
CRN: 47477
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Em Williamson mwill42@uic.edu
In this course, through the comparative study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers, we will interrogate how literary representations of queerness have contributed to our cultural understanding of gender, sex, and sexuality. Since the mid twentieth century, the material reality of queer identity in our everyday lives has shifted significantly. What role can literature be said to play in that evolution? How might contemporary queer literature(s) chart a progression of both the lived experience of LGBTQ life and the emergence of queerness as a theoretical apparatus in gender and sexuality studies? In our search to answer these questions, we will explore the work of a diverse selection of contemporary LGBTQ writers, spanning from the 1950s to the present day. Our goal when reading these various novels, poems, and short stories will be to examine the ways in which these writers represent queerness both formally and narratively in order to see how these representations illuminate and/or complicate our understanding of queerness in the world around us. We will also read some short texts by important literary and cultural queer theorists, but our reading of such texts will always be in the service of better elucidating the primary literary texts under review.

ENGL 245/GWS 245 Love is Strange: The Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
CRN: 47475
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
Course Description:
We will begin the work of ENGL 245: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 247 Women and Literature: Women, Wives, and Shapeshifting Lives
CRN: 47465
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Eniko Vaghy evaghy2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine the role transformation plays in the lives of women and consider whether it denotes a period of “becoming,” or a phase of personal estrangement between the mind, body, and will. Through literary depictions of explicit and implicit transformation, we will uncover the many ways transformation can manifest and discuss how women compelled to undergo a transformation navigate these sometimes revelatory, sometimes devastating instances of personal evolution. The authors that will assist us in our discussions of transformation will be Angela Carter, Carmen Maria Machado, Samantha Hunt, Emma Donoghue, and other creatives of word and image. This course will be discussion-based, and students will be encouraged to facilitate in-class conversations through their observations, questions, and visions regarding our texts. Written assignments will be administered in the form of analytical reflections, creative reflections, and two essays related to the themes of the course.

ENGL 247/GWS 247 Survey of Women’s Literature in English
CRN: 47467
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jared O’Connor joconn28@uic.edu
In this course, we will survey canonical women’s writings from the 19th to the present day. We will pay attention to issues in race, class, gender, and sexuality. We will read across a variety of genres including the short story, novel, poetry, and theatre.

ENGL 267 Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
CRN: 47591, 47592
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera earrizon@uic.edu
This course is an introductory survey of U.S. Latinx literature. Students will read a variety of texts such as novels, memoirs, short stories, poetry, plays, and films by Chicanx, Central American, Dominican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican writers. At the end of this course, students will be able to identify and discuss key concepts and major themes in U.S. Latinx literature, analyze connections and discontinuities between different strands of U.S. Latinx literature, and examine U.S. Latinx literature with attention to aesthetic movements, cultural traditions, and historical context.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47497
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47496
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50 ONLINE
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
*This is an ONLINE COURSE that meets via Zoom. Attendance is required. *
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47495
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading and interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47498
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading and interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47495
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading and interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47498
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading and interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 47512, 47513
Days/Time: T 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Kim O’Neil kimoneil@uic.edu
Prerequisite for this course is ENGL 161.
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 48470, 48471
Days/Time: T 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Deanna Thompson dthomp20@uic.edu
Prerequisite for this course is ENGL 161.
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels.
The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.
Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in
other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 47514, 47515
Days/Time: W 3:00 – 4:15
Instructor: Benjamin Seigle bseigl2@uic.edu
Prerequisite for this course is ENGL 161.
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice.
CRN: 47510, 47511
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
Prerequisite for this course is ENGL 161.
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47507
Days/Time: TR 11:00- 12:15
Instructor: Jay Yencich jyenci2@uic.edu
Beginning workshops, especially in poetry, often attract a range of voices in the classroom, from those who have spent sleepless nights giving form to their feelings to those merely interested in the elective after years of memorizing song lyrics. My aim as an instructor is to provide a supportive environment in either case, to help get your footing with poetic techniques and perhaps challenge yourselves to branch out as you begin to read more deeply and get a sense of your own writing habits. The first half of the semester will be devoted to exploring what traditional elements have comprised a poem using a blend of contemporary and pre-20th century readings from writers with a variety of backgrounds, where applicable. During the second half, critiques will get deeper, and we’ll start to explore conceptual and structural frameworks behind various subspecies of poems. Tuesdays will generally be devoted to workshopping on a rotation with every student turning in one poem a week and we will spend Thursdays discussing how certain techniques manifest in the poems within the course reader.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47506
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jules Wood jwood36@uic.edu
The primary goal of this course is to think critically about the craft of writing poetry and ultimately create our own portfolio of poems. To this aim, we will read poems spanning from the 19th century to the present moment, learning as we go about prosody, rhyme, meter, and other formal elements of poetry. We will also trace the history of poetic forms like the sonnet and the pastoral to consider how contemporary poets use, critique, repurpose, and/or mutilate these canonical forms—and how we might do so ourselves. When looking at these contemporary poets, we will also keep an eye out for the development of new forms in their work. Through weekly writing exercises, including an ekphrastic poetry project, we will explore the craft of poetry with the aim of gaining competency when writing our own poems.

ENGL 291 Introduction to Fiction Writing
CRN: 47509
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Angelica Davila ajdavila@uic.edu
This course is designed as an introduction to the writing of fiction. However, before we can write, we must learn to read like writers. As such, we will focus on reading published works to study the craft of basic techniques found in literary fiction. These techniques will include point of view, character development, dialogue, theme, and conflict to name a few. This course will require short responses to readings. In addition to enhancing your skills as readers, we will also be developing your writing skills in the form of in-class writing assignments, short story writing, and via peer feedback during workshops. You will also be revising your work and turning in a revised portfolio at the end. Additionally, this course welcomes any student who is interested in working with multiple languages within their prose.

ENGL 292 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction
CRN: 47494
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Lauren Keeley mkeele6@uic.edu
What is creative nonfiction? It’s autobiography, memoir, lyric essay, flash essay, New Journalism, public writing—the list goes on. The capaciousness and permeability of the genre’s borders are, some would argue, its greatest strength. Others regard this malleability as an Achilles heel, forever foreclosing it from establishing itself as a serious genre of creative writing. In this course, we will consider these two stances as we interrogate the history of creative nonfiction—its ethics, exigence, and, most importantly, how to write it well.

ENGL 303 Studies in Poetry: Twentieth Century Poetry and the Lyric Tradition
CRN: 29861
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
Lyric poetry has always been a vessel for the pleasures of music, feeling, and complex thought. This course focuses on a selection of American poets in the twentieth century (including Frost, Williams, Stevens, Brooks, Plath, and others), to be considered considering their participation in the age-old genre of the lyric. The course will address the following questions: what is the role of musicality (including, but not limited to, formal constraint) in the twentieth-century lyric poem? What are the differences between aural and silent (readerly) reception of poetic voice? How do we construct what is commonly known as a poetic “speaker,” and how are the idiosyncrasies of speakers articulated through poetic tropes and techniques? Do lyric poems support or resist storytelling and narrative? What is the role of emotion in the lyric? Can lyric poetry viably respond to visual phenomena or to broader cultural issues, including those associated with differences of race and gender? How have lyric poems helped to construct “Americanness”? We will approach these questions with the aid of critics including W. R. Johnson, Paul Allen Miller, Roland Barthes, and others. As we approach these questions, we will be working on both the micro level (listening to the idiosyncrasies of each poet’s particular voice) and the macro level (considering how each poet navigates larger issues surrounding the genre of the modern and contemporary lyric). The course requires short papers, a longer final paper, and an oral presentation.

ENGL 311 WARRIOR KINGS AND COURTLY KNIGHTS: The Two Traditions of Arthurian Romance in Medieval England
CRN: 27719
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4.15
Instructor: Alfred Thomas alfredt@uic.edu
This course explores the development of Arthurian romance in medieval Britain from the earliest Latin and Old Welsh sources to Sir Thomas Malory’s compendium of tales known as Le Morte Darthur. We will trace two distinct traditions, one based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history The History of the Kings of Britain, the first full-fledged account of King Arthur as a warrior king, the other based on the French courtly romances of Chretien de Troyes. These insular and French strains are skillfully intertwined in the greatest of all English Arthurian Romances: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The course will end with close readings of the Alliterative Morte Arthur and Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, both of which chronicle Arthur’s decline and fall, reflecting England’s lurch into the political conflict known as the War of the Roses.

ENGL 351 Literatures of Decolonization
CRN: 37202
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke ac57@uic.edu
The mid-twentieth century marks not only the advent of the Cold War but also registers a political and cultural transformation that continues to circumscribe us today. Within a brief twenty-eight-month period in the mid-1950s we witnessed the end of legal segregation in the United States with the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the toppling of a colonial power with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the arrival of alternative political and cultural voices with the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia and the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Paris the following year. Although the decision in Brown and the French defeat in Vietnam are viewed as embodying different histories and sets of concerns, this course will seek to ask what it would mean to read these moments –– and the texts that engage them –– together. The course will take as its focus the work of representative African American and postcolonial writers of the period and situate them against the backdrop of concerns embodied by these signal moments. Our readings will include works by Richard Wright, George Lamming, Chinua Achebe, William Gardner Smith, and Tayeb Salih, amongst others.

ENGL 380 Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47537
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
Course description and goals
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.
Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. You will locate, analyze, and advise on an issue in public policy.
Private Sector:
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional materials for a business of your choosing and develop social media strategies and crisis management solutions.
Third Sector (proposal and grant writing): The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young jobseekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design, as you develop a media packet for a nonprofit of your choosing.

ENGL 380 Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47538
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
In this course, you will learn genres and forms in the professional writing spectrum that demonstrate competence in creating clear, concise narratives for a wide variety of audiences with changing needs. You will examine characteristics of effective writing in a non-academic context, developing a facility in writing across a range of specialized areas. Expect to produce proposals, reports, newsletters, and document design. You will learn to make sense of numbers with data reporting and research methods that measure your proficiency to construct appropriate styles of advanced professional writing on an array of platforms, including online. In the process, you will learn to communicate well by recognizing the correct manner and form to use for different media formats.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 44817
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
“In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 384 Technical Writing
CRN: 43391
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
Course Overview and Objectives:
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology, and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals, and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 389 Writing for Community Advocacy and Activism
CRN: 47580
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
In this course, students will learn about writing strategies and a variety of genres related to nonprofit organizations, advocacy, and activism. Assignments will include an advocacy letter, a newsletter or brochure for nonprofit organizations, and a grant proposal. Students will also develop, design, and produce content for a white paper. In addition, students will learn to create an effective oral presentation using a presentation program (such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi).

ENGL 422 The Literature of Decolonization: From Colony to Post Colony
CRN: 35516, 35517
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Sunil Agnani sagnani1@uic.edu
This course introduces students to what used to be called third-world literature, or postcolonial literature. We will investigate the legacies of European colonialism through a study of fiction, essays, and films produced during the colonial period and its aftermath. We begin with Conrad and Kipling, then shift to those in the colonies to examine the cultural impact of empire, anti-colonial nationalism, and the role played by exile and diaspora communities.
What challenges do works from writers on the receiving end of empire—such as Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, J.M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Michael Ondaatje, Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh—pose to the conventional idea of justice? How do they reveal contradictions within the languages of liberalism and progress that emerged in 19th-century Europe? How do such writers rework the classic forms of the novel? Finally, how has the failure of some of the primary aims of decolonization (economic sovereignty, full political autonomy) affected more recent writing of the last 40 years? Criticism from: Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak.

ENGL 430 Topics in Cultural and Media Studies: Film and Television After the Digital
CRN: 47546, 47547
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Kaitlin Forcier
Susan Sontag once lamented the “decay of cinema,” arguing that new digital technologies would lead to the death of cinema as we know it. Yet, as this course will explore, over the course of its 125-year history, cinema has experienced numerous deaths and rebirths. This course will explore how digital technologies have transformed film and television – how they are made, what they look like, and where they are watched. We will use film and TV as case studies for thinking about the cultural impact of digital media more broadly. We will think about how a given technology may offer constraints or new possibilities for the sorts of stories we tell, the art we create, and the information we consume. While we will be focusing on feature films and television, these theories offer insights into the proliferation of many related screen media since the turn of the century: videogames, VR, mobile media, streaming platforms and more.

The course will ask questions such as: What new styles and forms have emerged in the digital age? How have digital technologies transformed how we consume and create media? Have digital tools destabilized the relationship between creators and consumers? What parallels can we draw between the “digital revolution” at the turn of the 21st century, and the emergence of cinema at the turn of the last century? How do changes in film and media intersect with broader economic, cultural, and political questions? Did digital media lead to “an ignominious, irreversible decline” as Sontag predicted? Case studies will include films such as: Singing’ in the Rain (Donen, 1952), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), The Last Angel of History (Akomfrah, 1995), Toy Story (Lasseter, 1995), Titanic (Cameron, 1997), The Matrix (The Wachowski’s, 1999), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Lee, 2000), Timecode (Figgis, 2000) The Bourne Supremacy (Greengrass, 2004), Be Kind, Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008), Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015), Lemonade (Beyoncé/ Good Company, 2016), Emily in Paris (Netflix, 2020).

ENGL 452/PA 452/UPP 452 The Freshwater Lab
CRN: 48620, 48621
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Rachel Havrelock raheleh@uic.edu
The Freshwater Lab is a grant supported program that invites students to learn about water and its social contexts. Students are empowered to take action to improve water quality, access, and knowledge throughout the Great Lakes region.
Rather than a traditional lecture course, it endeavors to put the pressing issues surrounding the Great Lakes before students to support their engagement with the issues and their innovative approaches to addressing them. In this Humanities “lab” setting, we study and discuss social and environmental dimensions of the Great Lakes, meet with leaders in the Great Lakes water sector, visit relevant Chicago area sites, and work individually and in groups on projects to advance existing initiatives and pioneer new approaches. Students are paired with professionals working on issues relevant to their project and Professor Havrelock helps to suggest avenues for advancing student projects during the semester and beyond.
Although we certainly respect and depend upon scientific approaches to the Great Lakes, this is a Humanities-driven course interested in the many ways in which water interacts with socio-political systems, legal structures, cultural perceptions, and artistic visions. Focus also falls on how race, class, and gender determine access to water, exposure to contamination, and participation in the institutions responsible for the region’s water.

ENGL 480 Introduction to Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary
CRN: 47552, 47553
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Lauren Elizabeth Reine Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
English 480 is the first required methods course for the English Education major and a course for anyone who wants to explore the possibility of being an English teacher. Together we will explore the seemingly simple question, Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to a series of related questions, such as What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? How do our experiences as students shape our perspectives and commitments? How do our students influence what teaching English means? We will consider multiple perspectives, including those attending to ideas of justice, equity, and belonging. Through our learning, we will develop emerging frameworks for how we might approach English teaching. Course requirements include 12 hours of fieldwork in an area high school.

ENGL 482 Writing Center Leadership
CRN: 21190, 47267
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Charitianne Williams cwilli312uic.edu
English 482 is an advanced Writing Center studies/tutor-training course exploring multiple perspectives–specifically that of tutor, administrator, and researcher. We will examine established best practices from the cross-disciplinary field of peer tutoring and tutor training, read about multiple theoretical perspectives (feminist theory, genre theory, and second language acquisition theories, to name a few), and practice research methods (such as survey, discourse analysis, and case study) common to writing center research. By the end of the class, participants will understand the potential of peer tutoring in the curriculum, major concerns in the administration and assessment of writing centers, as well as how to conduct qualitative research that moves the discipline forward.

ENGL 486 Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47023, 47024
Days/Time: TR 12:30–1:45
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.
Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 487 Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47558, 47559
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Abby Kindelsperger akinde4@uic.edu
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for a wide variety of readers. Major assignments include lesson plans, discussion leadership, and a teaching demonstration. Students also complete 12-15 hours of field work in local schools, with an opportunity to facilitate literary study for a small group of learners.

ENGL 488 Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 48771, 48772
Days/Time: TR 3:30 – 4:45
Instructor: Brennan Lawler blawle3@uic.edu
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long- and short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.
ENGL 488 Methods of Teaching English
CRN: 48769, 48770
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (“Curriculum and Instruction”), English 488 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. Although this course is for both undergraduate and graduate students, B.A. students should register for CRN 33811, and M.A. students should register for CRN 33812. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long- and short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 488 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 490 Advanced Poetry Workshop
CRN: 12504, 20335
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: daniel borzutzky dborz2@uic.edu
A workshop, in one of its original definitions, is a “place in which things are produced or created.” A place where you use tools, techniques, and equipment to make things. Another definition is “a room or place where goods are manufactured or repaired.” We will be driven by this spirit of making things, as artists, in a classroom together. In other words, this writing workshop is much more about generating new work than it is about critique. It’s exciting to make new things! It’s exciting to experiment with language, images, forms, and voices, in a classroom where students make work that is vibrant, unexpected, and transformational. Students will be encouraged to create chapbooks and long poems; to use documentary or research-oriented approaches; to translate or write in multiple languages; to write across genres and art forms; and to incorporate film and sound and music into their poems. To this end, we will read broadly as we study innovative poetic and artistic models that will help us craft our own work. And we will get the chance to speak with some writers as well as we investigate new approaches to how art and poetry get made.

ENGL 492 Advanced Writing of Creative Nonfiction
CRN: 20346, 12510
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This is an advanced creative nonfiction course for students who have taken Engl. 201 or the equivalent. Students will continue to develop the techniques of writing creative nonfiction, including assimilating features of fiction and poetry, experimenting with voice, structure, style, creative integration of research, and revision. Student work will focus on three subgenres of creative nonfiction: personal essay, nature writing, and literary journalism. Published essays will provide models of technique and form for students’ own work. This class will be primarily run as a workshop: students will both receive and contribute constructive feedback on their own and their peers’ essay drafts. Students will be expected to write three essays, as well as brief but thorough critiques of their fellow writers’ essays. Tips on submitting creative nonfiction work for publication will be discussed toward end of semester.
ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 25243, 25244
Days/Time: R 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Linda Landis Andrews Landrews@uic.edu
What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites, social media, and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people, and their skills are needed.
Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.
In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week.
Employers include nonprofits, radio, and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest. Many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. During the pandemic, one intern worked for an organization in Denver, and another worked from her home in Ho Chi Minh City.
First, register for ENGL 280, Media, and Professional Writing, to launch your writing career. Procrastination is not advised.
Credit is variable: three or six credits
Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.
Come, jump in-you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 25243/25244
Days: R 3:30 – 4:45 PM
Linda Landis Andrews (Landrews@uic.edu)
What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites, social media, and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people, and their skills are needed.
Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.
In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week.
Employers include nonprofits, radio, and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest. Many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. During the pandemic, one intern worked for an organization in Denver, and another worked from her home in Ho Chi Minh City.
First, register for ENGL 280, Media, and Professional Writing, to launch your writing career. Procrastination is not advised.
Credit is variable: three or six credits
Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.
Come, jump in-you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

ENGL 496 Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 46515
Days/Time: T 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Margena A. Christian mxan@uic.edu
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.
To prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity.
This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as a young professional well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 380, 382, 383, 384.
Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar
CRN: 12518
Days/Time: W 4:00–5:50
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department.
Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar
CRN: 12530
Days/Time: W 4:00–5:50
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department.
Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.

ENGL 500 Master’s Proseminar
CRN: 22397
Days/Time: W 5:00–7:50
Instructor: Madhu Dubey madhud@uic.edu
An introduction to graduate study in English for first year master’s students, this proseminar will focus on the topic of literature and humanism. Our reading and discussion of literary and critical texts will be guided by questions relating to this topic, such as: What is the value of literature as an area of humanistic study? Do literary canons embody universal human values and ideals that transcend time and place? Does reading literature help make us better human beings and citizens? In what ways do literary texts mobilize affect and empathy to ethical ends and to extend human rights to ‘others? Although the course is not designed to present a chronological survey, we will consider a range of responses to these questions, beginning with Matthew Arnold’s humanist conception of literature, moving through various defenses and critiques of literary humanism, and ending with contemporary post humanist manifestoes.

ENGL 503 Form
CRN: 21006
Days/Time: W 5:00 – 7:50
Instructor: Nicholas Brown cola@uic.edu
What is literary (or generally, aesthetic) form? What does form have to do with meaning? What is the relation of form to history? This course is not a survey, but rather the invitation to a debate. Nonetheless, it will cover positions from Aristotle to Lessing to Roberto Schwarz and Otilia Arantes to Fred Moten and Toril Moi.

ENGL 541 Seminar in Black Literature
CRN: 48746
Days/Time: M 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera earrizon@uic.edu
This course examines how Black feminist thinkers have engaged the subject of migration to understand its significance in the development of Black Feminist Thought. Our course readings will include 19th and 20th century primary texts that attend to the way race, class, gender, sexuality, migration, and legal status have inform the development of a Black feminist consciousness and political agenda. Secondary texts will include recent scholarship on Black Feminist Thought and migration. Together, these texts will aid us in locating and tracing a strand in Black Feminist Thought that is largely unexplored.

ENGL 557 Language and Literacy: Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for Democracy
CRN: 23604
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it’s desirable or even possible to do so? These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?) relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.
Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” and “social justice” can be defined and whether these remain viable sociopolitical aspirations, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical/analytical method provides useful ways to think about ameliorating social and economic problems, and 3) what schools —specifically, English language arts classes—have to do with any of this.
Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work “matters” beyond our own intellectual or financial interests. Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some likely texts (or at least selected chapters from them) are these:
LEARNING TO LABOR: HOW WORKING-CLASS KIDS GET WORKING CLASS JOBS by Paul Willis
GHOSTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD: RACISM AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE by Eve Ewing
MARXISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY by Ashley J. Bohrer
UNIVERSALITY AND IDENTITY POLITICS by Todd Mc Gowan
DEMOCRACY AS FETISH by Ralph Cintron
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE or DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS by Jane Addams
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
PRAGMATISM by William James
TEACHER UNIONS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: ORGANIZING FOR THE SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES’ STUDENTS DESERVE by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson (eds.)
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
CULTIVATING GENIUS: AN EQUITY FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY RESPONSIVE LITERACY by Gholdy Muhammad
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
CREOLIZING THE NATION by Kris F. Sealey
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciére
English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing. Interested students are encouraged to contact Todd DeStigter (tdestig@uic.edu).

ENGL 570 Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
CRN: 33612
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate level poets. Graduate-level writers in other genres are welcomed in our course. Varied styles and aesthetics are also welcomed in the workshop. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music. These critical works treat poems in the lyric tradition; it is my belief that study of this tradition can inform a variety of aesthetic commitments.
Students will write new poems that will be discussed in workshop and revised for a final portfolio; they will also produce an artist’s statement to accompany their final portfolios. My goal is for you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet. I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft (and the perennial challenge and delight) of making poems.

ENGL 571 Program for Writers Fiction Workshop
CRN: 33333
Days/Time: T 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Cris Mazza cmazza@uic.edu
The Program for Writers fall fiction workshop is for fiction of all lengths: novels, short fiction, novellas, flash fiction, etc. Writers of literary nonfiction who can’t fit the nonfiction workshop into their schedules are also welcome.
Workshop discussion includes critiques of works-in-progress, including approach to writing fiction, specific techniques, shape, form, plot, character, theory, etc. We can also entertain discussion about pitfalls, variables and whims of the marketplace, and how literary fiction is affected by social pressures and/or political unrest in the world. Discussion and reading assignments will be based on submissions of student work. This workshop will not discuss genre (commercial/popular) fiction.
Students who are not in the Program for Writers need the permission from the instructor to enroll.

ENGL 585 Melville, or Varieties of Historicism
CRN: 29630
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Peter Coviello coviello@uic.edu
In this seminar we will read deeply in the archive of Herman Melville – Moby-Dick will be our central text, among others – as a way of inquiring into the suite of methods that have clustered around various conjugations of “history.” Histories of capital and labor, histories of law and empire, histories of sexuality, histories of enslavement, histories of literary expression: Melville’s corpus has a way of running these matters into and across one another, which we will take as an occasion to appraise several strands of “historicism,” such as they have figured in literary criticism and theory. Importantly, this is not a class about what now tends to be called “New Historicism,” since one of our premises will be that that set of interpretive protocols neither inaugurates nor exhausts historicism as such.

ENGL 590 Environmental Humanities: Climate Change and the Novel
CRN: 48690
Days/Time: W 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Rachel Havrelock raheleh@uic.edu
The literary genre of Cli-Fi intersects with speculative fiction and its utopian and dystopic poles. It often incorporates ecology and economics into a narrative form with global reach and troubled interiority. In this seminar, we will read leading contemporary climate change fiction while developing a timeline of its genesis. Simultaneously, we will interrogate the criteria for inclusion in the category of Cli-Fi and finetune our definition. Causes, events, and responses to climate change will factor into our analysis as we consider whether the novels impact outcomes and if they should be expected to do so.
Texts may include Aldous Huxley, Island; Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower; Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island & The Nutmeg’s Curse; Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God; Kim Stanley Robinson the Ministry for the Future; Lydia Millet the Children’s Bible.

ENGL 105 Fiction, Reality, Literature
CRN: 17428, 14043 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-1:40 In-Person
Instructor: Hanna Khan hkhan22@uic.edu
This course will introduce you to various forms of fictional literature. Fiction emerges with an author’s creative engagement with a text’s many themes and topics; however, what happens when fiction is intertwined with nonfictional tropes and realistic literary genres? When an author opts for a realist contour to underscore a fictional narrative, how does that ambition complicate or strengthen the narrative that is used? Furthermore, how do the narrative and aesthetic components of any fiction—the narrator, point-of-view, genre, and character among others—further make fictional works appear so real? In this class, you will read texts that have drawn from real life, real events, and real problems, highlighting how an author’s uses a realist perspective to present fiction immersed.
ENGL 132 Introduction to Moving Image Arts
CRN: 24271 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: TR 10:45-1:15 In-Person
Instructor: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
This course will explore the history and influence of the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague), a tremendously popular art film movement that emerges from France in the late 1950s. It will carefully examine a selection of films from its auteur directors and their contemporaries, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, and Věra Chytilová. It will consider the influence of some its precursors, from the films of Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles to those of Maya Deren and Jean-Pierre Melville, and it will also consider the influence of La Nouvelle Vague upon its successors around the world, from the films of Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis to those of Yorgos Lanthimos and Bong Joon-ho. There will be no final exam in this course, but students are expected to complete a series of short response papers and regular quizzes.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 21948
Days/Time: M 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Amanda Bohne

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts Woodshedding: What Music Can Teach Us About Writing
CRN: 16259 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40
Instructor: Andrew Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
In Woodshedding: What Music Can Teach Us About Writing, we use music as inspiration, jumping off point, and sounding board. The two styles of writing we’ll work with are the personal essay (aka. memoir) and the argumentative or critical essay. In the personal essay, you are free to use the song’s lyrics to reflect on yourself, including such things as events from your life and mental health; they can also help you talk about the broader world (e.g., violence, racism, sexism). In the critical essays, we’ll learn how to make strong, evidence-based arguments and counterarguments about the music itself. This course often helps students realize what a large role music has in their lives.
I believe that everyone can be a good or even great writer with a little help. If high school left you feeling that you had to write with fancy words that you would never otherwise use, I will help show that this isn’t so. Even — especially — when the subject at hand is complex, it is often best to write short clear sentences using familiar words to get your thoughts across. Writing often does not start with writing. Writing often does not start with words at all. Often writing starts with a feeling and the writing of words is an attempt to capture that feeling. Everyone has feelings; not everyone takes the time in the short or long term to make those feelings into words that evoke feelings in other people. This is one thing writing shares with music. Keep in mind that, like getting good at music, any piece of writing will take a few drafts; those afraid to put in the work tell us they’re just bad writers; the truth is that bad writing comes from people giving up too soon. That’s what woodshedding is about.
ENGL 161 Art and Social Progress
CRN: 17707 S2 (8 weeks)
DAYS/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 ONLINE
Instructor: Mohammed AlQaisi malqai3@uic.edu
In this course you will learn how to effectively express yourself through writing using works of art that address important social issues; you will do this primarily by utilizing and honing your writing skills in four writing projects: an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a research report, and a research paper. Through individual and partner work, you will sharpen your ability to edit and revise your writing. You will learn how to navigate and use various academic resources available to you on campus and online. Your assignments will focus on art; specifically, movies, paintings and works of literature. By the end of the semester, you should come away with knowledge of writing strategies that will be useful to you throughout your college career.

ENGL 161 Contemplating the Now
CRN: 18181 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: MWF 4.00-5.40
Instructor: Alonzo Rico rico2@uic.edu
This course will focus mainly on the contemporary issues facing us today politically and socially, and how we position ourselves in relation to those issues at hand, whether it be by fervently adopting a particular ideology or remaining ignorantly ambivalent. Quite simply, this course will not necessarily have a concrete topic on which to focus on, but will emphasize, and perhaps provoke, interest in contemporary issues that inevitably saturate our everyday lives. And hopefully, in discussing these difficult issues, in taking the time to write about them in a critical manner, we will find something to say and maybe even care about.

ENGL 161 Gentrification
CRN: 23385 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: TR 1:30-4:00 ONLINE
Instructor: Sian Roberts srober39@uic.edu
Gentrification is sweeping through America. Perhaps you have observed it yourself in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Critics of gentrification see it as the destroyer of neighborhoods, believing that it represents a form of social cleansing and institutionalized racism. Supporters of gentrification think it is the savior of cities and claim that change is inevitable. They believe that the renovation of certain neighborhoods brings prosperity and increased public safety.
In these 161 classes, we will enter the debate about gentrification. This course aims to give you opportunities to practice the kind of writing and speaking skills that will serve you for a lifetime.
Our online classes will be designed to avoid ‘Zoom fatigue.’ I will do my best to keep them engaging and varied.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 24272, 24273 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
The primary aim of this course, which prepares English majors for upper-level study, is for students to arrive at a better understanding of how it is that we interpret novels and short stories. We will begin by surveying a range of approaches taken by scholars and authors in both theoretical and critical essays. Across the eight weeks of this course, students will apply ideas drawn from these essays to their own analysis and interpretation of novels and short stories by influential modern authors, such as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Samuel Beckett.

ENGL 209 “British” Literature, Global Origins
CRN: 24274, 24275 S1 (4 week)
Days/Time: MTRF1:00-4:00
Instructor: Nasser Mufti nmufti@uic.edu
This course is about how British imperialism was essential to the invention of “British literature.” Over the semester, we will read the canonical figures of modern British literature from the 17th to the mid-20th century and learn how Britain’s colonial adventures oversaw slavery, settler colonialism, the rise of capitalism, mass exploitation, and how these were integral to the formation and development of the British literary imagination and English national identity. We will read writers from Britain, South Asia, the United States, East Africa and the West Indies.

ENGL 267 Intro to Latinx Literature
CRN: 24277, 24278 S1 (4 week)
Days/Time: MTRF 9:00-12:00
Instructor: Daniel Borzutzky dborz2@uic.edu
This is a survey course of Latinx literature in various genres written by Latinx authors from many national and regional backgrounds. Possible readings include works from the 1960s to the present day, with particular attention to the Puerto Rican activist movements of the 1960s and 70s; diasporic literatures from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Central America; Spanglish, translation, and language-mixing; immigration law, enforcement, and activism; labor movements; terminology (Latino/a/x/@/e); Afro-Latinx experiences amid broader questions of race and racism in Latin America and Latinx communities; gender and sexuality; and different visions of nationalism and assimilation. Our pedagogy will include student presentations, formal and informal writing assignments, close readings, small group discussions, and active and thoughtful listening.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 24279, 24280
Days/Time: MW 2:00-3:40
Instructor: Vainis Aleska
Prerequisite for this course is ENGL 161.

ENGL 291 Introduction to Writing of Fiction: The “Many Hats”
CRN: 24281 S2 (8weeks)
Days/Time: TR 1:30-4:00
Instructor: Andrew Middleton

ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 21363, 21364 S2 (8 week)
Days/Time: TR 10:45 -1:15 Hybrid
Instructor: Cris Mazza cmazza@uic.edu
This advanced fiction workshop is for students who have earned a B or higher in English 291 (or the equivalent). Knowledge of fiction-writing techniques and willingness to engage in discussion of work-in-progress are necessary. This workshop will not accept work that is formula-based: no genre science fiction, fantasy, horror, or graphic fiction. There will be additional guidelines to assist students broaden the scope of their approach to writing. Work that was initiated in a previous 291 course is permissible if revised since last seen by a workshop. This course will be in-person except 2 or 3 sessions that will be remote — held during class time. The assigned room will be available if needed when the course has remote sessions.

ENGL 070 Introduction to Academic Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English
CRN: 39951
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Eman Elturki
In this course, you will acquire the knowledge and skills that help you approach, navigate, and compose texts confidently and effectively. More specifically, you will advance your critical reading skills and develop rhetorical awareness through reading about and analyzing texts in a variety of genres on topics related to current events and contemporary issues that impact our society and the world. You will also enhance your academic writing skills through engaging in the different phases of the writing process to compose summary-response, argumentative, and reflective essays.
ENGL 071 Introduction to Academic Writing: Story as Rhetorical Practice
CRN: 37889
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Sarah Primeau
The themes of this class are rhetoric, story, and argument. We all tell stories in our everyday life, right? We talk about how our day is going, retell an event from the weekend, or reminisce about the past with old friends or family. Telling stories and listening to them is a way that we know ourselves and each other. Examining story as a rhetorical practice can also show us how researchers and journalists use story in writing to motivate social change in public spaces.
When we walk through a museum to learn about an ancient culture, whose story are we hearing – the story of a culture in its own words or an interpretation of that culture by outsiders or colonizers? When it comes to public health, whose stories are heard and whose are silenced? How do healthcare policies protect some people and make others more vulnerable? How does codeswitching and codemeshing tell the story of a writer or a community? Together, we will examine how rhetorician Lisa King, journalist Steven W. Thrasher, and linguist Suresh Canagarajah amplify voices that have been ignored or silenced in public spaces and, ultimately, use story in their writing to argue powerfully for social change. By the end of the course, you will have read and analyzed articles by scholars from multiple disciplines, and you will have written three major projects: a non-traditional story about yourself, a response to an argument, and your own argument related to the course theme.
English 101 Understanding Literature and Culture.
CRN: 18933
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Terence Whalen
This course focuses on the reading and interpretation of literature. We explore several literary forms from a variety of cultures and historical periods, but the general concept of the undead will provide a measure of thematic consistency. Authors will include Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, Emily Dickenson, and others. Requirements: weekly writing assignments; two or three formal papers; a research project; a final critical paper (based upon the research project); occasional tests or quizzes; and participation in group projects.
ENGL 101 Understanding Literature
CRN: 41732
Days/Time: MWF 9:9:50
Instructor: Walter Ben Michaels
How is understanding literature different from understanding any other piece of writing? Why, for example, is a shopping list in a poem different from the exact same list you might look at in a supermarket? Is it because one is supposed to tell you what to buy and the other is supposed to give you some kind of aesthetic pleasure? How does that work? Is it because one has “formal” qualities, and the other doesn’t? What are formal qualities anyway? In this course we’ll read some poems, short stories, and several short novels and try to see whether they do in fact give us some kind of pleasure and, if so, how. The reading assignments will be short, but you’ll be expected to do them carefully, and the writing assignments will also be short but there will be several of them, plus revisions – the idea is not only to get better at reading literature but also to work on writing about it.
ENGL 103 Understanding Poetry
CRN: 37897, 37896
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Mark Canuel
Poetry has a troubled relation to the city. The crowds, the noise, the trash, and the ceaseless movement bring exhilaration, repulsion, or a mixture of these and other contradictory emotions. This course examines English and American poetry from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing on poetry’s relation to three great cities: London, New York, and Chicago. The particular features of these cities, and how they are affected by issues ranging from urban planning and industrialization to poverty and immigration, help us to contextualize our readings of poems by authors including Jonathan Swift, William Blake, Mary Robinson, Walt Whitman, and Gwendolyn Brooks. In a range of genres and styles, poetic forms respond to the city’s variously frustrating, agglomerating, disintegrating, and chaotic energies, encouraging us to build a history of poetry through its negotiation with urban space. Requirements: attendance, short assignments or quizzes, final paper.
ENGL 103 Voices in History: Poetry and Poetics in British and American Poetry
CRN: 20878
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Mark Magoon
In this course we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.
This course will help you to develop skills that are particularly relevant for both the study and the appreciation of poetry (both reading it and writing about it), but also of art and literature of all forms—and it will prove useful for any academic or professional activity in which understanding someone else and expressing yourself is important.
ENGL 104 Understanding Drama
CRN: 29789
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Aaron Krall
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Ibsen, Glaspell, Brecht, Beckett, Soyinka, Kushner, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.
ENGL 123 Introduction to Asian American Literature
CRN: 35444, 35443
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Mark Chiang
Same as GLAS 123. Must enroll in one LEC and one DIS.

ENGL 131 /MOVI 131 Introduction to Moving Image Arts
CRN: 46155
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45/6:15
Instructor: Katherine Boulay
In this course we explore Film Noir, a tremendously popular and influential film genre born in 1940s Hollywood. Basing our discussions on screenings of such films as The Maltese Falcon (Huston 1941), Laura (Preminger 1944), Double Indemnity (Wilder 1944), etc. we track the genre’s development and its impact on global cinema.
ENGL 132 Understanding Film: The Real and the Surreal
CRN: 46156
Days/Time: M 3:00-4:15, W 3:00-5:45
Instructor: Alex Morelli
This course offers an introduction to the study of film through a dialectic that has preoccupied cinema: the desire to faithfully reproduce reality and efforts to transport audiences into their imaginations. Screenings will emphasize topics related to film style and genre along with significant interventions in film theory, including issues of spectatorship, race, gender, realism, and cinema as a liberatory tool. Students will develop language for reading films as texts and writing with secondary sources. Through class discussion and creative assignments, students will also build the sorts of collaborative communities that have defined this popular medium. Surrealism will guide our journey, encouraging us to unpack cinematic “norms” and embrace unexpected juxtapositions.
ENGL 135 Popular Genres and Culture
CRN: 46157
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Marc Baez
This course will focus on stand-up comedy as a genre with a particularly dynamic audience and a history of playing with social norms. With this focus in mind, the course will be divided into three sections. In the first section we’ll examine some things that are important to a basic appreciation of stand-up comedy: jokes, storytelling, argument, timing, persona, cursing, stereotypes, body language, and choice of clothing. In the second section we’ll look at stand-up comedy as historically and culturally situated, establishing the 1970’s and 80’s as a background context for a sustained focus on George Carlin in the 1990’s. And finally, in the third section, we’ll focus on the 2000’s, starting with Louis C.K. as a way into an exploration of contemporary stand-up comedy and its newer, possibly most interesting figures.
ENGL 154 Understanding (Unruly) Rhetorics: Seeking Productive Public Arguments in America’s Body Politic
CRN: 46160
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
An introductory examination of rhetoric as an intellectual force shaping discourse in both academic and public domains with a focus on the messy arts of (bodily) rhetoric in American debate. This section will focus on such hotly contested issues as who has access to reproductive healthcare; the meaning of the land to Indigenous peoples; the relationship between feminism and Black Lives Matter; the right of BIPOC students to protest on university campuses; what should be done about poverty and houselessness; and the creation of comprehensive sexual education by LGBTQIA youth. Course Information: Previously listed as ENGL 122. Creative Arts course, and Individual and Society course.
Course Text (Available at the UIC bookstore & through online book sellers): Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics. (Eds. Jonathan Alexander, Susan C. Jarratt, and Nancy Welch). Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. ISBN 13 978-0-8229-6556-5
ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 46159
Days/Time: MWF 1:00 – 1:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
We often hear: “Did you see that nasty rhetoric!” or “Their rhetoric was so strange”. Well, in actuality, rhetoric is much more about HOW we say something than what is said. Here’s an example: The comedian Lewis Black declared, “Here’s your law: If a company, can’t explain, in one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” What has he done here? He has used sarcasm and economic law to shape a position. But he also has a conditional sentence, a colon and an ellipsis! All of these items contribute to Black’s comedic rhetoric of identity. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient rhetoric to that of the twenty-first century we will negotiate with this term to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine narrative rhetoric, film rhetoric, comic book rhetoric, and other delivery systems that shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How do we use rhetoric in our lives both consciously and unconsciously? How do rhetors and rhetoric interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity creation? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we encounter daily.
ENGL 158 English Grammar and Style
CRN: 46162
Days/Time: MWF 2:00- 2:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
Is grammar a clump of rules that defines your intelligence? No freakin’ way. Is grammar a system of laws that cannot be broken? Fuggedabawtit. This class will focus on form and function but also get us to question why we care about it. In his book Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” While this seems lofty, it speaks to grammar being the most communicative tool built within language. Preference will be given to examining grammar uses as intentional choices made by authors to aid audiences in comprehending the goals of textual communication. In both individual and group contexts, students in this course will learn the structures of English grammar and analyze texts containing those functions. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to use grammatical terms and processes to better understand written communication and take with them a skill that aids in revision and reflection. So grammar is more about this: You do you, but with a bit of help.
This course is ideal for English, Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing, and Communications Students.
ENGL 158 English Grammar and Style
CRN: 46161
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Jeff Gore
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.
*Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students
ENGL 160 Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 14363
Days/Time: MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Sammie Burton
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis, the Persuasive Letter, the Argumentative Essay and the Reflective Photo Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.
ENGL 160 Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 41435
Days/Time: MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Sammie Burton
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis, the Persuasive Letter, the Argumentative Essay and the Reflective Photo Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.
ENGL 160 Examinations of Self and Society
CRN: 14356
Days/Time: MWF 1-1:50
Instructor: Sammie Burton
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: the Literary Analysis, the Persuasive Letter, the Argumentative Essay and the Reflective Photo Essay. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your instructor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 26187
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Eman Elturki
In an increasingly globalized world and with the abundance of diverse modes of communication, what does being “literate” mean? Is it the ability to read and write? Are these abilities sufficient in the 21st century? In this course, we are going to explore what the term “literacy” entails in a rapidly developing world. This exploration will include examining the conventional view of literacy and how this view has evolved to include new literacies and multiliteracies such as information literacy, digital literacy, cultural literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and more. We will look at how literacy is conceptualized from opposing theoretical perspectives; is the construction of literacy a cognitive activity or a social practice? We will also tackle literacy-related issues such as identity, power, gender as well as the impact of literacy/multiliteracies on health, socioeconomic status, and the economy at large. The course will involve in-class collaborative activities, student-facilitated discussions, mini reading quizzes, and major writing projects. In these writing projects, you will compose multiple drafts of texts in a variety of genres including personal, persuasive, and reflective essays. The learning tasks and assignments in this course will enhance your critical reading skills, build knowledge of genre and writing, and offer opportunities to expand various areas of literacy including information and digital literacies.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: It’s gonna be alright
CRN: 36501
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Gregor Baszak
With a dramatic war in Eastern Europe raging and sky-high prices at home, you couldn’t be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the future. Add to that ever more dramatic news on climate change and crime, and the feeling of dread can feel overwhelming at times. In fact, many teenagers in America and around the world report feelings of anxiety and depression surrounding these issues.
But maybe the future is not as bleak as many in our news media paint it. In this class, we will contemplate whether things may, in fact, turn out much differently than many predict. Scientific modeling of our climate future, for example, predicts several possible outcomes, not all of which are quite as bad as you may read in the news. Could it simply be that we have some psychological tendency to look at matters in the worst possible light?
Since this is a writing class, you will reflect on these questions through several genres, most importantly the argumentative essay, in which you will draw on a wide range of sources to make an original claim about an urgent social issue of the day. And you will ask: At the end of the day, may things just turn out to be alright?
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: It’s gonna be alright
CRN: 26189
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Gregor Baszak
With a dramatic war in Eastern Europe raging and sky-high prices at home, you couldn’t be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the future. Add to that ever more dramatic news on climate change and crime, and the feeling of dread can feel overwhelming at times. In fact, many teenagers in America and around the world report feelings of anxiety and depression surrounding these issues.
But maybe the future is not as bleak as many in our news media paint it. In this class, we will contemplate whether things may, in fact, turn out much differently than many predict. Scientific modeling of our climate future, for example, predicts several possible outcomes, not all of which are quite as bad as you may read in the news. Could it simply be that we have some psychological tendency to look at matters in the worst possible light?
Since this is a writing class, you will reflect on these questions through several genres, most importantly the argumentative essay, in which you will draw on a wide range of sources to make an original claim about an urgent social issue of the day. And you will ask: At the end of the day, may things just turn out to be alright?
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: It’s gonna be alright
CRN: 32310
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Gregor Baszak
With a dramatic war in Eastern Europe raging and sky-high prices at home, you couldn’t be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the future. Add to that ever more dramatic news on climate change and crime, and the feeling of dread can feel overwhelming at times. In fact, many teenagers in America and around the world report feelings of anxiety and depression surrounding these issues.
But maybe the future is not as bleak as many in our news media paint it. In this class, we will contemplate whether things may, in fact, turn out much differently than many predict. Scientific modeling of our climate future, for example, predicts several possible outcomes, not all of which are quite as bad as you may read in the news. Could it simply be that we have some psychological tendency to look at matters in the worst possible light?
Since this is a writing class, you will reflect on these questions through several genres, most importantly the argumentative essay, in which you will draw on a wide range of sources to make an original claim about an urgent social issue of the day. And you will ask: At the end of the day, may things just turn out to be alright?

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts—Rhetoric and Discourse in Our Cities and Communities
CRN: 14374
Days/Time: TR 12:30–1:45
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
As students, you will spend much of your time looking at print works, but you look at images and writing in other contexts every day. Whether or not you seek them out, rhetorical messages reach you and you probably have a sense of how to respond. These messages frequently concern the future and welfare of local and global communities, both here in Chicago, in other communities where you have lived and traveled, and even online. Reading an article, listening to a speech, or encountering a post on social media, you already know how to “read” these arguments and respond to them in a general sense.
This course is an introduction to writing, rhetoric, and research. Though each of these terms can be defined in numerous ways, we will focus most carefully on writing and rhetoric as the craft of constructing an argument and research as the process of investigation and analysis. Since good writing begins with good thinking, this course will emphasize the importance of critical reading and will ask you to analyze a variety of texts throughout the term. We will focus on discourse surrounding real-world issues in cities and other communities in various public media and from diverse sources.
ENGL 160 Academic writing 1 – Art, Music, & Society
CRN: 14357
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Carrie McGath
Visual art and music have an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course, we will delve into that connection, and in this course will examine the visual landscape around us. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and have the opportunity to deeply explore and analyze these artforms in order to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.
We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Orville Peck, LP, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the canon and history that is being created right now.
There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as in-class activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester.
ENGL 160 Academic writing 1 – Art, Music, & Society
CRN: 14361
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Carrie McGath
Visual art and music have an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course, we will delve into that connection, and in this course will examine the visual landscape around us. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and have the opportunity to deeply explore and analyze these artforms in order to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.
We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Orville Peck, LP, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the canon and history that is being created right now.
There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as in-class activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing (I): Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46437
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Ling He
This course will be taught fully online for the entire Spring 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. All course materials will be on the Blackboard course site. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to the class by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, context, and the related expectations for the writing form and content. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.
ENGL 160 Advertising and Consumerism
CRN: 14364
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Deanna Thompson
Those who seek to persuade, leverage our attitudes and beliefs, appealing to our emotions, habits, or intellect, to convince us to be, to act, to feel, or to think in a certain way. Efforts to persuade can be as subtle as a facial expression, while others can be as overt as an ad on your social media feed. In this course, we will explore a variety of texts, delving into their rhetorical situations in order to understand how arguments are constructed, how positions are taken, and how individuals persuade. This exploration will aid you in developing the requisite skills that will allow you to express yourselves in various genres of writing as well as hone your ability to critically survey texts and other media forms to identify the means they utilize to influence your opinion.
ENGL 160 Advertising and Consumerism
CRN: 26185
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Deanna Thompson
Those who seek to persuade, leverage our attitudes and beliefs, appealing to our emotions, habits, or intellect, to convince us to be, to act, to feel, or to think in a certain way. Efforts to persuade can be as subtle as a facial expression, while others can be as overt as an ad on your social media feed. In this course, we will explore a variety of texts, delving into their rhetorical situations in order to understand how arguments are constructed, how positions are taken, and how individuals persuade. This exploration will aid you in developing the requisite skills that will allow you to express yourselves in various genres of writing as well as hone your ability to critically survey texts and other media forms to identify the means they utilize to influence your opinion.
ENGL 160 Advertising and Consumerism
CRN: 27287
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Deanna Thompson
Those who seek to persuade, leverage our attitudes and beliefs, appealing to our emotions, habits, or intellect, to convince us to be, to act, to feel, or to think in a certain way. Efforts to persuade can be as subtle as a facial expression, while others can be as overt as an ad on your social media feed. In this course, we will explore a variety of texts, delving into their rhetorical situations in order to understand how arguments are constructed, how positions are taken, and how individuals persuade. This exploration will aid you in developing the requisite skills that will allow you to express yourselves in various genres of writing as well as hone your ability to critically survey texts and other media forms to identify the means they utilize to influence your opinion.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 14367
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Ryan Croken
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 14379
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Ryan Croken
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 19835
Days/Time: 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Ryan Croken
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
ENGL 160 Writing About African American Oppression, Resistance, & Inspiration:
CRN: 46348
Days/Time: Asynchronous Remote
Instructor: Robin Gayle
In this asynchronous remote course, we will study the works of Maya Angelou and Malcolm X to learn how individuals use their words to enact change. As we study their writings, we will better conceptualize the reality of racism within the United States. Then, we will narrow our lens to how the US Criminal Justice System continues to oppress Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC) and to how these communities are combatting these historically racist institutions. Through weekly discussion boards and formal writing assignments, we will learn that language is a form of power that we can adapt for our purposes. Ultimately, this course will provide you with the skills to be successful in English 161 and beyond.
Note: This course is designed for highly motivated, organized students. While the flexible scheduling allows student workers, parents, and caretakers more control over their schedules, students will be held to the same rigorous standards as classes held IRL.
ENGL 160 “Writing About African American Oppression, Resistance, & Inspiration:
CRN: 46441
Days/Time: Asynchronous Remote
Instructor: Robin Gayle
In this asynchronous remote course, we will study the works of Maya Angelou and Malcolm X to learn how individuals use their words to enact change. As we study their writings, we will better conceptualize the reality of racism within the United States. Then, we will narrow our lens to how the US Criminal Justice System continues to oppress Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC) and to how these communities are combatting these historically racist institutions. Through weekly discussion boards and formal writing assignments, we will learn that language is a form of power that we can adapt for our purposes. Ultimately, this course will provide you with the skills to be successful in English 161 and beyond.
Note: This course is designed for highly motivated, organized students. While the flexible scheduling allows student workers, parents, and caretakers more control over their schedules, students will be held to the same rigorous standards as classes held IRL.
ENGL 160 “Writing About African American Oppression, Resistance, & Inspiration:
CRN: 46444
Days/Time: Asynchronous Remote
Instructor: Robin Gayle
In this asynchronous remote course, we will study the works of Maya Angelou and Malcolm X to learn how individuals use their words to enact change. As we study their writings, we will better conceptualize the reality of racism within the United States. Then, we will narrow our lens to how the US Criminal Justice System continues to oppress Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC) and to how these communities are combatting these historically racist institutions. Through weekly discussion boards and formal writing assignments, we will learn that language is a form of power that we can adapt for our purposes. Ultimately, this course will provide you with the skills to be successful in English 161 and beyond.
Note: This course is designed for highly motivated, organized students. While the flexible scheduling allows student workers, parents, and caretakers more control over their schedules, students will be held to the same rigorous standards as classes held IRL.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14355
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ling He
This course will be taught fully online for the entire Spring 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. All course materials will be on the Blackboard course site. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to the class by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, context, and the related expectations for the writing form and content. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing (I): Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 41136
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ling He
This course will be taught fully online for the entire Spring 2023 semester. The sessions will be conducted synchronously on Tuesday and Thursday on Blackboard Collaborate. You will need to have access to your own computer and a high-speed Internet Service Provider. All course materials will be on the Blackboard course site. Specific guides for the course site login will be sent to the class by email before the first day of the semester.
ENGL160 is designed and taught using genre-based pedagogy, viewing the genre as the common form of responding to similar situations that shape writing. From this lens, the course is structured around four writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to the writing purposes, audience, context, and the related expectations for the writing form and content. You will learn how to write five academic genres: Reading Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection, in addition to public writing using social media. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations. Reading is integrated into writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.
ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14365
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Eman Elturki
In an increasingly globalized world and with the abundance of diverse modes of communication, what does being “literate” mean? Is it the ability to read and write? Are these abilities sufficient in the 21st century? In this course, we are going to explore what the term “literacy” entails in a rapidly developing world. This exploration will include examining the conventional view of literacy and how this view has evolved to include new literacies and multiliteracies such as information literacy, digital literacy, cultural literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and more. We will look at how literacy is conceptualized from opposing theoretical perspectives; is the construction of literacy a cognitive activity or a social practice? We will also tackle literacy-related issues such as identity, power, gender as well as the impact of literacy/multiliteracies on health, socioeconomic status, and the economy at large. The course will involve in-class collaborative activities, student-facilitated discussions, mini reading quizzes, and major writing projects. In these writing projects, you will compose multiple drafts of texts in a variety of genres including personal, persuasive, and reflective essays. The learning tasks and assignments in this course will enhance your critical reading skills, build knowledge of genre and writing, and offer opportunities to expand various areas of literacy including information and digital literacies.
ENGL 160 Academic writing 1 – Art, Music, & Society
CRN: 27288
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Carrie McGath
Visual art and music have an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course, we will delve into that connection, and in this course will examine the visual landscape around us. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and have the opportunity to deeply explore and analyze these artforms in order to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.
We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Orville Peck, LP, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the canon and history that is being created right now.
There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as in-class activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II. Rumors, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: A Research Inquiry Into the Phenomenon of Mass Hysteria
CRN: 30805
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Language, Society, and Accessibility
CRN: 14452
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero
Our focus in this online course will be to explore, question, and propose critical ideas about the ways we all learn, communicate, and interact. Among other topics, we will research and write about language, writing, social dynamics, education systems, and the way in which elements from our day-to-day lives translate to learning spaces and beyond. As you conduct a semester-long research project, you will begin exploring the ways in which online learning influences contemporary social structures, and vice versa. We will begin this research journey collectively by asking some key questions: how do we use knowledge as a measurement of individual merit? What influences our perception of value in society? What are tangible and rhetorical roles of learning spaces, and how do these contribute to our worldview? To try to answer these questions we will explore the structure of this very English course and our individual identities as members of our academic community. Doing so will allow us to analyze the role of learning ‘spaces’ across social structures and to posit why it is that knowledge, ideas, and communication hold such immense power in our lives.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research; Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 14427
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Oh, Horrors! Research Papers!
CRN: 14473
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
Horror. Terror. The uncanny. The weird. The gothic. The oneiric. The frightful. The supernatural. The haunted. The plagued. The ghastly. The dark. The dark. The dark. The dark. So dark. So very dark. The endless night. Forever the night. All work. No play. And Jack is a dull, dull boy… Hold my hand?

ENGL 161 Writing in the University
CRN: 14394
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Jennifer Hernandez jhern66@uic.edu
Ever find yourself saying you don’t know how to write? Or, more popularly, that you’re not good at it? Good writing, bad writing—what does it mean anyway? More specifically, what does writing mean and what does it look like for YOUR academic discipline? From English to Engineering, we’ll look beyond writing to write and learn about why certain genres of writing are more rhetorically effective in specific disciplines. We’ll also delve into the diverse ways we all approach inquiry and research in an effort to figure out what your ideal writing process looks like. In the end, we’ll piece together individualized research projects that show us how interdisciplinary rhetoric and composition truly are.
ENGL 161 Writing About Music and Society
CRN: 44764
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Chris Muratore cmurat2@uic.edu
In this class, you will learn about academic writing and the research process through the
lens of writing about music. Specifically, we will be exploring how writing about a musical
piece of your choice will allow you to discuss and examine important contemporary social and political issues such as gender equality and cultural appropriation. The class will therefore be structured around four projects– an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literary review and a research paper– which will culminate in the writing of an extended argumentative essay based on analysis of your own research. This will help you learn how to write in a clear and effective manner that will give you valuable communication skills both within academia and whatever career you choose to pursue after college.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Unfinished Business: How Events of 1955-1975 Shape Our Present
CRN: 32285
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50 Online
Instructor: Kris Chen
In this synchronous online course, we will explore key events in the United States that occurred between 1955 and 1975 and have ties to present-day social issues. Topics discussed in class will include (but are not limited to): civil rights, counterculture, education reform, environmental protections, LGBTQ+ rights, Medicare, political corruption, reproductive rights, Russia, unions, and voting rights. In this class, you will select a present-day topic with ties to the 1955-1965 era in the United States to conduct a semester-long focused inquiry of that topic. Assignments will include four writing projects: an annotated bibliography, a project proposal, a literature review, and a research paper. Short writing assignments and peer reviews are also incorporated into the class.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Contemporary Film and Culture
CRN: 14388
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Ryan Nordle
This course will explore the role that contemporary film plays in culture, and that culture plays in film. By contemporary film, we mean the inter/national cinema of the last 50 years. In your examination of the connection between film and culture, you will develop your skills in academic writing and the research process. While this course will broadly instruct on principles of academic writing, you will specifically learn about and demonstrate competence in writing through four projects: an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literary review, and a research paper. These four writing projects will be the focus of the units in this course, all designed to prepare your writing for entering public and academic spheres.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Female Networks and Feminist Resistances
CRN: 41600
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Zara Imran
This course will investigate female networks of kinship/friendship and their relationship to feminist resistances. We will read a range of texts from various disciplines and critically analyze theoretical paradigms and feminist movements over time. It will provide you with a breadth of knowledge, exposing you to some central political and social movements, their criticisms and shortcomings, theorizations and complications of sisterhood, correspondences, etc. The primary goal of this course is to help students undertake independent research. Students should choose what aspect of the course they like and explore it that in depth in their own research projects.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Contemporary Cinema and Modern Problems
CRN: 14434
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Eric Pahre
The social issues at the forefront of our conscience—inequality, discrimination, war, climate change, to list only a few—are prevalent in modern film and television to a degree that we as viewers may not feel prepared to engage with the deeper meaning of every piece of media we encounter. In this English 161 section, you will develop your ability to research and draft an academic essay by writing about the depiction of modern issues in contemporary cinema. You will work to thoughtfully interpret and discuss the challenging content of socially-minded films and learn to write about and argue for that deeper meaning. You will also learn to join an ongoing academic conversation about the representation of your chosen topic in popular film and media. You will focus your efforts towards one or two films and a central social topic and spend the bulk of the semester on the systematic and thorough development of your own, well-supported ideas in a semester-long project. You will create an annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, and end the semester with a thoroughly reasoned and researched essay.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Disability in Literature, Film, and Online Media
CRN: 14384
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Angelica Davila
Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives. Despite this, disabled people continue to be treated as an afterthought of society. The same could be said for how disability is portrayed in various forms of media, such as literature, film, and online. In this section of English 161, we will analyze disability portrayal in the media and explore connections between media and society. How does disability portrayal in media translate into the field of education, politics, quality of daily living, and popular culture? We will focus on critically analyzing media, identifying issues, and researching a chosen topic within disability portrayal and society. This course’s final project will be a research paper where you will explore your chosen topic, engage critically with various sources, and enter a larger conversation through your academic writing.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Writing, Seeing
CRN: 14386
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Kabel Mishka Ligot
From checking your phone right after waking up to scanning the cereal box while eating breakfast, from seeing the many posters and billboards on your morning commute to opening your textbooks for class, our lives are supersaturated with images. Through the stories they tell and represent, images can silently or explicitly evoke emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual responses in the people that view them. They can inspire people to think or (re)act in a specific way. In this course, you will be learning about the conventions and methods of academic research and writing. Through four projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a final research paper), you will use these approaches to find effective and compelling ways to talk about the images you encounter in your everyday life, and try to make sense of how they make sense of the world.

ENGL 161 Writing About Music and Society
CRN: 14392
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Chris Muratore cmurat2@uic.edu
In this class, you will learn about academic writing and the research process through the
lens of writing about music. Specifically, we will be exploring how writing about a musical
piece of your choice will allow you to discuss and examine important contemporary social and political issues such as gender equality and cultural appropriation. The class will therefore be structured around four projects– an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literary review and a research paper– which will culminate in the writing of an extended argumentative essay based on analysis of your own research. This will help you learn how to write in a clear and effective manner that will give you valuable communication skills both within academia and whatever career you choose to pursue after college.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42683
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
* This section meets online on Monday and Wednesday at 9:30 AM. Attendance at Zoom meetings is required.
In this course, we will look at the ways our social, educational, employment, and leisure activities are affected by technology. In addition, we will discuss the ways we think about the value and threat of technological developments. How do we understand the relationship between human “”progress”” and technology? What is the relationship between technology and power? Does technology make our lives better, or sometimes worse? Why is there often a negative public reaction to new technology?
Each student will write a 10-page research paper about a controversial issue related to one of the topics that we have discussed in the course: Social Media, the Music Industry, Online Education, Video Games. In addition to short readings that we will discuss in class, students will find sources about their topic of interest to explore in more depth for their research papers. As we explore the major topics of the course, students will develop a research proposal, annotated bibliography, comparative essay, and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Oh, Horrors! Research Papers!
CRN: 14399
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
Horror. Terror. The uncanny. The weird. The gothic. The oneiric. The frightful. The supernatural. The haunted. The plagued. The ghastly. The dark. The dark. The dark. The dark. So dark. So very dark. The endless night. Forever the night. All work. No play. And Jack is a dull, dull boy… Hold my hand?
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Atmospheric Media
CRN: 42684
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45 ONLINE
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore texts and cinematic examples of cutting-edge media forms: virtual reality, augmented reality, and atmospheric media. We will begin with theories and authorial visions that yearn for immersion in—or perhaps escape to—imaginary spaces (virtual reality), how these spaces can blur the lines between work and play, and the mixture of isolation and hyper-connectivity that various thinkers both promise and caution against. We will unpack our contemporary preoccupation with artificial objects and companions that join us in our real physical spaces (augmented reality), and finally we will consider the ways that machines can “see” us in unexpected ways and how they teach us to see ourselves, a growing ubiquity mediated by increasingly diffuse and invisible technologies (so-called “atmospheric” media). You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.
ENGL 161 Democracy and its Consequences
CRN: 26192
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Abigail Kremer akreme3@uic.edu
We often think of democracy as a flawed, but “best as we can get” system. Surely, as we’ve seen with American democracy, it can be flawed, disrupted, and broken. In this class, we will examine, first, democracy as a system alone: what would it look like if democracy worked perfectly? In doing so we will analyze democracy’s practical application, and what it looks like in governments presently. We will also be working to understand democracy and its relationship to capitalism. That is, until inevitably, we explore what happens when and how democracies collapse.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Female Networks and Feminist Resistances
CRN: 25973
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Zara Imran
This course will investigate female networks of kinship/friendship and their relationship to feminist resistances. We will read a range of texts from various disciplines and critically analyze theoretical paradigms and feminist movements over time. It will provide you with a breadth of knowledge, exposing you to some central political and social movements, their criticisms and shortcomings, theorizations and complications of sisterhood, correspondences, etc. The primary goal of this course is to help students undertake independent research. Students should choose what aspect of the course they like and explore it that in depth in their own research projects.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Writing, Seeing
CRN: 14462
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Kabel Mishka Ligot
From checking your phone right after waking up to scanning the cereal box while eating breakfast, from seeing the many posters and billboards on your morning commute to opening your textbooks for class, our lives are supersaturated with images. Through the stories they tell and represent, images can silently or explicitly evoke emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual responses in the people that view them. They can inspire people to think or (re)act in a specific way. In this course, you will be learning about the conventions and methods of academic research and writing. Through four projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a final research paper), you will use these approaches to find effective and compelling ways to talk about the images you encounter in your everyday life, and try to make sense of how they make sense of the world.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Contemporary Cinema and Modern Problems
CRN: 42686
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Eric Pahre
The social issues at the forefront of our conscience—inequality, discrimination, war, climate change, to list only a few—are prevalent in modern film and television to a degree that we as viewers may not feel prepared to engage with the deeper meaning of every piece of media we encounter. In this English 161 section, you will develop your ability to research and draft an academic essay by writing about the depiction of modern issues in contemporary cinema. You will work to thoughtfully interpret and discuss the challenging content of socially-minded films and learn to write about and argue for that deeper meaning. You will also learn to join an ongoing academic conversation about the representation of your chosen topic in popular film and media. You will focus your efforts towards one or two films and a central social topic and spend the bulk of the semester on the systematic and thorough development of your own, well-supported ideas in a semester-long project. You will create an annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, and end the semester with a thoroughly reasoned and researched essay.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Contemporary Film and Culture
CRN: 43491
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Ryan Nordle
This course will explore the role that contemporary film plays in culture, and that culture plays in film. By contemporary film, we mean the inter/national cinema of the last 50 years. In your examination of the connection between film and culture, you will develop your skills in academic writing and the research process. While this course will broadly instruct on principles of academic writing, you will specifically learn about and demonstrate competence in writing through four projects: an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literary review, and a research paper. These four writing projects will be the focus of the units in this course, all designed to prepare your writing for entering public and academic spheres.

ENGL 161
Academic Writing II: Unfinished Business: How Events of 1955-1975 Shape Our Present
CRN: 14431
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Kris Chen
This course will explore key events in the United States that occurred between 1955 and 1975 and have ties to present-day social issues. Topics discussed in class will include (but are not limited to): civil rights, counterculture, education reform, environmental protections, LGBTQ+ rights, Medicare, political corruption, reproductive rights, Russia, unions, and voting rights. In this class, you will select a present-day topic with ties to the 1955-1965 era in the United States to conduct a semester-long focused inquiry of that topic. Assignments will include four writing projects: an annotated bibliography, a project proposal, a literature review, and a research paper. Short writing assignments and peer reviews are also incorporated into the class.

ENGL 161 English 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 43494
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Ryan Asmussen asmussen@uic.edu
This course is designed to prepare you for the research and writing you will do throughout your academic career. Class discussion will involve class lecture and activities to assist you in engaging in the practice of academic discourse, which involves developing rhetorical, grammatical, and research skills. You will be required to read challenging academic texts, learn to navigate library databases, evaluate sources, write formal research assignments, write reflectively, and work in discussion/peer-editing groups.
More specifically, we will be focusing on disciplines associated with the humanities. What are the humanities? As opposed to STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the humanities “includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life” (National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended).
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Understanding Documentary
CRN: 14474
Days/Time: MWF 11:00 – 11:50
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, we will explore documentary works—not only documentary film but also photography, poetry, and stenography—and practice academic writing, research, and critical thinking. Although documentary was traditionally tied to historiography and ethnography, many intellectual works driven by documentary mode of discourse and the combination of aesthetic and rhetoric have become significant to any communities and cultural discussions around the world. In this course, we will take up questions in regard to documentary as more than a mode of discourse. Through the examination of various forms of texts—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will practice critical reading, writing, and academic research.
Throughout this course, you will explore and identify your interest and original argument broadly related to documentary works. By working on four projects—annotated bibliography, literature review, research proposal, and critical paper—you will practice culminating your argument into a thesis and contribute to the ongoing academic discussion of your interest.

ENGL 161 Unfiltered: The Effects of Social Media on Body Image and Psychological Well-Being
CRN: 32291
Days/Time: MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Karisa Sosnoski ksosno3@uic.edu
In this class you will consider the intricacies of social media by reading, watching, and listening to sources through an analytical lens. You will be invited to think about other people’s experiences with interactive technologies, their comprehensive influence on communities, and how they facilitate the creation of powerful ideas and standards. Through class discussion and interaction, you will analyze the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, social status, and gender, and how they influence the use and addictive nature of social media. We will analyze controversial topics as a starting point in our exploration, while also considering the positive and negative influence of hyper-technological demands for young people today. How does social media play a role in politics, power, body standards, and psychological well-being? Throughout the course, you will write four major writing projects including an annotated bibliography, synthesized analysis, research proposal, and research essay. We will begin considering larger discussion points as a class, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. Each writing assignment will enable you to further develop your research interests within our class inquiry.
ENGL 161 Sports Fans: Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats
CRN: 14402 MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats”, we will explore the psychology of sports fans and the folklore attached to sports teams in considerable depth as we pursue the aforementioned goals. Beginning with the etymological roots of the word “fan” (from “fanatic”), we will explore such phenomena as deindividuation, disinhibition, and parasocial relationships. We’ll also examine the history of superstition, curses, and scapegoats attached to our own Chicago Cubs (and other teams). These are some of the starting points for much stimulating critical thinking and writing we will undertake together this semester. While these concepts provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about academic research and writing, not just about psychology and superstition. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning about summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing arguments, conducting academic research, writing a research proposal, and drafting a research paper. All of this will culminate in a final research project that answers a research question you have posed in relation to the course inquiry. Our readings and class discussions will guide you through each of these steps, and help you work toward generating a research topic that interests you enough to write a ten-page paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Tabletop Role-Playing Games
CRN: 14461
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Ingram hingr2@uic.edu
Table-Top Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) such as Dungeons and Dragons have seen a boom in popularity in current cultural conscious, with actual play shows like Critical Role and podcasts like The Adventure Zone aiding in the genre’s revival. In this class, you will be looking at TTRPGs and the actual play shows that have aided in this revival to examine the ways that this form of media functions in creating space for representations of major cultural issues. As a class, we will explore these representations and cultural examinations by viewing these shows and reading various sources about TTRPGs, specifically looking at the ways in which these role-playing games affects these representations and major discussions.
While looking at specific examples of these topics, as well as academic sources discussing TTRPGs, you will be tasked with researching and writing a long form research paper discussing one of the many topics that come up in these games and enter the conversation of this form of media and play that is currently happening. During the semester, the writing that you do, including the annotated bibliography, the research proposal, and the literature review, will serve as steppingstones that culminate in the research paper and the presentation of your research to the class. This is a student-driven exploration of TTRPGS as a genre, and what the genre has to offer to society.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14417
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Ryan Asmussen asmussen@uic.edu
This course is designed to prepare you for the research and writing you will do throughout your academic career. Class discussion will involve class lecture and activities to assist you in engaging in the practice of academic discourse, which involves developing rhetorical, grammatical, and research skills. You will be required to read challenging academic texts, learn to navigate library databases, evaluate sources, write formal research assignments, write reflectively, and work in discussion/peer-editing groups.
More specifically, we will be focusing on disciplines associated with the humanities. What are the humanities? As opposed to STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the humanities “includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life” (National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended).
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing about Film and Society
CRN: 14412
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
Whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), films tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, read articles in-depth, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a film analysis, 3) a research proposal, and 4) a researched argument essay. You will choose the film and all the sources for your semester-long research project. You will conduct research using the UIC library databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.
ENGL 161 Social Justice in Public Writing
CRN: 14408
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, called “Social Justice in Public Writing,” we will examine the argumentation of rhetors in the public writing sphere to understand argumentation as it relates to public context and the intended audience. In this course, we will write in various genres, such as the rhetorical precis, the research proposal, and the annotated bibliography which are all designed to develop your research skills such as summarizing, accessing, and citing. These research-focused genres will help to plan and build your semester-long research project, which will take the shape of an academic research paper and a multimodal re-imagination on a social justice issue of your choosing and proposed solutions to this issue. You will be guided throughout this process as we will learn to find sources through the UIC Library Databases and you will be supported by a writing community of peers, through peer review sessions, and receive individualized, instructor feedback on your writing and research. I look forward to working with you!

ENGL 161 Writing in the University
CRN: 14459
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jennifer Hernandez jhern66@uic.edu
Ever find yourself saying you don’t know how to write? Or, more popularly, that you’re not good at it? Good writing, bad writing—what does it mean anyway? More specifically, what does writing mean and what does it look like for YOUR academic discipline? From English to Engineering, we’ll look beyond writing to write and learn about why certain genres of writing are more rhetorically effective in specific disciplines. We’ll also delve into the diverse ways we all approach inquiry and research in an effort to figure out what your ideal writing process looks like. In the end, we’ll piece together individualized research projects that show us how interdisciplinary rhetoric and composition truly are.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “Writing Urban Secret Histories”
CRN: 14470 14449 14446
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirthofuic@gmail.com
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II. Rumors, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: A Research Inquiry Into the Phenomenon of Mass Hysteria
CRN: 14467
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Modern Worlds
CRN: 42528
Days/Time: MWF 11:00 – 11:50
Instructor: james sharpe jsharp21@uic.edu
The “modern world” means many different things to many different people. In this course, we will use journalistic sources covering topics typically considered “modern” — e.g. artificial intelligence, modern science, global capitalism, climate change, and more — to generate research questions and to illustrate fundamental compositional concepts such as organization, argument, genre, citational formats, and multi-media presentation. Students will be expected to conduct their own research in library databases in the second half of the course, ultimately producing a researched argumentative paper.
ENGL 161 Gnetrification
CRN: 14439
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Sian Roberts srober39@uic.edu
Gentrification is sweeping through America. By definition, gentrification is the process of renovating deteriorated urban neighborhoods through the influx of more affluent residents. Gentrification is painted alternately as a destroyer of neighborhoods or a savior of cities. For some, the process of gentrification represents a form of social cleansing and institutionalized racism: families and communities who have lived in the same neighbourhood for many years are forced to move out of their homes due to rising house prices. Critics of gentrification also denounce the way gentrifying leads to the homogenization of neighbourhoods: frequently gentrification leads to an onslaught of hip coffee shops, craft breweries and boutique clothing shops, which replace a neighbourhood’s distinct personality and culture. However, supporters of gentrification claim that change is inevitable, and the renovation of certain neighbourhoods brings prosperity and increased public safety.
ENGL 161 Welcome to My Home?: How Segregationist Legislative Housing Policies Mapped out Chicagoland
CRN: 14387
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Arney Bray abray3@uic.edu
Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities around the world. It has a rich history and a myriad of cultures. This diverse city is also one of the most segregated cities in the United States. This is the result of many years of legislation that inhibited the movement of cultures across town lines. In this class we will research how the housing laws have mapped our city.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research/ Using Utopia: Writing Real-World Reform
CRN: 14432
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Shaina D. Warfield swarfi2@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas of progressive reform and engage with thinkers interested in using the “utopian” as a critical device for conceptualizing radical public policies worth fighting for. Together, we will discuss the uses of utopian imagination in the appeal of the American ideals that uphold our current social systems and think about how policy advocates encourage collective investment in reforming the world.
These considerations will accompany us on our journey through the research process in which you will be tasked with completing four writing assignments. First, you will read and annotate articles related to utopian world-building and advocating for progressive ideas. Then, you will choose your own contemporary reform policy, read relevant research on the subject, enter the conversation with your own argument and develop a research paper to articulate your ideas.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14450
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Spencer Harrison sharri53@uic.edu
Writing is not one size fits all! In this course, we will look broadly at writing pedagogy in higher education, who it benefits, and how to make it more equitable. We will shift from a monolingual approach to writing education to multi- and translingual theories of writing/communication. A main tenet is that different languages (English, Spanish, Russian, etc.) are not actually distinct entities but simply a part of a greater and fluid linguistic whole. We will learn the pros and cons of the conventions of “standard” English academic writing while challenging those norms with alternate strategies. Such strategies include “code-meshing” (incorporating multiple dialects/languages in one document) and mixing genres (e.g., creative writing, personal narrative, and other non-academic genres.) Ultimately, you will choose you own topic of research relating to language that interests you. Some of those topics might include the revival of dead languages, the synthesis of languages in a multi-lingual environment, alternate grammar rules and their implications, etc. This course focuses heavily on the peer review/workshop model of writing to build a supportive writing community.
ENGL 161 The Evolution of Advertising
CRN: 14457
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Daniel McGee dlmcgee2@uic.edu
Today, some of the most invasive ad campaigns can be found lurking within algorithms on social media websites we often visit. This is a method of advertising that has only recently become available thanks to the development of new technologies. However, decades ago, advertising had very different approaches and appeals. So, how does technology affect advertising methods, messages, and strategies? In this class, we will investigate and track the history of advertising and learn how emerging technology created new advertising media in both the past and present.
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the history and development of advertising strategies around the world. You will read/watch a number of sources including blogs, commercial, research articles, books, newspapers, government websites, and many other to get a holistic understanding how technology and advertising evolve together. As you investigate ads and advertising in this research-central course, you will compose several writing assignments, including an annotated bibliography, research proposal, and literature review. The culmination of these writing projects will help develop the fourth and most important writing project of this semester: the research essay. No prior information on advertising, technology, or business is needed.
The goal of using this wide-but-shallow content approach is to cover enough material on advertising and technology that you will find a topic that is meaningful, which will serve as your basis when researching and composing the research essay.

ENGL 161 Sports Fans: Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats
CRN: 14405
Days/Time: MWF 11:00 – 11:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats”, we will explore the psychology of sports fans and the folklore attached to sports teams in considerable depth as we pursue the aforementioned goals. Beginning with the etymological roots of the word “fan” (from “fanatic”), we will explore such phenomena as deindividuation, disinhibition, and parasocial relationships. We’ll also examine the history of superstition, curses, and scapegoats attached to our own Chicago Cubs (and other teams). These are some of the starting points for much stimulating critical thinking and writing we will undertake together this semester. While these concepts provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about academic research and writing, not just about psychology and superstition. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning about summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing arguments, conducting academic research, writing a research proposal, and drafting a research paper. All of this will culminate in a final research project that answers a research question you have posed in relation to the course inquiry. Our readings and class discussions will guide you through each of these steps, and help you work toward generating a research topic that interests you enough to write a ten-page paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14397
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will examine the impact of American corporations on the government, economy, environment, mental/physical health, and the justice system. We will also look closely at how corporate branding and advertising shape our notions – from childhood on – of beauty, success, race, gender, and more. Does profit-driven privatization subvert the public good? Are corporations that claim to promote social and environmental causes actually doing so? These and other such questions will inform your own academic inquires. Over the course of the semester, you will produce four writing projects, the last of which will ask you to introduce your readers to a current debate involving our class topic, take a position on this debate, and construct an evidence-based argument to support your position.

ENGL 161 Bildungsroman, Racism and Youth Culture
CRN: 14411
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Zhuang Du zdu22@uic.edu
Bildungsroman, as a meta-narrative focusing on teenagers’ growing-up and finding a proper place in the cruel adult world, has a universal appeal to youngsters. Marvel’s superhero movies and the Harry Potter series faithfully follow the logic of Bildungsroman：courage and anti-authoritarianism. But although Black Panther was released in 2018, and Shangchi was in 2021, thus Bildungsroman basically is more like a white male meta-narrative. Thus, we need to ask the reasons for that. Moreover, as young social media Vloggers get fame so easily and the second-generation stars and elites inherit their parents’ wealth and fame so naturally, we need to ask another tricky question: do youngsters today still believe in the logic of the traditional Bildungsroman?
The course consists of four main writing projects centered on Bildungsroman. In the first project, enabling you to practice documenting and critically responding to others’ ideas, you read and annotate two short articles about Bildungsroman. Following this assignment, you increasingly work on your own as you build the blocks of your final ten-page research paper. Before you submit this paper, you submit two related writing assignments. In these assignments you hone your skills identifying relevant research and incorporating it into your own work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II. Rumors, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: A Research Inquiry Into the Phenomenon of Mass Hysteria
CRN: 22118
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research: Writing about Film and Society
CRN: 42685
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
Whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), films tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, read articles in-depth, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a film analysis, 3) a research proposal, and 4) a researched argument essay. You will choose the film and all the sources for your semester-long research project. You will conduct research using the UIC library databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 English 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14445
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Ryan Asmussen asmussen@uic.edu
This course is designed to prepare you for the research and writing you will do throughout your academic career. Class discussion will involve class lecture and activities to assist you in engaging in the practice of academic discourse, which involves developing rhetorical, grammatical, and research skills. You will be required to read challenging academic texts, learn to navigate library databases, evaluate sources, write formal research assignments, write reflectively, and work in discussion/peer-editing groups.
More specifically, we will be focusing on disciplines associated with the humanities. What are the humanities? As opposed to STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the humanities “includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life” (National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended).
ENGL 161 Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 14433
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42682
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will examine the impact of American corporations on the government, economy, environment, mental/physical health, and the justice system. We will also look closely at how corporate branding and advertising shape our notions – from childhood on – of beauty, success, race, gender, and more. Does profit-driven privatization subvert the public good? Are corporations that claim to promote social and environmental causes actually doing so? These and other such questions will inform your own academic inquires. Over the course of the semester, you will produce four writing projects, the last of which will ask you to introduce your readers to a current debate involving our class topic, take a position on this debate, and construct an evidence-based argument to support your position.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42687
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Social Justice in Public Writing
CRN: 14414
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, called “Social Justice in Public Writing,” we will examine the argumentation of rhetors in the public writing sphere to understand argumentation as it relates to public context and the intended audience. In this course, we will write in various genres, such as the rhetorical precis, the research proposal, and the annotated bibliography which are all designed to develop your research skills such as summarizing, accessing, and citing. These research-focused genres will help to plan and build your semester-long research project, which will take the shape of an academic research paper and a multimodal re-imagination on a social justice issue of your choosing and proposed solutions to this issue. You will be guided throughout this process as we will learn to find sources through the UIC Library Databases and you will be supported by a writing community of peers, through peer review sessions, and receive individualized, instructor feedback on your writing and research. I look forward to working with you!

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “Writing Urban Secret Histories”
CRN: 14449
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirthofuic@gmail.com
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 32290
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
A major concern of the academic study of film is how it both mirrors and shapes our understanding of gender. Your goal is to identify, research, and develop an inquiry into some aspect of the intersection of gender and film that interests you. As part of this process, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper. Your final project should not only demonstrate your understanding of the topic and the existing public and academic conversations about it, but also engage with these conversations in a meaningful way.

ENGL 161 Sports Fans: Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats
CRN: 42688
Days/Time: MWF 1:00 -1:50
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats”, we will explore the psychology of sports fans and the folklore attached to sports teams in considerable depth as we pursue the aforementioned goals. Beginning with the etymological roots of the word “fan” (from “fanatic”), we will explore such phenomena as deindividuation, disinhibition, and parasocial relationships. We’ll also examine the history of superstition, curses, and scapegoats attached to our own Chicago Cubs (and other teams). These are some of the starting points for much stimulating critical thinking and writing we will undertake together this semester. While these concepts provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about academic research and writing, not just about psychology and superstition. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning about summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing arguments, conducting academic research, writing a research proposal, and drafting a research paper. All of this will culminate in a final research project that answers a research question you have posed in relation to the course inquiry. Our readings and class discussions will guide you through each of these steps, and help you work toward generating a research topic that interests you enough to write a ten-page paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “Writing Urban Secret Histories”
CRN: 14446
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirthofuic@gmail.com
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14383
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability as it relates to waste management, urban stormwater management, transportation, and labor. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14454
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
A major concern of the academic study of film is how it both mirrors and shapes our understanding of gender. Your goal is to identify, research, and develop an inquiry into some aspect of the intersection of gender and film that interests you. As part of this process, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper. Your final project should not only demonstrate your understanding of the topic and the existing public and academic conversations about it, but also engage with these conversations in a meaningful way.

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research: Writing about Film and Society
CRN: 14407
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Snezana Zabic szabic2@uic.edu
Whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), films tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, read articles in-depth, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a film analysis, 3) a research proposal, and 4) a researched argument essay. You will choose the film and all the sources for your semester-long research project. You will conduct research using the UIC library databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 44763
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will examine the impact of American corporations on the government, economy, environment, mental/physical health, and the justice system. We will also look closely at how corporate branding and advertising shape our notions – from childhood on – of beauty, success, race, gender, and more. Does profit-driven privatization subvert the public good? Are corporations that claim to promote social and environmental causes actually doing so? These and other such questions will inform your own academic inquires. Over the course of the semester, you will produce four writing projects, the last of which will ask you to introduce your readers to a current debate involving our class topic, take a position on this debate, and construct an evidence-based argument to support your position.

ENGL 161 Social Justice in Public Writing
CRN: 43519
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, called “Social Justice in Public Writing,” we will examine the argumentation of rhetors in the public writing sphere to understand argumentation as it relates to public context and the intended audience. In this course, we will write in various genres, such as the rhetorical precis, the research proposal, and the annotated bibliography which are all designed to develop your research skills such as summarizing, accessing, and citing. These research-focused genres will help to plan and build your semester-long research project, which will take the shape of an academic research paper and a multimodal re-imagination on a social justice issue of your choosing and proposed solutions to this issue. You will be guided throughout this process as we will learn to find sources through the UIC Library Databases and you will be supported by a writing community of peers, through peer review sessions, and receive individualized, instructor feedback on your writing and research. I look forward to working with you!

ENGL 161 Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 14413
Days/Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14428
Days/Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Heather Doble hdoble3@uic.edu
In this course we will use food as a way to explore larger issues of culture and identity. Here we will take a page from authors like Geeta Kothari who locates her struggle between Indian and American cultures in food and argues that “cultural identity shapes, and is shaped by, the foods one eats and the ways one eats them.” We specifically look at immigrant contributions to “American” food and culture. We will ask questions like: what is Chicago food? Is it deep-dish pizza and Chicago hot dogs? Or is it the Korean/Polish fusion of Chef Won Kim who grew up in a Korean family in a predominately Polish neighborhood in Chicago?

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Oh, Horrors! Research Papers!
CRN: 26194
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Kian Bergstrom kian@uic.edu
Horror. Terror. The uncanny. The weird. The gothic. The oneiric. The frightful. The supernatural. The haunted. The plagued. The ghastly. The dark. The dark. The dark. The dark. So dark. So very dark. The endless night. Forever the night. All work. No play. And Jack is a dull, dull boy… Hold my hand?
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research; Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 40110
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Atmospheric Media
CRN: 14447
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15 ONLINE
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore texts and cinematic examples of cutting-edge media forms: virtual reality, augmented reality, and atmospheric media. We will begin with theories and authorial visions that yearn for immersion in—or perhaps escape to—imaginary spaces (virtual reality), how these spaces can blur the lines between work and play, and the mixture of isolation and hyper-connectivity that various thinkers both promise and caution against. We will unpack our contemporary preoccupation with artificial objects and companions that join us in our real physical spaces (augmented reality), and finally we will consider the ways that machines can “see” us in unexpected ways and how they teach us to see ourselves, a growing ubiquity mediated by increasingly diffuse and invisible technologies (so-called “atmospheric” media). You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.
ENGL 161 Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 14438
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14403
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-4:50
Instructor: Heather Doble hdoble3@uic.edu
In this course we will use food as a way to explore larger issues of culture and identity. Here we will take a page from authors like Geeta Kothari who locates her struggle between Indian and American cultures in food and argues that “cultural identity shapes, and is shaped by, the foods one eats and the ways one eats them.” We specifically look at immigrant contributions to “American” food and culture. We will ask questions like: what is Chicago food? Is it deep-dish pizza and Chicago hot dogs? Or is it the Korean/Polish fusion of Chef Won Kim who grew up in a Korean family in a predominately Polish neighborhood in Chicago?

ENGL 161 Health Disparities: Closing the Health Gap in America
CRN: 26193
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Kim O’Neil kimoneil@uic.edu
English 161 is designed to provide you with the intellectual tools you will need to engage in academic inquiry. Roughly the first third of the course is devoted to developing these tools, exploring texts within our theme across a range of media and genres, practicing effective strategies for finding, assessing, reading, annotating, and summarizing sources with an eye to understanding how we can credibly use different source types, putting them in conversation with each other; the result of this work will be an annotated bibliography. The second part of the course is devoted to applying these tools to a specific topic of interest to you within our broader theme—a health disparity that you will argue is current, dire, impacted by social policy, and in need of solution. As part of our class theme, we will examine how material factors like the resources in the neighborhood where you live, as well as factors like racism and homophobia, act as chronic stressors on health and indeed shorten lifespan, a phenomenon which one medical journalist has called “medical apartheid” and another the “status syndrome.” The final writing project for the course will be a documented research paper you write cumulatively in three stages. You will 1) present the problem—use a case study and statistical evidence to show that a health disparity exists for a particular community, is severe in impact, broad in scope, and something we should care about; 2) analyze causes—use a literature review format to synthesize the various factors contributing to the problem into distinct schools of thought, weigh the merits and limitations of each; and 3) analyze policy solutions—after logical consideration of the arguments for and against various approaches, advocate for a specific program you judge most effective, and call your audience to action. As a capstone project, as researchers, you will raise awareness about the disparities you’ve investigated by presenting your findings for the broader UIC community of stakeholders in the public health and social justice discourse.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Atmospheric Media
CRN: 43492
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore texts and cinematic examples of cutting-edge media forms: virtual reality, augmented reality, and atmospheric media. We will begin with theories and authorial visions that yearn for immersion in—or perhaps escape to—imaginary spaces (virtual reality), how these spaces can blur the lines between work and play, and the mixture of isolation and hyper-connectivity that various thinkers both promise and caution against. We will unpack our contemporary preoccupation with artificial objects and companions that join us in our real physical spaces (augmented reality), and finally we will consider the ways that machines can “see” us in unexpected ways and how they teach us to see ourselves, a growing ubiquity mediated by increasingly diffuse and invisible technologies (so-called “atmospheric” media). You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (annotated bibliography, review of literature, paper proposal, final paper) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.
ENGL 161 Contemplating the Now
CRN: 29121
Days/Time: MW 4.30-5:45
Instructor: Alonzo Rico rico2@uic.edu
This course will focus mainly on the contemporary issues facing us today politically and socially, and how we position ourselves in relation to those issues at hand, whether it be by fervently adopting a particular ideology or remaining ignorantly ambivalent. Quite simply, this course will not necessarily have a concrete topic on which to focus on, but will emphasize, and perhaps provoke, interest in contemporary issues that inevitably saturate our everyday lives. And hopefully, in discussing these difficult issues, in taking the time to write about them in a critical manner, we will find something to say and maybe even care about.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14453
Days/Time: MWF 5:00-5:50
Instructor: Heather Doble hdoble3@uic.edu
In this course we will use food as a way to explore larger issues of culture and identity. Here we will take a page from authors like Geeta Kothari who locates her struggle between Indian and American cultures in food and argues that “cultural identity shapes, and is shaped by, the foods one eats and the ways one eats them.” We specifically look at immigrant contributions to “American” food and culture. We will ask questions like: what is Chicago food? Is it deep-dish pizza and Chicago hot dogs? Or is it the Korean/Polish fusion of Chef Won Kim who grew up in a Korean family in a predominately Polish neighborhood in Chicago?

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Processing Grief through Poetry, Music and Writing
CRN: 14401
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger
Grief is a universal experience, but the way humans handle it varies. While we will use music, poetry, and writing to explore grief, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about how grief effects the human condition. From personal loss to collective grief, we will make connections between the psychological effects of grief and how it informs the creative journey. In doing so, we can enter an intellectual conversation about life, loss, and how humans cope and process through their grief. In this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts They Say, I Say and From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Practical Guide explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing 2: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 29118
Days/Time: TR 8-9:15 AM
Instructor: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States be devoted entirely to academics, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do institutions of postsecondary education promote economic mobility, or do they sustain and perpetuate inequality? This course will conduct a focused inquiry into issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly articles, and we will also examine a variety of popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.). Assignments will include four writing projects: annotated bibliography, literature review, research proposal, argumentative research paper. Short drafting and peer-review assignments are also to be expected.

ENGL 161 Writing about Stand-Up Comedy and Audience
CRN: 14422
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Linguistics, Identity and Community
CRN: 14415
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cavlahos2@gmail.com
In this class, we will study English in a way you may not have thought of before–not so much as writing an essay or reading a novel, but as language, a tool to communicate with the world around us. Language shapes our own and other’s sense of identity, and we will explore how it varies based on who we are, where we are, and who we’re talking to.
While the theme of this course is sociolinguistics (the scientific study of language use in societies), you will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Each major project in this class prepares you for the final project, a 10-page research paper on a specific area of sociolinguistics related to your interests.
Past topics have investigated the possibility of integrating non-prestige language varieties into academic settings, the effects of bilingualism upon academic success, the role of language in personal/group identity formation, predictions about the future role of English in the global workplace, etc. An example of my own sociolinguistic research analyzed the content of toxic comments female video gamers received in comparison to their male counterparts. The field of sociolinguistics is broad, so start thinking about language, identity, and society now to see what piques your interest.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing 2: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 26882
Days/Time: TR 9:30 – 10:45 AM
Instructor: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States be devoted entirely to academics, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do institutions of postsecondary education promote economic mobility, or do they sustain and perpetuate inequality? This course will conduct a focused inquiry into issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly articles, and we will also examine a variety of popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.). Assignments will include four writing projects: annotated bibliography, literature review, research proposal, argumentative research paper. Short drafting and peer-review assignments are also to be expected.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 14398
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
Although we begin with an analysis of Emma Goldman’s highly romantic and wildly impractical theory of anarchism, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections to contemporary movements and politics and in this way, you will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, in this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our text From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Practical Guide explains how to develop ideas, read and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Research and Inquiry
CRN: 14471
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Animalia arthropoda hexapoda will serve as the subject of inquiry for this course. Whether you’re confused as Gregor Samsa or as certain as E. O. Wilson about insects, you’ll find this course emphasizing what it means to engage in both oral and written academic conversations, how to read around subjects, and how to navigate research on the world wide web as well as through the stacks of the Daley Library. The course involves reading and writing assignments, four writing projects, and a group research project – all revolving around insects and how we interact with them.
The course seeks to view academic writing through the lens of entomology in the hopes that students might make connections between composition and the physical world. The course also challenges students to consider what we mean when we use the word “research,” as well as the scope and impact of research.

ENGL 161 Writing about Stand-Up Comedy and Audience
CRN: 14465
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Processing Grief through Poetry, Music and Writing
CRN: 30804
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger
Grief is a universal experience, but the way humans handle it varies. While we will use music, poetry, and writing to explore grief, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about how grief effects the human condition. From personal loss to collective grief, we will make connections between the psychological effects of grief and how it informs the creative journey. In doing so, we can enter an intellectual conversation about life, loss, and how humans cope and process through their grief. In this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts They Say, I Say and From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Practical Guide explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 29120
Days/Time: TR 11:00- 12:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello gingercostello@gmail.com
Although we begin with an analysis of Emma Goldman’s highly romantic and wildly impractical theory of anarchism, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about prison reform. You will be asked to make connections to contemporary movements and politics and in this way, you will be entering into an intellectual conversation about prison systems and positioning yourselves within those conversations.
Contrary to common understanding, neither writing nor research is a linear process. Thus, in this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our text From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Practical Guide explains how to develop ideas, read and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing Inquiry and Research: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness, and Medicine
CRN: 26880
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data? At the heart of this opposition between medicine and the humanities is the view that the body and the mind exist as separate entities and must be treated accordingly.
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding the incorporation of the humanities into a medical context. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to literary representations of illness and the body, narrative medicine, illness narratives, trauma and the body, mental illness and the arts, television depictions of medicine, emotions and the body, the history of medicine, mediating the body in the public sphere or any related topic of your choosing.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14443
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Animalia arthropoda hexapoda will serve as the subject of inquiry for this course. Whether you’re confused as Gregor Samsa or as certain as E. O. Wilson about insects, you’ll find this course emphasizing what it means to engage in both oral and written academic
conversations, how to read around subjects, and how to navigate research on the world wide web as well as through the stacks of the Daley Library. The course involves reading and writing assignments, four writing projects, and a group research project – all revolving around insects and how we interact with them.
The course seeks to view academic writing through the lens of entomology in the hopes that students might make connections between composition and the physical world. The course also challenges students to consider what we mean when we use the word “research,” as well as the scope and impact of research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research Linguistics, Identity and Community
CRN: 14442
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.du
In this class, we will study English in a way you may not have thought of before–not so much as writing an essay or reading a novel, but as language, a tool to communicate with the world around us. Language shapes our own and other’s sense of identity, and we will explore how it varies based on who we are, where we are, and who we’re talking to.
While the theme of this course is sociolinguistics (the scientific study of language use in societies), you will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Each major project in this class prepares you for the final project, a 10-page research paper on a specific area of sociolinguistics related to your interests.
Past topics have investigated the possibility of integrating non-prestige language varieties into academic settings, the effects of bilingualism upon academic success, the role of language in personal/group identity formation, predictions about the future role of English in the global workplace, etc. An example of my own sociolinguistic research analyzed the content of toxic comments female video gamers received in comparison to their male counterparts. The field of sociolinguistics is broad, so start thinking about language, identity, and society now to see what piques your interest.
ENGL 161 Writing about Popular Film and Social Movements/Social Change/Social Stagnation
CRN: 41131
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Media theorist Stuart Hall said that when producers create media (such as popular film) they “encode” messages as part of that creation process. These messages may reinforce expected social norms, as well as challenge them. For example, think about how films depict gender and gender expectations, and how these depictions might vary from traditional to progressive. These can be considered encoded messages. From an audience perspective, the messages might be obvious, loud, and direct, or they might be so quiet, subtle, and well-integrated into a film that you don’t even notice them. However, all of these messages have an impact and influence both us and society in general. If you consider how many films you have seen and how many messages they contain, you begin to understand why this is important and how it impacts social movements and change. We will begin by reading some theoretical work, including an essay by Hall, as well as applications of these theories. In our exploration of the relationship between popular film and social change/stagnation, we will be reading widely, considering how the different readings intersect, and using this information to develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 32289
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course situated in academic inquiry, where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32293
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Animalia arthropoda hexapoda will serve as the subject of inquiry for this course. Whether you’re confused as Gregor Samsa or as certain as E. O. Wilson about insects, you’ll find this course emphasizing what it means to engage in both oral and written academic
conversations, how to read around subjects, and how to navigate research on the world wide web as well as through the stacks of the Daley Library. The course involves reading and writing assignments, four writing projects, and a group research project – all revolving around insects and how we interact with them.
The course seeks to view academic writing through the lens of entomology in the hopes that students might make connections between composition and the physical world. The course also challenges students to consider what we mean when we use the word “research,” as well as the scope and impact of research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Democracy in the Age of Misinformation: Real Votes and Fake News
CRN: 43493
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the threats to democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and (as some argue) the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Democracy in the Age of Misinformation: Real Votes and Fake News
CRN: 32288
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15 / 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the threats to democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and (as some argue) the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing 2: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14464
Days/Time: TR 2:00- 3:15 PM
Instructor: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States be devoted entirely to academics, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do institutions of postsecondary education promote economic mobility, or do they sustain and perpetuate inequality? This course will conduct a focused inquiry into issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly articles, and we will also examine a variety of popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.). Assignments will include four writing projects: annotated bibliography, literature review, research proposal, argumentative research paper. Short drafting and peer-review assignments are also to be expected.

ENGL 161 Writing about Happiness
CRN: 26881
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15pm
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So, what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.
ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 32295
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course situated in academic inquiry, where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.
ENGL 161 Writing about Popular Film and Social Movements/Social Change/Social Stagnation
CRN: 29119
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Media theorist Stuart Hall said that when producers create media (such as popular film) they “encode” messages as part of that creation process. These messages may reinforce expected social norms, as well as challenge them. For example, think about how films depict gender and gender expectations, and how these depictions might vary from traditional to progressive. These can be considered encoded messages. From an audience perspective, the messages might be obvious, loud, and direct, or they might be so quiet, subtle, and well-integrated into a film that you don’t even notice them. However, all of these messages have an impact and influence both us and society in general. If you consider how many films you have seen and how many messages they contain, you begin to understand why this is important and how it impacts social movements and change. We will begin by reading some theoretical work, including an essay by Hall, as well as applications of these theories. In our exploration of the relationship between popular film and social change/stagnation, we will be reading widely, considering how the different readings intersect, and using this information to develop a research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research Linguistics, Identity and Community
CRN: 32287
Days/time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this class, we will study English in a way you may not have thought of before–not so much as writing an essay or reading a novel, but as language, a tool to communicate with the world around us. Language shapes our own and other’s sense of identity, and we will explore how it varies based on who we are, where we are, and who we’re talking to.
While the theme of this course is sociolinguistics (the scientific study of language use in societies), you will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Each major project in this class prepares you for the final project, a 10-page research paper on a specific area of sociolinguistics related to your interests.
Past topics have investigated the possibility of integrating non-prestige language varieties into academic settings, the effects of bilingualism upon academic success, the role of language in personal/group identity formation, predictions about the future role of English in the global workplace, etc. An example of my own sociolinguistic research analyzed the content of toxic comments female video gamers received in comparison to their male counterparts. The field of sociolinguistics is broad, so start thinking about language, identity, and society now to see what piques your interest.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Processing Grief through Poetry, Music and Writing
CRN: 14458
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Nicholas Dertinger
Grief is a universal experience, but the way humans handle it varies. While we will use music, poetry, and writing to explore grief, this class centers on a student-driven, semester-long research project about how grief effects the human condition. From personal loss to collective grief, we will make connections between the psychological effects of grief and how it informs the creative journey. In doing so, we can enter an intellectual conversation about life, loss, and how humans cope and process through their grief. In this class you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts They Say, I Say and From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Practical Guide explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Madness and Society
CRN: 22116
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Evan Reynolds ereyno9@uic.edu
In this class, we will examine the economics of so-called “mental health” and how it affects what gets offered to those deemed mad in terms of resources by the state and the economy. We will examine how the entire industry of mental health services emerges and absorbs opposition from service user activism. We will also chart out madness’s relationship to the Prison Industrial Complex, police brutality and neo-colonial expropriation of resources. We will examine the relationship between ecological crisis and mental distress played out by Greta Thunberg. We will examine how the workplace stress produced by adherence to the logic of maximizing shareholder value produces breakdowns. As the course progresses, we will ultimately produce an original argument about madness and political economy in the form of a research paper.

ENGL 161 Writing about Chicago’s Parks
CRN: 14456
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Rachel Zein rzein2@uic.edu
Nature never intended that this vast number of people should live confined in such small space without any touch of nature and clear sunshine. We need and must have sunning places and spots where our children may enjoy the blessings of nature as provided by flowers, grass, air and sunshine. There is more to life than the splendor of brick and stone structures that go to make up the life of this city. -Chicago Defender, February 12, 1927
Did you know that more than 600 public parks can be found across Chicago? Today, thousands of residents cherish the plethora of public green space throughout the city, but this was not always the case. The epigraph above from the Chicago Defender, a historically Black newspaper that has greatly shaped Chicago’s social and cultural landscape, gestures toward Chicagoans’ strong need for public green spaces at the beginning of the 20th century. In this course, we will explore the past, present, and future(s) of Chicago’s green spaces, including traditional parks, beaches, river walkways, and more. First, we will think carefully about the distinction between “nature” and “city,” and what it means for a park to be “public.” We will also consider contemporary issues such as: the Edgewater community’s fight for life rings at their neighborhood beach; the long struggle to rename Douglas Park after abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Douglass; and the role the parks played during the most acute moments of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we explore these issues together — by way of scholarly articles and books, essays, podcasts, films, photography, and other media — you will be working on your own final research paper that broadly connects to the course theme.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II – Democracy in the Age of Misinformation: Real Votes and Fake News
CRN: 14425
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the threats to democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and (as some argue) the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Writing about Happiness
CRN: 14468
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So, what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.

ENGL 161 Writing about Happiness
CRN: 14437
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Christopher Bryson cbryso2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine questions about happiness. In her book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht explains that our common notions of happiness, what makes us happy in today’s society, is a kind of mythology we all accept as fact. She explores the conception of happiness across history, illuminating traditions and practices that made our ancestors happy, as a means of demonstrating how those notions often contradict our current beliefs and actions. As you read Hecht’s text and the supplemental readings, you will be able to question happiness in your own lives and communities. So, what are the consequences of such an inquiry? Hecht, I think, says it best in her introduction, entitled “Get Happy.” She explains:
We need to pay careful attention to our modern, unhelpful myths [about happiness] so that we can make better choices…Sometimes the lesson is to go out and change our behavior, and sometimes a remarkably different experience of the same behavior becomes possible with the simple addition of some big-picture knowledge. (13-14)
The consequence of this inquiry is, in other words, to better understand our actions and the motives behind them when happiness is at stake. We can better understand ourselves and our society as a result. Much of what Hecht says on this subject is controversial (money can make us happy), and it is my belief that these kinds of propositions will inspire lively debate and engaging research papers that address happiness in modern society.
In this course, you will produce four (4) writing projects, culminating in a documented research paper focusing on some aspect of happiness. The writing projects are 1) a summary; 2) a synthesis; 3) a research proposal; and 4) research paper. For the research paper, you will write a unique, convincing argument, supported by appropriate evidence and claims. Your paper should not only demonstrate an understanding of the context and sources, but also contribute meaningfully to the inquiry you will be exploring throughout the semester.

ENGL 161 Crises of the Neoliberal Present and How We Solve Them
CRN: 14418
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
Students in this course will research and critically analyze how the actions (and inactions) of the recent past have led to the sociopolitical, ecological, and economic crises of our neoliberal present—namely those of perpetual war, climate change, a mismanaged global pandemic, and the heightened exploitation of American workers. Our discussions and collective investigation of contemporary U.S. politics will draw on a variety of scholarly and popular sources. We will begin by reading three recent articles together as a class to establish a conceptual foundation, and, as the semester progresses, each student will be free to research and write about the issue that matters to them most. Students will embark on semester-long, cumulative research projects with two objectives in mind: (1) understanding how a specific sociopolitical, cultural, and/or economic problem became what it is today; and (2) proposing realistic steps we can take to solve it.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Research and Inquiry: What is a Hero?
CRN: 22117
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Keegan Lannon
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, hospitals, grocery stores and nursing homes would put out signs that read, “Heroes work here!” At the same time, the pandemic exposed for many the systemic inequalities in the service industry where these heroes purportedly worked.
It’s worth exploring, then, what is meant by “hero,” and how that term is used in American society—a culture inundated with media that makes claims about heroism. In this course, students will explore how heroes might be defined, and how that definition shapes individual and societal thought and action. This exploration will culminate in a substantial research paper that will contribute to the scholarly and cultural discourse on heroism and its connection to the American Identity.

ENG 175 The Bible as Literature
CRN: 46190
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Raphael Magarik
This course will introduce you to the study of the Bible as a collection of literary texts written by human beings. The texts we read discuss (and disagree with each other about!) erotic desire, the possibility of redemption, politics and warfare, family, the existence of evil, and so on. We will learn something about the times and places in which these texts were produced, and we will practice reading them for ourselves, learning to pay close attention to their quirks, problems, and weirdness. We will also reflect on the varied uses to which biblical texts have been put over time, indeed the varied bibles that later readers, scribes, and editors have created.
ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46167, 46612
Days/Time: TR 2:00–3:15
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
This course is an introduction to how people, often literary scholars and critics, analyze and interpret literature and other creative works using different approaches. In this class, we will become familiar with some of those approaches by reading works of literature and criticism and experimenting with them ourselves. Throughout the semester, we will use different methods of critical analysis as lenses or frameworks for evaluating narratives and the choices authors make in the process of creating them. We will consider the strategies that scholars use to agree and disagree with each other as they engage in conversation about particular texts and about their work more generally. Although the course will focus on new and evolving theories that shape much of scholarly conversation in the twenty-first century, we will also pay attention to the history of literary criticism. Students should plan to read about eighty pages a week. Since conversation is a vital part of literary discourse, everyone should be ready to engage in discussion of the assigned readings for each session.
ENGL 207 Close Reading in and out of the Classroom
CRN: 46168, 46613
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
Interpretation is not an isolated act but takes place within a Homeric battlefield, on which a host of interpretive options are either openly or implicitly in conflict—Frederic Jameson
Close reading, the careful examination of literary language, has remained the bedrock of English studies for nearly a century. How has this practice changed over time? What critical movements have embraced or disparaged close reading? In this course, we will trace the history of close reading across different critical frameworks (New Criticism, deconstructionism, Marxism, queer theory, and New Historicism) and engage in current disciplinary debates about the role of close reading in contemporary teaching and criticism. Throughout the course we’ll examine critical practices alongside a wide range of literary texts, while thinking about what role the classroom plays among critical methods.
You’ll be asked to complete three papers: a close reading, an analysis of literary criticism, and a critical argument. In addition, you will have brief reading assessments throughout the semester to help measure your analytical skills. Our readings will likely include poetry by William Shakespeare, John Keats, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Eve Ewing, and Claudia Rankin; and fiction by Henry James, Jhumpa Lahiri, Carmen Maria Machado and others.
ENGL 207 Interpretation and Literary Analysis
CRN: 46164, 46610
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Bridget English
The process of reading literary texts gives us pleasure because it allows us to enter another world and to imagine what it is like to be someone else. In this sense literature encourages us to empathize with others. But how do we make sense of this experience which reading enables and how is it connected to the “real world”? What methods can we use to better understand or decipher the meaning of a novel, short story, poem, or play? In this course we will study different theoretical approaches to literature, including Marxist, psycho-analytical, historical, structuralist and post-structuralist literary and social theory in order to gain skills of literary analysis, but also to learn about different ways of “seeing” or understanding the world around us. After completing this course students will have a better understanding of literary analysis and interpretation, what literary theory is and how to apply it, and will also know how to formulate their own thesis based on this understanding.
English 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis.
CRN: 46166
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Terence Whalen
This course will explore literary criticism as both a field of study and a practical skill. We will consider major approaches and theories on their own terms, but we will also “test” various theories against a range of primary literary texts. Literary authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and George Orwell. Requirements: weekly writing assignments; two or three formal papers; a research project; a final critical paper (based upon the research project); occasional tests or quizzes; and participation in group projects.
English 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis.
CRN: 46163, 46609
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
ENGL 208 Survey of British Literature from the Beginnings to 17th Century
CRN: 46099
Days/Time: MW 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Alfred Thomas
This course offers a survey of British Literature from its beginnings to the early 17th century. Representing a thousand years of writing, it reveals the extraordinary vitality of the vernacular in Old English texts like Beowulf and The Seafarer and the post-Conquest resurgence of English as a major literature on a par with French in outstanding works by Chaucer, the anonymous author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the mystic Julian of Norwich,. The course culminates in the plays and poems of Marlowe and Shakespeare as well as Milton’s great religious epic Paradise Lost, which brings us full circle back to the heroic epic Beowulf.
ENGL 209 English Studies II
CRN: 46169
Days/Time: MW 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Peter Coviello
This course will survey the astonishing archive of American writing from the 18th- and 19th-cenuries, the years that witness the transformation of a provincial colonial outpost into that unlikeliest of things: a nation. We will read a great range of works, written by slaves, aristocrats, sailors, spinsters, sex-radicals, and bureaucrats, to ask how contradictions between empire and freedom, colonization and enfranchisement, democracy and enslavement, gave shape to the “America” that emerged. Authors will include Phillis Wheatley, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others.
ENGL 209 “British” Literature, Global Origins
CRN: 46583 MW 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Nasser Mufti nmufti@uic.edu
This course is about how British imperialism was essential to the invention of “British literature.” Over the semester, we will read the canonical figures of modern British literature from the Restoration (1660) to the mid-twentieth century and learn how Britain’s colonial adventures oversaw slavery, settler colonialism, the rise of capitalism, mass exploitation, and how these were integral to the formation and development of the British literary imagination and English national identity. Even though places like India, Jamaica, South Africa, and Argentina rarely find themselves on the pages of writers like Defoe, Wordsworth, Shelley, Dickens, Brontë, and Conrad (all of whom, amongst others, we will read), and rarely do we include colonial writers in the British canon, these sites and authors were in fact central to the formation of British national identity and the idea of British literature. In a word, the point of this class is to introduce the idea that “British literature” is not properly British.
ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 46498
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Gary Buslik
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, as well as midterm and summary exams.
ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 46497
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Jeff Gore
Subtitled “The Raw and the Cooked,” this course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies, tragedies, and histories from the height of his career. We will juxtapose the early slapstick humor of The Taming of the Shrew with Twelfth Night’s gender-bending banter in order to understand better different kinds of comedy and different forms of social negotiation. Although T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” recent scholarship on gender, race, and trauma challenges us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge. “To be or not to be” will certainly be one of the questions when we turn to the author’s tragic masterpiece Hamlet – written a decade after Titus – but so will be the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to be the avenging warrior that his father was. With the histories, we will examine two kinds of leaders, the villain Machiavel Richard III, and the unifying warrior-king, Henry V: although the former cruelly murders his way to the top, the latter draws a subtler approach from the Machiavellian playbook. These pairs will help us to understand different approaches to story telling during the years that Shakespeare was most devoted to experimentation and refining his craft.
**Highly Recommended for Theatre, English Education, and Pre-Law students
ENGL 223 What Was Postcolonial Fiction?
CRN: 46499
Days/Time: MWF 2:00 -2:50
Instructor: Nicholas Brown
Is “postcolonial literature” a geographic-geopolitical designation, or a literary-historical one? That is, does it refer to literature written by certain kinds of people in certain places, or does it refer to literature that takes part in a literary development that corresponds, in ways still to be determined, to historical developments? This course aims to test the thesis that it refers most productively to the latter. For that reason, we will read “classic” postcolonial fiction (Dangarembga, Anand, Naipaul) against more recent fiction from the postcolonial world (Adichie, Ghosh, Danticat) in an attempt to tease out the implications and limits of this thesis. Readings will include authors such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, Edwidge Danticat, Chinua Achebe, V.S. Naipaul, Mulk Raj Anand, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Salman Rushdie, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Pepetela, Sylvia Wynter, M.G. Vassanji, Sara Suleri,
ENGL 230 Introduction to Film and Culture
CRN: 46501
Days/Time: M 3:00-4:15, W 3:00-5:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey
This course examines the relationship between film and culture through the lens of the horror genre. We will watch and discuss a variety of horror movies and analyze how their representations of gender, racial, and ethnic difference both shape and are shaped by the cultural context in which they were produced. Representative films include Psycho, Jennifer’s Body, Get Out, Halloween, Carrie, and Night of the Living Dead. There is no required textbook; assignments include discussion boards, reading responses, and weekly video posts.
ENGL 230 Film and Culture
CRN: 46500
Days/Time: T 3:30-4:45, R 3:30-6:15
Instructor: James Drown
Film and its media outgrowths have become an integral part of daily modern life. These media are fascinating to study, as they can act as both a reflection of our culture, and as an impetus for cultural change. They are one of the primary ways we embody much of our current storytelling, including the creation and perpetuation of our cultural history and myths. In this class, we will view a selection of populist films, primarily from the late 60’s to the early 80’s. Looking at these films will allow us to examine how films reflect the culture of the historical moment, including deep-seated social beliefs, as well as helping to foster social change. They can also help us understand our own cultural moment more deeply. Requirements for the class include weekly responses to the films, a group project analyzing your own set of films, and a take-home midterm and final. After this class viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.
ENGL 233 History of Film II: World War II to the Present
CRN: 14589
Days/Time: MW 3:30-5:20 – ONLINE
Instructor: Martin Rubin
An overview of the modern era of film history, with emphasis on the various “”new waves”” that rocked the cinema establishment during the postwar period, and on the major technical developments (widescreen, Dolby stereo, digital media) that have changed the ways we see, hear, and consume movies. Among the areas likely to be covered in the course are the Italian neorealist movement of Rossellini and De Sica, the early American avant-garde of Deren and Anger, the European art cinema of Bergman and Fellini, the rule-breaking French New Wave of Godard and Varda, the immediacy-seeking Cinéma Vérité movement of Drew and Pennebaker, the identity-building African cinema of Sembene and Mambéty, and the technically innovative blockbusters of Coppola and Spielberg. There is no textbook; requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments. History of Film I is not required; this course is self-sufficient. This course will be taught ONLINE (synchronous).
ENGL 236 Environmental Rhetoric
CRN: 46171
Days/time: T R 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Kate Boulay
In this course we explore environmental rhetoric. Our focus is on the ways conceptions of and messages about the environment are constructed and disseminated. Based upon the supposition that “…rhetoric and its analytic methods can help us understand the nature of our environmental debates and their outcomes,” we track and explore various issues including global warming, environmental policy, and environmental activism (Herndl and Brown 1996)
ENGL 237 Graphic Novels: “Reading” Visual Narratives
CRN: 46172
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Keegan Lannon
Visual narratives arguably predate written stories, with cave painting depicting a pig hunt in Indonesia predating Sumerian, the first written language, by about 39,000 years. Sight, for most people, precedes language in childhood development, and because we can see and interpret the world around us with no formal instruction leads many to take their own sight for granted. Maybe for this reason, largely visual communication is seen as something that requires less academic consideration. Seeing, after all, is natural; thus, understanding what we see should also come naturally.
This belief about the naturalness of seeing might factor into why comics and graphic novels have struggled to find legitimacy as a narrative art form. This course will explore the complexity of this multimodal narrative medium, and the story-telling possibilities of a blended, heavily visual form. We will read a variety of comics, both short and long, and a variety of genres (even superheroes) to examine how comics tell stories in ways similar to and different from other media.
ENGL 238 Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
CRN: 46173
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis
Snow White retold as a contemporary tale of family secrets and racial politics. A magical town in which incredible events are incredibly mundane. A post-pandemic world where our civilization has been obliterated and transformed. All of these are stories that fall under the umbrella of speculative literature. Speculative literature works by imagining or speculating about a world very different than our own, with different and sometimes inexplicable rules and features including things like magic, non-human characters, or advanced science. In this course, we will explore the stories described above in order to delineate the literary strategies that distinguish three sub-genres of speculative literature: fabulism, magical realism, and science fiction. And though the speculative is typically associated with fiction and storytelling, we will consider whether it might apply to poetry as well. In our exploration of poetry, we will encounter poems that enter haunted houses, that use science as metaphors for political unrest, and that use magical thinking to make reality look like dreams. In these ways, we will trace the formal, rhetorical, and literary threads that constitute speculative genres; we will consider their relation to social, cultural, political, and psychological issues and we will determine the place of magic in contemporary life and literature.
ENGL 245 Queer Forms
CRN: 46174
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis
The cultural revolutions of the late 1960s brought about significant transformations in the ways we think about gender/sex and sexuality in our everyday lives. Not only were these revolutions tethered to presenting and enacting radical gender and sexual identities in our social reality, but they were also represented in the literature and art of the period. And these representations have continually inspired the ways contemporary literature and art thinks about and represents gender and sex. This course will explore literature and art from the late 1960s to our present day by paying particular attention to experiments with form and genre as they relate to gender and sex. We will read novels, poems, and the graphic novel that use form to interrogate and make legible these radical ideas and what these expressions suggest about our ever-changing relationship to gender and sexuality.
ENGL 245/GWS 245—Love is Strange: The Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
CRN: 46176
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
We will begin the work of ENGL 245: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.
Required texts (available at the UIC bookstore and through on-line booksellers):
• B. Alexina/Abel. Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth Century French Hermaphrodite. (Introduction by Michel Foucault). New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.
• Blank, Hanne. Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Boston: Beacon P, 2012.
• Leilani, Raven. Luster: A Novel. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020.
ENGL 247 The Madwoman Leaves the Attic (and goes to Grad School instead)
CRN: 46177
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ann-Marie McManaman
This course asks – what’s the relationship between madness and womanhood? We’ll read 19th, 20th, and 21st century novels, poetry, short stories, and comics by women and femmes across a broad range of American and British locations to probe the long-standing history of mad women. Some of the questions that underpin this course are as follows: Who gets to decide who is and is not mad? In what ways do madness and gender or sexuality overlap? What spaces are attached to mad women? Through a combination of survivor narratives, literature, and theoretical accounts of gender and madness we’ll challenge a whole history of concepts about mad women. We’ll work continuously at short readings, producing smaller close reading papers, reflective responses, and creative reflections, as a means of exploring these and many more questions that emerge throughout the semester.
ENGL 247 GWS 247 Women and Literature
CRN: 46179
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Virginia Costello
In this class, lectures and class discussion invite students to immerse themselves in the environments in which they were written. We will take a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. Although we will analyze Sappho’s poetry and recent work in transgender studies, many of our texts were written between 1890-1940. Writing during this time period often depicted a crisis in the human spirit and disruption of tradition. As such, this time period offers a unique view of the intersections between gender, sexuality, class, race, and nationality (among others). Many American artists and writers moved to Paris during this time, and we will examine why they chose Paris and what drove them out of the US in the first place. Finally, a close reading of our texts and supporting documents will allow us to address, at least tangentially, issues of censorship and sexuality. The texts we will read include (but are not limited to) Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Erika Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.
ENGL 247 Feminist Science Fiction
CRN: 46178
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Margo Arruda
The genre of science fiction has long been dominated by white men. This homogeneous base of authorship has severely limited the kinds of futures these works imagine and the types of social/scientific changes we may see within them. In this course, we will immerse ourselves in the women challenging the boundaries of the genre, using the science fiction tropes to complicate ingrained concepts of sex, gender, and personhood.
We will examine how these writers use the lens of science and technology to radically re-envision definitions of autonomy, agency, and the self. Starting with the foundations of the genre with Mary Shelley’s “”Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus””, we will chart the path of iconic feminist science fiction writers such as Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin, and Octavia Butler.
ENGL 258 The Grammar and Style of Non-Standard Englishes in the U.S.
CRN: 46502
Days/Time: MWF 9:00 – 9:50
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
In English 258, students will see grammar as less of a textbook and more as a multicultural/crosslinguistic exercise of examining U.S. societal values concerning language use. The English of the United States has a unique grammatical history of absorbing grammar and vocabulary of immigrated/marginalized people’s languages. Through the adoption of texts which examine these usages, “American” Grammar will be descriptively examined as a consistently reborn object through which students will interrogate past and present usage to understand how “rules” depend on cultural and situational appropriateness. Through examinations of grammatical flexibility, students will encounter cultural and sociolinguistic reasons for shifts in grammar use, and how experience with these forms contributes to the greater fabric of English. By interrogating linguistic biases, this course seeks to demystify grammar as it relates to societal norms and integrate non-standard English forms into grammatical analysis. The examination of poetry, sociolinguistic research, and multicultural grammar will engage multiple forms of linguistic production and rhetorical language. By the end of this course, students will have had the opportunity to historicize and interrogate the United States’ long sociocultural debate with grammar, production, and education. This course is ideal for English, Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing, and Communications Students.
ENGL 264 Introduction to Native American Literatures
CRN: 46180
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: John Casey
Still here today” is a phrase meant to remind people that Native American communities and cultures are all around us. Too often the study of these literatures is treated as a historical exercise in analyzing creation myths and trickster tales. Although we will read some of these older stories, the texts we will focus most of our attention on are those building upon earlier traditions and showing readers how Native American culture is experienced and expressed in more modern times. Readings for this class will include some criticism to guide us in our analysis such as Thomas King’s ‘The Truth About Stories,’ which will serve as our main text for this purpose. Fiction readings will include works by authors such as Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Tommy Orange, and Melissa Tanaquidgeon Zobel. We will also watch episodes of the television series Reservation Dogs. Assignments will involve a research paper focused on a specific Native American narrative technique and a short biography of a Native American author. You will also be asked to write a weekly response paper that we will use to guide class discussions on the assigned readings. If you have any questions about the class, feel free to contact me at jcasey3@uic.edu
ENGL 267 Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
CRN: 46181
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera
This course is an introductory survey of U.S. Latinx literature. Students will read a variety of texts such as novels, memoirs, short stories, poetry, plays, and films by Chicanx, Central American, Dominican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican writers. At the end of this course, students will be able to identify and discuss key concepts and major themes in U.S. Latinx literature, analyze connections and discontinuities between different strands of U.S. Latinx literature, and examine U.S. Latinx literature with attention to aesthetic movements, cultural traditions, and historical context.
ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46183
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15- ONLINE
Instructor: Karen Leick
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46184
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Karen Leick
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46187
Days/time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46185
Days/Time: MWF 12:00p-12:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 46192, 46585
Days/time: T 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Charitianne Williams
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.
ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 46189, 46587
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels.
The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.
Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in
other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.
ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice.
CRN: 46191, 46586
Days/Time: W 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Vainis Aleska
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.
Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.
ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 46194
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Carla Barger
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. You will investigate form and language, learn close reading, develop a critical vocabulary to approach the work of others, and learn to use poetic devices in your own work. All this will be accomplished by reading a wide range of poetry, and by completing writing exercises and response essays in addition to creating original work.
This course is also where you will learn that poetry is a discipline, not merely self-expression. You will engage in poetry workshop by offering constructive criticism, and you will receive the same in turn. This means that in order to be successful in this class you must be open to suggestions and you must be willing to revise your work, often dramatically. It also means that participation is mandatory.
ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 46193
Dyas/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Eniko Deptuch Vaghy
It was Percy Bysshe Shelley who defined poetry as the thing that “…lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” Shelley’s description of crafting poems endows a writer with something akin to a magical power, awarding them with the ability to perceive experiences, objects, and people in a more thorough, experimental, and vibrant manner. This remarkable way of looking at and responding to the world will carry us through the course as we analyze approaches to description, imagery, voice/tone, form, the stanza, etc. and implement these techniques in our own work and critically assess them in brief reflection essays. As our course will be following the workshop format, you will be given the opportunity to share your poems and thoughts on poetry with your peers and hear theirs in return. By this, you will be given the precious opportunity to form a community of emerging writers committed to the strengthening of their interests in the literary arts and the facilitation of each other’s work.
ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 46197
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Michael Williamson
This course will serve as an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. Our focus will be on the components that go into literary storytelling, with a particular emphasis on things like plot, character, dialogue, perspective, and theme. In order to examine how these elements, work in a piece of fiction, we will be reading a variety of short stories by established writers. Rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, however, we will be analyzing them purely on the level of craft. Our goal when reading will be to understand how a story works from the ground up, how all these mysterious components come together to build a piece of literary art. This analytical work will culminate with a class workshop in the second half of the semester, during which time you will produce your own body of two short stories. You will submit each of these stories to your peers, who will provide you with substantive feedback and critique in order to further refine your writing. In addition, you will be expected to provide thoughtful commentary on your peers’ work in turn.
ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 46195
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Travis Mandell
Reading makes a great writer. The more one reads, the more one understands the world of fiction, the better their prose; there is no substitute. This course will build on four major tenets of writing creative fiction: reading the works of established authors, writing our own fiction, critiquing the works of others, and editing/revising our own works.
For the first half of the semester, we will be reading short story selections from Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery, as well as some craft-oriented and theoretical work by other famous authors, to get a grasp on the technique and form that goes into producing lasting fiction. We will interrogate point of view, setting, world building, characters, plot, conflict, narrative voice, and dialogue. One cannot begin to break the rules, without first knowing them.
In the second half of the course, we will apply the fundamentals from the readings to develop our own short stories. Positioning ourselves as both writers and critics in workshop sessions, we will help every writer improve their work through constructive criticism and inspired discussion. We will utilize Blackboard for readings, quizzes, workshopping, and writing prompt assignment submissions.

ENGL 291 Intro to Fiction Writing
CRN: 46196
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj
This is an intro undergraduate fiction workshop. We will study the craft of fiction, reading and writing fiction and learning to critique each other’s’ work. A broad range of genres are welcome, including science fiction and fantasy.
ENGL 303 Studies in Poetry: Forms of Resistance
CRN: 34226
Days/Time: TR 11:00 -12:15
Instructor: Jennifer Ashton jashton@uic.edu
In this course we’ll explore a range of formal experiments and movements in recent American poetry. We’ll start with a survey of late 20th-century examples of what came to be known as Language writing (sometimes referred to as L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E), followed by several early 21st-century antagonistic and otherwise resistant responses to that movement, both aesthetic and sociopolitical, that became associated with the term “postlangpo.” This will in turn lead us to a number of works involving wholesale or partial appropriation of existing texts: the Internet-search-based “Flarf” movement; Mark Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary, a collage of news reports of mining accidents in China and firsthand testimonies of survivors of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster in Virginia alongside K-12 lesson plans about coal mining published on a website operated by the American Coal Foundation, a pro-coal industry lobbying group; Jen Bervin’s Nets, an erasure-based work using Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Other works will shift poetic agency away from the poet onto mechanical processes or procedures or outsourced producers: computer-generated works such as The Apostrophe Engine or Gnoetry, pseudo-aleatory methods adopted by Harryette Mullen in Sleeping with the Dictionary, poems written by Amazon Turk workers in Nick Thurston’s Of the Subcontract.
Many of the works we’ll explore are also legible as forms of resistance to a longstanding lyric tradition (variously defined), with which much of the poetry written in English and other European languages over the last four and half centuries (at least) has been associated. Tracing the path of lyric engagement further will lead us to some remarkable invented poetic speakers: the “Black Automaton” in the series of eponymous graphic poems by Douglas Kearney; Cathy Park Hong’s fabricated “pidgin” spoken by a Virgil-like “Guide” in Dance Dance Revolution; Claudia Rankine’s astonishing use of the second-person address in Citizen: An American Lyric; or the exaggerated confessional persona of ‘Tao Lin’ (in scare quotes) in Tao Lin’s early poems.
Students will complete three short writing assignments, a mix of analytical short papers (300-750 words) and creative experiments in response to prompts that will be available from the start of the semester. Students must do at least one of each type of assignment, but otherwise the mix will be at everyone’s discretion. There will also be a longer final project (up to 2000 words) that can be developed out of one of the earlier short assignments.

ENGL 305 Studies in Fiction: Crime and Vice
CRN: 27643
Days/Time: T 3:30-6:00
Instructor: Lennard Davis
In this course we will look at crime fiction from the 18th through the 20th century. The course will consider how crime is depicted, who tends to be criminals, and the social and political implications of how crimes are defined. Eighteenth-century criminal narrations lead to the 19th century detective story and 20th century sensational novels. Readings include works by Daniel Defoe, William Godwin, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Wright, Theodore Dreiser, and others.
ENG 314 “All About Eve”
CRN: 46199
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Raphael Magarik
We will devote our semester to the biblical character of Eve, called “”the mother of all living,”” and some of her literary descendants. The course will center on the parts of Milton’s “”Paradise Lost”” in which Eve figures, which have provoked scholarly controversy: are they sexist or egalitarian? How does Milton think about the origins and meaning of gender difference? We will read Milton alongside seventeenth century retellings of Eve’s story by women like Lucy Hutchinson and Amelia Lanyer, and selected criticism.
But in the course’s first and final units, we will also reach backward and forward, placing Milton’s poem in a larger Eve tradition. Thus, we will start with the biblical story, which we will read alongside Near Eastern parallels; rabbinic legends about Eve’s demonic shadow, Lilith; and modern feminist scholarship. And after we discuss Milton, our third unit will take up Eve’s fortunes in the twentieth century, especially in science-fiction stories like Octavia Butler’s “”Xenogenesis”” series or poems like Marge Piercy’s “”Apple Sauce for Eve”” which aspire to the capacious, foundational reach of their biblical precedents. (Preston Sturges’s screwball comedy “”The Lady Eve”” does not exactly fit the course theme, but quite possibly we will watch at least a little of it anyway, because it is very good.)
Thematically, we will explore stories about the origin and history of gender difference. We will also be interested in tracking a significant character across a vast swath of literary history. We will explore both the patriarchal, sexist dimensions of the Eve tradition as well as its potential for critique. Eve’s daring revision of the original divine plan makes her a model for creative writers re-envisioning creation and revising literary tradition; she pushes us to theorize a tradition defined by reinvention or subversion.
ENGL 335 Black Female “Middlebrow” Fiction
CRN: 46577
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Natasha Barnes
This course will look at a variety of African diaspora women writers whose critical reception is tempered by their popularity. What’s the difference between Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie whose intricate family stories land her work in the pages of the New York Review of Books, and Atlanta-based Tayari Jones whose Southern family dramas are rarely reviewed in The New York Times where she frequently makes the bestseller list. We will examine some of the literature that is emerging on this phenomenon. Books that we will read include Tayari Jones, An American Marriage and Deesha Pilyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. If there’s a page-turner you encountered in a book club, send me an email about it and perhaps that book may be included in our reading list. We will also examine the ways in which black women writers stood at the vortex of middlebrow and critical literary categories through figures like Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and Octavia Butler. Please be prepared for lively conversation…which you can’t have if you’re not in class, a midterm and an end of term exam, one short (5 page) and one longer (12 page) paper.
ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 42660
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.
ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 38558
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.
ENGL 383 Writing Digital and New Media
CRN: 39948
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Philip Hayek
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”
Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.
You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. When you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources, and I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes-treacherous waters of digital media.
ENGL 383 Writing Digital and New Media
CRN: 38535
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Philip Hayek
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”
Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.
You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. When you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources, and I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes-treacherous waters of digital media.
ENGL 384 Technical Writing
CRN: 43679
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Philip Hayek
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.
ENGL 388 Writing for the Health Professions
CRN: 46602
Days/Time: TR 12:30- 1:45
Instructor: Bridget English
This is a course designed for English pre-health profession and English students interested in the field of health humanities and how writing can shape healthcare. Students in this course will investigate how structural racism, social inequities, and medical biases perpetuate health disparities, and the different ways that writing can advocate for health justice.
In this course we will ask who decides how mental illnesses are narrated: diagnosed, attributed, and treated? How have gender, race, class, ability, and sexual orientation affected the treatment and experiences of people deemed “mad”? To answer these questions, we will look at the history of psychiatric discourse from degeneracy to hysteria, shell shock to paraphilia, and protest psychosis. We will consider how theoretical lenses from fields such as disability studies, medical anthropology, and public health can help us think in complex ways about the root causes of mental health inequity. We will read texts ranging from patient narratives, memoirs, and journalism to creative non-fiction to consider how the formal and rhetorical choices across these genres can inform our own writing about these topics.
ENGL 406 Topics in Poetry and Poetic Theory: Emily Dickinson and Her Legacy in American Poetry
CRN: 46201, 46271
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Christina Pugh
Emily Dickinson’s poetry has been both central to the history of American letters and enormously influential on the direction of American lyric poetry after her time. This course will begin by studying Dickinson’s works and considering a variety of critical approaches to her poetry – including prosodic, feminist, and so on, covering critical writings by Cristanne Miller, Sharon Cameron, Virginia Jackson, and others. The course will then proceed to consider several twentieth and twenty-first poets whose work either directly comments on Dickinson (for example, Lucie Brock-Broido and / or Alice Fulton) or could be seen as more indirect heirs (Louise Bogan, Marianne Moore, Ed Roberson, and / or Carl Phillips). The course will require a short paper and a longer final paper, as well as oral presentations.
ENGL 407 Realism
CRN: 46272, 46202
Days/Time: MW 3:00 – 4:15
Instructor: Nicholas Brown
Is realism a genre? Surely it is. But this course seeks a more robust or ambitious understanding of realism, one both more capacious — in that it might include works that initially present themselves as anything but realist — and more restrictive, in that most generically “realist” works might not be included. The purpose of this course is to investigate whether literature is capable of producing insight into, in Gyorgy Lukács’s phrase, “the real movement of society” — in the strongest version of this thesis, of producing insight that is unavailable through other discourses and modes of knowledge. Readings will include acknowledged classics of the realist tradition (Honore de Balzac, Mongane Serote, George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans]), generically realist novels (Champfleury, Adichie, Dickens), and novels like those of Kafka , Tutuola, or Conrad that might serve realist ends through anti-realist means.
ENGL 422 The Literature of Decolonization: From Colony to Postcolony
CRN: 43656, 43657
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Sunil Agnani
This course introduces students to what used to be called third-world literature, or postcolonial literature. The aim is to understand anticolonial nationalism in tandem with decolonization.
We will investigate the legacies of European colonialism through a study of fiction, essays, and films that were produced during the colonial period and its aftermath. We begin with Conrad and Kipling, then shift to those in the colonies in order to examine the cultural impact of empire, anti-colonial nationalism, and the role played by exile and diaspora communities.
What challenges do works from writers on the receiving end of empire—such as Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, J.M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Michael Ondaatje, Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh—pose to the conventional idea of justice? How do they reveal contradictions within the languages of liberalism and progress that emerged in 19th-century Europe? How do such writers rework the classic forms of the novel? Finally, how has the failure of some of the primary aims of decolonization (economic sovereignty, full political autonomy) affected more recent writing of the last 40 years? Criticism from: Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak
ENGL 423 Topics in American Literary Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 46203, 46273
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Luis Urrea
How Do Stories Function: 15 Stories and 2 Books This course explores both fiction and nonfiction. We will examine short form essays and stories and all of the magic tricks writers use to make them sink deeply into the consciousness of the readers. We will also read a collection of “flash fiction” and I will dissect with you one of my own nonfiction books. Warning: I will also ask you to do a few creative projects. It’s a celebration!

ENGL 424 Topics in American Literature and Culture
CRN: 46204, 46274
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Ashton
Work, Art, and Money: 1845-1945 “I am writing this with an American Dollar Pen,” Gertrude Stein remarks in her Depression-era masterpiece, The Geographical History of America(1937). There did indeed exist (and still does) a kind of novelty pen with a rolled-up U.S. dollar bill visible inside it. For Stein, money taken out of circulation is represented in that work as a kind of analogue to the work of art as such, whether in the form of a poem or a novel or a painting. In the works we’ll look at, starting with two strikingly different texts from 1845 — Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave the concept of the market is also transformative, and in the case of these antebellum texts by Poe and Douglass, it represents in very different ways a positive mechanism for transformation, whether social or aesthetic. Meanwhile, in the case of Stein and others, the market and its operations prove deadly for art and for persons alike. Other works to be discussed may include Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall-Street” (1853), Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron-Mills (1861), Henry James, “The Real Thing” (1892), poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1895-1896), Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899), Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900), Jack London, The Iron Heel (1908), T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), Hart Crane, “Voyages” (1931), Langston Hughes, Scottsboro Limited (1933), Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936), as well as works by Laura Riding and Gertrude Stein from the late 20s and early 30s. Most of our texts are in the public domain (no longer subject to copyright restrictions) and will be available to you in PDF form. Students will complete several short writing assignments (500-750 words) and a longer conference-panel-length paper (1500-2000 words). Some creative options will be available for those honing their own literary artistic skills.

ENGL 435/GLAS 490
CRN: ENGL 46866, 46867
CRN: GLAS 42776, 43365
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Mark Chiang
This course will trace discourses and representations of Asia in American culture from the colonial period to the 20th century, including art, material objects, cultural practices, literature, film, and music. We will examine the purposes, functions, contradictions, and consequences of Asia and Asians in the American racial imaginary, beginning with the commercial trade with Asia in the early history of the Americas, the arrival of Chinese in the US and the development of the anti-Chinese movement in the 19th century, the period of Asian exclusion, World War II, the postwar occupation of Japan and the Cold War, and ending with the rise of Japan and the “Asian economic miracle” of the 1970s and 1980s. The course will explore questions of race, gender, sexuality, labor, immigration, capitalism, imperialism, eugenics, and the family, among others. Texts for the class will include anti-Chinese plays, the various permutations of Madame Butterfly, writers such as Jack London, Lothrop Stoddard, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sui Sin Far, and Don Delillo, and such films as Sayonara, Flower Drum Song, Lawrence of Arabia, and Rising Sun.

ENGL 446 Afropessimism: A Critical Overview
CRN: 24820, 24821
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke
Afropessimism is a controversial and increasingly influential current of black critical theory that reassesses and contests the theoretical investments that have dominated cultural studies over the last generation. Identified principally with the work of Frank Wilderson and Jarod Sexton, Afropessimism proposes a “different conceptual framework,” one that dispenses with the “theoretical aphasia” it argues marks cultural studies and that informs the latter’s inability to genuinely consider the question of power. The aim of this course is to interrogate the theoretical assumptions on which these claims rest and situate Afropessimism in relation to other important currents in black critical theory. Along with the work of Wilderson and Sexton, we will be reading Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick, Fred Moten, Christina Sharpe, the recent work of Nahum Chandler and Ronald Judy, amongst others.
ENGL 450 Topics in Disability Studies
CRN: 46214, 46275
Days/Time: W 3-5:30
Instructor: Lennard J Davis
This course will cover the basics of disability studies including an emphasis on Deaf Studies, Mad Studies, Neurodiversity, Intersectionality, Poverty and Disability. We will also cover the failings of disability studies up to this point and directions where disability studies could go. Also included are controversies within disability studies. Readings will include theoretical and critical works as well as fiction, poetry, art, film, and video.
ENGL 453 The Freshwater Lab + Internship Course
CRN: 46589, 46590
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Rachel Havrelock
The Freshwater Lab Internship course consists of three parts:
Study of local and regional water and environmental issues
Skill-building with professionals in the areas of environmental writing and communication, community-based research, water policy, and public health
Placement in an internship for all interested students. Professor Havrelock tailors the internship to student interests. An internship is not mandatory for those who prefer to focus on a project
Last year every student received a summer stipend for their internship. Many have joined an active Freshwater Lab cohort that helps to advance professional careers in the environmental sector.
ENGL 455 Topics in Rhetorical Studies: Climate Change—Past, Present, and Future
CRN: 46215, 46276
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Ralph Cinton
Jointly taught: Professors Ralph Cintron and George Crabtree
This course is an experiment. A small interdisciplinary group of faculty from the sciences and humanities from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and other Colleges have been exploring what a set of courses addressing climate change might look like. We have been talking for about two years, and this course is one of our first iterations.
Cintron is a member of the English department and Latin American and Latino Studies. Crabtree is an electro chemist and physicist who is also a Distinguished Professor at UIC and a Distinguished Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.
The goal of the course is to explore climate change through many perspectives: for instance, from the physics of climate change; to historical instances of climate change (paleoclimatology); to the predicted futures of climate change; to the problems of climate modeling; to philosophical matters such as the relationship between certainty and uncertainty; to indigenous vs. modernist conceptualizations of nature; to the advent and role of capitalism in climate change; to policy-making; to theories of social catastrophe; to economic and political repercussions due to climate change; to climate migration and the possible futures of the nation-state; to climate denialism; to particular case studies (Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, flooding in Pakistan, and so on). In one sense the course will be a broad overview, but we also hope to invite a series of guest speakers representing different disciplines who will deepen specific areas of study.
ENGL 480
CRN: 46218, 46278
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: David Schaafsma
English 480 is the first required methods course for the English Education major and also a course anyone can take who might want to explore the possibility of being an English teacher. Together we will explore the seemingly simple question, Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to a series of related questions, such as, What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? How do our students influence what teaching English means? What does it mean to teach in an urban or at least multicultural environment? We will consider competing perspectives and reflect on our own assumptions in an attempt to develop an emerging framework for how we might approach English teaching. We’ll read texts such as Same as it Never Was by Chicago middle school teacher Greg Michie, some Young Adult literature, we’ll read a book of Chicago neighborhood stories of which I was co-editor, Growing Up Chicago, we’ll learn a bit about lesson planning and we’ll connect through field experience with area high school English classes.

ENGL 481 Methods of Teaching English
CRN: 19874, 19876
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Todd DeStigter
ENGL 481 is to be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction) and is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long- and short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 488 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design. Note: for graduate students the CRN of this course is 19876.
ENGL 486 Teaching of Writing in Middle and High Schools
CRN: 19256, 19257
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.
Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.
ENGL 486 Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 46647, 46648
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Brennan Lawler
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers. Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.
ENGL 487 Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 46220
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Abby Kindelsperger
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for a wide variety of readers. Major assignments include lesson plans, discussion leadership, and a teaching demonstration. Students also complete 12-15 hours of field work in local schools, with an opportunity to facilitate literary study for a small group of learners.
ENGL 490 Advanced Poetry Writing
CRN: 29430
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Daniel Borzutzky
A workshop, in one of its original definitions, is a “place in which things are produced or created.” A place where you use tools, techniques, and equipment to make things. Another definition is “a room or place where goods are manufactured or repaired.” We will be driven by this spirit of making things, as artists, in a classroom together. In other words, this writing workshop is much more about generating new work than it is about critique. It’s exciting to make new things! It’s exciting to experiment with language, images, forms, and voices, in a classroom where students make work that is vibrant, unexpected, and transformational. Students will be encouraged to create chapbooks and long poems; to use documentary or research-oriented approaches; to translate or write in multiple languages; to write across genres and art forms; and to incorporate film and sound and music into their poems. To this end, we will read broadly as we study innovative poetic and artistic models that will help us craft our own work. And we will get the chance to speak with some writers as well as we investigate new approaches to how art and poetry get made.
ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 19260, 19261
Days/Time: TR: 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Christopher Grimes
You must have taken ENGL 291 to enroll. Otherwise, this will be a productive, respectful and engaged workshop focused exclusively on your own writing.
ENGL 491 Advanced Fiction Writing
CRN: 22828, 22829
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop. We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods. We will also write fiction and learn to critique each other’s’ work. A broad range of genres are welcome, including science fiction and fantasy.
ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 26976, 26977
Days/Time: R 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Linda Landis Andrews
What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites, social media, and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people, and their skills are needed.
Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.
In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week.
Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest. Many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. During the pandemic, one intern worked for an organization in Denver, and another worked from home in Ho Chi Minh City.
First, register for ENGL 280, Media and Professional Writing, to launch your writing career. Procrastination is not advised.
Credit is variable: three or six credits Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.
Come, jump in- you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
ENGL 496 Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 41077
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.
In order to prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education in order to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.
This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as a young professional well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 380, 382, 383, 384.
Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.

ENGL 498 Student teaching with seminar
CRN: 14554
Days/Time: Arranged -Online
Instructor: Todd DeStigter
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the edTPA assessment, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.
ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar
CRN: 14555, 14556
Days/Time: Arranged – Online
Instructor: Katherine Sjostrom
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.
ENGL 499 Student teaching with seminar
CRN: 14560
Days/Time: W 4:00-5:50
Instructor: Todd DeStigter
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the edTPA assessment, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.
ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar
CRN: 14561, 14562
Days/Time: Arranged-Online
Instructor: Katherine Sjostrom
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.
ENGL 515 Studies in Medieval Literature: MEDIEVAL SHAKESPEARE
CRN: 46404
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Alfred Thomas
This course examines the continuities between medieval English literature and the plays of William Shakespeare. Refuting the old-fashioned taxonomy that artificially separated the Renaissance of the sixteenth century from the late medieval period, it reveals the medieval subtexts and themes in many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, including Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale, and the way Shakespeare uses the past in order to critique the political present. ”
ENGL 527 The Chicanx (Im)migration Narrative
CRN: 36689
Days/Time: T 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera
(Im)migration is a central topic in U.S. Latinx literature. This seminar will interrogate its significance in the work of Chicanx writers. Students will explore how movement, within and across national borders, has shaped the contours of Chicanx literature and criticism. Our course readings will include 19th and 20th century primary texts that attend to the way race, class, gender, sexuality, and legal status inform Chicanx (im)migration narratives. Secondary work will include recent scholarship on Chicanx literature and (im)migration. Together, these texts will give students a strong foundation in Chicanx literature and criticism and provide important context for recent publications by undocumented and formerly undocumented writers such as, My (Underground) American Dream, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Immigrant, The Undocumented Amerícans, Children of the Land, and Solito.
ENGL 537 Contemporary Fiction
CRN: 46505
Days/Time: M 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Madhu Dubey
Various critical rubrics have been developed to characterize the genre of the novel in what is often clunkily called “the post-postmodern moment.” In this seminar, we will examine some such rubrics (novels of globalization, world-system novels, Afropolitanism, speculative realism, capitalist realism, post-postmodern realism, cli-fi, and petrofiction), paying attention to their accounts of contemporaneity as well as of contemporary fiction. We will read these critical accounts in relation to novels by authors including NoViolet Bulawayo, Jennifer Egan, William Gibson, Mohsin Hamid, David Mitchell, Jesmyn Ward, Colson Whitehead, and Karen Tei Yamashita.
ENGL 570 Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
CRN: 35448
Days/Time: R 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Christina Pugh
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate level poets. Graduate level writers in other genres are welcomed in our course. Varied styles and aesthetics are also welcomed in the workshop. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music. These critical works treat poems in the lyric tradition; it is my belief that study of this tradition can inform a variety of aesthetic commitments.
Students will write ten new poems and revise nine of these for a final portfolio; they will also produce an artist’s statement and critical writing on the assigned books of poetry.
My goal is for you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet. I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft (and the perennial challenge and delight) of making poems.
ENGL 571 Program for Writers Fiction Workshop
CRN: 14577
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Christopher Grimes
You know the drill: we’ll be engaged in championing each other’s work in a thoughtful, respectful, collegial environment. As Professor Mazza’s workshop will be focusing on longer forms, we’ll be concentrating on short fiction.
ENGL 572 Novel Workshop
CRN: 14578
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Cris Mazza
This workshop is open to all graduate students in the English Department’s Program for Writers. All other graduate students from other English Department programs or from other departments must get prior approval of the professor. This is a writing workshop where we evaluate and discuss novels-in-progress. You do not have to have a completed novel to participate. You may only have an idea or a single chapter, perhaps several drafted chapters. Memoirs are also welcome. The workshop will not distribute nor discuss formula-driven genre/commercial fiction. Aspects of publishing and other functional or philosophic issues in a novelist’s life are also fodder for workshop conversation and reading suggestions will depend on the focus taken by workshop submissions.
ENGL 580 Aesthetic Environment
CRN: 35414
Days/Time: W 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Anna Kornbluh
This seminar studies the environmental capacities of the novel and film, including probing the inclusions and exclusions of the genre deemed “cl-fi”: climate fiction and climate film. We will work with theories of medium and form and the history of urbanization to develop an understanding of the aptitudes for world-building in these setting-driven modes and familiarize ourselves with “climate humanities” paradigms like infrastructuralism and ecomarxism. Questions will include: how does the novel as the literary form unique to capitalism conceptualize petromodernity? How does film intervene in the invisibility of oil and of infrastructure? What alternative energy regimes can novels and films help us design and implement? What art forms mediate the political specters of degrowth, “fully automated luxury gay space communism,” and authoritarian scarcity? Authors likely to include Emily Bronte, Lydia Millet, Michael Mann, Roland Emmerich, Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, Ridley Scott, John Hughes, Georg Lukacs, David Bordwell, Fredric Jameson, Eric Hayot, Brian R. Jacobson, Myron Dewey, David Harvey, Mike Davis, Caroline Levine, Ruth Levitas, Andreas Malm.
ENGL 585 Theoretical Sites: On Antilogic
CRN: 36690
Days/Time: W 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Robin Reames
Rhetoric was the first discipline to self-consciously and explicitly theorize about language—the first formal study of and systematic speculation about what language could be harnessed to do. This course will offer an abbreviated account of that history through one of rhetoric’s repressed techniques: the practice of “antilogic.”
Despite its name, antilogic was a form of dialectic that predated the birth of what is now called “logic” by over a century. An experienced practitioner of antilogic could cause a person to view a single thing or idea in diametrically opposing ways, and to hold those opposing views simultaneously with no need or desire for resolution or synthesis. In this way, the practice of antilogic deliberately pursued aporia and the suspension of judgment to the same extent that the practice of logic pursues judgment and knowledge. In fact, one reason Western logic came into being in the first place was precisely to suppress the rival dialectic of antilogic. It is for this reason that antilogic is now all but lost for us today.
Central to this study is the idea that language implicitly carries on its back an ontology, an apprehension of what is. Thus, the language of antilogic was coextensive with an ontology that was different from and repressed by the ontology that arose in and through the logic of Western metaphysics. By investigating the repressed linguistic technique that rivalled and imperiled logic, we will likewise unearth its concomitant rival metaphysics and its rival model of knowledge: a will to suspend judgment that preceded the irreversible ascendance of the West’s implacable Will-to-Know.
Students in the course will gain a foundational understanding of what rhetoric as a discipline was at its inception and engage in advanced research methods in support of an independent scholarly project

ENGL 060: English as a Second Language Composition II
CRN: 37556
Days/Times: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
ENGL 060 is a course that introduces students to the structure of English compositions and provides practice in critical reading, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics of basic writing. This will be a workshop-based course that functions to create clear and direct sentences that build to effective paragraphs. This will be achieved through close-reading exercises that act as models for effective writing and consistent practice in and out of class by working closely with the instructor and classmates.

ENGL 070: Introduction to Academic Writing for the Nonnative Speakers of English
CRN: 30497
Days/Times: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: James Drown
In this class you will examine issues concerning writing and writing instruction. During the semester you will have three major projects in different genres. The first will be a series of summary/responses that will not only help ground you in conversations about writing but will also help you develop better reading and critical thinking habits. In the second project, you will take a critical look at a specific aspect of writing and/or writing instruction, formulate a position around that belief, and create a populist argumentative essay based on that position. For the third project, you will be expected to write three reflective essays during the semester. You will write one for each project and one at midterm concerning your reading skills. Each reflection will be based on a critical examination of what you learned and how well you have been able to apply what we learn in class. There will be four reflective essays in total, including a final letter for students in a future class. Each project will help you develop rhetorical analysis skills and give you a chance to apply them in a particular genre and context. All writing for the class will be shared publicly within the class through in-class discussion, presentation, and peer editing. Finally, throughout the semester you will also learn and utilize grammar, writing processes, organizational strategies, and editing techniques as appropriate to the needs of our class.

ENGL 070: Introduction to Academic Writing for the Nonnative Speakers of English
CRN: 35040
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:30
Instructor: James Drown
In this class you will examine issues concerning writing and writing instruction. During the semester you will have three major projects in different genres. The first will be a series of summary/responses that will not only help ground you in conversations about writing but will also help you develop better reading and critical thinking habits. In the second project, you will take a critical look at a specific aspect of writing and/or writing instruction, formulate a position around that belief, and create a populist argumentative essay based on that position. For the third project, you will be expected to write three reflective essays during the semester. You will write one for each project and one at midterm concerning your reading skills. Each reflection will be based on a critical examination of what you learned and how well you have been able to apply what we learn in class. There will be four reflective essays in total, including a final letter for students in a future class. Each project will help you develop rhetorical analysis skills and give you a chance to apply them in a particular genre and context. All writing for the class will be shared publicly within the class through in-class discussion, presentation, and peer editing. Finally, throughout the semester you will also learn and utilize grammar, writing processes, organizational strategies, and editing techniques as appropriate to the needs of our class.

ENGL 071: Introduction to Academic Writing
CRN: 30505
Days/Time: 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle
“””Writing Legacy for First Generation Students”” This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources, and they will develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. Student writing projects will include competing in the First-at-LAS “Tell Me Your Story” essay contest and writing reflections of their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.”

ENGL 071: Introduction to Academic Writing
CRN: 30507
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Robin Gayle
“””Writing Legacy for First Generation Students”” This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources, and they will develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. Student writing projects will include competing in the First-at-LAS “Tell Me Your Story” essay contest and writing reflections of their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.”

ENGL 071: Introduction to Academic Writing
CRN: 30521
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle
“””Writing Legacy for First Generation Students”” This section is designed specifically for first generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable first-generation students to increase their confidence as academics, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming students. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each student’s cultural richness. Students will learn how to access and use available resources, and they will develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. Student writing projects will include competing in the First-at-LAS “Tell Me Your Story” essay contest and writing reflections of their first-year experiences, wherein they offer advice to incoming first-generation students. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing and collegiate life.”

ENGL 071: Introduction to Academic Writing: Writing and the Student Experience
CRN: 30512
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Mark Schoenknecht
“In this course, we’ll focus on improving our reading comprehension and writing skills, using topics related to the student experience as a means of situating ourselves in a conversation about English composition. While thinking critically about “the student experience” will often include a reflection on our own experience as students, it will also entail an investigation into things like the (potentially) racist politics of mainstream writing instruction, the ways schools and other institutions create and reproduce hegemonic power relations, and the complex social dynamics involved in navigating between identities at home and at school (especially for those who are poor or come from marginalized communities).
Students will be asked to write three papers in this course: a personal essay, an argumentative essay, and a multi-genre project accompanied by a reflective essay. We’ll read a variety of written texts, from scholarly articles to literary memoirs, and engage with others in the UIC writing community through visits to the Writing Center and via a possible guest speaker or two. Students will also be asked to contribute work to a digital magazine written and edited by the class and will be expected to actively participate in class discussions and activities.”

ENGL 071: Introduction to Academic Writing: Choices and Change in the Study of Academic Writing
CRN: 30514
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Sarah Primeau
What exactly is academic writing? In writing classes, we often learn about rules for writing and the boundaries of what counts as academic writing, yet some of the most influential pieces of academic writing intentionally push at those boundaries and break the rules. When do writers choose to conform to historic ideas of academic writing and when do they choose to subvert the rules in their writing? These choices may be personal to the writer and to their identity, and yet these choices can create lasting political and social change for future readers and students. In this class, we will read BOTH examples of writing that conform to academic standards and examples from scholars who are working to change the definition of academic writing. The major projects in this course include a narrative about your own experience, an argumentative essay, and the study of another genre (or type of writing) that is new to you.
ENGL 101: Understanding Literature and Culture
CRN: 29203, 29202
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Gary Buslik
In this course, we will read and learn how to appreciate great works of literature. We will read, analyze, and discuss several short stories, one novel, about ten poems, and a play. Authors will include Hemingway, Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, and several other poets. We will write two major papers and several shorter papers. We will have midterm and final exams.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature and Culture: GIRLS IN TROUBLE
CRN: 22330, 20578
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Peter Coviello
“GIRLS IN TROUBLE: This course introduces students to literary interpretation by studying the fate of imperiled young women across a range of fictions. We will consider the entanglements of desire and danger – as well as questions of freedom, friendship, family, work – as they play in the lives of women navigating their way through turbulent worlds. Authors may include Carson McCullers, Nella Larsen, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and others. “

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature and Culture
CRN: 25644, 25642
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Sian Roberts
In this course we will attempt to answer some key questions about literature: why do we read and study literature in the first place? How do we effectively analyze texts and take up a critical position? Our readings will be structured around the theme of the future. We will read texts that anticipated our own present with eerie accuracy and texts that attempt to imagine where our present world might lead us. We will encounter many different visions of the future as inaccessible, prosperous, and uncertain. Our focus will be on texts from the twentieth and twenty-first century.

ENGL 103: Understanding Poetry – Finding Place in Poetry
CRN: 20645, 20646
Days/Time: MWF 12:00 – 12:50
Instructor: Daniel Barton
Have you ever encountered a place—whether it’s a park, street corner, or specific city—and felt an unmistakable connection to it? How were you moved by the experience? More pressing, what would it mean to lose a sense of place or be disconnected from places important to us? What if the places close to us are fraught with difficult histories? These questions have been rich and compelling catalysts for poets across different time periods and from around the world. Reflecting on this tradition, in this course we will examine how poets have variously approached the theme of place to discover what makes poetry, as an experience of language, unique from other forms of writing, particularly when it comes to drawing connections between place and self. We’ll look at poets from different literary time periods, ranging from the 18th century to the present, and compare their approaches to this theme, whether it’s Romantic meditations on landscape, contemporary Eco poetry, or the work of postcolonial writers navigating legacies of Imperialism and displacement. Throughout our investigation, we’ll develop a vocabulary for various aspects of form, line, meter, and other devices to better appreciate how they work together to achieve the ultimate effect of a poem. Grading for this course will be based on participation in daily discussions, written responses to class readings, one short paper, and a longer final paper.

ENGL 103: Understanding Poetry
CRN: 22349, 22348
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Jennifer Ashton
“If a poem were like an engine, how would you set about dismantling and reassembling it? If a poem were a math problem or an equation, how would you solve it? If a poem were a research subject, how would you interview it? What would you ask it and what do you think it might say? You could call this course Poetry for Engineers. Or you could call it Poetry for Mathematicians. Or Poetry for Sociologists and Statisticians. All the above will apply to the work we do, but you can also think of this course as Poetry for Poets, Teachers, and English literature majors. We’ll spend the semester studying a set of case examples ranging from early ballads with recognizable patterns of rhythm and rhyme to 21st century poems that contain no words at all. Our efforts in and out of the classroom will revolve around studying these texts closely and discovering and developing the tools necessary for explaining how their producers intend them to work.
All our practice in this course will emphasize what the great 20th-century avant-garde dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht thought that all art (and all thinking about art) should involve: namely, *fun*.
And even though our focus will be on poetry (not exactly what a majority of people choose to focus on for fun), the skills you practice will be both fun and highly transferable. Let’s just say that if you can learn how to give a compelling explanation of how a work of literature (or any work of art) operates, you can probably learn how to construct a compelling explanation of just about anything else, and that is a highly valued ability in many kinds of careers.”

ENGL 104: Understanding Drama
CRN: 26201
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Ibsen, O’Neill, Beckett, Soyinka, Churchill, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 131/MOVI 131: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
CRN: 47486
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45/6:15
Instructor: Kate Boulay
Focusing on a number of different themes, in this course students learn about the history and development of moving image arts and the field’s intersections with various socio-cultural categories including race, class, gender and sexualities.

ENGL 132: Understanding Film
CRN: 47454
Day/Time: MW 3:00-5:45/4:15
Instructor: Thomas Moore
In this course, students will collaborate with their peers to understand how the various elements of cinema—such as sound, music, acting, editing, lighting, dialogue, narrative, composition, set design, and cinematography—are brought together to produce meaning. As a class, we will seek to answer the following questions: What is distinctive about the medium of film? How does one interpret a movie as a work of art? Why do so many cinematic masterpieces manifest an acute awareness of themselves as films?
Attentive to the roles of writers, actors, and other creative agents involved in this necessarily collective art form, we will study thirteen internationally acclaimed films by such directors as David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder, and Jordan Peele. The course will feature in-class film screenings on Mondays and student-directed, discussions on Wednesdays.

ENGL 135: English and American Popular Genres
CRN: 47462
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: David Schaafsma

ENGL 154: Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47488
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Ralph Cintron

ENGL 154: Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47490
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
“The comedian Lewis Black declared, “Here’s your law: If a company, can’t explain, in
one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” What has he done here? He has used sarcasm and economic law to shape a position. But he has also a conditional sentence, a colon and an ellipsis! All of these items contribute to Black’s comedic rhetoric of identity. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient rhetoric to that of the twenty-first century we will negotiate with this term to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine multilingual rhetoric, political rhetoric, multimodal rhetoric, and other delivery systems that shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How do we use rhetoric in our lives both consciously and unconsciously? How do rhetors and rhetoric interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity creation? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we encounter daily.
This course is ideal for English, Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students.”

ENGL 154: Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47489
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Mark Schoenknecht
“In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle famously defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” He saw the usefulness of rhetoric in helping us arrive at solutions to the kinds of problems that couldn’t be solved using exact knowledge. Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who thought of rhetoric as the “art of enchanting the soul,” had other ideas. He condemned rhetoric (or “sophistry”) for its ability to steer people away from the truth by making the non-real appear real. While many new conceptions of rhetoric have been introduced in the years since Plato and Aristotle roamed the halls of the Lyceum, no definitive consensus about what constitutes “rhetoric” has yet been reached. Given this messy history, how should we understand the notion of “rhetoric” today? In what ways has rhetoric influenced the social spaces we inhabit? And why might studying this be useful?
To address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the ways certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory. About halfway through the semester, we’ll start looking at contemporary rhetorical scholarship that takes up issues of political economy (defined as the study of the relationship between individuals and society, and between markets and the state). Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll want to highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in present-day rhetorical discourse. In doing so, we hope to not only arrive at a better understanding of rhetoric and its relevance to our lives, but to develop transferable capacities in reading, writing, and public speaking.”

ENGL 158: English Grammar and Style
CRN: 47491
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Doug Sheldon
“In his book Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” While this seems lofty, it speaks to grammar being the most communicative tool built within language. This course will focus on grammar as object of structure and style within several genres of text, examining not just form and function, but practical application across a variety of professional areas. Preference will be given to examining grammar uses as intentional choices made by authors to aid audiences in comprehending the goals of textual communication. In both individual and group contexts, students in this course will learn the structures of English grammar and analyze texts containing those functions. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to use grammatical terms and processes to better understand written communication and take with them a skill that aids in revision and reflection.
This course is ideal for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students.”

ENGL 158: English Grammar and Style
CRN: 47493
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jeffrey Gore
“Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.
**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students”

ENGL 158: English Grammar and Style
CRN: 47492
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
This course will not be your conventional “grammar drill” or “right and wrong” class. Instead, we will approach grammar and style as analytical and creative tools. Our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to be more aware of the choices we make when we read and write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, Black English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will complete analyses to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40751
Days/Time: M 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40752
Days/Time: W 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40753 F 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41705
Days/Time: M 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41706
Days/Time: W 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41707
Days/Time: F 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40315
Days/Time: M 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40316
Days/Time: W 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.

ENGL 159: Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40317
Days/Time: F 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11784
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer
“This course will direct and assist you in a written conversation with the world around you, primarily through the art of composing an argument. Through articles, book excerpts and other media, you will examine popular culture, political culture, and your place in the nation and the world. You will express and examine ideas regarding these issues and evaluate claims that differ from your own. Ultimately, you will give your “take” on a given situation using three distinct written genres: the Opinion Piece, the Media Review, and the Argumentative Essay. You will also compose a Reflective Essay with your final portfolio. This course will challenge you, improve your writing, and help you engage in a public conversation. It might even be actual fun.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Reading and Writing Mystery: Investigating True Crime
CRN: 11901
Days/Time: MWF 9-9:50
Instructor: Karisa Sosnoski
In this course, you will investigate true crime through reading, watching, and writing. By viewing various forms of media, and reading diverse true stories, you will dig deeper into the complexities of true crime narratives. Through group discussions and critical analysis, you will consider how mysterious experiences, relationships with the police, the legal system, denationalization of violence, and intersectionality’s reveal larger social, political, moral, and ethical issues. You will be provided with the opportunity to find your voice while considering how mystery and true crime have influenced your own life. Through the course of the semester, you will be assigned four major writing projects (WPs) that will be guided by our reading, watching, and smaller writing assignments in and outside of the classroom. Each writing project is a distinctly different genre that will allow you to experience how crime and mystery adapt and transform. Throughout the course of the semester, you will be invited to consider how style, language, and audience influence true crime, as well as the reasoning behind society’s obsession with true crime stories.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Reading and Writing Mystery: Investigating True Crime
CRN: 24124
Days/Time: MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Karisa Sosnoski
In this course, you will investigate true crime through reading, watching, and writing. By viewing various forms of media, and reading diverse true stories, you will dig deeper into the complexities of true crime narratives. Through group discussions and critical analysis, you will consider how mysterious experiences, relationships with the police, the legal system, denationalization of violence, and intersectionality’s reveal larger social, political, moral, and ethical issues. You will be provided with the opportunity to find your voice while considering how mystery and true crime have influenced your own life. Through the course of the semester, you will be assigned four major writing projects (WPs) that will be guided by our reading, watching, and smaller writing assignments in and outside of the classroom. Each writing project is a distinctly different genre that will allow you to experience how crime and mystery adapt and transform. Throughout the course of the semester, you will be invited to consider how style, language, and audience influence true crime, as well as the reasoning behind society’s obsession with true crime stories.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Monsters Across Media
CRN: 46734
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Hyaciinthe Ingram
In this course, you will look at monsters and their functions across various types of media. You will examine a range of monsters, from werewolves and vampires to ghosts and mysterious cosmic beings and explore how they are used within the confines of their medium, and why it is significant that monsters are used. Through class discussion, analysis, and assignments, you will learn what the function of monsters are within media, taking into consideration the cultural and political context of using non-humans to discuss a plethora of human issues. By reading, watching, listening to, and analyzing a variety of genres and styles of media involving monsters, you will learn the ways in which monster media is a lens through which audiences can view human experiences, despite being existing in media that seems like a fun escape into fantasy. The goal of this class is to engage with monsters in order to learn how to become articulate writers within academia and adjust your writing to appeal to a variety of audiences. By taking an in depth look at monsters, culminating in a film review, a comparative analysis, an argumentative essay, and a reflection, you will expand your reading, critical thinking, and writing skills, and help prepare you for your future in academia.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Monsters Across Media
CRN: 46737
Days/Time: MWF 11:00- 11:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Ingram
In this course, you will look at monsters and their functions across various types of media. You will examine a range of monsters, from werewolves and vampires to ghosts and mysterious cosmic beings and explore how they are used within the confines of their medium, and why it is significant that monsters are used. Through class discussion, analysis, and assignments, you will learn what the function of monsters are within media, taking into consideration the cultural and political context of using non-humans to discuss a plethora of human issues. By reading, watching, listening to, and analyzing a variety of genres and styles of media involving monsters, you will learn the ways in which monster media is a lens through which audiences can view human experiences, despite being existing in media that seems like a fun escape into fantasy. The goal of this class is to engage with monsters in order to learn how to become articulate writers within academia and adjust your writing to appeal to a variety of audiences. By taking an in depth look at monsters, culminating in a film review, a comparative analysis, an argumentative essay, and a reflection, you will expand your reading, critical thinking, and writing skills, and help prepare you for your future in academia.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Writing about Chicago’s Near West Side
CRN: 38957
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Rachel Zein
Have you ever wondered why University Hall looks like a tall, grey waffle? Do you ever think about what Chicago might have looked like a hundred years ago? In this class we will be exploring the past, present, and future of one Chicago community area — the Near West Side — through photos, words, videos, and more. We will also consider the area beyond the realm of UIC to discuss past and current trends such as urban renewal, gentrification, ethnic neighborhood formation and dissolution, and more.
Over the course of fifteen weeks, in addition to reading and learning about the Near West Side as a class, each of you will also create four writing projects. This course is structured to allow you to work in more than just the traditional academic essay format, allowing you to integrate media such as images and sound into your writing. Your writing assignments are designed to be useful in the world beyond the university. We will begin with a photo essay assignment (no experience with photography required) for which I ask you to go out into the Near West Side, document what you observe, and write about it. Next, we will learn about the rhetoric of persuasion so that you can write persuasive letters to government officials on the Near West Side regarding an issue you care about. Third, I’ll ask you to write an argumentative essay related to UIC’s fraught history on the Near West Side. Finally, toward the end of the semester, you will reflect on everything you have learned and create a podcast about your own writing journey in the course.
ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Writing about Chicago’s Near West Side
CRN: 11332
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Rachel Zein
Have you ever wondered why University Hall looks like a tall, grey waffle? Do you ever think about what Chicago might have looked like a hundred years ago? In this class we will be exploring the past, present, and future of one Chicago community area — the Near West Side — through photos, words, videos, and more. We will also consider the area beyond the realm of UIC to discuss past and current trends such as urban renewal, gentrification, ethnic neighborhood formation and dissolution, and more.
Over the course of fifteen weeks, in addition to reading and learning about the Near West Side as a class, each of you will also create four writing projects. This course is structured to allow you to work in more than just the traditional academic essay format, allowing you to integrate media such as images and sound into your writing. Your writing assignments are designed to be useful in the world beyond the university. We will begin with a photo essay assignment (no experience with photography required) for which I ask you to go out into the Near West Side, document what you observe, and write about it. Next, we will learn about the rhetoric of persuasion so that you can write persuasive letters to government officials on the Near West Side regarding an issue you care about. Third, I’ll ask you to write an argumentative essay related to UIC’s fraught history on the Near West Side. Finally, toward the end of the semester, you will reflect on everything you have learned and create a podcast about your own writing journey in the course.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Questions of Humanity in Black Sci-Fi
CRN: 41782
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Arney Bray
What makes you a human? As humans, we make rules on what humanity is and how to define it. But are you considered a human in all aspects, or is your humanity questioned? Black Americans historically were legally deemed subhuman. Our Constitution concluded that enslaved Africans were only considered property and part of a man. Science Fiction is a genre that applauds the creation of anything. Speculative fiction has given Black writers a space to create and define Black humanity. The goal of this class is to question the definitions of humanity and explore through writing how our own humanity is granted or ignored in the genre of sci-fi.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Questions of Humanity in Black Sci-Fi
CRN: 46716
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Arney Bray
What makes you a human? As humans, we make rules on what humanity is and how to define it. But are you considered a human in all aspects, or is your humanity questioned? Black Americans historically were legally deemed subhuman. Our Constitution concluded that enslaved Africans were only considered property and part of a man. Science Fiction is a genre that applauds the creation of anything. Speculative fiction has given Black writers a space to create and define Black humanity. The goal of this class is to question the definitions of humanity and explore through writing how our own humanity is granted or ignored in the genre of sci-fi.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Into the Cyber-verse: Writing in the Digital Commons
CRN: 11796
Days/Time: MWF/ 8:00 – 8:50
Instructor: Shaina Warfield
To think about the genre conventions of academic and public writing, we will consider the formal conditions of the cyber commons, the digital media spaces that we occupy and help to build as Web 2.0 users. Together, we will think through what it means to be a “content creator” and the analog ancestry of digital media forms. While considering the role of digital publics and their productive function in our lives, we will take the position of digital professionals, explore the nuances of digital protest, form perspectives on digital policy, and contemplate the paradoxes of constructing our own digital personhood. We will take on these tasks with four writing assignments: creating a professional resume and cover letter, profiling significant social media movements, writing an argumentative essay on digital policy, and reflecting on our experiences as cyber citizens.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Into the Cyber-verse: Writing in the Digital Commons
CRN: 27282
Days/Time: MWF 11:00 – 11:50
Instructor: Shaina Warfield
To think about the genre conventions and rhetorical contexts of academic and public writing, we will consider the formal conditions of the cyber commons, the digital media spaces that we occupy and help to build as Web 2.0 users. Together, we will think through what it means to be a “content creator” and the analog ancestry of digital media forms. While considering the role of digital publics and their productive function in our lives, we will take the position of digital professionals, explore the nuances of digital protest, form perspectives on digital policy, and contemplate the paradoxes of constructing our own digital personhood. We will take on these tasks with four writing assignments: creating a professional resume and cover letter, profiling a significant social media movement, writing an argumentative essay on a digital policy, and reflecting on our experiences as cyber citizens.
ENGL 160: Academic Writing
CRN: 46713
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Zhuang Du
In this course, you will investigate the concept and behaviors of self-management. Through discussions, analyses and assignments focused on the self-management’s relationship with Neoliberalism, Post-Fordism, and the current American political and racial atmosphere, we will decipher the seemingly direct and simple “self-management” and treat it in a more intricate and complex manner. Self-management might be considered as a sign of people’s success in controlling their lives, but this mindset can also reveal persons’ lack of security, and too much self-management might lead to high mental and psychological pressures. A discussion and exploration about this topic will help students reconsider the relationship between themselves and the physical environment in the neo-liberalist context.
ENGL 160: Academic Writing
CRN: 46725
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Zhang Du
In this course, you will investigate the concept and behaviors of self-management. Through discussions, analyses and assignments focused on the self-management’s relationship with Neoliberalism, Post-Fordism, and the current American political and racial atmosphere, we will decipher the seemingly direct and simple “self-management” and treat it in a more intricate and complex manner. Self-management might be considered as a sign of people’s success in controlling their lives, but this mindset can also reveal persons’ lack of security, and too much self-management might lead to high mental and psychological pressures. A discussion and exploration about this topic will help students reconsider the relationship between themselves and the physical environment in the neo-liberalist context.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Pollinators & Their Concerning Future
CRN: 46736
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Daniel McGee
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the breadth of pollinator species and the specific relationships they have with flora and other vegetation. You will read several sources including government websites, endangered species lists, research articles, and many other sources to get a holistic understanding of the danger’s pollinators face. As you investigate pollinators, you will compose a nature memoir, letters to future generations, an argumentative essay, and a reflective essay to engage with the past, present, and future of pollinators. No prior information on ecology is needed.
ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Pollinators & Their Concerning Future
CRN: 11551
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Daniel McGee
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the breadth of pollinator species and the specific relationships they have with flora and other vegetation. You will read several sources including government websites, endangered species lists, research articles, and many other sources to get a holistic understanding of the danger’s pollinators face. As you investigate pollinators, you will compose a nature memoir, letters to future generations, an argumentative essay, and a reflective essay to engage with the past, present, and future of pollinators. No prior information on ecology is needed.
ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Linguistic (r)Evolution
CRN: 46731
Days/Time: MWF 8:00 – 8:50
Instructor: Spencer Harrison
The main purpose of this course is for you to develop a writing process that will set you up for success in your college career and beyond. The emphasis is on writing as a process, and rather than think of writing as producing a series of distinct assignments, you will develop a core writing habit that you can adapt to complete all your writing projects. This involves self-reflection, so that you can tailor your process to what works for you. Allow your process to evolve as you progress as a writer. The course is not designed to fit you into a cookie cutter mold of an “academic writer” bound by rules and convention, but to make you aware of the conventions, and give you your own rationale for when to adhere and when to deviate from those conventions. This course will introduce you to the ongoing debate in higher education about what kinds of writing are and are not acceptable in academia. We will compare translingual theories of writing that incorporate code-meshing (using multiple dialects/languages in the same document) and “Edited Academic English” (largely governed by tradition and excludes voices outside of a narrow band of “acceptable” speech) to introduce you to a wide range of writing styles for you to develop your own voice.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing: Linguistic (r)Evolution
CRN: 46735
Days/Time: MWF 10:00 – 10:50
Instructor: Spencer Harrison
The main purpose of this course is for you to develop a writing process that will set you up for success in your college career and beyond. The emphasis is on writing as a process, and rather than think of writing as producing a series of distinct assignments, you will develop a core writing habit that you can adapt to complete all your writing projects. This involves self-reflection, so that you can tailor your process to what works for you. Allow your process to evolve as you progress as a writer. The course is not designed to fit you into a cookie cutter mold of an “academic writer” bound by rules and convention, but to make you aware of the conventions, and give you your own rationale for when to adhere and when to deviate from those conventions. This course will introduce you to the ongoing debate in higher education about what kinds of writing are and are not acceptable in academia. We will compare translingual theories of writing that incorporate code-meshing (using multiple dialects/languages in the same document) and “Edited Academic English” (largely governed by tradition and excludes voices outside of a narrow band of “acceptable” speech) to introduce you to a wide range of writing styles for you to develop your own voice.

English 160: Academic Writing: English Composition I
CRN: 11835
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Abigail Kremer
Almost everyone uses language daily to interact with other people. That language doesn’t just communicate information via what you say, but also communicates information on how you say it. By investigating the culture significance and practical effects of language, this course will explore the implications of language, how to use language, and how it is perceived.

English 160: Academic Writing: English Composition I
CRN: 11792
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Abigail Kremer
Almost everyone uses language daily to interact with other people. That language doesn’t just communicate information via what you say, but also communicates information on how you say it. By investigating the culture significance and practical effects of language, this course will explore the implications of language, how to use language, and how it is perceived.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing About Illness
CRN: 46866
Days/Time: MW 9:30- 10:45
Instructor: Evan Reynolds
“On the difficulty of writing about illness, Virginia Woolf claims “The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare, Donne, Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.” Despite the relative lack of effective models of writing about illness in prior times, writers over the last century have nonetheless attempted to broach the subject by bringing illness to bear on the writing of their disciplines.
This class will help you hone your writing skills by practicing on a topic so common, it is almost invisible. Illness will serve as an occasion for thinking, writing and thinking about writing. We will interrogate evidence in writing. What counts as evidence and when and why? Is personal experience always irrelevant to the construction and apprehension of knowledge? We will examine, apply and explain the relevance of fundamentals of effective writing as it relates to our course theme: organization, exposition, grammatical structure, etc. We will examine how writing shapes and is shaped by the expectations of its disciplinary and social contexts (e.g.: academic writing in your discipline vs memoir).
This is as much a course about metacognition as it is a course about writing. “Good” writing is always relative to a particular discursive context and goal within that context. It’s not enough to know which notes need to be played—you need to know why they need to be played. To this end, we will examine different models of writing about illness to see what notes they were playing and why. We will then compose our own pieces, drawing on the models for inspiration without simply reproducing them.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 23296
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ling He
ENGL160 aims to reinforce writing in academic and public contexts through rhetorical awareness of audiences, purposes, and the use of language. The course is structured around four major writing projects through which you develop effective writing strategies for social media, an academic summary, a reading response, argumentation, a rhetorical analysis, and reflection. These writing skills help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework. Reading scholarly articles is integrated into discussions of each genre for topical knowledge and as writing modeling. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in decisions.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 30663
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ling He
“ENGL160 aims to reinforce writing in academic and public contexts through rhetorical awareness of audiences, purposes, and the use of language. The course is structured around four major writing projects through which you develop effective writing strategies for social media, an academic summary, a reading response, argumentation, a rhetorical analysis, and reflection. These writing skills help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework. Reading scholarly articles is integrated into discussions of each genre for topical knowledge and as writing modeling. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in decisions. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 27285
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Ling He
“ENGL160 aims to reinforce writing in academic and public contexts through rhetorical awareness of audiences, purposes, and the use of language. The course is structured around four major writing projects through which you develop effective writing strategies for social media, an academic summary, a reading response, argumentation, a rhetorical analysis, and reflection. These writing skills help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework. Reading scholarly articles is integrated into discussions of each genre for topical knowledge and as writing modeling. ENGL160 features student-centered learning, offering frequent opportunities to write with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in decisions. ”

ENGL 160: English 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts; Identity, Professionalism, and Rhetoric
CRN: 11841
Days/Time: TR 8-9:15
Instructor: Laura Jok
In this first-year writing course, we will study the ways in which we perceive and perform personality. Hybrid narrative and psychology texts like Susan Cain’s Quiet dramatize our cultural preoccupation with the person versus situation debate—how stable or dynamic our traits are depending on our audience and purpose. We will devote particular attention to the choices that you make regarding structure and style when writing for your intended professional or academic disciplines, as well as personal or creative forms of writing, each of which have unique conventions. Throughout the semester, you will exercise the different registers of your writer’s voice by completing a narrative, a summary and analysis of a model piece of writing, an argumentative paper based on that model, and a reflective final essay. We will discuss what writing for these different genre situations means for your sense of academic, professional, and authorial identity.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Gentrification
CRN: 30965
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Sian Roberts
“Gentrification is sweeping through America. For some, the process of gentrification represents a form of social cleansing and institutionalized racism that forces people to move away from their homes and communities. However, supporters of gentrification claim that change is inevitable and that the process of gentrification increases prosperity and public safety.
Through work across four writing projects, you will think about the issues relating to gentrification. These assignments and our readings will inspire in-class discussions about a topic that is urgent and important, particularly in the city of Chicago. Through this course work, you will sharpen some of the most valuable skills for your academic and professional lives. You will improve on your ability to understand complex arguments and to write clear, correct, and compelling prose.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Writing about the Work of Art
CRN: 11327
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Erich von Klosst-Dohna
What is the work of art? What place does it hold in our society? Is there any real difference between Manet and Monet? Or even Monet and money? This course will use the work of art in its many forms as the backdrop to learn to write in many genres. We will discuss both the pleasure that comes along with interacting with the work of art as well as the philosophical questions concerning what a work of art is and what it does if anything at all. Whether we are writing a memoir about a personal experience with a work of art or an argumentative essay where interpretation and proof is key, this course will prepare you to produce a foundation for cogent, thoughtful writing no matter what major you decide to study during your time at UIC.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing & Performance
CRN: 11558
Days/time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Michael Williamson
In this first-year writing course, we will study the intersections of composition and performance. Like performance, writing is a social act meant for audience consumption—if this is true, what could be learned from studying them in tandem? While you will not be called on to perform in this class, you will be made to think critically about the nature of performance through a variety of writing assignments and in-depth readings. Throughout the semester, you will engage with more traditionally performative, public genres of writing like blog posts and reviews, as well as explore the more formal, academic voice of an argumentative essay. The central consideration that will propel you through each of these assignments is that of audience: how can we, as writers, adjust to audience expectations much in the way a performer might? Our understanding of performance in this course will be wide-ranging, including things like theater, dance, drag, stand-up comedy, and even contemporary modes of online performance.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Writing Towards the Arts
CRN: 41620
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Jay Yencich
While much of the buzz of the last twenty years has been about the STEM fields—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—many universities and secondary schools have recently recognized that a creative component is necessary to spur innovation in those same disciplines. Hence, many have argued for an Arts and Design aspect to fill out the acronym—STEAM—thus re-integrating humanities elements traditional to higher education. In this section of English 160, we will be using the foundations of the UIC composition program, focusing on genre and situation, to explore the world of the arts. We will begin with photography and build up writing involvement and critical scrutiny through the worlds of music and film before finally concluding with a work of literature spanning a few hundred pages, be it a novel, a play, a collection of short stories, a book of poems, or a set of essays. Through these various lenses, we will examine the status of these art forms, what goes into evaluating them, and their relationship with society at large.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 23461
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Lisa Stolley
“Of the 40 million immigrants living in the U.S., 10.5 million are undocumented: they entered the U.S. without permission – by crossing the U.S./Mexico border undetected by border patrol; overstaying a temporary visa; or using false documentation. It is estimated that five million of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, and 1.9 million are from Central America. They have fully immigrated to the U.S., meaning they live, work, and have families here – for them, the U.S. is “home.” In this class, we will look closely at the ongoing issue of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including the implications of living without legal status, and the long-standing failure of the American government to figure out a fair, humane, and logical solution. We will also examine U.S. asylum policies as they pertain to migrants attempting to seek asylum at the U.S./Mexico border; detention centers (in which migrants and apprehended undocumented immigrants are often held); U.S. immigration laws; and more. You will read and write a variety of texts of different genres with the purpose of adding your own voice to the often contentious and always important national discussion of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the unending waves of migrants arriving at the southern border, desperately seeking stability and safety in the U.S. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11390
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Lisa Stolley
“Of the 40 million immigrants living in the U.S., 10.5 million are undocumented: they entered the U.S. without permission – by crossing the U.S./Mexico border undetected by border patrol; overstaying a temporary visa; or using false documentation. It is estimated that five million of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, and 1.9 million are from Central America. They have fully immigrated to the U.S., meaning they live, work, and have families here – for them, the U.S. is “home.” In this class, we will look closely at the ongoing issue of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including the implications of living without legal status, and the long-standing failure of the American government to figure out a fair, humane, and logical solution. We will also examine U.S. asylum policies as they pertain to migrants attempting to seek asylum at the U.S./Mexico border; detention centers (in which migrants and apprehended undocumented immigrants are often held); U.S. immigration laws; and more. You will read and write a variety of texts of different genres with the purpose of adding your own voice to the often contentious and always important national discussion of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the unending waves of migrants arriving at the southern border, desperately seeking stability and safety in the U.S. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 25927
Days/Time: MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Margo Arruda
Covid 19. Climate change. Police brutality. Government surveillance. Artificial Intelligence. The line between reality and dystopia is becoming increasingly blurred. From images of nuclear holocaust to Philip K Dick’s pre-crime division, we will examine popular depictions of dystopia in the modern world to help us better understand what it is, why we engage with dystopic tropes, and what we stand to learn from engaging with them. To better understand the power of tales of dystopia to spur social change, we will examine movies, movie reviews, short stories, emergent narrative video games, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation. In this English 160 course, you will learn how to effectively express yourself through writing and gain the tools necessary for success in a range of writing situations both in your academic career here at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Dystopia & The Modern World
CRN: 29462
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Margo Arruda
Covid 19. Climate change. Police brutality. Government surveillance. Artificial Intelligence. The line between reality and dystopia is becoming increasingly blurred. From images of nuclear holocaust to Philip K Dick’s pre-crime division, we will examine popular depictions of dystopia in the modern world to help us better understand what it is, why we engage with dystopic tropes, and what we stand to learn from engaging with them. To better understand the power of tales of dystopia to spur social change, we will examine movies, movie reviews, short stories, emergent narrative video games, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation. In this English 160 course, you will learn how to effectively express yourself through writing and gain the tools necessary for success in a range of writing situations both in your academic career here at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Lose Yourself: The Transformative Power of Music
CRN: 46739
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
“When O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson and Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson, members of the rap group NWA, penned a controversial song that appeared on their 1988 debut album Straight Outta Compton, the teens were frustrated and angry about being racially profiled and harassed by certain cops in Compton, California. The tune was their way to be heard and an opportunity to let the world know about their unpleasant realities, growing up in urban South-Central Los Angeles. Today, 31 years later, the song resonates with a new generation who seem to encounter the same concerns. Legendary U2 rocker Bono once said it best, “”Music can change the world because it can change people.”” That’s the transformative power it encompasses from the cradle to the grave. It transcends time, boundaries, and race. It is the universal soundtrack of our lives, rhythmically punctuating and documenting the good, the bad and the ugly by stirring emotions that make us dance, laugh, cry, listen, learn, and grow. Using various genres of academic writing, this course, “Lose Yourself: The Transformative Power of Music,” enables you to critically reflect upon how music could move the masses and capture history with its message. From NWA to Lil Nas X, you will begin to consider the transformative ability some of these artists and their music possess. The focus of this course is to prepare you for the challenges of writing in the languages of academic and other forms of social discourse. Most importantly, you will observe how the way in which we approach a story, the contents we use to support it and the context in which we craft it makes a difference in producing our own melody writing. Be prepared to produce a position essay, a playlist memoir, an argumentative essay, and a self-evaluation essay. “

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 38997
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Phil Hayek
This course focuses on the kind of academic writing that uses information drawn from research to shape convincing, defensible arguments. This course will teach you how to function in college through writing. ENGL 160 will reinforce and extend your abilities to deal with the tricky relationships between writer, reader, and subject in the specific context of academic research and argumentation. This course will help you build the confidence you need to enter into and contribute to academic and public conversations through writing. You’ll be able to identify an issue in academia or the public sphere, or both, and research this issue. We will practice library and online research, and you’ll discover who is saying what about the issue and why, and you’ll eventually be able to bring your own convictions to bear on the issue, making arguments in support of your individual perspective.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11720
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Chris Glomski
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 39029
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Chris Glomski
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 39062
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Chris Glomski
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Imagine That: Writing About Sci-fi and Speculative Fiction
CRN: 11570
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Rana Awwad
In this class, you will engage with a variety of different mediums (short stories, graphic novels, TV shows, films, critical engagements, etc.,) that explore the various themes and tropes that make up science fiction and speculative fiction. What role do the themes of (dis)connection, loneliness, found family, estrangement, etc. do for these genres? What kind of tropes are at play in sci-fi and speculative fiction and what do they do to complicate or reproduce the genres? Is there even a clear difference between these two genres? Centered around four major writing projects, this course will strengthen the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills you will need to write in academic and public contexts.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Imagine That: Writing About Sci-fi and Speculative Fiction
CRN: 27283
Days/Time: MWF 12;00-12:50
Instructor: Rana Awwad
In this class, you will engage with a variety of different mediums (short stories, graphic novels, TV shows, films, critical engagements, etc.,) that explore the various themes and tropes that make up science fiction and speculative fiction. What role do the themes of (dis)connection, loneliness, found family, estrangement, etc. do for these genres? What kind of tropes are at play in sci-fi and speculative fiction and what do they do to complicate or reproduce the genres? Is there even a clear difference between these two genres? Centered around four major writing projects, this course will strengthen the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills you will need to write in academic and public contexts.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Illness and the Body
CRN: 38996
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Bridget English
In her memoir Constellations: Reflections from Life, Irish journalist Sinéad Gleeson writes that “Illness is an outpost: lunar, Arctic, difficult to reach […] it is the location of an unrelatable experience never fully understood by those lucky enough to avoid it.” The COIVD pandemic has brought the experience of illness home to us, blurring the boundaries between sick and well and causing us to consider illness in a new way. In this course we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. How can writing help to alleviate mental and/or physical suffering? Is it possible to convey pain in words? Through reading, writing, and discussing a variety of texts—memoirs, op-ed pieces, and argumentative essays—we will pursue answers to these questions as we assess the relationship between bodily experience, identity, and writing. You will learn to participate in a public conversation about illness that ranges from personal memoirs to political policies. You will get the chance to write in a variety of genres and to share your work with other members of the class. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Illness and the Body
CRN: 46867
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Bridget English
In her memoir Constellations: Reflections from Life, Irish journalist Sinéad Gleeson writes that “Illness is an outpost: lunar, Arctic, difficult to reach […] it is the location of an unrelatable experience never fully understood by those lucky enough to avoid it.” The COIVD pandemic has brought the experience of illness home to us, blurring the boundaries between sick and well and causing us to consider illness in a new way. In this course we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. How can writing help to alleviate mental and/or physical suffering? Is it possible to convey pain in words? Through reading, writing, and discussing a variety of texts—memoirs, op-ed pieces, and argumentative essays—we will pursue answers to these questions as we assess the relationship between bodily experience, identity, and writing. You will learn to participate in a public conversation about illness that ranges from personal memoirs to political policies. You will get the chance to write in a variety of genres and to share your work with other members of the class. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Illness and the Body
CRN: 32836
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Bridget English
In her memoir Constellations: Reflections from Life, Irish journalist Sinéad Gleeson writes that “Illness is an outpost: lunar, Arctic, difficult to reach […] it is the location of an unrelatable experience never fully understood by those lucky enough to avoid it.” The COIVD pandemic has brought the experience of illness home to us, blurring the boundaries between sick and well and causing us to consider illness in a new way. In this course we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. How can writing help to alleviate mental and/or physical suffering? Is it possible to convey pain in words? Through reading, writing, and discussing a variety of texts—memoirs, op-ed pieces, and argumentative essays—we will pursue answers to these questions as we assess the relationship between bodily experience, identity, and writing. You will learn to participate in a public conversation about illness that ranges from personal memoirs to political policies. You will get the chance to write in a variety of genres and to share your work with other members of the class. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Treat Yo Self: Self-Care and Self-Help in 2022
CRN: 41780
Days/Time: TR 8;00-915
Instructor: Katie Brandt
“In this class, we will explore a variety of issues related to the larger course theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help”—that is, what it means to take care of oneself holistically in the strangeness of life post-2020. Throughout the semester, we will learn about multiple self-care methods; practice, criticize, and evaluate methods of self-care; discuss barriers to self-care; and explore the self-help industry as it has evolved from the 20th to 21st century. Some questions we will be thinking about broadly this semester include: How do I define self-care? (Why) is it important to engage in self-care? What methods of self-care work best for me? What are the social, economic, political, racial, gendered barriers that exist to certain self-care methods? How and why has the self-help industry emerged in America throughout the last century? Perhaps most importantly, we will constantly be questioning how reading and writing can help one engage in self-care.
We will work within numerous genres and writing styles, including some challenging texts—both in terms of stylistic difficulty as well as subject matter. By reading and analyzing a variety of texts within the theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help,” our goal is to understand the nuances of genre and situation, rhetoric, and style to become articulate and engaging writers for a wide range of purposes and audiences. Genres that we will focus on (but are not limited to) include listicle, review, annotated bibliography, anthology, argument, self-reflection, and evaluation. You need not master each of these genres nor the course topic by the end of the course; rather, the goal is to learn about and experiment with these genres to develop your writing skills and explore the course theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help” in a meaningful way.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 11496, 11393, 11572
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow
“Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information, to analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, being able to effectively make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing. “

ENGL 160: Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 11393
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow
“Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information, to analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, being able to effectively make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing. “

ENGL 160: Academic Writing 1: Writing in Public and Academic Contexts
CRN: 11572
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow
“Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as relationships with neighbors during the pandemic and the role of Amazon in the global economy, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information, to analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, being able to effectively make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to college-level thinking, reading, and writing. “

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing as Knowing: Literacy, Language, and Identity in the University CRN: 11343
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Keeley Harper
Writing and reading are integral parts of our lives. We often come to know ourselves, one another, and the world around us through reading and writing. Whether you consider yourself a “writer” or not, language is our main vehicle for human communication–and we all want to be understood. This class will explore writing as a vehicle for knowledge-making, self-discovery, and clear communication. It will ask questions about what literacy is and what myths or stories we often talk about literacy. How does education and the university at large play a role in perpetuating these stories? Does education shape our identities? And what is the goal of education? By exploring these ideas and developing your critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, this course will help students make sense of our often-precarious relationship to literacy and language in the university.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11809
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos
“In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? We may read about other topics as well, but this is the focus of the course.
You will write about these questions and more in the form of 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, an argumentative essay, and a video reflection.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 42863
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos
“In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? We may read about other topics as well, but this is the focus of the course.
You will write about these questions and more in the form of 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, an argumentative essay, and a video reflection.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46723
days/time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos
“In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? We may read about other topics as well, but this is the focus of the course.
You will write about these questions and more in the form of 4 major writing projects: a memoir, a news article, an argumentative essay, and a video reflection.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Writing the Bureaucrat
CRN: 42864
Days/Time: MWF 1-1.50
Instructor: Alonzo Rico
The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the different forms of writing that one usually encounters in an administrative setting. From work memos to emails, and from personal correspondences to minutes, students will gradually be exposed to the professional styles in which institutional writing takes with the hope that they may themselves inhabit their own uniquely bureaucratic disposition. And it is also with this in mind that students will be given space to experiment with their own writing in order that they may both understand the limits required by that genre of writing as well as how those limits may be imaginatively bent or circumvented.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Writing the Bureaucrat
CRN: 11330
Days/Time: MWF 2-2.50
Instructor: Alonzo Rico
The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the different forms of writing that one usually encounters in an administrative setting. From work memos to emails, and from personal correspondences to minutes, students will gradually be exposed to the professional styles in which institutional writing takes with the hope that they may themselves inhabit their own uniquely bureaucratic disposition. And it is also with this in mind that students will be given space to experiment with their own writing in order that they may both understand the limits required by that genre of writing as well as how those limits may be imaginatively bent or circumvented.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11791
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Ryan Croken
“From the perils of climate change, to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 41621
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Ryan Croken
“From the perils of climate change, to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context:
CRN: 32837
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Ryan Croken
“From the perils of climate change, to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? In this course students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such a question. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Visual Art, Music, and Society
CRN: 27372
Day/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Carrie McGath
“Visual art and music has an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course we will delve into that connection. This course will examine the visual landscape around us through visual art and music. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and can deeply explore and analyze these artforms in order to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.

We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Katy Perry, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, The Cars, Beyoncé, LP, Orville Peck, and Sonic Youth, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the cannon and history that is being created right now.

There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as short writing assignments, activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester. Through the readings, activities, and discussions, you will learn to analyze and to use analysis skills to create an argument using compare and other strategies. You will become acquainted with research strategies that will ready you for English 161 including how to begin to conduct research with peer-reviewed sources and citing those sources using MLA. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Visual Art, Music, and Society
CRN: 46868
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Carrie McGath
“Visual art and music have an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course, we will delve into that connection. This course will examine the visual landscape around us through visual art and music. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and can deeply explore and analyze these artforms to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.

We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Katy Perry, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, The Cars, Beyoncé, LP, Orville Peck, and Sonic Youth, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the cannon and history that is being created right now.

There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as short writing assignments, activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester. Through the readings, activities, and discussions, you will learn to analyze and to use analysis skills to create an argument using compare and other strategies. You will become acquainted with research strategies that will ready you for English 161 including how to begin to conduct research with peer-reviewed sources and citing those sources using MLA. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: What Is This? Reading and Writing About the Arts
CRN: 41809
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jared O’Connor
How do we understand art? How do we even approach it? When we see, read, or hear a piece of art, how do we know what it means? How do we explain it? And most importantly, why can it be so meaningful to us and others? Together, we will learn how to read and write about many different types of art objects, including literary, visual, and moving arts. This course will provide the tools for interpreting, evaluating, and writing about art in academic and non-academic settings. Ultimately, our goal is to recognize how pervasive and significant art is not only for this course but also in our everyday lives.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 28744
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Andrew Osborne

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11337
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Andrew Osborne

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11505
Days/Time: TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Jay Shearer
“This course will direct and assist you in a written conversation with the world around you, primarily through the art of composing an argument. Through articles, book excerpts and other media, you will examine popular culture, political culture, and your place in the nation and the world. You will express and examine ideas regarding these issues and evaluate claims that differ from your own. Ultimately, you will give your “take” on a given situation using three distinct written genres: the Opinion Piece, the Media Review, and the Argumentative Essay. You will also compose a Reflective Essay with your final portfolio. This course will challenge you, improve your writing, and help you engage in a public conversation. It might even be actual fun.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: Telling Your Own Story
CRN: 11583
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Alexandrine Ogundimu
“Everyone has a story, but not everyone gets the opportunity to tell it. There are many factors that can influence a person’s ability to tell their own story: Literacy, opportunity, audience, or lack thereof. In this class we will tackle some of these factors through writing while empowering each other to better tell our own stories. By the end you should be able to know what your story is, why it matters to be able to tell it, and have a set of tools that will allow you to make that effort.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: This, Not That: The Art of Making Distinctions
CRN: 39017
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Joseph Staten
“This class takes as its central premise the idea that clear writing is based in clear thinking—and, further, that the basis of clear thinking is the ability to make clear distinctions between two or more things that are different from one another. This sounds simple (and boring), but the reality is that 90% or more of bad writing (and bad thinking) is plagued by a basic inability to distinguish between different ideas, topics, or themes. In this class, we will develop and sharpen our capacity for distinction making—and therefore our capacity for clear thinking and clear writing as well.

Readings will be drawn from a diverse range of clear thinkers (and wonderfully clear writers), from ancient philosophers such as Aristotle to contemporary essayists such as Joan Didion and James Baldwin. We will apply the lessons learned from these writers to four genre-based writing assignments, which may include memoir, arts criticism, argumentative essay, reflective essay, and/or others. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing about Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 41625
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to act on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations in order to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short and long term goals

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: This, Not That: The Art of Making Distinctions
CRN: 21630
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Joseph Staten
“This class takes as its central premise the idea that clear writing is based in clear thinking—and, further, that the basis of clear thinking is the ability to make clear distinctions between two or more things that are different from one another. This sounds simple (and boring), but the reality is that 90% or more of bad writing (and bad thinking) is plagued by a basic inability to distinguish between different ideas, topics, or themes. In this class, we will develop and sharpen our capacity for distinction making—and therefore our capacity for clear thinking and clear writing as well.

Readings will be drawn from a diverse range of clear thinkers (and wonderful writers), from ancient philosophers such as Aristotle to contemporary essayists such as Joan Didion and James Baldwin. We will apply the lessons learned from these writers to four genre-based writing assignments, which may include memoir, arts criticism, argumentative essay, reflective essay, and/or others. ”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 27284
Days/Time: TR 9:30- 10:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey
“Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal? Maybe they told you that your college instructors will be impressed by “big,” formal-sounding words like “individuals” and “a plethora” (instead of “people” and “a lot”).

What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”

While it can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that the five-paragraph essay doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.

Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing about Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 11803
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to act on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations in order to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short and long term goals

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46718
Days/Time: TR 12:30- 1:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey
“Did your high school teachers tell you that you should never use the first-person (“I”) in an academic essay? Or that you should avoid contractions (like “don’t” and “can’t”) because they sound too informal? Maybe they told you that your college instructors will be impressed by “big,” formal-sounding words like “individuals” and “a plethora” (instead of “people” and “a lot”).

What about the five-paragraph essay (referred to as a “theme” back in the day)? Even if your teachers didn’t call it that, you will recognize its structure right away: an introduction and thesis that sets up three main points, three corresponding body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction and begins with something like, “In conclusion…”

While it can be useful in some specific writing situations (such as standardized tests), those who study and teach academic writing generally agree that the five-paragraph essay doesn’t prepare students for college writing. In addition, it rarely produces papers that are enjoyable to write or read.

Don’t despair—the good news is that this course aims to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about academic writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). Finally, an important goal for this course is to make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and possibly shift your perception of yourself as a writer.”

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context: “Second City: Space & Place in and around Chicago”
CRN: 41808
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Margaux Brown
We are all members of the UIC community, and we come to UIC with our own unique social and cultural backgrounds that shape our experiences, beliefs, and values down to how we express ourselves through written and spoken language. In this course we will explore and consider the spaces and places that are around us from the broad range of the city of Chicago to smaller neighborhoods and communities like UIC. You will write a profile and review that will draw attention to local communities and though an argumentative essay you will draw important attention to an issue that affects a specific local community. Through these different genres and engaging in rhetorical situations around them you will explore and learn the necessary critical reading and writing skills to be successful in your academic career.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 30668
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin
In this section of English 160, which I have named “Writing in the Pandemic” we will examine literary genres in relation to the pandemic. As a tutorial composition course designed for freshmen, through the next sixteen weeks, you will be guided to the world of fundamental writing by working on four projects: Memoir, Editorial, Indie Game Review, and Reflection. All semester long you will work step-by-step writing about yourself, your community, what you love, and ultimately, what you have done during the pandemic and what you want to do as a young scholar. Our class will function as a collective writing community where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily. Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both creative and critical thinking.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 46717
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Thierney Powell
To bell hooks “talking back,” or “back talk,” is a “courageous act,” that means “speaking as an equal to an authority figure. It [means] daring to disagree” (hooks 5). This course will develop student writing as a means of critically engaging with the world. Students will learn to understand writing as a means of teaching, connecting, persuading, and resisting. Framing the course through the idea of “talking back,” students will develop the skills to intervene in contemporary conversations related to social justice, politics, and space. Students will read and analyze different mediums of resistance writing–songs, speeches, opinion pieces, non-traditional scholarly articles, and academic scholarly articles–and engage these texts through in-class discussion, journaling, and in- class activities. We will assess the rhetorical framing of these various texts to shape our understanding of resistance writing. Students will produce a body of work that reflects the different ways in which writing can be a “political gesture that challenges the politics of domination”.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11828
Days/Time: MW 8;00-9:15
Instructor: Erica Hughes

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 41816
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Erica Hughes

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I
CRN: 11759
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin
In this section of English 160, which I have named “Writing in the Pandemic” we will examine literary genres in relation to the pandemic. As a tutorial composition course designed for freshmen, through the next sixteen weeks, you will be guided to the world of fundamental writing by working on four projects: Memoir, Editorial, Indie Game Review, and Reflection. All semester long you will work step-by-step writing about yourself, your community, what you love, and ultimately, what you have done during the pandemic and what you want to do as a young scholar. Our class will function as a collective writing community where reading, research, philosophy, theory, controversial issues, and your own writing will be shared and discussed daily. Academic writing is a process that develops because of critical thinking and critical reading, and it takes shape via the ever-continuing process of both creative and critical thinking.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11331
Days/Time: TR 8-9:15
Instructor: Andrew Paul Young
The purpose of this course is for you to examine and develop your “voice” in the context of being a student at UIC. You will learn the conventions of “academic” writing and how expectations of “college” writing translate to “public” writing. One goal for this class is that the writing you do is focused on your experiences as a college student. Another goal is that, at some point, you will use writing to share ideas, solve problems or make this campus, or this world, a better place.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11543
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Andrew Paul Young
The purpose of this course is for you to examine and develop your “voice” in the context of being a student at UIC. You will learn the conventions of “academic” writing and how expectations of “college” writing translate to “public” writing. One goal for this class is that the writing you do is focused on your experiences as a college student. Another goal is that, at some point, you will use writing to share ideas, solve problems or make this campus, or this world, a better place.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11458
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Andrew Paul Young
The purpose of this course is for you to examine and develop your “voice” in the context of being a student at UIC. You will learn the conventions of “academic” writing and how expectations of “college” writing translate to “public” writing. One goal for this class is that the writing you do is focused on your experiences as a college student. Another goal is that, at some point, you will use writing to share ideas, solve problems or make this campus, or this world, a better place.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11788
Days/Time: MWF 2;00-2:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne
As students, you will spend much of your time looking at print works, but you look at images and writing in other contexts every day. Whether or not you seek them out, rhetorical messages reach you and you probably have a sense of how to respond. These messages frequently concern the future and welfare of local and global communities, both here in Chicago, in other communities where you have lived and traveled, and even online. Reading an article, listening to a speech, or encountering a post on social media, you already know how to “read” these arguments and respond to them in a general sense. This course is an introduction to writing, rhetoric, and research. Though each of these terms can be defined in numerous ways, we will focus most carefully on writing and rhetoric as the craft of constructing an argument and research as the process of investigation and analysis. Since good writing begins with good thinking, this course will emphasize the importance of critical reading and will ask you to analyze a variety of texts throughout the term. We will focus on discourse surrounding real-world issues in cities and other communities in various public media and from diverse sources.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing the Body and Understanding Empathy
CRN: 11811
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Lauren Keeley
The term “empathy” has become a buzzword of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what exactly does it mean to share and understand the feelings of another? How do we communicate pain, and why is doing so important? In this course, we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. We will explore how language functions to communicate what is seemingly inexpressible (physical and mental pain) but fundamentally human and shared. You will get to write in a variety of genres, such as memoir, op-ed, and argumentative essay as we chart the boundaries between sickness and health. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing the Body and Understanding Empathy
CRN: 11548
Days/Time: MWF 2-2:50
Instructor: Lauren Keeley
The term “empathy” has become a buzzword of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what exactly does it mean to share and understand the feelings of another? How do we communicate pain, and why is doing so important? In this course, we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. We will explore how language functions to communicate what is seemingly inexpressible (physical and mental pain) but fundamentally human and shared. You will get to write in a variety of genres, such as memoir, op-ed, and argumentative essay as we chart the boundaries between sickness and health. Finally, the class will provide a review of the grammar, editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11526
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Lisa Stolley
“Of the 40 million immigrants living in the U.S., 10.5 million are undocumented: they entered the U.S. without permission – by crossing the U.S./Mexico border undetected by border patrol; overstaying a temporary visa; or using false documentation. It is estimated that five million of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, and 1.9 million are from Central America. They have fully immigrated to the U.S., meaning they live, work, and have families here – for them, the U.S. is “home.” In this class, we will look closely at the ongoing issue of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including the implications of living without legal status, and the long-standing failure of the American government to figure out a fair, humane, and logical solution. We will also examine U.S. asylum policies as they pertain to migrants attempting to seek asylum at the U.S./Mexico border; detention centers (in which migrants and apprehended undocumented immigrants are often held); U.S. immigration laws; and more. You will read and write a variety of texts of different genres with the purpose of adding your own voice to the often contentious and always important national discussion of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the unending waves of migrants arriving at the southern border, desperately seeking stability and safety in the U.S. “

English 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts; Identity, Professionalism, and Rhetoric
CRN: 46738
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Laura Jok
In this first-year writing course, we will study the ways in which we perceive and perform personality. Hybrid narrative and psychology texts like Susan Cain’s Quiet dramatize our cultural preoccupation with the person versus situation debate—how stable or dynamic our traits are depending on our audience and purpose. We will devote particular attention to the choices that you make regarding structure and style when writing for your intended professional or academic disciplines, as well as personal or creative forms of writing, each of which have unique conventions. Throughout the semester, you will exercise the different registers of your writer’s voice by completing a narrative, a summary and analysis of a model piece of writing, an argumentative paper based on that model, and a reflective final essay. We will discuss what writing for these different genre situations means for your sense of academic, professional, and authorial identity.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 46715
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Andrew Middleton

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Context
CRN: 11575
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Andrew Middleton

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Writing about Sound
CRN: 28743
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Eniko Deptuch Vaghy
“In this course, you will investigate the significance of sound at the personal, social/cultural, and political level. Through discussions, analyses, and assignments focused on environmental sound, personal sound/speech, music, as well as other topics concerning sonic production, we will approach questions such as: “Is it possible for sounds to represent the cultural or political landscape of a certain place?” “Can you discern unrest and strife—or, conversely, joy—just by listening to the world around you?” “What are the politics contained in code-switching and personal dialect alterations?” “What biases do we inflict on others based on the way they speak?” To answer these questions, you will participate in sound walks, listen to podcasts, read articles and stories about sound, contribute to in-class discussions, and write informal reflections as well as longer papers on sound. By this, you will strengthen and diversify your writing, reading, and listening skills.”

English 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts Environments
CRN: 27373
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: John Goldbach
“Critical thinking begins with an environment. To understand something, we first must understand something about its surroundings and conditions of possibility. A phenomenon takes place within a given context, an environment, and thinking critically requires that we first understand something about this context and the conditions under which the taking place of the phenomenon is possible. A human being, for example, lives within a certain natural environment, and to think critically about being human requires that we first understand something about the environmental conditions in which a human being lives and under which a human being flourish.

This course is devoted to the study of environments. From the air and water of the natural environment to the social media platforms and cellphone apps of the digital environment, it will focus on environmental contexts and conditions to foster independent critical thinking and writing skills. It is divided into four sections: natural environments, built environments, cultural environments, and digital environments. The first section will address various questions concerning ecology, climate change and the Anthropocene; the second will touch on issues of urban living and combined and uneven geographical development; the third will discuss language use, the culture industry, and politics and ideology; and the fourth will touch on the Internet, social media, and technological advances.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11958
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 30672
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Virginia Costello

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Crises of the Neoliberal Present and How We Solve Them
CRN: 30673
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Thomas Moore
“Students in this course will research and critically analyze how the actions (and inactions) of the recent past led to the sociopolitical, ecological, and economic crises of the neoliberal present—namely those of xenophobia, toxic masculinity, perpetual war, global warming, income inequality, and a grossly exploited global pandemic. Our discussions and collective investigation of contemporary American politics will draw on a variety of scholarly and popular sources. We will begin by reading two articles and watching a video together as a class to set the foundation, and, as the semester progresses, each student will be free to research the issue that matters to them most. Students will embark on semester-long, cumulative research projects with two objectives in mind: (1) understanding how a specific sociopolitical, cultural, and/or economic problem became what it is today; and (2) proposing realistic steps we can take to solve it.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11861
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Nestor Gomez

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 41712
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Nestor Gomez

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 30670
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: John Casey
Infrastructure is all around you. The roads you drive to work or school, the water that comes out of the faucet in your home, the lights you turn on when it gets dark, and even the schools you have attended are all examples of infrastructure. These intricately designed systems for organizing space are fundamental parts of our lives that we often take for granted until they malfunction. As many of these systems malfunction due to age and a changing climate, experts are examining what it would take to make these systems resilient (able to withstand change) and sustainable (lessen the impact on the environment) in addition to fixing longstanding problems. In this class we will examine the problems associated with aging infrastructure and the attempts by community leaders and organizations to make infrastructure resilient and sustainable. This examination will be paired with a discussion of general skills in reading, research, and writing that will be useful to you in college and long after you graduate.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 22420
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11686
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing about Stand-Up Comedy and Audience
CRN: 11875
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Marc Baez
“In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly
bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s
fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and
discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield
of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire;
conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and
the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.

In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a
Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic
career. So be prepared to read and write every day.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing about Stand-Up Comedy and Audience
CRN: 40444
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Marc Baez
“In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.

In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing about Stand-Up Comedy and Audience
CRN: 21700
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Marc Baez
“In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.

In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in-class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.”

English 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: The Beyonce Effect: Sexuality, Race, and Feminism
CRN: 11853
Days/Time: TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Katrina R Washington
Beyonce is, arguably, the most influential performer/musician of her time. Since taking the music industry by storm in the 90s, first as lead singer in successful female pop group Destiny’s Child and later as a breakout solo star, she has garnered both worldwide praise and criticism. While some consider her a proponent for modern day feminism, social justice, activism, and black culture, others disregard her impact as nothing more than a falsified and damaging image of women of color, women empowerment, and social justice in America. In this class we will explore the meaning of feminism, the difference, if any, between black feminism and feminism, womanhood, sexuality, female pleasure, and how the media, particularly music and its creators, influence each. While most of your readings and imagery will focus on Beyoncé’s most recent visual albums and recordings, you will have the opportunity to argue for or against the feminist influence of multiple women in pop culture (think: Lady GAGA, Syd, Janelle Monae, Teyana Taylor). This class is for the Beyhive, the Bey haters, and everyone in between who either detests, appreciates, or wants to learn more of the impact sexuality, race, and feminism, as portrayed in the media, have on female existence in society.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32676
Days/Time: TR 8:00 – 9:15
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski
“Animalia arthropoda hexapoda will serve as the subject of inquiry for this course. Whether you’re confused as Gregor Samsa or as certain as E. O. Wilson about insects, you’ll find this course emphasizing what it means to engage in both oral and written academic conversations, how to read around subjects, and how to navigate research on the world wide web as well as through the stacks of the Daley Library. The course involves reading and writing assignments, four writing projects, and a group research project – all revolving around insects and how we interact with them.

The course seeks to view academic writing through the lens of entomology in the hopes that students might make connections between composition and the physical world. The course also challenges students to consider what we mean when we use the word “research,” as well as the scope and impact of research. “

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42939
Days/Time: TR 12:30 – 1:45
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski
“Animalia arthropoda hexapoda will serve as the subject of inquiry for this course. Whether you’re confused as Gregor Samsa or as certain as E. O. Wilson about insects, you’ll find this course emphasizing what it means to engage in both oral and written academic conversations, how to read around subjects, and how to navigate research on the world wide web as well as through the stacks of the Daley Library. The course involves reading and writing assignments, four writing projects, and a group research project – all revolving around insects and how we interact with them.

The course seeks to view academic writing through the lens of entomology in the hopes that students might make connections between composition and the physical world. The course also challenges students to consider what we mean when we use the word “research,” as well as the scope and impact of research. “

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: “The Spirit of the Original”: Writing About Adaptation
CRN: 29334
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jules Wood
“In this course, we will explore examples of adaptation between fiction and film in order to
improve our critical reading, writing, and textual analysis skills. Writing assignments will focus on argumentative and research-based essays. Through the process of reading short stories like Annie Proulx’s “”Brokeback Mountain”” and Ted Chiang’s “”Story of Your Life,”” watching their respective film adaptations, and entering the existing conversation among scholarly articles, we will examine what transformation occurs as a story cross between mediums: what elements stay the same, what is lost in translation, and what is unique to its own genre form.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: “The Spirit of the Original”: Writing About Adaptation
CRN: 11932
Days/Time, MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jules Wood
“In this course, we will explore examples of adaptation between fiction and film in order to
improve our critical reading, writing, and textual analysis skills. Writing assignments will focus on argumentative and research-based essays. Through the process of reading short stories like Annie Proulx’s “”Brokeback Mountain”” and Ted Chiang’s “”Story of Your Life,”” watching their respective film adaptations, and entering the existing conversation among scholarly articles, we will examine what transformation occurs as a story cross between mediums: what elements stay the same, what is lost in translation, and what is unique to its own genre form.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Deep Fried and Delicious: A Taste of the Fast Food Industry
CRN: 42940
Days/Time: TR 8;00-9:15
Instructor: Travis Mandell
“In this course, we will engage in a semester long investigation of the Fast-Food Industry and it’s impacts on society at large (both in the U.S and Globally). We will read critical texts that investigate the industry’s influence on culture, economy, the environment, and physical health. We will discuss countering points of view on the different issues, ranging from worker minimum wage to environmental health-impacts, and analyze the various debates taking place across different fields of inquiry.

Through lectures, discussions, in-class activities, and writing projects, this class will prepare you to participate in the academic discourse surrounding any subject you may choose in the future. By developing research ideas, conducting research, and writing an academic essay, you will become well versed in the art of academic writing and argument. We will be reading scholarly essays (peer reviewed) as well as popular articles to help broaden our understanding of genre/audience in regard to the Fast-Food Industry. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to prepare you for the rest of your academic career at UIC, fostering a strong foundation for your academic writing skills that can be used in your specific discipline/major.”

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II – Writing about Cinema
CRN: 42942
Days/Time: TR 12:30-13:45
Instructor: Kate Boulay
In this class our focus is writing about cinema. Students will learn academic writing conventions and research skills via research on cinema and its intersection with social categories such as race, gender, socio-economic class, sexualities, etc.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II
CRN: 25973
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jenna Hart
We live in a time when we’re inundated with media reports on any number of catastrophic things, almost daily. How can we determine what is worth our attention? How can we know which ones are solid reporting? What issues should we be paying the most attention to? We’ll be using these questions to look at texts and other media in a critical way, as a tool to begin learning about academic dialogue. The course will consist of layered assignments—an annotated bibliography, literature review, proposal, outline— that lead up to a longer academic research paper on a topic of your choosing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II
CRN: 33987
Days/Time: TR 11:00-1215
Instructor: Jenna Hart
We live in a time when we’re inundated with media reports on any number of catastrophic things, almost daily. How can we determine what is worth our attention? How can we know which ones are solid reporting? What issues should we be paying the most attention to? We’ll be using these questions to look at texts and other media in a critical way, as a tool to begin learning about academic dialogue. The course will consist of layered assignments—an annotated bibliography, literature review, proposal, outline— that lead up to a longer academic research paper on a topic of your choosing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 21668
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Hanna Khan

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 25879
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Hanna Khan

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing about Sustainability in a Changing Climate
CRN: 11935
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Daniel Barton
At the center of debates around the environment is the question of sustainability—whether it’s possible to meet the needs of an ever-increasing population while also respecting the planet’s ecological limits. While discussions of sustainability often focus on environmental impacts—reducing our carbon footprint through shifts to renewable energy, for example—sustainability also raises questions of equity and social justice as people face disproportionate impacts from pollution and environmental decline. It also encompasses every aspect of our lives, from the water that comes from our faucets to the food we eat. Using current events and contemporary discourses on environmental advocacy to frame our discussion, this course will engage with contemporary environmental issues, such as the impact of energy and food production on communities and local ecosystems, to explore challenges and possibilities for a more sustainable future. In addition, we will interrogate cultural attitudes surrounding climate change and the question of sustainability to understand the contexts in which these debates have occurred. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project culminating in a final research paper, we will develop academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 25953
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Casey Corcoran
In 2016 the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to American songwriter Bob Dylan, stating that Dylan deserved the award “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” If poetry, as Aristotle originally writes in The Poetics, “sprung from a cause lying deep in our nature,” then there does seem to be an interesting connection between human nature and the existence and role of music in society. This course will be a study of various aspects of that tradition, with an emphasis on how music is inextricably linked to social and cultural circumstances out of which it emerges—both in terms of audience reception and the creation of the work itself. We will explore contemporary debates, ideas, and issues surrounding the relationship between entertainment, audience, identity, and politics, in terms of American music, and the ways by which the notion of the individual human self is partly created by, as well as expressed through, the medium of song. Your inquiry into these discussions will span across various genres—we will attempt to think through and discuss certain identity politics (whether they be social, cultural, economic, etc.) entwined in and associated with these particular genres and sub-genres—and our delving into these conversations will ultimately produce a set of questions that you will use to develop a line of inquiry, in relation to the course topic, that is based in your own specific research interest.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 21629
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Casey Corcoran
In 2016 the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to American songwriter Bob Dylan, stating that Dylan deserved the award “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” If poetry, as Aristotle originally writes in The Poetics, “sprung from a cause lying deep in our nature,” then there does seem to be an interesting connection between human nature and the existence and role of music in society. This course will be a study of various aspects of that tradition, with an emphasis on how music is inextricably linked to social and cultural circumstances out of which it emerges—both in terms of audience reception and the creation of the work itself. We will explore contemporary debates, ideas, and issues surrounding the relationship between entertainment, audience, identity, and politics, in terms of American music, and the ways by which the notion of the individual human self is partly created by, as well as expressed through, the medium of song. Your inquiry into these discussions will span across various genres—we will attempt to think through and discuss certain identity politics (whether they be social, cultural, economic, etc.) entwined in and associated with these particular genres and sub-genres—and our delving into these conversations will ultimately produce a set of questions that you will use to develop a line of inquiry, in relation to the course topic, that is based in your own specific research interest.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 21697
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Michael Newirth
“This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power. “

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11979
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11961
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 27565
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 40445
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Michael Newirth
“This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power. “

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11892
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Michael Newirth
“This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories””. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Paris. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by scholars and writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original expository writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for over fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power. “

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Disability (W)Righting
CRN: 24055
Days/Time: MWF 8:00 – 8:50
Instructor: Ann-Marie McManaman
In this course we will focus on reading and writing arguments from the field of Disability Studies to consider Disability as a concept of medicine, society, and identity. This class will be an opportunity to learn about how disabled writers narrate their life as well as engaging with works of film, television, art and poetry, in order to critically examine and actively participate in discourse and questions surrounding the concept of Disability as identity and community. Our primary concern for the course will be matters of representation and your final research project will reflect this in some way.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Issues in Higher Education
CRN: 11956
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
What are we doing here in an institution of higher education? What issues about higher education affect our class and how do our experiences of higher education vary? In our section of English 161, a writing course situated in academic inquiry, we will take up these questions through an exploration of academic research and public debate. The course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by forms of academic writing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Issues in Higher Education
CRN: 24008
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler
What are we doing here in an institution of higher education? What issues about higher education affect our class and how do our experiences of higher education vary? In our section of English 161, a writing course situated in academic inquiry, we will take up these questions through an exploration of academic research and public debate. The course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by forms of academic writing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research; Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 11924
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Mark Magoon
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research; Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 11854
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Mark Magoon
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research; Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 11950
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Mark Magoon
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality, and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 40443
Days/Time: TR 2;00-3:15
Instructor: John Casey
Infrastructure is all around you. The roads you drive to work or school, the water that comes out of the faucet in your home, the lights you turn on when it gets dark, and even the schools you have attended are all examples of infrastructure. These intricately designed systems for organizing space are fundamental parts of our lives that we often take for granted until they malfunction. As many of these systems malfunction due to age and a changing climate, experts are examining what it would take to make these systems resilient (able to withstand change) and sustainable (lessen the impact on the environment) in addition to fixing longstanding problems. In this class we will examine the problems associated with aging infrastructure and the attempts by community leaders and organizations to make infrastructure resilient and sustainable. This examination will be paired with a discussion of general skills in reading, research, and writing that will be useful to you in college and long after you graduate.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 30674
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: John Casey
Infrastructure is all around you. The roads you drive to work or school, the water that comes out of the faucet in your home, the lights you turn on when it gets dark, and even the schools you have attended are all examples of infrastructure. These intricately designed systems for organizing space are fundamental parts of our lives that we often take for granted until they malfunction. As many of these systems malfunction due to age and a changing climate, experts are examining what it would take to make these systems resilient (able to withstand change) and sustainable (lessen the impact on the environment) in addition to fixing longstanding problems. In this class we will examine the problems associated with aging infrastructure and the attempts by community leaders and organizations to make infrastructure resilient and sustainable. This examination will be paired with a discussion of general skills in reading, research, and writing that will be useful to you in college and long after you graduate.

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis: WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT SEX?
CRN: 47525, 47524
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Peter Coviello
“WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT SEX? This course introduces students to several interpretive methods rooted in the turbulence, strangeness, exhilaration, and bewildering human intricacy of sex. We will read novels and poems and films alongside critical works (in disciplines like queer theory and feminism), paying particular attention to the knotty entanglements of gender, sexuality, and meaning. Authors may include Nella Larsen, Henry James, Carson McCullers, and others.”

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47519, 47518
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Christina Pugh
How can we know what poems and stories “mean”? In this introduction to interpretation and critical analysis, we will investigate how works of literature can speak to many different readers and generate multiple critical readings. Conceived as an active dialogue between literary and critical texts, the course gives students practice in judging the viability of critical readings and in creating counterarguments based on strategic presentation of textual evidence. We will consider the varied philosophical, conceptual, aesthetic, and political concerns that critics bring to writing literary criticism, as well as the ways that critics mine specific aspects of literary texts to create their arguments. Since writers of literary criticism are necessarily interested in the properties of literature as such, our critical readings will also discuss issues of genre that inform works of poetry, the fairy tale and other short fictions, and the novel. Later in the course, we will also discuss how we can engage criticism that is not primarily literarily based (e.g., Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”), as well as how the distinction between “literary” and “critical” works can fruitfully break down. Course requirements include class participation, short papers, and a longer, integrative final paper.

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47517, 47516
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Walter Benn Michaels
“What’s the difference between studying literature and just reading it? If you’re taking English 207, you may well be an English major, and you probably find some pleasure in reading and maybe writing stories and poems. The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that come up when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest also in English studies as an intellectual discipline. In this class, we’ll do this in three ways. First, we’ll pay particularly close attention to a range of texts, focusing on questions like why one word (say, “stilled”) is used rather than another (say, “stopped”) or what is lost (or gained) when a ten-page short story is edited into a five-page shorter story. Second, we’ll study several different theories about what it means for readers to understand the meaning of a text, and we’ll do this in part by considering the relations between literary and legal texts – between what’s involved in interpreting a novel and what’s involved in interpreting, say, the Constitution. Third, we’ll pay special attention to what’s involved in writing about literature – to what a literary critical thesis or argument looks like and to how to go about formulating one.”

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis: Arguing About Literature
CRN: 47521, 47520
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Raphael Magarik
“This introduction to literary study will be organized around a series of debates between literary readers; for each unit, we will read a primary text (or portions thereof) and then at least two critical texts that disagree strongly with each other. Course goals (which will inform the choice of readings) include: (1) understanding how apparently small ambiguities in the texts we read sometimes relate to bigger questions of social, political, or philosophical import, (2) understanding how people disagree and produce arguments about literary texts, which are sometimes represented in popular culture (and in high school classrooms) as objects of subjective taste and opinion, (3) starting to place yourself into these debates.

Though I cannot (and would not!) normatively require or assess affect or attitude, I so hope to construct a pedagogical space in which we relish and enjoy controversy, while honoring the real consequences—and sometimes, considerable pain—associated with the various positions we encounter.

Sample possible debates (no guarantee these particularly will be included): does Milton’s “”Samson Agonistes”” celebrate suicidal terrorism or not, and if it does, how should we relate to such celebration? Is Chaucer’s “”Wyfe of Bath”” a realistic depiction of a fourteenth century middle-class woman bucking patriarchy, or is she an amalgam of sexist fantasies? Is the biblical narrative of the Exodus the pattern of progressive politics in modern life, or is it a regressive, genocidal text? ”

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47523, 47522
Days/Time: MWF 2:00 to 2:50
Instructor: Natasha Barnes
“This course is designed to teach English majors how to read literature, specifically in relation to the construction and analysis of literary realism. We will explore the form and narrative language of realism as a springboard to understanding some of the main tenets of twentieth-century literary theory. As we examine how “English literature” became an academic pursuit, we will recognize schools of literary interpretation (liberal humanism, new criticism, narratology, etc.) and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category. Literary texts studied will include Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Atonement Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Excerpts from Peter Barry’s Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory and Robert Dale Parker’s How to Analyze Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies will guide our theoretical studies.

There is about 75-100 pages of reading per week for this class. Students are expected to read ALL assigned texts carefully and to take difficult literary fiction seriously.

IMPORTANT: I would prefer that student intending to choose academic literature as their concentration in the English major take this course. This is a rigorous course and I expect every student who elects to take this class should apply themselves with due diligence.

If you’re *not* an English major and want to take an English class to practice academic writing, this course is probably too specialized for your needs.

Textbooks: All books will be available at the UIC Bookstore, articles and short stories will be uploaded on Blackboard

Students will be required to take 10 random quizzes, write 2 short papers, and take midterm and final exams”

ENGL 207: Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47527, 47526
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jennifer Ashton
“Our practice in this class will emphasize what the great 20th-century avant-garde dramatist Bertolt Brecht thought all art (and all thinking about art) should involve: fun. He also thought that having fun could foster serious thinking. Thus, along with practicing fun, we’ll be practicing some serious material and critical analysis. Our literary objects of study will include poetry, prose fiction (short stories and a novel), a play (as it happens, by Brecht), and a film adaptation of that play. We’ll do a range of written and in-class work, involving both creative experimentation and rigorous analytical thinking, equally designed to help you enter the inner workings of our literary objects of study.

Even though our focus will be on literature (which is not exactly what most people choose to focus on in their lives for fun or for serious thought), the skills you practice will nevertheless be highly transferable. Let’s just say that if you can learn how to give a compelling explanation of how a work of literature (or any work of art) operates, you can probably learn how to construct a compelling explanation of just about anything else, and that a highly valued ability in many kinds of careers.”

ENGL 208: English Literature I: Beginnings to 17th Century
CRN: 47532
Days/Time: F 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Eniko Deptuch Vaghy
In ENGL 208, we will chart the inception and evolution of the English language as well as the literature that arose throughout this time. Attention will be given to the “beginnings” of English language and literature through an exploration of early approaches to storytelling—such as the oral tradition and other methods of conveying and documenting narratives—that predated the written form of language we know and rely on today. By this, students will learn that the English language was not something that just “happened,” but a response to pivotal events in history that compelled its existence and then proceeded to shape and transform it. We will delve into epic works such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the Green Knight (both literary and film depictions), and Le Morte d’Arthur, among other texts, and discuss how the thematic backbones of these stories have informed and inspired certain tropes in literature, beliefs in society, and popular, more recent narratives of our own time. Major assignments for the course will be a midterm paper as well as a final paper at the end of the semester, with minor assignments being responses submitted to questions posed through discussion boards.

ENGL 208: English Literature I: Beginnings to 17th Century
CRN: 47531
Days/Time: F 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Eniko Deptuch Vaghy
In ENGL 208, we will chart the inception and evolution of the English language as well as the literature that arose throughout this time. Attention will be given to the “beginnings” of English language and literature through an exploration of early approaches to storytelling—such as the oral tradition and other methods of conveying and documenting narratives—that predated the written form of language we know and rely on today. By this, students will learn that the English language was not something that just “happened,” but a response to pivotal events in history that compelled its existence and then proceeded to shape and transform it. We will delve into epic works such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the Green Knight (both literary and film depictions), and Le Morte d’Arthur, among other texts, and discuss how the thematic backbones of these stories have informed and inspired certain tropes in literature, beliefs in society, and popular, more recent narratives of our own time. Major assignments for the course will be a midterm paper as well as a final paper at the end of the semester, with minor assignments being responses submitted to questions posed through discussion boards.

ENGL 208: English Literature I: The Beginning to the 17th Century
CRN: 47528
Days/Time: MW 9:00–9:50
Instructor: Robin Reames
“What was literature in English before there was such a thing as “English Literature”? The idea of “literature” as we commonly think of it today did not exist before the 18th or some even say the 19th century. So, what function did it have for the people who created, heard, and read “literature” before the existence of the very idea?

In this course, we pursue this question through four intertwined thematic currents: rhetoric, epic, romance, and pilgrimage. We examine how, prior to the invention of literature, the craft of rhetoric propelled poets and wordsmiths in the medieval and early modern eras to innovate with the arts of language (Bede, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Thomas Wilson). We see how, in the beginning, before writing even existed, the ultimate form of oral poetry—epic—served as the storehouse of cultural knowledge (Homer, Beowulf). We watch as epic swells into a rallying cry of a national ethos (Fairie Queene, Paradise Lost). We investigate how the very idea of romance was invented in the medieval era (Lanval, Tristran and Isolt), how it emerged through the legends of King Arthur, and how, like epic, the Arthurian myths were used to craft national identity (Le Morte Darthur). We trace the expanding boundaries of the known world through pilgrimages and the stories people told about them (Sæwulf, Margery Kempe, Canterbury Tales), and how, in the early modern era, the idea of the Americas was co-created by such stories of pilgrimage.

The worlds constructed within these texts, as you might imagine, are very different from our own. But at the same time, they contain the template for what would become our world. By examining what literature in English was before the idea of “English literature” was invented, we see how poets and wordsmiths of the medieval and early modern eras used language to shape the world—the world in which we now live. “

ENGL 209: English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 47598
Days/Time: MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Mark Canuel
This course surveys literature in English by authors ranging from the Augustans to the present. We will concentrate our studies on Britain as an empire and its changing relationships with other parts of the world: the European continent, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and so on. The works that we will study will include works from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative and M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! Topics to be considered will include Britain’s actual and imagined connections with different peoples, regions, nations, and empires; the connection between literary imagination and constructions of national and imperial spaces; and the formative interactions between literary genres and questions of political scale—i.e., widening patterns of communal relationship and institutional affiliation. Emphasis will also be placed on techniques of “close reading,” readings informed by literary theory, and essay-writing skills. Requirements include regular attendance, 2 essays, occasional other assignments or quizzes, midterm, and final examinations.

ENGL 209: English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 47533
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Anna Kornbluh
This course tracks how literary forms emerged and changed in response to events like the expansion of global capitalism, the development of mass literacy, revolutions and the rise of democracy, and the growth of cities. We will study authors from England, the British Colonies, and the United States, and focus on the development of the novel as the literary form unique to modernity. We will also practice close reading to carefully appreciate the specific formal strategies involved in writing literature. Authors may include Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Jonathan Franzen, and others.

ENGL 213: Introduction to Shakespeare: Shakespeare, Then & Now
CRN: 47461, 46460
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Vainis Aleksa
“We will seek to understand why original audiences were captivated by Shakespeare and how theatre productions today continue to enact the plays in powerful ways. Shakespeare’s art can help us imagine our human experience more deeply: the joy of falling in love, the lust for power, the longing for harmony, the fascination with violence, the ability to be strong in times of trouble. We will entertain many points of view, including how Shakespeare embodies both the ideals and biases of Renaissance society as well as ours. Because the course will emphasize discussion and listening to each other, being present in class will be important. We will be reading Hamlet, As You Like It, King Henry IV part 1, Antony & Cleopatra, Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Much Ado about Nothing. As we discuss and write about the plays, you will have an opportunity to develop a personal and lasting connection between Shakespeare and your own life.”

ENGL 213: Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 47459, 47458
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jeffrey Gore
Subtitled “The Raw and the Cooked,” this course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies, tragedies, and histories from the height of his career. We will juxtapose the early slapstick humor of The Taming of the Shrew with the refined wit of Twelfth Night’s cross-dressing romance to understand better different kinds of comedy and different forms of social domination. Although T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” recent scholarship on gender, race, and trauma challenges us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge. “To be or not to be” will certainly be one of the questions when we turn to the author’s tragic masterpiece Hamlet – written a decade after Titus – but so will be the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to be the avenging warrior that his father was. With the histories, we will examine two kinds of leaders, the villainous “Machiavel” Richard III, and the unifying warrior-king, Henry V: although the former cruelly murders his way to the top, the latter draws a subtler approach from the Machiavellian playbook. These pairs will help us understand different approaches to storytelling during the years that Shakespeare was most devoted to experimentation and refining his craft.

ENGL 223: Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: “A World Cut in Two”
CRN: 47474
Days/Time: TR 2:00- 3:15
Instructor: Margaux Brown
“In this course, we will explore literature written in English by formerly colonized nations and people within their historical and cultural contexts. Frantz Fanon wrote in his seminal book, The Wretched of the Earth, that “the colonial world is a world cut in two.” We will use this quote as a lens to think critically about how authors negotiate between colonial and indigenous culture and use literature as a means of resistance. We will read literature from colonized regions such as India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Native American nations.

We will interrogate notions of national, regional, global, and cosmopolitan identities. Additionally, we will explore, define, and investigate intersections of nation, region/the local, the global, class, race, gender in relation to larger social, political, and cultural movements throughout colonial and postcolonial history. We will read texts by authors such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Arundhati Roy, Ama Ata Aidoo, Du Bois, and Leslie Marmon Silko. “

ENGL 230: Film and Culture
CRN: 47482
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15/5:45
Instructor: Erich von Klosst-Dohna
During this course, we will predominantly be looking at films produced during the 1950s through the 1990s from around the world (though we may contextualize these decades with some outside work). Our objective will be to learn how the formal elements of film allow us to interpret a film’s meaning. As we progress through historical time, we will also attempt to track the differing interests of our directors as they try to work through the aesthetic and cultural problems of their time. This course will require short writing assignments, a presentation, a final exam, and active participation. A possible list of directors for this course may include Hitchcock, Wilder, Herzog, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Lynch, Verhoeven, Kubrick, and Spike Lee.

ENGL 230: Introduction to Film and Culture
CRN: 47484
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45/6:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey
“This course examines the relationship between film and culture through the lens of the horror genre. We will watch and discuss a variety of horror movies and analyze how their representations of gender, racial, and ethnic difference both shape and are shaped by the cultural context in which the films were produced.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
• Understand the ways in which film both reflects and influences culture.
• Grasp the concept of genre theory as it applies to film.
• Identify how gender and racial difference are expressed through individual films and the horror genre.
• Use the correct terminology for film and cultural studies.
• Watch films with attention to significant details and patterns of repetition.
• Analyze the formal and stylistic choices available to filmmakers and how these communicate meaning.
• Make and support interpretive claims about film.
• Organize and communicate your ideas through writing and speaking.”

ENGL 232: History of Film I: 1890 to World War II
CRN: 12118, 12114
Days/Time: MW 1:00 – 2:50
Instructor: Martin Rubin
An overview of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. Topics covered include the invention of cinema, the evolution of the film director, the role of women in early film history, the rise of narrative cinema, the emergence of “race movies” as an alternative to Hollywood racism, German expressionist cinema, French impressionist cinema, Soviet montage cinema, the coming of sound, early queer cinema, the development of deep focus cinematography, and Italian neorealism. Filmmakers covered include Georges Méliès, D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber, Oscar Micheaux, Germaine Dulac, Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, and Vittorio De Sica. The focus of the course is on how specific trends in film history shaped the film styles of different eras, nations, and filmmakers. There is no textbook; requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments.

ENGL 237: Graphic Novels
CRN: 47578
Days/Times: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: James Drown
This class in the Graphic Novel will begin by examining some basic questions such as, “What is a Graphic Novel,” and “How do we read and understand graphic novels.” We will begin by grounding our exploration with texts about comics, such as Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and Comics and Sequential Art by William Eisner. We will then move on and examine questions like, “How have graphic novels reflected our society” and “Why have they become an important and recognized literary form?” Readings will focus on work produced since the 1960’s and include both full graphic novels and specific selections. Additionally, while we are mainly interested in American Graphic Novels, we will include some influential works from Japan and Europe. Examples of International graphic novels we may examine for the course include Tintin by Herge, works by Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy), Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, and I Hear the Sunspot by Yukio Fumino. American Graphic Novels will include both literary and populist works, such as Maus by Art Spiegelman, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Fun House by Alison Bechdel. Assignments will include online discussion boards, weekly Journals, midterm and final, and an independent research paper examining a specific graphic novel.

ENGL 245/ GWS 245: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature: Love is Strange: Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
CRN: 47477
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert
We will begin the work of Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 245: Queer Forms
CRN: 47475
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jared O’Connor
The cultural revolutions of the late 1960s brought about significant transformations in the ways we think about gender/sex and sexuality in our everyday lives. Not only were these revolutions tethered to presenting and enacting radical gender and sexual identities in our social reality, but they were also represented in the literature and art of the period. And these representations have continually inspired the ways contemporary literature and art thinks about and represents gender and sex. This course will explore literature and art from the late 1960s to our present day by paying particular attention to experiments with form and genre as they relate to gender and sex. We will read novels, poems, and the graphic novel that use form to interrogate and make legible these radical ideas and what these expressions suggest about our ever-changing relationship to gender and sexuality.

ENGL 245: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature
CRN: 47480
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Alexandrine Ogundimu
“Two of the most ancient and prevailing topics in literature are gender and sexuality. From the poetry of Sappho through to the prose of Brontez Purnell, we will be reading texts, including poetry, short stories, and novels, from a variety of eras and traditions that tackle issues of gender and sexuality as well as LGBTQ characters and themes. By the end of this class, you should have a working knowledge of queer and gender related literature.”

ENGL 247: Women and Literature: Difficult Women in 20th Century Literature
CRN: 47465
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Keeley Harper
Feminism’s success often comes down to the complicated, contradictory (even problematic) women who fought for equal rights. In her book, Difficult Women: An Imperfect History of Feminism, Helen Lewis argues that too many feminist pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in service of narratives that fulfill society’s need for feel-good, inspirational heroines. The same could be said of women in literature. Too often, in our quest to elevate and bring attention to the works of women authors, we elevate them unequivocally, failing to examine the more challenging or “difficult” aspects of their works and lives. In this course, we will identify what it means to be a “difficult” woman by scrutinizing troubling, complex, and evasive representations of women in novels and short stories of the 20th century—as well as the difficult women who wrote them. Together, we’ll seek to understand how the complex, messy lives of these authors might have contributed to their works and discuss wildly varying representations of women in the 20th century.

ENGL 247: Women and Literature
CRN: 47469
Days/Time: TR 5:00- 6:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello
In this class, lectures and class discussion invite students to immerse themselves in the environments in which they were written. We will take a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. Although we will analyze Sappho’s poetry and recent work in transgender studies, many of our texts were written between 1890- 1940. Writing during this period often depicted a crisis in the human spirit and disruption of tradition. As such, this period offers a unique view of the intersections between gender, sexuality, class, race, and nationality (among others). Many American artists and writers moved to Paris during this time, and we will examine why they chose Paris and what drove them out of the US in the first place. Finally, a close reading of our texts and supporting documents will allow us to address, at least tangentially, issues of censorship and sexuality. The texts we will read include (but are not limited to) Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Erika Sánchez’s I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

ENGL 247: Women and Literature: Women and the Cartography of Land & Body
CRN: 47467
Days/Time: MWF 10:00- 10:50
Instructor: Dez Brown
“A world that is hypercritical of women’s bodies has tangible effects on the relationships that women have with their bodies. At the same time, the connection that women have with the land/environment around them directly affects these relationships, creating a complex and unique web of experiences.

In this course, we will examine the ways in which women write about the experiences that lie at the intersections of land and body, mapping themes and rhetorical approaches that these women use in their work. We will read poetry and essays by a number of women writers, including Toni Morrison, Natalie Diaz, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Layli Long Soldier.”

ENGL 251: Literature and the Environment
CRN: 47638
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski
We are all familiar with Environmental issues: Climate Change, Global Warming, Extinction of Species, Sustainability, to name a few. What might surprise us is how literature both reflects and comments on these issues as well as offers insights into our own habitats and surroundings. In this way, all literature can be viewed as environmental in that it delineates spaces and creates worlds in which characters abide and interact with both the world and each other. Course readings will include novels by Richard Powers the Overstory, Patricia Lockwood No One is Talking About This, and Laline Paull The Bees. Students can also expect to read poetry and prose that speaks to the environment and to environments. In addition to daily reading and writing assignments, students will write two short papers (3-5 pages each), present on a topic or writer in class, and take a midterm and final exam. Students can expect to work in both whole group and small group settings.

ENGL 262/BLST 262: Black Cultural Studies
CRN: 33575
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Marlo La Mothe
Search BLST 262 for a course description.

ENGL 266/BLST 266: African Literature and Revolution
CRN: 47089
Days/Time: MW 4:30 – 5:45
Instructor: Nicholas Brown
“This course is about literature, politics, and history in Africa, from roughly the middle of the twentieth century to the present. While Africa has no shortage of literature concerning armed conflict, an exclusive focus on such literature would probably tell us more about the genre of the war novel than anything particular to African literature and history. Rather, we will be construing “revolution” broadly: radical social transformation as a horizon for thinking and writing. Sometimes this looks indeed like revolutionary war: Pepetela in Angola, Ngugi wa Thiong’o in Kenya. Sometimes, however, it looks like the tragic collapse of pre-colonial societies (Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe in Nigeria). Sometimes it looks like a Utopian future (Cheikh Hamidou Kane in Senegal); sometimes it looks like social disintegration (Ayi Kwei Armah in Ghana). Sometimes it looks like dreadful historical mistake (Maaza Mengiste in Ethiopia). Sometimes, indeed, it is obsessed with the fact that it doesn’t know what it looks like (Mongane Serote in South Africa). As can be seen from this brief list of authors and places, this course will range widely over countries, histories, and decades. However, the goal of the course is for students, through a limited focus, to acquire a sense of the sweep of history in Africa over the past seventy-five years, and a sense of the scope and power of African literature in that three-quarters of a century.
Possible readings:
Cheikh Hamidou Kane, _Ambiguous Adventure_
Pepetela, _Mayombe_
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, _Petals of Blood_
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, _Half of a Yellow Sun_
Chinua Achebe, _Arrow of God_
Wole Soyinka, _Collected Plays_, Vol. 1
Mongane Serote, _Gods of Our Time_
Zoe Wicomb, _David’s Story_
Nadine Gordimer, _My Son’s Story_
J.M. Coetzee, _Age of Iron_
Writing assignments: The major assignments will be a 10–12-page final paper and a 5-7 page midterm paper.
Exams: There will be brief midterm and final exams covering reading assignments.
Grading: Grades will be based on 70% papers, 10% exams, 20% class discussion and other assignments.”

ENGL 267: Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
CRN: 47590, 47589
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Frida Sanchez- Vega
In this introductory survey, we will read, think about, and discuss a range of works – including fiction, poetry, drama – by pioneering as well as present-day authors of U.S. Latinx Literature. Set alongside, and sometimes against, dominant American culture, U.S. Latinx Literature touches on some of the most prominent and controversial issues in contemporary life in the United States: immigration and the immigrant experience; the gains and losses of assimilating into American culture; the exploitation of labor; and identity formation based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. This course will especially focus on queer Latinx writers and how they navigate the U.S. alongside their cultures. Texts will include works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Piri Tomas, Anna Castillo, Luis Negron, Reinaldo Arenas, Justin Torres, and others. Assessment will be based on response writing, class and group discussions, class engagement, a short presentation, and two papers. The main objectives of the class are to enrich your understanding of literature generally and, more importantly, to learn about the exciting and multifarious works of Latinx writers and culture.

ENGL 269: Introduction to Multiethnic Literature in the United States
CRN: 47471
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Tierney Powell
“Novel Connectivities: Mapping Fictions of Transnational America”: What does it mean to be connected—and what is at stake in answering this question about fictions of transnational America? In this course, we will read works by authors such as Karen Tei Yamashita, Teju Cole, Gary Shteyngart, and Hari Kunzru, among others. These works expose some of the key discourses in contemporary literature about globalization, posing fascinating questions about the nature of novel form, the possibilities of representation in the neoliberal global order, and the promise of cultural and literary production. In this course we will turn to the practice of mapping, of connecting points, to gain “some new heightened sense of [our] place in the global system,” one obsessively and at times dangerously connective (Jameson, Postmodernism). We will think through the urge to connect while critiquing that very impulse.

ENGL 280: Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47496
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Karen Leick
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280: Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47497
Days/Time: MWF 1:00- 1:50
Instructor: Karen Leick
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280: Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47495
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 282: Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 47514, 47515
Days/Time: W 3:00 to 4:15
Instructor: Mohammed AlQaisi
“In our course, you will learn how working with peers on their writing creates special opportunities for students to be more involved in their assignments and more connected with other students on campus.

The purpose of our weekly reading and writing is to prepare you to be resourceful in making decisions as you tutor the wide range of students who use the Writing Center.
Both research and practice have provided evidence for how a tutoring environment can be created to best help students gain confidence and motivation they need to keep growing as writers.

Our aim in tutoring is to create responses that support writers’ efforts while helping them take a next step tailored to their interests and needs. For some the next step might be learning more about writing, for others it might be better understanding what is expected from the assignment, or making their thoughts clearer, or getting the assignment done on time. As you begin tutoring and gain experience, we will continue to analyze and reflect on tutoring. As you will see, making it a goal to learn something new from each session will help you not only better understand how we all progress as writers, but also how to advance your own communication, writing, and leadership skills.”

ENGL 282: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 47512, 47513
Days/Time: T 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Kim O’Neil
“English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.”

ENGL 282: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 47510, 47511
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero
“English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.”

ENGL 290: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47507
Days/Time: TR 11;00-12:15
Instructor: Jay Yencich
“Students end up coming into beginning workshops from a variety of backgrounds. Maybe they’ve spent a many a sleepless night scratching down poems by candlelight or perhaps they’re just coming in as dabblers, either from another genre or another major. In any case, this class is likely to be the first formal workshop any of you have taken and it’s my responsibility to help get your feet wet (or throw you into the pool, as need be).

The first half of the semester will be devoted to getting us used to the idea of what elements have traditionally comprised a poem and how a workshop operates. The second half of the semester, we’ll be switching over to a more formal workshop while building on the moves laid out in the first half, making more complex mental and linguistic contortions.”

ENGL 290: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47506
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Dez Brown
“Traditionally, introductory poetry courses tend to focus on formal verse and its rules of meter and rhyme; however, most contemporary poetry is free verse. As such, this course will focus on free verse poetry and the rhetorical use of language, carefully considering the motivations behind poets’ interpretations of the “freedom” that this type of poetry offers. In the process, students will learn to apply critical tools and terminology when making poems that experiment with form, voice, imagery, creative response, revision, and other elements in the poet’s rhetorical toolbox.

Most weeks students will submit poetry writing assignments that focus on the poetic concepts we are studying. Students will revise these weekly assignments and collect them in a portfolio that will include an artist’s statement that describes their poetic journey throughout the semester, and they will have several opportunities for peer feedback that will aid them during revision. Our investigations will focus not only on how poems are written, but also why they are written and what relationship they have to the contexts and worlds in which they are read.”

ENGL 291: Introduction to Fiction Writing
CRN: 47509
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Christopher Grimes
This intro course will be front-loaded with published short fiction to discuss such craft issues as point of view, reliability, setting, form, theme, characterization, etc. We’ll then turn to your own efforts at writing short stories in a supportive workshop environment. Your own work will ultimately be the primary text for the course, so there are no books to purchase. Your final portfolio will consist of approximately 25 pages of original fiction.

ENGL 291: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 47508
Days/Time: TR 11:00 – 12:15
Instructor: Travis Mandell
“Reading makes a great writer. The more one reads, the more one understands the world of fiction, the better their prose; there is no substitute. This course will build on four major tenets of writing creative fiction: reading the works of established authors, writing our own fiction, critiquing the works of others, and editing/revising our own works.

For the first half of the semester, we will be reading short story selections from Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery, as well as some craft-oriented and theoretical work by other famous authors, to get a grasp on the technique and form that goes into producing lasting fiction. We will interrogate point of view, setting, world building, characters, plot, conflict, narrative voice, and dialogue. One cannot begin to break the rules, without first knowing them.

In the second half of the course, we will apply the fundamentals from the readings to develop our own short stories. Positioning ourselves as both writers and critics in workshop sessions, we will help every writer improve their work through constructive criticism and inspired discussion. We will utilize Blackboard for readings, quizzes, workshopping, and short assignment (writing prompt) submissions.”

ENGL 292: Introduction to the Writing of Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 47494
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Carla Barger
“This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing creative nonfiction (CNF). We will investigate a wide range of CNF, including personal essays, memoir, nature writing, art writing, and the many different hybrid forms that fall under the umbrella term lyric essay. We’ll interact with these different forms of nonfiction by completing short response essays and in-class writing exercises and by creating our own original work. We’ll offer one another constructive criticism during workshop and receive the same in turn. This means that to be successful in this class one must be open to suggestions and willing to make revisions. It also means that participation is mandatory.
Some of the authors we’ll read include Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, Annie Dillard, Ira Sukrungruang, Paisley Rekdal, and Eula Biss. ”

ENGL 297/CL 297: Studies in the Classical Tradition
CRN: 42256
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Heidi Schlipphacke
Search CL 297 for a course description.

ENGL 305: Studies in Fiction: The “Postracial” American Novel
CRN: 44139
Days/Time: MWF 10-10-50
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke
The course will be reading work of contemporary American literature with the aim of exploring the narrative strategies mobilized to represent race in a post-postmodern, post-Civil Rights era in American fiction. “Postracial” here in no way suggests an end or beyond of ‘race’; as the past several years have made painfully and tragically clear, race and racism remain abiding features of our American experience. Yet, while W.E.B. Du Bois 1903 assertion that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” still holds for us today, “postrace” identifies the very different logic that underwrites race in the early 21st century. Used with the full ironic force suggested and mobilized by Colson Whitehead and others, “postrace” will frame our investigation of form, literary language, and the post-postmodern, post-Civil Rights iteration of American racial formations. Our readings will be drawn from Percival Everett, Colson Whitehead, Junot Diaz, Karen Tei Yamashita, Jessica Hagedorn, and Tommy Orange, amongst others.

ENGL 311: MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE: WOMEN READERS AND WRITERS FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE TO 1500.
CRN: 27719
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10;45
Instructor: Alfred Thomas
Despite their secondary status in a patriarchal society, medieval women played a key role in the commissioning, reading and even writing of texts in Latin, Anglo-Norman and English up to 1500. This course examines women’s contribution to medieval literature as readers and writers in the British Isles from the Old English “The Wife’s Lament” to the “Book of Margery Kempe” in the fifteenth century. Readings include: The “Lays” of Marie de France; Clemence of Barking’s Anglo-Norman “The Life of St Catherine”; the Early Middle English “Wooing Of Our Lord” and related texts for female recluses; Chaucer’s “The Legend of Good Women”; Julian of Norwich’s “A Revelation of Love”; and “The Book of Margery Kempe.” Following the English Reformation of the sixteenth-century women’s active involvement in the production of English literature was diminished as the Protestant religion reinforced the patriarchal role of men in the family as well as in society. All readings in English.

ENGL 335: Literature and Popular Culture
CRN: 47536
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj

ENGL 324: American Literature to the 2oth Century
CRN: 47260
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Terence Whalen

ENGL 351: Topics in Black Art and Literature: Contemporary African American Literature
CRN: 37202
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Madhu Dubey
This course will examine African American literary and cultural production ranging from the “post-soul” and New Black Aesthetic movements of the 1990s to the current explosion of Afrofuturist art across various literary forms and cultural media. Course readings (and ‘viewings’) include novels, short stories, plays, poems, performance art, and manifestos by writers including Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Eve Ewing, Douglas Kearney, Suzan-Lori Parks, Evie Shockley, and Colson Whitehead. Our approach to these texts will focus on how they experiment with form and medium to explore the shifting meanings of racial identity, culture, politics, and community in the post-Civil Rights decades.

ENGL 380: Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47537
Days/Time: MWF 8-8:50
Instructor: Phil Hayek
“Course description and goals
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.

Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. We will study the writing that drives social action, and you will locate, analyze and advise on an issue in public policy.

Private Sector (business communication)
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional materials for a business of your choosing and develop social media strategies and crisis management solutions.

Third Sector (proposal and grant writing):
The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young jobseekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design, as you develop a media packet for a nonprofit of your choosing.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
CRN: 44817
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
CRN: 43391
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Phil Hayek
“This course covers the theory and practice of technical communication, including the types of specialized writing forms required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, and technology. The purpose of this course is to understand the theories, concepts, models, genres, and techniques of technical writing and technical communication in the workplace so that students will be able to act as a member or leader of technical writing and technical communication teams. Students will gain knowledge of the key principles of technical communication and gain experience writing proposals, technical specifications, technical documentation, and recommendation reports. We will learn research methods to find, create, and deliver technical information to a wide variety of audiences.

Technical writing is a subject that encompasses more than practice in strategies of professional communication in STEM fields and the workplace. As practitioners of professional and technical writing we engage with the rhetoric of science and economics and technology in the interest of ultimately fusing with them, supporting them, and being in concert with these other disciplines in the effort to shape all knowledge. “

ENGL 389: Writing for Community Advocacy and Activism
CRN: 47580
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Karen Leick
In this course, students will learn about writing strategies and a variety of genres related to nonprofit organizations, advocacy, and activism. Assignments will include an advocacy letter, a newsletter or brochure for nonprofit organizations, and a grant proposal. Students will also develop, design, and produce content for a white paper. In addition, students will learn to create an effective oral presentation using a presentation program (such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi).

ENGL 411: FANTASIES OF EMPIRE: POWER AND POLITICS IN THE MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN ROMANCE
CRN: 47539, 47540
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Alfred Thomas
King Arthur and his Round Table of Knights are traditionally viewed through a romantic lens of chivalry and courtly love. But this was largely the French tradition that was imported into England in the twelfth century. Before that the insular Arthur was by turns a Celtic chieftain and a warrior king intent on subjugating the peoples of the British Isles. This expansionist role reflected the ambitions of the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England as they strove to forge an empire within and beyond Britain. We will trace this insular tradition from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s foundational pseudo-chronicle THE HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN to Sir Thomas Malory’s LE MORTE DARTHUR, a compendium of stories about King Arthur that culminates in the collapse of his empire and his own betrayal and death. This course will allow us to understand not only medieval English history and culture but also the tragedy of today’s Europe as it experiences its most destructive war since WWII as well as the fantasies of empire that still animate geopolitics in the twenty-first century.

ENGL 424: Topics in Literature and Culture: 1900- Present
CRN: 47581, 47582
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Terence Whalen

ENGL 430: Introduction to Multiethnic Digital Humanities
CRN: 47546, 47547
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Alexis Guilbault
“The digital humanities (DH) gives scholars and students a set of tools to perform research and to present information to diverse audiences in various forms, such as digital maps, exhibitions, multimedia chapter books, archives, games, and more. In this course, we will focus on multiethnic digital humanities projects: projects that promote the intersection of digital tools and diverse languages, identities, cultures, and communities. This course is designed to introduce students to the vast potential and current debates in the digital humanities and to prepare students for future research, internships, and employment in a variety of fields.

The first part of this course will introduce students to several DH tools and platforms through in-class experimentation, so those new to and experienced in the digital humanities are very welcome. Students will explore digitization, archiving, social networking, mapping, text mining and analysis, image analysis, data visualization, and more. Throughout the course, students will also build or begin a multiethnic digital humanities project (group or individual). Students can also produce a written exploration of digital humanities methods for a new or existing research project or analyze the opportunities and limitations of the digital humanities. We will discuss progress on projects often and consult with each other and with experts around UIC.”

ENGL 435: Fictions of Slavery
CRN: 47556, 47557
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Natasha Barnes
This course will consider how American slavery is imagined in contemporary cultural contexts. We will see how writers grappled with the subject in different, often hybrid, literary and narrative forms; Bildungsroman, the long novel as well as more experimental genres such as magic realism and science/speculative fiction. The course will study fiction from a variety of historical and cultural contexts; authors examined could include William Wells Brown, William Styron, Toni Morrison, Edward P Jones, Octavia Butler. Towards the end of the course, we will consider the resurgence of slave narratives in contemporary cinema. To that end we will examine the cinematic offerings from Quinten Tarentino’s Django and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave to the recent television adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. The course will also examine controversies of representation in the museum and art world. Primary readings will be augmented with interdisciplinary critical readings from Saidiya Hartman, David Blight, Arlene Kaiser, Tiya Miles and some of the new historical work on women, enslavement, and economic and sexual labor.
Expectations: The reading load will be heavy, expect about 100 pages a week…this a course where I expect serious engagement with a serous subject. There will be one long paper assignment, class presentations and midterm and final exam as well as pop quizzes. “

ENGL 466: Topics in Multi-Ethnic Literatures in the U.S.: Speculative Fiction
CRN: 47555, 47554
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Madhu Dubey
Over the last few decades, African American, Arab-American, Asian American, Latinx, and Native American writers have increasingly turned to various forms of speculative fiction, including alternate history, utopia/dystopia, magical realism, time travel narratives, alien abduction stories, and cyberpunk. Focusing on this speculative turn, this course will look at novels and short stories by writers including Sherman Alexie, Gloria Anzaldua, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Omar El-Akkad, Louise Erdrich, N.K. Jemisin, Claire Light, Malka Older, Lilliam Rivera, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Charles Yu, as well as aesthetic manifestos and critical writings on literary movements including Afrofuturism, Chicanafuturism, and Native Slipstream, among others. Course readings and discussion will be guided by the overarching question of how speculative genres of fiction challenge established understandings of history and futurity and instill a critically defamiliarized understanding of the present.

ENGL 480: Introduction to the Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47552, 47553
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Lauren Johnson
This course is the first methods course for students exploring English Education and those interested in becoming English teachers. We will spend time thinking about different perspectives of and approaches toward the English Language classroom. We will also engage with questions such as, “Why teach English?” and “What is the purpose of English/Language Arts?” As part of their work, students will be expected to conduct observations in English classrooms in the city of Chicago.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English
CRN: 33811, 33812
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Todd DeStigter
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long- and short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 482: Writing Center Leadership: Theory and Practice
CRN: 21190, 47267
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Charitianne Williams
English 482 is an advanced Writing Center studies/tutor-training course exploring multiple perspectives–specifically that of tutor, administrator, and researcher. We will examine established best practices from the cross-disciplinary field of peer tutoring and tutor training, read about multiple theoretical perspectives (feminist theory, genre theory, and second language acquisition theories, to name a few), and practice research methods (such as survey, discourse analysis, and case study) common to writing center research. By the end of the class, participants will understand the potential of peer tutoring in the curriculum, major concerns in the administration and assessment of writing centers, as well as how to conduct qualitative research that moves the discipline forward.

ENGL 486: The Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 20658, 21082
Days/Time: MWF 1:00–1:50
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom
“Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers. Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.”

ENGL 486: Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47023, 47024
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Brennan Lawler
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers. Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 487: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47558, 47559
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Abigail Kindelsperger
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for a wide variety of readers. Major assignments include lesson plans, discussion leadership, and a teaching demonstration. Students also complete 12-15 hours of field work in local schools, with an opportunity to facilitate literary study for a small group of learners.

ENGL 487: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47560, 47561
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Abigail Kindelsperger
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for a wide variety of readers. Major assignments include lesson plans, discussion leadership, and a teaching demonstration. Students also complete 12-15 hours of field work in local schools, with an opportunity to facilitate literary study for a small group of learners.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
CRN: 12504, 20335
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Christina Pugh
In this course, we’ll be building on the poetic foundation established in English 210, as well as opening your poetry to new possibilities of language and thought. Students need to be open to, and curious about, writing poems in structured rhyming and metrical formats, as these will comprise many of our poem assignments. The idea here is that writing in fixed forms will enable poets — as well as writers in any genre — to become more attuned to the sounds and rhythms of language. Students will also write short critical papers, as well as handing in a final portfolio of revised work at the end of the semester. This course will elaborate on concepts introduced in English 210, such as metaphor and metonymy, syntactical structures (including parataxis and hypotaxis), concrete description (as in, for example, poems engaging dreams and visual artworks), and various approaches to musicality. The course includes critical materials addressing these issues, as well as the reading of contemporary and earlier poetry. The course is based on strong literary (lyric) models and on the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another. Our emphasis will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is rigorous, but also positive and encouraging of every student’s voice.

ENGL 491: Advanced writing of Fiction
CRN: 22375, 22376
Days/Time: T 3:30-6 :00
Instructor: Cris Mazza
This advanced fiction workshop is for students who have earned a B or higher in English 212 (or the equivalent). Knowledge of fiction-writing techniques and willingness to engage in discussion of work-in-progress are necessary. Each student will write 3 story drafts and brief critiques for every other peer-evaluated story. This workshop will not accept work that is formula-based: no genre science fiction, fantasy, horror, or graphic fiction. There will be additional guidelines to assist students broaden the scope of their approach to writing. Work that was initiated in a previous 212 course is permissible if revised since last seen by a workshop.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 35763, 35764
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj

ENGL 492: Advanced writing of creative nonfiction
CRN: 12510, 20346
Days/Time: W 3:00 – 5:30
Instructor: Cris Mazza
Creative nonfiction (CNF) includes memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, literary travel-writing, public writing, and similar genres. Each student will write 3 CNF drafts and brief critiques for other workshop members’ drafts. Willingness to engage in discussion of work-in-progress is necessary; reading assignments are made up of work turned in by the workshop members. This course also welcomes any English Department graduate student other than those in the Program for Writers.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 25243, 25244
Days/Time: R 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Linda Landis Andrews
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites, social media, and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people, and their skills are needed.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.

In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week.

Employers include nonprofits, radio, and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest. Many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. Last year one intern worked for an organization in Denver, and another worked from home in Ho Chi Minh City.

First, register for ENGL 280, Media and Professional Writing, the prerequisite for the course, to launch your writing career. Procrastination is not advised.

Credit is variable: three or six credits

Note: Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.”

ENGL 496: Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 46515
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Margena A. Christian
“English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.

To prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.

This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as a young professional well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.

Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 380, 382, 383, 384.

Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.”

ENGL 498: Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12518, 40998
Days/Time: Arranged
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom
“A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice for each ENGL 498 and 499.

The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. “

ENGL 498: Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12521
Days/Time: Arranged
Instructor: David Schaafsma
“A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice for each ENGL 498 and 499.

The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. “

ENGL 499: Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 12533
Days/Time: Arranged
Instructor: David Schaafsma
“A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice for each ENGL 498 and 499.

The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. “

ENGL 499: Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 12530, 41001
Days/Time: Arranged
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom
“A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice for each ENGL 498 and 499.

The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. “

ENGL 500: Master’s Proseminar
CRN: 22397
Days/Time: W 5-7:50
Instructor: Lennard Davis l
“Realism and Naturalism: Problems of Representation
The course will look at novels of the 19th and early 20th century to examine the attempt to capture “”the real”” through fictional representations. The complexity of the idea of representation will be examined critically through the works of Honore de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, George Eliot Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Richard Wright, and others. “

ENGL 503: The End of Our World?
CRN: 21006
Days/Time: W 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Raphael Magarik
“This proseminar will attempt to situate us in something like a critical present, taking as its premise—though of course also subjecting to some scrutiny—the intuition that our moment is in some way apocalyptic: that the institutions of twentieth century literary study in the United States threaten to collapse, that epidemiological and climatic catastrophes shadow our present and future, that apparently durable verities about what literary study is and what it is for seem open to being imminently relativized as artifacts of a past period.

Because I am a scholar of religion, and early modern Christianity particularly, we will approach this moment through other apocalyptic moments—pairing, in essence, three categories of texts:

1) material from the long archive of apocalypticism (Revelation, “”King Lear”” perhaps, bits of AG Mojtabai’s book about the churches neighboring the Pantex nuclear-weapons assembly plant, some of the debate about so-called “”cargo cults”” in the Melanesian islands and elsewhere)
2) Texts that help orient us to major theoretical paradigms (i.e., what literary study has been recently…), but with especial attention to how they relate to, process, contain, or feed off the apocalypse, whether that’s formalism Kermode’s “”Sense of an Ending,”” queer theory through “”Is the Rectum a Grave?” Marxism through Lukacs-Bloch debate on chiliastic pre-modern communism, and so on.
3) Attempts to theorize or grapple with the disquiet or unease in literary studies at the present: Marc Bousquet, Margaret Price, Christopher Newfield, anonymous authors of “”A Third University Is Possible”” on the material practices of the present-day university; some of the debate on whether critique is dead, undead, or whatnot; recent proposals to re-orient literary study around various crises, etc.
We will also attend to how the “”end”” of literary study can mean not only its termination but its telos, with the hope that one of the virtues of the apocalyptic mode is how it forces us to confront with unusual urgency the purposes of otherwise routinized, humdrum professional protocols.”

ENGL 507: Theory, Rhetoric, and Aesthetics
CRN: 33616
Days/Time: M 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Palph Cintron

ENGL 555: Teaching College Writing
CRN: 12546
Days/Time: R 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Mark Bennett
English 555 prepares you to teach FYW courses at UIC and to examine the teaching of writing as an intellectual activity that fits within the disciplinary work of English Studies. You will create two detailed syllabi that focus on writing as a situated activity. Your chief task is to design writing projects and plan instruction that supports your students’ work on those projects. Day-to-day activities that help students successfully complete their writing assignments include: attention to the genre of the task at hand, an understanding of the context and situation, attention to sentence-level grammatical issues and their rhetorical impact, analysis of readings for content or as examples of a genre, and discussion of the possible consequences of a piece of writing. We also will focus on other writing class activities, including small-group work, responding to, and grading written work, and engaging students in peer review. To successfully complete writing projects, students also must learn core skills including a rhetorical approach to grammar and appropriate use of the intellectual tools of summary, analysis, synthesis, and argument. Enrollment in this course is restricted to First-year TA’s in the English Department, or by special permission.

ENGL 557: Language and Literacy
CRN: 23604
Days/Time: T 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Todd DeStigter
Language and Literacy: Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for Democracy

What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it is desirable or even possible to do so? These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?) relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.

Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” and “social justice” can be defined and whether these remain viable sociopolitical aspirations, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical/analytical method provides useful ways to think about ameliorating social and economic problems, and 3) what schools —specifically, English language arts classes—have to do with any of this.

Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work “matters” beyond our own intellectual or financial interests. Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some likely texts (or at least selected chapters from them) are these:

LEARNING TO LABOR: HOW WORKING-CLASS KIDS GET WORKING CLASS JOBS by Paul Willis
GHOSTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD: RACISM AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE by Eve Ewing
DEMOCRACY AS FETISH by Ralph Cintron
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE or DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS by Jane Addams
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
PRAGMATISM by William James
TEACHER UNIONS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: ORGANIZING FOR THE SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES’ STUDENTS DESERVE by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson (eds.)
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
CULTIVATING GENIUS: AN EQUITY FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY RESPONSIVE LITERACY by Gholdy Muhammad
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
CREOLIZING THE NATION by Kris F. Sealey
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciére

English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing. Interested students are encouraged to contact Todd DeStigter (tdestig@uic.edu).”

ENGL 570: Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
CRN: 33612
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:450
Instructor: Daniel Borzutzky
“This class welcomes graduate student poets, and writers of other genres as well. Writers with different aesthetic styles are also welcomed. Our workshops will be generative in nature and our workshopping format will focus less on editorial critiques and more on questions of process, poetics, aesthetics, language, voice, and helping each writer develop individualized approaches to writing about what is most important to them. Students will be encouraged to write from research, to create documentary projects, to employ unconventional formal constraints, to use found text, to write across genres, to write in response to visual art, to translate or write in multiple languages, to write for performance, to incorporate video and sound, among other approaches. We will read a broad range of poems by canonical and contemporary authors with the aim of figuring out how we can apply what we learn about this writing to our own poetry. We will look for ways of finding excitement, wonder, pain, joy, beauty, force, and intensity in the writing we make. And we will hold on tightly to the idea that poetry should be exciting, ambitious, and transformative. In collaboration with the newly formed Initiative for Latinx Literature and the Americas, we will have the opportunity to meet with, both virtually and in person, contemporary writers who might help us think even further about how to develop vibrant, electrifying poems. “

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
CRN: 33333
Days/Time: W 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Christopher Grimes
You know the drill for this graduate-level seminar. We’re totally going to champion one another’s work in a thoughtful, productive, and supportive environment. I prefer workshopping short forms, only because you can have the whole thing in your hands, as it were. But I’m flexible.

ENGL 574: Programs for Writers: Non-Fiction Workshop
CRN: 33334
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Luis Urrea

ENGL 583: Seminar in Theories of the Popular: A Tale of Two Socialisms: The British New Left and Anticolonial Thought
CRN: 36968
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Nasser Mufti
“Britain’s nineteenth century was invented as a field of academic inquiry in the 1950s. The British New Left (key figures including Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, and E.P. Thompson) and Victorian studies both formed during these years and took the 1800s as the basis for their theorizations of culture, class, and popular politics. While this story is familiar, less so is how between 1962-3, three Caribbean intellectuals—Eric Williams, CLR James, and V.S. Naipaul—each published social and political histories of Britain’s nineteenth century and reinvented nineteenth century British culture and society to rethink what bourgeois revolution might look like from the standpoint of decolonization.

This course will examine these two itineraries of Britain’s nineteenth century. In addition to the thinkers referenced above, we will also read the primary texts that are important to them (including Hazlitt, Dickens, Eliot, Hughes, Thackeray, and Kipling), and supplement these readings with other canonical accounts the period, including Marx, Lukacs, Arendt, Foucault and Said. In a word, this course could be understood to introduce two theorizations of bourgeois revolution by two post-war socialisms: the British New Left and anticolonial thought. ”

ENGL 585: Seminar in Theoretical Sites: Marx: Capital and Manuscripts
CRN: 29630
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Nicholas Brown
“This course will be a close reading of the entirety of the first volume of _Capital_, the only volume of _Capital_ to be completed by Marx and published during his lifetime. But if _Capital_ is one of the most tightly composed monuments of the dialectical tradition, Marx’s body of work as we have it today is among the most rhizomatic in modern thought. Many ideas that have entered the “Marxist” or left or even critical vocabulary generally, some of which have become historical in fateful ways, were never published by Marx. Some of the major touchstones — among them the _Grundrisse_, the second two volumes of _Capital_, the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” the “Critique of the Gotha Programme,” the “Theses on Feuerbach” — are notes, or letters, or manuscripts in various stages of preparation. The relation of these texts to the published work is not given even what comes to us authoritatively as an “Appendix” to the modern edition of _Capital_ is a set of notes and fragments whose ordering and relation to the whole has never been definitively established. Further, Engels’s editing of the posthumous publications is not automatically to be trusted and, to add yet another complication, there is substantial evidence of a decisive break between Marx’s early and late economic thinking. The safest thing would seem to be to stick to the published masterwork. And yet some of the most vexing questions and aporias in that text are worked out in the manuscripts and elsewhere. Indeed _Capital_ I was always intended by Marx to be the first book of a multi-volume project; we can assume that any representation of capitalism derived solely from the first volume is a drastically curtailed and incomplete one.

For this reason, we will be reading dialectically and rhizomatically at the same time. The chronology of the course will be determined by a consecutive reading of the first volume of _Capital_ as the problem of representing capitalism as a totality is taken up on successively broader stages. At the same time, we will chase down Marx’s thinking, where we can, into its nooks and crannies: primarily in the _Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy_, the _Grundrisse or Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy_, the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” and the later volumes of _Capital_.
Please note that we will be beginning in earnest on the first day of class. The reading for the first class meeting, 23-Aug, will be the first two chapters (125-187) of the Fowkes translation of _Capital_, Volume I.
Books- The only required text for this course is the Ben Fowkes translation of _Capital_, which is widely available new and used, with pagination consistent between the current edition from Penguin Classics and earlier editions. Other texts will be distributed in electronic format but are easy to find in printed form. The _Grundrisse_ and three volumes of _Capital_ are readily available new and used in Penguin Classics editions; students will have no trouble finding good OCRed PDFs of any of these texts online. The web site marxists.org contains everything we will be reading and much more in several file formats, but not always in the same translations as the most commonly available printed texts. The complete _Marx-Engels Collected Works_ is available from International Publishers and can be found online as OCRed PDFs. Marx is generally very ably translated, but students with even rudimentary German may wish to acquire a PDF or hard copy of the _Marx-Engels Werke_ edition of _Das Kapital_ I (Vol. 23) published by Karl Dietz.”

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Rico, Alonzo
What constitutes literature? Yes, it’s crucial we learn how to read, think and analyze literature; that we understand it and contemplate its various formal mechanizations and how they arise in different genres. But, in doing this, we should also ask ourselves what counts as literature? Why are some works of fiction considered great and canonical while others are relegated to the margins of history? Or, to put this differently, is English literature the only literature capable of creating great works of art? With this in mind, and at the risk of being haphazard, the reading for this class will jump across different time periods and regions, and various different forms in order to not only understand literature but also understand what comprises it.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Dancey, Angela
This course is an introduction to the academic study of film, looking at cinema as an art form, a social and cultural institution, and an industry. We will watch, discuss, and write about a variety of movies, examining their formal aspects (their individual parts and how they are put together), their significance (what they mean), and how they relate to their historical context (when, how, and why they were made).

At the conclusion of this course, you will be able to:
• Recognize film as a mode of creative expression, storytelling, and entertainment.
• Define and use basic film terminology.
• Analyze a film based on its content and form.
• Identify significant details and patterns of repetition in the films you watch.
• Explain the formal and stylistic choices available to filmmakers and how they are used to communicate meaning.
• Explore connections at the level of ideas across multiple film texts.
• Articulate how film shapes and is shaped by cultural beliefs, values, and ideas.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: von Klosst-Dohna, Erich
What is poetry? What is it that poetry can do that prose writing (or other forms of art) cannot? In this course we will read a variety of poems over several centuries in the English and American traditions with special attention in the American 20th century. Our readings will include the Romantic poets, modernism, language poetry, conceptual poetry, and more. We will read to understand the pleasure that comes from reading poetry, but we will also examine the formal qualities of the poems in the attempt to understand the ways in which poets create meaning. This course will require attentive class participation as well as a midterm exam and a final paper.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Beckett, Churchill, Soyinka, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, as well as midterm and summary exams.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare: Shakespeare Then & Now
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
We will seek to understand why original audiences were captivated by Shakespeare and how theatre productions today continue to enact the plays in powerful ways. Shakespeare’s art can help us imagine our human experience more deeply: the joy of falling in love, the lust for power, the longing for harmony, the fascination with violence, the ability to be strong in times of trouble. We will entertain many points of view, including how Shakespeare embodies both the ideals and biases of Renaissance society as well as ours. Because the course will emphasize discussion and listening to each other, being present in class will be important. We will be reading Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing, Antony & Cleopatra, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, King Lear, and Hamlet.  As we discuss and write about the plays, you will have an opportunity to develop a personal and lasting connection between Shakespeare and your own life.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres
Instructor: Powell, Tierney
Quarantined at home, we’ve ordered online and have had boxes delivered to our door. In the first year of the pandemic, Amazon saw record profits and Bezos (“Jeffrey, Jeffrey Bezos”) added nearly $70 billion to his net worth. The news blares, now, about a supply chain in crisis. And when we are increasingly met with “out of stock” notifications and delivery delays, it is often “the supply chain” that gets the blame. Of the many things ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, a new attention to the global supply chain has transformed the logistical systems animating global supply from the mundane to the meme-d. How can literature, film, and television help us understand logistics—and what’s at stake? In this class we will unpack depictions of global supply and logistics in contemporary literature, film, and television. We will inventory the crises, paradigms of security, uses of law, and cultural representations of logistics. We will map the network of infrastructures, technologies, and sites of global logistics, and will deliver—just in time for the end of the semester—critical analyses of logistics in literature, television, film, and contemporary culture. We will consider works which construct, congest, pack, pirate, jam, and hack logistics networks. We will engage such works as Season 2 of HBO’s The Wire, Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer, and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, among others.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Costello, Virginia
In this class, we will take a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. Although we will analyze Sappho’s poetry and recent work in transgender studies, many of our texts were written between 1890-1940. Writing during this time period often depicted a crisis in the human spirit and disruption of tradition.  Many American artists and writers moved to Paris during this time, and we will examine why they chose Paris and what drove them out of the US in the first place. Finally, a close reading of our texts and supporting documents will allow us to address, at least tangentially, issues of censorship and sexuality.  The texts we may read: Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Erika Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Jok, Laura
The fictional omniscient point of view associates the narrator with a disembodied voice of authority that may or may not represent the author, raising questions about who claims to offer universal wisdom. In the nineteenth century, novelists exploited this ambiguity to criticize the suppression of women’s voices. Under a male penname, George Eliot’s narrators ventriloquized societal platitudes about the unseemliness of educating women, which sound like scathing irony if readers assume a female omniscience, as we will see in excerpts of Middlemarch. In Emma, Jane Austen’s free indirect discourse, in which the narrator’s language imitates the characters with mockery and empathy, dramatizes the confusions of growing up when one is clever and observant but immature, fortunate, and self-preoccupied—and in a milieu that idealizes humbled and quiet women. Zadie Smith, Mavis Gallant, and Sigrid Nunez reappropriate omniscient techniques in contemporary contexts to juxtapose viewpoints of men and women: shifting perspectives, allowing characters to flout perspectival boundaries and empathetically inhabit the domestic interiors of strangers, and using the direct address to emphasize the particular, gendered identity of the narrator. Through a discussion presentation and midterm and final papers, students will analyze omniscience and authority in the lives and perspectives of women.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course we will read 20th and 21st century novels, poems, and short stories by American women including Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan, and Erika Sánchez. We will discuss the ways the role of women has changed over time by looking at the struggles facing the characters in these works. In addition, we will analyze the reception of each text, talk about the issues that were most important to contemporary readers, and consider how the concerns of readers have shifted. Students will write essays, actively participate in class discussion, and contribute to one author presentation

ENGL 113: Introduction to Multiethnic Literature in the U.S.
Instructor: Brown, Margaux
In this introductory course, we will explore novels written by an array of multiethnic writers in order to gain a broader understanding of how the novel works on the level of form and content to create a text that is both prospective and retrospective in nature. Kenneth Warren suggests in his book, What Was African American Literature that what separates literature today from what proceeded, is that it is retrospective in nature compared to the prospective literature of our past. What does it mean for an author to create a novel that offers a retrospective or prospective depiction of American life? We will explore issues of class, race, and gender in relation to larger social, political, and cultural movements throughout American history. As we read through African, Native, Latin, and Asian American novels we will explore how these authors engage in debates of language, literacy, culture, space, place and the antagonisms that occur between these intersections; and what it means to be both multiethnic and American. At the same time, we’ll think about the function of the novel both in representing ethnicity and in making an argument that ethnicity is something that needs literary representation. Students will write several short close reading exercises, as well as a longer paper.  Assessments will likely include reading quizzes, a midterm and a final exam. We will read texts by authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Octavia Butler, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie and Colson Whitehead.

ENGL 115: Understanding the Bible as Literature
Instructor: Grunow, Scott
This introductory class presents a literary perspective on the Bible. As we place Biblical texts in their historical and cultural contexts, we will read the Bible as a body of work written in various genres that employ recognizable patterns of language and imagery.  We will specifically focus on variations of themes that connect the Hebrew Bible (“Tanakh”)/Old Testament and the New Testament, such as creation, birth, heroes and heroines, the journey, the Torah, the Deuteronomistic history, suffering, dissension in the community, holiness, mimetic desire, the scapegoat (applying the theories of Rene Girard), and the apocalypse. Overall, we will come to understand the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament as distinct yet connected bodies of literature that respond to the complex historical and cultural situations of their communities, and how the authors of the New Testament employed themes from the Hebrew Bible to articulate their experiences of Jesus and his teachings.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: Gayle, Robin
In this introductory course, will read influential essays by prominent feminists and queer theorists to learn how writers have re-imagined and reclaimed feminist and queer identities over the past 50 years. We will also read survivor poetry, prose, and memoir, wherein womxn use literature as a tool to carve out their unique identities despite pressure to conform to heteronormative, patriarchal dictates. Throughout the course, we will acknowledge and grapple with the ways in which the intersections of identities complicate and nuance literature. Reading list will include writers such as Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Lillian Faderman, Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Roxane Gay, Jennine Capo Crucet, and others.

Note: This course does not assume any prior knowledge or experience with feminism, queer theory, and/or the application of these theories to literature.  Instead, the goal is to understand how feminist and queer literary criticism—combined with open, frank communication with classmates—can ultimately develop your own critical ability to address issues of gender and sexuality both in academic papers and everyday life.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Gender and Sex in Early British Literature
Instructor: Bohne, Amanda
This course will consider how premodern literary texts depicted and conceptualized gender and sex in Britain between the years 1000 and 1500 (or so), before the introduction of the modern categories we now understand. Engaging these texts may disrupt our expectations: how do the constructions of gender and sexuality that we find in these texts correspond to the twenty-first-century depictions of the “medieval” we often encounter? Course texts will include some canonical works, as well as less well-known narratives, such as the Roman de Silence, a romance in which a count raises his child, “the boy who is a girl,” as a knight. Theoretical scholarship on medieval and modern gender and sex will support our investigations. Any texts not written in modern English will be provided in translation.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Love is Strange: The Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
We will begin the work of ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture
Instructor: Drown, James
Film and its media outgrowths (such as television series, cable and now YouTube and TikTok) have become an integral part of daily modern life. And these films are fascinating to study as they can not only reflect culture but can also help propel cultural change. Films and related media are the form we use for much of our modern storytelling that perpetuates and shifts our cultural history and myths. We will view and think critically about groups of populist films, each of which contains at least one film from the 1970’s (a decade with both a surprising number of influential films and one that grappled with many of the social issues that we are still dealing with.) Looking at our films through different lenses will help us see how films reflect the historical moment, deep-seated social beliefs, and can ultimately help us better understand the world we currently live in. Requirements for the class include weekly film responses, a group project analyzing a set of films, as well as a take-home midterm and final. After this class, viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: Dystopian Visions in Twentieth-Century Science Fiction and Film
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
From medieval visions of the New Jerusalem and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) western writers and philosophers have dreamed of an ideal society based on principles of order and rationality. Between the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Europe enjoyed a century of relative peace and political progress. All that changed in the twentieth century: world wars, totalitarianism, the Great Influenza of 1918  and the Holocaust transformed the world as we know it. As a result writers and filmmakers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries began to focus on the dark side of the utopian dream. Readings include H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898); E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops (1911); Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague (1911); John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? (1938) and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). Film screenings include Nosferatu (1922); Metropolis (1926); Alien and Aliens (1979 and 1986); The Thing (1982); Bladerunner (1982), and 28 Days Later (2002).

ENGL 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
This course focuses on labor and its representation in (mainly) Euro-American films of the 20th century. Combining critical readings and viewings with film screenings, we explore how a range of different films may be understood as exploring labor and allied issues such as socio-economic status, political economy, migration, etc. Each week there is a discussion (Tuesday) followed by a screening (Thursday). Student work involves active participation, reading, weekly papers, presentations and other work as assigned. Given the workload, it is advised that only students with a keen interest in cultural studies, sociology, humanities and/or anthropology take the course. This is not a course for those looking for an easy ‘A’ or final semester seniors wanting to ‘glide.’

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly use rhetoric now as a negative term to describe the empty or devious words of our opponents – “their proposals were ‘mere rhetoric” – this field of study has actually played a central role in educational systems around the world for thousands of years. In the fifth century BCE, Aristotle defined rhetoric practically, as a lawyer or politician might, as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” His teacher Plato, however, cast a more suspicious eye on the practitioners of rhetoric, comparing them to chefs of fine cuisine who flatter the senses with “what is most pleasant for the moment” with little care for “what foods are best for the body.” In this course, we will approach rhetoric from both perspectives, as a practical art of persuasion – used by such inspiring speakers as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Greta Thunberg – and as a means to excite our passions, our desires, and our sense of political community, which also has the potential to put our rational, thinking minds on hold. Readings will include selections from the history of ancient and modern rhetoric and a number of test cases that challenge our assumptions of what it means to be a worker, a citizen, or an American.

**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Literature, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark
In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle famously defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” He saw the usefulness of rhetoric in helping us arrive at solutions to the kinds of problems that couldn’t be solved using exact knowledge. Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who thought of rhetoric as the “art of enchanting the soul,” had other ideas. He condemned rhetoric (or “sophistry”) for its ability to steer people away from the truth by making the non-real appear real. While many new conceptions of rhetoric have been introduced in the years since Plato and Aristotle roamed the halls of the Lyceum, no definitive consensus about what constitutes “rhetoric” has yet been reached. Given this messy history, how should we understand the notion of “rhetoric” today? In what ways has rhetoric influenced the social spaces we inhabit? And why might studying this be useful?

In an effort to address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the way certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory. About halfway through the semester, we’ll start looking at contemporary rhetorical scholarship that takes up issues of political economy (defined as the study of the relationship between individuals and society, and between markets and the state). Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll want to highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in present-day rhetorical discourse. In doing so, we hope to not only arrive at a better understanding of rhetoric and its relevance to our lives, but to develop transferable capacities in reading, writing, and public speaking.

ENGL 123: Introduction to Asian American Literature
Instructor: Chiang, Mark
What does it mean to be Asian American? What are the social and historical contexts that have shaped Asian American identities and communities? This course will offer a general introduction to Asian American history and culture through the literary works of Asian American writers. We will explore the ways in which these texts respond to the conditions confronting Asian Americans in American society, including racism and racialization, segregation and forced confinement, labor struggles, community and identity formation, panethnicity and interethnic conflict, among other topics. We will also discuss such issues as assimilation, generational conflicts, family, gender, sexuality, and class. Texts for the class will include such works as John Okada, No-No Boy; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Le Thi Diem Thuy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For; M. Evelina Galang, Her Wild American Self, and Jane Jeong Trenka, The Language of Blood.

ENGL 125: Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
Instructor: Lewis, Jennifer
We will be reading, writing about and discussing a wide range of U.S. Latinx novelists, short-story writers, poets, playwrights and performers. As this is an introductory survey we will not only examine writers from a variety of backgrounds (including Mexico, Puerto-Rico, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic) we will consider their historical, political and aesthetic contexts. Our authors include Luis Alberto Urrea, Gabriela Garcia, Junot Díaz, John Leguizamo, Ivelisse Rodriguez, Lin Manuel Miranda, Quiara Allegría Hudes, and more. You will complete eight one-page written responses, a 2-3 page analysis essay (mid-term) a longer (5-page) synthesized analysis.

ENGL 200: English Grammar and Style
Instructor:Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 200: English Grammar and Style
Instructor: Sheldon, Doug
In his book “Philosophical Investigations”, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” While this seems lofty, it speaks an ability of grammar to function as a communicative tool built within language. This course will focus on grammar as object of form and style within several genres of text. Preference will be given to examining grammar use as purposeful choices on the part writers to aid their audiences in understanding the goals of textual communication. In both individual and group contexts, students in this course will learn the functions of English grammar and analyze texts containing those functions in order to respond with written content. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to use grammatical terms and processes to better understand written communication and take with them a skill that aids in revision and reflection.

ENGL 201: Introduction to the Writing of Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Barger, Carla
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing creative nonfiction (CNF). We will investigate a wide range of CNF, including personal essays, memoir, nature writing, art writing, and the many different hybrid forms that fall under the umbrella term lyric essay. We’ll interact with these different forms of CNF by completing short response essays and in-class writing exercises and by creating our own original work. We’ll offer one another constructive criticism during workshop and receive the same in turn. This means that in order to be successful in this class one must be open to suggestions and willing to make revisions. It also means that participation is mandatory.

Some of the authors we’ll read include Virginia Woolf, Luis Urrea, Bell Hooks, Jeanette Winterson, Wendell Berry, Naomi Shihab Nye, Paisley Rekdal, and Eula Biss.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
In this course, you will develop skill and perspective in different forms of media and professional writing. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (as presented via links on a personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 202: Media Professional Writing
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: McGath, Carrie
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. As such, our emphasis will not only be on investigating aspects of form and language with an eye toward improving your own work, but also on developing a critical vocabulary to approach your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshops. Reading is essential to writing and there will be readings assigned throughout the course to keep you inspired to write, to think about craft and form, and to help you start to construct your own poetry and craft “library.”

You will be writing about poems throughout the semester, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work, often dramatically; therefore, in order for you to be successful in this class, you must be open to criticism and suggestions. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process that will serve you as poets, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Vaghy, Eniko
It was Percy Bysshe Shelley who defined poetry as the thing that “…lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” Shelley’s description of crafting poems endows a writer with something akin to a magical power, awarding them with the ability to perceive experiences, objects, and people in a more thorough, experimental, and vibrant manner. This remarkable way of looking at and responding to the world will carry us through the course as we analyze approaches to description, imagery, voice/tone, form, the stanza, etc. and implement these techniques in our own work and critically assess them in brief reflection essays. As our course will be following the workshop format, you will be given the opportunity to share your poems and thoughts on poetry with your peers and hear theirs in return. By this, you will be given the precious opportunity to form a community of emerging writers committed to the strengthening of their interests in the literary arts and the facilitation of each other’s work.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mandell, Travis
Reading makes a great writer. The more one reads, the better their prose; there is no substitute. This course will build on four major tenets of writing creative fiction: reading the works of established authors, writing our own literary fiction, critiquing the works of others, and editing/revising our own works.

For the first half of the semester, we will be reading short story selections from Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery, as well as some craft-oriented and theoretical work by other famous authors, to get a grasp on the technique and form that goes into producing lasting fiction. We will interrogate point of view, setting, characters, plot, conflict, narrative voice, dialogue, and literary movements. One cannot begin to break the rules, without first knowing them.

In the second half of the course, we will apply the lessons of our readings to developing our own short stories.  Positioning ourselves as both writers and critics in workshop sessions, we will help every writer improve their work through constructive criticism and inspired discussion. We will utilize Blackboard for readings, quizzes, comment sharing, and short assignment submissions.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Williamson, Michael
This course will serve as an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. Our focus will be on the components that go into literary storytelling, with a particular emphasis on things like plot, character, dialogue, perspective, and setting. In order to examine how these elements work in a piece of fiction, we will be reading a variety of short stories by established writers. Rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, however, we will be analyzing them purely on the level of craft. Our goal when reading will be to understand how a story works from the ground up, how all these mysterious components come together to build a piece of literary art. This analytical work will culminate with a class workshop in the second half of the semester, during which time you will produce your own body of two short stories. You will submit each of these stories to your peers, who will provide you with substantive feedback and critique in order to further refine your writing. In addition, you will be expected to provide thoughtful commentary on your peers’ work in turn.

ENGL 222: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
Instructor: Guerrero, Antonio; O’Neil, Kim; Sanchez Vega, Frida
English 222 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 233: History of Film II
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of the modern era of film history, with emphasis on the various “new waves” that rocked the cinema establishment during the postwar period, and on the major technical developments (widescreen, Dolby stereo, digital media) that have changed the ways we see, hear, and consume movies.  Among the areas likely to be covered in the course are: the Italian neorealist movement of Rossellini and De Sica, the early American avant-garde of Deren and Anger, the postwar Japanese cinema of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, the European art cinema of Bergman and Fellini, the rule-breaking French New Wave of Godard and Truffaut, the immediacy-seeking Cinéma Vérité movement of Drew and Pennebaker, the identity-building African cinema of Sembene and Mambéty, and the technically innovative blockbusters of Coppola and Spielberg.  Course requirements include regular written responses and online quizzes.  History of Film I is not required; this course is self-sufficient.

ENGL 240 Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: English, Bridget
The process of reading literary texts gives us pleasure because it allows us to enter another world and to imagine what it is like to be someone else. In this sense literature encourages us to empathize with others. But how do we make sense of this experience which reading enables and how is it connected to the “real world”? What methods can we use to better understand or decipher the meaning of a novel, short story, poem, or play? In this course we will study different theoretical approaches to literature, including Marxist, psycho-analytical, historical, structuralist and post-structuralist literary and social theory in order to gain skills of literary analysis, but also to learn about different ways of  “seeing” or understanding the world around us. After completing this course students will have a better understanding of what literary theory is and how to apply it, and will also know how to formulate their own thesis based on this understanding.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course is designed to teach English majors how to read literature, specifically in relation to the construction and analysis of literary realism. We will explore the form and narrative language of realism as a springboard to understanding some of the main tenets of twentieth-century literary theory.  As we examine how “English literature” became an academic pursuit, we will recognize schools of literary interpretation (liberal humanism, new criticism, narratology, etc.) and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category. Literary texts studied will include Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Atonement Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Excerpts from Peter Barry’s Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory and Robert Dale Parker’s How to Analyze Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies will guide our theoretical studies.

There is about 75-100 pages of reading per week for this class. Students are expected to read ALL assigned texts carefully and to take difficult literary fiction seriously.

IMPORTANT: I would prefer that students intending to chose academic literature as their concentration in the English major take this course. This is a rigorous course and I expect every student who elects to take this class should apply themselves with due diligence.

If you’re *not* an English major and want an English class to practice academic writing, this course is probably too specialized for your needs.

Textbooks: All books will be available at the UIC Bookstore, articles and short stories will be uploaded on Blackboard.

Students will be required to write 2 short papers and take midterm and final exams<

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
The purpose of this course is to give you an understanding of the principles of literary theory, particularly focusing on questions of aesthetics….that is what literature is and how people have thought about it over time.  We will examine how we make judgments about literature, and what we base those judgments on. We will read theoretical works along with literary works and try to understand the interrelationship of theory and practice. The course will also be a writing course, with the goal of improving the quality and style of your writing. We will read three novels and some selected poetry along with the theoretical works.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: Thinking Big Thoughts With Literature
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
When we study literature and art as opposed to individually enjoying it, we engage in a group practice of making knowledge. This course introduces students to some ways of describing, practicing, and valuing that knowledge. How does literature differ from everyday communication? Why do human beings make art? Should literature be useful? What are some of the big ideas that literature helps us think about? What do English majors learn? Why is interpretation collaborative? To approach these questions, we will read a combination of literary works, films, and short theory texts from traditions like queer studies, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Reames, Robin
It was a world without YouTube. No Spotify. No smartphones. No Netflix. In the beginning, there was not even writing.

In the beginning, there were monsters. And heroes. And battles. There were knights, mystics, and faeries. There was love and betrayal, birth and death. The gods spoke to us, and we spoke back. The spirits played games. The world was alive with mystery, and it was anything but boring. This world, as you might imagine, is very different from our own. But at the same time, it contains the template for what our world would become—the world in which we now live.

In this course we will survey literature, language, and rhetoric from this other-worldly world, with particular attention to how the people of this era used language to shape and structure their experiences and lives—perhaps one of the most important things you can do in college. We will study texts from the medieval and early modern centuries with the following goals: to explore the development of literary and rhetorical forms, such as allegory, epic, lyric and narrative poetry, drama, prose fiction and non-fiction; to become acquainted with various kinds of textual analysis and approaches, including close, in-depth reading of texts; to examine the ways that texts participate in history; and to consider the changing literary representations of issues that bear on our own time and experience, such as gender, social class, race, and heroism.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660 to 1900
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
This course is about how British imperialism was essential to the invention of “English literature.” Over the semester, we will read the canonical figures of modern English literature from the Restoration (1660) to the end of the Victorian period (1902) and learn how Britain’s colonial adventures oversaw slavery, settler colonialism, the rise of capitalism, mass exploitation, and how these were integral to the British literary imagination. Even though places like India, Jamaica, South Africa, and Argentina rarely find themselves on the pages of writers like Defoe, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Emily Brontë, Doyle, and Conrad (all of whom, amongst others, we will read), these sites were central to the formation of their national identity. In a word, the point of this class is to introduce the idea that “English literature” is not properly English.

>ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Chiang, Mark
This course will provide a broad overview of the history and development of American society and culture from its indigenous and Spanish colonial origins to the rise of American empire at the end of the 19th century. We will examine literary texts that speak to the conflicted histories of territorial expansion, immigration, slavery, industrialization, and urbanization. We will consider various transformations of American society and how they express themselves in struggles over race, gender, sexuality, national identity, labor, and class. We will read writers such as Phyllis Wheatley, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Sui Sin Far, among others. The primary text for the course will be the Norton Anthology of American Literature.

ENGL 313: Major Plays of Shakespeare
Instructor: Freeman, Lisa A.
In Major Plays of Shakespeare we will study a selection of William Shakespeare’s most important plays.  We will approach these works as plays meant to be staged and will compare the effects of text with those of both live performance and film adaptation.  Particular attention will be paid to how identity categories such as race, class, gender, and nation are construed both in Shakespeare’s texts and in subsequent adaptations and productions of his plays.  Over the course of the semester, we will work together to form a class ensemble through the experience of thinking about and experimenting with Shakespearean performance.  Course assignments will include three essays of varying length and a performance reflection.

ENGL 351: Topics in Black Literature: Literatures of Decolonization
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
The mid-twentieth century marks not only the advent of the Cold War but also registers a political and cultural transformation that continues to circumscribe us today. Within a brief twenty-eight-month period in the mid-1950s we witnessed the end of legal segregation in the United States with the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the toppling of a colonial power with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the arrival of alternative political and cultural voices with the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia and the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Paris the following year. Although the decision in Brown and the French defeat in Vietnam are viewed as embodying different histories and sets of concerns, this course will seek to ask what it would mean to read these moments –– and the texts that engage them –– together. The course will take as its focus the work of representative African American and postcolonial writers of the period and situate them against the backdrop of concerns embodied by these signal moments. Our readings will include works by Chester Himes, Richard Wright, George Lamming, Chinua Achebe, and Tayeb Salih, amongst others.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copyediting techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 383: Writing Digital and New Media
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 408: Topics in Medieval Literature: Writing the Plague: The Literature of Pandemic from Chaucer to Shakespeare
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
The Black Death, the greatest biomedical crisis in human history, killed about half the population of Europe between 1348 and 1353, but continued to ravage the continent for the next three hundred years. In this course we shall explore how medieval and early modern writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare reacted to these high rates of mortality. Some authors like Geoffrey Chaucer and the Pearl-Poet address the Black Death obliquely, while others like such as the early Italian humanist Giovanni Boccaccio address it head-on. One of the most serious consequences of the Black Death was the scapegoating of vulnerable minorities like Jews and lepers who were accused of poisoning the wells and were murdered in large numbers. The point of the course is to understand the similarities as well as differences between medieval and modern reactions to epidemiological catastrophe and how COVID-19 has also led to hysteria and the scapegoating of ethnic minorities today.

Readings:
Hartmann von Aue: Poor Henry (12th c.)
Guillaume de Machaut: The Judgment of the King of Navarre (1349)
Giovanni Boccaccio: Decameron (1353)
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Pardoner’s Tale; The Prioress’s Tale (1390s)
Anonymous: Pearl; Cleanness (1390s)
Johannes von Tepl: The Plowman from Bohemia (ca. 1400)
William Shakespeare: King Lear; Macbeth (1605/6)

ENGL 422: Topics in Postcolonial and World Literature: From Colony to Postcolony: The Literature of Decolonization
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
This course introduces students to what used to be called third-world literature, or postcolonial literature. We will investigate the legacies of European colonialism through a study of fiction, essays, and films that were produced during the colonial period and its aftermath. We begin with Conrad and Kipling, then shift to those in the colonies in order to examine the cultural impact of empire, anti-colonial nationalism, and the role played by exile and diaspora communities.

What challenges do works from writers on the receiving end of empire—such as Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, J.M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Michael Ondaatje, Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh—pose to the conventional idea of justice? How do they reveal contradictions within the languages of liberalism and progress that emerged in 19th-century Europe? How do such writers rework the classic forms of the novel? Finally, how has the failure of some of the primary aims of decolonization (economic sovereignty, full political autonomy) affected more recent writing of the last 40 years? Criticism from: Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak.

ENGL 437: Topics in Poetry and Poetic Theory:  Forms of Resistance in Late 20th and early 21st-Century Poetic Practice
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll explore a range of formal experiments and movements in recent American poetry.  We’ll start with a survey of late  20th-century examples of what came to be known as Language (a.k.a. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) Writing, followed by a number of early 21st-century antagonistic and otherwise resistant responses to that movement, both aesthetic and sociopolitical, that became associated with the term “postlangpo.”  This will lead us to a number of works flying under the banner of conceptualism.  Some involve wholesale or partial appropriation of existing texts: Katie Degentesh’s and Michael Magee’s contributions to the Internet-search-based “Flarf” movement; Mark Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary, a collage of news reports of mining accidents in China and firsthand testimonies of survivors of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster in Virginia alongside K-12 lesson plans about coal mining published on a website operated by the American Coal Foundation, a pro-coal industry lobbying group; Jen Bervin’s Nets, an erasure-based work using Shakespeare’s sonnets. Other works shift poetic agency away from the poet onto mechanical processes or procedures or outsourced producers:  computer-generated works such as The Apostrophe Engine or Gnoetry, pseudo-aleatory methods adopted by Harryette Mullen in Sleeping with the Dictionary, poems written by Amazon Turk workers in Nick Thurston’s Of the Subcontract.  Some of these works are also legible as forms of resistance to a longstanding lyric tradition (variously defined), with which much of the poetry written in English and other European languages over the last four and half centuries (at least) has been associated. Tracing the path of lyric engagement further will lead us to some remarkable invented speakers:  the “Black Automaton” in the series of eponymous graphic poems by Douglas Kearney; Cathy Park Hong’s fabricated “pidgin” spoken by a Virgil-like “Guide” in Dance Dance Revolution; Claudia Rankine’s astonishing use of the second-person address in Citizen: An American Lyric; or the exaggerated confessional persona of ‘Tao Lin’ in that writer’s early poems.

Our texts will consist primarily of PDF excerpts from works by the writers mentioned above (along with others) that will be housed on Blackboard free of charge; however, three books will need to be acquired, whether by purchase from a book vendor, loan from a library, or gift from a generous soul: Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary, Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution, and Rankine’s Citizen.  Written work for the course will consist of four efforts involving more extended engagement with our readings.  By the end of the semester this written work will amount to a mix of both analytical papers (3-4 pages double-spaced) and creative exercises (up to 4 pages double-spaced for prose and up to 3 pages single-spaced for poetry).  Students will be free to set the ratio of analytical to creative work in that mix as long as the four projects include at least one of each type.  Graduate students will be expected to develop one of their four projects into a longer conference-panel-length paper (2000-2500 words) due by the end of semester.

ENGL 442: Topics in Latinx Literature: Puro Latinx—Roots & Branches
Instructor: Urrea, Luis
This course will feature a quick survey of the roots of Latinx Literature and an adventuresome climb out along the branches into the 21st century to understand how we tell our stories. We will have zoom conversations with several authors and even take a detour into Latinx moviemaking as well as popular music (roc en espanol).

ENGL 459: Introduction to the Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Ovalle, Rex
This course is the start of students’ work toward becoming English teachers. We will spend time thinking about different perspectives of the English Language classroom. Further, we will produce meaningful answers to the two toughest questions: “Why teach English?” and “What does it mean to teach English?” As part of their work, students will be expected to conduct observations in English classrooms in the city of Chicago.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses.  It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching.  The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids.  Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt.  Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment.  In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 483: Studies in Language and Rhetoric: The Freshwater Lab
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Spring Freshwater Lab course focuses on law, policy, and rhetoric concerning the Great Lakes and other cross-border watersheds.  Through grant funding, guest professors and speakers from a wide range of environmental organizations and initiatives visit class and work with individual students on their ideas and projects.  Following spring break, students have the opportunity to develop their own projects or to undertake an internship at an organization focused on water or the environment.  Professor Havrelock helps to place students in an internship most aligned with their interests and extends summer funding for the internship through a competitive process.  In Summer 2021, all Freshwater Lab interns were funded and met for field trips along the lake and river.  More information is available at http://www.freshwaterlab.org/internship

ENGL 486: Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers. Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 489: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Kindelsperger, Abigail
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. This course provides hands-on practice in lesson planning, discussion leadership, and reading instruction.

3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Field work required.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Stolley, Lisa
English 491 is for fiction writers who have a working knowledge of the components and structure of the short story or novel.   You will continue to develop voice, style and technique through close reading and analysis of published short fiction, and through writing and workshopping of your own stories.  Attention to narrative necessities – conflict, characterization, point of view, detail, dialogue, setting,  etc., and how these elements work together to create the whole of a successful story – will be an important aspect of this course.  Readings and short exercises will be assigned in the first few weeks, followed by workshop format.  Constructive critique of peers’ work will be based on criteria established by students and instructor.  Students will write two complete stories (or chapters if you are writing a novel) over the course of the semester.  One of those stories will be revised and submitted as the final project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward. Writers are gifted people and their skills are needed.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.

In ENGL 493, guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week.

Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest.   Because of the pandemic, many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage. Last spring one intern worked for an organization in Denver and another worked from home in Ho Chi Minh City.

Credit is variable: three or six credits                         English 202 is a prerequisite.

Through the new Flames Internship Grant (FIG) students may apply for possible reimbursement while working at unpaid internships. Securing a grant is competitive.

ENGL 496: Portfolio Practicum
Instructor: Christian, Margena
Students will reflect upon, organize, and present a working portfolio of professional writing samples. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres, but it also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.

ENGL 498/499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499).  These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers.  Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 &a 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.

The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers.  The Wednesday seminar will often be remote, and it is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the edTPA assessment, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 527: American Literature and Culture: Race, Class and Contract in American Literature: 1881-1912
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 as one of the three Civil War Amendments. But if its original purpose was to guarantee that freedmen not be deprived “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” by 1905 that very clause had become the foundation of a “right to contract” never mentioned in the text itself and characteristically invoked to declare labor laws (limiting work hours, for example) unconstitutional. This course will not be about the 14th Amendment but it will be about the ways in which some major American writers understood and altered the novel’s relation to changing conceptions of agency, ownership, and identity, especially in relation to work and most especially in relation to the work of writing. Central figures will include Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, Jack London, Pauline Hopkins, and William Dean Howells.  We will begin the semester with The Portrait of a Lady and James’s Preface to it, both of which you ought to have read by the first class meeting.

In addition to the primary texts, we will read critical texts relevant to each one. Students will be asked to present on the criticism at least once and, if possible, twice during the semester. A final (roughly 12-15 page) paper will be required at the end, related in some way to the issues raised in the course although not necessarily to any of the texts we read.

ENGL 530: Seminar in British Romantic Studies: Romantic Progressivism
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
This course explores why English Romantic writers believed in “progress” and what they meant by that term. Fueled by the energies of enlightened reason’s critique of doctrinal superstition, economic inequality, and monarchical oppression, Romantic writers deployed a range of genres including lyric poems, epics, and novels to imagine a better world. But these writers simultaneously questioned their authority to determine what shape that world might take; they creatively troubled their own ambitious system-building. From the dissenting constitutionalism of Priestley to the cacophonous utopias of Shelley, Romantic writing will offer us crucial insights into the interconnected aesthetic and political quest for, and skepticism about, improvement. Literary authors to be studied include Anna Barbauld, William Wordsworth, Charlotte Smith, Percy Shelley, and Jane Austen. We will also engage influential theoretical writing on progress and enlightenment from Theodor Adorno to Lauren Berlant. Requirements: in-class f2f attendance, participation, weekly collaborative journal, short paper, research paper.

ENGL 540: Seminar in Modern and/or Contemporary Studies in English: Two Times Ten Divided by Two:  Recent American Poetry 2000-2020
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
This semester we’ll be reading the work of ten poets — Anne Boyer, Kevin Davies, Timothy Donnelly, Michael Fried, Cathy Park Hong, Douglas Kearney, Aaron Kunin, Anthony Madrid, Claudia Rankine, and Rodrigo Toscano.  We’ll focus primarily on portions, or in some cases the entirety, of two books by each poet, books published largely in the first two decades of the 21st century (with a couple of exceptions in the cases of the earlier of the paired works) and written against the backdrop of manifold crises: social, environmental, political, and economic.  Our reading and writing will also engage with secondary sources such as interviews, reviews, scholarly criticism, and in some cases, non-literary texts offering related contextual or theoretical frameworks for our primary works.  Complete books will be on order from the UIC Bookstore website, but I will also provide PDF excerpts from those books, representing what I anticipate will be some of the center-pieces of our discussion.

Over the course of the semester class members will be required to give two to three brief presentations. These presentations will happen on a rotating basis, with their frequency determined by our enrollment numbers. At the end of the semester, all class members will also complete a final symposium-length literary-critical essay (3000-4000 words) that addresses, at least in part, one or more of the assigned works in the class.

ENGL 554: Seminar in English Education
Instructor: Reine Johnson, Lauren Elizabeth
In this course, we will explore a wide variety of texts that may be used in English classrooms and beyond. We will consider questions such as, “How do such texts influence our curriculum, pedagogies, and dispositions with students, each other, and our communities?” Through suggested and student-selected texts, projects, and experiences, we will pursue conversations in English Education and schooling (past, ongoing, and perhaps not yet named), especially concerning the field’s understandings of and relationships to equity, justice, and antiracism.

ENGL 572: Program for Writers: Workshop in the Novel
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This workshop is open to all graduate students in the English Department’s Program for Writers.  All other graduate students from other English Department programs or from other departments must get prior approval of the professor.

This is a writing workshop where we evaluate and discuss novels-in-progress.  You do not have to have a completed novel to participate.  You may only have an idea or a single chapter, perhaps several drafted chapters. Memoirs are also welcome.  The workshop will not distribute nor discuss formula-driven genre/commercial fiction.  Aspects of publishing and other functional or philosophic issues in a novelist’s life are also fodder for workshop conversation, and reading suggestions will depend on the focus taken by workshop submissions.

ENGL 581: Seminar in Interdisciplinary English Studies
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
The aim of the course is to try and understand when the poor arose as something worth representing in literature and the arts, and how that representation changed over time. When did the poor become a problem in need of a solution? A disease in need of cure? We will consider the problematics of how a group is represented without having been able to fully represent itself in the dominant culture. The notion of representation and authenticity will be interrogated.  And of course the question of identity—can a group have a self-representation that is something other than an existence determined by external “experts.” Obviously intersections of race, gender, and disability will be important to trace and explain. Readings will include works by Engels, Zola, Lukacs, Agee, Steinbeck, as well as lesser-known proletarian writers.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Michaels, Water Benn
How is understanding literature different from understanding any other piece of writing? Why, for example, is a shopping list in a poem different from the exact same list you might look at in a supermarket?  Is it because one is supposed to tell you what to buy and the other is supposed to give you some kind of aesthetic pleasure? How does that work? Is it because one has “formal” qualities and the other doesn’t? What are formal qualities anyway? In this course we’ll read some poems, short stories, and at least one novel and try to see whether they do in fact give us some kind of pleasure and, if so, how. The reading assignments will be short but you’ll be expected to do them carefully, and the writing assignments will also be short but there will be several of them, plus revisions – the idea is not only to get better at reading literature but also to work on writing about it.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Osborne, Andrew
When you watch a movie, you understand intuitively that it’s about something. Which is why if your friend says they like it, that’s a matter of taste; but if your friend thinks it was actually about something different than what you think it’s about, you feel that you have to talk with them until the two of you agree on what it’s about. (Or maybe you’re sophisticated and you think that movies are about whatever you want them to be about. But I’d not do that and stick with the intuition that they’re about something.)

The problem is that it’s often hard to say why you think that the movie’s about this rather than that. The purpose of this course is to watch so many movies—and talk about what they’re about—that you get really good at talking about movies, and you get really good at talking about why they’re about what you say they’re about.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry: The Poem in the City
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
Poetry has a troubled relation to the city. The crowds, the noise, the trash, and the ceaseless movement bring exhilaration, repulsion, or a mixture of these and other contradictory emotions.  This course examines English and American poetry from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing on poetry’s relation to three great cities: London, Chicago, and New York.  The particular features of these cities, and how they were affected by issues ranging from urban planning and industrialization to poverty and immigration, help us to contextualize our readings of poems by authors including Jonathan Swift, William Blake, Mary Robinson, Walt Whitman, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Claudia Rankine.  In a range of genres and styles, poetic forms respond to the city’s variously frustrating, agglomerating, disintegrating, and chaotic energies, encouraging us to build a history of poetry through its negotiation with urban space.  Requirements: attendance, short assignments or quizzes, final paper.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark
This section of English 103 will explore roughly the past 200 years of English-language lyric poetry (from the height of Romanticism to the present), with a particular focus on post-World War II American poetry and poetics. We’ll conduct close readings of the works of canonical poets representing a diverse array of identities and experiences, while investigating the ways these works engage—or refuse to engage—with the personal, aesthetic, and sociopolitical conditions under which they were produced. While studying the major periods and movements of poetry’s relatively recent English-language history, we’ll aim to develop a robust poetic vocabulary—including an understanding of prominent poetic genres, relevant figurative techniques, and key elements of form and prosody—to help us better analyze and appreciate the poems we encounter. Students will also be asked to seek out poems by established writers of their choosing and to share responses to these poems in weekly discussion board posts. Additional assignments will include two papers (a midterm and a final), an in-class presentation, and occasional reading quizzes.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Beckett, Churchill, Soyinka, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, midterm and summary exams.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare:  The Raw and the Cooked
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
This course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies, tragedies, and histories from the height of his career.  We will juxtapose the early slapstick humor of The Taming of the Shrew with Love’s Labour’s Lost’s courtly banter in order to understand better different kinds of comedy and different forms of social domination.  Although T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” recent scholarship on gender, race, and trauma challenges us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge.  “To be or not to be” will certainly be one of the questions when we turn to the author’s tragic masterpiece Hamlet – written a decade after Titus – but so will be the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to be the avenging warrior that his father was.  With the histories, we will examine two kinds of leaders, the villain Machiavel Richard III, and the unifying warrior-king, Henry V:  although the former cruelly murders his way to the top, the latter draws a more subtle approach from the Machiavellian playbook.  These pairs will help us to understand different approaches to story telling during the years that Shakespeare was most devoted to experimentation and refining his craft.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture: Tough Girls in American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
We seem to be witnessing the emergence of a new type of heroine in American culture, one whom, for lack of a better phrase, we shall call the tough girl.  The type can be found almost everywhere in recent popular culture, ranging from Ripley in the Alien films to Arya in Game of Thrones to Katniss in The Hunger Games (draw up your own list).  This course will begin with two recent works of fiction and then work backward (to the Nineteenth Century) and outward (to other genres and media).  At issue here is not simply the emergence of a new narrative form, but also the arbitrary choices and unforeseen consequences that accompany the naming of a genre and the imagining of a new field of study. Texts include works by Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games), Daniel Woodrell (Winter’s Bone), Louisa May Alcott (Behind a Mask), Jay Kristoff (Stormdancer), and Ben Tripp (Rise Again).  Assignments include two papers, exams, and class presentations.  Attendance is required; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres: The Future and the Past
Instructor: Khan, Hanna
How do we imagine the future and in what ways do we make sense of the past? For some, the future is already an imagined space that is being planned for, analyzed, and mapped out in the present. For others, representations of the future may reveal a bleak reality resulting from events currently taking place in the present or ones that already did in the past.  In this class, we will read texts and genres spanning from fiction, to sci-fi, to speculative fiction, and examine how authors have understood the problems of the past and how they will anticipate the future.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course we will read 20th and 21st century novels, poems, and short stories by American women including Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan, and Erika Sánchez. We will discuss the ways the role of women has changed over time by looking at the struggles facing the characters in these works. In addition, we will analyze the reception of each text, talk about the issues that were most important to contemporary readers, and consider how the concerns of readers have shifted. Students will write essays, actively participate in class discussion, and contribute to one author presentation.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
This course asks – what’s the relationship between madness and womanhood? We’ll read 19th, 20th, and 21st century novels, poetry, and short stories by women, femmes, ENBY, and Transwomen across a broad range of American and British locations to probe the long-standing history of mad women.

Some of the questions that underpin this course are as follows: Who gets to decide who is and is not mad? In what ways do madness and gender or sexuality overlap? What spaces are attached to mad women? Through a combination of survivor narratives, literature, and theoretical accounts of gender, madness, disability, and race we’ll challenge a whole history of concepts about mad women. We’ll work continuously at short readings, producing smaller close reading papers, reflective responses, and creative reflections, as a means of exploring these and many more questions that emerge throughout the semester.

The goal of this course is to think critically and analytically about the representation of
madness in literature as well as developing skills in reading theory and literary close reading
practices.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature: Women, Wives, and Shapeshifting Lives
Instructor: Vaghy, Eniko
In this course, we will examine the role transformation plays in the lives of women and consider whether it denotes a period of “becoming,” or a phase of personal estrangement between the mind, body, and will. Through literary depictions of explicit and implicit transformation, we will uncover the many ways transformation can manifest and discuss how women compelled to undergo a transformation navigate these sometimes revelatory, sometimes devastating instances of personal evolution. The authors that will assist us in our discussions of transformation will be Angela Carter, Carmen Maria Machado, Samantha Hunt, Emma Donoghue, and other creatives of word and image. This course will be discussion-based and students will be encouraged to facilitate in-class conversations through their observations, questions, and visions regarding our texts. Written assignments will be administered in the form of analytical reflections, creative reflections, and two essays related to the themes of the course.

ENGL 113:  Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures in the United States
Instructor: Powell, Tierney S.
The sociological map of the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century, with its color-coded racial categories and thick-markered lines demarcating ethnic enclaves from commercial centers, sought to know the American city.  But what does it mean to know the American city? To map it? To read it? What borders and lines are generated, vantage points obscured, citizenships created, anxieties deepened? In this course, we will read twentieth and twenty-first century multi-ethnic literature of the American city and examine how experiences, modes of perception, and modes of representation affect and are affected by the urban landscape and its transformations. As we move into the contemporary moment, we will consider in what ways processes of globalization are localized in the city—and further, in the text. We will discuss questions related to citizenship, right to place, and form.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Love is Strange: The Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
We will begin the work of ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Queer Forms
Instructor: O’Connor, Jared
The cultural revolutions of the late 1960s brought about significant transformations in the ways we think about gender and sexuality in our everyday lives. Not only were these revolutions tethered to presenting and enacting radical gender and sexual identities in our social reality, but they were also represented in the literature and art of the period. And these representations have continually inspired the ways contemporary literature and art thinks about and represents gender and sex. This course will explore literature and art from the late 1960s to our present day by paying particular attention to experiments with form and genre as they relate to gender and sex. We will read a variety of genres—novels, short stories, poems, and plays—that use form to interrogate and make legible these radical ideas and what these expressions suggest about our ever-changing relationship to gender and sexuality.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: The Form of Film in an Increasingly Commercialized Era: Film in the 1950s through 1970s
Instructor: von Klosst-Dohna, Erich
As this course title suggests, we will predominantly be looking at films produced during the 1950s through the 1970s from around the world (though we may contextualize these decades with some outside work). Our objective will be to learn how the formal elements of film allow us to interpret a film’s meaning. As we progress through historical time, we will also attempt to track the differing interests of our directors as they try to work through aesthetic and cultural problems. One cultural consideration that will be relevant to this course will be the proliferation of television, and how televised advertisements and televised war (the Vietnam War) may influence the way in which film was produced. A possible list of directors for this course may include: Hitchcock, Wilder, Truffaut, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Lynch, Spielberg, Coppola, and Hopper.

This course will require weekly class discussion and response questions, as well as short group presentations and a final take home exam assignment.

ENGL 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
In this course we consider the Hollywood movie. Our reading and writing is grounded in discussion of one of the most influential cinemas of the 20th century. Not an exercise in review or fandom, however, writing assignments seek to understand narrative film as socio-cultural phenomena. In short, we use film to think about our culture and society. To do this, we document and critically consider how various discourses – ideas about, for instance, morality, visuality, reality, story-telling, capitalism, the urban, gender, race, sexualities, what it means to be human, animal rights,  etc. – impact and complicate our understanding of film.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric: The Shapes of Identity
Instructor: Sheldon, Douglas
The comedian Lewis Black declared, “Here’s your law: If a company can’t explain in one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” What has he done here? He has used sarcasm and economic law to shape a position. But he has also a conditional sentence, a colon and an ellipsis! All of these rhetorical choices contribute to Black’s comedic identity. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient rhetoric to that of the twenty-first century we will negotiate with this term to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine multilingual rhetoric, political rhetoric, multimodal rhetoric, and other delivery systems that shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How as rhetoric functioned to deliver identities from the classical period to the present? How do we use rhetoric in our lives both consciously and unconsciously? How do rhetors and rhetoric interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity creation? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we consistently encounter.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Corcoran, Casey
Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who thought of rhetoric as the “art of enchanting the soul,” condemned rhetoric (or “sophistry”) for its ability to steer people away from the truth by making the non-real appear real. While many new conceptions of rhetoric have been introduced in the years since Plato and Aristotle were alive, no definitive consensus about what constitutes “rhetoric” has yet been reached. Given this messy history, how should we understand the field of “rhetoric” today? In what ways has rhetoric influenced the social spaces we inhabit? And why might studying this be useful? In an effort to address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the way certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory.

ENGL 125: Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
This is a survey course of Latinx literature in various genres written by Latinx authors from many national and regional backgrounds. We’ll read works from the 1950s to the present day, with particular attention to the Chicanx and Puerto Rican activist movements of the 1960s and 70s; diasporic literatures from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Central and South America; Spanglish, translation, and language-mixing; immigration law, enforcement, and activism; labor movements; terminology (Latino/a/x/@/e); Afro-Latinx experiences amid broader questions of race and racism in Latin America and Latinx communities; gender and sexuality; and different visions of nationalism and assimilation. Our pedagogy will include student presentations, formal and informal writing assignments, close readings, small group discussions, and active and thoughtful listening. We will hopefully get a chance to speak with some contemporary authors as well.

ENGL 125: Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
Instructor: Sanchez Vega, Frida
In this introductory survey, we will read, think about, and discuss a range of works – including fiction, poetry, drama – by pioneering as well as present-day authors of U.S. Latinx Literature. Set alongside, and sometimes against, dominant American culture, U.S. Latinx Literature touches on some of the most prominent and controversial issues in contemporary life in the United States: immigration and the immigrant experience; the gains and losses of assimilating into American culture; the exploitation of labor; and identity formation based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. This course will especially focus on queer Latinx writers and how they navigate the U.S. alongside their cultures. Texts will include works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Piri Tomas, Anna Castillo, Luis Negron, Reinaldo Arenas, Justin Torres, and others. Assessment will be based on response writing, class and group discussions, class engagement, a short presentation, and two papers. The main objectives of the class are to enrich your understanding of literature generally and, more importantly, to learn about the exciting and multifarious works of Latinx writers and culture.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying rules that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these rules, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, Black English, global English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.”  In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives:  rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively.   Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate).  You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name.  You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings.  You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices.  By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 201: Introduction to Writing of Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Washington, Katrina
This course is designed with two aims in mind: to develop your nonfiction prose writing skills and enhance your abilities as readers of nonfiction, including (but not necessarily limited to) literary journalism, the personal essay, and memoir.  We will discuss aspects and styles of nonfiction and the craft of writing, read exemplary models of published nonfiction, and workshop your pieces.  We will read these works—published authors’ and your own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our core focus being process, aim and technique, i.e. the writer’s craft, how the writer does what he or she does and with what purpose in mind.  Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ writing will focus on the skills and techniques studied throughout the course.  It is my hope that this class will assist you in becoming a genuinely effective writer and active reader of nonfiction.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on—and skills regarding—writing in media and professional forms. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the printed word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (as presented via links on your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Brown, Deziree
Traditionally, introductory poetry courses tend to focus on formal verse and its rules of meter and rhyme; however, most contemporary poetry is free verse. As such, this course will focus on free verse poetry and the rhetorical use of language, carefully considering the motivations behind poets’ interpretations of the “freedom” that this type of poetry offers.  In the process, students will learn to apply critical tools and terminology when making poems that experiment with form, voice, imagery, creative response, revision, and other elements in the poet’s rhetorical toolbox.

Most weeks students will submit poetry writing assignments that focus on the poetic concepts we are studying. Students will revise these weekly assignments and collect them in a portfolio that will include an artist’s statement that describes their poetic journey throughout the semester, and they will have several opportunities for peer feedback that will aid them during revision. Our investigations will focus not only on how poems are written, but also why they are written and what relationship they have to the contexts and worlds in which they are read.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Reynolds, Evan
The term “poetry” comes from the Greek “poiesis,” roughly meaning “making.” This course will present poetry as a human-constructed art object and explore various periods and genres of poetry—from ancient to contemporary—to show the various assumptions about what thing is thought to have been made when we say “poetry.” With a particular emphasis on the lyric tradition, we will discover the most common formal components of a poem (e.g.: line, meter, stanza, diction, etc.) in order to learn how to produce our own poetry.

While this class will emphasize form and a poem’s constructedness, we should not lose sight that poetry is ultimately brought into existence by human agency and oftentimes deals primarily with human concerns. In the words of poet Fernando Pessoa: “The poet is a faker / Who’s so good at his act / He even fakes the pain / Of pain he feels in fact.” This class will prepare students to produce their own poetry, to collect a critical vocabulary, to engage in productive critique, to revise their own poems and perhaps even to start to develop aesthetic proclivities.

ENGL 212:  Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Jok, Laura
In this introductory fiction writing class, we will study the elements of storytelling, such as plot, dialogue, point of view, image, and symbol, from a craft perspective. You will read and analyze established literary models, produce creative work, and provide constructive feedback to one another in writing workshops. The exercises and final story that you write will be based on aspects of the assigned reading that you identify as especially effective or memorable. T.S. Eliot once said that immature writers imitate, but mature writers steal. In other—and less inflammatory—words, you will learn not to merely imitate the writers that inspire you but to engage on a critical level with the techniques that underlie their mastery—and consider how you can adapt them for use in your own inimitable fiction.

ENGL 212:  Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
We’ll begin the semester by studying various forms and modes of short fiction. Key concepts will include interpretation, setting, point of view, motivation, characterization, realism, naturalism, modernism, postmodernism, experimentalism, etc. Around mid-semester, we transition to workshopping your own work. Each of you will write a series of drafts of original fiction, as well as substantive critiques for every peer-evaluated story. Finally—and this is specific to workshop—each of you will periodically be assigned primary critic duties (more on this during our introductory discussion).

ENGL 222: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
Instructor: Brandt, Katherine
English 222 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 222: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
English 222 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

ENGL 222: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.  Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 232: History of Film I: 1890 to World War II
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An exploration of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s.  The journey begins with the eruption of a vigorous early cinema based on variety, spectacle, and sensation, followed by the rise of a story-based cinema and the emergence of the film director to better tell those stories.  The casual structure of the early film industry opens up a space for women filmgoers and filmmakers, while “race movies,” aimed at African American audiences, offer an alternative to Hollywood racism.  In the 1920s, filmmakers in Germany fashion dazzling images to express the psychological and political turmoil of their time, while Soviet filmmakers use dynamic editing to make revolutionary films in tune with their revolution-forged society.  The coming of sound provides filmmakers with new expressive tools and spurs a trend toward realism.  This trend includes grittier subject matter in the socially conscious films of the early 1930s; increased use of holistic techniques such as deep focus cinematography and the long take; and, in the postwar Italian neorealist movement, a more open form of film storytelling whose influence is still felt today.  There is no textbook; requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll tackle a small number of works in a variety of genres and media and from a range of time periods. As we think about how to understand these works in formal, aesthetic, rhetorical, and historical terms, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and the theory of literary scholarship. We’ll proceed from several basic questions: What kind of thing is a work of literature? What do we as students have in mind (and what do professional literary scholars have in mind) when talking about the meaning of a work of literature? What kinds of interpretive and research practices are involved in the scholarly study of literature, and how do these academic practices differ from more informal and everyday engagements with works of literature (e.g. “reading for pleasure,” book clubs, fan fiction, Goodreads)? The answers to some of these questions, far from being obvious, have been the subject of longstanding debate. We’ll also examine how literature progresses – how do writers enter into dialogue with (and sometimes dispute or resist) their contemporaries and predecessors, and how do these engagements affect their practice and the literary works they produce? Our literary objects of study will include poetry, prose fiction (short stories and a novel), theatrical works, and a film adaptation.  Grading will be based on regularly submitted reading notes/questions, occasional in-class quizzes and group activities, a final short analysis paper involving several draft stages, and participation in class discussion.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
This course is an introduction to the key terms and debates that define the field of literary study. Using the transformation of detective fiction from the classic detective story to the postcolonial crime novel as our case study, we will explore how questions of genre, literary form, agency, and narratology that circulate within the field inform critical analysis. Our readings will include classic literary analysis by Todorov, Brooks, Moretti, Genette, and Culler (amongst others) and signal examples of detective fiction by Poe, Conan Doyle, Chandler, Himes, Auster, Everett, and Chamoiseau.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
This course will explore literary criticism as both a field of study and a practical skill.  We will consider major approaches and theories on their own terms, but we will also “test” various theories against a range of primary literary texts.  Literary authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and George Orwell.  Requirements: weekly writing assignments; two or three formal papers; a research project; a final critical paper (based upon the research project); occasional tests or quizzes; and participation in group projects.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
How can we know what poems and stories “mean”?  In this introduction to literary study and critical methods, we will investigate how works of literature can speak to many different readers and generate multiple critical readings.  Conceived as an active dialogue between literary and critical texts, the course gives students practice in judging the viability of particular critical readings and in creating counter-arguments based on strategic presentation of textual evidence.  We will consider the varied philosophical, conceptual, aesthetic, and political concerns that critics bring to writing literary criticism, as well as the ways that critics mine specific aspects of literary texts in order to create their arguments.   Since writers of literary criticism are necessarily interested in the properties of literature as such, our critical readings will also discuss issues of genre that inform works of poetry, the fairy tale and other short fictions, and the novel.  Later in the course, we will also discuss how we can engage criticism that is not primarily literarily based (e.g., Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”), as well as how the distinction between “literary” and “critical” works can fruitfully break down.  Course requirements include class participation, short papers, and a longer, integrative final paper.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
A panoramic survey of the most important works written in English from the Anglo-Saxons to the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Covering a thousand years of history, this course will range from the earliest extant poem in Old English (Caedmon’s hymn) to Milton’s “Paradise Lost”.  Other readings will include “Beowulf”; “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”; selected tales from the “Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer; “The Tragical History of Dr Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare’s sonnets as well as his tragedy “Macbeth.” This course will form a valuable basis for more specialized courses within the medieval and early-modern periods and will serve to illuminate the study of modern British and American literature.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660 to 1900
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
This course undertakes the impossible task of surveying over two hundred years of English literature in fifteen weeks. From allegory to lyric, from essay to novel, from ballad to dramatic monologue; from the scandalous affairs of Restoration comedy to the chaste attachments of Victorian verse; from the origins of the English novel with Daniel Defoe to its apotheosis in George Eliot (and to its transformation in Joseph Conrad): this 240-year stretch of literary history is crowded with new forms and new thematic and narrative material. The reading load for this course will therefore be heavy. Since this course is designed for English majors, it is presumed that students will arrange their semester to enable them to devote sufficient time to it. The payoff will be worth the effort. This semester will provide a solid backbone to the study of the period and a strong basis on which to begin a study of twentieth-century literature.

Please note that for reasons relating to continuing precautions over coronavirus transmission, the lecture portion of this class will be taught asynchronously online.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
Our broad survey of American literature will follow an unusual trajectory: We will work our way backwards in time (instead of the customary forward direction), beginning in 1899 with two stories from Charles Chesnutt’s The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line. In the course of our reverse travel through time, we’ll survey major writers in the American tradition, including Paul Laurence Dunbar, Kate Chopin, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rebecca Harding Davis, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, John Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson. Grading will be based on weekly discussion questions, occasional pop quizzes, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final (there may be some minor changes to this plan in advance of the final syllabus being distributed the first day of class).

**Please note that to be properly enrolled in this course you must register not only for the main lecture sessions with Professor Ashton on Monday/Wednesday but also for one of the four TA-led discussion sections, which will be held on Fridays.**

ENGL 311: Medieval English Literature: The Two Traditions of King Arthur in Medieval Britain
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
In the England of the late Middle Ages there were two Arthurian traditions. They existed side by side. One tradition represents King Arthur as a national hero, a battle-leader, a historical king, and narrates his rise to power, his flourishing, his conquests, and his fall and death. It is the native tradition, established as quasi-historical by Geoffrey of Monmouth, monumentally embodied in the great epic poem of the Brut by Layamon, dominant to a large extent in the romance-cum-epic of the Alliterative Morte Arthur, and present still in Malory. Arthur is the center of this body of narratives. The other Arthurian tradition in England is the one that came back into the country via France. Arthur has lost his central role as a national hero, and has faded into a shadowy figure, an ineffectual king, a mere husband, to accommodate the adulterous liaison of Lancelot and Guinevere. He is still the head of the order of the Round Table, but mostly Camelot is a place that individual knights go out from and come back to; and the king is there to wish them well when they leave and welcome them back when they return. The enormous influence of French literature in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the aristocracy was largely French-speaking, means that this tradition was dominant. This other (French) tradition, which originated in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, finds its insular English expression in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The love interest between the knight and a lady is also a major feature of the plot in this second Arthurian tradition.

ENGL 315: Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature: Enlightenment Narratives, Colonial Subjects: Literature & Empire in the 18th Century
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
The global world which many take for granted today was formed in the eighteenth century through world-wide commerce, seafaring trade, and the establishment of colonial empires—in short, early capitalism. Alongside these social phenomena were vibrant and contentious cultural and political debates on sovereignty and slavery. How do writers and thinkers in this period conceive of the cultural, racial and religious difference they encounter?

“Enlightenment narratives” puts stress on ideas of progress, the forward march of humanity, the circulation of the rights of man, and the ever widening circle of freedom associated with this period. Yet the view of many “colonial subjects” in the eighteenth century should cause us to question a simply optimistic and one-sided understanding of the period.

As Diderot once put, addressing his European reader, “you are proud of your Enlightenment, but what good is it for the Hottentot?” (Just who the Hottentots were and why Diderot discussed this South African group of tribal peoples will be the topic of one class). We read novels (from Aphra Behn, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift), life narratives (Olaudah Equiano) and prose writings (from Mary Wollstonecraft, Edmund Burke, and Denis Diderot) to explore these questions.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.

Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. We will learn legislative history research practices from our UIC library liaison, and you will locate, analyze and advise on an issue in public policy.

Private Sector:
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional, informative, and crisis management materials for a business of your choosing.

Third Sector (proposal and grant writing):
The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young job-seekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will learn genres and forms in the professional writing spectrum that demonstrate competence in creating clear, concise narratives for a wide variety of audiences with changing needs. You will examine characteristics of effective writing in a non-academic context, developing a facility in writing across a range of specialized areas. Expect to produce proposals, reports, newsletters and document design. You will learn to make sense of numbers with data reporting and research methods that measure your proficiency to construct appropriate styles of advanced professional writing on an array of platforms, including online. In the process, you will learn to communicate well by recognizing the correct manner and form to use for different media formats.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will study editorial oversight, copyediting techniques, style requirements, use of grammar as a stylistic tool and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Technical writing is a subject that encompasses more than practice in strategies of professional communication in STEM fields and the workplace. As practitioners of professional and technical writing we have a responsibility to continue our humanities education by developing interdisciplinary relationships. The disappearance of distance, and the rise of commercial globalization, supports the disappearance of the divide between liberal and professional education. As technical writers we have the opportunity to confront science and economics and technology in the interest of ultimately fusing with them, supporting them and being in concert with these other disciplines in the effort to shape all knowledge, and to point that knowledge in the direction of a global humanity.

The truths of STEM fields are not produced in a vacuum, and in this course we will will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 400: History of the English Language: The Idea of “English” and the Politics of Language Ideology
Instructor: Reames, Robin
“This is a country where we speak English. It’s English. You have to speak English!” During Trump’s term as president, we heard words like these repeated numerous times, and with the end of that administration we might hope that the sentiment is now obsolete. It isn’t: in February 2021, a month after Trump’s term ended, a bill was introduced to congress proposing to make English the official language of the U.S. and English proficiency a prerequisite for citizenship.

In a nation of over 41 million Spanish speakers, such policies seem at best nativist and anti-immigrant—reflective of a larger movement to restrict not just the languages that can be spoken in the public sphere, but also the very people who can work and participate in public life. But nativism and xenophobia are far from the only questionable aspects of the issue.

A larger question is: What is English? When people promote “English-only” policies, whose English do they have in mind? Where did that version of English originate? How has it changed over time, and where is it going?

This semester, we explore the history of the English language in order to define the hegemonic concept of “English” against a larger backdrop of what English has been in the past and how it became what it is today. In so doing, we examine the historical and ontological stakes of phenomena like the “English-only” movement and “English-only” policies. We also examine emerging linguistic phenomena like internet slang and variations on Standard American English, such as African American Vernacular English and Chicano/a English. We consider these transformations in English in light of the long view, examining how English evolved from Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman roots in the Middle Ages. And we consider how questions of class have always inflected the idea of “correct” language use.

Students in this course have the opportunity to undertake an independent research project on the politics of the English language, potentially involving their community and/or the city of Chicago. Graduate students have the additional opportunity to design their own course in the history of the English language, a standard class taught in English departments.

ENGL 402: Rhetoric: Ecologies, Nature, Mind, and Human/Nonhuman Relations
Instructor: Cintron, Ralph
1) Rhetorical studies today is attempting to develop an “ecological rhetoric.”  This movement wishes to address not just our emerging environmental catastrophes but also how language and language use might be imagined as “ecological phenomena” and challenge traditional notions of audience/speaker relations.  2) Some of this work has explored scientific understandings of “energetic systems” as well as some of the epistemological assumptions underlying scientific inquiry, such as “entanglement” in physics.  “Entanglement” and “ecology” have become almost equivalent terms for some rhetorical theorists.  3) Work in the biological sciences has been exploring the evolution of “sentience.” “Sentience” seems to be a property of all life forms and the beginning of “mind” and “cognition.”  “Sentience” functions at different scales, from “cellular communication” to, according to forestry science, entire forests below and above ground. 4) What is Nature?  What are the overlaps and differences among pre-Socratic, Aristotelian, and indigenous conceptions of Nature?  What is Nature inside market economies?  5) How are human/nonhuman relations being imagined inside these different categories of thought?  Why is rhetorical theory interested in all this “wild” stuff?

ENGL 428: Topics in Literature and Culture, 1900-Present: Working-Class Experience in the US and UK
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
Do you come from a working-class family?  Are you a first-gen student?  Do you want to know more about how working-class people, poor people of color, immigrant families are depicted in literature?  There is much energy given to courses on identity politics, but often poor and working-class people are neglected in reading lists. This course will focus on the lives and experiences of people living in poverty or hovering precariously near poverty.  Reading through the lens of US and UK writers, we will see the variety of narratives as experienced by writers who come from the working class and creating what was called “proletarian literature” and writers coming from other classes but writing about the lived experience of people who were poorer than themselves.  Writers include Jack London, Michael Gold, George Orwell, Richard Wright, Piri Thomas, Tillie Olsen, James Agee. Other media include “Moonlight,” “Nomadland,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Shameless,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

ENGL 440: Topics in Cultural and Media Studies: The Freshwater Lab
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Freshwater Lab course is a project of the UIC Freshwater Lab, launched in 2015 through support from the Humanities Without Walls Initiative.  Rather than a traditional lecture course, it endeavors to put the pressing issues surrounding the Great Lakes before students in order to support their knowledge of the issues and their innovative approaches to addressing them.  In this Humanities “lab” setting, we will study and discuss social and environmental dimensions of the Great Lakes, meet with leaders in the Great Lakes water sector, visit relevant Chicago area sites, and work individually and in groups on projects to advance existing initiatives and pioneer new approaches.  Students will be paired with professionals working on issues relevant to their project and Professor Havrelock will help to suggest avenues for advancing student projects during the semester and beyond.

Although we certainly respect and depend upon scientific approaches to the Great Lakes, this is a Humanities course interested in the many ways in which water interacts with socio-political systems, legal structures, cultural perceptions, and artistic visions. It focuses on Environmental Justice and how race, class, and gender determine access to water, exposure to contamination, and participation in the institutions responsible for the region’s water.

ENGL 474: Topics in Popular Culture and Literature: The Invisible Made Visible: Writers of Color in American Speculative Literature
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine speculative literature authored by American writers of color.  Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element.  Writers of color will primarily be limited to non-white writers, although the nuanced details of that definition will be discussed further during class.  Readings may include books authored by Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Hiromi Goto, and anthologies edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Nisi Shawl, and Uppinder Mehan / Nalo Hopkinson.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary School
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English education methods courses.  It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching.  The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids.  Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt.  Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment.  In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 482: Campus Writing Consultants: Theory and Practice for Writing Center Leadership
Instructor: Williams, Charitianne
English 482 is an advanced Writing Center studies/tutor-training course exploring multiple perspectives–specifically that of tutor, administrator, and researcher. We will examine established best practices from the cross-disciplinary field of peer tutoring and tutor training, read about multiple theoretical perspectives (feminist theory, genre theory, and second language acquisition theories, to name a few), and practice research methods (such as survey, discourse analysis, and case study) common to writing center research. By the end of the class, participants will understand the potential of peer tutoring in the curriculum, major concerns in the administration and assessment of writing centers, as well as how to conduct qualitative research that moves the discipline forward.

ENGL 486: The Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Why teach writing? and How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.

Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you’ve learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 489: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Kindelsperger, Abigail
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. This course provides hands-on practice in lesson planning, discussion leadership, and reading instruction.
3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Field work required.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
This writing laboratory further develops the poetic concepts and critical tools studied in English 210, but with a more refined focus. We will read poems and collections by modernist and contemporary authors from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and there will be a special focus on writings and translations by Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx poets whose work traverses multiple nations and languages. These writers will serve as models for our experiments with form and content; and as models of writers committed to the belief that poetry has a place in public discourse. In the first part of the semester, students will submit weekly assignments focusing on formal and conceptual concerns. Towards the end of the semester, students will develop a lengthier, more sustained project. This class welcomes writers and writing that uses multiple languages, that incorporates translation, film, music and visual art. We will study documentary and social poetics, and we will take seriously the idea that poetry can change the way we live.

ENGL 491:  Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
This class will provide an environment to hone your creative and critical skills.  Requirement: English 212.   The sole and primary texts for this course will by your own work.

ENGL 491: Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop.  We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods.  We will also write fiction and learn to critique each others’ work.

ENGL 492: Advanced Writing of Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This advanced creative nonfiction workshop is for students who have taken English 201 (or the equivalent).  The workshop also welcomes any graduate student other than those in the Program for Writers. Creative nonfiction includes memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, literary travel- and science-writing and similar genres. Course work: Each student will write 3 CNF drafts and critiques for every other peer-evaluated essay. Willingness to engage in discussion of work-in-progress is necessary; reading assignments are made up of drafts of work turned in by the workshop members. This will be a synchronous course.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often concerns students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of its work, and to move its ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.  Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship.

Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. There is an internship for every interest.   Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. Because of the pandemic, many internships are conducted remotely, which makes the world a stage.

Credit is variable: three or six credits                         English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 500: Master’s Proseminar
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
However disputed the claim may be, the discipline of literary study is incoherent without the presumption that literary works are essentially different from other kinds of written artifacts. The contours of this difference are up for debate and have been for over two hundred years; dispute over the nature of its object is constitutive of disciplinary discourse in general, and in the case of the arts, this dispute cannot help but have an impact on the works themselves. Indeed, from the beginnings of literary discourse as we know it, the meaning of  the literary work has been bound up with the legible self-understanding of the work itself. In other words, no literary work can be understood without a sense of the text’s own self-understanding, which is nonetheless not given to us in advance. The literary text thus calls for a peculiar mode of reading. The words we have for this mode of reading are all metaphors, but the traditional “close reading” will do as well as any other. This course will be a practicum in close reading.

ENGL 503: Proseminar: Theory and Practice of Criticism
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
The project of advanced literary study today confronts interlocking crises of representation, institutions, and ecology, which occasions intensified reflections about knowledge-making, disciplinary specificity, method, and the history of the university, as well as abundant experiments in public criticism and public humanities. Our proseminar endeavors to activate introductory thinking about questions like: What is intellectual labor?  What differentiates historical phases of cultural production?  What are the genres of criticism? What role does cultural writing play in the creative economy?  What was the university?  Readings likely include:  Marx, Gramsci, Jameson, Guillory, Olin Wright, Ngai, Emre, Brouillette, Winant, Newfield, Warner, Ferguson, Brim, Buurma & Heffernan, Levine, novels and tv.

ENGL 517: British Literature and Culture: How Not to Run an Empire: Fantasies of Consensual Colonialism from the 18th Century to the Present
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
Fantasies of conquest, designing a colony much as a painter would a blank canvas, breeding a docile yet happy subject populace: all of these were ideas which nations attempted to put into practice in the move from commercial enterprise to territorial empire. The literary and cultural imagination often served as a vanguard in advance of material projects, undergirding or, at times, undermining those dreams of a “colonialism by consent.”

We’ll examine the literature and cultural politics of the British and French empires beginning with the 18th century, examining the ideologies that emerged more clearly in the 19th century, and turn to the period of decolonization in the mid-20th century. In its aftermath follows multiple third-worldist projects, efforts at Afro-Asian solidarity (e.g. the Bandung conference of 1955), which give shape to postcolonial thought and literature, and its critique of the false universalism of much European Enlightenment thought. Here we explore the idea of the European anticolonial imagination at its conceptual limit. It is a contention of this course current ecological crises, questions of migrancy and national identity (e.g. the refugee crises in both Europe and America), cannot be understood without outlining the ghostly contours of these past imperial schemes.

Eighteenth-century authors may include: John Locke, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, Olaudah Equiano. Essays from CLR James, Aimé Césaire, Hannah Arendt. Fictional works: Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke (2011). Critical works from: Simon Gikandi, Gary Wilder, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Aamir Mufti, Siraj Ahmed and Adom Getachew.

ENGL 537: Global and Multiethnic Literature and Culture: Globalization and the Decline of U.S. Empire
Instructor: Jun, Helen
This course serves as an introduction to contemporary discourses of globalization and narratives of U.S. imperial decline.   We will read analyses of globalization that provide a critical framework for understanding recent modulations in the forms of capitalist accumulation and the crises of neoliberalism (e.g., David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David McNally’s Global Slump:  The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance, William Robinson’s The Global Police State, and Arrighi’s, Adam Smith in Beijing:  Lineages of the Twenty First Century). We will examine how contemporary cultural texts (literature, film, television) reckon with the contemporary decline of the US Empire and articulate a range of anxieties over the displacement of US hegemony over the past half century (1970s to the present).

Cultural texts will likely include Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, Ahmed Saadawi’s, Frankenstein in Baghdad, Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, Baharni’s White Tiger (2021), Zhao’s Nomadland (2021), Mendonca’s Bacurau (2019), and several others.

ENGL 555: Teaching College Writing
Instructor: Bennet, Mark
English 555 prepares you to teach FYW courses at UIC and to examine the teaching of writing as an intellectual activity that fits within the disciplinary work of English Studies. You will create two detailed syllabi that focus on writing as a situated activity. Your chief task is to design writing projects and plan instruction that supports your students’ work on those projects. Day-to-day activities that help students successfully com­plete their writing assignments include: attention to the genre of the task at hand, an understanding of the context and situation, attention to sentence-level grammatical issues and their rhetorical impact, analysis of readings for content or as examples of a genre, and discussion of the possible consequences of a piece of writing. We also will focus on other writing class activities, including small-group work, responding to and grading written work, and engaging students in peer review. To successfully complete writing projects, students also must learn core skills including a rhetorical approach to grammar and appropriate use of the intellectual tools of summary, analysis, synthesis, and argument.

ENGL 557: Language and Literacy: Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for Democracy
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it is desirable or even possible to do so?  These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?)relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.

Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” and “social justice” can be defined and whether these remain viable sociopolitical aspirations, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical method provides useful ways to think about ameliorating sociopolitical and economic problems, and 3) what schools —specifically, English language arts classes—have to do with any of this.

Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work “matters” beyond our own intellectual and/or financial interests.  Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some likely texts are these:

DEMOCRACY AS FETISH by Ralph Cintron
GHOSTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD: RACISM AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE by Eve Ewing
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
PRAGMATISM by William James
TEACHER UNIONS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: ORGANIZING FOR THE SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES STUDENTS DESERVE by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson (eds.)
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
CRITICAL LITERACY AND URBAN YOUTH by Ernest Morrell
THE SUM OF US: WHAT RACISM COSTS EVERYONE AND HOW WE CAN PROSPER TOGETHER by Heather McGhee
THE AMERICAN EVASION OF PHILOSOPHY: A GENEOLOGY OF PRAGMATISM by Cornel West
CULTURALLY SUSTAINING PEDAGOGY by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciere
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE by Jane Addams
TWO CHEERS FOR ANARCHISM by James C. Scott

English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing.  Interested students are encouraged to contact Todd DeStigter (tdestig@uic.edu).

ENGL 570: Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate level poets.  While the course is designed for poets enrolled in the Program for Writers, other graduate-level writers of poetry may enroll with permission of the instructor. Varied styles and aesthetics are also welcomed in the workshop. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music.  These critical works treat poems in the lyric tradition; it is my belief that study of this tradition can inform a variety of aesthetic commitments.

Students will submit a new poem nearly every week of the semester.  Most of these poems will be revised for submission in a final portfolio due at the end of the course.  Students will also produce an artist’s statement and critical writing on the assigned books of poetry.  My goal is for all of you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet.  I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft (and the perennial challenge and delight) of making poems.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
The Program for Writers fall fiction workshop is for fiction of all lengths: novels, short fiction, novellas, flash fiction, etc.  Writers of literary nonfiction who can’t fit the nonfiction workshop into their schedules are also welcome.

Workshop discussion includes critiques of works-in-progress, including approach to writing fiction, specific techniques, shape, form, plot, character, theory, etc.. We can also entertain discussion about pitfalls, variables and whims of the marketplace, and how literary fiction is affected by social pressures and/or political unrest in the world. Discussion and reading assignments will be based on submissions of student work. This workshop will not discuss genre (commercial/popular) fiction.

Students who are not in the Program for Writers need the permission from the instructor to enroll.

ENGL 574: Program for Writers: Nonfiction Workshop
Instructor: Urrea, Luis
At last, we return to the workshop. This is about YOUR work and how I (along with your peers) can help develop your projects. You are the text. We will present our work on a rotating schedule: once we have been through two full rounds of nonfiction, I will open it to any other genre that you would like attended to, including more nonfiction. Prompts, meditations and handouts will be coming your way.

ENGL 581: Seminar in Interdisciplinary English Studies: Saturated: Literature and Rhetoric of Oil, Petrocultures, and Climate Change
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
Several contemporary crises dead end at oil.  The extreme weather and destabilized systems related to climate change knock right up against the continued burning of fossil fuels.  The yawning chasm of income inequality cannot be separated from asymmetrical industrialization and deindustrialization.  Geographies of injustice reflect the concentration of polluting activities and toxic emissions in marginalized communities.  The links between war and oil are often too obvious to warrant comment.

What is oil? How did it come to be inseparable from modern existence and so difficult for us to think outside it? Where is the threshold at which oil will not or cannot be burned? What to expect from the era after oil? Will multinational oil corporations run the same business with renewable energy? How reliable is the grid?

This seminar considers the ubiquity of oil, its status as a driver of culture and the many places it hides in plain sight.  Its texts include novels that forefront fossil fuels and climate change, films, scholarly literature concerning petrocultures and the Anthropocene, and some history and geography for context.  These works will largely pertain to North America and the Middle East, although students with familiarity of other regions or who read in other languages can bring a comparative lens.  Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

SESSION II

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film: Dream Machines, or How to Look at Cinema
Instructor: Raden, Justin
This course will cover the basic components of the study of cinema in order to help you develop critical viewing techniques. You’ll learn about things like shot types, editing, the relation of sound and image tracks, genre, a bit of film history and the film industry, and some major critical concepts. We’ll also spend some time differentiating the features of some film movements, including Expressionist cinema, various national “New Waves,” Third Cinema, New Hollywood, and others. This is a seminar which will consist mainly of screenings and discussion, with some supplementary readings to help you develop your technical knowledge and facilitate our conversations.

ENGL 111 Women and Literature: Stories of Water
Instructor: Blackburn, Kathleen
In this course, we will explore nonfiction literature on water authored by women. Among several texts, our readings will include Sarah Broom’s The Yellow House, a memoir about urban water, race, and Hurricane Katrina, as well as Anna Clark’s Poisoned City, about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Thinking with and through course texts, we will analyze the colonialist drivers of climate change and better understand the roles of women and feminist critique in environmental justice. We will consider the political possibilities for varying forms of narrative. Students will practice close-reading to produce two brief analyses, one class presentation, and one personal essay. By the end of the course, each student will be familiar with some eco-feminist and indigenous frameworks; students will also have a deepened understanding of how literature and writing can help us re-think our relationship to water.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: The Form of Film in an Increasingly Commercialized Era: Film in the 1950s through 1970s
Instructor: von Klosst-Dohna, Erich
As this course title suggests, we will predominantly be looking at films produced during the 1950s through the 1970s from around the world (though we may contextualize these decades with some outside work). Our objective will be to learn how the formal elements of film allow us to interpret a film’s meaning. As we progress through historical time, we will also attempt to track the differing interests of our directors as they try to work through aesthetic and cultural problems. One cultural consideration that will be relevant to this course will be the proliferation of television, and how televised advertisements and televised war (the Vietnam War) may influence the way in which film was produced. A possible list of directors for this course may include: Hitchcock, Wilder, Truffaut, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Lynch, Coppola, and Hopper.

This course will require weekly class discussion and response questions, as well as short group presentations and a final take home exam assignment.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Visual Art, Music, and Society
Instructor: McGath, Carrie
Visual art and music has an intriguing and deep connection in our world and in this course we will delve into that connection. This course will examine the visual landscape around us through visual art and music. Together, we will look at visual art from the 20th century to the present and how it relates to music, from videos and album covers to various collaborations. Art and music will be our entry into a deep examination of how these artforms express the times we are living in and the times that came before us. In this course, you will learn and have the opportunity to deeply explore and analyze these artforms in order to explore and analyze society. You will learn numerous strategies to set you up for success in looking and listening, deeply exploring, and analyzing the art and music we look at together to prepare you to do this on your own in writing projects throughout the semester.

We will look at music video directors who have also embarked on other forms of visual art including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Some of the musicians we will look closely at in the course include Katy Perry, Björk, New Order, Interpol, Nirvana, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, The Cars, Death Cab for Cutie, Beyoncé, Beck, and Sonic Youth, among others. You will learn about important art movements and the artists who were a part of them in the 20th century and what is happening in the art world in the 21st century and how it relates to musical artists and the cannon and history that is being created right now.

There will be numerous readings throughout the semester that will be available on the course Blackboard as well as short writing assignments, activities, and class discussions to ready you for the writing projects you will submit during the semester. Through the readings, activities, and discussions, you will learn to analyze and to use analysis skills to create an argument using  compare and contrast and other strategies. You will become acquainted with research strategies that will ready you for English 161 including how to begin to conduct research with peer-reviewed sources and citing those sources using MLA.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II
Instructor: Khan, Hanna
Entertainment occupies a large role in contemporary American culture, and it is no surprise that fans and fan communities take an active role in absorbing, creating, amending, or supplanting their favorite entertainment genres, from books to games to television and film and more. From the production to the distribution of various creative works, fans are no longer passive consumers of their favorite media, but active participants and members of a community.  This first-year writing course explores some of the ways in which entertainment and media have adapted with the emergence of fandom communities, technology, crowd sourcing, real-time streaming, and overall cultural criticism and commentary.  These subgenres will also pay attention to the different voices generally excluded therein.  In this English 161 class, you will question, read, watch, research, and write extensively about the convergence of entertainment and various media and how it (positively or negatively) informs your outlook on both leisure and life, and the ways in which fans like you actively contribute to or complicate it.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark
Unlike many sections of ENGL 161, this course will not begin with a predetermined theme. Instead, we’ll spend the first day of class constructing a shared research question that will serve as the basis of our inquiry for the term. Readings for the course will largely consist of texts discovered by students throughout the duration of their research. Ideally, whatever organizing question we agree to will be grounded in an open-ended, real-world problem relevant to our lives as students at UIC or as residents of Chicago. The goal in this sense is to encourage genuine civic engagement, and to understand our writing as building toward an “authentic” product that might have important sociopolitical applications (aside from merely satisfying the requirements of an instructor).

Ultimately, our research question is intended to serve as an occasion for practicing critical reading, writing, and research strategies. Students will illustrate their mastery of these skills by participating in class discussions and peer review activities, submitting discussion board posts and Flipgrid videos, and completing multiple drafts of three genre-based writing projects: a literature review, an annotated bibliography, and an eight-page research paper. The course will be conducted in an entirely remote, hybrid format, where we’ll meet synchronously via Blackboard Collaborate once per week (on Wednesdays) and additional assignments will be uploaded digitally (typically on Mondays and Fridays).

English 222: Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
English 222 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor three hours a week starting the 3rd week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in a small section capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
This course, which prepares English majors for upper-level study, centers around learning how to interpret literature and write criticism. Students will encounter numerous approaches to these literary pursuits through reading theoretical and critical texts alongside novels by Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Beckett. In so doing, we will examine what counts as interpretation, why certain novels reward attention of perusal, and how novels make meaning.

Our synchronous, discussion-based seminar will meet twice a week on Zoom. Carefully reading the texts and actively participating in discussion is imperative. Additional coursework will consist of weekly response papers, a “close reading” presentation, and two critical analysis papers.

English 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Gallus-Price, Sibyl
This course seeks to move beyond the idea that studying early English literature means only difficult language and dusty artifacts. Instead we’ll consider how these early visions of the world inform the ways we currently understand literature and history. Though this survey is meant to cover nearly 1000 years of textual production, our task will be accomplished by focusing on a select group of works that significantly shaped the period. We will take time for close reading and analysis to understand how each work contributed to an expanding textual landscape in light of ongoing social, economic, and political developments. Whether addressing the visions of an illiterate cowherd in “Caedmon’s Hymn,” the epic saga of the heroic Beowulf, the romantic love of Tristan and Isolde, or the maneuvers of the metaphysical poets, we are reminded how these forms and narratives are not just foundational to English literature but to the stories we continue to tell.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1600 to 1900
Instructor: Barger, Carla
This course surveys British literature from the Restoration through the Victorian periods. We will read poetry, novels, and plays with an eye toward the cultural and historical forces that helped guide each author’s hand, and we will hone our close reading skills so that we may discern all the author is trying to tell us. The reading load will be heavy, but it won’t be dull; our list is full of scandal, adventure, “madness,” and visitations from the other side. Authors may include John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Bronte, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Virginia Woolf.

Students will discuss works in class and provide responses in short classroom writing assignments. Regular attendance and classroom participation are required. There will be at least one short quiz and a final exam.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Brown, Margaux
This course is a survey of American literature from its beginnings up to about 1900. While we can’t read everything, this course will provide you with a broad overview of the history and development of American society, culture, and literary tradition. We will read literature that explores America’s rise and origins as a nation through expansion, immigration, slavery, industrialization, sexuality, class mobility, race, and more. Additionally, we will examine literary forms and aesthetics such as poetic conventions, slave narratives, political satire and consider what makes American literature “American.” We will read several authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Willa Cather. Assessments will likely include participation, reading quizzes (as needed), short close reading exercises, as well as two short exams.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
In this course, we will read and learn how to appreciate great works of literature. We will read, analyze, and discuss several short stories, one novel, about ten poems, and a play. Authors will include Hemingway, Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, and several other poets. We will write two major papers and several shorter papers. We will have midterm and final exams.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Dancey, Angela
ENGL/MOVI 102 is an introduction to the academic study of film, looking at cinema as an art form, a social and cultural institution, and an industry. We will watch, discuss, and write about a variety of movies, examining their formal aspects (their individual parts and how they are put together), their significance (what they mean), and how they relate to their historical context (when, how, and why they were made).

At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:
*Recognize film as a mode of creative expression, storytelling, and entertainment
*Define and use basic film terminology
*Analyze a film based on its content and form
*Identify significant details and patterns of repetition in the films you watch
*Explain the formal and stylistic choices available to filmmakers and how they are used to communicate meaning
*Explore connections at the level of ideas across multiple film texts
*Articulate how film shapes and is shaped by cultural beliefs, values, and ideas

This course is designed to equip you with a basic toolkit for film analysis, with modules that focus on specific aspects of formal and cultural analysis, including mise-en-scène; cinematography; editing; sound; narrative; film and culture; film and history; gender, race, and class on film; and genre. Assignments include weekly discussion board posts, response videos, and quizzes; a midterm sequence analysis; and a final essay exam.

English 103: English and American Poetry: The poem in the city
Instructor: Mark Canuel
Poetry has a troubled relation to the city. The crowds, the noise, the trash, and the ceaseless movement bring exhilaration, repulsion, or a mixture of these and other contradictory emotions.  This course examines English and American poetry from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing on poetry’s relation to three great cities: London, Chicago, and New York.  The particular features of these cities, and how they were affected by issues ranging from urban planning and industrialization to poverty and immigration, help us to contextualize our readings of poems by authors including Jonathan Swift, William Blake, Mary Robinson, Walt Whitman, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Claudia Rankine.  In a range of genres and styles, poetic forms respond to the city’s variously frustrating, agglomerating, disintegrating, and chaotic energies, encouraging us to build a history of poetry through its negotiation with urban space.  Requirements: attendance, short assignments or quizzes, final paper.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry: The Poetry of Science
Instructor: Yencich, Jay
In his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” William Wordsworth theorized “If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration.”  Yet, two centuries later, despite Oppenheimer quoting The Bhagavad Gita as the atom bomb was tested— “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”— and Einstein claiming that “The greatest scientists are artists as well,” Science and Poetry are still regularly presented as antithetical, even hostile towards one another.  This course intends to challenge such an assumption, bringing back “[t]he remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, […] as proper objects of the Poet’s art.”  We’ll journey from the cosmologies of John Milton and Tracy K. Smith to the more down-to-earth modes of contemporary ecocriticism.  Along the way, our more-recent reading is likely to include Elizabeth Bishop, Camille Dungy, Seamus Heaney, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lorine Niedecker, and Arthur Sze.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Beckett, Churchill, Soyinka, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: Literary Visions of the Future
Instructor: Roberts, Sian
Thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, the future has become hard to plan for and difficult to imagine.  In this course, we will focus on the way literature thinks about the future. We will read texts that anticipated our own present with eerie accuracy and texts that try to imagine where our present world might lead us. We will encounter literary visions of the future as inaccessible, prosperous and uncertain. Our focus will be on American and British texts from the twentieth and twenty-first century.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Subtitled “Remaking Shakespeare,” this course will focus on issues of remaking in Shakespeare’s works, from the time they were written to our own present day when they continue to be remade on both stage and screen. It is well known that Shakespeare drew most of his plots and characters from classical and contemporary sources, but in remaking them as his own, he also pushed the boundaries of how comedies and tragedies might tell a story or help us to understand the human experience. Conceived during the time many scholars call the “early modern period,” Shakespeare’s works take head on issues we face today, such as race, sexuality, gender, imperialism, and government surveillance. Shakespeare’s plays continue to be among those most regularly performed, and there are more filmed versions of Shakespeare’s writings than those of any other author, in settings ranging from classical Rome to modern Manhattan. We will regularly view video adaptations of the plays alongside our daily readings to help make the words “come alive” and challenge us to understand worlds that are both strangely familiar and different from our own.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
As an introductory survey of William Shakespeare we will be engaging with a variety of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Tragedies. This course is designed to enable everyone to engage with Shakespeare through an exploration of text, theatre, and film adaptation. We will examine the historical and social contexts in which Shakespeare lived and worked, as well as reflecting on Shakespeare’s legacy and relevance to our contemporary moment. This course will introduce you to Shakespeare’s complex poetic language and provide you with methods for understanding his works as well as the tools necessary to develop your skills in literary criticism. Students will closely read Shakespeare’s language and dramatic forms as a means of exploring broader themes of gender and sexuality, history, race, social class, religion, and disability. This class takes place both synchronously and asynchronously with students required to submit asynchronously weekly discussion posts and to attend one synchronous class a week.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture
Instructor: O’Connor, Jared
The course focuses on the experimental literary forms produced during the “The Cultural Cold War”: the new cultural and social imaginaries that developed in America in response to the international detente of the 1950s-60s Cold War. We will explore the responses to the numerous social crises through the ways in which “marginalized” persons imagined their position in the social world as America was rapidly transforming into a “postmodern” world. Our focus will pay special attention to literary experiments with focus on several writers from 1968 to today to investigate how artists on the margins reacted to and reimagined literary forms in the wake of rapid social transformation.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres
Instructor: Brown, Deziree
In this course, we will analyze the evolution of the video game genre. Students will play a variety of video games, especially those with strong narratives, to examine the conventions of the genre and how these games have been shaped by their sociopolitical contexts. In particular, we will discuss representations of race, gender, sexuality, and class in the genre in relation to character building and storytelling. We will interrogate the following questions:  How do video games tell stories? What does the kinesthetic aspect of gaming add to storytelling? How are video games used as instruments of social change? What role do games have in the sociopolitical realities of those who play them?

In addition to playing video games, we will read essays from experts in the field, including Ian Bogost and Lisa Nakamura. Students are expected to purchase video games (via Steam, Xbox Store, etc.), but additional readings will be available via Blackboard. A weekly instructor Twitch stream will also be available, pending student interest. Players of all levels are welcome to the course. You should have access to an Xbox One or PC to play these video games; Tell Me Why is not available on PS4. If you are interested in the course and you only have a PS4 for gaming, please contact me by email  at dbrown66@uic.edu before registering for the course to see if we can find a solution!

Careful consideration has been made to the costs of course materials. Many of these games are free,  and those that are not do not need to be purchased all at once. We will play Tacoma (Fulbright, 2017); Tell Me Why (Dontnod Entertainment, 2020); Never Alone (Upper One Games, 2014); Fortnite, Apex Legends, or another battle royale game; With Those We Love Alive (Porpentine, 2014); and Hair Nah! (Momo Pixel, 2017).

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Stolley, Lisa
In this course, we will examine literary representations of female “madness” in novels, short stories, and poems authored by women about women who deviate from the “norm” in some fashion, and in doing so, implicitly or explicitly question, expose, subvert, and sometimes perpetuate societal and cultural attitudes about mental illness, gender and identity, as well as race.  Readings will include Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar,  short stories by such authors as Carmen Maria Machado and Amy Bloom, and poems by Adrienne Rich, Ann Sexton and others. We will  explore patterns and themes of female transgression as juxtaposed with collectively held ideas of mental health (or lack thereof) through various critical approaches such as feminist theory and critical race theory.  Students will learn tools and techniques with which to engage in thoughtful analyses of the literature covered in class.  This class is discussion-based; students will be expected to actively participate in, as well as lead, discussions.  Written work includes response papers, essays, and a final narrative-based project.

ENGL 111: Women in Literature: The Coldest Winter Ever
Instructor: Washington, Katrina
In this course, we will explore Sister Souljah’s entire collection of fiction, including the upcoming sequel to The Coldest Winter Ever titled Life After Death, with an intentional focus on how the pioneer of “street lit” set the precedent for using urban fiction to better understand both the maternal and social roles of women of color in America. Through the readings, we will explore and unpack literary contentions concerning race, representation, and urban fiction.

By the end of the course, each student should feel like a participant in a lively and subjective book club. Students will read and evaluate these readings as individual readers and then as a collective of literary investigators and critics. To guide our analysis, we will accompany our novels with book reviews and short essays on: mass incarceration, race and gender, and African-American literature.

ENGL 115: The Bible as Literature
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
This course will introduce you to the study of the Bible as an anthology of literary texts written by human beings. The texts we read are powerful reflections on topics ranging from erotic desire, the possibility of redemption, politics and warfare, family, the existence of evil, and so on. We will learn something about the cultural and historical contexts in which these texts were produced, and we will practice reading them for ourselves, learning to pay close attention to their quirks, problems, and weirdnesses. We will also reflect on the varied uses to which biblical texts have been put over time, indeed the varied bibles that later readers, scribes, and editors have created.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
We will begin the work of ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: Tavlin, Zachary
What and when are gay, lesbian, and queer literatures? Is the queer literary archive something new or something very old? This seminar will pursue these questions by looking at a wide historical range of writing, from Sappho and Plato through Shakespeare to Woolf, Baldwin, and Yanagihara (with much in between). We will look across millennia for shifts in the aesthetics of same-sex and queer desire, as well as the fluctuating history of gender and sexual categories in literature. Weekly supplementary readings will introduce students to influential work in the theory of gender and sexuality, likely including essays by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, David Halperin, José Esteban Muñoz, and Roderick Ferguson. Students should expect a class build around discussion, regular writing responses, and a final paper.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Queering Home
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
In this introductory course, we’ll explore the relation between queerness and home. Home is a place of domesticity, of privacy, of conformity, and often isolation. When “home” is not one’s birth body, or one’s family, or even community, what does the struggle to build a new home look like, and how does queerness alter or dismantle the notion of “home” in the process? The narratives (novels, poems, theory, films, video games) that we will spend time with locate points of recognition and dislocation within queerness and differences of race, class, ability, gender, sexuality, nationality, and between generations. Jose Munoz: “Queerness is not here yet. Queerness is an identity. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.” Please email me if you’d like to see the course readings and materials!

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: DYSTOPIA: The Politics of Twentieth-Century Science Fiction and Film
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
Until the late nineteenth century imagined visions of the future tended to be positive and utopian. Works of fiction like Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” (1887) were usually optimistic about the possibility of social and political reform. But in the twentieth century this utopian vision gave way to an anti-utopian or dystopian perspective as mass warfare, totalitarianism, robot technology, unbridled corporate capitalism, and natural disasters like pandemics transformed the world. In this course we shall study the political implications of dystopian science fiction and film from H.G. Wells to the present. Readings include:

Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward 2000-1887
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine; The War of the Worlds
E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops
Jack London: The Scarlet Plague
Evgeny Zamyatin: WE
Karel Capek: Rossum’s Universal Robots; The White Sickness
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale

Film Screenings include:

Metropolis
Fahrenheit 451
28 Days Later
Ex Machina

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: Movie Worlds, Cinematic Reflection, and Interpretation
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
In this course, students will collaborate with their peers to make sense of how the various elements of cinema—such as sound, music, acting, editing, lighting, dialogue, narrative, composition, set design, and cinematography—are brought together to produce meaning. In so doing we will emphasize the ways in which certain films foreground the duality between the “world in the movie” and the “world of the movie.” As a class, we will also seek to answer the following questions: What is distinctive about the medium of film? What does it mean to interpret a movie as a work of art? Why do so many of the great works of cinema manifest an awareness of themselves as films?

Attentive to the roles of writers, actors, and other creative agents involved in this necessarily collective mode of cultural production, we will study thirteen internationally acclaimed films by such directors as Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Alfred Hitchcock (UK/US), Federico Fellini (Italy), Akira Kurosawa (Japan), Billy Wilder (Austria/US), and David Lynch (US). The class will feature student-led, small-group discussions on Mondays; full-class discussions on Wednesdays; short response papers; a close-reading presentation; and a final paper.

ENGL 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
In this course we (mainly) consider the Hollywood movie. Our reading and writing is grounded in discussion of one of the most influential cinemas of the 20th century. Not an exercise in review or fandom, however, writing assignments seek to understand narrative film as socio-cultural phenomena. In short, we use film to think about our culture and society. To do this, we document and critically consider how various discourses – ideas about, for instance, morality, visuality, reality, story-telling, capitalism, the urban, gender, race, sexualities, what it means to be human, animal rights,  etc. – impact and complicate our understanding of film.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Corcoran, Casey
While many new conceptions of rhetoric have been introduced in the years since Plato and Aristotle were alive, no definitive consensus about what constitutes “rhetoric” has yet been reached. Given this messy history, how should we understand the field of “rhetoric” today? In what ways has rhetoric influenced the social spaces we inhabit? And why might studying this be useful?

In an effort to address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the way certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory. Once this foundation is built, we will begin to think about rhetoric’s relationship specifically to notions of Law and Justice, and will consider the law as a rhetorical system which greatly structures our lived social experience. Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in terms of legal discourse and the pursuit of Justice.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Sheldon, Doug
The comedian Lewis Black declared, “Here’s your law: If a company, can’t explain, in one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” What has he done here? He has used sarcasm and economic law to shape a position. But he has also a conditional sentence, a colon and an ellipsis! All of these items contribute to Black’s comedic rhetoric of identity. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient rhetoric to that of the twenty-first century we will negotiate with this term to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine multilingual rhetoric, political rhetoric, multimodal rhetoric, and other delivery systems that shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How do we use rhetoric in our lives both consciously and unconsciously? How do rhetors and rhetoric interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity creation? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we consistently encounter. This class will be a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric: Rhetoric in a Dangerous Time
Instructor: Reames, Robin
What is “rhetoric” and why should we care about it? Although Socrates demeaned rhetoric as a dangerous and deceptive form of flattery, Aristotle defined it as an art—the art of understanding how persuasion works. Even today the importance of these ideas can be witnessed all around us in the “post-truth” era. From political controversies, to product advertisements, to outright lies—the power of language persuades us, determines our thoughts and beliefs, and dictates our actions. In this course we seek to understand rhetoric—both what it is and how we use it. In this way, rhetoric is meant to help us understand more about our place in the world.

In this course, we will learn some of the basic concepts of rhetoric as we analyze controversial events of our own time: the rhetorics of the Covid-19 pandemic, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, the Black Lives Matter movement, white nationalism, and more. Through examining how concepts like kairos, stasis, ethos, pathos, etc., function in these and other rhetorical events, we will gain a deeper understanding both of how persuasion works… and how it fails. Students will learn that understanding how persuasion works is empowering: it gives us the freedom and the power to be a critic in a dangerous time.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying rules that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these rules, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. To that end, we will focus on drills and homework to understand basic grammar, and then apply that knowledge to analyze the rhetorical choices we make when we write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, global English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will take several short assessments to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a written project at the end of the semester.
[Course will meet synchronously on Wednesdays only]

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined—from journalism to company PR—through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
[Course will meet synchronously on Thursdays only]

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Barger, Carla
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. You will investigate form and language, learn close reading, develop a critical vocabulary to approach the work of others, and learn to use poetic devices in your own work. All this will be accomplished by reading a wide range of poetry, and by completing writing exercises and response essays in addition to creating original work.

This course is also where you will learn that poetry is a discipline, not merely self-expression. You will engage in poetry workshop by offering constructive criticism, and you will receive the same in turn. This means that in order to be successful in this class you must be open to suggestions and you must be willing to revise your work, often dramatically. It also means that participation is mandatory.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Barton, Daniel
Opening her book, The Life of Poetry, poet Muriel Rukeyser asserts, “In this moment when we face horizons and conflicts wider than ever before, we want our resources, the ways of strength. We look again to…the means by which the imagination leads us to surpass ourselves.” For her, poetry can provide such potential for response. This thought will guide us in this course, which, as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry, will focus on investigating aspects of form and language with an emphasis on improving your own work. Toward this end, we will develop a critical vocabulary for discussing the work of your peers as well as that of published poets through extensive writing exercises, readings, craft discussions and workshop. Reading is vital to writing, and so we will look at the work of a variety of poets throughout the course to both inspire you to write and encourage you to think about craft and form in new ways.  In addition to your original work, you will be writing in response to these poets. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop, besides a deeper appreciation of the art form, a writing process for poetry and a sense of your own voice.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Magers, Dan
This class is focused on developing a writing practice devoted to narrative fiction. In literature, “fiction” has come to mean a kind of imaginative storytelling in prose that can reveal “timeless truths.” However, another definition of “fiction” is simply “lies.” WTF? To investigate (and put into practice) this seeming paradox, we will study the fundamentals of fiction writing (including – but not limited to – plot, character, setting, dialogue, and theme) by analyzing these elements in published short stories, as well as (and more importantly) by putting them into practice in your own original writing. Most of the class will be in a workshop format, where your writing will be discussed and critiqued by your peers in a rigorous, yet constructive environment. You must be open to criticism, suggestions, and be willing to make substantive revisions to your drafts. The workshop format entails active participation, completing the assigned readings, and regular attendance. A goal of the course will be to demonstrate how fiction writing can alter how we see the world, and how creative writing can be an empowering practice for everyone.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Rensch, Adam
This course concerns itself with the fundamentals of fiction, including (but not limited to) plot, character, setting, and theme. In the first half of the semester we will study the work of writers who have mastered these fundamentals, as well as masters who have chosen to employ them in new ways or scrap them completely. Beyond these macro elements, we will focus on the sentence: its syntax, rhythm, sound, appearance, and efficiency. What makes a sentence pleasing to the eye and ear? What makes a sentence powerful? These and other questions will arise as you begin to complete fiction exercises and create sentences of your own. The course’s second half will take the form of a workshop, in which each of you will bring in hard copies of a complete story (10-15 pages) to be constructively critiqued the following week. Your story, as well as your participation in workshop, should demonstrate knowledge of the fundamentals and techniques covered in this course.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mandell, Travis
Reading makes a great writer. The more one reads, the better their prose becomes; there is no substitute. This course will build on four major tenets of writing creative fiction: reading the works of established authors, writing our own literary fiction, critiquing the works of others, and editing/revising our own works.

For the first half of the semester, we will be reading short story selections from Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery, as well as some craft-oriented and theoretical work by other famous authors, to get a grasp on the technique and form that goes into producing a lasting fiction. We will interrogate point of view, setting, characters, plot, conflict, narrative voice, and dialogue. One cannot begin to break the rules, without first knowing them.

In the second half of the course, we will apply the lessons of our readings to developing our own short stories. Positioning ourselves as both writers and critics in workshop sessions, we will help every writer improve their work through constructive criticism and composed comments. If we are entirely online, we will utilize Zoom for the teaching/workshop sessions and Blackboard for readings, quizzes, and short assignment submissions.

This course will be held in a synchronous manner.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
English 222 is an advanced writing course focusing on tutoring and writing using theories about how students write and methodological approaches to tutoring and teaching. We will explore writing center theory within a sociocultural context, meaning, we will examine how a student’s previous educational and cultural experiences contribute to their interactions within the university, and to their writing within the educational context.  In addition to the class meeting time, class members are required to complete a two-hour “lab” where they will tutor 2 hours each week. In Spring 2021, course content will be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously, and all tutoring will be performed online.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Brandt, Katherine
English 222 is an advanced writing course focusing on tutoring and writing using theories about how students write and methodological approaches to tutoring and teaching. We will explore writing center theory within a sociocultural context, meaning, we will examine how a student’s previous educational and cultural experiences contribute to their interactions within the university, and to their writing within the educational context.  In addition to the class meeting time, class members are required to complete a two-hour “lab” where they will tutor 2 hours each week. In Spring 2021, course content will be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously, and all tutoring will be performed online.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Williams, Charitianne
English 222 is an advanced writing course focusing on tutoring and writing using theories about how students write and methodological approaches to tutoring and teaching. We will explore writing center theory within a sociocultural context, meaning, we will examine how a student’s previous educational and cultural experiences contribute to their interactions within the university, and to their writing within the educational context.  In addition to the class meeting time, class members are required to complete a two-hour “lab” where they will tutor 2 hours each week. In Spring 2021, course content will be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously, and all tutoring will be performed online.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an advanced writing course focusing on tutoring and writing using theories about how students write and methodological approaches to tutoring and teaching. We will explore writing center theory within a sociocultural context, meaning, we will examine how a student’s previous educational and cultural experiences contribute to their interactions within the university, and to their writing within the educational context.  In addition to the class meeting time, class members are required to complete a two-hour “lab” where they will tutor 2 hours each week. In Spring 2021, course content will be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously, and all tutoring will be performed online.

ENGL 233: History of Film II: World War II to the Present
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of the modern era of film history, with emphasis on the various “new waves” that rocked the cinema establishment during the postwar period, and on the major technical developments (widescreen, Dolby stereo, digital media) that have changed the ways we see, hear, and consume movies.  Among the areas likely to be covered in the course are: the Italian neorealist movement of Rossellini and De Sica, the early American avant-garde of Deren and Anger, the postwar Japanese cinema of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, the European art cinema of Bergman and Fellini, the rule-breaking French New Wave of Godard and Truffaut, the immediacy-seeking Cinéma Vérité movement of Drew and Pennebaker, the identity-building African cinema of Sembene and Mambéty, and the technically innovative blockbusters of Coppola and Spielberg.  Course requirements include regular written responses and online quizzes.

ENGL 240: Introduction  to Literary Studies and Critical Methods
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
What drives the writing, and the reading, of literary criticism?  In this introduction to literary study and critical methods, we will discuss the ways in which a work of literature can generate multiple critical readings, as well as the ways we can judge the viability of those readings and create our own counter-arguments based on strategic presentation of textual evidence.  We will consider the varied philosophical, conceptual, aesthetic, and political concerns that critics bring to writing about literary texts.   Since writers of literary criticism are necessarily interested in the properties of literature as such, our critical readings will also discuss issues of genre that inform works of poetry, the fairy tale and other short fictions, and the novel.

The course is conceived as an active dialogue between literary and critical texts, so we will begin by thinking through the particularities of the “literary,” especially as these apply to the reading and analysis of poetry as such.  As the course progresses, a great deal of our time will be spent investigating the ways in which critics mine and utilize specific aspects of literary texts to create critical arguments.  Later in the course, we will also discuss how we can engage criticism that is not primarily literarily based (e.g., Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”), as well as the ways in which the distinction between “literary” and “critical” works can fruitfully break down.   Course  requirements include class participation during our Zoom meetings, short papers, and a longer, integrative final paper.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Studies and Critical Methods
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course is designed to teach English majors how to read literature, specifically in relation to the construction and analysis of literary realism. We will explore the form and narrative language of realism as a springboard to understanding some of the main tenets of twentieth-century literary theory.  As we examine how “English literature” became an academic pursuit, we will recognize schools of literary interpretation (liberal humanism, new criticism, narratology, etc.) and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category. Literary texts studied will include Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Atonement Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Excerpts from Peter Barry’s Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory and Robert Dale Parker’s How to Analyze Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies will guide our theoretical studies.

There is about 75-100 pages of reading per week for this class. Students are expected to read ALL assigned texts carefully and to take difficult literary fiction seriously.

IMPORTANT: I would prefer that students intending to chose academic literature as their concentration in the English major take this course. This is a rigorous course and I expect every student who elects to take this class should apply themselves with due diligence.

If you’re *not* an English major and want and English class to practice academic writing, this course is probably too specialized for your needs.

Textbooks: All books will be available at the UIC Bookstore, articles and short stories will be uploaded on Blackboard

Students will be required to write 2 short papers and take midterm and final exams

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Studies and Critical Methods
Instructor: English, Bridget
The process of reading literary texts gives us pleasure because it allows us to enter another world and to imagine what it is like to be someone else. In this sense literature encourages us to empathize with others. But how do we make sense of this experience which reading enables and how is it connected to the “real world”? What methods can we use to better understand or decipher the meaning of a novel, short story, poem, or play? In this course we will study different theoretical approaches to literature, including Marxist, psycho-analytical, historical, structuralist and post-structuralist literary and social theory in order to gain skills of literary analysis, but also to learn about different ways of  “seeing” or understanding the world around us. After completing this course students will have a better understanding of what literary theory is and how to apply it, and will also know how to formulate their own thesis based on this understanding.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that emerge when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest in English studies as an intellectual discipline.  We’ll learn to recognize schools of literary interpretation and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category, reading authors such as Barthes, Saussure, Foucault, Said, and Spivak.  We’ll discuss how we determine what is good and bad in art, considering cultural preconceptions that may influence those assessments.  We’ll examine what we mean by ‘literary’ work, reading authors such as Chabon, Le Guin, Butler, Delany, and Link.  We’ll question the boundaries between commercial and literary modes of production, and the tensions between realist and more speculative work.  We’ll read a mix of poetry, short fiction, novels, and essays, and may even squeeze in a graphic novel or a play, if time allows, covering work from a range of time periods.  We’ll also examine how literature progresses – how do writers enter into dialogue with (and sometimes dispute or resist) their contemporaries and predecessors, and how do these engagements affect their practice and the literary works they produce?  Grading will be based on a weekly reading journal, passage presentations and short papers, a mid-term exam, and a final paper.

NOTE:  Although this class is listed as synchronous, the bulk of the course will be conducted asynchronously.  We’ll only meet on Zoom all together a few times over the course of the semester; you’ll be meeting regularly in small groups the rest of the time, and we’ll host class conversations on Slack (a free community discussion board that’s quick and easy to learn).

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
This course will survey British literature of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. We will start with Chaucer and conclude with Margaret Cavendish, in between reading Marlowe, Shakespeare, Wyatt, Sydney, Spenser and Milton. My main goal for the course is that you engage with difficult, old literary genres and think about what those genres did for earlier readers: who writes a love sonnet and why? What’s the historical context in which an allegorical romance, full of dragons, knights, wizards and ladies, makes sense? My second goal is that you improve at reading this stuff, so that you leave the class with a sense that if you want to, you can continue reading pre-modern literature on your own. There will be five short analytical assignments (designed to teach you to read carefully and slowly and analyze) and two medium-length synthetic ones (writing a course lexicon/dictionary, creating a timeline).

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660 to 1900
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
This course undertakes the impossible task of surveying over two hundred years of English literature in fifteen weeks. From allegory to lyric, from essay to novel, from ballad to dramatic monologue; from the scandalous affairs of Restoration comedy to the chaste attachments of Victorian verse; from the origins of the English novel with Daniel Defoe to its apotheosis in George Eliot (and to its transformation in Joseph Conrad): this 240-year stretch of literary history is crowded with new forms and new thematic and narrative material. The reading load for this course will therefore be heavy. Since this course is designed for English majors, it is presumed that students will arrange their semester to enable them to devote sufficient time to it. The payoff will be worth the effort. This semester will provide a solid backbone to the study of the period and a strong basis on which to begin a study of twentieth-century literature.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
This survey of American literature will be taught on a “flipped classroom” model, where students will view short recorded lectures each week but also meet in a weekly live session with the professor. Our study of American literature will follow an unusual trajectory:  We will work our way backwards in time (instead of the customary forward direction), beginning with present day and traveling back over the course of the semester all the way to the early 17th-century.  The course will begin with Claudia Rankine’s 2014 National Book Award finalist, _Citizen: An American Lyric_. In the course of our travel through time, we’ll also look at major works in the American tradition from the end of the 19th-century on back:  Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rebecca Harding Davis, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, John Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson.  Biweekly short quizzes and modest accountability measures in the form of shared reading annotations and discussion board posts will combine to take the place of a midterm and final exam (in other words there will be no midterm or final exam). In addition to the live lecture/discussion sessions with the professor, students will also have a weekly live discussion session with a TA to help prepare for quizzes and develop preparatory writing exercises towards a short final scholarly analysis paper.  There will also be a variety of small group activities, which will give you further opportunities to meet and interact with your classmates.   Please note that to be properly enrolled in this course you must register for BOTH the main lecture session with Professor Ashton AND one of the four TA discussion sections.

ENGL 311: Medieval English Literature
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
THE ARTHURIAN LITERATURE OF MEDIEVAL BRITAIN FROM THE CELTS TO SIR THOMAS MALORY

Arthurian legend offers a perfect introduction to the literature of medieval Britain. This course explores the rich multilingual range of writings on King Arthur from the earliest Welsh story about King Arthur to the English Arthuriad of Sir Thomas Malory. Genres include chronicle-histories,  stories, poems, and courtly romances, culminating in the masterpieces of the fourteenth-century Alliterative Revival “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and the “Alliterative Morte Arthur.”

ENGL 315: Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
Enlightenment Narratives, Colonial Subjects: Literature & Empire in the 18th Century

The global world which many take for granted today was formed in the eighteenth century through world-wide commerce, seafaring trade, and the establishment of colonial empires—in short, early capitalism. Alongside these social phenomena were vibrant and contentious cultural and political debates on sovereignty and slavery. How do writers and thinkers in this period conceive of the cultural, racial and religious difference they encounter?

“Enlightenment narratives” puts stress on ideas of progress, the forward march of humanity, the circulation of the rights of man, and the ever widening circle of freedom associated with this period. Yet the view of many “colonial subjects” in the eighteenth century should cause us to question a simply optimistic and one-sided understanding of the period.

As Diderot once put, addressing his European reader, “you are proud of your Enlightenment, but what good is it for the Hottentot?” (Just who the Hottentots were and why Diderot discussed this South African group of tribal peoples will be the topic of one class). We read novels (from Aphra Behn, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift), life narratives (Olaudah Equiano) and prose writings (from Mary Wollstonecraft, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Denis Diderot) to explore these questions.

ENGL 327: Contemporary American Literature: 1980-Present: Toni Morrison
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
This class will focus on one of the most widely read American writers of the twentieth century. Course readings will include: six of Toni Morrison’s novels (The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Paradise, A Mercy), a chapter from her critical study of race in American literature (Playing in the Dark), and a selection of her most influential essays and speeches.

ENGL 351: Topics in Black Art and Literature: The African Novel in the 21st Century
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
The past two decades have seen a renaissance in ambitious African fiction, even as its responsibility to the African context has at times been questioned. This course will offer the opportunity to read some of the most important texts of the past twenty years, from Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone contexts, as well as to evaluate the current state of the field.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
Ever thought about publishing your own book or learning how to have it published through a mainstream press? In this course, you will study editorial oversight, copy editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool and publishing industry standards. Expect to acquire knowledge on how to launch an imprint, how book production works and how basic business models in publishing function.

ENGL 383: Writing Digital and New Media
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”
Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 422: Topics in Postcolonial and World Literature in English
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
Anticolonialism (a term that has circulated a lot in recent months) is typically understood to be a discourse unique to the twentieth century, specifically 1900-1960. But the three categories around which it organized itself and articulated its interventions are nineteenth century categories: race, nation and class. This course will explore the place of these three categories in anticolonial thought, tracking the ways in which figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, B.R. Ambedkar, Frantz Fanon, Aime Cesaire, Richard Wright and others drew upon nineteenth century conceptions of race, nation and class, and reinvented them for the project of decolonization. In the final few weeks of the course, we will explore the further revisions of these three categories in postcolonial and contemporary Anglophone fiction, such as the those of Ama Ata Aidoo, V.S. Naipaul and Maaza Mengiste.

A note on ordering books: I will be emailing students on December 15 about what books to order. IF you enroll after December 1, please email me for this list.

ENGL 442: Topics in Latinx Literature: La Voz–New Writings in Latinx Literature
Instructor: Urrea, Luis
In this class, we will examine ten new texts in modern Latina/o/x literature with a focus on  cross-genre writers who also work in Creative Non-Fiction.  We will examine current books, as well as examine some of the historical precedents that inspired these writers.  And we will take part in Zoom conversations with several of them.

ENGL 443: Topics in Gender Sexuality and Literature
Instructor: Coviello, Pete
This in a course in Queer Theory, whose theme is: queer sexual disasters. What makes sex catastrophic? And who gets to say so? In a world so overfilled with forms of inequity and exploitation, what is at stake in making “sex” the chief available signifier of harm – the way we understand violation, safety, autonomy, and much? How might we resist the transformation of sex into trauma’s signature without losing sight of the forms of harm that can be delivered through sex? Queer theory, this course proposes, provides a rich resource for these knotty dilemmas. Readings will include theory and novels and films, ranging from Foucault and Freud to Nella Larsen, Audre Lorde, Willa Cather, and Samuel Delaney.

ENGL 459: The Introduction to the Teaching of Middle and High School English
Instructor: Schaafsma, Dave
English 459 is the first methods course for English Education and a course anyone can take who might want to explore the possibility of being an English teacher. Together we will explore the seemingly simple question, Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to a series of related questions, such as, What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? How do our students influence what teaching English means? We will consider competing perspectives and reflect on our own assumptions in an attempt to develop an emerging framework for how we might approach English teaching.

We’ll read texts such as Same as it Never Was by Chicago middle school teacher Greh Michie, some Young Adult literature, we’ll learn a bit about lesson planning and we’ll connect through field experience with an area high school English class, very likely Cristo Rey Jesuit High School which is close to UIC’s campus in Pilsen.

ENGL 473: Topics in Black Literature: Black Power and the Arts
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
This course focuses on one of the most dynamic periods of creative innovation in African American literature and culture (1960s-70s), as artists associated with the Black Arts Movement set out to transform the meanings and social functions of art. Inspired by the Black Power movement, these artists sought to create new forms of art designed to build community and foster political change. Along with political writing from Black Power advocates, the course will look at how artists working across a range of forms and media (including poetry, theatre and performance, fiction, visual arts, music, and film) responded to the demand for politically engaged art. While focusing on creative work and political writing from the Black Power era, we will also examine later critiques and reassessments of the Black Arts Movement.

ENGL 474 Topics in Popular Culture and Literature
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course will consider the cultural representation of American slavery. We will see how writers grappled with the subject in different, often hybrid, literary and narrative forms; Bildungsroman, the long novel as well as more experimental genres such as magic realism and science/speculative fiction. The course will study fiction from a variety of historical and cultural contexts; authors examined will include William Wells Brown, William Styron, Toni Morrison, Edward P Jones, Octavia Butler. Towards the end of the course we will consider the resurgence of slave narratives in contemporary film.To that end we will examine the cinematic offerings such as Quinten Tarentino’s Django and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and compare these representations to independent filmmakers in such as Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust. Primary readings will be augmented by critical theory from Madhu Dubey, Ashraf Rushdy, Arlene Kaiser, Salamishah Tillet and some of the new historical work on women, enslavement and economic and sexual labor.

Expectations: The reading load will be heavy, expect about 100 pages a week…this a course where I expect serious engagement with a serous subject. There will be one long paper assignment, class presentations and midterm and final exam as well as pop quizzes.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses.  It is to be taken the semester before student teaching.  For the spring, 2021, term, during the first week of the semester, this class will meet synchronously via Zoom from 3:30-4:45 on Tuesday, Jan. 12 and Thursday, Jan. 14.  Beginning the second week of the term, this class will meet synchronously via Zoom from 3:30-4:45 on Thursdays only.  Most Tuesdays, additional assignments will be due on the class Blackboard Discussion Forum.  The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids.  Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt.  Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment.  In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 483: Studies in Language and Rhetoric
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
This course will be taught in conjunction with Robert Somol’s seminar for graduate students in the School of Architecture. The idea is – beginning with Lessing’s Laocoon, then moving to the debate over Minimalism and the origins of the postmodern and then focusing on some work from the last decade– to explore some topics and debates that have been taking place within and sometimes between architecture, art and literary theory. For example, one thread of inquiry might start with Donald Judd’s claim (in “Specific Objects”) that for a work of art to matter it “need only be interesting,” which is critiqued by Fried’s description (in “Art and Objecthood”)  of Judd and minimalism more generally as “merely interesting,” a critique that’s revalorized in Sianne Ngai’s essay “Merely Interesting” and both redeployed and transformed in the architect Andrew Atwood’s book Not Interesting. An extended catalogue of these degrees of interest would include the cool, boring, ordinary, ugly, generic, and typical (Venturi and Scott Brown, Koolhaas), as well as the aesthetic of indifference one might associate with the work of some photographers (like Daniel Shea and Phil Chang) as well as related discussions of indifference within recent architecture.

In broadly addressing the transactions between writing and architecture (or the relations of criticism and the image), additional topics might include the aesthetics of Object Oriented Ontology, or the animation of matter, and the default intentionality ascribed to geology: from Hugo’s “chunks of rocks” that become an alphabet to the non-sites of Robert Smithson, and today’s pervasive architectural trope of architecture as piles of rocks (Ensamble Studio, Jason Payne, MOS, TEAM).  This terrain of meaning and matter can also be seen to contain the inverse claims of the index (sign as material trace) or speech act (the word materialized, for example, in accounts of “enactment” by Sam Jacob and others). In this context we might also read some literary theorists like Rita Felski and Caroline Levine.

The course is intended for graduate students (primarily though not necessarily at the M.A. level) and for advanced undergraduates. It doesn’t require your knowing much about these writers (or even having heard of them) before the course starts. The relevant thing is just (or merely!) to be interested in literature and architecture and in the kinds of theoretical questions that get raised by the conjunction of the two.

ENGL 483: Studies in Language and Rhetoric: The Freshwater Lab Internship
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Freshwater Lab Internship course offers students the chance to begin work in fields related to water, environment, and environmental justice.  The course consists of three parts:
1. Studying frameworks of law and governance that pertain to water and the Great Lakes
2. Working in smaller groups with a visiting professional instructor.  Students have a choice of working in a group with a journalist, a community-based researcher, or an urban planner.
3. Placement in an internship

Each component of the course lasts for five weeks.  After the semester ends, students have the option of staying in their internship over the summer.  Through grant funding, upwards of ten students will receive a stipend for this summer work. All have the option of continuing through the summer and participating in a cohort to discuss the work, offer support and, hopefully, go on field trips.  This is a dynamic course that supports student ideas and interventions in the status quo.

ENGL 486: The Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Why teach writing? and How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.

Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you’ve learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 489: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Kindelsperger, Abigailv
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature.
3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Field work required.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
In this synchronous workshop, students will write and revise poems in specific poetic genres, to be submitted as a final portfolio at the end of the course.  Students will also write a prose introduction to their portfolios, as well as a short critical paper. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the relationship between sentence and line – especially as it is expressed in line breaks, line length, and stanza formation.  In addition to this, we will be considering metaphor and metonymy, syntactical variations (including parataxis and hypotaxis), concrete description and imagery, and various approaches to musicality in poetry.  The course requires the reading of critical materials addressing these issues, as well as selected contemporary poems.  We’ll be considering strong literary (lyric) models and will work from the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another; and our emphasis will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is positive and encouraging, but also rigorous.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop. We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods. We will also write fiction and learn to critique each other’s work. A broad range of genres are welcome, including science fiction and fantasy.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
This writing workshop will be an environment wherein you’ll receive thoughtful and respectful consideration of your original fiction.  We will each be the other’s champion.  Required texts: none (but your own manuscripts).  Prerequisites: ENGL 212.

ENGL 492: Advanced Writing of Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This advanced creative nonfiction workshop is for students who have taken English 201 (or the equivalent).  It also welcomes any graduate student other than those in the Program for Writers. Creative nonfiction includes memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, literary travel- and science-writing and similar genres. Course work: Each student will write 3 CNF drafts and critiques for every other peer-evaluated essay. Willingness to engage in discussion of work-in-progress is necessary; reading assignments are made up of drafts of work turned in by the workshop members. This will be a synchronous course.

ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that often stumps students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information on the internet through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work, and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.  Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship.

Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. In the dynamic metropolis of Chicago there is an internship for every interest. Because of the pandemic, most internships will be conducted remotely.

Credit is variable: three or six credits                         English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 496: Portfolio Practicum
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.

In order to prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university.  In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education in order to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.

This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as a young professionals well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.

Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 381, 382, 383, 384.
Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.

ENGL 498/499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499).  These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers.  Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.

The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers.  Due to COVID-19 restrictions, during the spring, 2021, term, student teachers will likely work remotely with secondary school students and will be guided by a mentor teacher and a university field instructor.  The Wednesday seminar will also be remote, and it is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the edTPA assessment, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 517: British Literature and Culture: Representing Poverty
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
The course will explore the paradox that the famous works of literature about poverty are by and large written by people who were not poor. Focusing on 19th century England and France and early 20th Century Britain and the US, the course will explore the dichotomy between “exo” and “endo” writers as well as “trans class” authors.  Authors include Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Emile Zola, George Gissing, Agnes Smedley, Richard Wright, and John Steinbeck as well as less well-known “exo” authors.  A digital humanities component will be available linked to the Eco-Endo Writers Project for those who want to develop their digital capacities. See this website for info: https://dhi.uic.edu/research/endo-exo-writers-project/

ENGL 547:  Media, Film, and Performance Studies
Instructor: Freeman, Lisa
In a recent interview, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins observes, “[F]or whatever reason, writing for the theatre has always been rooted in reinterpretation and adaptation.  So, actually roots of what we do has always been the retelling or reframing of stories that exist already, because the success of the theatre is based on the success of a social understanding.”  This graduate seminar will explore the practice of reinterpretation and adaptation in contemporary theatre with an eye in particular to the types of “social understanding” that are produced with respect to questions of race both in canonical plays and in their twenty-first century successors.      Play combinations may include such works as William Shakespeare’s Othello and Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red Velvet, Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon, and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over.  Particular attention will be paid in our discussions to how each play mediates conceptions of race in its time and what types of theatrical forms, technologies, and techniques are used to convey those representations.  Secondary readings will be drawn from theatre and performance studies, adaptation theory, and critical race theory.  Course assignments will include a reading journal, position paper presentations, and a graduate seminar-length essay.

ENGL 555: Teaching College Writing
Instructor: Bennett, Mark
English 555 is a practicum that prepares you to teach first-year writing courses at UIC and to examine the teaching of writing as an intellectual activity that fits within the disciplinary work of English Studies. We’ll discuss the history of college composition and as well as current trends in rhetoric and writing studies. You’ll learn all about UIC’s first-year writing courses English 160 and 161, and design a fully realized syllabus, ready to use for actual teaching, for each course. You’ll also have the chance to develop and teach your own lessons and work with an instructor-mentor in their own course. We’ll practice designing rubrics and discuss written feedback practices. We’ll also discuss remote teaching extensively, and you’ll have plenty of chances to try out different technological tools within our own remotely conducted course to see what works best for you and what might work best for your future students. This Spring 2021, enrollment in English 555 is reserved for Master’s students who apply via the English Department’s Graduate Studies Office.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
Those who take this graduate-level workshop usually remark on how thoughtful, respectful, relaxed, productive and collegial it is.  Inasmuch as Professor Mazza will be concurrently teaching a novels workshop, I prefer to focus on short-fiction, albeit with some flexibility.  Primary text: your manuscripts.  Secondary text(s): none.

ENGL 572: Program for Writers: Novel Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This workshop is open to all graduate students in the English Department’s Program for Writers. All other graduate students from other English Department programs or from other departments must get prior approval of the professor. This is a writing workshop where we evaluate and discuss novels-in-progress. You do not have to have a completed novel to participate. You may only have an idea or a single chapter, perhaps several drafted chapters. Memoirs are also welcome. The workshop will not distribute nor discuss formula-driven genre/commercial fiction. Aspects of publishing and other functional or philosophic issues in a novelist’s life are also fodder for workshop conversation, and reading suggestions will depend on the focus taken by workshop submissions.  This will be a synchronous course.

ENGL 579: The Past Decade
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
Readers — casual readers, students, and professional academics alike — often describe poetry, unless they feel a particular affinity for it, as “difficult.” But many moments in the history of 20th- and 21st-century poetic production have ushered in modes of performing difficulty that even the most seasoned readers of poetry find challenging or, in some cases, simply illegible.  But the minute we begin asking questions about what the actual terms and conditions of difficulty are for any given poem, we also can’t help asking what it might mean for a work of poetry to count, by contrast, as “easy.” The past decade has seen some interesting forays into the effort to theorize both difficulty and ease in recent poetry, from Oren Izenberg’s 2011 essay, “Confiance au Monde, or, the Poetry of Ease,” to Nicholas Nace and Charles Altieri’s 2018 volume, The Fate of Difficulty in the Poetry of Our Time.  What are the aesthetic and social forces that demand difficulty (or for that matter, ease) at any given time — particularly when in many cases these poetic endeavors are happening simultaneously?  Poets whose work we may discuss in this seminar may include (and the selection is not final yet):  Guy Bennett, Daniel Borzutsky, Anne Boyer, Timothy Donnelly, Camille Dungy, Rob Fitterman, Jane Gregory, Susan Howe, Ishion Hutchinson (recent as-yet uncollected work), Leslie Kaplan, Anthony Madrid, Joseph Massey, Chelsea Minnis, Fred Moten, Claudia Rankine, Rodrigo Toscano, Simone White, Jeffrey Yang.  We may also take a look at some exemplars of both ease and difficulty from the early 20th century (Bertolt Brecht, T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Alberto Caeiro aka Fernando Pessoa, Gertrude Stein).

Students will be expected to deliver several short presentation papers (4-5pp) and responses to classmates’ presentations (1-2pp) over the course of the semester, following the model of a conference roundtable or seminar session presenter as well as that of respondent.  For the final project, students will work toward a longer conference-panel-length paper (8-12pp) and collaborate in small groups on a mock panel proposal.

ENGL 585: Seminar in Theoretical Sites: Crisis and Catastrophe
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
How do theories of literature and culture prepare us for talking about the pressures of our moment—economic crisis, the collapse of the public sector, police violence, the catastrophic ruin of the planet—and how are those theories energized, freaked out, or transformed by those pressures?  This class launches an attempt to answer those (and other) questions with key texts that glossed multiple crises and disasters of the enlightenment and Romanticism, from Voltaire’s and Rousseau’s responses to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 to Byron’s imagination of world collapse in his poem “Darkness” and Burke’s surmises on the aesthetic implications of such disturbances in his account of the sublime.  We use those earlier texts as the aesthetic portal for contemporary theory’s attempts to “deal” with notions of crisis, breakdown, and blockage while also weirdly cleaving to them.  Theoretical readings will focus on works by Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Khalip, Timothy Morton, Anahid Nersessian, Jacques Rancière, Elaine Scarry, Slavoj Žižek, among others.   Requirements: attendance, presentation, response, short critical essay, research paper.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature: Literature and the Future
Instructor: Roberts, Sian
In this course we will attempt to answer some key questions about literature: why do we read and study literature in the first place? How do we effectively analyse texts and take up a critical position? Our readings will be structured around the theme of the future. We will read texts that anticipated our own present with eerie accuracy and texts that attempt to imagine where our present world might lead us. We will encounter many different visions of the future as inaccessible, prosperous and uncertain. Our focus will be on texts from the twentieth and twenty-first century.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
The reading of poetry requires a different form of attention than most reading of prose (whether fiction or information). This course is an introduction to the close reading of poetry in English, drawing from highlights of both the English and American lyric traditions over several centuries. By paying sustained attention to the details and prosodic strategies of poems, we will increase the pleasures we take in reading them both silently and aloud. The course will provide tools for reading and interpreting poems in both formal and free verse, and in genres that perform many varieties of engagement with the self, others, and the material or natural world. We will consider the hallmarks of the lyric poem: apostrophe, metaphor, and musicality, just to name a few. Written assignments will include short close-reading papers, longer papers, and midterms and final exams.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Hart, Jenna
Why poetry? We can usually tell just by looking at something that it’s a poem— but why write that way at all? What work does poetry do that other forms of writing do not? In this course, we’ll be working on understanding poems through close readings, as well as understanding the greater social and historical contexts in which they were written. We’ll be reading a wide variety of poetry written in English over several centuries: everything from selections of Old English epics, the Romantics, modernism, conceptual poetry, music lyrics, and more. In reading all of this, we’ll be pursuing questions about the poetry on a formal level (what can we understand about the poet’s choice of language, metaphor, rhyme, etc?), about the poetry on a historical level (what can we understand about the poem’s context, its relationship to the self, history, and the community?), and about the poetry on a personal level (how can we engage with it? how can we enjoy it and understand it?). Grading will be based on participation, attendance, and a few shorter papers.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Albee, Soyinka, Shepard, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: The Subject, Desire, and Sexuality
Instructor: Hiday, Corbin
What does the novel tell us about the modern subject? How do novels think? What are our theories of the novel, and how do novels contain theory? In this course, we will explore such questions (among others) in relation to a particular matrix: the constitution of the subject within frameworks of desire and sexuality. We will explore the ways in which a series of Anglophone novels trace, build, represent, and construct and balance individual subjectivities with social and political collectivities. The course will examine literary representations of psychic fragmentation, cracks in the social sphere, and attempts to overcome challenges of precarious life under erasure. Particular theoretical frameworks for approaching texts in the course will include feminist and queer theory, psychoanalysis, and Marxian critique. In 1925, Sigmund Freud famously posed the question: “What does a woman want?” Revisiting this question within feminist literary criticism, Shoshana Felman asks readers to reconsider Freud’s provocation: how does a woman’s voice constitute the speaking subject? How does feminine desire function within literary texts? Our archive will include novels across periods and styles, invested in how literary thinking theorizes subjectivity, collective and individual desires, and the construction of sexuality within our fragile modernity. Potential authors include: Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sally Rooney.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: Becoming Modern
Instructor: Staten, Joseph
This class seeks to understand two distinct but related historical moments: first, the emergence of the historical period known as “modernity” in the 19th century; and second, the emergence of the artistic movement known as “modernism” at the beginning of the 20th. Throughout the course, we will seek to come to an understanding of each of these terms—as well as of their extremely complex interconnectedness—through the study of some of the most ambitious and interesting English and American novels of the era. We will pay particularly close attention to the sets of issues, both social/historical and artistic, that modern novelists began to obsess over: on the side of history, topics such as capitalism, imperialism, the decline of religion, and the ascent of “materialism”; and, on the side of art, issues such as form, experimental technique, avant-gardism, and a heightened attention to the “material” of art-making itself. Authors we read may include Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Toomer, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and/or others.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from a book about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write several response papers and have quizzes on all readings, a midterm, and a summary exam.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture
Instructor: Casey, John
From the urban campus of UIC, it is hard to miss the reality of Chicago, the nation’s third largest city. It is easy to forget, however, that Illinois and most of the Midwest are the agricultural heart of the United States. In this class, we will read novels and short stories written by authors examining urban and rural life. We will consider in this class how metaphors used for the country differ from those used to describe the city in US fiction as well as examining ways in which these different types of narratives overlap. Some of the books we’ll read include Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel Sister Carrie (1900) and Willa Cather’s classic novel O Pioneers! (1913). These older works will be paired with more contemporary publications such as Erika Sanchez’s novel I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daugher (2017) and Stuart Dybek’s The Coast of Chicago (1990).

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture: Formal Experiments in post-1960 US Literature
Instructor: O’Connor, Jared
This course will investigate literary responses to the “cultural Cold War” from the 1960s to our present moment. Following uprisings across the United States in response to the Vietnam War, groups from marginalized populations (gender, sexuality, race, class) united to protest their treatment in legal, social, cultural discourses and fought to reimagine their position in the cultural imaginary. But these radical ideals weren’t just found on the streets; writers used their platforms to interrogate these changing ideals by rethinking the parameters of genre and form and used literature to invent new ways to think about and engage with the world. We will start with literature that responds directly to the cultural Cold War, followed by an exploration of formal experiments in the 1970s and 1980s, and conclude with contemporary examples to investigate how these experiments continue to influence literature today.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture: Tough Girls in American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
In recent mass culture, there has emerged a relatively new type of heroine, which for lack of a better phrase we shall call tough girls.  The type seems to be everywhere in popular film and literature, from Ripley in the Alien films to Arya in Game of Thrones to Katniss in The Hunger Games.  This course will explore the meaning and significance of this phenomenon.  Texts include works by Louisa May Alcott, Daniel Woodrell, Suzanne Collins, Ben Tripp, and Jay Kristoff.  Assignments include two short papers, exams, written preparation, possible random quizzes, and class participation.

Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres: Monsters, Martians, and Mobsters
Instructor: Sheldon, Doug
In this course we will examine British and American cultural representations in fiction, films, and graphic novels as presented in popular context. We will investigate the complex definitions of each genre and how we use them to understand English-language cultural contexts. Working with texts in horror, science-fiction, and crime/detective genres, along with film representations of these genres, this course will attempt to produce plausible answers to the following questions: What defines horror or crime? What value is placed on the science or humanism? Who benefits from creating objects of illegality/grotesqueness and who investigates? How do the separate modes of presentation (text v. film v. comic) engage us with these cultural concepts? Students in this class will be able to use these concepts to examine and interrogate cultural representations, which create and challenge these genres.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course we will read 20th and 21st century stories and novels by American women. We will discuss the ways the role of women has changed over time by looking at the struggles facing the characters presented in these works. In addition, we will analyze the reception of each text, talk about the issues that were most important to contemporary readers of these works, and consider how the concerns of readers have shifted. Authors will include: Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath, Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Erica Sánchez.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature: Women Warrior-Poets
Instructor: Brown, Deziree
Black lesbian warrior poet Audre Lorde had an intimate relationship with poetry.”For women, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence,” she wrote, recognizing poetry’s capacity for healing, self-reflection, and community building. She also, like many other women, understood the power of the written word in the fight for social equity.

In this course, we will examine women writers who are warriors on the page through form, subject matter, or otherwise. Our exploration will be driven by reading a variety of women who confronted the structures and institutions of normativity that shaped the socio-cultural worlds in which they were writing, including Audre Lorde, Claudia Rankine, Yesika Salgado, and Franny Choi. In addition to poetry, we will also read several types of media and short essays to guide our analysis.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Costello, Virginia
In this class, we will take a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. Although we will analyze Sappho’s poetry and recent work in transgender studies, many of the texts we will study were written between 1890-1940. Writing during this time period often depicts a crisis in the human spirit and disruption of tradition. As such, this time period offers a unique view of the intersections between gender, sexuality, class, race, and nationality (among others). Many American artists and writers moved to Paris during this time, and we will examine why they choose Paris and what drove them out of the US in the first place. Finally, a close reading of our texts and supporting documents will allow us to address, at least tangentially, issues of censorship and sexuality. The texts we will read include (but are not limited to) Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Erika Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

ENGL 112/NAST 112: Introduction to Native American Literatures
Instructor: Lyons, MaryAnne
In the words of Thomas King (Cherokee/Greek/German): “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” In this course we will engage with the stories of Native American and First Nations people, from traditional creation and trickster narratives and rituals to contemporary works by living Native American and First Nations authors. We will look at these works within the contexts of the history, public policy, stereotypes, political resistance, and influences that inform and impact them. We will focus primarily on the genres of fiction and life-writing, but with some attention also given to political writing, poetry, and film.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine the literature of the colonial period, the writers of resistance and revolution, and the stories of what came after, in the wake of new nations which emerged, shaken and often fragmented, from the rubble of what were once European colonies. In such regions as India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland, we will examine how national, cultural and individual identities have been radically altered by the experience of colonization. We will examine how authors have related this postcolonial condition; or, as some have put it, how “the empire writes back.”

As a product of such colonization myself (born in Sri Lanka to Tamil ancestors who became Catholic as a result of Portuguese colonizing missionaries, and who became an English professor in the wake of British colonizers and their imposition of English on my nation), and as a fiction writer whose own work focuses on issues of nationalism, immigration, emigration, gender, sexuality, and race, I’m particularly pleased to be offering this course.

ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
We will begin the work of ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature (Love is Strange: Exploring the Politics of Desire in Modern Literature) by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which modern writers of memoir and fiction (mostly during the first half of the twentieth century) either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we read both modern and postmodern fiction about different kinds of love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put each and every one of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy, past and present. Lastly, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on received ideas about gender and societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of egalitarian eroticism and meaningful sexual consent.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Queering Home
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
In this introductory course, we’ll explore the relation between queerness and home. Home is a place of domesticity, of privacy, of conformity, and often isolation. Queerness dismantles this notion of home, is antagonistic toward it.  When “home” is not one’s birth body, or one’s family, or even community, what does the struggle to build a new home look like, and how does queerness alter or dismantle the notion of “home” in the process? The narratives—novels, poems, theory, films, videogames—we will spend time with locate points of recognition and dislocation within queerness and differences of race, class, ability, gender, sexuality, nationality, and between generations. Jose Munoz: “Queerness is not here yet. Queerness is an identity. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.”

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: Cinema and the Gaze
Instructor: Raden, Justin
This course will reflect on a long-standing idea in feminist film theory: that the (usually male) spectator is in a position of mastery over the (usually female) image. By now we are all too familiar with the idea that cinema, especially popular American cinema, has tended to duplicate and reinforce a version of sexual difference in which woman is the object of man’s desire. The latter does the active looking while the former is passively looked at. This relation between looking and being looked at is often thought to extend to the relationship between the spectator and the image or screen. But is this the end of the story? Does the gaze really imply mastery? And if so, is it possible to supplant the male gaze with a female or queer gaze? We’ll start thinking through these questions via two classic films about looking and being looked at, Orson Welles’s “The Woman from Shanghai” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.” Then we’ll try to broaden our own gaze and rove between films from France, Iran, Cuba, Germany and elsewhere in order to see how the gaze functions on an international scale.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: The Art of Film
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
Rather than beginning with a particular theory of cinema, our goal in this course will be to allow each film we study to dictate the unique way in which it demands to be interpreted. To begin making sense of how these films produce meaning and affect audiences, we will draw upon the basics of sound, acting, editing, dialogue, mise-en-scène, and cinematography. Students in this course will also be asked to consider fundamental principles of genre, narrative, aesthetics, dialectics, ideology, and psychoanalysis. With the help of our weekly readings, we will explore a variety of ways that each film—and the medium of film in general—depicts a fictionalized version of “reality” on the screen. Attentive to the roles of writers, actors, and other creative agents involved in this necessarily collective mode of cultural production, we will watch masterpieces by such directors as Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Alfred Hitchcock (UK/USA), David Lynch (USA), Akira Kurosawa (Japan), Werner Herzog (Germany), and Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico), among others. The class includes weekly readings, film screenings, student-led discussions, and short papers.

ENGL 121/MOVI 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
In this course we look at films about addiction and recovery. Viewing mainly Hollywood films, we look at the roles the building blocks of narrative film (cinematography, sound, etc.) play in conveying a story and its nuances. In our analyses we pay special attention to formulations of gender, race, ethnicity and social class.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Gallus-Price, Sibyl
What do we do when we call something rhetorical? What is rhetoric and what end does it serve? Plato and Aristotle’s conflicting conceptions of rhetoric continue to influence our answer. While Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion,” for Plato the practice amounted to the dangerous “art of enchanting the soul.” So although Aristotle’s Rhetoric has largely shaped the field, Plato’s attack on rhetoric in Gorgias and Phaedrus has been no less enduring. This introductory course will be guided by a return to the early debates that founded and continue to inform our current understanding of rhetoric. Starting from a foundation of classical texts, we will move on to explore rhetoric’s broader and far reaching implications. Approaching rhetoric through a discursively wide lens that spans the textual and the visual, we will discover not only the messages being communicated but how and to what end such messages are being mobilized. Considering everything from film and propaganda, to ads and social media, to NGOs and our consumer choices, students will gain the critical tools needed to understand the way we use rhetoric to shape our world.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Corcoran, Casey
Our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the way certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory. Once this foundation is built, we will begin to think about rhetoric’s relationship specifically to notions of Law and Justice, and will consider the law as a rhetorical system which greatly structures our lived social experience. Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in terms of legal discourse and the pursuit of Justice. In doing so, we hope to not only arrive at a better understanding of rhetoric and its relevance to our lives, but to develop transferable capacities in reading, writing, and public speaking.

ENGL 125 / LALS 125: Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature
Instructor: Magers, Daniel
In this introductory survey, we will read, think about, and discuss a range of works – including fiction, poetry, drama – by pioneering as well as present-day authors of U.S. Latinx Literature. Set alongside, and sometimes against, dominant American culture, U.S. Latinx Literature touches on some of the most prominent and controversial issues in contemporary life in the United States: immigration and the immigrant experience; the gains and losses of assimilating into American culture; the exploitation of labor; and identity formation based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. Texts will likely include works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Tomás Rivera, Pedro Pietri, Helena Maria Viramontes, Myriam Gurba, Erika Sánchez, Luis Alberto Urrea, and others. Assessment will be based on response writing, quizzes, class and group discussions, and a final paper. The main objective of the class is to enrich your understanding of literature generally and, more importantly, to learn about the exciting and multifarious works of Latinx writers and culture.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying rules that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these rules, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. To that end, we will focus on basic exercises to understand the foundations of grammar, and then apply that knowledge to analyze the rhetorical choices we make when we write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, global English, ethics, and prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics. Students will take several short tests to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on—and skills regarding—writing for different forms of media (print & online, reporting, commentary and public relations). Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to blog work to publicity—and eventually produce a writing portfolio as presented via links on your personal web page, preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come. This course is the prerequisite for Engl 493, the English Internship in Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Edelman, Adam
This is an introductory course to writing poetry. We will focus our investigation into the practice of poetry writing by identifying our own impulses toward poetry, and seeking out those impulses, and others, in the work of celebrated poets. In the interest of developing our individual poetry writing practices, we will build a vocabulary to approach talking about your work, as well as your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through class discussions and workshop. You will be writing about poems, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work. It is my hope that this course will improve your ability and enjoyment in reading and writing poetry, and that you will use this practice a means of investigating the creative process and the deepest regions of the human spirit.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Newirth, Michael
As an introduction to fiction writing, this course asks key questions about the relationship between formal innovation and story-telling, and whether fiction still claims a unique power in dramatizing the moral complexities of our lives? We will read and discuss short stories, and you will develop and revise your own stories, with an emphasis on pushing the boundaries of your prior writing experience, influences, and source material.We will discuss tactics useful to the writing process, and utilize “workshop” discussion as the ideal route into your own work. Students will develop and revise their own writing projects, with an emphasis on building strong narratives, on pushing the boundaries of your prior writing experience. Students will also investigate fundamental matters of structure, style, narrative intimacy, and other elements of well-crafted writing. The workshop will include thorough “editorial” discussion of your own work, as you approach one another’s writing with the consideration you yourself would wish from readers. In addition to being a Lecturer in English at UIC for fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer, editor, and book reviewer, with work appearing in anthologies and publications including The Baffler, Chicago Reader, Open City, and Pushcart Prize XXII. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising creative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Frangello, Gina
This introductory workshop focuses on learning the craft of writing fiction, with the first half of the course devoted to our development of a common framework through studying craft issues like point of view, scene vs. summary, setting, dialogue, etc., as well as reading published short fiction together as a class and discussing issues in the contemporary literary landscape. The second half of the semester is devoted to the “workshop,” in which student stories are read and discussed as a group. Skills will be developed through writing exercises, revisions, close readings of stories that exemplify certain craft skills, and demystifying the publishing world. Required text: Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
This course is designed with two aims: to develop your fiction writing skills and enhance your abilities as fiction readers, primarily regarding the short story. We will discuss aspects of fiction and the craft of writing, read exemplary models of published work, and workshop your stories as a class. We will read these works—published authors’ and your own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our focus being process and technique, i.e. the writer’s craft, how writers do what they do. Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ stories will focus on the skills and techniques studied and practiced throughout the semester. You will produce a number of short exercises and two full-length stories. As writers, readers, editors and critics, we will engage in an active semester-long practice. It might even be actual fun.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors. As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design. In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 232: History of Film I: 1890 to Work War II
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. Topics covered include the invention of cinema, the evolution of the film director, the role of women in early film history, the rise of narrative cinema, German expressionist cinema, Soviet montage cinema, the coming of sound, the development of deep focus, and Italian neorealism. Filmmakers covered include Georges Méliès, D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber, Sergei Eisenstein, Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles, and Vittorio De Sica. The focus of course is on how specific trends in film history shaped the film style of different eras, nations, and filmmakers. Requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
This course will explore the way we react to literature, film and other media. Looking at the history of aesthetics, we will try to understand how we make judgments about the qualities of art, determine what is good and bad, and understand what we mean when we say we “like” a work or find it “beautiful” or “ugly.” Looking at philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Hegel, Kant, Marx, and Freud, among others, we will also read three or four novels and read poetry.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll tackle a small number of works in a variety of genres and media (poetry, short stories, plays, film adaptations, and essays in literary theory and scholarship) and from a range of time periods. As we think about how to understand these works in formal, aesthetic, rhetorical, and historical terms, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and the theory of literary scholarship. We’ll proceed from several basic questions: What kind of thing is literature? What do we as students have in mind (and what do professional literary scholars have in mind) when talking about the meaning of a work of literature? What kind of a practice is the scholarly study of literature, and how does it differ from more informal and everyday engagements with works of literature (e.g. “reading for pleasure,” book clubs, Goodreads)? The answers to some of these questions, far from being obvious, have been the subject of longstanding, rigorous scholarly debate. We’ll also examine how literature progresses – how do writers enter into dialogue with (and sometimes dispute or resist) their contemporaries and predecessors, and how do these engagements affect their practice and the literary works they produce? Grading will be based on a midterm, a final, short written exercises, and participation in class discussion.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Theory and Critical Methods: Literature & Life
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
What is the relation between literature and human/non-human life, and what methods can be developed to grasp that relation? This course travels through literature and theory—analyzing works by authors such as Plato, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sigmund Freud, Agatha Christie, Zora Neale Hurston, Michel Foucault, and Amitav Ghosh—in order to explore the ways in which works describe themselves as literary. And it investigates what kind of authority such works seek to establish in relation to the objects and phenomena they represent. Questions that we’ll likely encounter include: what’s a literary work and how does a literary work claim, or not claim, to be distinct from other works? What’s the relation between literature and belief and other mental states? Between literature and action? What kind of action is literature? What is the relation between literary forms and both human and non-human bodies and interactions? Must literature be human? Requirements: participation, regular short papers, in-class report, final exam, and final paper.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Michaels, Walter
What’s the difference between studying literature and just reading it? If you’re taking English 240, you’re probably an English major, and you probably find some pleasure in reading and maybe writing stories and poems. The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that come up when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest also in English studies as an intellectual discipline. In this class, we’ll do this in three ways. First, we’ll pay particularly close attention to a range of texts, focusing on questions like why one word (say, “stilled”) is used rather than another (say, “stopped”) or what is lost (or gained) when a ten page short story is edited into a five page shorter story. Second, we’ll study several different theories about what it means for readers to understand the meaning of a text, and we’ll do this in part by considering the relations between literary and legal texts – between what’s involved in interpreting a novel and what’s involved in interpreting, say, the Constitution. Third, we’ll pay special attention to what what’s involved in writing about literature – to what a literary critical thesis or argument looks like and to how to go about formulating one.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: Words and Power: An Introduction to Literary Theory
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
The Greek philosopher Socrates found writers to be so dangerous he wanted them exiled from his ideal Republic. But what did he fear in a reckless imagination and a creative re-making of the world? Recently in the 20th century both totalitarian and democratic regimes have had ways of regulating words, spreading myths (“fake news”), and mitigating dissent. This course explores links between literature and the world it describes, focusing on the question: what are the links between words and power? The focus will be on four broad eras: (1) classical Greece (Plato & Aristotle) as we think of how the sophists related to public debate; (2) Enlightenment/18th century Europe, where challenges to monarchical and despotic power found expression in a new type of writing on art and literary texts (Hume, Burke, de Staël); (3) the 19th century (Marx, Baudelaire, Nietzsche); and finally (4) the modern/contemporary era, where a range of literary theories re-visit this question (Saussure, Roland Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak). The goal is to provide students with an analytic “toolkit” that can be used to think critically not only about literary texts, but also “social” texts, society and cultural works. All readings will be available as PDFs.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods:
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course is designed to teach English majors how to read literature, specifically in relation to the construction and analysis of literary realism. We will explore the form and narrative language of realism as a springboard to understanding some of the main tenets of twentieth-century literary theory.  We will learn to recognize schools of literary interpretation (liberal humanism, new criticism, narratology, etc.) and distinguish the critical methodology associated with each category. If we have time we will also pay attention to the emergence of new (or hybrid) literary genres, such as the graphic novel and speculative/Neofuturism literature. Literary texts studied will include Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Atonement Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Excerpts from Peter Barry’s Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory and Robert Dale Parker’s How to Analyze Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies will guide our theoretical studies.

There is about 75-100 pages of reading per week for this class. Students are expected to read ALL assigned texts carefully and to take difficult literary fiction seriously.

IMPORTANT: I would prefer that students intending to chose academic literature as their concentration in the English major take this course. This is a rigorous course and I expect every student who elects to take this class should apply themselves with due diligence.

Textbooks: All books will be available at the UIC Bookstore, articles and short stories will be uploaded on Blackboard

Students will be required to write 2 short papers and take midterm and final exams

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
This course will survey British literature of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. We will start with Chaucer and conclude with Aphra Behn, in between reading Marlowe, Shakespeare, Wyatt, Sydney, Spenser and Milton. My main goal for the course is that you engage with difficult, old literary genres and think about what those genres did for earlier readers: who writes a love sonnet and why? What’s the historical context in which an allegorical romance, full of dragons, knights, wizards and ladies, makes sense? My second goal is that you improve at reading this stuff, so that you leave the class with a sense that if you want to, you can continue reading pre-modern literature on your own. There will be five short writing assignments, a midterm and a final.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
This course offers a panoramic survey of a thousand years of English literature from a Song of Creation orally composed by an illiterate swineherd in the seventh century to John Milton’s monumental religious epic “Paradise Lost.” The course focuses on the two high-points of writing in the English language: the Ricardian era of Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain Poet and the Elizabethan-Jacobean age of English drama represented by Marlowe and Shakespeare.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660 to 1900: English Literature from Stuart Restoration to Imperial Crisis
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
This course undertakes the impossible task of surveying over two hundred years of English literature in fifteen weeks. From allegory to lyric, from essay to novel, from ballad to dramatic monologue; from the scandalous affairs of Restoration comedy to the chaste attachments of Victorian verse; from the origins of the English novel with Daniel Defoe to its apotheosis in George Eliot (and to its transformation in Joseph Conrad): this 240-year stretch of literary history is crowded with new forms and new thematic and narrative material. The reading load for this course will therefore be heavy. Since this course is designed for English majors, it is presumed that students will arrange their semester to enable them to devote sufficient time to it. The payoff will be worth the effort. This semester will provide a solid backbone to the study of the period and a strong basis on which to begin a study of twentieth-century literature.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
Surveying American essays, novels, and poems from the colonial period through the turn of the 19th century, this course investigates a range of literary efforts to theorize the freedoms of and constraints upon individual and collective action in a variety of historical contexts, particularly as they concern questions of religious, national, political, racial, and sexual identity. Grading will be based on a midterm, a final, periodic pop quizzes, a short paper, and contributions to discussion.

ENGL 302: Studies in the Moving Image: New Wave Cinemas
Instructor: Tavlin, Zachary
This course provides students a survey of influential art cinema movements from the mid-twentieth century to the dawn of the twenty-first. We will watch and grapple with experimental narrative films that self-consciously critique mainstream, industrial cinema by altering the medium’s grammar (cinematographic technique, editing, dialogue, story) and engaging radical social and political movements. We will likely begin with Italian neorealist and French New Wave film, progress to New Hollywood, New German Cinema, and the Czech New Wave, and end with non-European art films from Iran, Hong Kong, and Argentina. Every week we will screen a film and discuss critical writing on the individual movements and on the aesthetics of cinema itself. Students are required to write regular film responses, complete a final analysis essay, and present on one of the course’s sub-topics.

ENGL 312: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Literature: John Donne
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
Donne’s writing is both finely wrought and incredibly capacious: thematically, it has the expansiveness of a cathedral, while technically, it is as intricate and compressed as a microprocessor. Erotic love, the soul’s salvation, religious polemic, shocking misogyny—Done scrunched all these into his witty, dense, and tiny poems. In this course, we will read through his major lyric, supplementing the poems with some of his sermons and other prose, a sampling of his major predecessors, some readings offering historical context, and a few splashes of critical writing. But our primary goal to train ourselves in the workings of Donne’s lyric: we will move as precisely and cautious as if we were inspecting the insides of antique watches, with as much attention to mechanical questions: how does this poem work? what is it built out of? In our writing, we will strive to imitate Donne’s brilliance and concision, if not his occasional obscurity.

ENGL 323: American Literature: 1790-1865: No Place Like Home: Adventure and Domesticity in American Literature
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
This course explores how elements of the gothic tradition were adapted to the American scene in the years preceding the Civil War.  Despite the official reverence for the American home, many classic American authors represented the home as a gothic nightmare from which to flee.  And despite cultural and market pressures to speak plainly, many authors made their living by producing complex narratives of incredible journeys and terrifying destinations.  It could even be said that American literature begins away from home, when authors and readers encounter each other as mysterious strangers in the literary marketplace, or when literary characters discover themselves to be the rootless, homeless citizens of an elusive republic.  Major authors include Herman Melville (Moby-Dick and other writings); Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin); and Edgar Allan Poe (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and other writings).    Requirements: two short papers; mid‑term and final exams; written preparation and possible random quizzes; and class participation.  Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 333: Literatures in English Other than English and American: What’s “English” about the Novel in English
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course will examine the fluid notion of post colonial literature, a corpus of writing that was first used to describe the fiction of writers from formerly colonized nations. We will see how “first wave” authors like Chinau Achebe (Nigeria) and Jean Rhys (Dominica) developed an aesthetic to counter colonial descriptions of their social world in classic English texts such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.  Through authors like Marlon James, Nalo Hopkinson and Ramabai Espinet we will also pay attention to the ways that migration, transnationalism and globalization continues to change our understanding of the novel in English.

ENGL 351: Topics in Black Art and Literature: Literatures of Decolonization
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
“The mid-twentieth century marks not only the advent of the Cold War but also registers a political and cultural transformation that continues to circumscribe us today. Within a brief twenty-eight month period in the mid-1950s we witnessed the end of legal segregation in the United States with the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the toppling of a colonial power with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the arrival of alternative political and cultural voices with the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia and the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Paris the following year. Although the decision in Brown and the French defeat in Vietnam are viewed as embodying different histories and sets of concerns, this course will seek to ask what it would mean to read these moments –– and the texts that engage them –– together. The course will take as its focus the work of representative African American and postcolonial writers of the period and read them against the backdrop of concerns embodied by these signal moments. Our readings will include works by Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, George Lamming, Chinua Achebe, and Camara Laye, amongst others.”

ENGL 353: Latinx Literature
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
In this class we will read some of the most vibrant works of Latinx Literature from the last fifty years. We will study the literature of the Bracero Program; the experimental and performance poetics and theatre of the Nuyorican movement; diasporic writing from the Caribbean and South America, and recent books of poetry and narrative about migration and displacement. Along the way we’ll talk about transnationalism; multilingualism and translation; labor and debt; immigration law; and migration patterns from different time periods and regions. We’ll read novels, poems, plays, short stories and essays by Tomás Rivera; Pedro Pietri; Achy Obejas; Raquel Salas Rivera; Javier Zamora, among others. Our pedagogy will involve student presentations; formal and informal writing assignments; close reading; small-group and full-class discussions; and active and thoughtful listening.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will learn genres and forms in the professional writing spectrum that demonstrate competence in creating clear, concise narratives for a wide variety of audiences with changing needs. You will examine characteristics of effective writing in a non-academic context, developing a facility in writing across a range of specialized areas. Expect to produce proposals, reports, newsletters and document design. You will learn to make sense of numbers with data reporting and research methods that measure your proficiency to construct appropriate styles of advanced professional writing on an array of platforms, including online. In the process, you will learn to communicate well by recognizing the correct manner and form to use for different media formats.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
Ever thought about publishing your own book or learning how to have it published through a mainstream press? In this course, you will study editorial oversight, copy editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool and publishing industry standards. Expect to acquire knowledge on how to launch an imprint, how book production works and how basic business models in publishing function.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 402: Rhetoric: Technology, Metaphysics
Instructor: Reames, Robin
Technology—including social media—is by turns critiqued and praised. Critics blame technology and social media for the destruction of civil society, democracy, discourse, and thought. Advocates, by contrast, laud it as the herald of a utopian age of meta-intelligence and super-consciousness, or what Google’s Ray Kurzweil has named “the singularity.” This course explores these critiques and commendations by placing them within their context in the history of ideas. We will examine how technology’s opponents and proponents alike implicitly engage in the foundational questions of rhetoric and metaphysics. How does faith in a future technological singularity re-envision the West’s metaphysical search for pure Being? How does the suspicion of technology reiterate the critiques of literate and rhetorical technologies that arise at the very beginning of the rhetorical tradition? And how do both attempt to define—both with and against the history of rhetoric and metaphysics—an ideal notion of what it means to be human?

To pursue these lines of inquiry, we turn to a range of authors: Hannah Arendt, Ted Chiang, Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Marshall McCluhan, and Walter Ong, as well as ancient thinkers Plato, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and a few discourses of the Buddha.

Students in this course will gain a solid understanding of the intellectual origins of critical perspectives of technology in the history of ideas, as well as a foundational understanding of rhetoric and metaphysics.

ENGL 428: Modernism: The First Generation
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas

At the turn of the twentieth century, ambitious Anglophone literature was largely distributed through mainstream imprints of relative prestige; direct communication and competition between like-minded artists did occur but was exceptional. By the 1920s, this had changed decisively: ambitious work tended to be published first by independent presses, and communication and competition among artists became the rule rather than the exception. In London, Virginia and Leonard Woolf founded the Hogarth Press; its artistic milieu was known metonymically as “Bloomsbury.” In Paris, expatriate American Sylvia Beach opened the bookstore Shakespeare and Company, which published James Joyce’s Ulysses and was instrumental in publishing Ernest Hemingway’s first book. Shakespeare and Company was frequented not only by Joyce and Hemingway but also by Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, and Mina Loy, as well as by composers and artists such as George Antheil and Man Ray.

We will explore this moment, however, not by investigating its milieux, as informative as that might be, but by turning our attention to works published by this first generation. We will begin with Joyce’s Ulysses. Other possible readings may include Stein’s Geography and Plays, Hemingway’s Three Stories and Ten Poems, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

For Ulysses, we will be using the Modern Library edition of 1961. It is currently available under the Vintage International and Everyman’s Library imprints. There are thousands of used copies available, but please be careful when purchasing a copy. There are numerous unreliable new and used texts available for sale, as well as a famously botched edition edited by Hans Walter Gabler that you should avoid. New copies should mention something like “the complete and unabridged text as corrected in 1961.” Most and perhaps all editions of the 1961 text will begin with a very large, oversized letter “S.” If you find yourself at loose ends this summer, please feel free to get a head start on reading Ulysses. If you find it intimidating, don’t worry, it will be easier in a group; if you find it delightful, don’t worry, read as much as you like, it will reward a second reading in the fall.

ENGL 440: The Freshwater Lab
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Freshwater Lab is a grant supported program that invites students to learn about water and its social contexts. Students in the Humanities and Public Policy are empowered to take action to improve water quality, access, and knowledge throughout the Great Lakes region.

Rather than a traditional lecture course, it endeavors to put the pressing issues surrounding the Great Lakes before students in order to support their engagement with the issues and their innovative approaches to addressing them.  In this Humanities “lab” setting, we study and discuss social and environmental dimensions of the Great Lakes, meet with leaders in the Great Lakes water sector, visit relevant Chicago area sites, and work individually and in groups on projects to advance existing initiatives and pioneer new approaches.  Students are paired with professionals working on issues relevant to their project and Professor Havrelock helps to suggest avenues for advancing student projects during the semester and beyond.

Although we certainly respect and depend upon scientific approaches to the Great Lakes, this is a Humanities-driven course interested in the many ways in which water interacts with socio-political systems, legal structures, cultural perceptions, and artistic visions.  Focus also falls on how race, class, and gender determine access to water, exposure to contamination, and participation in the institutions responsible for the region’s water.

ENGL 445: Topics in Disability Studies
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
In this course we will attempt to answer questions related to the idea of normalcy and how it applies, often punitively, to bodies and minds that don’t fit into its category. Reading the work of disability studies scholars and activists, we will explore how disability intersects with race, class, gender, and sexuality. We will look at works of literature, art, film, and other media to see how people with disabilities are portrayed.

ENG 470:  Topics in Multiethnic Literatures in the United States: Re-mapping Worlds Under Globalization
Instructor: Jun, Helen
This course explores how Asian, Black, Latinx, and white cultural producers and artists variously imagine a world transformed by the economic, political, and cultural forces of  globalization.  Sample of texts include, Octavia Butler’s, Parable of the Sower, Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist, Ocean Vuong’s, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Bong Joon Ho’s, Okja (2017), Alex Rivera’s, Sleep Dealer (2008) and Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River (2008).

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken the semester before student teaching. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 486: Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Why teach writing? and How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.

Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you’ve learned in various sections of the course.

ENGL 489: The Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Kindelsperger, Abigail 
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. Please note field work in local schools is required.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
In this course, we’ll be building on the poetic foundation established in English 210, as well as opening up your poetry to new possibilities of language and thought. Students need to be open to, and curious about, writing poems in structured rhyming and metrical formats, as these will comprise many of our poem assignments. The idea here is that writing in fixed forms will enable poets — as well as writers in any genre — to become more attuned to the sounds and rhythms of language. Students will also write short critical papers, as well as handing in a final portfolio of revised work at the end of the semester. This course will elaborate on concepts introduced in English 210, such as metaphor and metonymy, syntactical structures (including parataxis and hypotaxis), concrete description (as in, for example, poems engaging dreams and visual artworks), and various approaches to musicality. The course includes critical materials addressing these issues, as well as the reading of contemporary and earlier poetry. The course is based on strong literary (lyric) models and on the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another. Our emphasis will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is rigorous, but also positive and encouraging of every student’s voice.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
English 491, Advanced Fiction Workshop, will provide an environment to hone your creative and critical skills. Requirement: English 212. The sole and primary texts for this course will by your own work.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop. We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods. We will also write fiction and learn to critique each other’s work. A broad range of genres are welcome, including science fiction and fantasy.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that sometimes stumps students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information on the internet through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work, and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses. Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. In the dynamic metropolis of Chicago there is an internship for every interest and employers often are open to internships being done remotely.

Credit is variable: three or six credits. English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 498 and ENGL 499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice for each ENGL 498 and 499.

The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.

ENGL 500: Master’s Proseminar: Theories of Ideology
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
In this course, we will examine a range of theories of ideology, particularly (though not exclusively) in relation to literature. Readings will span Marxism, Pshychoanalysis, Feminism, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. Each week, alongside readings by Marx, Engels, Freud, Lacan, Althusser, Benjamin, Adorno, Said and Spivak (amongst others), we will also read two companion novels: Charles Dickens’s *Little Dorrit* and George Eliot’s *Felix Holt, the Radical.*

ENGL 503: Proseminar: Theory and Practice of Criticism
Instructor: Coviello, Peter
What are the relations between theory, critique, curiosity, fantasia, philosophy, fiction? In this course we will aim to introduce new PhD students to a few of the organizing conceptual idioms of advanced study in English by thinking through scenes of convergence between novelistic and theoretical expression – between (broadly) art and critique – as they appear in a range of writings. Our aim will be to trace out the entanglements of imaginative writing with a whole host of critical practices, ranging from queer theory and queer of color critique, to Marxism and Marxist aesthetics, formal histories of the novel, feminism, psychoanalysis, and anti-colonial critique.

ENGL 515: Seminar in Medieval Studies: The Poetics of Pandemic: Literature and Film in the Time of Plague
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
As coronavirus spreads across the globe bringing death, chaos and fear in its wake, it would appear timely to examine literary responses to plague and pandemics from the fourteenth-century  Black Death to the twentieth century. We shall examine how writers from Boccaccio and Chaucer to Thomas Mann and Albert Camus used the motif of a deadly plague not only to articulate the tragic nature of the human condition but also as a metaphor to explore the political and ideological concomitants of catastrophe. Readings will include:

Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron
Guillaume de Machaut: The Judgment of the King of Navarre
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Pardoner’s Tale
Johannes von Tepl: The Plowman of Bohemia
Daniel Defoe: Journal of a Plague Year
Mary Shelley, The Last Man
Thomas Mann: Death in Venice
Karel Capek: The White Sickness
Albert Camus: The Plague
Film:
F.W. Murnau: Nosferatu
Ingmar Bergmann: The Seventh Seal

English 525: Seminar in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Studies: The Enlightenment and Postcolonial Thought
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
This course ranges between Europe and the former colonial world, making explicit links between the eighteenth century and the present. We consider an Enlightenment past emerging in eighteenth-century Europe, and a postcolonial present drawing examples from South Asia and the Caribbean. We begin by considering the contradiction in the Enlightenment between languages of universal rights and freedom and practices of colonialism and slavery. How did writers and thinkers in the British and French context reconcile “empire and liberty,” or commerce with conquest? What possibilities existed for an anticolonial perspective? The philosophes, it has been argued, were interested in liberating not only French citizens from the ancien régime, but also many of those enslaved in the colonies. Yet were there limitations to their political imagination of freedom?

We trace the emergence of the forms of thought and critique in the European Enlightenment, taking that word to mean the plural styles of analysis which arise in this period. We turn from there to examine the collision (or compatibility) with the projects of territorial empire in the period. We span multiple periods as we move forward to the era of decolonization to examine the engagement with Enlightenment thought in the 20th century (in the Francophone context described as “colonial humanism”) and the contemporary period. The class concludes with work on the anthropocene as presenting a new challenge (and temporality), one in which forms of the human re-emerge through a shared condition in place of an emphasis on philosophies of difference.

Eighteenth-century authors may include: John Locke, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, Olaudah Equiano. Essays from Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Hannah Arendt. Fictional works: Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke (2011). Critical & theoretical works from: Simon Gikandi, Gary Wilder, Michael Rothberg, David Scott, Ranajit Guha, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Ann Laura Stoler, Aamir Mufti.

ENGL 557: Language and Literacy: Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for the Democratic Subject
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it is desirable or even possible to do so? These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?)relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.

Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” can be defined and whether it remains a viable sociopolitical aspiration, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical/analytical method provides ways to think about the possible amelioration of sociopolitical and economic problems, and 3) whether progressive initiatives that stop short of political revolution or the fundamental transformation of the modes of production merely contribute to the reproduction of the status quo.

Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work matters beyond our own intellectual and/or financial interests. Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some likely texts are these:

THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY OF URBAN EDUCATION by Pauline Lipman
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
PRAGMATISM by William James
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
THE AMERICAN PRAGMATISTS by Cheryl Misak
A SEARCH PAST SILENCE: THE LITERACY OF YOUNG BLACK MEN by David E. Kirkland
DEMOCRACY IN BLACK by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
CULTURALLY SUSTAINING PEDAGOGY by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim
THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION by C. Wright Mills
MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY by Reinhold Niebuhr
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciere
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE by Jane Addams
TWO CHEERS FOR ANARCHISM by James C. Scott

English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing.

ENGL 570: Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
This workshop welcomes graduate student poets, and writers of other genres as well. Writers with different aesthetic styles are also welcomed. Student writing will be the focus, and each writer will complete several new pieces throughout the semester. Students will be encouraged to respond to each other’s poetry projects closely and thoughtfully, and both analytically and creatively. We will look for ways of finding excitement, wonder, pain, joy, beauty, force and intensity in the writing that we make. We will hold on tightly to the idea that poetry should be exciting, ambitious and transformative, and students will be challenged to explore forms, aesthetics, and approaches that they have not yet tried. We will read a broad range of poems and collections by canonical and contemporary authors from the Americas, Europe, and Asia, with the aim of figuring out how we can apply what we learn about this writing to our own poetry. We will also read essays on poetics, craft, and translation, and we’ll discuss what role poetry, and ours in particular, might have in public discourse. Our main focus, however, will be on developing new, electrifying poems.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
My section of English 571, Program for Writers Fiction Workshop, typically focuses on shorter forms. This semester, however, we’ll also accommodate longer forms (novellas, novel excerpts) when appropriate. The sole and primary texts for this course will by your own work.

SESSION I

No classes offered

SESSION II

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Talking Back: Reading, Writing, and Resisting in Contemporary America
Instructor: Powell, Tierney
To bell hooks “talking back,” or “back talk,” is a “courageous act,” that means “speaking as an equal to an authority figure. It [means] daring to disagree” (hooks 5). This course will develop student writing as a means of critically engaging with the world. Students will learn to understand writing as a means of teaching, connecting, persuading, and resisting. Framing the course through the idea of “talking back,” students will develop the skills to intervene in contemporary conversations related to social justice, politics, and space. Students will read and analyze different mediums of resistance writing–songs, speeches, opinion pieces, non-traditional scholarly articles, and academic scholarly articles–and engage these texts through in-class discussion, journaling, and in- class activities. We will assess the rhetorical framing of these various texts to shape our understanding of resistance writing. Students will produce a body of work that reflects the different ways in which writing can be a “political gesture that challenges the politics of domination” (8). It is not only important that students understand the power of writing as a means of “talking back” to social injustice and systems of oppression but it is equally important to empower them in all moments of daring disagreement.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Writing About Environmental Justice in a Changing Climate
Instructor: Barton, Daniel
At the center of the debate over climate change is the question of whether it’s possible to reduce human impact on the environment and still meet the needs of an ever-increasing population. While many have argued for—and are implementing—a shift toward renewable energy such as wind, solar, or nuclear power to meet the world’s demand for electricity, there’s been a re-emphasis on fossil fuel development in current politics that has had both environmental and sociopolitical consequences. Equally, there’s increased concern over how agricultural practices and land use have affected the environment, leading not only to questions about how we produce our food, but our very diets themselves. Using current events and contemporary discourses on environmental advocacy to frame our discussion, this course will engage with contemporary environmental issues, such as the impact of energy and food production on local ecosystems, and examine how people have been affected, both domestically and globally, by these activities and climate change in general. In addition, we will interrogate cultural attitudes surrounding climate change and the question of sustainability to understand the contexts in which these debates have occurred. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project culminating in a final research paper, we will develop academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Contemporary Polemics
Instructor: Rico, Alonzo
This course will focus mainly on the contemporary issues facing us today politically, and how we position ourselves in relation to those issues at hand, whether it be by fervently adopting a particular ideology or remaining ignorantly ambivalent. Quite simply, this course will not necessarily have a concrete topic on which to focus on, but will emphasize, and perhaps provoke, interest in contemporary issues that inevitably saturate our everyday lives. And hopefully, in discussing these polemics, in taking the time to write about them in a critical manner, we will find something to say and maybe even care about.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660-1900
Instructor: Jok, Laura
In this survey of major developments in British literature from the Restoration through the Victorian periods, we will study the emergence of genre, from the lyric poem to the eyewitness account to the novel. We will pay particular attention to what the evolution and shifting popularity of these forms can teach us about each historical moment’s perceptions of authority. Whether the voice of the text claims to be the author recollecting the depths of ordinary experience or relating an incredible event, whether it assumes the identity of an unreliable character, asserts an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-judging omniscience, or modulates between authority and subjectivity, how do these works establish— or resist— a stable source of universal truth? Influential authors for discussion may include Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Daniel Defoe, John Dryden, George Eliot, Jonathan Swift, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William Wordsworth.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Hart, Jenna
This course is a survey of the beginnings of America literature— a moment when an American literary tradition was emerging alongside America’s identity as a nation. With that in mind, we’ll be thinking about for whom and by whom this emerging identity is written. What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to write American literature? Who might be excluded from this? Who does this literature give voice to? What role did literature play in shaping attitudes? Authors may include Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others. Grading will be based on participation, reading quizzes (as needed), close reading papers, and two short exams.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
Literature is art made out of words. Writers give many purposes to their art: they want us to see life through the eyes of others and experience their words as something beautiful and powerful. In this course we will focus on stories, poems, and plays written by living authors. We will explore how current literature illuminates our lives and also how today’s authors echo the literary accomplishments of the classics from the past. The course will also include attending two plays produced by the UIC Theater: BARBECUE by Robert O’Hara and EL NOGALAR by Tanya Saracho. In learning to articulate the deeper meaning of what we read or view, the course will give you opportunities to practice the kind of writing and speaking skills that can serve you for a lifetime.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Sherfinski, Todd
“What’s the point of telling stories that might not even be true?” It’s a good question, one that serves as the core of inquiry for this course as it raises questions like: What do we mean when we say story? How do stories function? What makes some stories better than others? What is the difference between truth and fiction? We will examine the nature and function of story by reading a variety of short and flash fictions as well as poetry, excerpts from Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal and the Kathleen Found’s novel When Mystical Creatures Attack. Students will be assigned various assignments designed to supplement their reading and to foster class discussions.

ENGL 102 Introduction to Film
Instructor: Drown, James
Film is not just entertainment. It is an art form, a cultural mirror and influencer, an information source, and a business. It has also historically developed a language that we have (unconsciously) learned, that includes our understanding of camera, cinematography, music, background, narrative structure, etc. In this Introduction to Film class, we will start by learning about the building blocks of the language, and then expand to understanding how directors and the film industry use that language to make meaning for us. Along the way, we will use a variety of films and clips to also look at the interaction between meaning and film as both a cultural institution, and as an economic institution. Assignments will include in-class discussion, BlackBoard discussion, quizzes, a presentation, and a midterm and final.

ENGL 103: British and American Poetry
Instructor: Magoon, Mark
In this course, we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Edelman, Adam
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to reading and writing about English and American poetry. We will explore these traditions from a variety of angles, including investigations of poetic forms, modes, personae, and more. Our goal will be to account for the ways major ideas about what poetry is and what it has to offer as a distinct literary practice have evolved across many generations of poets. We will begin with ancient examples of poems in these traditions and then shift to modern and contemporary re-workings and re-imaginings of what poetry can and should do. As we build on our sense of how these conversations about poetry have developed over different historical periods, we will pay particular attention to how poetry uniquely imparts extreme states of mind, such as the ecstatic, the distraught, and the oracular. The poetry of Andrew Marvell, William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Amiri Baraka, Kenneth Koch, Dean Young, Farnoosh Fahti and many others will frame our discussion. Grading will be based on written responses to class readings, one short paper, one longer paper, and participation in class discussions.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Albee, Soyinka, Shepard, and Parks, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: Prose Portraits
Instructor: Gallus-Price, Sibyl
What is the relationship between art and life? How can we depict something beyond experience? Throughout the semester we will explore the variety of ways that prose produces portraits of our lived experience but in ways that are necessarily distinct from that experience. Exploring the structural relationships that prose and the visual arts share we will work to discover how writers compose something both of the world and apart from it. Though we will generally focus on short fiction, we will look at authors whose portraits range from a single page to a complete novel. Works will generally span the modernist and post-modernist periods including authors as diverse as Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, Tillie Olsen, Ralph Ellison, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Tom McCarthy, and others. Course requirements will include active participation, short close-reading papers, short presentations, and a longer final paper.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: 20th- and 21st-Century Experiments in First-Person Narration
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
Why is a story from the mouth (or pen) of a fictional character so radically different from one conveyed by an omniscient third-person narrator? What do character-narrators (and character-writers) make possible that would otherwise be impossible? To address these deceptively simple questions, we will read short stories and novels that express disparate thematic, aesthetic, formal, ethical, social, and political concerns while sharing one unifying trait—they are told from a protagonist’s first-person perspective.

The fictional texts we will study represent major literary periods and movements of the twentieth and twenty-first century—literary impressionism, modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary fiction. And, as we will see, authors from these “movements” employed subjective points of view as a means for achieving distinct ends. Students in this course can expect to read works by Toni Morrison, Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, Sara Levine, James Joyce, A. M. Homes, Ford Madox Ford, Samuel Beckett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry James, Donald Barthelme, Joseph Conrad, and others. As this is a discussion-based course, attendance and active participation are crucial. Additional requirements include in-class passage analyses, a close reading final paper, and a midterm and final exam.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, midterm and summary exams.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare: Remaking Shakespeare
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
This course will focus on issues of remaking in Shakespeare’s works, from the time they were written to our own present day when they continue to be remade on both stage and screen. It is well known that Shakespeare drew most of his plots and characters from classical and contemporary sources, but in remaking them as his own, he also pushed the boundaries of how comedies and tragedies might tell a story or help us to understand the human experience. Conceived during the time many scholars call the “early modern period,” Shakespeare’s works take head on issues we face today, such as race, sexuality, gender, imperialism, and government surveillance. There are more filmed versions of Shakespeare’s writings than those of any other author, in settings ranging from classical Rome to modern Manhattan. We will regularly view video adaptations of the plays alongside our daily readings to help make the words “come alive” and challenge us to understand worlds that are both strangely familiar and different from our own.

ENGL 108: British Literature and British Culture: Strange and Uncertain Times
Instructor: Roberts, Sian
In this introductory course, our focus will be on texts which respond to moments of great change and upheaval in British history. We will begin with Joseph Conrad’s surreal depiction of empire. Then we will think about the way certain texts responded to other moments of rupture such as the First World War, the social upheaval of Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s, and finally the 2016 Brexit vote. The concept of a split or separation will structure our readings, as we encounter class divide, morally conflicted narrators, fractured identities, and narratives which spiral out of control. Our focus will primarily be on modernist, post-modernist and contemporary fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first-century. The authors and texts on this course have been selected for their literary significance as well as their relevance to contemporary readers.

ENGL 108: British Literature and Culture: Bloodfeud: Violence, Murder and Revenge in British Literature from Beowulf to the Brontes
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
The late Victorian stereotype of the polite tea-drinking British gentleman is belied by a thousand-year literature in which violence and revenge are recurrent themes. We will trace this dark genealogy from Beowulf (ca. 800 CE), in which monstrous outsiders enact vengeance on humankind, to Emily Bronte’s Romantic reprisal of the same theme in “Wuthering Heights” (1847). On the way we will encounter the revenge tragedies of Shakespeare and his Jacobean contemporaries Kyd and Middleton.

ENGL 109: American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Costello, Virginia
In this course we will study literature from late 19th Century onward, paying particular attention to writers’ reactions to or participation in social and cultural change. The writers we study are connected to each other through geographic location and/or commitment to a cause. We begin with broad questions about why we study what we study and what qualities of a text make it worthy of study. We narrow our focus when we analyze specific canonical texts (i.e. The Waste Land) and more recent texts (i.e. The Underground Railroad). We place texts in a wider historical context and writers in a more intimate context; thus along with the literature itself, we will read newspaper articles, personal correspondence, and FBI files.

ENGL 109: Introduction to American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Casey, John
From the urban campus of UIC, it is hard to miss the reality of Chicago, the nation’s third largest city. It is easy to forget, however, that Illinois and most of the Midwest are the agricultural heart of the nation. In this class, we will read novels, short stories, and poems written by authors examining urban and rural life. Some of these works will include Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, and Erika Sanchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.We will consider in this class how metaphors used for the country differ from those used to describe the city in US fiction as well as examining ways in which these different types of narratives overlap.

ENGL 109: American Literature and Culture: Undead in American Culture
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
In recent mass culture, there has emerged a relatively new type of heroine, which for lack of a better phrase we shall call tough girls. The type seems to be everywhere in popular film and literature, from Ripley in the Alien films to Arya in Game of Thrones to Katniss in The Hunger Games. This course will explore the meaning and significance of this phenomenon. Texts include works by Louisa May Alcott, Daniel Woodrell, Suzanne Collins, Ben Tripp, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Assignments include two short papers, exams, written preparation, possible random quizzes, and class participation. Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course we will read 20th and 21st century novels by American women. We will discuss the ways the role of women has changed over time by looking at the struggles facing the characters presented in these works. In addition, we will analyze the reception of each text, talk about the issues that were most important to contemporary readers of these works, and consider how the concerns of readers have shifted. Books will include: Willa Cather, My Ántonia; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine; Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club; Erica Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Stolley, Lisa
This course will examine literature written in the distant and recent past by women about women who deviate, both in external behavior and internal thought and feeling – from what is considered “normal”, and in doing so implicitly question, expose, or comment on cultural attitudes about gender and identity. Placing each text in its historical, cultural and sociopolitical context, we will investigate patterns and themes of fictional female transgression/madness in women’s writing across the 19th and 20th centuries, and into the 21st century; we will also consider the conditions under which women authors wrote (and write) and how that figures into the content. We will explore historical attitudes regarding female mental health; female identity and creativity; maternity, and more.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature: The Domestic Absurd: Women Writers and Realistic Satire
Instructor: Jok, Laura
“Ridicule is the only honorable weapon we have left,” the novelist Muriel Spark said of satire: literature that criticizes society’s bad behavior by depicting its absurdity through irony or exaggeration. To satirize imperialist exploitation, for example, Jonathan Swift’s 1729 “A Modest Proposal” suggests, with deadpan irony, that the impoverished Irish sell their children to the British to be skinned, worn as fine gloves, and eaten as delicacies.

In this class, we will study novelists like Jane Austen, George Eliot, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Mary McCarthy who are celebrated for their “satirical wit” but do not depart so—we hope—obviously from the realistic. By acutely observing social conventions and the politics of marriage and domestic life, if these writers satirize, it is because they tell it like it is. Is the label “satirical” or “ironic” applied too broadly to women writers whose narrators speak with such omniscient authority? If so, why? If not, how can representing the everyday experiences of women— if, we hope, with some exaggeration—be weaponized as subversive ridicule or critique? Is this true-to-life satire funny, or is it too real?

ENGL 112: Introduction to Native American Literatures
Instructor: Lyons, MaryAnne
In the words of Thomas King (Cherokee/Greek/German): “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” In this course we will engage with the stories of Native American and First Nations people, from traditional oral narratives and rituals to contemporary works by living Native American and First Nations authors. We will look at these works within the contexts of the history, public policy, stereotypes, political resistance, and influences that inform and impact them. We will focus primarily on the genres of fiction and life-writing, but with some attention also given to political writing, poetry, and film.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Colonial & Post-Colonial Lit.
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine the literature of the colonial period, the writers of resistance and revolution, and the stories of what came after, in the wake of new nations which emerged, shaken and often fragmented, from the rubble of what were once European colonies. In such regions as India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland, we will examine how national, cultural and individual identities have been radically altered by the experience of colonization. We will examine how authors have related this postcolonial condition; or, as some have put it, how “the empire writes back.”

As a product of such colonization myself (born in Sri Lanka to Tamil ancestors who became Catholic as a result of Portuguese colonizing missionaries, and who became an English professor in the wake of British colonizers and their imposition of English on my nation), and as a fiction writer whose own work focuses on issues of nationalism, immigration, emigration, gender, sexuality, and race, I’m particularly pleased to be offering this course.

ENGL 115: Understanding the Bible as Literature
Instructor: Grunow, Scott
In this course, you will be surprised at what the Bible really says as we wrestle with its complexity and variety from a several literary perspectives, always emphasizing the specific cultural/historical situations and audiences of its authors. Some overarching themes in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament we will be exploring include creation; heroes and heroines; the covenant; the scapegoat, violence, and mimetic desire (using as a lens the theories of Rene Girard); and the apocalypse. This course is also useful for those who wish to further develop their analytical reading and writing skills through the essays we will write, which encourage you to take different interpretive positions based on the approaches to the text we will explore in class.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: Brown, Deziree
This course will focus on the deconstruction of limited ideas of “queerness”, meaning that we will push against the ways in which gender and sexuality have been traditionally represented in literature as well as other types of media. We will explore the criminalization and pathologizing of gender and sexuality, focusing on the aftermath of the ‘invention of heterosexuality’, nuclear families, and the violent relationship between femininity and masculinity. Using literary interpretation, close reading, and historiography, we will discuss how ‘queerness’ is ever-changing to reconsider our definitions of family, love, sex, and violence. Our exploration will be driven by reading a variety of writers who confronted the structures and institutions of normativity that shaped the socio-cultural worlds in which they were writing. We will interrogate how their literary forms and writings informed and altered the ways we read, think, and interpret queerness, with a focus on the poetic form.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: Tavlin, Zachary
What and when are gay, lesbian, and queer literatures? Is the queer literary archive something new or something very old? This seminar will pursue these questions by looking at a wide historical range of writing, from Sappho and Plato through Shakespeare to Woolf, Baldwin, and Yanagihara (with much in between). We will look across millennia for shifts in the aesthetics of same-sex and queer desire, as well as the fluctuating history of gender and sexual categories in literature. Weekly supplementary readings will introduce students to influential work in the theory of gender and sexuality, likely including essays by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, David Halperin, José Esteban Muñoz, and Roderick Ferguson. Students should expect a class build around discussion, regular writing responses, and a final paper.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Queering Home
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
In this introductory course, we’ll explore the relation between queerness and home. Home is a place of domesticity, of privacy, of conformity, and often isolation. Queerness dismantles this notion of home, is antagonistic toward it. When “home” is not one’s birth body, or one’s family, or even community, what does the struggle to build a new home look like, and how does queerness alter or dismantle the notion of “home” in the process? The narratives—novels, poems, theory, films, videogames—we will spend time with locate points of recognition and dislocation within queerness and differences of race, class, ability, gender, sexuality, nationality, and between generations. Jose Munoz: “Queerness is not here yet. Queerness is an identity. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.”

We’ll do some theory but mostly: Audre Lorde (Zami), Leslie Feinberg (Stone Butch Blues), Eli Clare (Exile and Pride), Adrienne Rich (“Diving into the Wreck”), James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room), Alison Bechdel (Fun Home), Parting Glances (film), Anna Anthropy (Dys4ia).

ENGL 120: Film and Culture
Instructor: Berger, Jessica
This course will explore the intersections between film and American culture with an emphasis on so-called subversive, often counter-cultural and/or “cult” texts. In examining a wide range of rebellious films from the silent era to today, we will explore the shifting definitions of revolutionary cinema, its relationship to the commercial and historical, and seek to ask and answer significant questions about our visual culture and its symbiotic engagement with our sociopolitical beliefs. Namely, we will be keenly interested in opening up questions of how definitions of “subversion” and “transgression” have shifted over time, and what sorts of texts can be described by those terms today. In this class, students will be required to read, actively participate in class discussions, write regular response papers, and execute in-class presentations as well as a final term paper.

ENGL 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
Focusing on labor, wealth and modernity, this course looks at how the city has been represented in (mainly) Euro-American films of the 20th and 21st centuries. Combining critical readings and viewings with film screenings, we explore how a range of different films may be understood as using the concept of the city to explore such themes as labor, socio-economic status, political economy, migration, etc. Each week there is a discussion with screening (Thursday) and an 80 minute discussion session (Tuesday). Student work involves active participation, weekly papers, a longer midterm paper and a written exam. Given the workload, it is advised that only students with a keen interest in cultural studies, sociology, humanities and/or anthropology take the course. This is not a course for those looking for an easy ‘A’ or final semester seniors wanting to ‘glide.’

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric: Rhetoric and the Shape of Identity
Instructor: Sheldon, Doug
The comedian Lewis Black declared, “Here’s your law: If company, can’t explain, in one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” What has he done here? He has used sarcasm and economic law to shape a position. But he has also a conditional sentence, a colon and an ellipsis! All of these items contribute to Black’s comedic rhetoric of identity. Now, this class cannot tell you in one sentence what rhetoric does, or even what it is, but through the examination of ancient rhetoric to that of the twenty-first century we will negotiate with this term to better understand our identities as thinkers and social beings. In addition, this course will examine multilingual rhetoric, political rhetoric, multimodal rhetoric, and other delivery systems that shape what we call “identity”. Ideas examined in this class will include: How do we use rhetoric in our lives both consciously and unconsciously? How do rhetors and rhetoric interact on an intellectual, academic, and public level to influence identity creation? How do cultures benefit/suffer from language, identity, and policy built on rhetorical frameworks? This course will allow students to see rhetoric not as a negative label, but as a method to interrogate the texts, the visuals, and the conversations we consistently encounter.

ENGL 200: Basic Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
During the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” Today, we commonly understand grammar as a prescriptive set of rules to communicate in a predictable fashion. Throughout this semester, you will be encouraged to understand grammar in both of these ways and to emerge from this course able to understand the “rules as tools” that help you to speak and write more effectively. There will be parts of the course that might be compared to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by published writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

ENGL 200: Basic Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying structures that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these structures, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. To that end, we will focus on drills and homework to understand basic grammar, and then apply that knowledge to analyze the rhetorical choices we make when we write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, global English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will take several short tests to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 201: Introduction to Writing of Nonfiction Prose
Instructor: McGath, Carrie
In English 201, we will navigate the genre of creative nonfiction (CNF) through readings, discussion, and writing. We will explore the many forms CNF can take including the personal essay, memoir, travel writing, nature writing, the lyric essay, and cultural criticism. CNF is a multi-faceted genre we will closely study and evaluate with readings, assignments, and in-class writing. Additionally, we will execute the craft of CNF with our own writing as we engage with one another’s work in workshops. We will cover a myriad of nonfiction authors including Alexander Chee, Joan Didion, Patti Smith, Mary Roach, David Sedaris, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and many more. We will cover subjects ranging from craft to music, art, memoir, and much more.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares students for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare students for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Digital technology is changing the way we experience information. New digital tools have changed our communication landscape, but there remain solid, time-tested communication skills that are still imperative to developing content and sharing information.

We all belong to a discourse community known as Millennials, myself included, which means we are “digital natives.” For the most part we all know how to consume media, and in this class we’ll take a look at mechanisms of professional content development for different media, and we’ll practice writing for basic forms of media in various professional contexts. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to public relations—and eventually produce a writing portfolio, preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come.

We will work in class collaboratively as fellow professionals. As professional students you will be expected to conduct yourselves as aspirant members of the professional world outside of the university. This semester, we will examine the ever expanding realm of news media, learn how to find stories, publicize events (or products), interview compelling people, and edit to produce tight, cogent copy. This course is a prerequisite for ENGL 493, a writing internship. You will produce a portfolio suitable for internship or employment interviews.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Boyd, Jacob
With writing prompts and traditional forms as models, you will learn to recognize and practice common poetic strategies. You will read poetry written in a variety of traditions from over the past five hundred years. Class time will be partly devoted to discussion of essays and poems and partly to workshops–a group consultation and analysis of your own poems. Participation will be mandatory.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Reynolds, Evan
The term “poetry” comes from the Greek “poiesis,” roughly meaning “making.” This course will present poetry as a human-constructed art object and explore various periods and genres of poetry—from ancient to contemporary—to show the various assumptions about what thing is thought to have been made when we say “poetry.” With a particular emphasis on the lyric tradition, we will discover the most common formal components of a poem (e.g. line, meter, stanza, diction, etc.) in order to learn how to produce our own poetry.

While this class will emphasize form and a poem’s constructedness, we should not lose sight that poetry is ultimately brought into existence by human agency and oftentimes deals primarily with human concerns. In the words of poet Fernando Pessoa: “The poet is a faker / Who’s so good at his act / He even fakes the pain / Of pain he feels in fact.” This class will prepare students to produce their own poetry, to collect a critical vocabulary, to engage in productive critique, to revise their own poems and perhaps even to start to develop aesthetic proclivities.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Goldbach, John
This course is a writing workshop designed to advance your skills as a fiction writer by reading fiction (viz., stories and novel excerpts, from Kate Chopin, Guy de Maupassant and Franz Kafka to Gabriel García Márquez, Alice Munro and John Edgar Wideman, etc.), writing original work and critiquing your peers’ work. We will survey a variety of techniques in published fiction so as to explore craft possibilities. We will read these works—published authors’ and our own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our core focus being process, aim and technique, i.e., the writer’s craft, examining how the works are composed. Our discussions and the workshopping of peers’ writing will focus on the skills and techniques studied throughout the course. In general, we will focus on becoming stronger writers and more attentive readers of fiction. We will cultivate a respectful and productive workshop dynamic in the classroom.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
This course is designed with two aims: to develop your fiction writing skills and enhance your abilities as fiction readers, primarily regarding the short story. We will discuss aspects of fiction and the craft of writing, read exemplary models of published work, and workshop your stories as a class. We will read these works—published authors’ and your own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our focus being process and technique, i.e. the writer’s craft, how writers do what they do. Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ stories will focus on the skills and techniques studied and practiced throughout the semester. You will produce a number of short exercises and a few full-length stories. It might even be actual fun.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Frangello, Gina
This course combines learning basic craft techniques for writing fiction (such as point of view, character development, and scene vs. summary), with a traditional workshop format in which all students will turn in a complete short story to be given constructive feedback by a “primary critic” and the larger group. Areas of particular concentration in our class will also include the art of revising, writing beyond “what you know,” and understanding the contemporary publishing landscape. All members must be ready to take active part in the workshop; verbal participation is a strong requirement of the course.

ENGL 222: Theory and Practice for Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors. As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design. In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 222: Theory and Practice for Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course that will help prepare you to become a tutor in the UIC Writing Center. In this course, you will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, and effective tutoring strategies. Guiding questions will include: What is writing? What is tutoring? Why should we tutor writers? And how should we tutor writers? In addition to our weekly class meetings, you will be required to work (unpaid) in the Writing Center an average of two hours per week. Attendance and punctuality are requirements for both class and tutoring.

All course readings will be available on Blackboard. Course activities will include: observing experienced tutors; cross-tutoring; participating in class discussions and presentations; reflecting on tutoring sessions (aided by transcription and discourse analysis); and weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other topics, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of ideology, culture, and power in education. For our final project, the class will work collaboratively to design, implement, analyze, and report on an abbreviated qualitative research project involving some aspect of college writing, writing centers, and/or tutoring.

ENGL 233: History of Film II: World War II to the Present
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of the modern era of film history, with emphasis on the various “new waves” that rocked the cinema establishment during the postwar period, and on the major technical developments (widescreen, Dolby stereo, digital media) that have changed the ways we see, hear, and consume movies. Among the areas likely to be covered in the course are: the Italian neorealist movement of Rossellini and De Sica, the early American avant-garde of Deren and Anger, the postwar Japanese cinema of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, the European art cinema of Bergman and Fellini, the rule-breaking French New Wave of Godard and Truffaut, the immediacy-seeking Cinéma Vérité movement of Drew and Pennebaker, the identity-building African cinema of Sembene and Mambéty, and the technically innovative blockbusters of Coppola and Spielberg. Course requirements include regular written responses and online quizzes.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Chiang, Mark
What are the stories that we tell about our world? What do such stories reveal, reflect or represent? What is the nature of “truth” and “reality” in fiction? This course will introduce students to fundamental methods of literary analysis and theoretical concepts and models through a variety of texts including poetry, short stories, a novel, and essays in literary theory and criticism. We will attend both to the formal and technical devices by which writing constructs itself as “literary” and to the literary text’s relation to its world, to our world. Literature constitutes the most extensive record of human historical memory and remains therefore an essential resource for comprehending the evolution of the modern world. This class will seek to provide a few keys to unlocking this archive of civilization. Readings will include works by such writers as Wallace Stevens, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edgar Allan Poe, Hisaye Yamamoto, Sui Sin Far, Toshio Mori, Octavia Butler, Carlos Bulosan, Zora Neale Hurston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, and E.L. Doctorow.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
What’s the difference between studying literature and just reading it? If you’re taking English 240, you’re probably an English major, and you probably find some pleasure in reading and maybe writing stories and poems. The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that come up when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest also in English studies as an intellectual discipline. In this class, we’ll do this in three ways. First, we’ll pay particularly close attention to a range of texts, focusing on questions like why one word (say, “stilled”) is used rather than another (say, “stopped”) or what is lost (or gained) when a ten page short story is edited into a five page shorter story. Second, we’ll study several different theories about what it means for readers to understand the meaning of a text, and we’ll do this in part by considering the relations between literary and legal texts – between what’s involved in interpreting a novel and what’s involved in interpreting, say, the Constitution. Third, we’ll pay special attention to what what’s involved in writing about literature – to what a literary critical thesis or argument looks like and to how to go about formulating one.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: Words and Power
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
The Greek philosopher Socrates found writers to be so dangerous he wanted them exiled from his ideal Republic. But what did he fear in a reckless imagination and a creative re-making of the world? More recently in the 20th century both totalitarian and democratic regimes have had ways of regulating words, spreading myths (“fake news”), and mitigating dissent. This course explores links between literature and the world it describes, with a specific focus on the question: what are the links between words and power? The focus will be on four broad eras: (1) classical Greece (Plato & Aristotle) as we think of how the sophists related to public debate; (2) Enlightenment/18th century Europe, where challenges to monarchical and despotic power found expression in a new type of writing on art and literary texts (Hume, Burke, de Staël); (3) the 19th century (Marx, Baudelaire, Nietzsche); and finally (4) the modern/contemporary era, where a range of literary theories re-visit and reformulate this question (Saussure, Roland Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak). The goal is to provide students with an analytic “toolkit” that can be used to think critically not only about literary texts, but also “social” texts, society and cultural works. All readings will be available as PDFs.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Studies and Critical Methods
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll tackle a small number of works in a variety of genres and media (poetry, short stories, novels, plays, film, and literary critical essays) from a range of time periods. As we think about how to understand these works in formal, aesthetic, and historical terms, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and the theory of critical interpretation. We’ll proceed from three basic questions: What kind of thing is literature? What do we as students have in mind (and what to professional writers and literary critics have in mind) when talking about the meaning of a work of literature? What kind of a practice is literary criticism – how does it differ from and what does it share with other critical and intellectual practices? As we’ll see, the answers to these questions, far from being obvious, have been the subject of longstanding, rigorous debate. We’ll also examine how literature progresses – how do writers enter into dialogue (and sometimes dispute) with their contemporaries and predecessors, and how do these engagements affect their practice and the literary works they produce?

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
This course will survey British literature of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. We will start with Chaucer and conclude with Aphra Behn, in between reading Marlowe, Shakespeare, Wyatt, Sydney, Spenser and Milton. My main goal for the course is that you engage with difficult, old literary genres and think about what those genres did for earlier readers: who writes a love sonnet and why? What’s the historical context in which an allegorical romance, full of dragons, knights, wizards and ladies, makes sense? My second goal is that you improve at reading this stuff, so that you leave the class with a sense that if you want to, you can continue reading pre-modern literature on your own. There will be two papers and a final.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660-1900
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
This course is about how British imperialism was essential to the invention of “English literature.” Over the semester, we will read the canonical figures of modern English literature from the Restoration (1660) to the end of the Victorian period (1902) and learn how Britain’s colonial exploits during this epoch (which included slavery, abolition, settler colonialism and mutinies) were integral to the British literary imagination. Even though places like India, Jamaica, South Africa, and Argentina rarely find themselves on the pages of writers like Defoe, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Emily Brontë, Doyle, and Conrad (all of whom, amongst others, we will read), these sites were central to the formation of their national identity their novels, poetry, and non-fiction. In a word, the point of this class is to introduce the idea that “English literature” is not properly English.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Coviello, Peter
This course surveys the astonishing archive of American writing from the 18th-
and 19th-cenuries, the years that witness the transformation of a provincial colonial outpost into that unlikeliest of things: a nation. We will read a great range of works, written by slaves, aristocrats, sailors, spinsters, sex-radicals, and bureaucrats, to ask how contradictions between empire and freedom, colonization and enfranchisement, democracy and enslavement, gave shape to the “America” that emerged. Authors will include Phillis Wheatley, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others. Students will be responsible for two critical essays and two exams, as well as reading quizzes as needed.

ENGL 302: Studies in the Moving Image: The Horror Film
Instructor: Cassidy, Marsha
In this course we study the narrative and cinematic conventions that have come to define the Hollywood horror genre and its main sub-categories. Each Thursday, we screen in class a touchstone example of a horror film from across the genre’s history, beginning in the silent era and ending with contemporary versions. After reviewing the genre’s low-brow reputation, we turn to newer scholarship that takes the genre seriously, examining issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, and the body. Students are required to write several response papers, complete a creative project, submit a final research paper, and prepare a classroom presentation.

Students may take the course after completing any earlier film course or with permission from the instructor: mcassidy@uic.edu.

ENGL/MOVI 302 is a required capstone course to complete the Moving Image Arts minor.

ENGL 305: Studies in Fiction: Coming of Age
Instructor: Schaafsma, David
This course, English 305, is labeled Studies in Fiction, but the focus this summer will be Coming of Age: a selection of classic, Young Adult and Graphic Novels, with a focus maybe a bit more on teenaged girls. And the stories of growing up This is a course I initially envisioned would be primarily of interest to people in the program I direct, English Education, but I have found in recent years that people from all areas of the department take the course, so I expanded it from its YA focus. My idea is to take this theme, Growing Up/Coming of Age and analyze it as a focused area of literature, anmake connections to personal experience, as such a topic would seem to invite. Finally, I will design some of the work we will do to appeal to future teachers/writers.

Some texts I am considering: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (the one canonical text!), Milkman by Ann Burns, Sally Rooney’s Normal People, The Carnival at Bray, by Jessie Ann Foley, (do you see an Irish theme?) The Virgin Suicides by Jeffry Eugenides, This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Theth by Josh Bayer, and so many others, but invite your suggestions, too.

Work in the course will range from “creative” writing to curricular work (how to approach a book, pedagogically) to traditional literary analyses, given the range of student interests in the department. Final projects will be negotiated with me.

ENGL 341: Literature and Popular Culture
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine speculative literature authored by American writers of color. Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element. Writers of color will primarily be limited to non-white writers, although the nuanced details of that definition will be discussed further during class. Readings will include books authored by Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Hiromi Goto, and anthologies edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Nisi Shawl, and Uppinder Mehan / Nalo Hopkinson.

ENGL 359: Ethnic American Literature
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
This course will focus on the various ways in which American writers have used forms of speculative fiction (such as alternate history, utopia/dystopia, magical realism, time travel narratives, and alien abduction stories) to explore issues of racial and ethnic identity, history, culture, and national belonging. A key question guiding all the course readings and discussion will be: what unique insights into race and ethnicity in America are made possible when authors break away from realism and adopt speculative and fantastic literary forms? Authors include Octavia Butler, Sherman Alexie, Philip Roth, Karen Yamashita, Ted Chiang, Ken Liu.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copyediting techniques, style requirements, use of grammar as a stylistic tool and publishing industry standards. Students will write a book chapter, design a book cover and produce its interior.

ENGL 383: Writing Digital and New Media
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”

Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.

You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. If (OK, when) you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources like ACCC, and, of course, I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of digital media.

ENGL 394: Special Topics in English Studies: The Rhetorical Politics of Presidential Campaigns
Instructor: Reames, Robin and Simpson, Dick
“Make America Great Again.” “Feel the Bern.” “Si se puede.” “Ask not what your country can do for you.” “I feel your pain.” “No new taxes.” What do all these words have in common? They are things that presidential candidates have said in order to change our minds and win our votes. In the elections of 2008 and 2016, words like these drastically impacted the presidential campaigns, changing the electoral landscape in the 21st century. In this section of English 394 and Political Science 300, led by rhetoric scholar Robin Reames and political scientist Dick Simpson, we will study the rhetorical politics of the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. We use a range of rhetorical and linguistic theories and examine the nuts and bolts of the ongoing campaigns. Our aim will be to analyze and critique how persuasion occurs in the medium of the campaign, how campaign rhetoric defines and defies rhetorical genres, how campaigners harness the power of speech to persuade, and how political campaign rituals and practices shape and are shaped by the American electoral process. We will also study how campaigns are structured, how money is raised, and how voters are contacted in person—by phone, social media, and by mass media. Major assignments include an in-class presentation, a mid-term exam, a rhetorical analysis and a take-home final exam.

ENGL 408: Topics in Medieval Literature: The Once and Never King: Power and Paradox in the Medieval Arthurian Romance
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
In this course we will explore the paradoxical figure of King Arthur in medieval romance. By turns superman and weak cuckold, Christ figure and demonic berserker, Arthur emerges not as a transcendental “once and future king” of popular myth but as a constantly mutating embodiment of the troughs and peaks of medieval English kingship and the tragic reflection of a feudal system in crisis.

ENGL 416: Topics in Renaissance Literature: Conversion
Instructor: Magarik, Raphael
Renaissance literature is full of conversions, both real and fictional: the Muslim noblewoman whose secret Bible-reading inspires her to elope with a Christian captive, and the English pirate who “turns Turk” and changes his name from John Ward to Yusuf Reis; John Donne denouncing his familial Catholic roots in a series of vicious polemical tracts and ascending to the highest ranks of English Protestantism, and King Charles I’s parliamentary opponents imagining that he has become a secret Catholic; Spanish debates about the sincerity of compelled Jewish conversions, and the constant allegations in Reformation theological polemics that people who disagreed with you were “Judaizing.”

We will study some of those conversions, which offer us a window into a sixteenth and seventeenth century world that is at once remarkably global and interconnected and intensely violent and fractured. Conversions raise basic questions about the boundaries between and definition of human groupings, and whether and how such boundaries can be crossed. So we will ask questions about the meaning and history of terms like “religion” and “race,” asking how they arose and what they meant in the Renaissance. We will range geographically (London, Ferrara, Madrid, the West Indies, and Ottoman North Africa) and generically (romance, drama, lyric, memoir). Selected, limited secondary readings will provide both historical and intellectual context.

Students will be responsible for introducing one of the texts we read to the class; very short, biweekly reading responses, from which our class discussion will draw; and three writing assignments of varying lengths.

ENGL 417: Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Instructor: Freeman, Lisa A.
Wherefore art thou Shakespeare? A King Lear where Cordelia lives, a Macbeth that gives equal time to the Macduffs? The Restoration and Eighteenth-Century stage is notorious for its adaptations and rewritings of what we now think of as Shakespeare’s greatest works. These adaptations seem genuinely strange to us, but for Restoration and Eighteenth-Century audiences, these “versions” of Shakespeare would have seemed utterly normal. For some worshipers of the Bard, this might sound like sacrilege, but it is arguably the case that if it hadn’t been for these adaptations and rewritings, Shakespeare would never have emerged as the most important playwright in the English-speaking world and would certainly not hold center stage today. Suspending judgment, this course will examine a number of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century adaptations and rewritings of Shakespeare’s works and try to account for their wild popularity on the Restoration and Eighteenth-Century stage. As an inextricable part of our examinations, we will explore the cultures of stage adaptation and textual editing which dominated the period and pay particular attention to the rise of the Shakespearean actor. Together we will try to make sense of this singularly astonishing cultural phenomenon and trace its ongoing legacy. Course requirements will include a variety of short writing assignments and one long paper.

ENGL 427: Topics in American Literature and Culture: Literature and Apocalypse in the 21st Century
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
The prize winning poet Rebecca Dean Howell’s 2013 work Render: An Apocalypse defines its subtitle not according to the familiar dictionary definitions of the term such as “revelation or disclosure” or “the complete and final destruction of the world” (OED) but rather as “a literary genre informed by hallucination, grief, and a long view of history.” There is of course a long history of writing – including the Christian New Testament’s Book of Revelation but also a host of dystopian works that depict various forms of global catastrophe and disaster – that identify the term with financial, social, and environmental collapse. And certainly anyone paying attention to the news in the past several years can’t help but note the dire warnings made on a daily basis predicting one or more of those grim possibilities, which are often also identified explicitly as forms of apocalypse. In this class we’ll read a variety of 21st-century works of fiction, poetry and memoir that take up the idea of apocalypse thematically or formally (or both). Some of the works we’ll read will include Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, Ben Lerner’s 10:04: A Novel, Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution, Forrest Gander & John Kinsella’s Redstart: An Ecological Poetics, Evelyn Riley’s, Styrofoam, among others. We’ll also read excerpts from some recent theoretical approaches to the topic by Jane Bennett, Ursula Heise, Bruno Latour, Carolyn Levine, Timothy Morton, Christian Parenti, Frank Wilderson, and others. Grading will be based on a final conference-roundtable style paper of 4-6pp (1500-2000 words), short informal assignments with both analytic and creative options, contributions to class discussion.

ENGL 429: Topics in Literature and Culture
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
We will be looking at works by and about poor people. The course will consider the problems of representing the poor in literature, art, photography, and film. Novels by Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Richard Wright, John Steinbeck, Ivan Gold, Agnes Smedley and others are included in the reading list.

ENGL 459: Introduction to the Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Kindelsperger, Abigail
This course is designed to introduce students to the field of English Education. We will explore the seemingly simple question, Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to a series of related questions, such as, What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? We will consider competing perspectives and reflect on our own assumptions in an attempt to develop an emerging framework for how we might approach English teaching. We will read a range of theoretical works and teacher stories to broaden our understanding of literacy and teaching in different contexts. Additionally, we will explore young adult literature, spoken word poetry, and popular culture texts that could be included in a middle or high school curriculum.

Please note: 12 hours of field experience is a required component of this course.

English 474: Topics in Popular Culture and Literature: Undead in American Culture
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
“Undead” could be used to designate a specific literary motif or genre, but in this course we shall use the term to create a field of inquiry. For this reason, the term “undead” will remain somewhat fluid in meaning, and the field or object of study will necessarily remain open-ended. We will undoubtedly be influenced by contemporary American culture as we work through nineteenth-century texts, but we should not assume that there is a direct or inevitable link between earlier versions of supernatural death and contemporary versions of a zombie apocalypse (I avoided the z-word as long as I could). We will begin with a sampling of contemporary texts in which the emergence of the undead precipitates the complete breakdown of human society: Richard Matheson, I Am Legend; Justin Cronin, The Passage; Ben Tripp, Rise Again; and perhaps a zombie film or two. (I would also like to consider the AMC series The Walking Dead if at all possible.) Next, we will travel back in time to the Nineteenth Century, using contemporary works as a kind of lens to reinterpret a couple of classic American texts: Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; and Wharton, Ethan Frome (and perhaps selected tales by Edgar Allan Poe). We will return to the present in accordance with the research projects of class participants. Assignments include an annotated bibliography, two papers, written preparation, possible quizzes, and class participation. Attendance and reading are mandatory.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Mayo, Russell
ENGL 481 is the capstone course in the sequence of UIC’s English Education methods courses. It is to be taken the semester before student teaching in conjunction with ED 425, “Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.” This course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to adolescents. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Along the way, we will focus on long and short term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, and practice lesson plans they design. This semester, ENGL 481 will be organized around the overlapping themes of climate change and the environment. Required course texts listed below and should be purchased by the end of Week 1 (all others will be provided by the instructor):
– Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet. (Cohen & Dunlap, 2016)
– Parable of the Sower (Butler, 2019)
– Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents: Reading, Writing, and Making a Difference (Beach Share, & Webb, 2017)
– Teaching English by Design: How to Create and Carry Out Instructional Units. (Smagorinsky, 2019)
– Shakespeare (specific titles TBD)

ENGL 482: Campus Writing Consultants
Instructor: Williams, Charitianne
English 482 focuses on Writing Center Theory specifically for future educators from across the disciplines. We will examine the role of writing in relationship to learning, and how to support student learning through writing beyond composition and single assignments. The class will explore the relationship between students’ language use and their educational experiences, and how an educator’s awareness of these factors can lead to a healthier educative environment for students. Writing Center administration (with an intent to make this focus transferable to other student-support contexts), developing a research-informed practice, online tutoring, and tutoring developmental through graduate-level writers will all be explored. Collaborative and anti-oppressive pedagogical practices are emphasized. In addition to instruction time, class members are required to complete 2 hours of one-on-one tutoring in the UIC writing center per week. After completing the course, students will have the opportunity to apply for paid hourly positions.

ENGL 483: Studies in Language and Rhetoric
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
LEARN
CONNECT
ENGAGE
The Freshwater Lab Internship course consists of three parts: study of local and regional water and environmental issues; skill-building with professionals in the areas of environmental writing and communication, community-based research, water policy, and public health; placement in an internship for the last five weeks of the semester.

There is the option to stay in your internship during summer 2020, be paid for your work, and join an active Freshwater Lab cohort.

Guest speakers, field trips, and self-designed projects are all part of this exciting new Freshwater Lab program.

ENGL 486:Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
Why teach writing? and How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer as we work together in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not so much as a transfer of information from one person to another but as a process of learning—a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter many practical, day-to-day activities suggested by successful writing teachers; we will model and practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students to write not just essays, but other genres as well. In sum, we’ll working toward the goal of this class, which is to prepare you to establish and maintain a productive community of writers.

Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school (which we’ll arrange together at the beginning of the semester) , two portfolios demonstrating what you’ve learned in various sections of the course, and a series of lesson plans that integrate reading and writing.

ENGL 489: Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. 12-15 hours of field work required. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 459 and completion of the University Writing requirement, or consent of the instructor.

ENGL 490: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
This writing laboratory further develops the poetic concepts and critical tools studied in English 210, but with a more refined focus on the study of individual authors and sustained student projects. We will read poems and collections by modernist and contemporary authors from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and there will be a special focus on writings and translations by Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx poets whose work traverses multiple nations and languages. These writers will serve as models for our experiments with form and content; and as models of writers committed to the belief that poetry has a place in public discourse. In the first part of the semester, students will submit weekly poetry assignments focusing on formal and conceptual concerns. In the second part, students will develop a lengthier, more sustained project, and will complete a portfolio of revised work with their own critical introduction.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
This course will provide an environment to hone your creative and critical skills. Requirement: English 212. The sole and primary texts for this course will by your own work.

ENGL 492: Topics in Literary Nonfiction: Latinidades
Instructor: Urrea, Luis
In this class, we will focus on new voices and new works in the Latinx literary nonfiction world. We will also cover some cinema and selected examples of popular music & podcasts. The world is changing and the Latinx voice is vibrant and alive.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that sometimes stumps students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information on the internet through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work, and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses. Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. In the dynamic metropolis of Chicago there is an internship for every interest.

Credit is variable: three or six credits. English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 498/499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students, plus the accompanying weekly seminar. These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses, and for each course students must enroll in both a lecture and discussion section. (In other words, students will enroll in a total of four CRN’s: two for Engl. 498 and two for Engl. 499.) Students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.

The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. Student teachers will spend the term working in a secondary school, where they will be guided by a mentor teacher and a university field instructor. The Wednesday seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching, 2) those that help student teachers complete the edTPA assessment, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 537: Global and Multiethnic Literatures and Cultures: Afrofuturism and the Aesthetic
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
Within recent literary and cultural studies, we have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the aesthetic. Whether it be accounts of the trajectory of twentieth-century literary criticism, or of a renewed humanities that reasserts its relevance to our conception of the University, or studies that suggest its essential role in recalibrating the logic of political judgment, the aesthetic has assumed pride of place in these and other central questions organizing the field. Afrofuturism is another and equally influential moment whose presence has inflected much recent thinking on race, technology, and the role of difference in thinking the possibility of (political) community. The aim of this course is to place these two moments in conversation, interrogating the respective conceptions of the human that reside at the center of each their projects.

ENGL 540: Seminar in Modern and/or Contemporary Studies in English: Impressionism
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
Joseph Conrad’s LORD JIM is no longer a Victorian imperial yarn and not yet a modernist novel; until recently, the term “literary impressionism” seemed simply to lump together whatever had a similar relationship to this _no longer_ and this _not yet_. This changed with the recent publication of Michael Fried’s _What Was Literary Impressionism_, which synthesizes many of the texts widely considered impressionist (and a few that aren’t) as contradictory but related attempts to grapple with a single literary-theoretical problem: very briefly and generally, the experience of the scene of writing — the relationship between the fictional and the real origin of the words on the page — as both a practical crisis and an explicitly or implicitly thematized problem. Fried’s necessary and pathbreaking book is also, like all books that open up new areas of research, peculiar and confounding; meanwhile, standard accounts of the passage from the “Victorian” or “realist” novel to the “modernist” one were never very theoretically or historically satisfactory in the first place. Our ambition this semester will not be simply to master or to evaluate Fried’s arguments about literary impressionism, but to develop from it (or against it) a coherent account of the development of literary impressionism out of or against the background of other forms of literary writing, and of the development of literary modernism (of which we may now be in a position to form a clearer picture) out of or against the background of literary impressionism. Finally (and perhaps most importantly for current critical debates and for problems in contemporary literary practice) at least some versions of postmodern reflexive irony, of contemporary autofiction, and even of recent developments in lyrical form also hinge on the problem of the scene of writing. We may find that these are less the dramatic historical developments they initially appear than they are historical mobilizations of a longstanding literary dynamic.

Readings

We will be reading essays by Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, J.M. Coetzee, Ian Watt, and others, as well as material on the literary market at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The following list of books is provisional. We are more interested in a set of issues than a set of books, so we might not get to all of these, or we might decide to substitute other works later in the semester, or we may crank through these and add others. However, please note that we will certainly start with Stephen Crane’s _The Red Badge of Courage_, which we will discuss in earnest on the first day of class on January 13.

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
————, Prose and Poetry

H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
————, The War of the Worlds (1897)

Joseph Conrad, Almayer’s Folly (1895)
————, Lord Jim (1900)
————, The Secret Agent (1907)
————, Under Western Eyes (1911)

Ford Madox Ford, The Fifth Queen (1906-1908)
————, The Good Soldier (1915)
————, Parade’s End (1924-1928)

Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room (1922)
Gertrude Stein, The Geographical History of America (1936)
J.M. Coetzee, Dusklands (1974)
Zoë Wicomb, David’s Story (2000)
Rachel Cusk, Outline (2014)
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)

Michael Fried, Realism, Writing, Disfiguration
————, What Was Literary Impressionism
Maria Elisabeth Kronegger, Impressionism
Jesse Matz, Literary Impressionism and Modernist Aesthetics
John G. Peters, Conrad and Impressionism

Writing assignments

Students will write weekly response papers and one longer response to be presented orally to the class. The major assignment will be in two parts: a 15-20 minute oral presentation to be presented during the last two weeks of class, and an article-length final paper which will generally be a revised and expanded version of the oral presentation.

Exams and Grading

There will be no exams. Grades will be based on 40% final paper, 30% oral presentation, 20% responses, and 10% class discussion.

ENGL 555: Teaching College English
Instructor: Bennett, Mark
English 555 prepares you to teach first-year writing courses at UIC and to examine the teaching of writing as an intellectual activity that fits within the disciplinary work of English Studies. In addition to reading and discussing some of the history and key debates in the teaching of college writing, you will create two detailed syllabi for UIC’s first-year writing courses, English 160 and 161. Your chief task is to design writing projects and plan instruction that supports your students’ work on those projects. Day-to-day activities that help students successfully com­plete their writing assignments include attention to the genre of the task at hand, an understanding of the context and situation, attention to sentence-level grammatical issues, analysis of readings for content or as examples of a genre, and discussion of the possible consequences of a piece of writing. We also will focus on other writing class activities, including: small-group work, responding to and grading written work, and engaging students in peer review. You will also work in a five-week mentorship with an instructor who currently teaches at UIC, and serve for five weeks as a tutor in the Writing Center. The payoff for you is that you will feel conversant with current trends in rhetoric and writing studies. You will feel confident and well prepared in your own FYW classroom. You’ll enjoy your teaching and feel like you are making a difference. You’ll even begin to think more carefully about your own writing as a scholar.

At the end of the semester, the English Department will award up to 10 paid teaching assistantships to M.A. students who do excellent work in English 555, which will allow you to teach two sections of English 160 in the following Fall semester and one section of English 161 in the following Spring semester.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
My section of English 571, Program for Writers Fiction Workshop, typically focuses on shorter forms. For those of you writing longer forms, I strongly encourage you to enroll in Professor Cris Mazza’s 500-level Novel Workshop. The sole and primary texts for this course will by your own work.

ENGL 572: Program for Writers: Novel Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This workshop is open to all graduate students in the English Department’s Program for Writers. All other graduate students from other English Department programs or from other departments must get prior approval of the professor. This is a writing workshop where we evaluate and discuss novels-in-progress. You do not have to have a completed novel to participate. You may only have an idea or a single chapter, perhaps several drafted chapters. Memoirs are also welcome. The workshop will not distribute nor discuss formula-driven genre/commercial fiction. Aspects of publishing and other functional or philosophic issues in a novelist’s life are also fodder for workshop conversation, and reading suggestions will depend on the focus taken by workshop submissions.

ENGL 582: Seminar in Multiethnic and Transatlantic Cultures: Colonia Moralia: Conrad, Adorno and Naipaul
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
This course explores three moments of disillusionment from modernity: Joseph Conrad’s critique of imperialism and historicism, Theodor Adorno’s dismay at the promises of the Enlightenment, and V.S. Naipaul’s meditations on the failures of postcolonial liberation. The first half to the semester focuses on Conrad’s fiction, where we will examine what a critique of empire and historicism looks like from within the confines of imperial thought. In the next half of the semester, we will turn to V.S. Naipaul’s fiction and non-fiction to track how the disillusionment from postcolonial liberation culminates in a critique of decolonization. Guiding our readings of Conrad and Naipaul will be Adorno’s *Minima Moralia*, which we will read in short segments over the course of the whole semester. All three of these writers are exilic and secular (in Said’s sense), and so will also give us an overview of how a particular strain of humanistic thinking has reflected on the role of the intellectual in the age of capitalist modernity.

ENGL 585: Seminar in Theoretical Sites: Novel Abstractions: Impersonality and Objectivity in Too Late Capitalism
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
Trends in the macroeconomy and the literary and cultural market evince not only that novels are over but also that they should be, because everyone prefers the subjectivity of personal expression on the memoir-instagram immediacy continuum to the mediated abstraction of longform comic-epic prose, and because soon there will be no humans to make fiction at all. Autofiction is the prestige corollary of this economic condition; poetry its unwitting beneficiary; memoirized theory its critical modality. This seminar engages the theory and history of the novel to try to make sense of such a present. We will read Marxist aesthetic theories alongside accounts of personality and impersonality, narcissism, human capital, fictional worldmaking, feminism, standpoint epistemology, objectivity, and ecocide. Our literary questions will focus on the residual faculties of novelistic fiction to conceptualize and perform the impersonal, the social, and the objective, with particular emphasis on 3rd person narration, Free Indirect Discourse, and realism. At the same time, we will track the novel’s priority as the artform unique to capitalism, and ask how the disfavored aesthetic can still help us think the world system at the threshold of extinction. Novelists may include Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Daniel Defoe, Amitav Ghosh, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Ben Lerner, Valeria Luiselli, Toni Morrison, Ali Smith, Virginia Woolf.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
In this course, we will read and learn how to appreciate great works of literature. We will read, analyze, and discuss several short stories, one novel, about ten poems, and a play. Authors will include Hemingway, Jamaica Kincaid, Oscar Wilde, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, and several other poets. We will write two major papers and several shorter papers. We will have midterm and final exams.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Magers, Dan
When we read stories or watch movies, we often want there to be a “happy ending.” We understand the phrase “they lived happily ever after” to mean that, against all odds, things are going to turn out okay (even great!) for the hero or heroine. It has not always been this way (the endings of the Ancient Greek epic The Illiad and the Old English epic Beowulf are, in their own ways, rather grim). The idea of the happy ending is closely tied with the “romance,” which was a medieval narrative genre about love and adventure, featuring knights, damsels, wizards, etc. In English literature since then, works often display a combination of “realism” (representing reality or real life as we experience it) and “romance” (which is closely tied to our idea of “fantasy”). In this class, we will read a combination of novels, plays, and poems to think about literature and how these works relate to this combination of realism and romance. Expect to read often, read carefully, and read closely (and plan to do some writing about what we read as well). In addition, be read to discuss your ideas, thoughts, and feelings about what we read with your classmates in pairs, groups, and as a class.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Sherfinski, Todd
Haroon, the young protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s Haroon and The Sea of Stories, asks his famous storytelling father, “What’s the point of telling stories that might not even be true?” It’s a good question. One that might lead students to ask, why do I need to take a Lit. course? What’s the big deal about short stories, poems? Who cares about Emily Grierson, about a red wheel barrow? Everyone knows that plots are just pieces of burying ground, characters are signs on a keyboard, and settings control a smartphone’s heartbeat. English 101 will address these questions and more as an introductory Literature course that focuses on the literary and poetic elements and devices found in fiction and poetry, and examines how we (readers) do something with these stories and poems by wittingly and unwittingly applying literary approaches to them. Through close readings, class discussions, quizzes, written assignments, and oral presentations students in English 101 will both sharpen their critical and interpretive skills and provide a variety of answers to Haroon’s query.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Dancey, Angela
This course is an introduction to the study and analysis of film, looking at cinema as an art form (mise en scène, camerawork, editing, sound design), a social and cultural institution, and an industry. Students will watch, discuss, and write about a variety of films from around the world, examining their formal aspects (how are they constructed?), their significance (what do they mean?), and the historical contexts in which they were produced. Assignments include weekly Blackboard discussion posts, short response papers, reading quizzes, and midterm and final exams.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Hart, Jenna
Why poetry? We can usually tell just by looking at something that it’s a poem— but why write that way at all? What work does poetry do that other forms of writing do not? In this course, we’ll be working on understanding poems through close readings, as well as understanding the greater social and historical contexts of when they were written. We’ll be reading a wide variety of poetry written in English over several centuries: everything from selections of Old English epics, the Romantics, modernism, conceptual poetry, music lyrics, and more. In reading all of this, we’ll be pursuing questions about the poetry on a formal level (what can we understand about the poet’s choice of language, metaphor, rhyme, etc?), about the poetry on a historical level (what can we understand about the poem’s context, its relationship to the self, history, and the community?), and about the poetry on a personal level (how can we engage with it? how can we enjoy it and understand it?). Grading will be based on a variety of written assignments, both shorter and longer, as well as participation in class discussion.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Beckett, Albee, Soyinka, Fornés, and Parks, and we will see and review a production by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: The Future(s)
Instructor: Raden, Justin
This course will examine different approaches in English and American fiction to an increasingly anxiety inducing concept: the future. We’ll ask how fiction conceives the future differently than science, even (and especially!) when the two are nominally combined as “science fiction”. Our investigation will begin with a brief exploration of late-19th century science fiction and early 20th century “futurisms” before moving on to mid- and late-20th and 21st century genres like Afrofuturism, cli-fi (climate fiction), dystopian sci-fi, etc. Our main focus will be on fiction, but we’ll also look at some examples of future-oriented work in music, cinema, multimedia arts, and visual media (painting, sculpture, photography).

Our ultimate goal in this class will be to think the future, not as a generic or universal category, but as a concept that is differently inflected by issues of race, gender, class, disability, and other ways of knowing or experiencing the present.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: “What Are You, The Narrator?”: The Fictional Character as Author
Instructor: Jok, Laura
In this class, we will study fictional characters with the audacity to act like authors. Whether they literally write— novels, memoirs, letters, not-so-secret diaries—whether they tell stories about themselves or the unknowable other, whether they intend to invent or to represent, to entertain or persuade or deceive, these narrating characters claim the authority to control the dominant story. How does the omniscience, the secondary characters, and the plot itself complicate or challenge their accounts? Where does their imagination or capacity for empathy fail? Who represents and who is represented and who is left out of the narrative entirely? What social factors determine who can tell the story? Who says?

Texts may include:
Short Fiction: Grace Paley, “Listening”; John Barth, “Lost in the Funhouse”; Etgar Keret, “The Girl on the Fridge”; Adam Johnson, “Interesting Facts.” Novels: Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride; Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart, Jane Austen, Emma; Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions; Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist; Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea; Louise Erdrich, Tracks; Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: What is Modernism? British, Irish, and American Fiction (1914 – 1939)
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
What is modernism anyway? Is it a literary period or a set of shared aesthetic practices? Is it a reaction to the modern world, a rejection of nineteenth-century social norms, or a response to the crises of world war? Or might it somehow be all of the above? Through “close readings” of novels and short stories typically labelled “modernist,” we will attempt to answer (and productively complicate) these questions. What’s more, a goal of the class will be to account for the meaning, function, politics, value, and variances of this polymorphous concept.

In reading exemplary modernist authors—such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, Jean Toomer, Nathanial West, William Faulkner, and Samuel Beckett—we will encounter radical expansions of prose’s limits, modern responses to newly emergent questions of gender and sexuality, critiques of a degraded social existence, and interrogations of mass media and culture. The narrative innovations of these writers will be a major focus of ours—innovations such as fractured, non-linear time and “stream-of-consciousness” made it possible for fiction to portray fragmented worldviews and radical intersubjectivity as never before. As this is a discussion-based course, attendance and participation are crucial. Further requirements include in-class passage analyses and two close-reading papers.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
The summer of 2017 saw William Shakespeare at the center of public controversy with Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Julius Caesar, in which the actor playing the Roman leader – who is assassinated in the middle of the story – was dressed to resemble President Donald Trump.  Subtitled “Shakespearean Controversies,” this course investigates how Shakespeare confronts issues that persist and re-emerge in our own world today.  The shipwrecked Viola in Twelfth Night, for instance, finds herself a refugee in a dangerous, foreign land where identities of gender, class, and sexuality are anything but certain.  Internet surveillance and parental stalking provide contexts for understanding Hamlet’s network of spies, and both the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements offer contexts for approaching Othello.  Leading us through these issues will be Shakespeare’s plays:  written texts, videos of stage reproductions, Hollywood remakes, and a (possible) class trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 2019 production of Hamlet.  For many of us, the opportunity to see the plays we are reading can help make Shakespeare’s works “come alive.”  In our conversations this spring, we’ll see that they already were.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare: Shakespeare Then & Now
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
Shakespeare continues to stir our hearts and minds through words and stories about the joy of falling in love, the lust for power or revenge, the desire for harmony and beauty, the fascination with violence and death, and the strength we find at times to rise above a sea of troubles. We will seek to understand the long lasting power of Shakespeare’s plays by analyzing how recent films portray them. We will also take a trip back in time to learn how the plays were experienced by their first viewers. Thinking about what these plays teach us about life will give us an opportunity to practice a range of communication and critical thinking skills. Because the course will emphasize discussion and what students can learn from each other, attendance will count heavily. Assignments will include quizzes, reflections, adaptations, and proposals for new ways to enact the plays.

ENGL 108: British Literature and British Culture
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
Through novels and poetry we will examine British literature focusing on how people lived and what they thought and believed in the 18th and 19th century.  Authors such as Daniel Defoe, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and poets including William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Gerard Manley Hopkins will help us achieve this goal.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture: Space and Place in American Literature
Instructor: Brown, Margaux
The famous Southwestern writer, Mary Austin said that for literature to be considered “regional,” landscape must “enter constructively in the story, as another character.” This course will explore how particular spaces and places like the city or a landscape functions as a character in American literature. We will examine how authors define, describe, and create a place by exploring texts in urban and regional settings. Our task as readers will be to question and understand how space and place create cultural stereotypes, how they develop, how they condition readers’ imaginations, and how these stereotypes are resisted and transformed. We will read regional texts such as Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, Carson McCuller’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and N. Scott Momaday; and urban short stories and novels like Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s Sport of the Gods and Ann Petry’s The Street. Assessments will likely include reading quizzes, close reading exercises, as well as a longer paper.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres: From Spies to Sleuths, Monsters to Space-Marines
Instructor: Sheldon, Douglas
In this course we will examine British and American cultural representations in fiction, films, and graphic novels as presented in popular context. We will investigate the complex definitions of each genre and how we use them to understand English language cultural contexts. Working with texts in horror, mystery, science-fiction, and spy-fiction genres, along with film adaptations of these works, this course will attempt to produce plausible answers to the following questions: What defines a horror or espionage? What value is placed on the science or humanism? Who benefits from creating objects of illegality and who investigates crime? How do the separate modes of presentation (text v. film v. comic) engage us with these cultural concepts? Students in this class will be able to use these concepts to examine cultural representations, which produce, value, and challenge these genres.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature: The Madwoman Leaves the Attic
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
This course asks – what’s the relationship between madness and womanhood? We’ll read 19th, 20th, and 21st century novels, poetry, and short stories by women (both cis- and trans-) across a broad range of American, British, and Global locations to probe the long-standing history of mad women. Some of the questions that underpin this course are as follows: Who gets to decide who is and is not mad? In what ways do madness and gender or sexuality overlap? What spaces are attached to mad women? Through a combination of survivor narratives, literature, and theoretical accounts of gender and madness we’ll challenge a whole history of concepts about mad women. We’ll work continuously at short readings, producing smaller close reading papers, theory summaries, and creative reflections, as a means of exploring these and many more questions that emerge throughout the semester. Some authors may include:  Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Sylvia Plath, Marge Piercey, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Audre Lorde.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her father forty whacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her mother forty-one

There are 24 seasons and counting of the women-targeted Oxygen network show Snapped. The notion that women “snap,” or experience a breaking point and do violence, has been a source of public fascination for centuries, more mystery than mythology (although Medea of Greek mythology did murder her children). Murder seems the providence of men, while women who murder are considered particularly aberrant: unhinged, damaged, femme fatale, black widow, heartless and politically adept. Whatever the cause, they’re special monsters. Fiction has the capacity to complicate these narratives, complicating gendered, racial, and class conventions in the process. We’ll read global novels across centuries, from Thomas Hardy’s Tess to Anne Petry’s The Street to the Gothic We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) to contemporary novels by Natsuo Kirino (Out) and Oyinkan Braithwaite (My Sister the Serial Killer). We’ll take a gander at a few film femme fatales and ancient tales as well. What happens to concepts of good, and evil, and justice when women “lose it”? And what did they lose?

ENGL 112: Introduction to Native American Literature
Instructor: Lyons, MaryAnne
In the words of Thomas King (Cherokee/Greek/German): “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” In this course we will engage with the stories of Native American and First Nations people, from traditional oral narratives and rituals to contemporary works by living Native American and First Nations authors. We will look at these works within the contexts of the history, public policy, stereotypes, political resistance, and influences that inform and impact them. We will focus primarily on the genres of fiction and life-writing, but with some attention also given to political writing, poetry, and film.

ENGL 113: Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures in the United States
Instructor: Villarruel, Cecilia 
An introduction to the literature of racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including ways in which this literature reflects conflicts between these groups and the dominant American culture. Texts will likely include works by Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Luis Urrea, Lysley Tenorio, Helena Maria Viramontes, Maxine Hong Kingston, Thomas King, and George S. Schuyler. I love these writers. By the end of the semester, you’ll love them too. It’ll be great.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: The (After)Life of Empire
Instructor: Ryan, Robert
We are living a sort of afterlife. The world we inhabit was (and continues to be) shaped by a series of violent colonial encounters that reached their apogee at the end of the nineteenth century. Our world — unevenly distributed and inconsistent — is the outgrowth of these encounters. The organizing question of this class will be: how are we to live this afterlife? Put differently, I want to think together about what it means to live in the wake of the nineteenth century. That is, how do we live — ethically, aesthetically, individually and collectively — in the wake of institutions and practices like the transatlantic slave trade, the exploitation of the working class, the violent capture of land? Moreover, how do we live in a world where these moments are not altogether “the past,” but have rather changed form, recalibrated, gone underground? More and perhaps most importantly, how do we build something different in the ruins of this history?

Exploring these questions, the class will proceed along two distinct courses. First, we will read a sequence of late-imperial texts to get a sense of the often ambivalent representations of colonial activity from the perspective of the metropole. We will then read texts of a decidedly post-colonial moment in order to get a sense of how literature responded to — that is, refuted, reformed, reinterpreted — that colonial history.

This course is thus an investigation of the past and our present, an investigation of how we are all to collectively live in the not-yet-pastness of our past.

I want you to get as much from this class as you can. As such, I want you to have a say in how you are evaluated. So, we will decide collectively, as a class, on writing assignments: their length, their form, and their frequency.

Readings may include literary texts by Conrad, Kipling, Woolf, Joyce, Rushdie, Burns, Achebe, Kubrick and critical texts by Edward said, Christina Sharpe, Eric Hobsbawm, and others.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature: Feeling Queer
Instructor: O’Connor, Jared
What does it mean for a text to be queer? How might a text convey its queerness? Is queerness only sexuality or can it be located elsewhere? Can literature and art express something we might call a queer feeling? This introductory cross listed course will interrogate these questions and many others by paying particular attention to queer writers and artists throughout Western history. We will read a variety of literary forms and styles ranging from antiquity to the contemporary moment. Our inquires will be supplemented with readings and lectures from recent critical interventions in gender studies and queer theory. Readings may include: Sappho, Plato, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Elieen Myles, Mary Oliver, Joe Brainard, June Jordan and others. Course requirements: short close reading assignments, active participation, and a midterm and final exam.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture
Instructor: Drown, James
Film and its media outgrowths have become an integral part of daily modern life. These media are fascinating to study, as they act as both a reflection of our culture, and as an impetus for cultural change. They are one of the primary ways we embody much of our current storytelling, and that we perpetuate our cultural history and myths. In this class, we will view sets of populist films primarily from the late 60’s to the early 80’s. Looking at sets of films will allow us to use compare and contrast techniques to examine how films reflect the historical moment, deep-seated social beliefs, and help predict and reinforce social change. Requirements for the class include weekly responses to the films, a group project analyzing your own set of films, and a take-home midterm and final. After this class viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: All the World’s a Stage: Shakespearean Tragedy in Global Cinema
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
In this course we will examine four tragedies by William Shakespeare (Hamlet; King Lear; Macbeth; Othello) through the lens of world cinema. In addition to reading these plays, we will analyze filmic adaptations by American, British, Russian and Japanese directors, including Welles, Olivier, Kozintsev, and Kurosawa.  The aim of the course is to understand how Shakespeare’s great plays have been interpreted and understood both within and beyond the Anglophone world.

ENGL 121: Introduction to Moving Image Arts
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
In this class we identify the components of 20th century (largely) Hollywood cinema and critically articulate how these operate in films featuring (mainly) cities to address such issues as socio-economic class, labor, wealth, identity, etc.

Each week there is an 80 minute discussion session (Tuesday) and a discussion with a screening (Thursday). Student work includes readings, weekly papers, a longer midterm paper, a written exam and active discussion. Given the workload, it is advised that only students with a keen interest in cultural studies, sociology, humanities and/or anthropology take the course. This is not a course for those looking for an easy ‘A’ or for final semester seniors wishing to ‘glide.’

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Corcoran, Casey
In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle famously defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” He saw the usefulness of rhetoric in helping us arrive at solutions to the kinds of problems that couldn’t be solved using exact knowledge—problems that, in this course, we will discuss as primarily having to do with societal notions of law and justice.

In an effort to address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. Once this foundation is built, we will begin to think about rhetoric’s relationship specifically to notions of Law and Justice, and will consider the law as a rhetorical system which greatly structures our lived social experience. Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in terms of legal discourse and the pursuit of justice. In doing so, we hope to not only arrive at a better understanding of rhetoric and its relevance to our lives, but to develop transferable capacities in reading, writing, and public speaking.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor; Osborne, Andrew
What the study of Rhetoric entails, even for those who do so professionally, is not at all clear. But, at least this much seems noncontroversial: When people use the word “rhetoric” in an everyday way, they usually mean something like “empty” or “untruthful” speech. However, scholars who study rhetoric are much less inclined to do so, and this is at least in part due to the difficulty of wrenching apart notions of “truth” and “untruth.”

As a way to introduce you to the study of rhetoric, this course will do two things: 1) Try to clear up what Rhetoric actually is (this will involve making a distinction between truth and untruth); and 2) Attempt to find a use for the study of Rhetoric in the world outside of the university today.

ENGL 200: Basic Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying structures that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these structures, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. To that end, we will focus on drills and homework to understand basic grammar, and then apply that knowledge to analyze the rhetorical choices we make when we write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, global English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will take several short tests to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 200: Basic Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.”  In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives:  rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively.   Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate).  You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name.  You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings.  You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices.  By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

ENGL 201: Introduction to Writing of Nonfiction Prose
Instructor: Washington, Katrina
This course is designed with two aims in mind: to develop your nonfiction prose writing skills and enhance your abilities as readers of nonfiction, including (but not necessarily limited to) literary journalism, the personal essay, and memoir.  We will discuss aspects and styles of nonfiction and the craft of writing, read exemplary models of published nonfiction, and workshop your pieces.  We will read these works—published authors’ and your own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our core focus being process, aim and technique, i.e. the writer’s craft, how the writer does what he or she does and with what purpose in mind.  Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ writing will focus on the skills and techniques studied throughout the course.  It is my hope that this class will assist you in becoming a genuinely effective writer and active reader of nonfiction.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on—and skills regarding—writing for different forms of media (print & online, reporting, commentary and public relations). Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to blog work to publicity—and eventually produce a writing portfolio as presented via links on your personal web page, preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come. This course is the prerequisite for Engl 493, the English Internship in Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Digital technology is changing the way we experience information. New digital tools have changed our communication landscape, but there remain solid, time-tested communication skills that are still imperative to developing content and sharing information.

We all belong to a discourse community known as Millennials, myself included, which means we are “digital natives.” For the most part we all know how to consume media, and in this class we’ll take a look at mechanisms of professional content development for different media, and we’ll practice writing for basic forms of media in various professional contexts. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to public relations—and eventually produce a writing portfolio, preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come.

We will work in class collaboratively as fellow professionals. As professional students you will be expected to conduct yourselves as aspirant members of the professional world outside of the university. This semester, we will examine the ever expanding realm of news media, learn how to find stories, publicize events (or products), interview compelling people, and edit to produce tight, cogent copy. This course is a prerequisite for ENGL 493, a writing internship. You will produce a portfolio suitable for internship or employment interviews.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Barton, Daniel
As an introduction to the craft of writing poetry, this course will focus on investigating aspects of form and language with an emphasis on improving your own work. Toward this end, we will work on developing a critical vocabulary for discussing the work of your peers as well as that of published poets through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshop. Reading is vital to writing, and we will be reading the work of a variety of poets throughout the course to both inspire you to write and encourage you to think about craft and form in new ways.

In addition to your original work, you will be writing about poems, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your own work, often dramatically. In order to be successful, you must be open to criticism and suggestions in addition to being respectful of your peers work by providing thoughtful and constructive feedback. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process for poetry and a sense of voice, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
This course will introduce students to a broad range of poetry from a variety of time periods, languages, and approaches to content and structure. In the process, students will learn to apply critical tools and terminology by making poems that experiment with form, voice, meter and rhythm, imagery, translation, creative response, and revision. Most weeks students will submit poetry writing assignments that focus on the poetic concepts we are studying. Students will revise these weekly assignments and collect them in a portfolio with their own critical introduction. Additionally, students will submit their work to the class for peer critique and will respond both critically and creatively to the work of their classmates. Our investigations will focus not only on how poems are written, but also why they are written and what relationship they have to the contexts and worlds in which they are read.

ENGL 212: Introduction to Writing Fiction
Instructor: Frangello, Gina
This introductory level fiction workshop will help you learn a common language with which fiction writers discuss issues of craft, and will provide you opportunity to have your own work read and discussed by the instructor, who has five published books and 20 years of experience as an editor, in addition to an engaged workshop of your peers. Our workshop maintains a positive and inclusive environment with an eye towards helping you reach your full potential and strengthening your work. While both aspiring writers and those taking this class as an elective “for fun” are encouraged, please be aware that the course does require completion of two full stories and one revision, reading of published and peer short fiction, and active verbal participation, so the course is best for self-motivated students who love reading and writing, enjoy helping peers improve, are curious about the publishing industry and its conventions, and genuinely wish to intensify their understanding of how Fiction “works” on a nuts and bolts basis, demystifying how writers do what they do.

ENGL 222: Tutoring at the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors.  As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design.  In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Green, Hannah
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors. As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design. In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center every week (from Week Two) as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Williams, Charitianne
English 222 is an advanced writing course focusing on tutoring and writing using theories about how students write, and methodological approaches to tutoring and teaching. We will explore writing center theory within a sociocultural context, meaning, we will examine how a student’s previous educational and cultural experiences contribute to their interactions within the university, and to their writing within the educational context.  In addition to the class meeting time, class members are required to complete 90 minutes of one-on-one tutoring in the UIC writing center per week.

ENGL 232: History of Film I: 1890 to World War II
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s.  Topics covered include the invention of cinema, the evolution of the film director, the role of women in early film history, the rise of narrative cinema, German expressionist cinema, Soviet montage cinema, the coming of sound, the development of deep focus, and Italian neorealism.  Filmmakers covered include Georges Méliès, D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber, Sergei Eisenstein, Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles, and Vittorio De Sica.  The focus of course is on how specific trends in film history shaped the film style of different eras, nations, and filmmakers.  Requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: The Politics of Close Reading
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
Interpretation is not an isolated act, but takes place within a Homeric battlefield, on which a host of interpretive options are either openly or implicitly in conflict—Frederic Jameson

Close reading, the careful examination of literary language, has remained the bedrock of English studies for nearly a century. How has this practice changed over time? What critical movements have embraced or disparaged close reading? In this course, we will trace the history of close reading across different critical frameworks (New Criticism, deconstructionism, Marxism, queer theory, and New Historicism) and engage in current disciplinary debates about the role of close reading in contemporary criticism. Throughout the course we’ll examine critical practices alongside a wide range of literary texts thematically concerned with interpretation and forms of reading.

You’ll be asked to complete three papers: a close reading, critical analysis, and a critical argument. In addition, you will have brief reading assessments throughout the semester to help measure your analytical skills. Our readings will include poetry by William Shakespeare, John Keats, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Claudia Rankin; and fiction by Jennifer Egan, Junot Diaz, Henry James, Jhumpa Lahiri, and others.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: Why Doesn’t It Just Say That?
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
“Why doesn’t it just say that?” At the heart of this question (often posed to works of literature) is why a text withholds something from us. Why does a text tell us some things, and not others? Should we uncover this secret, or is it part of the experience of reading? Is what is being withheld always the same? Why do we care? Should we care? In this course, we will think about these and other questions from a range of perspectives, including Marxist, psycho-analytic, structuralist and post-structuralist literary theory.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
The purpose of this course is to give you an understanding of the principles of literary theory, particularly focusing on questions about what literature is and how people have thought about it over time. We will read theoretical works along with literary works and try to understand the interrelationship of theory and practice. The course will also be a writing course, with the goal of improving the quality and style of your writing.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
What’s the difference between studying literature and just reading it? If you’re taking English 240, you’re probably an English major, and you probably find some pleasure in reading and maybe writing stories and poems. The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that come up when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest also in English studies as an intellectual discipline. For example, this class is an introduction to “critical methods.” What are “critical methods?” Why are there more than one? Why can’t literary critics figure out which is the best and just use that?

Focusing on a small number of literary, critical and theoretical texts, we will ask additional questions like what distinguishes works of art from everything else, whether it’s possible to say what makes a good poem or novel, and what (the author’s intention? the rules of the language? the reader’s response?) determines a text’s meaning. Our focus will be literary but we will also draw on materials as different as Amy Farrah Fowler’s (devastating) critique of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and the late Justice Anthony Scalia’s (less devastating) dissent from the Supreme Court’s majority decision in Smith v United States. Given the times we live in, we will also pay attention to the political and economic questions that inflect our relation to literature and literary study.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
This course offers a panoramic survey of the greatest works of English literature from the Old English heroic epic “Beowulf” to Milton’s monumental religious epic “Paradise Lost.” We will also focus on the anonymous Arthurian romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” the female mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe,  the morality play “Everyman,” Marlowe’s play “Doctor Faustus,” Shakespeare’s plays “Twelfth Night” and Macbeth” as well as selected sonnets by Sir Thomas Wyatt, Shakespeare, and John Donne.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660-1900
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
This course surveys British literature by authors ranging from the Augustans to the late Victorians.  Our aim is to read and critically examine a range of works in different genres written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  We will accomplish this goal by reading widely, discussing works in class, and providing responses in short classroom assignments and longer essays.

Classroom discussions will tend to emphasize techniques of “close reading” that enhance our appreciation for specific formal strategies involved in the writing of novels, plays, and poems. In addition, we will add depth to our study of literary works by considering their distinctive roles within specific historical contexts.  These contexts include constructions of sexual, racial, and national identity; the role of established religion and religious dissent; and important movements toward political revolution and reform.  Requirements: attendance and participation in all classes, occasional short quizzes or assignments, two papers, mid-term and final examinations.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll examine important texts in the American literary tradition in a variety of genres including short stories, novels, poetry, essays, autobiography and even court transcripts.  As we think about how to understand these works in historical and aesthetic terms, we’ll explore some foundational questions they raise for both the practice and the theory of literary study as they emerge within and around these works.  Authors discussed may include Anne Hutchinson, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Sui Sin Far, and Robert Frost. Students will complete a midterm and final exam as well as a short close reading essay.

HUM 201: Topics in the Humanities
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
“Form Thinking: Literature, Art, Politics”: In our modern world, art, entertainment, and even the humanities themselves seem like luxuries for after work, and so we perceive human history as if people first built functional forms like tools, environments, and cities and only later made beautiful forms like art. But in fact humans made songs, paintings, dance, sculpture, and stories even when they had no fire, no buildings, nor enough food; there has been no human life without art. This fact inspires the big questions in this course, which we ask with the help of political and cultural theory, art, and literary texts: “why do human beings universally make art and literature?” “what does this universality imply for the organizing of social life?” “why is there so much suffering in human civilization?” and “how can works of the imagination address political catastrophes like inequality and climate change?”  Our texts include essays in Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, queer, postcolonial, and critical race theories, alongside novels, poems, sculpture, music, photography, and film.

ENGL 325: Modern American Literature: 1900-1945
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
What makes a short story or a novel or a poem an example of literary modernism (as opposed to, for example, romanticism or postmodernism)? What, in other words, are some of the common threads running through the wildly divergent range of topics, styles, and forms assumed by modernist works, such that they can be collected under the banner of single literary movement?   When and how do these writers’ aesthetic commitments also get expressed as ideological commitments (to one social or religious or political order or another)?  To explore these questions, we’ll read works published between 1908 and 1945 by a variety of American writers, which may include Gwendolyn Brooks, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, Sui Sin Far, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Anita Loos, Claude McKay, Ezra Pound, Laura Riding, Muriel Rukeyser, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky.  Our study of these works will depend heavily on our collective in-class discussions, to which all students will be expected to contribute.  Students will also be graded on their engagement with a variety of analytical practices to foster their study these texts, including both creative and scholarly short writing assignments and a group library research project.

ENGL 327:  Contemporary American Literature: 1980-Present
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
How has literature about migration and the border evolved from 1980 to the present? Do immigrants to the U.S. who write in multiple languages or who do not write in English produce “American literature”? What is the relationship between American literature and the literature of the Americas? Did the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) alter American literary production the way it altered the global economy? In what ways have American writers of the last forty years represented race and the legacy of slavery? Did 9/11 and the ensuing wars change the ways that American writers produced literary texts? These questions, among others, will be examined as we read and debate some of the most exciting American literature of the last forty years. Our readings may include poems, short stories, novels, and essays by Gloria Anzaldúa, Don DeLillo, Cristina García, Juan Felipe Herrera, Yuri Herrera, Valeria Luiselli, Shane McCrae, Phillip Metres, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, Raquel Salas Rivera, and others. Students will write short reading responses and essays and give in-class presentations.  And we will likely meet and converse with some contemporary authors as well.

ENGL 358: Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Cynics, Naysayers, and Killjoys: The Negativity of Postcolonial Writing
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
We live in dark times. It is hard not to be cynical, pessimistic, skeptical, and/or checked out. Such dispositions are invariably dismissed as irresponsible, complicit, and damaging. This course rescues negativity, cantankerousness, grumpiness, and silent judgement as a valuable mode of critique and politics. To do so, we will look back to an earlier moment of disillusionment: postcolonial writing from the 1960s-80s. This period is characterized by disenchantment from the promises of Third World modernity and the project of decolonization. Anticolonial revolutions had turned into dictatorships, Third World solidarity had turned into competition, and infrastructure development had turned into neocolonialism. The dismay of many postcolonial writers of this period produced some of most uncompromising negativity of the twentieth century, whose strength lay highlighting the contradictions of modernity, equality and freedom—watchwords of the Enlightenment. In this course, we will look at how writers like V.S. Naipaul, Ama Ata Aidoo, Jamaica Kincaid, Ayi Kwei Armah, and J. M. Coetzee responded to the failures of modernity and liberal emancipation. Along the way, we will compare postcolonial negativity to writings by Nietzsche, the Frankfurt School and Afro-pessimism. If this course has hope, it is to rescue sourness against the sanguine, the confident, and the upbeat.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students will develop writing skills specific to business and professional writing. We will study the characteristics of clear and effective writing in a non-academic stetting, learning about a wide range of professional writing models and expectations for a variety of platforms. Assignments will focus on specific genres in professional writing, including business correspondence, proposals, professional reports, brochures, newsletters and grant writing.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will learn genres and forms in the professional writing spectrum that demonstrate competence in creating clear, concise narratives for a wide variety of audiences with changing needs. You will examine characteristics of effective writing in a non-academic context, developing a facility in writing across a range of specialized areas. Expect to produce individual profiles, proposals, reports, newsletters, and design documents. Basic principles for grant writing are also studied. In the process, you will learn to communicate well by recognizing the correct manner and form to use for different media formats.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like engineering, business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 440: Topics in Cultural and Media Studies: The Freshwater Lab
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Freshwater Lab course introduces advanced undergraduate and graduate students to the pressing issues and vast possibilities for the North American Great Lakes. Along with readings and in-class workshops, the Freshwater Lab course brings experts in different fields into the classroom and takes students around the city to witness some of the most exciting water-related projects. Ultimately, each student chooses a topic and develops an innovative approach to addressing a fresh water issue. Students are then paired with professionals to get advice on improving and implementing their ideas. Past student projects have included films, policy papers, research analysis, live events, digital storytelling, communication plans, art, water tech, and activism. This one of a kind course empowers UIC students to understand, claim, and protect our magnificent public waters. For more information, visit freshwaterlab.org.

ENGL 473: Topics in African-American Literature: Reconstructing Blackness
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
The post-Obama era reminds us of the centrality of anti-blackness in the structure of our public life. Returning to an earlier period when representations of black lives were also deeply contested, this course will take as its central focus the narrative films of D.W. Griffith and the historical work of W.E.B. Du Bois. For this course our readings will include Cedric Robinson, Jared Sexton, Frank Wilderson, Miriam Hansen, Tom Gunning, Gilles Deleuze, Fred Moten, and Stuart Hall, amongst others.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Mayo, Russell
ENGL 481 is the capstone course in the sequence of UIC’s English Education methods courses. It is to be taken the semester before student teaching in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment). The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to adolescents. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Along the way, we will focus on long and short term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, and practice lesson plans they design.

This semester, ENGL 481 will be organized around the overlapping themes of climate change, sustainability, and the environment. Likely course texts include Teaching English by Design (Smagorinsky), Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents (Beach, Share, and Webb), Parable of the Sower (Butler), and Coming of Age at the End of Nature (Dunlap and Cohen), along with a play by Shakespeare (TBD). Other course texts will be provided by the instructor.

ENGL 489: The Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Field work required. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 459 and completion of the University Writing requirement; or consent of the instructor.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
In this course, we’ll be building on the poetic foundation established in English 210, as well as opening up your poetry to new possibilities of language and thought. Students need to be open to, and curious about, writing poems in structured rhyming and metrical formats, as these will comprise many of our poem assignments. The idea here is that writing in fixed forms will enable poets — and writers in any genre — to become more attuned to the sounds and rhythms of language.  Students will also write short critical papers, as well as handing in a final portfolio of revised work at the end of the semester. This course will elaborate on concepts introduced in English 210, such as metaphor and metonymy, syntactical structures (including parataxis and hypotaxis), concrete description (as in, for example, poems engaging dreams and visual artworks), and various approaches to musicality. The course includes critical materials addressing these issues, as well as the reading of contemporary and earlier poetry. The course is based on strong literary (lyric) models and on the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another, but please note that the emphasis here will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is rigorous, but also positive and encouraging of every student’s voice.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This advanced fiction workshop is for students who have taken English 212 (or the equivalent).  Knowledge of fiction-writing techniques and willingness to engage in open discussion of work-in-progress are necessary. Failure to participate will adversely affect grades. Each student will write 3 story drafts and critiques for every other peer-evaluated story.  Other reading assignments TBA. This workshop will not accept work that is genre fiction: no science fiction, mystery, horror, romance, graphic fiction or conversion doctrine.  There will be additional required guidelines to assist students broaden the scope of their approach to writing. Work that was initiated in a previous 212 course is permissible if revised since last seen by a workshop.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that sometimes stumps students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information on the internet through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.  Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. In the dynamic metropolis of Chicago there is an internship for every interest.

Variable credit: three or six                         English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 498/499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students, plus the accompanying weekly seminar.  These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers.  Eligible students must enroll in both courses, and for each course students must enroll in both a lecture and discussion section.  (In other words, students will enroll in a total of four CRN’s: two for Engl. 498 and two for Engl. 499.)  Students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.

The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers.  Student teachers will spend the term working in a secondary school, where they will be guided by a mentor teacher and a university field instructor.  The Wednesday seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon classroom teaching, 2) those that allow student teachers to collaborate with their colleagues and field instructors to prepare for upcoming teaching, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 503: Proseminar: Theory and Practice of Criticism: Imagination, Theory, Critique
Instructor: Coviello, Peter
What are the relations between theory, critique, curiosity, fantasia, philosophy, fiction? In this course we will aim to introduce new PhD students to a few of the organizing conceptual idioms of advanced study in English by thinking through scenes of convergence between novelistic and theoretical expression – between (broadly) art and critique – as they appear in a range of writings. Using as our touchstone a recent novel by Jordy Rosenberg called Confessions of the Fox, and venturing in several directions from there, we will trace out the entanglements of imaginative writing with queer theory and queer of color critique, with Marxism and Marxist aesthetics, with formal histories of the novel, psychoanalysis, anti-colonial critique, and trans studies.

ENGL 570: Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate level poets. Graduate level writers in other genres are welcomed. Varied styles and aesthetics are also welcomed in the workshop. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course also includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music.  These critical works treat poems in the lyric tradition; it is my belief that study of this tradition can inform a variety of aesthetic commitments.

Students will write ten new poems and revise nine of these for a final portfolio; they will also produce an artist’s statement and two papers on the assigned books of poetry.

My goal is for you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet.  I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft (and the perennial challenge and delight) of making poems.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
The Program for Writers fall fiction workshop is for all fiction: novels, short fiction, novellas, flash fiction, etc. All fiction techniques as well as pitfalls, variables and whims of the marketplace, and how literary fiction is affected by social pressures and/or cultural & economic realities are on the table for discussion. Students who are not in the Program for Writers need the permission from the instructor to enroll.

SESSION I

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Osborne, Andrew
The only way to learn what a movie does is to watch as many movies as possible—and that’s exactly what we’ll do.

Our usual interest in movies begins and ends with the story we see in front of us; funny or sad makes no difference (and the people who bring the story to life, famous people we love, only serve to secure our interest in the story before we know what’s going on). However, in a vast majority of the movies beloved by critics and film students, the story becomes secondary to something else (a “something else” that changes from movie to movie). These movies, the usual purview of classes in a university, can be quite alienating in this regard: How do we make sense of these other films? What are they doing, and how do we know? To answer these questions—that is, in order to make sense of movies—we’ll watch films from all over the spectrum and try, piece by piece, to make sense of each one.

ENGL 161: Academic Writing II: Problem-Based Writing
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark
Unlike many sections of ENGL 161, this course will not begin with a predetermined theme. Instead, we’ll spend the first day of class constructing a shared research question that will serve as the basis of our inquiry for the term. Readings for the course will largely consist of texts discovered by students throughout the duration of their research. Ideally, whatever organizing question we agree to will be grounded in an open-ended, real-world problem relevant to our lives as students at UIC or as residents of Chicago. The goal in this sense is to encourage genuine civic engagement, and to understand our writing as building toward an “authentic” product that might have important sociopolitical applications (aside from merely satisfying the requirements of an instructor).

Ultimately, our research question is intended to serve as an occasion for practicing critical reading, writing, and research strategies. Students will illustrate their mastery of these skills by participating in class discussions and small group work, submitting a variety of short homework assignments, and completing multiple drafts of four genre-based writing projects: a literature review, an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, and an 8-page research paper.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods: The Stories We Tell Ourselves about Ourselves
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
This course is for you if you notice things in novels, movies, TV, and videogames that you don’t quite have a language for. This is a course about narrative, about how stories are told—the fact that in some sense we expect a beginning, middle, and end, but don’t know why, and don’t know why the middle seems so drawn out and often delightful, the end confusing, the beginning so delightful and confusing.

Novels are especially weird, and how to read them, judging from the history of literary theory, is even weirder. We’ll delve into a few of the main strands of literary theory and criticism to help develop a robust vocabulary to talk about literature, which, I’ll tell you now, seems always in excess of our ability to pin it to any given theory. Literature theorizes, too: about people, places, politics, the present, the past, the future—character, plot, language: narrative. This course is novel-forward, but film, TV, and videogames take up narrative in ways that are conducive to understanding novels and vice versa, and I encourage you to bring what you know of each of these forms to discussion. I want you to come away from the course with a solid grasp of conflicting accounts of narrative so that you can better write, talk, and think about both cultural objects and the pervasive narratives that shape every aspect of how we understand the world.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660-1900
Instructor: Moore, Thomas
This four-week survey of British literature from the mid-17th century through the early 20th century explores how innovations in poetic, dramatic, and narrative form coincided with distinct shifts in English politics, society, culture, and consciousness. In the first week, for example, we will examine whether Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave (1688)—with its strange mix of novelistic and pre-novelistic elements—might best be understood as a response to the political and religious turmoil of the Restoration or as a reflection of the rampant colonial expansion and chattel slavery of its time. For the greater part of the course, we will focus on substantial transformations to British life—such as the rise of industrial capitalism, the decline of monarchy, and the public’s shifting attitudes about gender and sexuality—through “close readings” of poems, novels, essays, and plays written in the Romantic and Victorian periods by authors ranging from Keats, Austen, Coleridge, and Wordsworth to Marx, Wilde, Dickens, and Browning. The survey concludes with an analysis of the “stream-of-consciousness” narrative techniques of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925)—a modernist novel steeped in the psychological trauma of the First World War. Requirements include regular attendance and participation; reading quizzes; in-class passage analyses; two close-reading papers; a midterm exam; and a final exam.

Students do not need to purchase the expensive Norton anthologies since non-copyrighted materials for most of the readings will be provided by the instructor. All that students need to buy are the novels. [If you plan to purchase these somewhere other than the UIC Bookstore, please carefully check the UIC Bookstore website for the specific editions required for the course.]

SESSION II

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture: Non-normative narratives a.k.a The American Other
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
At the heart of this summer course in American Literature is the question: What does it mean to be American? What is the ‘normal’ America and what do those ‘average’ people look and act like? Drawing on accounts of the normative, we will ask: what does it mean to write, live, and be imagined outside of those normative boundaries? What does it mean to make literature that is outside of, distinct, or parallel to the normative / able / white / cis body? To probe questions surrounding non-normative American identities as formed through Literature we will consider a variety of different periods of time, and forms of literature, to focus on how novels, poems, short stories, and other cultural objects play a role in creating and sustaining the American imagination of itself and its people. We will focus on literary works with varying approaches to sexuality, gender, and disability.

Authors may include Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, and Colson Whitehead. We will also watch a screening of and discuss Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’.

Assignments include a creative final paper and shorter close reading responses to each primary text we read.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: Film in the Young Century
Instructor: Rensch, Adam
This course will examine the relationship between film and culture by focusing on a narrow historical moment: the beginning of the 21st century. Specifically, students will view and critically engage with American films that appeared between the events of 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis. Using these two moments as our guides, we will consider the ways popular films grapple with social change on both a local and global scale.

ENGL 160: Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: “Talking Back: Reading, Writing, and Resisting in Contemporary America”
Instructor: Powell, Tierney S.
To bell hooks, “talking back,” or “back talk,” is a “courageous act” that means “speaking as an equal to an authority figure. It [means] daring to disagree” (hooks 5). This course will develop student writing as a means of critically engaging with the world. Students will learn to understand writing as a means of teaching, connecting, persuading, and resisting. Framing the course through the idea of “talking back,” students will develop the skills to intervene in contemporary conversations related to social justice, politics, and space. Students will read and analyze different mediums of resistance writing–songs, speeches, blogs, podcasts, film, non-traditional scholarly articles, and academic scholarly articles–and engage these texts through in-class discussion, journaling, activities, and writing assignments. We will assess the rhetorical framing of these various texts to shape our understanding of resistance writing. Students will produce a body of work that reflects the different ways in which writing can be a “political gesture that challenges the politics of domination” (8). It is not only important that students understand the power of writing as a means of “talking back” to social injustice and systems of oppression but it is equally important to empower them in all moments of daring disagreement.

English 161: Writing for Inquiry and Research: Dogs and Fish Jump Fences: The Pleasures of Living in Apocalypse
Instructor: Blackburn, Kathleen
Although humans live among non-human species, we often perceive “nature” as utterly separate from human existence, thinking, and consequence. The human/non-human relation has largely been determined by human-value systems of market economy to the detriment of entire peoples, species, and landscapes. How might we think and live differently? What does it mean to be human in a period marked by realities of rapid change and ecological disruption? Though we are confronted with apocalyptic fright, what delights emerge from a changed relation to the world around us?
To begin, we will investigate human relationships to dogs with the aim of re-examining origin narratives of adaptation and ecological hierarchies through the completion of an annotated bibliography. We will then shift to representations of native and non-native species to examine how notions of economic markets, and their attending valences of race and gender, are naturalized. Inquiring how we might view introduced species differently, students will complete a literature review in the form of a creative personal essay. Threaded throughout the course will be the varied ways humans erect borders to confine one world from another. What story do these borders tell us about who we are? If in reality our fences, walls, even our skin fail to uphold a divide between the human and everything else, how we might we revise our relationship to the very idea of boundaries? How might we (re)define human as being part of a specific place, and what pleasures might gained from new forms of kinship? The exploration of these questions will culminate with a student research paper on a topic relating to our course.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Gallus-Price, Sibyl
This course seeks to move beyond the idea that in approaching the study of early English literature we need only find linguistic difficulty or arcane artifacts. Charting written visions of the world not completely different from our own, we will gain the knowledge and practice needed to manage a variety of rhetorical and literary forms. Though this survey is meant to cover nearly 1000 years of textual production, our task will be accomplished by focusing on a select group of works that significantly shaped the early, middle, and modern periods. We will take time for close reading and analysis to understand how each vision contributed to the expanding textual landscape in light of ongoing social, economic, and political developments. Whether addressing the visions of an illiterate cowherd in “Caedmon’s Hymn,” the epic saga of the heroic Beowulf, the romantic love of Tristan and Isolde, or Doctor Faustus’s dealings with the devil, we are reminded that these narratives are foundational not only to literature but to the stories we continue to tell.

ENGL 243: American Lit to 1900
Instructor: Raden, Justin
This course is a survey of American Literature from its beginnings up to roughly 1900. We will explore a number of historical themes including religion, slavery, pedagogical practice, westward expansion, sexuality, nationalism, industrialization and urbanization, the Civil War and reconstruction, class mobility, and more. And, of course, we will examine a number of more specifically literary concerns like theories of poetic composition, the slave narrative, political satire, and the conceptualization of a uniquely American literature.

We will encounter several authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Sarah Orne Jewett.

ENGL 305: Studies in Fiction: Black to the Future! Afrofuturism & Contemporary Black Fiction
Instructor: Brown, Margaux
This course explores Afrofuturism as a black literary and cultural aesthetic that draws upon African mythology, science fiction, African Diaspora history, magic realism and political fantasy that reimagines the future where people of color are the future. We will consider how African American writers and artists such as Parliament Funkadelic, Janelle Monáe, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, W.E.B. DuBois, Marlon James, and others create new and possible futures through novels, short stories, and music. In addition to reading literary texts, we will situate Afrofuturism alongside other important theoretical frameworks such as Afro-pessimism to help understand what kinds of utopian or dystopian futures these texts proffer to help us understand our contemporary moment. This course will take an intersectional approach to consider not only race, but other categories such as gender, sexuality, and class. Assessments will likely include reading quizzes, several short close reading exercises, as well as a longer paper.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
Literature is art made out of words. Writers give many purposes to their art: they want us to see life through the eyes of others and experience their words as something beautiful and powerful – and often unsettling at the same time.  In this course we will focus on stories, poems, and short plays written by living authors. We will explore how current literature illuminates our lives and also how today’s authors echo the literary accomplishments of the classics from the past. In learning to articulate the deeper meaning of what we read, the course will give you opportunities to practice the kind of writing and speaking skills that can serve you for a lifetime.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Sherfinski, Todd
Come all ye early risers! Start at least three out five days right by taking ENGL 101: What’s your Story? An Introduction to Understanding Literature. We’ll be using Jonathan Gottshalls’ The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human and Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories as starting points to further our understanding (and reading) of what stories are and how they work.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Buchmeier, Sarah
What is literature and why do we need it?  What knowledge or insights can we gain from reading literature that we can’t from other modes of expression?  In this course, we will examine a variety of literary forms, practice applying close reading skills, and consider critical arguments about the meaning and purpose of literature.  Assessments will include short response papers, a formal close reading paper, a midterm and final exam.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Osborne, Andrew
When we watch a movie, the most important question we could ask is what it means.

Sometimes the events happen quickly, sometimes painfully slow; sometimes there are obvious (perhaps even heavy-handed) metaphors, and sometimes the movie appears to just be about real life (why do we suppose that there are no metaphors if something purports to be real?); and this is to say nothing of the various other formal choices that have to be made in a film: sound vs silence, invisible edits vs jarring montage, etc. The possible combinations of these variables is seemingly endless, but one thing remains constant: We assume that these elements exist for a reason (that is, again, that they mean something), and we want to know what that reason is.

This is not to say that the way films move us should be undervalued—it is only to say that films  we don’t understand are not films that move us. (Even in the case where we think to ourselves, “I don’t get it, but I liked it,” we understand that there is something to get, and pondering over what there is to get draws us to the movie.)

As such, it seems like asking how movies mean the things they do is the perfect question for a class that is intended, as the title suggests, to introduce you to film as it is studied by historians, critics, frequent movie-goers, and academics. We will watch films from all over the spectrum—the new and the old, the megaplex and the art house—and ask about each: What do we see, and how do we make sense of what we see?

ENGL 103: British and American Poetry
Instructor: Magoon, Mark
In this course, we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme).  Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Hart, Jenna
Why poetry? We can usually tell just by looking at something that it’s a poem— but why write that way at all? What work does poetry do that other forms of writing do not? In this course, we’ll be working on understanding poems through close readings, as well as understanding the greater social and historical contexts of when they were written. We’ll be reading a wide variety of poetry written in English over several centuries: everything from selections of Old English epics, the Romantics, modernism, conceptual poetry, music lyrics, and more. In reading all of this, we’ll be pursuing questions about the poetry on a formal level (what can we understand about the poet’s choice of language, metaphor, rhyme, etc?), about the poetry on a historical level (what can we understand about the poem’s context, its relationship to the self, history, and the community?), and about the poetry on a personal level (how can we engage with it? how can we enjoy it and understand it?). Grading will be based on a variety of written assignments, both shorter and longer, as well as participation in class discussion.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: O’Hara, Mary Ellen
Voltaire once said, “The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted”.  His statement is the key to unlocking a theatrical text. Plays, like musical scores, are incomplete until performed. They require, indeed they demand to be brought to life. But how do directors and actors transform a play into a dynamic, living experience? What questions do they ask?  How do they begin to envision a play or character? This course will appraise modern and contemporary plays by Miller, Williams, Hansberry, Vogel and Letts utilizing the analytical tools and theories of theatre artists from the past century. While stepping into the roles of audience member, actor, director and designer we will examine the themes of family, obligation, love, betrayal and dreams (both lost and found) and how they act as a mirror of our humanity and culture. Additionally, we will view select performances and attend a UIC theatre production to better appreciate how a play morphs from the page to the stage.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction
Instructor: Tabbi, Joseph
Close reading of fictions, essays and “essayistic fictions” by David Shields (Reality Hunger),  Ali Smith (Artful),  Julian Barnes (The Noise of Time and Nothing to Be Frightened Of), Jeanette Winterson (The Stone Gods). Critical accounts by contributors to the “electronic book review” collection on the theme of Essayism (www.electronicbookreview.com). Through in-class discussions, short papers and student presentations, we will consider the ways that such fictions re-imagine what it is to write a “novel” and offer alternatives not just to conventional realist fiction but also to mainstream modernist and postmodernist models.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction, Coming of Age: Stories of the Everyday and the Fantastic
Instructor: Cassidy, Marsha
In readings for this course, characters cross vital thresholds into adulthood and self-awareness. We emphasize short stories and novels that describe moments of revelation and emotional turning points in characters’ lives, both in narratives that are grounded in the hard truths of everyday experience and in tales told within the realm of the fantastic. We also discuss two or three required films screened outside of class that further address questions of personal identity and self-knowledge. Gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, religion, disability, race, and ethnicity are central themes in the course.

Distinguished authors who write about the astonishments of everyday life include John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, Kate Chopin, Gish Jen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Richard Wright, Jamaica Kincaid, and Sandra Cisneros. But we also study authors who address self-discovery in speculative fiction, including fiction by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ursula Le Guin, and Joseph Le Fanu’s novel about lesbian vampires, Carmilla.

Students write brief response paragraphs and worksheets, make a class presentation, participate in online discussions on Blackboard, complete a midterm and final exam, and produce a creative project.

ENGL 105: Money and Class in English and American Fiction
Instructor: Rensch, Adam
Money is an omnipresent yet mysterious fact of our world. It is a social fiction that has profound material consequences, and despite the desire many have to accumulate it in large sums it is only valuable because it can be exchanged for something that isn’t money. It is the prime mover of capitalist societies, an object that circulates and pulses through every part of daily life. In this class, we will look at how American and British authors have explored the contradictory nature of money and the power it has been given in a world of massive inequality. We will examine its roles in the construction of social hierarchy and the recurring panic of financial crises, and consider its relationship to ostensibly “natural” human flaws like greed and selfishness. Authors that may be read and discussed include Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, Kurt Vonnegut, Martha McPhee, and Mohsin Hamid.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from books about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write response papers and have quizzes on all readings, midterm and summary exams.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
The summer of 2017 saw William Shakespeare at the center of public controversy with Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Julius Caesar, in which the assassinated Roman leader was dressed to resemble Donald Trump.  Subtitled “Shakespearean Controversies,” this course investigates how Shakespeare confronts issues that persist and re-emerge in our own world today.  The shipwrecked Viola in Twelfth Night, for instance, finds herself a refugee in a dangerous, foreign land where identities of gender, class, and sexuality are anything but certain.  Internet surveillance and parental stalking provide contexts for understanding Hamlet’s network of spies, and both the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements offer contexts for approaching Othello.  Leading us through these issues will be Shakespeare’s plays:  written texts, videos of stage reproductions, Hollywood remakes, and a (possible) class trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 2019 production of Hamlet.  For many of us, the opportunity to see the plays we are reading can help make Shakespeare’s works “come alive.”  In our conversations this spring, we’ll see that they already were.

ENGL 108: British Literature and British Culture: Unsettling Children in British Literature and Culture
Instructor: Smith, Heidi
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last -Isaac Watts

Lewis Carroll satirizes Watts’ poem in Alice in Wonderland, condemning the notion that children’s activities should be defined by their usefulness. Carroll stated elsewhere, however, that “it isn’t a book poor children would much care for.” In mid-nineteenth century England it was relatively new to conceive of children as innocent, playful, and imaginative, and this change in bourgeois perception produced what came to be known as the Golden Age of childrens’ literature. Yet over the course of the same century, England’s youth population had exploded due to industrialization and urbanization, and scores of children were put to work in factories, in the streets, and in the service of empire.

What the concept “child” meant in 19th century Britain was actually subject to fierce debate, reflecting a range of other debates over labor, education, culture, sexuality, purity, rights, and empire. Through novels, short stories, poems, investigative journalism, and films, we will explore the ways in which England has imagined itself through its many unsettling and unsettled children.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture
Instructor: Casey, John
From the urban campus of UIC, it is hard to miss the reality of Chicago, the nation’s third largest city. It is easy to forget, however, that Illinois and most of the midwest are the agricultural heart of the nation. In this class, we will read novels, short stories, and poems written by authors examining urban and rural life. Some of these works will include Sister Carrie, Maud Martha, The Spoon River Anthology, O Pioneers, Winesburg, Ohio, Electric Arches, and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. We will consider in this class how metaphors used for the country differ from those used to describe the city in US fiction as well as examining ways in which these different types of narratives overlap.

ENGL 109: American Literature and Culture / Tough Girls in American Literature
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
In recent mass culture, there has emerged a relatively new type of heroine, which for lack of a better phrase we shall call tough girls.  The type seems to be everywhere in popular film and literature, from Ripley in the Alien films to Arya in Game of Thrones to Katniss in The Hunger Games.  This course will explore the meaning and significance of this phenomenon.  Texts include works by Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Daniel Woodrell, Suzanne Collins, Ben Tripp, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Assignments include two short papers, exams, written preparation, possible random quizzes, and class participation.  Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres
Instructor: Sterritt, Brooks
What distinguishes “serious” literary fiction from commercial, popular, or genre fiction (terms with significant overlap that are nevertheless nonsynonymous)? How much of a work’s literariness can be reduced to its complexity or difficulty? In this course, we will study texts from popular genres such as horror, thriller, and science fiction, paired with texts that repurpose genre conventions for literary ends. Potential authors of genre fiction may include Gillian Flynn, Dan Brown, or Stephenie Meyer, and literary authors may include Kazuo Ishiguro, Colson Whitehead, or Jonathan Lethem, among others. The course will likely feature one or more novels by Cormac McCarthy, as well as screenings of popular films and television shows that mesh with the texts under discussion. By emphasizing close reading and the construction of critical arguments, we will examine the utility of concepts such genre, literary fiction, and the highbrow/lowbrow distinction.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course we will read 20th and 21st century novels by American women. We will discuss the ways the role of women has changed over time by looking at the struggles facing the characters presented in these works. In addition, we will analyze the reception of each text, talk about the issues that were most important to contemporary readers of these works, and consider how the concerns of readers have shifted. Texts will include: Willa Cather, My Ántonia; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Louis Erdrich, Love Medicine; Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club; Erica Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Costello, Virginia
In this class, we will take a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. Although we will analyze Sappho’s poetry and  recent work in transgender studies, most of the texts we will study were written between 1890  and 1940.  We will focus on works during this time period that advocate various forms of political and social change, but our examination will not be confined to the works themselves. We will unearth archival documents and investigate the web of relationships between writers and texts.  Our public examination of originally private documents informs not only our understanding of the writers themselves, but also outlines the context in which published texts were written. Finally, a close reading of our texts and supporting documents will allow us to address, at least tangentially, issues of censorship and sexuality.

ENGL 112: Introduction to Native American and First Nations Literatures
Instructor: Lyons, MaryAnne
The goal of this course is to familiarize you with the literatures of Native America, from traditional oral narratives and rituals to recent works by living Native American and First Nations authors. We will look at these works within the contexts of the history, public policy, issues, trends, and influences that inform them. We will focus primarily on the genres of fiction and life-writing, but with some attention also given to poetry and film. The course is intended as a beginning, an introduction, rather than a complete and comprehensive account of the languages, literatures, cultures, and histories of the hundreds of Native American and First Nations groups who call this continent home.

ENGL 113: Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures in the United States: Violence and Radicalism: What does it mean to be Revolutionary?
Instructor: Rico, Alonzo
If one were to utter the word “radicalism” among one’s peers (at least in the US and depending on whom you’re willing to call your peer), it is perhaps without a suspicion of doubt that that utterance was followed by a very uncomfortable, awkward silence in which plastered on the countenances of many of these individuals was a look of evasive desperation. Radicalism, then, in this particular context at least, is saturated with the negative—it is radicalism as negative connotation. However, to what extent does this word derive its pejorative meaning from the mobilization of language of fundamentalism and terror by the State? In other words, forgetting what we already know, and what we have been told by the media, radicalism, once taken critically, seems to mean something completely different, and I may go so far as to say something positive. This course then will attempt to explore, or at most attempt to parse out, what radicalism means, and what are its relationships to revolution and violence.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine the literature of the colonial period, the writers of resistance and revolution, and the stories of what came after, in the wake of new nations which emerged, shaken and often fragmented, from the rubble of what were once European colonies.  In such regions as India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland, we will examine how national, cultural and individual identities have been radically altered by the experience of colonization.  We will examine how authors have related this postcolonial condition; or, as some have put it, how “the empire writes back.”

ENGL 115 / RELS 115: Understanding the Bible as Literature
Instructor: Grunow, Scott
In this course, expect to be surprised at what the Bible really says, both the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the New Testament. We will wrestle with this complex, exciting text from a variety of literary perspectives, always emphasizing the cultural situations and audiences of its authors. Some of the overarching themes we will explore specifically creation, heroes and heroines, the Deuteronomistic history, the scapegoat (focusing on the theories of Rene Girard), and the apocalypse. You will write four short formal essays and several in-class essays to help you develop your understanding of the text as well as your analytical reading and writing skills.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: O’Connor, Jared
The literary canon—the cultural apparatus that tells us which works have a significant impact on aesthetic and cultural developments—often excludes works dealing with queer stories and themes. Interestingly, many of the major players in the modern/postmodern canon have indeed written explicitly queer texts. However, it is rare that we consider these works by canonical writers—Virginia Wolfe, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin e.g.—part of their larger contribution to the development of modern/postmodern literary expression. In this course, we will explore these queer texts that are situated simultaneously inside and outside the canon. Using literary interpretation, close reading, and historiography, we will investigate the ways in which these texts are, in their own right, important contributions to literature and have paved the way for the current reorientations of the canon to include queer writers and works. Texts may include Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood, E.M. Forster’s Maurice, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Toni Morrison’s Sula, Audre Lorde’s Zami, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
This course intends to disrupt – it intends to push against limited ideas of desire, embodiment, medicalization, and understandings of disability, gender, and sexuality. As such, we will explore both a historic and literary account of gender and sexuality as a means of thinking about the ways in which literature counters and engages with the medicalizing and pathologizing of sex. Our focus will be on the ‘invention of heterosexuality’ and the ‘normative’ and literary and theoretical responses to the emergence of these terms. Together we will think about a broad range of concepts within literature such as categories of desire, beauty, aesthetics, the gendering of bodies, and the de-sexualizing of ‘non-normative’ bodies. We will consider various kinds of experiences of sex, love, passion, violence, and bodies. Our classes will explore, through close reading and application of theoretical concepts, poems, novels, and short stories of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, with particular attention to the ways in which disability, gender, and sexuality, are produced in form, content, and language. Theory readings may include Michel Foucault, Lauren Berlant, Eve Sedgwick, Peter Coviello, Lennard Davis, and Heather Love. Literary Authors may include Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, Wilkie Collins, Emily Bronte and more.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture: ‘70s Film and Our Current Cultural Moment
Instructor: Drown, James
Film and its media outgrowths have become an integral part of daily modern life. Films are fascinating to study, as they both reflect our culture, and help propel cultural change. It is the form taken by much of our modern storytelling, and a significant way we perpetuate and shift our cultural history and myths. We will view and think critically about populist films from the 70’s, a decade which contains a surprising number of significant films. Looking at our films from a number of different aspects (identity, historical movement, etc.) will help us see how films reflect the historical moment, deep-seated social beliefs, and can ultimately help us better understand current moment. Requirements for the class include weekly film responses, a group project analyzing a set of films, as well as a take-home midterm and final. After this class, viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture
Instructor: Dancey, Angela
This course examines the relationship between film genre and gender difference, both in terms of representations of masculinity and femininity in genre films (as well as intersecting categories of race and class), and the extent to which certain genres are gendered (the “chick flick” vs. the action movie, for example). We will watch and discuss representative films from both the “classical” period of each genre as well as more recent examples and even remakes—in this way, we can trace the evolution (or stasis) of their representations of sexual, racial, and ethnic difference. Finally, we will look at gender representation in some generic hybrids (films that combine the conventions of one or more genres). Coursework includes weekly reading responses to assigned academic articles and book chapters, weekly Blackboard discussion posts about the films screened in class, a midterm exam, and a final essay. Occasional viewing of films outside of class will also be required (all films will be available to stream on Kanopy).

ENGL 121 / MOVI 121: Introduction to the Moving Image
Instructor: Boulay, Kate
Focusing on labor, wealth and modernity, this course looks at how the city has been represented in (mainly) Euro-American films of the 20th and 21st centuries. Combining critical readings and viewings with film screenings, we explore how a range of different films may be understood as using the concept of the city to explore such themes as labor, socio-economic status, political economy, migration, etc. Each week there is an 80 minute discussion session (Tuesday) and a discussion with screening (Thursday). Student work involves presentations, weekly papers, a longer midterm paper and a written exam. Given the workload, it is advised that only students with a keen interest in cultural studies, sociology, humanities and/or anthropology take the course. This is not a course for those looking for an easy ‘A’ or final semester seniors wanting to ‘glide.’

ENGL 122: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Reames, Robin
What is “rhetoric” and why should we care about it? Although Socrates demeaned rhetoric as a dangerous and deceptive form of flattery, Aristotle defined it as an art—the art of seeing the available means of persuasion. Even today the importance of these ideas can be witnessed all around us. From political campaigns to product advertisements, the power of language persuades us, determines our thoughts and beliefs, and dictates our actions. In this course we seek to understand rhetoric—both what it is, how we use it, and how it moves us. In this way, rhetoric is meant to help us understand more about the world around us.

In Understanding Rhetoric, we will test the relevance of the some of the basic concepts of the rhetorical tradition as we analyze the rhetorical events of today: #metoo, immigration, religious freedom, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, environmentalism, and more. Through examining concepts like kairos, stasis, ethos, pathos, and others, we will gain a deeper understanding both of how persuasion works and how it fails.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric
Instructor: Cintron, Ralph
So, what is rhetoric?  This question is not easy to answer.

Here is an opening definition that we will use, namely, Aristotle’s: “rhetoric is the art of discovering the available means of persuasion in any given case.”  Now, consider all the contexts in which persuasion occurs: poems, short stories, novels—but, more importantly, how about in everyday talk, political speeches, laws, supreme-court proceedings, business reports, scholarly articles, highway signs, street-gang graffiti, rap, and scientific claims?  But all these instances entail language or discourse.  Might the non-discursive, in some fashion at least, also be rhetorical: architecture, appliance design, the clothes that we wear, urban planning?  How about animal communication and plant communication as well?  Are these too rhetorical?

And what is the role of “truth” and ethics when we want to persuade?  Is there a fundamental tension between telling the truth and being rhetorical—or is the truth also a kind of rhetoric?  Are the “truths” of science and mathematics rhetorical?

Central to our discussions will be issues of social class, justice versus social justice, human rights discourses, and today’s debates between the left and right.  A few documentary films chosen for their depictions of different political and economic positions will be shown.

ENGL 123: Introduction to Asian American Literature
Instructor; Chiang, Mark
What does it mean to be Asian American? What are the social and historical contexts that have shaped Asian American identities and communities? This course will offer a general introduction to Asian American history and culture through the literary works of Asian American writers. We will explore the ways in which these texts respond to the conditions confronting Asian Americans in American society, including racism and racialization, segregation and forced confinement, labor struggles, community and identity formation, panethnicity and interethnic conflict, among other topics. The course will situate the literature in the chronology of Asian American history, from early immigration in the 19th century through the exclusion era to the watershed years of WWII and the civil rights movements, ending with the major shifts in Asian American demographics following immigration reform in the 1960s. We will also discuss such issues as assimilation, generational conflicts, family, gender, sexuality, and class. Texts will include such works as John Okada, No-No Boy; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Le Thi Diem Thuy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For; M. Evelina Galang, Her Wild American Self, and Jane Jeong Trenka, The Language of Blood.

ENGL 194: Topics in Literature and Culture
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
This course will introduce students to the practice of close reading and to the tradition of the European novel as it develops from the end of the nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth. Readings may include works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Halldór Laxness, Knut Hamsun, Jaroslav Hašek, Robert Musil, Marcel Proust, André Gide, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Fernando Pessoa, Andrey Biely, and Carlo Emilio Gadda.

ENGL 200:  Basic Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.”  In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives:  rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively.  There will be parts of the course that might be compared to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for basketball players or kata for practitioners of karate).  You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name.  You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings.  You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices.  By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Kessler, Jeffrey
This course will focus on the foundation of English grammar and the underlying rules that shape our language. While much of the course will be dedicated to learning these rules, our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to make more stylistically informed choices. To that end, we will focus on drills and homework to understand basic grammar, and then apply that knowledge to analyze the rhetorical choices we make when we write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, global English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will take several short tests to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Sheldon, Douglas
In his book “Philosophical Investigations”, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” While this seems lofty, it speaks an ability of grammar to function as a communicative tool built within language. This course will focus on grammar as object of form and style within several genres of text. Preference will be given to examining grammar use as purposeful choices on the part writers to aid their audiences in understanding the goals of textual communication. In both individual and group contexts, students in this course will learn the functions of English grammar and analyze texts containing those functions in order to respond with written content. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to use grammatical terms and processes to better understand written communication and take with them a skill that aids in revision and reflection.

ENGL 201: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Newirth, Michael
The creative nonfiction genre has become very popular, represented in blogs, memoirs, iconoclastic cultural writing, and other forms. But does this hybrid genre share more with journalism or creative writing? Is it documentary or composite in nature, and what is the writer’s responsibility to their reader in that context? Perhaps what’s compelling about creative nonfiction is its unique synthesis of elements from fiction, cultural research, observational reportage, and personalized tale-telling. In this workshop, we will read and write personal essays, literary journalism, cultural criticism, and polemical writing. We will discuss tactics useful to the writing process, and utilize “workshop” discussion as the ideal route into your own work.  Students will develop and revise their own writing projects, with an emphasis on building strong narratives, on pushing the boundaries of your prior writing experience. Students will also investigate fundamental matters of structure, style, narrative intimacy, and other elements of well-crafted writing.  The workshop will include thorough “editorial” discussion of your own work, as you approach one another’s writing with the consideration you yourself would wish from readers. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for nearly fifteen years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer, editor, and nonfiction book reviewer, with work appearing in anthologies and publications including The Baffler, Chicago Reader, Open City, and Pushcart Prize XXII. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising creative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Leick, Karen
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
We all belong to a discourse community known as Millennials, myself included, which means we are “digital natives.” For the most part we all know how to consume media, and in this class we’ll take a look at mechanisms of professional content development for different media, and we’ll practice writing for basic forms of media in various professional contexts. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to public relations—and eventually produce a writing portfolio, preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come.

We will work in class collaboratively as fellow professionals. As professional students you will be expected to conduct yourselves as aspirant members of the professional world outside of the university. This semester, we will examine the ever expanding realm of news media, learn how to find stories, publicize events (or products), interview compelling people, and edit to produce tight, cogent copy. This course is a prerequisite for ENGL 493, a writing internship. You will produce a portfolio suitable for internship or employment interviews.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: McGath, Carrie
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. As such, our emphasis will not only be on investigating aspects of form and language with an eye toward improving your own work, but also on developing a critical vocabulary to approach your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshops. Reading is essential to writing and there will be readings assigned throughout the course to keep you inspired to write, to think about craft and form, and to start to construct your own “library.” The course includes poetry and criticism from a wide range of writers from “the classics” such as Basho, Dickinson, Browning, and Bronte, to modern writers such as Plath, Sexton, Berryman, and Lowell. We will also cover many contemporary writers including those from the African American, Latinx, LGBTQ, and other minority communities.

You will be writing about poems throughout the semester to create a final portfolio equipped with an Artist Statement. We will examine poetic forms including sonnets, sestinas, haiku, and more as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work, often dramatically; therefore, in order for you to be successful in this class, you must be open to criticism and suggestions. It is my aim and my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process that will serve you as poets, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 210: Through the Lightning-Filled Night: Introduction to Writing Poetry
Instructor: Edelman, Adam
This is an introductory course to writing poetry. We will focus our investigation into the practice of poetry writing by identifying our own impulses toward poetry, and seeking out those impulses, and others, in the work of celebrated poets. In the interest of developing our individual poetry writing practices, we will build a vocabulary to approach talking about your work, as well as your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through class discussions and workshop. We will write poems and write about poems. We will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work. It is my hope that this course will improve your ability and enjoyment in reading and writing poetry, and that you will use this practice a means of investigating the creative process and the deepest regions of the human spirit.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Kulik, Katya
This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of fiction writing, which means that we will work on developing and improving your reading and writing skills. We will spend the first half of the semester reading a number of short stories and excerpts from longer works of fiction. Examining these works will allow us to explore the repertory of techniques, styles, and devices that fiction writers employ. In order to master fiction writing techniques, you will complete a series of short writing exercises (2-3 pages each) as well write two stories (5-7 pages) and one longer (10-12 pages). Other assignments will include reading responses, in-class writing, and discussing each other’s work.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Jok, Laura
In this class, we will study the elemental techniques of literary fiction, such as plot, dialogue, point of view, description, and symbol by reading and analyzing the established masters, producing individual creative work, and providing constructive feedback to one another in writing workshops. The imitation exercises and final story that you write will be based on aspects of craft in the assigned reading that you identify as especially effective or striking. As T.S. Eliot once said, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” In other—and less inflammatory—words, you will learn not to impersonate the writers that inspire you but to engage on a critical level with the techniques that underlie their mastery—and consider how you can apply these tools to your own writing.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
This course is designed with two aims: to develop your fiction writing skills and enhance your abilities as fiction readers, primarily regarding the short story. We will discuss aspects of fiction and the craft of writing, read exemplary models of published work, and workshop your stories as a class. We will read these works—published authors’ and your own—less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our focus being process and technique, i.e. the writer’s craft, how writers do what they do. Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ stories will focus on the skills and techniques studied and practiced throughout the semester. You will produce a number of short exercises and a few full-length stories. It might even be actual fun.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Green, Hannah
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors. As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design. In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff

ENGL 222: Tutoring the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors.  As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design.  In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors. Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 233: History of Film II: World War II to the Present
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of the modern era of film history, with emphasis on the various “new waves” that rocked the cinema establishment during the postwar period, and on the major technical developments (widescreen, Dolby stereo, digital media) that have changed the ways we see, hear, and consume movies.  Among the areas likely to be covered in the course are: the Italian neorealist movement of Rossellini and De Sica, the postwar Japanese cinema of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, the European art cinema of Bergman and Fellini, the rule-breaking French New Wave of Godard and Truffaut, the immediacy-seeking Cinéma Vérité movement of Drew and Pennebaker, the identity-building African cinema of Sembene and Mambéty, and the technically innovative blockbusters of Coppola and Spielberg.  Course requirements include regular quizzes and written responses.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth
This course is an introduction to the key terms and debates that define the field of literary study. Using the transformation of detective fiction from the classic detective story to the postcolonial crime novel as our case study, we will explore how questions of genre, literary form, agency, and narratology that circulate within the field inform critical analysis. Our readings will include classic literary analysis by Todorov, Brooks, Moretti, Genette, and Culler (amongst others) and signal examples of detective fiction by Poe, Conan Doyle, Chandler, Himes, Auster, and Chamoiseau.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Glomski, Chris
This course will consist of two “units”: the first unit will focus on poetry, prosody, and the genre of apologia.  Our exploration of poetry will be supplemented by critical and interpretive texts ranging from antiquity to the recent past.  For the second unit, we will turn our attention to philosophical and theoretical conceptions of the novel, using Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as a kind of test case for our inquiries.  As we think more about how to understand the works under discussion, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and theory of critical interpretation, such as “What constitutes a literary text?”  “How do we make sense of or arrive at meaning within a text?”  “How can the practice of literary criticism help us draw connections between the study of literature and other disciplines and modes of thinking?”

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
Thinking Big Thoughts with Literature

When we study literature we do more than just read it – we pay attention to how creative works think, how they produce ideas in ways that differ from everyday reasoning and from scientific exploration.  To help English majors define that different, valuable mode of thinking, this course combines great works of literature with fundamental texts in cultural theory.  We’ll ask big questions like “why do human beings universally make art and literature?” “what are the implications of this universality for the organization of collective social life?”  “how can literary thinking help address collective social catastrophes like inequality and climate change?”  Our readings will include novels like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jeff Van Der Meer’s Annihilation, poets such as Claudia Rankine and Wallace Stevens, and essays in Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, queer, postcolonial, and critical race theories.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Tabbi, Joseph
We will be reading noteworthy essays that do not just extend the practice of critical writing; these works also indicate mainstream developments in contemporary thought (ecological criticism; global cultural studies; media environments). Together with the work of such theory minded scholars as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Donna Haraway and Cary Wolfe, we will also spend some time with the poetry of Emily Dickinson, A.R. Ammons, Wallace Stevens, and others, whose imaginative work carries on some of the same themes and conceptual explorations as the criticism. When it comes to critical writing in the field of media theory, we’ll give special attention to essays that are self-consciously written for digital media, using the affordances offered there while at the same time questioning the habits of thought that seem to have all too quickly settled there – into familiar forms and practices that criticism is designed to question, and defamiliarize.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll tackle a small number of works in a variety of genres and media (poetry, short stories, novels, plays, film, and essays in literary theory and criticism) and from a range of time periods.  As we think about how to understand these works in formal, aesthetic, and historical terms, we’ll explore some foundational questions for both the practice and the theory of critical interpretation.  We’ll proceed from three basic questions:  What is literature as a form of art and cultural practice?  What do we as students have in mind (and what to professional writers and literary critics have in mind) when we talk about the meaning of a work of literature?  What kind of a practice is literary criticism – how does it differ from and what does it share with other critical and intellectual practices? As we’ll see, the answers to these questions, far from being obvious, have been the subject of longstanding, rigorous debate. We’ll also examine how literature progresses – how do writers enter into dialogue (and sometimes dispute) with their contemporaries and predecessors and how do these engagements affect their practice and the literary works they produce? Students will complete a midterm and final examination along with short exercises in critical analysis and argument.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Jun, Helen
This course explores the roots and development of the humanist tradition in philosophical and literary thinking about the meaning, value, and social implications of cultural representation. We will begin with an extended focus on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as a novel that responds to the ethical dilemmas of its time by narrating the pinnacle of Western society and its humanist thought partly through the eyes of the monster that it created.   As the course moves towards an emphasis on the relationship between literary study and national culture, we will examine how African American and Latinx cultural texts can work to challenge humanist assumptions about morality, ethicality, aesthetics, and truth under historical conditions of state violence and global capitalism.

ENGL 241: Survey of English Literature from the Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
This course is an ambitious panoramic sweep of English literature from the earliest extant written text known as “Caedmon’s Hymn” to the greatest epic in the English language, Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Within this thousand-year period English literature– and the English language– underwent a series of dramatic changes from a relatively homogenous culture in the Anglo-Saxon era to a trilingual coexistence of English, Anglo-Norman (the insular dialect of French) and Latin after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Only in the late fourteenth century did English reemerge from the Conquest to become a major vernacular literature with the outstanding works of Chaucer, the Gawain-Poet, Gower and Langland. Far from being the “Father of English literature” (as he was later dubbed by Dryden), Chaucer regarded himself as a European poet who happened to write in English. If the late fourteenth century was the first great watershed moment in English literature, the end of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century witnessed its golden age with the works of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. In this course we consider the major works of all these writers as well as lesser-known works by women writing in Anglo Norman (Marie de France) and in Middle English (Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe). In questioning the conventional canon of English literature by highlighting the immense diversity of texts written in different languages by men and women, this course will provide a valuable foundation for more advanced upper-level courses.

ENGL 242: English Literature II
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
This course surveys British literature from John Milton to Virginia Woolf.  We will concentrate our studies on the relationship between Britain and the world: Britain’s relations, that is, with the European continent, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and so on.  The works that we will study will include some “canonical” writings of British writers, including Defoe’s _Robinson Crusoe_, Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_, Byron’s _Don Juan_, and Jane Austen’s _Mansfield Park_.  But we’ll also explore works that expand that list of authors, to include writing by the likes of Olaudah Equiano and Charlotte Smith.  Topics to be considered will include: Britain’s actual and imagined connections with different peoples, regions, nations, and empires; the connection between literary imagination and constructions of national and imperial spaces; and the formative interactions between literary genres and questions of political scale—ie, widening patterns of communal relationship and institutional affiliation. Emphasis will also be placed on techniques of “close reading,” readings informed by literary theory, and essay-writing skills. Requirements include regular attendance, 2 essays, occasional other assignments or quizzes, midterm and final examinations.

ENGL 243: American Literature from its Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Grey, Robin
This course is meant to be a survey of American literature from its beginnings in the 17th century, through the 19th century to 1900.  You must sign up for both the lecture and the discussion sections on Fridays.

Topics covered in the course will include (among others):  the experience of living in strict religious communities, both for men and women; sin and guilt; the relationship between church and state; the process of nation-building and governing the United States, civic duty; upward mobility and the American Dream (and the differentials for blacks, whites, and women); Transcendentalism and individualism; capitalism; marriage and feminism in the nineteenth century; the Civil War in the eyes of poets; race relations in the eyes of slaves and political leaders; and the Gilded Age of artistic development and capitalist exploitation.

The course will examine both the ways literary texts participate in artistic, social, political, and religious tensions within American culture and the ways these literary works challenge and reshape the culture through acts of inventive myth making.  We will try to balance our exploration of tensions within society (which linger into the present) with an awareness of the particular author’s sensibility and style in his or her literary work.  To name but a few authors covered, we will read Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Jacobs, Walt Whitman, and Edith Wharton, among many others.

ENGL 303: Studies in Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
Lyric poetry has always been a vessel for the pleasures of music, feeling, and complex thought.  This course focuses on a selection of American poets in the twentieth century (including Frost, Williams, Stevens, Brooks, Gluck, and others), to be considered in light of their participation in the age-old genre of the lyric. The course will address the following questions: what is the role of musicality (including, but not limited to, formal constraint) in the twentieth-century lyric poem? What are the differences between aural and silent (readerly) reception of poetic voice? How do we construct what is commonly known as a poetic “speaker,” and how are the idiosyncrasies of particular speakers articulated through poetic tropes and techniques? Do lyric poems support or resist story-telling and narrative? What is the role of emotion in the lyric? Can lyric poetry viably respond to visual phenomena or to broader cultural issues, including those associated with differences of race and gender? We will approach these questions with the aid of critics including W. R. Johnson, Paul Allen Miller, Roland Barthes, and others. As we approach these questions, we will be working on both the micro level (listening to the idiosyncrasies of each poet’s particular voice) and the macro level (considering how each poet navigates larger issues surrounding the genre of the modern and contemporary lyric). Course requirements include several short papers, a longer final paper, and a class presentation.

ENGL 313: Major Plays of Shakespeare
Instructor: Freeman, Lisa A.
In Major Plays of Shakespeare we will study a selection of William Shakespeare’s most important plays.  Over the course of the semester we will consider and discuss two of the major strains in Shakespeare criticism:  one, that the Bard’s works speak to us across time, i.e. that their meaning is universal and timeless; and two, that Shakespeare’s works are a reflection of their time and place.  Particular attention will be paid to the different ways in which each of these critical traditions construes identity categories such as race, class, gender, and nation.  We will approach these works, moreover, as plays meant to be staged and will compare the effects of text with those of both live performance and film adaptation.  Over the course of the semester, we will work together to form a class ensemble through the experience of thinking about and experimenting with Shakespearean performance.  Assignments will include two papers and two class presentations.

ENGL 324: American Literature: 1865-1900
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
English 324 explores the rise of American literary realism and naturalism between the Civil War and World War I.  Unlike the moral and sentimental literature that preceded it, literary realism tended to envision a world governed by forces that acted inscrutably and ironically (and seldom providentially).  The characters of this imagined world were not bound together by the power of sympathy; nor did home—the deferred utopia of domestic fiction—provide them with a refuge from the new universe of force.  It could be argued that literary realism was simply reflecting new social conditions, but this course will consider an alternative explanation, namely that American literary realism emerged not as a reflection of reality itself but rather as a reaction against a previous version of literary reality that had come to seem exhausted and obsolete.  Primary texts include Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage; short (and uncharacteristic) works by Louisa May Alcott; two novels by Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Pudd’nhead Wilson); and two works by Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome).  The class will emphasize close reading and study, but we will also devote some attention to the social and cultural background of selected texts.  Requirements: full preparation for class discussion; two critical papers; mid-term and final exams; and class participation.  Random pop quizzes may be given.  Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 351: New Black Aesthetics
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
The decades following the end of the Civil Rights movement have witnessed a remarkable outpouring of African American literary and cultural production across a range of forms and movements. Examining novels, plays, poems, performance art, manifestos, and films, this course will explore the elements of a “new black aesthetics” that seeks to understand the shifting meanings of racial identity, culture, politics, and community in the post-Civil Rights decades.

ENGL 375: Rhetoric and Public Life
Instructor: Reames, Robin
It has been said that we are living in the “post-truth era.” What does this phrase mean? It means that proving something to be “true” or “false” does not necessarily impact belief because the very ideas of “truth” and “falsehood” have been called into question. How does this impact you? It makes it very hard for you to know what—and who—to believe. But you are not alone; and this problem is not a new one. It is the same problem that Plato had with the “pre-truth” sophists of ancient Greece—the very same problem the art of rhetoric was invented to solve. This course will engage in rhetorical analysis and rhetorical criticism of a selection of post-truth controversies—from climate change to “pizzagate” to school shootings to internet trolling. Our aim will be to use the art of rhetoric to uncover how “post-truth” discourses construct our ideas of what’s true and determine our beliefs and actions.

In this course you will gain a sharpened awareness of how language structures thought and belief. While ideally this might make it possible for you to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, the primary goal is that you will become more critical about how the things people say impact what their audiences believe, and this will make you more critical of your own place in that process. A crucial component of gaining this skill is developing your own abilities to closely read, listen to, and analyze texts, and to support your analysis with well-reasoned arguments, both written and verbal.

ENGL 382: Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will study editorial oversight, copyediting technique, style requirements, use of grammar as a stylistic tool and publishing industry standards. You will also learn best practices for getting your work published in a magazine, newspaper or journal along with self-publishing strategies for a book, including cover design and interior layout, copyright, ISBN and distribution. Students will leave this class knowing what it takes to be the boss by creating your own book publishing company as well.

ENGL 383: Writing Digital and New Media
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing Digital and New Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.” To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.

ENGL 408: Topics in Medieval English Literature: King Arthur and His Round Table
Instructor: Thomas, Alfred
In this course we will focus on the fascinating body of literary texts (story, courtly romance, chronicle, history) concerned with the mythic figure of King Arthur– from the earliest story in Old Welsh to Sir Thomas Malory’s compendious stories in prose known as “Le Morte Darthur” (1469-70). Between these two prose narratives lies a vast body of literature in verse and prose written in English, French, Anglo-Norman and Latin. Far from being the stereotypical “once and future king” who transcends time and space, the figure of Arthur who emerges from this tradition is ever-changing and paradoxical, at times a heroic warrior, at others a weak and passive cuckold. We shall attempt to make sense of these mutable representations of Arthur by placing them in the larger political context of medieval England, a turbulent and unstable period in which strong kings like Edward I and Henry V alternated with weak kings like Richard II and Henry VI. Seen in this historical framework, the literary history of King Arthur and his Round Table becomes a reflection of a feudal era characterized by military triumphs and conquest but also plagued by dynastic uncertainty and crisis.

ENGL 426: American Literature in the Nineteenth Century: The Failure of Reconstruction After the Civil War
Instructor: Grey, Robin
This course will focus on the failure of Reconstruction after the American Civil War and the issues that were at stake for both whites and African Americans (both those already free and newly made “freedmen”).   In his The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce (former soldier in the Civil War) defined “Freedmen” as “A person whose manacles have sunk so deeply into the flesh that they are no longer visible.”

We will examine what contributed to that failure of Reconstruction, and has left a lasting legacy in terms of the socio-economic, political, as well as legal problems of blacks—and the lack of a level playing field–in America to this very day.  To start, we will deal with the end of the Civil War once the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted (January, 1863). We will also deal with gender differences, with social caste, and with issues of self-empowerment begun by black soldiers and continued by those who sought to bring that empowerment into civil life.  We will be reading texts by both black and white American authors: novels, short stories, letters, and poetry.  Intermixed with the literature will be some historical essays or documents (in PDF form) to give you a clearer idea of the issues surrounding the decades during and after the war.  Most of the literary texts will be offered in Dover Thrift editions.  Authors:  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt, Albion Tourgée, John William DeForest, and Abraham Lincoln.  I will supply documents like letters from black soldiers writing home to their families, the Emancipation Proclamation, information and online links regarding the Freedmen’s Bureau, about Black Codes, and Jim Crow Laws.

I will also show two films in the course, one on the Reconstruction, the other on the injustice of, and tendency to, imprison black men and put them to work in dangerous mines and on chain gangs, and how this came about in the period after the Civil War. The film is entitled Slavery by Another Name.

ENGL 445: Explorations in Disability Studies
Instructor: Davis, Lennard
This course will serve as an introduction to disability studies for those who aren’t familiar with the subject; and will then go further into the issues around disability for those who are. Readings will include two textbooks and examples from fiction, poetry, art, and film/video.

ENGL 446: Topics in Criticism and Theory
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
INTERPRETATION. This course will introduce students to current and perennial debates on the question of literary interpretation. Do literary texts call for interpretation, or some other kind of activity? If they do call for interpretation, how do they make such a call? And what are we doing when we respond to it? Readings may include Toril Moi, Donald Davidson, Quentin Meillassoux, Fredric Jameson, Caroline Levine, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes, Rita Felski, Ferreira Gullar, Pierre Bourdieu, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

ENGL 459: Introduction to the Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Bell, Lauren DeJulio
This reading-intensive course is designed to introduce students to the field of English Education. We will focus on various critical issues facing English teachers today, analyzing how each impacts educators and students. We’ll consider a range of questions, such as: What is most important when teaching English? How have perspectives shifted in terms of what matters in education? What is the purpose of English Language Arts? What are the benefits and limitations of teaching in an English classroom? How can we best meet the needs of students in a changing world? We’ll look at educational theory, policy, critical literacy, pedagogy, and curriculum choices, as well as young adult literature and personal texts and articles. By studying authors ranging from Linda Christensen and David Kirkland to Angie Thomas and Luis Alberto Urrea, students will discuss and explore the many facets of teaching English in contemporary society. Please note: 12 hours of field experience is a required component of this course. Students must have sophomore standing or above and have completed the UIC’s writing requirement.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the capstone course in the sequence of English Education methods courses.  It is to be taken the semester before student teaching.  The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids.  Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt.  Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment.  In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, and practice lesson plans they design.

ENGL 482: Campus Writing Consultants
Instructor: Williams, Charitianne
English 482 focuses on Writing Center Theory specifically for future educators from across the disciplines. We will examine the role of writing in relationship to learning, and how to support student learning through writing beyond composition and single assignments. The class will explore the relationship between students’ language use and their educational experiences, and how an educator’s awareness of these factors can lead to a healthier educative environment for students. Writing Center administration (with an intent to make this focus transferable to other student-support contexts), online tutoring, and tutoring developmental through graduate-level writers will all be presented. Collaborative and anti-oppressive pedagogical practices are emphasized. In addition to instruction time, class members are required to complete 2 hours of one-on-one tutoring in the UIC writing center per week.

ENGL 489: The Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Sjostrom, Kate
Intended as a part of the English education methods sequence, with particular emphasis on helping prospective teachers assist struggling readers in the study of literature. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school required. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 459 and completion of the University Writing requirement, or consent of the instructor.

ENGL 490: Advanced Writing of Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
In this course, we’ll be building on the poetic foundation established in English 210, as well as opening up your poetry to new possibilities of language and thought. Students need to be open to, and curious about, writing poems in structured rhyming and metrical formats, as these will comprise a majority of the poem assignments. Students will also write short critical papers, as well as handing in a final portfolio of revised work at the end of the semester. This course will elaborate on concepts introduced in English 210, such as metaphor and metonymy, syntactical variations (including parataxis and hypotaxis), concrete description, and various approaches to musicality. The course includes critical materials addressing these issues, as well as the reading of contemporary and earlier poetry. The course is based on strong literary (lyric) models and on the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another, but please note that the emphasis here will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is rigorous, but also positive and encouraging of every student’s voice.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
Advanced fiction workshop.  No books required.  Lots of fun!

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop.  We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods.  We will also write fiction and learn to critique each others’ work.

ENGL 492: Advanced Writing of Nonfiction
Instructor: Stolley, Lisa
This course will provide a semester-long supportive workshop setting designed to help you to expand your writing skills in the genre of creative nonfiction.   We will focus on the narrative necessities and techniques that make for compelling writing, as well as on the development of your own original and unique voice.   Students will try their hand at the personal essay, literary journalism, and other such forms of nonfiction, with the goal of completing one or more polished essays by the end of the semester.   In addition to creating work, we will talk about how to go about publishing one’s work in literary journals, magazines, and/or books.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that sometimes stumps students, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information on the internet through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work, and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming a contributing writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses.  Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, gain interviewing skills, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Students are enrolled in ENGL 493 while concurrently working at an internship for 12 hours a week. In the dynamic metropolis of Chicago there is an internship for every interest.

Credit is variable. English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 496: Portfolio Practicum
Instructor: Cassidy, Marsha
In this capstone course, you compile a personalized portfolio of your best professional writing samples, building upon portfolios you may have already begun. You learn how to design and structure your material effectively and to write reflective commentary on the skills you have acquired. You consider how to position your work rhetorically and how to build a visually successful product. Instructor and peer review aid you in creating an individual professional identity through your portfolio. In a culminating assignment, you present your portfolio orally to the class, giving you practice for future employment interviews.

Course Information: English 496 is the required capstone course in the Professional Writing program if you have not taken English 493 (the internship option). Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493. Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 381, 382, 383, 384.

ENGL 498 / 499: Educational Practice with Seminar I & II
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students, plus the accompanying weekly seminar.  These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers.  Eligible students must enroll in both courses, and for each course students must enroll in both a lecture and discussion section.  (In other words, students will enroll in a total of four CRN’s: two for Engl. 498 and two for Engl. 499.)  Students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.

The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers.  Student teachers will spend the term working in a secondary school, where they will be guided by a mentor teacher and a university field instructor.  The Wednesday seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon classroom teaching, 2) those that allow student teachers to collaborate with their colleagues and field instructors to prepare for upcoming teaching, and 3) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 527: Form and Materiality in American Modernist Poetry
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
We’ll begin and end this course with poetry published just before and just after the conventional period associated with modernism as a literary movement (roughly 1910-1945), beginning with Paul Laurence Dunbar’s dialect poems from the 1890s and ending with Elizabeth Bishop’s first published volume from 1946.  In between, we’ll look at work by Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, Claude McKay, Laura Riding, and Louis Zukofsky. For some of these writers, what their postwar readers would call the materiality of language serves as a solution to problems of subjective expression and communicability inherited from romanticism. For others that so-called materiality is what causes the problems in the first place (in Riding’s case to the point of compelling her to renounce poetry altogether).  Written work for the course will consist of short-in-class presentation and response papers, a conference panel proposal, a panel paper abstract, an annotated bibliography, and a final conference-style argumentative paper (9-12 pp.) with an eye toward article-length expansion.

ENGL 545: Melville’s Modernities: Empire, Biopolitics, Ecology
Instructor: Coviello, Peter
This course will read the major works of Herman Melville and use them–novels, stories, poetry, as well as a copious exegetical archive–as an entry-point into several ongoing critical conversations. Most broadly, we will be concerned with three major conceptual formations that have circulated around that work: the decolonial, biopolitics, and ecology. Guided by Melville’s kaleidoscopic vision of Atlantic modernity, we will take up questions of empire, of sex and racialization, and of temporality, justice, and extinction. Throughout our inquiries, we will ask how the major theoretical paradigms shaped in relation to Melville’s works do – but also, possibly, do not – accommodate one another.

ENGL 570: Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Borzutzky, Daniel
In this course students will be encouraged to respond to each other’s poetry projects closely and thoughtfully, and both analytically and creatively. We will look for ways of finding excitement, wonder, pain, joy, beauty, force and intensity in the writing that we make. We will hold on tightly to the idea that poetry should be exciting, ambitious and transformative, and students will be challenged to explore forms, aesthetics, and approaches that they have not yet tried. We will read a broad range of poems and collections by canonical and contemporary authors from the Americas, Europe, and Asia (including Wallace Stevens, Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, César Vallejo, Pedo Pietri, Terrance Hayes, among many others), with the aim of figuring out how we can apply what we learn about this writing to our own poetry. We will also read essays on poetics, craft, and translation, and we’ll discuss what role poetry, and ours in particular, might have in public discourse. Our main focus, however, will always be on developing new, electrifying poems.

ENGL 571: Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Grimes, Christopher
Program for Writers graduate workshop.  Short-fiction only, please.  For working in longer forms, please enroll in ENGL 572: Workshop in the Novel

ENGL 572: Novel Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
Program for Writers workshop in the novel.

This workshop is open to all graduate students in the English Department’s Program for Writers.  All other graduate students from other English Department programs or from other departments must get prior approval of the professor.

This is a writing workshop where we evaluate and discuss novels-in-progress.  You do not have to have a completed novel to participate.  You may only have an idea or a single chapter, perhaps several drafted chapters. Memoirs are also welcome.  The workshop will not distribute nor discuss formula-driven genre/commercial fiction.  Aspects of publishing and other functional or philosophic issues in a novelist’s life are also fodder for workshop conversation, and reading suggestions will depend on the focus taken by workshop submissions.

ENGL 576: Program for Writers Publishing Workshop
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
The Program for Writers Publishing Workshop will be offered in spring 2018 after not being scheduled for 20 years. A lot has changed in 20 years. With guest speakers and hands-on workshop activities, we plan to cover: Submitting, query letters and author-blurbs; trade Publishers vs independent publishers; agents: when you need (or don’t need) one; Social media; Self-promotion (assistance to publisher); & other marketing, PR; DIY/micro presses, chapbooks, hybrid-publishing, self-publishing & crowdfunding; & more.
Editing (services) pros & cons; working as a publisher; planning & executing a successful reading series; and more. You will have the opportunity to have your query letters work-shopped with a professional, group suggestions for appropriate markets for your work, creation of a submission log, and you will make submissions. We can also discuss: the possibility of creating a UIC English Department book review blog and other venues for “literary citizenship.”

The workshop, under the umbrella of the Program for Writers, is open to all graduate students in the English Department. It counts as workshop credit for Masters students in the Program for Writers. Grad students from outside English should contact the professor.

ENGL 579: The Last Decade
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
In the early 1970s, the installation artist Susan Howe, whose practice had involved “arranging sentences and photographs” on the wall of her studio abandoned (temporarily) the photographs, took the words off the wall and, with the publication of Hinge Picture in 1974, became the poet Susan Howe. Two years earlier, the photographer Robert Frank, made a book of photographs, The Lines of My Hand, that in its closing pages included some writing and, declaring that it was only “with writing” that he could overcome his boredom with photography, went on to make a whole series of large polaroids which did indeed involve writing and which took him in a direction the opposite of Howe’s – away from the book and back to the wall. This course will begin with an attempt to think through the ideas of form and medium embodied in the work produced by these two decisions. Many of the texts we’ll read combine photographs and writing but our primary interest will not be in these combinations as a genre or as an example of the intermedial. It will be instead on questions about the difference between form and materiality, the relations between form and intention, form and affect, form and method.

The first half of the semester we will focus on work anchored in the late 60s and early 70s: by Frank, Howe, Robert Morris and Michael Fried. In the second half of the class, we’ll do the 21st century, reading Sebald’s Austerlitz (2001), Howe’s That This (with photograms by James Welling) (2010) and two other prose texts: Neirmann and Niedling’s The Future of Art: A Diary (with an essay by Tom McCarthy) (2012) and Michel Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory (2010). Along with these we’ll read at least portions of a set of recent theoretical texts (by e.g., Fried, Ruth Leys, Caroline Levine, Toril Moi) all of which in some way deal with questions of form or with form’s adversary, formalism.

A full syllabus will be available in December but I would urge anyone seriously interested in taking this course to act a little earlier and buy The Lines of My Hand and The Future of Art: A Diary. Both are pretty easily available but not in the simplest possible standard shipping from Amazon way.

ENGL 582: Multiethnic and Transatlantic Cultures
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
Theorizing the Contemporary Novel
Various critical and theoretical rubrics have been developed to characterize the genre of the novel in what is often clunkily called “the post-postmodern moment.” In this seminar, we will read a selection of contemporary novels (by authors such as NoViolet Bulawayo, Jennifer Egan, Mohsin Hamid, Benjamin Kunkel, David Mitchell, Colson Whitehead, and Karen Yamashita) in relation to some such rubrics (including world-systems novel, global fiction, speculative realism, capitalist realism, Afropolitanism), paying attention to their accounts of contemporaneity as well as of contemporary fiction.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
Instructor: Buslik, Gary
In this course, we will read and learn how to appreciate great works of literature. We will read, analyze, and discuss several short stories, one novel, about ten poems, and a play. Authors will include Hemingway, Jamaica Kincaid, Oscar Wilde, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, and several other poets. We will write two major papers and several shorter papers. We will have midterm and final exams.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature – Bureaucracy, and the Man Behind the Curtain
Instructor: Rico, Alonzo
What is bureaucracy? We encounter it everyday either through long tedious forms that require endless amounts of information such as: name, birthday, social security, mother’s maiden name, home address, permanent address, place of previous employment, reason for leaving (or, if fired, please explain why); or, through the anxiously paranoid thought that crosses our mind when the functionary behind the desk says, “we don’t have your paperwork on file, you may want to speak to so-and-so,” whom, as we all know, will simply pass us to the next functionary, and to the next until we end up back where we started. In this course, then, we will explore this concept of bureaucracy, and attempt to answer such questions as: how does bureaucracy work, why does it work, who makes it work, what does it mean to be a bureaucrat, and what does Hannah Arendt mean when she writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism that “the ideal of such a political body [bureaucracy as a form of government] will always be the man behind the scenes who pulls the strings of history”?

ENGL/MOVI 102: Introduction to Film: Stalking the Horror Film from DR. CALIGARI to GET OUT
Instructor: Dancey, Angela
This course is an introduction to the study and analysis of film, looking at cinema as an art form (mise en scène, camerawork, editing, sound design), a social and cultural institution, and an industry. Students will watch, discuss, and write about films from around the world, examining their formal aspects (how they are constructed), their significance (what they mean), and the historical contexts in which they were produced (what they reflect about culture). In addition, we will be using the horror genre as a framework for our exploration of film techniques and traditions. Questions we will consider include: How has film been shaped by and expressed our common fears? Why is the horror genre so enduring, and how has it evolved over time? Why do we enjoy being frightened by certain films and experiences?

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
In this course we’ll study poetry not only by examining specific poems but also by considering the art form as a generalized endeavor that functions, in the words of the poet and critic Allen Grossman, as an ongoing “civilizational project.” Our texts will span several centuries and two continents, from anonymous 13th-century Scots ballads to experimental poetry published in the last five years. We’ll look at major works from key periods and developments, including representatives of 17th century metaphysical poetry, the romantic lyric, modernism, the Black Arts Movement, “Language” poetry, conceptual poetry, rap, and even some recent experiments in crowd-sourced authorship, such as the Google-based “Flarf” movement and poetry-for-hire using Amazon Turk. From the outset we’ll consider basic questions: What are the requirements for reading a poem? What methods do we need to explain the meaning of a poem? Where and how do we connect each poem’s very distinctive formal qualities to the communicative aims it does and doesn’t pursue? How do poets negotiate their work’s place in relation to the traditions they inherit and the pressing issues–aesthetic, social, political–of their own moment? Grading will be based on a midterm and final exam, short written assignments involving both creative and analytical practice, and class participation.

ENGL 103: English and American Poetry
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
The reading of poetry requires a different form of attention than most reading of prose (whether fiction or information). This course is an introduction to the close reading of poetry in English, drawing from highlights of both the English and American lyric traditions over several centuries. By paying close attention to the details and prosodic strategies of poems, we will increase the pleasures we take in reading them both silently and aloud. The course will provide tools for reading and interpreting poems in both formal and free verse, and in genres that perform many varieties of engagement with the self, others, and the material or natural world. We will consider the hallmarks of the lyric poem: apostrophe, metaphor, and musicality, just to name a few. Written assignments will include short close-reading papers, longer papers, and midterms and final exams.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama
Instructor: Krall, Aaron
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of English & American drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Glaspell, O’Neill, Beckett, Albee, Soyinka, Fornés, and Parks, and we will see and review a production by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Shaw, Artaud, and Brecht. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction – Morlocks, Robots, Androids, Cyborgs: An Introduction to Science Fiction Literature
Instructor: Baszak, Gregor
Centuries after Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the earth revolved around the sun, Charles Darwin came along and showed us once more that the universe wasn’t created with us in mind: Rather than the product of a divine act of creation, humans were merely the product of a long process of what he called “random mutation” and “natural selection.” We tend to forget that this process of evolution is still ongoing and that our species might look a lot different from now—especially if we speed up the process ourselves, as developments in genetic engineering and AI indicate…
In this class we will read a selection of science fiction writers from the UK and America who pondered what the future of evolution—natural and scientific—might bring with it. Our readings won’t look to space as much as inward, to ourselves. What did writers more than a century ago believe the future may hold? What do writers today predict? The authors we will discuss may include H.G Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, George Schuyler, Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Octavia Butler, and others.

The weekly amount of reading will be manageable, but to expect an A, you should enter this class with a willingness to read.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction – Disastrous Environments
Instructor: Hiday, Corbin
During our present moment of climate change and ecological crisis—rising sea levels, a warming planet, species collapse, and population displacement—what might literature offer to ongoing climate discourses so often mired in techno-utopian engineering, or in outright political denialism? In this course, we will explore the role of literature across continents and borders to grapple with our current moment of climate disasters, present catastrophes with deep roots in our past, including imperialist expansion, accumulation, and appropriation against limits—ideologies foundational to the British nineteenth century, giving birth to industrialization and extractive fossil-fuel practices. Over the duration of the course we will also consider representational problems that arise when grappling with such an abstraction as “climate change,” and its disasters, thinking through what Rob Nixon terms, “slow violence,” lived realities of climate disaster that do not manifest as spectacularly evental, manifesting in plain sight, but rather accumulate and accrete over the long course of history. If our current social order (through political arrangements of institutions) has produced what manifests as the looming destruction of the world, how does literature, fabrications and constructions of worlds, offer visions beyond catastrophism and/or denialism? Potential authors include: H.G. Wells, J.G. Ballard, Octavia Butler, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Italo Calvino.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction – End Times in British and American Fiction
Instructor: Luft, Alex
According to literary critic Frank Kermode, one of the great charms of books is that they must end. How might we read the ending of a novel against a sense that our world might be near its end? While we can envision a variety of apocalypses for the world as we know it, some endings might also be alluring, as when we imagine the end of racism, sexism, ableism or economic injustice. This course will analyze British and American literary fiction that imagines worlds arriving at their ends, with special attention to matters of plot, temporal structure and narrative closure. Selected novelists will likely include Virginia Woolf, Kurt Vonnegut, Katherine Dunn, Julian Barnes, and Colson Whitehead.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare – Shakespeare Then & Now
Instructor: Aleksa, Vainis
Shakespeare continues to stir our hearts and minds through words and stories about the joy of falling in love, the lust for power or revenge, the desire for harmony and beauty, the fascination with violence and death, and the strength we find at times to rise above a sea of troubles. We will seek to understand the long lasting power of Shakespeare’s plays by analyzing how recent films portray them. We will also take a trip back in time to learn how the plays were experienced by their first viewers. Thinking about what these plays teach us about life will give us an opportunity to practice a range of communication and critical thinking skills. Because the course will emphasize discussion and what students can learn from each other, attendance will count heavily. Assignments will include quizzes, reflections, adaptations, and proposals for new ways to enact the plays.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare – Remaking Shakespeare
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Sub-titled “Remaking Shakespeare,” this course will focus on issues of remaking in Shakespeare’s works, from the time they were written to our own present day when they continue to be remade on both stage and screen. It is well known that Shakespeare drew most of his plots and characters from classical and contemporary sources, but in remaking them as his own, he also pushed the boundaries of how comedies and tragedies might tell a story or help us to understand the human experience. Conceived during the time many scholars call the “early modern period,” Shakespeare’s works take head-on issues we face today, such as Race, Sexuality, Gender, Imperialism, and Surveillance. There are more filmed versions of Shakespeare’s writings than those of any other author, and many students find most exciting how watching video versions of plays make the words “come alive” and challenge us to understand worlds that are both strangely familiar and different from our own.

ENGL 108: British Literature and British Culture – Literary Futures
Instructor: Canuel, Mark
This course will focus on the way that works of literature engage in future-directed thinking in order to imagine new selves, relations, communities, and institutions. Focusing on texts from the Romantic age to the present, our studies will range over works that are sometimes utopian, sometimes dystopian, and sometimes somewhere in between. We’ll want to address questions that include the following: What is the relation between literary and political writing? Why do writers of poetry and novels think that their works are adequate ways to think about new social relationships? What opportunities are disclosed by future-directed literary work, and what opportunities are foreclosed? What is the relationship between revolutionary thinking and progressive thinking? To what extent do new societies demand new kinds of people to inhabit them? Authors we’ll consider will most likely include William Blake, Percy Shelley, William Morris, T.S. Eliot, and Kazuo Ishiguro. The class will be supplemented by programming at the Institute for the Humanities, including the “Political Futures” conference in October 2018. Requirements: attendance, participation (with short homework assignments or quizzes), 1 short essay, 2 papers, midterm, and final exam.

ENGL 108: British Literature and British Culture – Not-British British Literature
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
At its height, the British empire ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. What do writers from this empire think about Britain? What is their relationship to British rule both during and after colonization? In this course on “British literature,” we will look to those who were colonized, dominated, and exploited to tell us about Britain, its empire and its afterlife. How do writers from the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia represent Britain? Does this change over time? What are narratives of immigration to Britain like (and how are these different from immigrant narratives in the United States)? What is a British literature that is wholly not properly “British”?

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture – American Literature in Black & White
Instructor: Ryan, Robert
A cursory glance at many classic anthologies of American literature will reveal a remarkable consistency: their whiteness. What, though, does it mean to understand American literature as white? Why do we distinguish African-American literature as something outside of or parallel to or distinct from, a more general American literature? To put these questions somewhat differently, we might ask: how does American literature and culture organize itself around the question race?

Addressing these questions, our course will be interested in a long history of American literature, focusing on how novels, stories, poems, and various other cultural forms call forth and invest themselves in a certain racial imaginary, one that has profound consequences for the present political moment. Put more bluntly, from pre-Civil War to contemporary America, race has played a crucial role in understanding what something like “America” even means, and today, in an era of heightened state violence and grassroots resistance.

Our course will pair texts from different moments over the past two centuries to work out how we have thought about race–in particular, categories of whiteness and blackness–in various contexts, culminating in two films: 2017 Oscar winner Get Out! and 2002 Eminem vehicle 8 Mile. Authors will include Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Graham Greene, George Saunders, and Colson Whitehead. We will also critically listen to and discuss albums such as Beyonce’s Lemonade, D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, Kendrick Lamaar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, among others, to understand how America’s racial history is taking shape in the present moment.

ENGL 109: American Literature and Culture – Experiencing the Civil War from the Desk to the Frontlines
Instructor: Grey, Robin
This course will cover the experiences of people during the American Civil War (1861-1865), from the perspective of those on the front lines (soldiers), the home front (women and children), and those who wrote about it from the safety of their desks. We will read soldiers’ and their wives’ letters, diary entries, and similar texts from the people who were fighting or enduring the war. We will also read the literary writings of those who were not in combat, but were invested in the war in other ways, including Walt Whitman (who served as a nurse), Herman Melville (who went on one campaign to learn about the war), Louisa May Alcott (who served in the newly permitted women’s nursing staff), and Ambrose Bierce (who had the distinction of both fighting and writing in detail about it in his chilling short stories). We will also read black soldiers’ letters and African American authors writing about the war. There will be a midterm, a short paper, some brief reaction papers, and a final exam.

ENGL 110: English and American Popular Genres – Crime, Romance, and Horror
Instructor: Cassidy, Marsha
Crime, romance, and horror are three of our culture’s best-loved forms of popular fiction. This course studies the conventions and formulas that make these tried-and-true genres so enduring in literature, film, and television. In our readings, out-of-class screenings, and student discussions, we search for the underlying cultural and social themes that drive these stories. Questions of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, and gender over-arch the course and help us rethink the value of popular art itself. Required work includes reading quizzes, unit exams, several short response papers, group work, a class presentation, and creative projects.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature – The Trope of the “Fallen Woman” in 19th and 20th Century Fictions
Instructor: Cridland, Nicole
In this course we will read literary texts that depict women who attempt to break free of the confines of traditional gender roles and domestic expectations by engaging in illicit behaviors (specifically women who carry on extramarital affairs, harbor same sex desire, or refuse to engage in domestic labor). We will begin the class with Gustave Flaubert’s 19th Century novel, Madame Bovary, where the female protagonist falls within the trope of the “fallen woman,” and continue to more contemporary works that depict women who engage in behavior considered shocking or illicit in the context of the gender norms of their time.

Through our readings we will examine and unpack questions surrounding what makes a female character of a fictive work be seen as shocking, rebellious, or dangerous in the face of conventional family structures and domestic expectations, as well as ask what greater cultural implications may result from writing such a character. In addition to the novels, we will read secondary criticism and theory in order to deepen your understanding of the primary texts’ social and historical contexts and help you more pointedly approach your class participation and writing.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature
Instructor: Turim-Nygren, Mika
Norman Mailer infamously called women’s writing “always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid.” Similarly, Mark Twain so loathed reading Jane Austen that he expressed a wish to “dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” What about women’s writing could have inspired such animosity? Was it the caliber of the writing – or was it the convictions of the women? What features of writing by female authors might even make it distinguishable as “women’s writing” to begin with? In this class, we will read works by women who made waves. We will pay special attention to the way that these women, in the process of tackling unconventional subject matter, wound up creating new genres and literary forms. Readings will come from American literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, including longer works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Sylvia Plath, Edith Wharton, and Margaret Atwood, as well as a variety of short stories and essays. Major assignments will consist of one four-page and one six-page essay, a midterm exam, and a final exam.

ENGL 112: Introduction to Native American Literatures
Instructor: Villarruel, Cecilia
This course is an introduction to the oral and written literatures of Native Americans and First Nations people. While we will mostly read fiction, we will also read articles, essays, speeches, and excerpts from memoirs to help contextualize the novels and stories we read. Readings will likely include Louise Erdrich, Thomas King, William Apess, Sarah Winnemucca, and N. Scott Momaday.

ENGL 113: Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S. – Introduction to the Multiethnic American Novel
Instructor: Brown, Margaux
In this introductory course, we will explore novels written by an array of multiethnic writers in order to gain a broader understanding of how the novel works on the level of form and content to create a text that is both prospective and retrospective in nature. Kenneth Warren suggests in his book, What Was African American Literature? that what separates literature today from what proceeded it is that it is retrospective in nature compared to the prospective literature of our past. What does it mean for an author to create a novel that offers a retrospective or prospective depiction of American life? We will explore issues of class, race, and gender in relation to larger social, political, and cultural movements throughout American history. As we read through African, Native, Latin, and Asian American novels we will explore how these authors engage in debates of language, literacy, culture, space, place and the antagonisms that occur between these intersections; and what it means to be both multiethnic and American. At the same time, we’ll think about the function of the novel both in representing ethnicity and in making an argument that ethnicity is something that needs literary representation. Students will write several short close reading exercises, as well as a longer paper. Assessments will likely include reading quizzes, a midterm and a final exam. We will read texts by authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Octavia Butler, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, and Colson Whitehead.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Postcolonial Literature – The Empire Writes Back
Instructor: Barnes, Natasha
This course is designed to introduce students to the aesthetics and politics of postcolonial literature. We will start first by interrogating what colonialism is and examining how European (particularly British) literary culture participates in the promotion of colonial power. Next we will see how writers from marginalized societies respond to this. The course will be organized around the pairings of literary texts from a variety of historical and geographic contexts. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre will be read alongside Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea; Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will be compared to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Whenever possible we will think through an “internal colonization” model to study the writing of historically marginalized groups in the United States. Students will be required to write two essays and take a midterm and final exam. Everyone expected to keep up with readings and contribute regularly to class discussion.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature – Intimate Disruptions: Disability, Gender, Sexuality and Literature
Instructor: McManaman, Ann-Marie
This course intends to disrupt – it intends to push against limited ideas of embodiment, medicalization, and understandings of disability, gender, and sexuality. As such, we will explore both a historic and literary account of gender and sexuality as a means of thinking about the ways in which literature counters and engages with the medicalizing and pathologizing of sex. Our focus will be on the ‘invention of heterosexuality’ and the ‘normative’ and literary and theoretical responses to the emergence of these terms. Together we will think about the de-sexualizing of non-normative bodies and the radical response of crip and queer intimacies (and the act of claiming and using these words). We will consider various kinds of experiences of sex, love, passion, violence, and bodies. Our classes will explore, through close reading and application of theoretical concepts, poems, novels, short stories, and comic books with particular attention to the ways in which disability, gender, and sexuality, are produced in form, content, and language. Literary texts may include Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. Theoretical readings may include Eve Sedgwick, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Heather Love, Michael Warner, Lauren Berlant, and other scholars working in queer and disability studies.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Literature – Love is Strange: Exploring the Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
Instructor: Rupert, Jennifer
We will begin the work of ENGL 117: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which modern writers of memoir and fiction (mostly during the first half of the twentieth century) either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we read both modern and postmodern fiction about different kinds of love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put each and every one of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy, past and present. Lastly, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on received ideas about gender and societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of egalitarian eroticism and meaningful sexual consent.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture
Instructor: Drown, James
Course Description, Goals, and Objectives Film and its media outgrowths have become an integral part of daily modern life. These media are fascinating to study, as they act as both a reflection of our culture, and as an impetus for cultural change. They are one of the primary ways we embody much of our current storytelling, and that we perpetuate our cultural history and myths. In this class, we will view sets of populist films primarily from the late 60’s to the early 80’s. Looking at sets of films will allow us to use compare and contrast techniques to examine how films reflect the historical moment, deep-seated social beliefs, and help predict and reinforce social change. Requirements for the class include weekly responses to the films, a group project analyzing your own set of films, and a take-home midterm and final. After this class viewing films will become a richer experience that will allow you to see the world around you in new ways.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture – “The horror! The horror!”

Instructor: Raden, Justin
Is horror in the eye of the beholder? Or are things themselves horrifying? These lines––“The horror! The horror!”––from both Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (a loose adaptation of Conrad’s novel), could point in both directions. They could be intended to reflect the objective horror of British colonial violence in the Congo or of American violence in Cambodia; or they could indicate the horror of epistemological failure, of being unable to comprehend what is going on in front of us (not unlike the horror of the first day of the semester!). We’ll take horror as our point of departure to think about how cinema deals with the things it puts in our view. This is not a course about scary movies so much as it is a course about developing a vocabulary to talk about cinematic form and representation via the concept of horror. The course will consist primarily of a combination of screenings of films from a number of nations, periods, and genres; lectures and seminar discussion; and written responses.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric – Persuasion in a Dangerous Time
Instructor: Reames, Robin
What is “rhetoric” and why should we care about it? Although Socrates demeaned rhetoric as a dangerous and deceptive form of flattery, Aristotle defined it as an art—the art of seeing the available means of persuasion. Even today the importance of these ideas can be witnessed all around us. From political controversies, to product advertisements, to outright lies—the power of language persuades us, determines our thoughts and beliefs, and dictates our actions. In this course we seek to understand rhetoric—both what it is and how we use it. In this way, rhetoric is meant to help us understand more about the world around us.

In this course, we will test the relevance of the some of the basic concepts of the rhetorical tradition as we analyze numerous rhetorical events of our own time: the rhetorics of DACA, the Muslim ban, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more. Through examining how concepts like kairos, stasis, ethos, pathos, etc., function in these and other rhetorical events, we will gain a deeper understanding both of how persuasion works… and how it fails.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Gore, Jeffrey
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives: rules will become tools to help you to speak and write more effectively. There will be parts of the course that might be compared to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use terms of grammar to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing will come more naturally to you.

ENGL 200: Basic English Grammar
Instructor: Parr, Katherine
Grammar is an important component to writing. It enables a writer to produce sentence structures that affect how well a message, essay, or other document will be received by the reader. This section of Basic English Grammar will apply a rhetorical lens to the traditional study of grammar and style. Students will recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and will practice sentence forms in order to appreciate the impact of a sentence on its reader. Students will also produce short essays and will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices, recognizing that good writing is situation appropriate. However, this is not a remedial course in grammar. It does advance the student’s understanding of grammar from Composition I and II.

ENGL 201: Introduction to the Writing of Creative Non-fiction – Prose, Podcasts, and Digital Storytelling
Instructor: Green, Hannah
Creative nonfiction (CNF) combines the creative craft choices, language, and literary devices of creative writing with the real, everyday experiences of nonfiction to create personal yet accessible narratives. Lee Gutkind likens CNF to jazz with its “rich mix of flavors, ideas, and techniques, some of which are newly invented and others as old as writing itself.” Some of these newly invented techniques embrace different mediums to create digital storytelling, especially podcasts. While podcasts cover a range of topics and forms, this course will focus on “true stories, well told.” We will read CNF and craft essays to trace the development, differences, and debates surrounding both the CNF genre and digital storytelling. In tracing these histories, we’ll analyze and participate in the rise of podcasts such as The Moth, Strangers, This American Life, and Snap Judgement. By the end of this course, we will be able to identify elements of creative writing, analyze their effects, and verbalize our craft choices as we create and share our own essays and podcasts.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Shearer, Jay
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on—and skills regarding—writing for media (print & online) and the basic principles of journalism and publicity. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism and PR to blogging and feature writing—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (as presented via links on your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come. This course is the prerequisite for Engl 493, the English Internship in Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202:Media and Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
We all belong to a discourse community known as Millennials, myself included, and we are “digital natives.” We all consume media constantly, and in this class we’ll practice producing basic forms of media in various professional contexts. Through extensive reading, writing and discussion, you will analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to public relations—and create writing samples in various genres and mediums that take advantage of the different digital technologies available to us. This course is intended to prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in different fields that utilize written communication.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry

Instructor: Borzutsky, Daniel

This course will introduce students to a broad range of poetry from a variety of time periods, languages, and approaches to content and structure. In the process, students will learn to apply critical tools and terminology by making poems that experiment with form, voice, meter and rhythm, imagery, translation, creative response, and revision. Most weeks students will submit poetry writing assignments that focus on the poetic concepts we are studying. Students will revise these weekly assignments and collect them in a portfolio with their own critical introduction. Additionally, students will submit their work to the class for peer critique and will respond both critically and creatively to the work of their classmates. Our investigations will focus not only on how poems are written, but also why they are written and what relationship they have to the contexts and worlds in which they are read.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
Instructor: McGath, Carrie
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. As such, our emphasis will not only be on investigating aspects of form and language with an eye toward improving your own work, but also on developing a critical vocabulary to approach your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshop. You will be writing about poems, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work, often dramatically; therefore, in order for you to be successful in this class, you must be open to criticism and suggestions. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process that will serve you as poets, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Magers, Dan
This class is focused on developing a writing practice devoted to narrative fiction. In literature, “fiction” has come to mean a kind of imaginative storytelling in prose that can reveal “timeless truths.” However, another definition of “fiction” is simply “lies.” WTF? To investigate (and put into practice) this seeming paradox, we will study the fundamentals of fiction writing (including – but not limited to – plot, character, setting, dialogue, and theme) by analyzing these elements in published short stories, as well as (and more importantly) by putting them into practice in your own original writing. Most of the class will be in a workshop format, where your writing will be discussed and critiqued by your peers in a rigorous, yet constructive environment. You must be open to criticism and suggestions, and be willing to make substantive revisions to your drafts. The workshop format entails active participation, completing the assigned readings, and regular attendance. A goal of the course will be to demonstrate how fiction writing can alter how we see the world, and how creative writing can be an empowering practice for everyone.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
This is an intro undergraduate fiction workshop. We will study the craft of fiction, reading the work of published authors and examining their methods. We will also write fiction and learn to critique each others’ work. A broad range of genres are welcome, including science fiction and fantasy.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Rensch, Adam
This course presents the fundamentals of fiction, including (but not limited to) plot, character, setting, and theme. During the first half of the semester we will study the work of writers who have mastered these fundamentals, as well as masters who have chosen to employ them in new ways or scrap them completely. Beyond these macro elements, we will focus on the sentence: its syntax, rhythm, sound, appearance, and efficiency. What makes a sentence pleasing to the eye and ear? What makes a sentence powerful? These and other questions will arise as you begin to complete fiction exercises and create sentences of your own. The course’s second half will take the form of a workshop, in which each of you will bring in hard copies of a complete story (10-15 pages) to be constructively discussed the following week. You should be prepared to read and respond–orally and in writing–to the short stories of many contemporary authors as well as to the work of your classmates.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: Corcoran, Casey
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course that will help prepare you to become a tutor in the UIC Writing Center. In this course, you will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, and effective tutoring strategies. Guiding questions include: What is writing? What is tutoring? Why should we tutor writers? How should we tutor writers? We will think critically about the choices we make as tutors as we negotiate our position as liaison between the writers we serve and the university.

In addition to our weekly class meeting, you will be required to work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for two hours per week. Attendance and punctuality are requirements for both class and tutoring.

Activities will include the following: cross-tutoring with experienced tutors; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of ideology, culture, race and power in education.

Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s faculty.

While English 222 students are unpaid for their time in the writing center, they may apply for a paid staff tutor position the following semester. You can consider 222 a 15-week audition. That said, our ability to hire depends on our turnover and limited funding; we are unable to offer employment to all qualified applicants each term, so this class should serve as an end in itself.

ENGL 222: Tutoring in the Writing Center
Instructor: O’Neil, Kim
English 222 is an intensive reading and writing course for students who would like to be writing tutors. As such, students will not only engage critically with writing center theory, but also put theory to practice in developing respectful, collaborative, inclusive and effective tutoring strategies. Activities include: observation and cross-tutoring; participation in class discussions and presentations; reflections on tutoring sessions, aided by transcription and discourse analysis; weekly reading and writing assignments on, among other things, current tutoring research, diverse learning styles, and the roles of language, identity, identity, race, gender, sexuality, power, and ideology in education; and a final, longer project based on a research question you design. In addition to meeting weekly for class, all students will be required to train and work (unpaid) in the Writing Center for 2 hours per week as writing tutors.Students receive a grade at the end of the semester that assesses their academic work for the course as well as their professional commitment to tutoring. Professionally, tutors are expected to be on time, respectful of students and faculty, supportive and attentive to all the writers who use the Writing Center, and receptive to coaching from their instructors and the Writing Center’s staff.

ENGL 232: History of Film I: 1890 to World War II
Instructor: Rubin, Martin
An overview of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. Topics covered include the invention of cinema, the evolution of the film director, the role of women in early film history, the rise of narrative cinema, the birth of the documentary, German expressionist cinema, Soviet montage cinema, the coming of sound, the development of deep focus cinematography, and Italian neorealism. Filmmakers covered include Georges Méliès, Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber, Robert Flaherty, Sergei Eisenstein, Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles, and Vittorio De Sica. The focus of course is on how specific trends in film history shaped the film style of different eras, nations, and directorial visions. Requirements include regular quizzes and written assignments.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Dubey, Madhu
The purpose of this course is to introduce and explain a range of influential approaches to making sense of literature, including formalism, structuralism, psychoanalytical criticism, new historicism, feminism, postcolonial theory, Marxism, and deconstruction, among others. Reading poetry, drama, and fiction by authors ranging from John Donne to Toni Morrison, the course will also help students gain a basic understanding of key questions and debates about literary periods and genres. Required Readings: Norton critical editions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw; selection of poems, short stories, and essays in literary criticism that will be posted on Blackboard. Course Requirements: two 3-page response papers; one 5-page paper close reading a literary text; one 8-10 page final paper.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Michaels, Walter Benn
What’s the difference between studying literature and just reading it? If you’re planning to take English 240, you’re probably an English major, and you probably find some pleasure in reading and maybe writing stories and poems. The purpose of this class is to explore the questions that come up when we start turning our pleasure in literature into an interest also in English studies as an intellectual discipline. For example, this class is an introduction to “critical methods.” What are “critical methods?” Why are there more than one? Why can’t literary critics figure out which is the best and just stick to it?
Focusing on a small number of literary, critical and theoretical texts, we will ask additional questions like what distinguishes works of art from everything else, whether it’s possible to say what makes a good poem or novel, and what (the author’s intention? the rules of the language? the reader’s response?) determines a text’s meaning. Our central concerns will be literary but we will also draw on materials as different as Amy Farrah Fowler’s (devastating) critique of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s (not quite as devastating) dissent from the Supreme Court’s majority decision in Smith v. United States. Given the times we live in, we will also pay significant attention to the political and economic questions that inflect our relation to literary writing and English studies.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Pugh, Christina
What goes into the writing, and the reading, of literary criticism? How, and why, do works of literature generate critical thought? In this introduction to literary study and critical methods, we will discuss the ways in which a work of literature can generate multiple critical readings, as well as the ways we can judge the viability of those readings and create our own counter-arguments based on strategic presentation of textual evidence. Since writers of literary criticism are necessarily interested in the properties of literature as such, our critical readings will also discuss issues of genre that inform works of poetry, the fairy tale and other short fictions, and the novel. Works studied may include the poems of Emily Dickinson, fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and others, and a novel by Nella Larsen. This course is conceived as a seminar; class discussion will therefore be paramount here. Students will write short papers and a longer, integrative final paper.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Whalen, Terence
This course will explore literary criticism as both a field of study and a practical skill. We will consider major approaches and theories on their own terms, but we will also “test” various theories against a range of primary literary texts. Literary authors include Mary Shelley, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe. Requirements: weekly writing assignments; two or three formal papers; a research project; a final critical paper (based upon the research project); occasional tests or quizzes; and participation in group projects.

ENGL 240: Introduction to Literary Study and Critical Methods
Instructor: Clarke, Ainsworth A.

This course is an introduction to the key terms and debates that define the field of literary study. Using the transformation of detective fiction from the classic detective story to the postcolonial crime novel as our case study, we will explore how questions of genre, literary form, agency, and narratology that circulate within the field inform critical analysis. Our readings will include classic literary analysis by Todorov, Brooks, Moretti, Genette, and Culler (amongst others) and signal examples of detective fiction by Poe, Conan Doyle, Chandler, Himes, Auster, and Chamoiseau.

ENGL 241: English Literature I: Beginnings to 1660
Instructor: Reames, Robin
It was a world without youtube. No iTunes. No smartphones. No Netflix. In the beginning, there was not even writing.

In the beginning, there were monsters. And heroes. And battles. There were knights, mystics, and faeries. There was love and betrayal, birth and death. The gods spoke to us, and we spoke back. The spirits played games. The world was alive with mystery, and it was anything but boring. This world, as you might imagine, is very different from our own. But at the same time, it contains the template for what our world would become—the world in which we now live.

In this course we will survey English literature from this other-worldly world, with particular attention to how the people of this era used language to shape and structure their experiences and lives—perhaps one of the most important things you can do in college. We will study texts from the medieval and early modern centuries with the following goals in mind: to explore the development of literary and rhetorical forms; to become acquainted with various kinds of literary and rhetorical analyses; to examine the ways that texts shape and are shaped by; and to consider the changing literary representations of issues that bear on our own time and experience, such as gender roles, class, race, and heroism.

ENGL 242: English Literature II: 1660-1900
Instructor: Freeman, Lisa A.
This course serves as the second part of the History of English Literature series. During the semester we will study a sampling of works from major authors of the Restoration through Victorian periods. Our goal will be to further our knowledge of literary form and content by developing a better understanding of the relationship between literary structures and the stories they tell. While we will approach literature in its cultural and historical contexts, we will also strive to develop an understanding of the study of literature as a discipline requiring the use of specific tools and methods. Particular attention will be paid in the course of our readings to the rise of the British empire and to the articulation of race, class, and gender as categories of identity in an English context.

ENGL 243: American Literature: Beginnings to 1900
Instructor: Coviello, Peter
This course surveys the astonishing archive of American writing from the 18th- and 19th-cenuries, the years that witness the transformation of a provincial colonial outpost into that unlikeliest of things: a nation. We will read a great range of works, written by slaves, aristocrats, sailors, spinsters, sex-radicals, and bureaucrats, to ask how contradictions between empire and freedom, colonization and enfranchisement, democracy and enslavement, gave shape to the “America” that emerged. Authors will include Phillis Wheatley, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others. Students will be responsible for two critical essays and two exams, as well as reading quizzes as needed.

ENGL 302: Studies in the Moving Image – The Horror Genre: Studies in the Moving Image
Instructor: Cassidy, Marsha
In this course we study the narrative and cinematic conventions that have come to define the Hollywood horror genre and look carefully at the genre’s main sub-categories. After reviewing the history of the genre’s low-brow reputation, we turn to newer scholarship that takes the genre seriously, examining issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, and the body. Each Thursday, we screen in class a touchstone example of a horror film from across the genre’s history, beginning in the silent era and ending with contemporary versions that are more self-reflective. Students are required to write several short response essays, complete a creative project, submit a final research paper, and prepare a classroom presentation with a partner.

ENGL 319: Post-War British Literature: 1945-1980
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
This course will not exactly survey British literature from WWII to the dawn of the Thatcher era; rather, it will focus on works from the period that whose ambition is to make an intervention into literary form. That is, the course will focus on works that undertake either to develop or to react against literary modernism, or particular versions of it. In some ways the literature of this era looks forward to what will come to be called postmodernism; in others it seems, from the standpoint of contemporary literature, an utterly foreign landscape. Authors may include Samuel Beckett, Ivy Compton-Burnett, J.G. Ballard, V.S. Naipaul, Malcolm Lowry, Lawrence Durell, Doris Lessing, George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Samuel Selvon, Anthony Powell, Elizabeth Bowen, and others.

ENGL 323: American Literature: 1790-1865 – Tearing Down Monuments and the American Civil War
Instructor: Grey, Robin
This course will start with the current debate about tearing down Confederate War monuments, then move back to the Civil War and the failures of the Reconstruction to understand the investments in those Civil War Monuments. We will be reading about the war and its sources through eyes of the participants, including both well-known authors (Stowe, Whitman, Alcott, Melville, Bierce) as well as the lesser-known authors (Augusta Jane Evans) and politicians who were also authors, such as Albion Tourgée. Black and white perspectives will be investigated, both then and now. I will also try to arrange for the class to visit some local Civil War monuments, if at all possible.
Course requirements: a midterm, a series of short reaction papers, a 7-10 paper, and a final exam. We may include some oral reports, depending upon the inclinations of the class.

ENGL 326: Postwar American Literature – Contemporary American Literature: 1980-Present
Instructor: Tabbi, Joseph
A consideration of recent work by established and emerging novelists and conceptual writers in the United States and how such work bears on longstanding international debates on World Literature, World Systems, and (more specifially) the relocation of literary practices within electronic media. Attention will be given to authors who discover ways not to deny to the systems that increasingly define contemporary life, and not to resist these systems mindlessly, but rather to reform the systems–and at the same time do the hard work of reforming, informing, and remaking oneself. Formally, the works are also chosen for their adaptive qualities, the way they do not simply follow the rules of a given genre or mode, but rather use these formulas toward unpredictable, innovative ends. This plasticity of form extends even to the mixture of poetry and essayistic writing, image and narrative, and other combinations of fields and practices normally kept separate.

In addition to our discussion of two or three sample print fictions (by Kathy Acker, Ben Lerner, and Tom McCarthy), we will regularly read, and write feature entries about works of native digital writing, of the sort found in the Electronic Literature Directory (www.eliterature.org) and the Electronic Literature Showcase. These entries, due every 4th week, will be graded and they can also be submitted for peer to peer consideration, for publication in the ELD.

ENGL 375: Rhetoric and Public Life – Climate Change and the Rhetorics of
Instructor: Cintron, Ralph
A group of faculty and graduate students from UIC and the University of Wisconsin, Madison have organized an interdisciplinary inquiry into matters of climate change. We have tentatively named ourselves “Political Ecology: Platform Chicago.” Some of the disciplines that we belong to are human geography, English, rhetorical studies, environmental sciences, art and art history, political science, anthropology, and we are seeking still other collaborators. So, this course is informed by the discussions that are occurring among us. Moreover, members of this group may occasionally drop into the course and provide a lecture or two; or we may attend events and make “field trips” sponsored by different members of this group.

The course will pay attention to climate change itself. We will ask questions such as: What is the evidence for climate change, and, How does the chemistry of the biosphere respond to increases of carbon dioxide? But we will also be interested in the economics of climate change: Are alternative energy sources becoming sufficiently inexpensive to replace carbon energy? At the center of the course, however, will be a collection of “post-humanist” texts such as a selection of works from Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, Kath Weston’s Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World, and Eduardo Kohn’s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. These works raise deeper questions about the ways in which we organize our relations with things, both animate and inanimate. Finally, we will examine legal dimensions that have policy consequences related to climate change. For instance, there is a current movement to go beyond environmental law and to establish what is broadly called “Rights of Nature” laws. Ecuador and Bolivia, for instance, have written into their constitutions “rights of nature” guarantees in which rivers and mountains acquire “personhood” and become “rights bearers” as opposed to being merely protected by environmental laws. Rights of Nature claims are, of course, fascinating. The legal fiction of “personhood” has been long applied to corporations, but the metaphorical extension of personhood to rivers and earth itself is novel, and even its advocates are not certain about the positives and negatives of such claims.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Christian, Margena
In this course, you will learn genres and forms in the professional writing spectrum that demonstrate competence in creating clear, concise narratives for a wide variety of audiences with changing needs. You will examine characteristics of effective writing in a non-academic context, developing a facility in writing across a range of specialized areas. Expect to produce proposals, reports, newsletters and document design. You will learn to make sense of numbers with data reporting and research methods that measure your proficiency to construct appropriate styles of advanced professional writing on an array of platforms, including online. In the process, you will learn to communicate well by recognizing the correct manner and form to use for different media formats.

ENGL 381: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course we will study ethics and argumentation as they apply in the workplace. You will be encouraged to write from within the framework of your own profession, and to debate students from other professionals about controversies involving business, government, law, medicine, science and technology. We will study the intersection of these professional discourses and write different genres and forms across the professional spectrum, including but not limited to organizational profiles, educational brochures, newsletters, and grant proposals.

ENGL 384: Technical Writing
Instructor: Hayek, Philip
In this course, we will examine the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law. No matter what major you have chosen, in this class we will be able to investigate how written communication functions in your chosen profession. As technical communicators in this class you will make information more usable and accessible in order to advance ideas and innovation in the different STEM fields. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions (or end-user documentation for CS majors), proposals and reports. This course will impart to students the principles and procedure of Technical Writing.

ENGL 428: Topics in Literature and Culture, 1900-Present – Post-Digital Practices in Literature & Culture
Instructor: Tabbi, Joseph
It may go without saying that the Internet, not the library is where readers go first to explore literary and cultural developments, even as literary and cultural discussions take place, in the first place, through blogs and social media. Generally speaking, digitization has had tremendous impact on culture in the United States. At the same time, topics of concern to American literary and cultural scholars now extend, immediately and globally across multi-cultural channels. Professor Joseph Tabbi of the English Department is a scholar of electronic literature and will provide students with insights into the relocation of literary, historical, and cultural discussion in databases, blogs, and networked media. Such digital relocations can of course degenerate into inconsequential chats; but others, when rightly organized can also be monitored by dedicated, peer review communities whose conversations are highly focused and conceptually rigorous. While reading widely (and often critically) in established discussion forums (Quora and Reddit, among others), we will develop a vocabulary for discussing literary and cultural texts as well as a vocabulary specific to texts that are written for new media (and not just transferred there, as e-books or You-Tube videos). This lively, discussion driven course will introduce students to the major themes, dynamics, and contexts of digital conversation. Sites will be presented on the screen, for all to see and comment on. (Devices in class should be turned off, as one of our themes is the necessity, at least occasionally, to step away from the individualized, addictive nature of unreflective texting.

In addition to studying (and occasionally sending posts over) a range of online forums, both of general and specific scholarly interest, students will consider how the Internet has been anticipated and interpreted in selected novels and films, from The Lumiere Brothers in the early 1900s through Modernist, Situationist, and eventual experiments in electronic literature.

In the first week of classes, or before, students should enlist in at least three of the following listservs:
Quora
Reddit
The Electronic Literature Organization Twitter feed
Bloomsbury Press blog and Twitter feed
Archive of Digital Art

Others can be added at the first week, based on recommendations by students.
Students are not expected to have read all of the posts for a given week in any one list, and not all students will have enrolled in all lists but we will have read summaries and thoughts from classmates about a given list composed (and posted over our own class listserv) once weekly.
As the course proceeds, the following textbooks will be read, offering a literary context for modes of digital expression encountered in social media and throughout the Internet:

“Small Screen Fictions,” edited by Astrid Ennslin, Lisa Swanstrom, and Paweł Frelik. Parodoxa (2018) Electronic Literature, Scott Rettberg. Polity (2018)
Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres. Joergen Schaefer and Peter Gendolla. (2010)

ENGL 437: Topics in Poetry and Poetic Theory – Forms of Resistance 2008-2018
Instructor: Ashton, Jennifer
We’ll read a range of very recent work in American poetry with a focus on how poets imagine the practice of poetry as a mode of political, social, and aesthetic resistance, or, at a further extreme, in light of what Allen Grossman means when he calls poetry the “civilizational means of last recourse” — in other words, what it means to think of poetry as the representational practice that we turn to when no other (e.g., the essay, the novel, the theatre, film, music, etc.) can do the job. We’ll read poetry published within the past decade and inspired by economic, social, environmental, and aesthetic crises, work that has emerged in the midst of dramatic climate change, financial collapse, racist/sexist/xenophobic violence and discrimination, and rapidly rising economic inequality. Poets we’ll study may include Steven Alvarez, Anne Boyer, Cathy Park Hong, Douglas Kearney, Ben Lerner, Lucas de Lima, Tao Lin, Joseph Massey, Mark Nowak, Claudia Rankine, Juliana Spahr, Nick Thurston, Rodrigo Toscano, and Simone White. Students will be expected to contribute to class discussion, complete regular short written assignments involving both creative and analytical practice, and write a final conference-style research paper.

ENGL 440: Topics in Cultural and Media Studies – The Freshwater Lab
Instructor: Havrelock, Rachel
The Freshwater Lab course introduces students to the pressing issues and vast possibilities for the North American Great Lakes. Along with readings and in-class workshops, the Freshwater Lab course brings experts in different fields into the classroom and takes students around the city to witness some of the most exciting water-related projects and events. Ultimately, each student chooses a topic and develops an innovative approach to addressing a fresh water issue. Students are then paired with professionals to get advice on improving and implementing their ideas. Past student projects have included films, policy papers, research analysis, live events, digital storytelling, communication plans, art, water tech, and activism. Many alums have secured fellowships and jobs through their projects. The power of literary representation and language in creating a sense of place, stewardship and free access to public waters constitutes an important line of inquiry for the Freshwater Lab.
This one of a kind course empowers UIC students to understand, claim, and protect our magnificent public waters. For more information, visit freshwaterlab.org and freshwater stories.com

ENGL 459: Introduction to the Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Bell, Lauren DeJulio
This course is designed to introduce students to the field of English Education. We will focus on various critical issues facing English teachers today, analyzing how each impacts educators and students. We’ll consider a range of questions, such as: What is most important when teaching English? How have perspectives shifted in terms of what matters in education? What is the purpose of English Language Arts? What are the benefits and limitations of teaching in an English classroom? How can we best meet the needs of students in a changing world? We’ll look at educational theory, policy, critical literacy, pedagogy, and curriculum choices, as well as young adult literature and personal texts and articles. By studying authors ranging from Linda Christensen and David Kirkland to Angie Thomas and Luis Alberto Urrea, students will explore the many facets of teaching English in contemporary society. Please note: 12 hours of field experience is a required component of this course. Students must have sophomore standing or above and have completed the UIC’s writing requirement.

ENGL 473 (AAST 490) – The Contemporary African Novel
Instructor: Brown, Nicholas
What has happened in the African novel in the new century? If the first wave of African novels seemed clearly unified by a concern with the precolonial past, the colonial encounter, and hopes for decolonization, the second is unified by its disillusionment with the ideals of the decolonization moment and by its exploration of the difficulties of the newly independent African nations. After that the story becomes much less clear. While outstanding novels continued to be written, a coherent narrative of the field appeared elusive. While this phenomenon partly reflected serious problems with the publishing industries in many African countries, it may not have been entirely negative. It could be that the lack of a thematic center has opened up the field for the most recent generation of African novelists. On one hand, it is apparent that for practical reasons many African novelists are now writing for an audience is not primarily African. On the other hand, the last decades have seen a renaissance in ambitious African fiction, even as its responsibility to the African context has at times been questioned. This course will offer the opportunity to read some of the most important texts of the past twenty years, as well as to evaluate the current state of the field. This course is a seminar for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. This means that engaged participation in class discussion will count substantially toward your evaluation, and that the major assignment will be a single, 15-20 page final paper.

ENGL 474: Topics in Popular Culture and Literature – The Invisible Made Visible: Writings of Color in American Speculative Fiction
Instructor: Mohanraj, Mary Anne
In this course we will examine speculative literature authored by American writers of color. Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element. Writers of color will primarily be limited to non-white writers, although the nuanced details of that definition will be discussed further during class. Readings will include books authored by Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Hiromi Goto, and anthologies edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Nisi Shawl, and Uppinder Mehan / Nalo Hopkinson.

ENGL 481: Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd
Taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 481 is the capstone course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken the semester before student teaching. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 481 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, and practice lesson plans they design.

ENGL 486: Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
Instructor: Mayo, Russell
How should we value writing in the English Language Arts Classroom? Should the classroom privilege certain genres and writing styles over others? What harms might this inflict? How do outside pressures inform our instruction of writing? English 486 engages with these questions as we develop a sense of what it means to teach writing in the middle and high school classroom. Drawing from a wide range of sources—including Kirby and Crovitz’s (2012) Inside Out and curricular materials from NPR, 826 National, and Rethinking Schools—we will explore how writing can enable all students to develop as critical and creative thinkers. Together, we will explore many different genres, practice modes of assessment, engage with writing processes, and reflect on the role of writing and literacy in our lives. This course will be run as a hybrid writing workshop and methods seminar; as we discuss how we teach, we will also consider how we write, and vice versa. Course requirements include a minimum 12 hours of field work volunteering with 826CHI and four writing portfolios demonstrating what you’ve learned in various sections of the course.

English 490: Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Borzutsky, Daniel

This course further develops the poetic concepts and critical tools studied in English 210, but with a more refined focus on the study of individual authors and sustained student projects. We will read poems and collections by modernist and contemporary authors from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and there will be a special focus on writing by Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx poets whose work traverses multiple nations and languages. Poets we study may include César Vallejo, Julia de Burgos, Pablo Neruda, Pedro Pietri, Nicolás Guillén, Juan Felipe Herrera, Kim Hyesoon, Gwendolyn Brooks, Muriel Rukeyser, and Bertolt Brecht (all readings will be in English). These writers will serve as models for our experiments with form; and as models of writers committed to the belief that poetry has a place in public discourse. In the first part of the semester, students will submit weekly poetry assignments focusing on formal and conceptual concerns. In the second part, students will develop a lengthier, more sustained project, and will complete a portfolio of revised work with their own critical introduction.

ENGL 491: Advanced Writing of Fiction
Instructor: Mazza, Cris
This advanced fiction workshop is for students who have earned an A or B in English 212 (or the equivalent). Knowledge of fiction-writing techniques and willingness to engage in open discussion of work-in-progress are necessary. Failure to participate will adversely affect grades. Each student will write 3 story drafts and critiques for every other peer-evaluated story. Other reading assignments TBA. This workshop will not accept work that is genre fiction: no science fiction, fantasy, mystery, horror/Gothic, romance, graphic fiction or conversion doctrine. There will be additional required guidelines to assist students broaden the scope of their approach to writing. Work that was initiated in a previous 212 or 491 course is permissible if revised since last seen by a workshop.

ENGL 492: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Stolley, Lisa
This course will further your knowledge, skill and experience as both readers and writers in the genre of creative nonfiction. You will continue to develop voice, style and technique through consistent writing of different styles of creative nonfiction, including personal essay, literary journalism, and other such creative nonfiction forms. Close reading of published creative nonfiction essays by well-regarded and successful authors will provide you a standard of craft with which to measure your own work in the workshop setting. You will be responsible for writing two completed essays, which will be workshopped over the course of the semester.

ENGL 493: Internship in Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Andrews, Linda Landis
“What can I do with an English major?” is a question that sometimes gives students pause, particularly when parents and others ask about the future. No need to hedge; every organization needs writers to provide information through their websites and blogs, to add creativity to the focus of their work,and to move their ideas forward.

Becoming an employed writer takes planning, however, starting with an internship, which provides an opportunity to step off campus and use the writing and analytical skills gained through English courses. Guided by an instructor and a supervisor, English majors quickly adjust to a public audience and conduct research, interview others, write content, edit, learn technology, assist with special events, to name a few of the tasks assigned in an internship. Employers include nonprofits, radio and television stations, online and print newspapers and magazines, public relations firms, museums, associations, law firms, and health organizations. Variable credit. English 202 is a prerequisite.

ENGL 500: Master’s Proseminar – Practicing Literature, Practical Criticism
Instructor: Kornbluh, Anna
What do words do in the world? What activities, projects, industries, and societies accommodate literature as a way of life? This MA proseminar considers the processes and goals of reading and writing at the graduate level, while training sights on these endeavors beyond the university. How do we practice the vocation of criticism amid the ruins of the profession? What genres and platforms and jobs have recently emerged as opportunities for writers and readers? Our inquiry into what literature is, what reading is, and what criticism is will be guided by a range of literary works, by accounts of the profession of literature, and by pointed engagements with literary, aesthetic, and cultural theories in the guise of Marxism, formalism, and psychoanalysis.

ENGL 503: Proseminar: Theory and Practice of Criticism – Not-Knowing
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
What anxiety could be more endemic to academia than the fear of not knowing? For graduate students and junior faculty in particular, the fear of not knowing something quickly escalates into the fear of not knowing anything. Such is the synecdochic logic of academia in late-capital, which expertly keeps us on our toes, looking over our shoulders and pretending to know. When it comes to politics too, everyone these days seems to know for sure what’s *really* going on. So what would it mean to make not knowing not the symptom of a lack, but a form of knowledge? What would an epistemology of non-knowledge look like? In this course, we will think about how not knowing something (or anything) might be a type of knowledge nevertheless—a kind of negative epistemology. We will read broadly: Marxism, psycho-analysis, architecture theory, postcolonial theory, historiography, anthropology, and novels by Conrad, Naipaul and Coetzee. All of this with the hope to learn how to not know, which is to say, how to be bad workers.

ENGL 507 Theory, Rhetoric, Aesthetics: Unthinking Signification
Instructor:Robin Reames
For nearly a century, the concept of signification has presented thinkers in the West with a profound problem. If the monolithic model of representational thinking dictates thought as such, how do we “get behind” signification to access what is? This course investigates the foundational ideas of representation and signification as they took shape in Western thought. We approach the question of representation from two directions. One is through the critiques in 20th and 21st century criticism which aim to un-think representation and signification—deconstruction, post-structuralism, and speculative realism. As an answer to those critiques, we then approach the problem through considering the very formation of the idea of representation itself as it developed in Plato’s dialogues.

Central to understanding the formation of the concepts of representation and signification is the presumed opposition of seeming and being in language, literature, rhetoric, and aesthetics. The opposition of seeming to being (the way something appears, as opposed to how it is), constructed through the history of ideas in the West, ultimately resulted in the subordination of language, rhetoric, and aesthetics to mere semblance, representation, and seeming—the implicit counterweight to truth and reality. While such logics of subordination have been roundly critiqued by 20th and 21st century thought, they have yet to be unthought, and the basic opposition of seeming to being, of appearance to truth, still holds firm.

Following the path blazed by Martin Heidegger’s de-struktion of the history of philosophy, we will explore the presumed distinction as it is formed in Plato’s Republic, and Sophist, and (following Heidegger) is critiqued by post-structuralists — particularly Michel Foucault (Archeology of Knowledge and “The Discourse on Language” [l’ordre du discours]) and Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition)—and, more recently, speculative realists—Quentin Meillasoux and Graham Harman. By investigating the interrelation of seeming and being, we will attempt to explore the limits of unthinking representation, signification, and seeming.

While this founding question serves as a common topic of inquiry, students in this course will undertake their own original research project, engaging with some aspect of the relationship between representation, signification, seeming and being as it pertains to language, art, literature, rhetoric, or another field of disciplinary inquiry. This course will focus heavily on professional research methods in the humanities, toward the end of helping students produce a publication-worthy paper or dissertation chapter.

English 517: Literature and Belief, Pope to Arnold
Instructor:Mark Canuel
This class explores one of the central theoretical issues that has haunted literary theorizing from Plato to the present—the relation between literary works and religious belief. Central to our studies will be the construction of “belief” as a category through which the literary comes to be articulated. Authors to be discussed will include Pope, Goldsmith, Equiano, Barbauld, Wordsworth, and Byron; crucial questions we’ll consider will include: what is the relation between belief and other categories or faculties—empirical knowing, imagination, faith, reason? Why do certain authors of poems and novels become interested in defining belief and exploring belief’s requirements? What is the relation between literature and “secular” discourses and institutions of modernity? How do theoretical and critical practices engage with literary self-constructions in relation to religious discourses and institutions? Course requirements include attendance and participation, one presentation, one response, final paper.

ENGL 557: Language and Literacy – Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for the Democratic Subject
Instructor: DeStigter, Todd 
What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it is desirable or even possible to do so? These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?)relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.

Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” can be defined and whether it remains a viable sociopolitical aspiration, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical/analytical method provides ways to think about the possible amelioration of sociopolitical and economic problems, and 3) whether progressive initiatives that stop short of political revolution or the fundamental transformation of the modes of production merely contribute to the reproduction of the status quo.

Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work matters beyond our own intellectual and/or financial interests. Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some possible texts are these:

THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY OF URBAN EDUCATION by Pauline Lipman
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
PRAGMATISM by William James
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
A SEARCH PAST SILENCE: THE LITERACY OF YOUNG BLACK MEN by David E. Kirkland
REVOLUTIONARIES TO RACE LEADERS: BLACK POWER AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN
POLITICS by Cedric Johnson
CULTURALLY SUSTAINING PEDAGOGY by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim
THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION by C. Wright Mills
MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY by Reinhold Niebuhr
DEMOCRACY IN WHAT STATE by Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, et.al.
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciere
THE INTIMACIES OF FOUR CONTINENTS by Lisa Lowe
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE by Jane Addams
TWO CHEERS FOR ANARCHISM by James C. Scott

English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing. Interested students are encouraged to contact Todd DeStigter (tdestig@uic.edu).

ENGL 571: Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Christopher Grimes
You know the drill. In workshop, the critical experiences you have in your literary topics seminars may directly inform your workshop discourse. Formal concerns such as constraint and various compulsions toward laying bare, for example, may well synchronize with more conceptually thematic considerations, e.g. issues–historical, ethical and theoretical–existent in depictions of the differently abled body. FUN!

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature
CRN: 21669/21670
Day(s)/Times:
Instructor: Schoenknecht, Mark

In this section of ENGL 101, we’ll consider great works of literature in the Western tradition from the late 19^th century to the present. Our inquiry will take a genre-based approach, focusing on elements of form and craft. However, we’ll also attempt to situate the texts we read in their broader literary and historical contexts, tracing the development of Western literature from modernism and its immediate precursors through postmodernism and into the contemporary moment. Readings will include short fiction (Chekhov, Kafka, Borges, and Carver), drama (Strindberg, Brecht, and Beckett), poetry (from Whitman and Dickinson to Carl Phillips and Natalie Diaz, with many others in between), and two relatively short novels (by Dostoevsky and Vonnegut). Most written assignments will take the form of low-stakes, exploratory response papers, with the exception of a formal literary analysis at the end of the term.

Note: While students will be expected to purchase the two novels assigned for this course, all other readings will be available for free online or via Blackboard.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film
CRN: 19843 / 19844
Day(s)/Times: MTRF 1:00-3:55
Instructor: Sterritt, Brooks
According to Steven Soderbergh, “a movie is something you see, and cinema is something that’s made.” This course is an introduction to the history of cinema via selections from a variety of periods and forms, including film’s origins, the silent era, the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, experimental film, film noir, animated films, various New Waves, and digital cinema. We will focus on how to read a film, the principles by which a film is put together, and how its various parts relate to one another. Likely viewing will include films by Griffith, Chaplin, Riefenstahl, Eisenstein, Vertov, Kurosawa, Antonioni, and Denis.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture – Subversive Cinema
Day(s)/Times: TR 1:30-4:00
Instructor: Berger, Jessica
This course will explore the intersections between film and American culture with an emphasis on so-called subversive, often counter-cultural and/or “cult” texts. In examining a wide range of classic, troublemaking films from the silent era to today, we will explore the shifting definitions of subversion and seek to ask and answer significant questions about our visual culture and its symbiotic engagement with our sociopolitical beliefs. Namely, we will be keenly interested in opening up questions of how definitions of “subversion” and “transgression” have shifted over time in regard to both form and content, and what sorts of film texts can be described using those terms today.   Films viewed will include titles as diverse as Daisies, Breathless, Get Out, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Students should expect to write a number of short papers, prepare at least one short presentation, and engage in research/viewing outside of class time.

ENGL 240: Literary Theory: Words and Power – An Introduction to Literary Theory
CRN: 18247/18248
Day(s)/Times: MTRF 1:00 – 3:55
Instructor: Agnani, Sunil
The Greek philosopher Socrates found writers and poets to be so dangerous he wanted them exiled from his ideal Republic. But what did he fear in a reckless imagination and a creative re-making of the external world? More recently in the 20th century both totalitarian and democratic regimes have had, arguably, ways of regulating words, spreading myths (“fake news”), and mitigating dissent. This course explores links between literature and the world it describes, with a specific focus on the question: what are the links between words and power? Chronologically, the focus will be on four broad eras as we trace how this analysis has shifted and developed from antiquity to the present: (1) classical Greece (Plato & Aristotle) as we think of how the sophists related to public debate; (2) Enlightenment/18th century Europe, where challenges to monarchical and despotic power found expression in a new type of writing on art and literary texts (Hume, Burke, Kant, de Staël); (3) the 19th century (Marx, Baudelaire, Nietzsche); and finally (4) the modern and contemporary era, where a range of literary theories re-visit and reformulate this question (Saussure, Roland Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault, Edward Said). By moving between literature, philosophy and a broader cultural history, the goal is to provide students with an analytic “toolkit” that can be used to think critically not only about literary texts, but also “social” texts, society and cultural works (art, photography, film and web-based media).

This course argues that literary theory serves as a bridge between literary study and other disciplines (such as psychology, the study of society and mass-media, anthropology and, closer to home, linguistics). You will have a more fleshed-out sense of what is at stake in different schools of criticism beyond their names: Marxism, the Frankfurt school, structuralism, deconstruction, and postcolonial thought. By the end of the course, if you seek it, you will be more adept at working with (or rejecting) these styles of thought and criticism. There is only one required book for this course.

ENGL 241: History of English Literature I: From Beowulf to John Milton
Day(s)/Times: MTRF 9:00-11:55
Instructor: Reames, Robin
This course surveys English literature from its beginning to 1660 – from Beowulf to Paradise Lost. The literature of this time is full of mystery – gods, monsters, faeries, demons populate its stories. It was a world quite different from our own; but at the same time, it contains the template for what our world would become – the world in which we live now. In this course we will survey English literature from this other-worldly world, with particular attention to how the people of this era used language to shape and structure their experiences and lives – perhaps one of the most important things you can do in college. We will study texts from the medieval and early modern centuries with the following goals: to explore the development of literary and rhetorical forms; to become acquainted with various kinds of literary and rhetorical analyses and approaches; to examine the ways that texts participate in history; and to consider the changing literary representations of issues that bear on our own time and experience, such as gender, social class, religion, race and heroism.

In the normal semester, this class is taught as a large lecture course. Take advantage of the smaller class size and more one-on-one contact with the professor in the summer session.

ENGL 242: English Literature, Global Origins
CRN: 14702/14703
Day(s)/Times: MWF 10:00-11:40
Instructor: Mufti, Nasser
This course is about how British imperialism was essential to the invention of “English literature.” We will read the canonical figures of modern English literature from the beginning of the Restoration (1660) to the end of the Victorian era (1902) and learn how Britain’s colonial exploits during this period (from slavery to massacres to settler colonialism to mass exploitation) were integral to the British literary and cultural imagination. Even though places like India, Jamaica, South Africa, and Argentina rarely find themselves on the pages of writers like Defoe, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Emily Brontë, Doyle, and Conrad (all of whom, amongst others, we will read), these sites were central to the formation of their national identity as well as their novels, poetry, and non-fiction. In a word, the point of this class is to introduce the idea that “English literature” is not properly English.

ENGL 243: American Literature to 1900
CRN: 14138; 14142 (Please enroll for both lecture and discussion)
Day(s)/Times: Tue. 1:30-4:00; Thu. 1:30-4:00
Instructor: Godek-Kiryluk, Elvira
American Literary Canon and Politics:
This is a survey course, which means that it covers the benchmarks of American literature. We can’t read them all, of course, but we will begin in the 18th century with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and selected Federalist Papers to set up the context for political issues defining the trajectory of the course. We will then read the 19th century abolitionist memoirs of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs and essays by transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau before we discuss the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville as well as the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. In the 20th century, we will read selections from Henry James, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Ishmael Reed, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison.

Descriptions coming soon.

Coming soon.

100 Level
ENGL 101: Understanding Literature CRN: 18933

Days: MWF 8am Justin Raden

Literature in Crisis: Why read literature in an age of crisis? After the 2008 financial collapse and in the face of impending climate catastrophe, amid political upheaval and mass migrations, does crisis invalidate the social value of the literary? In this introductory course in Understanding Literature, we will take these questions as our point of departure. We’ll read novels from a variety of periods and countries in an attempt to think crisis through them. Beyond merely valorizing the study of literature, our agenda will be to read primarily novels—with a few brief encounters with poetry and the short story—and think about what they can tell us about crisis as a concept. Given that our conception of crisis is bound up with cultural narratives that we take for granted, might literature be an effective space for problematizing those narratives? Some of our texts will make fairly direct interventions into a crisis—particularly financial and ecological—and others will come at the problem more obliquely. Through discussion and short presentations, we will aim to refine our understanding of crisis and literature’s relationship to it.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature CRN: 18937/18938

Days: TR 12:30-1:45

Todd Sherfinski

Shall We Go, You and I, Into the Transitive Nightfall of Diamonds? Let’s come clean. You’re looking for a Rate my Professor friendly course that suits your schedule. I’m looking for students tired of clichés—think outside the box—and are curious about the perimeters, parameters, and materials that such boxes are made of, how these boxes configure our interpretative strategies, and how these strategies can be used to explore what is in the box before being so quick to exit it. This course will focus on understanding literature by considering what we call literature and the ways in which we approach literature; which is to say “all interpretation is misinterpretation.” But that’s a sucker punch. If you register for this course expect to read some, write some, learn some about how we as communities—you, your classmates, and I– arrive at meanings of texts. Yes. There will be work. But this work is geared toward understanding and applying interpretative strategies to texts both in and beyond the course. If you’re looking for questions more than answers, if you’re looking for a discussion based course that seeks to appreciate a wide range of authors, genres, and subjects and examines what literature has anything to do with “real” life,  if you’re looking for a course that emphasizes making—from interpretations to objects requisite to supplement group presentations—register for this course.

ENGL 101: Understanding Literature CRN: 29112/ 29113

Days: TR 11:00-12:15

Vainis Aleksa

Literature is art made out of words and stories. Good writers manage to give many purposes to their writing: they share deep experiences, move us to imagine life through the eyes of others, and offer us opportunities to experience language afresh as something painful, beautiful, captivating, and powerful. Literature can be psychology, fortune-telling, linguistics, good story telling, philosophy, form, memorable phrases, therapy, and political science all rolled into one. Literature can be the least expensive way to travel, the safest way to take a risk, an opportunity in our busy lives to inhabit worlds not our own. Come join us! You will read and select your favorites from the 2016 editions of Best American Short Stories, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Best American Essays. Then we will walk slowly through the imaginative and realistic world set up in Sudan by Leila Aboulela in her novel Lyric’s Alley. We will end the semester with John Edgar Wideman’s striving to make sense of life as a professor and writer who has a brother in jail in his book Brothers & Keepers. As a treat, we are going to have two living poets visit our class to read a poem and discuss their writing process. Course work will include weekly written responses, the creation of your personal anthology, and a final project where you can choose to imitate one of the authors, do a case study about fellow students’ experiences with literature, or send a letter to one of the writers we read.

ENGL 102: Introduction to Film CRN: (35291) / (39592)

Days: M: 3-4:50pm; W: 3-5:45pm

Neri Sandoval

This course is an introduction to the history of cinema and film studies. Our textbook is entitled, Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (10th edition, 2012). We’ll also be sure to review early experimentations, the rise of the director, the silent era, the coming of sound, cartoons, some international films, the second coming of sound, and the digital turn.

Exact films and precise directors are still under consideration, but D.W. Griffith, Robert Weine, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, the American avant-garde, and George Lucas are probable features.

ENGL 102/MOVI 102: Introduction to Film CRN: 27619 (ENGL) / 27647 (MOVI)

Days: T 2-4:45, R 2-3:15

Robin Grey

“East Meets West” In this introduction to film, students will learn the vocabulary and terminology for viewing and analyzing films. The emphasis of this particular course will be on comparing Western (American, British, German) films and their genres with Eastern (Japanese) films and its (Japanese) associated genres including: ghost and ancestor presences, anime, samurai films, erotica, madness, and social commentary on World War II. On Tuesdays we will screen films and discuss some of the elements of film (narrative elements, setting, camera angles, sound, production techniques, and innovations in those techniques, as, for example, in anime) as well as the cultural dimensions and cinematic influences that shape the films via the director and cinematographer. Often films will be paired in subsequent weeks based on narrative technique (for example, Christopher Nolan’s Memento with Kurosawa’s Rashoman), or upon certain genres such as “jidai-geki” (exotic adventures, heroic action, and period settings, as in Luscas’s Star Wars paired with its known inspiration Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress.) On Tuesdays, when we screen films, it is mandatory for students to attend for the full screening. On Thursdays we will discuss and write about the particular film of that week or compare Eastern and Western renditions of two films. Again, attendance is mandatory. Students will learn to view films with new perspectives, noting stylistic choices and cultural expectations in two different hemispheres, and over time. Among the Japanese directors we will watch films by Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, Kaneto Shindo, Masaki Kobayashi, Yashujiro Ozu, among others. Since Japanese films will be shown in the original language, you will need to get used to reading subtitles. Some films from the West will include Chinatown and Blade Runner (American), Brazil (British), and Metropolis (German).  You should be taking notes during the films to refresh you memory when it comes time to write about the film. I will be dividing the course into half with roughly half the films from Western society and the other half will be from Japan.

Requirement: A series of two-page “reaction papers” (typed) on specific films and the chosen terms or techniques used in the film. A 5-page paper, and a midterm (on cinematic terms) and final exam. Text(s) to be decided.

ENGL 104: English and American Drama CRN: 29789

Days: TR 11:00 – 12:15

Aaron Krall

This course will be an opportunity to examine the ways plays represent the world and the role theatre continues to play in the twenty-first century. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about English and American drama through an analysis of plays by playwrights including Susan Glaspell, Sophie Treadwell, Eugene O’Neil, Samuel Beckett, Wole Soyinka, Caryl Churchill, and August Wilson. In addition to reading drama as literature, we will consider the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory, including pieces by Aristotle, Artaud, Brecht, Stanislavski, and others. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complicated by the performers, theatres, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction CRN: 14332/20924

Days: MWF10:00-10:50

Dongho Cha

This course will examine the relationship between late twentieth-century American and British Literature in a comparative framework, using the World Economic System as a geopolitical focus. We’ll deal with the issues of form, affect, cognition, and intention, as well as imperialism, postmodernity, immigration, and (trans)national identity. Students will practice engaging with the discourse surrounding literary realism and post(or post-post)modern fiction in their own critical responses to both the primary texts and scholarly articles. This course will have a substantial writing component as well as both a midterm and a final exam.

ENGL 105: English and American Fiction: The Maximalist Novel CRN:

Days: MWF 1:00-1:50

Joseph Tabbi

Reading and analysis of representative selections from a variety of periods and forms in fiction. Close reading of selected passages from the ‘maximalist’ novels of John Dos Passos, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, and David Foster Wallace. Students will be asked to read one of these fictions in its entirety for more extensive treatment in a final paper, to be drafted in stages through the course.

ENGL 105: Introduction to English and American (Surrealist) Fiction CRN: 20941/14333

Days: T/R 2-3:15 (Lincoln Hall 305) Jennifer Rupert

If civilization persists on its disastrous path—denying dreams, degrading language, shackling love, destroying nature, perpetuating racism, glorifying authoritarian institutions (family, church, state, patriarchy, military, the so-called free market), and reducing all that exists to the status of disposable commodities—then surely devastation is in store not only for us but for all life on this planet. Effective ways out of the dilemma, however, are accessible to all, and they are poetry, freedom, love, and revolution.

Penelope Rosemont on the (continuing?) project of the  international Surrealist movement.

The surrealists believed in the power of desire to transform consciousness. As they saw it, the recognition of the erotic in everyday life had the power to transform the world. Through the concepts of l’amour fou (mad love) and convulsive beauty, they forged subversive identities and explosive art forms. In their sometimes shocking and often challenging works, the surrealists strove to represent the arousal and renewal of desire. In doing so, they aimed to express their ideal visions of a free, just, and moral society.

In this section of ENGL 105: An Introduction to English and American Surrealist Fiction, we will explore how this international artistic and intellectual movement asserted itself in the works of English and American writers who were not only seduced by the strangeness of surrealist forms but also compelled by the ethical worldview surrealists established in direct opposition to twentieth-century forces of fascism.

In order to best see the contribution surrealism has made not only in the realms of literature and visual art but also in the realms of political and philosophical thought, we will be using the recently published collection, The Surrealism Reader: An Anthology of Ideas (U of Chicago P, 2016), as our starting point.

Other readings– works of theory, fiction, and poetry– and IMAGES will be compiled in a modestly-priced course packet available through the UIC Office of Publications during the first week of the term. One or two short novels will be available through the UIC bookstore and on- line booksellers.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare CRN: 25568/25569

Days: MWF 9:00-9:50 AM

Jeffrey Gore

Sub-titled “Remaking Shakespeare,” this course will focus on issues of remaking in Shakespeare’s works, from the time they were written to our own present day, when they continue to be remade on both stage and screen. It is well known that Shakespeare drew most of his plots and characters from classical and contemporary sources, but in remaking them as his own, he also pushed the boundaries of how comedies and tragedies might tell a story or help us to understand the human experience. Conceived during the time many scholars call the “early modern period,” Shakespeare’s works take head on issues we face today, such as race, sexuality, gender, imperialism, and government surveillance. There are more filmed versions of Shakespeare’s writings than those of any other author, and many students find most exciting how watching video versions of plays – in settings ranging from classical Rome to modern Manhattan– make the words “come alive” and challenge us to understand worlds that are both strangely familiar and different from our own.

ENGL 107: Introduction to Shakespeare CRN: 29790/29791

Days: TR/3:30-4:45

Gary Buslik

This course will introduce you to the life, times, and work of the great poet, dramatist, and inventive genius of the English language, William Shakespeare. We will read a lively biography and selections from a book about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater. We will read and discuss plays and sonnets. We will also watch filmed productions of the Bard’s most famous plays. We will write several response papers and have quizzes on all readings, a midterm, and a summary exam.

ENGL 108: Literature and Environment(s) CRN: 19653

Days: MWF 12:00-12:50 PM

Corbin Hiday

In this course we will examine intersections between “literature” and “environment,” taking 19th century British novels as our starting point with the hope of identifying potentially fruitful sites of interrogation and critical engagement particularly relevant to our contemporary moment of climate change and ecological crisis. We will attempt to contextualize our current moment through examining processes that were foundational to the nineteenth century, a moment of widespread expansions of industrial technology and extractive fossil-fuel practices. Some questions we will examine throughout the course include: how do novels imagine and construct environments? Are we able to interrogate intersections between the ways in which natural environments affect our reading environments? How is the notion of a “natural environment” already imagined as problematic within the nineteenth century British novel? If we now live in a post-“Natural” world, what imaginative possible worlds and spaces do novels offer us?

Importantly, we will trace connections and disconnections across different imagined environments within the novels, including urban, rural and colonial spaces. Authors may include: Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Olive Schreiner, Joseph Conrad, and Robert Luis Stevenson.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture CRN: 24548

Days: MWF 2-2:50

Mary Hale

American Literary Hustles: the Long Con in the Long 19th Century. One of early America’s most famous myths involves George Washington and a chopped down cherry tree, in which young Washington is reported to have honestly confessed, “I cannot tell a lie.” Historians, however, believe this legendary tale was in fact invented by one of George Washington’s biographers. Despite the story’s own dubious relationship to the truth, it was thought to contain a fundamental lesson and was passed down to children in painting and primer for centuries. From this didactic fib to later incidents, such as Jay Gatsby’s neighbor Nick Carraway’s laughable pronouncement that he is “one of the few honest people he has ever known,” American storytelling has long had a complex relationship to the truth. In this course, we will consider the form of stories told to deceive.  We will look at characters that craft schemes and hatch plans.

We will consider who the audience for such stories is meant to be—do these literary hustlers intend to dupe their readers, do they bring their reader in on their plots with an ironic wink, or do they ask their reader to perform a certain kind of reading to untangle the import of truth and lie? We will ask what these stories can teach us about how we make a buck, how we cast a vote, and how we get a laugh. We will situate them in their historical contexts and ask what the social function of these popular tales might be, and when the spinning of narrative yarns could be a tool for political resistance or action. We will also put these readings in terms of debates surrounding the distinction and categorization of terms such as: fiction and non-fiction, news and narrative, memoir and novel. If the humanities are about the search for fundamental truths about ourselves, in this class, we will develop close reading skills so that we might ask—what truths can we find in our lies? Readings will includes works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Frances Harper, Kate Chopin, and Charles Chesnutt.

ENGL 109: American Literature and American Culture CRN: 22523 / 24546

Days: TR 9:30-10:45 am

Terrence Whalen

Tough Girls in American Literature. In recent mass culture, there has emerged a relatively new type of heroine, which for lack of a better phrase we shall call tough girls. The type seems to be everywhere in popular film and literature, from Ripley in the Alien films to Arya in Game of Thrones to Katniss in The Hunger Games. This course will explore the meaning and significance of this phenomenon. Texts include works by Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Daniel Woodrell, Suzanne Collins, Ben Tripp, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Assignments include two short papers, exams, written preparation, possible random quizzes, and class participation. Attendance is expected; reading is mandatory.

ENGL 111: Women and Literature

CRN: 14584

Days: MWF 10 – 10:50

Mary Anne Mohanraj

In this course, we will read literature which explores questions about gender and identity, about women’s roles within the family and community, and about how women have been perceived culturally and historically; we will also examine the writers’ artistic concerns, themes, images, and metaphors. By the end of the course, you should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the texts, the authors, literary and social movements that produced them, and the elements of those texts, such as symbols, themes, and points of view. Texts will include Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Alcott’s Little Women, Millay’s poetry, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, among others. Evaluation methods will include quizzes and exercises, one short paper, a mid-term exam, and a final paper.

ENGL 113: Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures in the United States CRN: 14340

Days: TR 02:00 PM — 03:15 PM

Christopher Findeisen

Black Voices / Black Lives: This course asks two fundamental questions about multiethnic American literature. The first question concerns the relationship between the author’s racial identity and the text: What makes ethnic literature ethnic? Put differently, we might ask whether it is the racial identity of the author, the particular historical situation into which the text is created, or the genres, tropes, and themes that define ethnic literature. The second question concerns the relationship between words and other words: What makes some texts “literature” as opposed to other texts? Taken together, these questions will form the core of our inquiry and will serve as the introduction to major debates within the field of multiethnic American literature.

Possible authors include Frederic Douglass, Sutton Griggs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, Percival Everett, and/or Ta-Nehisi Coates.

ENGL 114: Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature CRN: 29792

Days: MWF 11:00-11:50

Gina Gemmel

English 114 seeks to familiarize students with the interlinked phenomena of colonialism and post-colonialism though examining literary representations of them both. We will consider the ways in which colonialism has played out in a variety of locations, including Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean, beginning with characteristics and motivations of colonization, anti-colonial movements, the moment of independence, and life after colonization. We will discuss the similarities between historical events in these locations while also respecting their vast differences. Our readings over the course of the semester will necessarily require us to examine the political situations that inform the texts we read.  A larger goal of the course will be to prepare you to make analytical claims about fiction. You will be expected to practice this skill in our class discussions and then you will demonstrate your abilities in writing, through two take- home essay exams and one longer essay on a topic of your choice. These writing projects will provide you an opportunity to take the ideas you’ve come up with in class discussions and explore them in greater depth. In recognition that writing a literary analysis is a complex task, I will support you throughout the writing process with feedback and individual conferences. Your participation in our class discussions and small group discussions will be critical. Participation will represent a significant portion of your grade, so you should be comfortable sharing your ideas with your peers.

ENGL 115: Understanding the Bible as Literature CRN: 30508-30509; 30512-30513

Days: MWF 9 am – 9:50 am Scott Grunow

This introductory class presents a literary perspective on the Bible. Texts from the Bible will stand at the center of our analysis, while an accompanying textbook will help us to contexualize Biblical materials within history and culture. As we place Biblical texts in their historical and cultural contexts, we will read the Bible as a literary work that was written from specific social situations, written in various genres that use specific language and imagery, and produced consequences for the audiences at the time it was written. We will focus on variations of themes that connect the Hebrew Bible (“Tanakh”)/Old Testament and the New Testament, such as creation, birth, the hero, the journey, the Torah, the Deuteronomistic history, suffering, dissension in the community, holiness, mimetic desire, the scapegoat (applying the theories of Rene Girard), and the apocalypse. Overall, we will come to understand the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament as distinct yet connected bodies of literature that respond to specific historical and cultural situations, and how the authors of the New Testament employed themes from the Hebrew Bible to articulate their experiences of Jesus and his teachings. Students will produce,  as analytical responses to the readings, several in-class essays and four short formal essays.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature CRN: 37874

Days: T/R 12:30-1:45

Robin Gayle

What is contemporary feminism? This course aims to introduce you to feminist and queer literary theory, followed by an extensive examination of several texts from established and/or emerging writers in which questions of gender and sexual identity dominate the text. To begin, we will read essays by prominent feminists and queer theorists to learn how writers have re- imagined and reclaimed feminist and queer identities over the past 30 years. Then, we will read survivor poetry, wherein we will examine how womyn use literature as a means to carve out their unique identities despite pressure to conform to heteronormative, patriarchal dictates.

Finally, we will investigate if feminism and queer theory are becoming more mainstream by reading two award-winning contemporary novels. This course does not assume any prior knowledge or experience with feminism, queer theory, and/or the application of these theories to literature.  Instead, the goal is to understand how feminist and queer literary criticism— combined with open, frank communication with classmates—can ultimately develop your own critical ability to address issues of gender and sexuality both in academic papers and everyday life. Authors will include Adrienne Rich, Hanne Blank, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Rupi Kaur, Andi Zeisler, Cleste Ng, Ottessa Moshfegh, and others.

ENGL 117: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature CRN: 22168, 22169

Days: MWF 9:00 AM-9:50 AM

Jocelyn Eighan

In Staring: How We Look, Rosmarie Garland-Thomson contends, “Extraordinary-looking bodies demand attention. The sight of an unexpected body—that is to say, a body that does not conform to our expectations for an ordinary body—is compelling because it disorders expectations” (36). This course examines extraordinary, “non-normative” bodies in Western culture and literature. With Thomson’s observations in mind, we will focus our inquiry on bodies that are commonly rejected, stigmatized, or perceived as “other.” We will be particularly concerned with the ways in which gender and sexuality intersect with a variety of literary forms, especially fiction and literary theory. Emphasis will be on close reading, analysis, critical discussion, and formal writing.

ENGL 120: Film and Culture CRN: 30507

Days: M 3:00-5:45 p.m; W 3:00-4:50

Angela Dancey

This course examines the relationship between film genre and gender, both in terms of representations of masculinity and femininity in genre films (as well as intersecting categories of race and class), and the extent to which certain genres are gendered (the “chick flick” vs. the action movie, for example). Film categories to be studied include melodrama, horror, film noir, screwball comedy, and science fiction, with representative films from different time periods and cultural contexts. Readings include relevant scholarly and popular articles. Assessment is based on quizzes, exams, and short papers; note that attendance is required.

ENGL 122: Understanding Rhetoric CRN: 27463

Days: T/R, 3:30-4:45pm Mark Schoenknecht

In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle famously defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” He saw the usefulness of rhetoric in helping us arrive at solutions to the kinds of problems that couldn’t be solved using exact knowledge.

Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who thought of rhetoric as the “art of enchanting the soul,” had other ideas. He condemned rhetoric (or “sophistry”) for its ability to steer people away from the truth by making the non-real appear real. While many new conceptions of rhetoric have been introduced in the years since Plato and Aristotle roamed the halls of the Lyceum, no definitive consensus about what constitutes “rhetoric” has yet been reached. Given this messy history, how should we understand the notion of “rhetoric” today? In what ways has rhetoric influenced the social spaces we inhabit? And why might studying this be useful?

In an effort to address these questions, our course will begin by exploring some general theories of rhetoric as both a discipline and a practice. We’ll read a variety of commentaries and canonical texts, paying particular attention to the way certain key terms and themes arise out of the history of rhetorical theory. About halfway through the semester, we’ll start looking at contemporary rhetorical scholarship that takes up issues of political economy (defined as the study of the relationship between individuals and society, and between markets and the state). Throughout this phase of the course, we’ll want to highlight the ways the key terms and themes we identified earlier are taken up in present-day rhetorical discourse. In doing so, we hope to not only arrive at a better understanding of rhetoric and its relevance to our lives, but to develop transferable capacities in reading, writing, and public speaking.

200 Level
ENGL 200 Basic Grammar CRN: 26085/27465

Days: TT 12:30-1:45 pm (26085); TT 9:30-10:45 am (27465)

Katherine Parr

Grammar is an important component to writing.  It enables a writer to produce sentence structures that affect how well a message, essay, or other document will be received by the reader.  This section of Basic English Grammar will apply a rhetorical lens to the traditional study of grammar and style. Students will recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and will practice sentence forms in order to appreciate their impacts on readers. Students will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices, recognizing that good writing is situation appropriate. Students will also will also produce short essays demonstrating their understanding of course concepts. However, this is not a remedial course in grammar. It does advance the student’s understanding of grammar from Composition I and II.

ENGL 200: Basic Grammar CRN: 35294

Days: MWF 12:00-12:50

Robert R. Romeo

English 200 is a study of the different forms and functions of English grammar. We will study the patterns, relationships and structures upon which the English sentence is built and how those elements create meaning. By working with these tools, you will develop a deeper knowledge of the components and patterns of English grammar. You are expected to learn the terminology associated with this discipline. Non-Native speakers are welcome. In the past, multi-lingual students have done quite well.

ENGL 201: Introduction to the Writing of Non-fiction Prose

CRN: 33188

Days: T/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM

Cecilia Villarruel

This course will examine various forms of creative nonfiction: personal essay, memoir, lyric essay, humor writing, and travel writing among others. We will take the self as the point of departure and move out into the world from there, examining how the personal and the public intersect while cultivating our personal perspectives and interests. No book is required; we will use a course packet with nonfiction from Barbara Ehrenreich, Eula Biss, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Richard Rodriguez, and John McPhee among others. The first half of the semester will focus on craft while the second will focus on producing your own creative nonfiction pieces.

ENGL 202 Media and Professional Writing CRN: 29938

Days: M/W/F 1-1:50 pm Jay Shearer

In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on—and skills regarding—writing for media (print & online) and the basic principles of journalism and publicity. Through extensive reading, interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism and PR to blogging and feature writing—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (as presented via links on your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities to come. This course is the prerequisite for Engl 493, the English Internship in Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing CRN: 38535

Days: TR 12:30-1:45

Margena A. Christian

This course prepares you for print and online media along with professional writing. Multiple aspects of media and communications will be examined−from journalism to company PR−through writing, reading, researching, interviewing, and discussing how to analyze and construct work in these industries. A portfolio, presented via links on a personal web page, will be produced at the end of the course. English 202 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. Media and Professional Writing will prepare you for internship and employment opportunities in this field, because the course will reflect writings in the professional workplace. Extensive computer use will be required.

ENGL 202: Media and Professional Writing CRN: 14482

Days: MWF 11-11:50

Gina Frangello

Professional Writing is a term that can be hard to define, as it is part of an ever-changing media landscape that, at one time, was comprised mostly of traditional journalists writing for newspapers and print magazines. Now, when new media outlets are emerging online at the speed of light, yet major newspapers are declaring bankruptcy and magazines closing down, what does a career in “professional writing” look like? In this course, we will attempt to integrate the old and the new for a full survey of what the professional writing world means today for a new college graduate. While we will mainly examine the field of journalism/news, we will also explore other exploding contemporary forms, such as the personal essay and blogging, and take forays into various other careers that demand extensive writing: advertising, marketing, even acting as a literary agent, editor or translator. We will move back and forth between a traditional (though contemporary) textbook on news reporting and writing, to more specific and specialized case studies and in-class guests, from literary interviews to press releases to book and film reviews. Through presentations and practice in trying your hand at various types of professional writing, you will master new writing skills that can give you a sense of prospective writing- related careers, and that will aid you no matter what field you find yourself in post-graduation.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry CRN: 14486

Days: MWF/2:00-2:50 PM

Tara Betts

This course serves as an introduction and immersion in the craft of writing and disseminating poetry. During the course of this class, you will be reading and discussing the work of published and performing poets. We will consider a diverse range of poets from various schools and aesthetics in order to investigate the possibilities of formal, free verse, narrative, and experimental poetry. In order to excel in this class, you will be expected to submit your own writing and be open to criticism and feedback. Students will submit written responses to readings throughout the semester and plan at least one on-campus reading. A brief essay will serve as the mid-term. A portfolio of 10-12 poems will serve as the final exam. Since there will be presentations and in-class collaboration, this entails active participation, completing the assigned readings, and regular attendance.

ENGL 210: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry CRN: 11487

Days: TR 2:00- 3:15

Annah Browning

This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. As such, our emphasis will not only be on investigating aspects of form and language with an eye toward improving your own work, but also on developing a critical vocabulary to approach your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through extensive writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshop. You will be writing about poems, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies. You will also be required to revise your work, often dramatically; therefore, in order for you to be successful in this class, you must be open to criticism and suggestions. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process that will serve you as poets, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction CRN: 22214

Days: MWF, 9:00-9:50

Ekaterina Kulik

This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of fiction writing, which means that we will work on developing and improving your reading and writing skills. We will spend the first half of the semester reading a number of short stories and excerpts from longer works of fiction.

Examining these works will allow us to explore the repertory of techniques, styles, and devices that fiction writers employ. In order to master fiction writing techniques, you will complete a series of short writing exercises (2-3 pages each) as well write two stories (5-7 pages) and one longer (10-12 pages). Other assignments will include reading responses, in-class writing, and critiquing each other’s work.

ENGL 212: Introduction to the Writing of Fiction CRN: 14488

Days: MWF 12-12:50

Gina Frangello