Spring 2025 — Department of English

SPRING 2025 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

ENGL 202-01

Introduction to Creative Writing

TTh 9:30 am to 10:45

TBA

This class focuses on the writing of poetry, fiction, and other creative genres, and on the analysis of professional writings. Coursework includes class discussion, peer critique of student-authored works, individual writing assignments, and other learning activities.

ENGL 202-03

Introduction to Creative Writing

TTh 1 pm -2:25

Paul Griner

Hello, all. In 202 we’ll read and write fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and short plays. The class is meant to be welcoming and exploratory. Don’t worry if you haven’t done some (or any) of this before. We’ll figure out how to do it together. Frequent readings, and in and out of class writing.

ENGL 202-04

Introduction to Creative Writing

MW 4 pm to 5:15

TBA

ENGL 202-50

Introduction to Creative Writing

Brian Weinberg

In the online version of ENGL 202: Intro to Creative Writing, participants will have the opportunity to explore the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama, learning the nuts and bolts of craft. The first part of the semester will be a primer in four areas of craft: detail/image, voice/point-of-view, character, and setting. You’ll experiment with these foundational elements in writing exercises, and discuss how published writers apply them in stories, poems, and plays. For the remainder of the semester, you’ll take a closer look at each genre in mini-units and be introduced to the creative writing workshop, in which you’ll read the writing of your classmates and exchange constructive criticism on a discussion board with your instructor closely guiding the discussion. For a final project, you’ll choose between a full-length short story, a series of poems, or a ten-minute play.

English 300-01

Introduction to Literature

TTh 11 am to 12:15

Robin Mozer

This course introduces students to the academic study of literature. The course aims to do three things: (1) encourage students to become reflective, self-aware readers of fiction, poetry, and drama, (2) allow students to refine those readings via in-class discussion, and (3) encourage students to develop and defend those readings in written assignments. Since this class also carries an emphasis on writing, we will spend extra time revising our written assignments.

We will read texts from various historical periods and discuss how an individual life shapes, and is shaped by, various sorts of contexts (familial, social, political, cultural, etc.). We’ll also examine how writers use traditional writing tools and strategies (structure, word choice, character development, etc.), to achieve their artistic goals. Assessment will be based on class participation, 3 major essays, and 2 short responses. (WR)

English 300-02

Introduction to Literature: Gothic Literature

TTh 1 pm to 2:15

Amy Clukey

This “Introduction to Literature” course will feature a gothic theme. It is designed to teach you how to read, think, talk, and write about literature. It is designed as a sort of boot camp for literary analysis that will help you develop the skills necessary to tackle even the most obfuscating verse and prose. The goals of this class are twofold. The first is to hone your literary-interpretative skills on a micro level (through attention to word choice, sound, and language) and on a macro level (through attention to generic conventions, literary form, and narrative theory). The second goal is to teach you to effectively communicate your newly honed interpretative abilities by using scholarly research to turn observations into compelling arguments and participate in critical discussions. Because the best way to learn to write well is to write often, you’ll try your hand at literary-critical writing throughout the semester. To develop these skills, we’ll read gothic fiction and poetry, as well as watch at least one gothic/horror film. (WR)

English 300-50

Introduction to Literature

Glynis Ridley

This is an asynchronous online class intended to provide an introduction to ways of reading and writing about fiction, graphic novels, non-fiction, poetry, and drama. We’ll be using the Norton Introduction to Literature (shorter) 14th edition ed. Kelly J. Mays. This Norton anthology is available as an e-book that will integrate into Blackboard: its contents range from works by the canonical names of “Eng. Lit.” to twenty-first century writers bringing a global perspective to the creation and appreciation of literature. And as the opening of this course description refers to graphic novels and non-fiction, you can safely assume that in addition to reading and writing about literature, we’ll be asking wider questions about what counts as literature and how the tools of literary analysis can be applied across a range of types of text. Assessment methods will include discussion board posts, a reading journal, as well as a final paper demonstrating familiarity with the standard conventions used in writing about literature. If you have any questions before or after signing up for the class, please don’t hesitate to email me: glynis.ridley@louisville.edu (WR)

English 300-52

Introduction to Literature

TBA

David Anderson

In this course, we will develop and practice skills for reading, discussing, and writing about literature in English, with a focus on poetry, drama, and fiction (short stories as well as, likely, a short novel).

During the course, we will learn critical terms for analyzing literature, and we will develop strategies for writing and revising argumentative papers. We will also discuss the artistic nuances of the literature, and briefly discuss their artistic and cultural contexts.

My main goal is to offer feedback and support to help you develop your interpretive and writing skills. There will be three longer essays (one each about poetry, fiction, and drama), as well as shorter weekly writing tasks. (WR)

English 301-01

British Literature I

TTh 9:30 am to 10:45

Andrew Rabin

This course will trace the history of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the eighteenth century. Our principal goal will be to develop a better understanding of the forms, genres, and themes of the periods covered. We also will focus more specifically on the emergence of the idea of “literature” itself. How did an identifiable concept of literature develop in England? How is this development influenced by the history, language(s), and geography of Britain? How is the emergence of English literature related to the emergence of English literary criticism. These are only a few possible subjects, and I suspect our discussions will encompass topics as diverse as the texts themselves. As this is a discussion-based class, we will no doubt cover a wide variety of topics, and I strongly encourage students to bring their own intellectual interests into the classroom. (Literature before 1800)

English 303-01

Science and Technical Writing

TTh 4 pm to 5:15

TBA

Designed for advanced students (juniors and seniors) studying science and technology in engineering, natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics), and computer sciences. Concentrates on writing in a variety of scientific and technical forms of discourse. Emphasizes practicing writing processes, secondary research, and problem-solving; recognizing the rhetorical character of scientific and technical discourse with its multiple purposes and audiences; evaluating and integrating a variety of written, visual, and oral elements of design; and developing field-specific vocabularies for talking about this discourse. (WR)

English 303-50

Science and Technical Writing

TBA

English 304-01

Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop: Creative Nonfiction

TTh 4 pm to 5:15

Paul Griner

Focuses on the writing of creative nonfiction, along with analysis of professional technique and of student writing. Class discussion and individual conferences. What’s that mean? We’ll read memoirs, short pieces of nonfiction, travel writing, essays, etc. and decide together what constitutes CNF. You’ll be expected to read a fair amount and write a lot, both in and out of class, with classes devoted to discussion of published work, and of the work you create.

English 305-02

Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction

TTh 2:30 to 3:45

Sarah Anne Strickley

In this course we’ll be investigating the notion that the short prose piece is a highly flexible (and exceedingly fabulous!) form. We’ll read everything from flash to novella-length works; we’ll peruse stories that operate in the fabulist mode, stories that draw from the tradition of realism, and stories that land somewhere in-between; and we’ll encounter some of the heroes of short fiction as well as newcomers to the scene. Students will have the opportunity to chat with featured writers, workshop multiple pieces, and lock down a fundamental skill set.

English 305-03

Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry

TTh 11 am to 12:15

V. Joshua Adams

This intermediate course offers students the chance to sharpen their skills as writers, readers, and critics of poetry. Although we will spend time discussing original work by the students in the class, we will also spend time discussing important formal features of poetry (including diction, syntax, meter, rhyme, line, image, metaphor, speakers), as well as some theories of poetry put forward by poets. We will read a combination of canonical and contemporary poetry with an eye to what it can teach us about poetic form, and we will perform various writing exercises and experiments, both to put what we have learned from other poets into action, and to explore new poetic possibilities. Assignments will include: written responses to peer manuscripts, a book review of contemporary poetry, and a final portfolio.

English 306-02

Business Writing

MWF 12 pm – 12:50

TBA

The focus of English 306 is recognizing and responding in writing to different rhetorical situations in the professional world. A student in English 306 should expect to create and revise documents that incorporate elements of critical thinking as well as demonstrate intellectual and professional standards of effective communication. A student in English 306 should expect to complete four-to-six projects.

English 306-07

Business Writing

TBA

English 306-51, 52, 53, 54

Business Writing

Denise Tanner

English 306-55

Business Writing

Steve Smith

Designed for Arts and Sciences students anticipating careers in the professions, e.g., law, business, or government, just to name a few, this course focuses on composing in a variety of rhetorical situations in workplace discourse by practicing composing processes, developing an appropriate style, researching professional problem-solving, collaborating with peers and supervisors, and using communication technologies. We will read, analyze, and compose workplace texts to develop your understanding of writing within a professional context. The possible genres include letters, emails, reports, proposals, presentation slides, case studies, memos, videos, infographics, and white papers. (WR)

English 306-56

Business Writing

Steve Smith

English 306-57

Business Writing

TBA

English 309-01

Inquiries in Writing

T 1 pm to 3:45

Linda Rogers

In this face-to-face course, we explore the art of truth telling through creative nonfiction. Students will read personal narratives, literary journalism, essays, journals, and a unique type of research journal, the I-search project. By reflecting on the various narratives and employing the techniques used to create them, students will discover more effective methods of conveying messages to an audience and work to utilize these in their writing. (WR)

English 309-50

Inquiries in Writing

TBA

Focuses on responding to differing rhetorical situations at an advanced level in appropriate modes for diverse audiences. Emphasizes creating and revising several substantial writing projects. Develops critical reading and writing abilities in multiple genres. (WR)

English 310-01

Introduction to Professional and Public Writing

TTh 2:30 pm to 3:45

TBA

English 310-02

Intro to Professional and Public Writing

TTh 11 am to 12:15 pm

Crystal Fodrey

Public and professional writing goes beyond mere communication—it influences policy, organizational culture, social change, and so much more. In this course, students explore the rhetorical and ethical practices of public and professional writing while gaining hands-on experience with organizations across the Louisville Metro area. Throughout the semester, students develop their skills in digital writing and document design, deepen their rhetorical awareness, and enhance their abilities in project management and collaboration. Students can expect to produce deliverables for community partners and curate professional writing portfolios that demonstrate their ability to address complex issues in inclusive, ethical ways. (WR)

English 310-50

Introduction to Professional and Public Writing

Tim Johnson

English 310 serves as an introduction to writing in professional and public settings. Students will write various kinds of essays in ways that account for the changing nature of technologies, readers, and cultures. This is an online course. (WR)

English 314-75

Literature and Medicine

TTh 5:30 pm to 6:45

Stephen Schneider

This course will look at popular writing on the subjects of medicine, medical research, and illness. Students will be introduced to primarily two kinds of texts: the first is those that bring humanistic concerns for history, philosophy, politics, and ethics to the broad field of medical science; the second is those that argue for the centrality of narrative to our understanding of illness and health. Students will first read texts by both medical professionals such as Atul Gawande (Being Mortal) and professional writers such as Rebecca Skloot and Michael Berube. In responding to these texts students will identify and examine the central questions that these different texts pose both to readers and the fields of medicine and medical science.

There are also a number of texts to emerge around narrative medicine and medical- and patient-based storytelling: Arthur Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Kleinman’s The Illness Narratives, Annie Brewster’s The Healing Power of Storytelling, and a number of texts devoted to the growing field of narrative medicine. These texts offer a second frame for examining the relationship between literature and medicine, organized around the question of how we individually and collectively narrate our experiences of and with illness. As part of Literature and Medicine, students will be asked to consider this sort of narrative from both humanistic and medical perspectives.

Possible readings:

Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Rebecca Skloot, Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers
Siddharta Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor
Annie Brewster, The Healing Power of Storytelling
Michael Berube, Life as We Know It

English 315-01

Culture, Text, Media: The End of the World as We Know It

TTh 4 pm to 5:15

Amy Clukey

T.S. Eliot once said that the world ends “not with a bang but with a whimper”—I guess he wasn’t a fan of speculative fiction, a genre in which the world of ends with gory pandemics, whirling seas, slimy oil slicks, the grotesqueries of bioengineering, inevitable nuclear war, marauding alien invaders, swarms of attacking insects, the rot of extinction, suffocating pollution, and even carnivorous plants run amok. This class will examine dystopic, apocalyptic, gothic, and science fictional texts, media discourse, music, and films about ecological catastrophe. We’ll consider how these modalities and genres imagine the world’s end; humanity’s relation to non-human animals and the natural world; the emergence of climate change, the Great Acceleration, and the Anthropocene; the ways in which natural disasters and catastrophes intersects with race, gender, and class; and whether or not writers, activists, and content makers allow for hope, recovery, or futures beyond environmental and social collapse.

English 315-50

Anime & Animation as Literature

Hristomir A. Stanev

This course will examine animated shorts, films, and series created during the last ninety years, with a significant focus on experimental works, mainstream Hanna-Barbera, Disney, Pixar, and Marvel productions, and especially on Japanese anime. We will study tales of the dystopic, fantastic, heroic quests, science fiction sagas, representation of nonbinary identities, coming-of-age narratives, social and cultural politics and expressions, and class and race consciousness in relationship to historical and cultural watersheds, such as World War II and the Cold War, the Space Race, the civil and women’s rights movements, climate change, the rise of globalization, and the emergence of virtual realities. The student learning outcomes for this course will: 1) bring this traditionally beloved but often neglected art form to productive conversations about its social relevance and cultural impact; 2) establish familiarity with the rise of animated fictions as cultural traditions and readable audiovisual “texts”; 3) examine the development and evolution of a method of representation reflective of social change, as well as considerable allusive and allegorical power. The learning outcomes will be assessed through one short position paper and one longer research paper, as well as through regular discussion posts on Blackboard. (The course satisfies the "literature after 1800" distribution requirement.)

English 325-01

Introduction to Linguistics

MWF 11 am to 11:50

Thomas Stewart

The course introduces the basic assumptions, methods, and concepts of studying language.

This course will cover:

Speech sounds
Word- & sentence-formation
Linguistic meanings
Language variation
Language change

We will examine how languages work, how they differ, and what they reveal about human cognition and culture.

English 334-51

Shakespeare Our Contemporary

Hristomir A. Stanev

We live in a world of idioms and proverbs; one such is that Shakespeare is our contemporary. Is he indeed? What did we appropriate by naming him so? What do we really know of the Bard and his works, and how did Shakespeare become our contemporary? Are we aware how his social and cultural milieu influenced his drama? Moreover, how does one read Shakespeare? How is one supposed to understand his dramatic language and its structural complexities? The course will attempt to answer these and some further questions by examining a representative group of Shakespeare’s tragedies, histories, romances, comedies, and sonnets. We will contextualize some of the major socio-political and cultural changes in England during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which influenced the Bard, and our discussions will explore how he reflected on, as well as contributed to, the dynamism of Tudor and Stuart society. The student learning outcomes of this course are thus to: 1) develop broader awareness of Shakespeare’s poetry and dramatic works within the rich social, political, and cultural currents of late Tudor and early Stuart England; 2) investigate Shakespeare’s works through a number of interpretative lenses (especially historicism) that help to analyze complex notions, such as dynastic continuity, opportunism, alienation, resistance, republican and monarchist values, sexuality, cross-dressing, consumerism, scientific thought, exploration, and colonial enterprises; 3) learn about some of the most popular contemporary debates on the Bard’s legacy, such as the ongoing controversy on the subject of his authorship. The student learning outcomes will be assessed primarily through a a short response paper, weekly discussions on Blackboard, and a longer research essay. (The course will fulfill the "literature before 1800" distribution requirement.)

English 369-50

Frank Kelderman

Native American Culture in Text and Context

This fully online (DE) course offers an introduction to Native American cultural texts from roughly 1880 to the present. Through literature and art in various genres — novels, films, plays, poetry, speeches, visual art, short stories, and music — we will explore how Native people have represented the history, cultural life, and politics of Indigenous nations in North America. In particular, throughout the course we will work with purposeful pairing of texts in different genres. For example, we will explore the visual art of the Yankton Dakota painter Mary Sully in relation to young adult novels, photography, and film of the early twentieth century. We will read the play “Foghorn” (1973) by the Kiowa playwright Hanay Geiogamah in the context of 1960s Native American popular music and media culture. And we will read the poetry and music of Muscogee writer Joy Hard in connection to Muskogee art and mythology. Throughout the semester, we will critically explore the historical and political relationships between Indigenous nations and the United States, and consider recent scholarship and critical keywords in Native American and Indigenous studies. Course activities will consist of discussion boards, short response papers; a midterm paper; and a final paper based on students’ interests. (Literature After 1800; AHD1)

English 371-01/Humanities 363-01

Jewish Humor in America and Beyond

TTh 1 pm to 2:15

Ranen Omer-Sherman

This class draws on an exciting range of essays, fiction, film, shorter videos (and of course jokes) to explore just why, known over the centuries as the “People of the Book,” the Jews have become even better known in our own time as the “People of the Joke.” With a rich history of popular humor production dating from Yiddish modernists in the 19th century onward, Jewish humor writers and artists contributed heavily to the entertainment world in a variety of locales. The comedy industry, particularly in the United States, came to be dominated by Jewish writers, whose cultural histories frequently played a distinct role in their comedic products. We will survey the development of Jewish humor as a cultural phenomenon during the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing mainly on the history of American Jewish comedic output, but also explore Jewish material from Eastern Europe, the USSR, and Israel as well as the relation of Jewish humor to anxiety, outsider perspectives, antisemitism and oppression, including the trauma of the Holocaust. In examining the development of Jewish humor, we will gain insight into a variety of Jewish cultures and the ways in which they are affected by historical conditions, as well as the important catalysts of acculturation, assimilation, and difference in forming Jewish comic consciousness.

Comedy is generally considered a narrational mode i.e. a method of storytelling, meant immediately to elicit laughs. But more significantly, it is a form of social and political criticism or an expression of unease. This is obvious enough in for example, comics with explicitly political material like The Daily Show. However, even comedy like The Three Stooges that might seem harmless, meaningless, and purely entertaining tends to provide commentary on who we are and how we live our lives. Laughing at a joke, Jewish or otherwise, can seem like a visceral and involuntary reaction or the release of pent-up anxiety. But these personal acts are also connected to the values that define entire cultures and societies.

Written Assignments: Please note that as a WR course, you should expect to write a minimum of 2,400 words of writing in response to two longer written assignments and shorter response reflections. Extra Credit will be afforded to those who work with the Writing Center.

Please note: Some of the source material we will use in this course may be offensive to you at one time or another. Such material does not reflect the views or perceptions of this instructor. Please be aware that we will not be censoring the material to accommodate any particular worldview or sensitivity, so if you are easily offended by ethnic, gender, racial and/or religious stereotypes, profanity, and sexually explicit material, you may have a difficult time engaging with some of the required materials. (Post-1800 (Twentieth Century))

English 373-02

Global Women Writers: The Identity of Desire / The Desire for Identity

TTh 2:30 pm to 3:45

Karen Hadley

In this class, we will be discussing the work of select women writers from across the globe. Most of the readings will be fictional, in form of short stories, but we’ll also address forms such as autobiography, drama, film, the novella and the graphic novel. As suggested in the course title, we will address questions such as how one constructs identity in context of familial, patriarchal, post-colonial or other oppressive structures, and additionally, how one identifies desire in cultures with heavily-coded gender norms. Moreover and from another perspective, we’ll consider to what extent identification with categories such as heterosexual, lesbian, transexual, bisexual, etc. constructs or defines one’s identity or desire? Course requirements will be relatively modest, with three exams, regular quizzes and occasional study questions. General competency in college writing (argument, evidence, MLA format) is assumed.

English 373-54

Women and Global Literature

Nina Hanee Jang

This course explores contemporary literature from around the globe that centers on women’s lives and other intersecting subjects, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and (dis)ability. We will focus on how diverse cultures and histories impact identity formation during childhood and adolescence, while also examining how our own ideas of growth fit within the contexts of global literature and its representations of women’s experiences. The entire course will be delivered asynchronously online, with weekly assignments and three major papers to complete throughout the semester. There will be no midterm or final exams in this class. (Fulfills two Cardinal Core requirements: Arts & Humanities and Global Diversity.)

English 374-50

Gender, Race, Sex in Children’s Lit

J. White

Examination of how historical, social, and cultural structures and processes represented in British and North American literature for children/young adults from the late 19th century to the present shape our understandings of race, class, and gender. (Historical period: Post-1900.)

English 402-04

Thinking Like Shakespeare

MW 2 pm to 3:15

Joe Turner

This course is interested in how Shakespeare thinks and why that is important to us in the 21st century. Although we will examine Shakespeare’s plays as artistic achievements, our primary focus is what those works can teach us about thinking: what it looks like, how it works, what goes wrong when we do too little or the wrong kind. How - for example - can we use Shakespeare’s plays as a route to understanding earlier educational systems, which prized different habits of mind than we value now? Can we use Shakespeare to become more flexible, responsive, and empathic in our thinking?

My role is to help you to improve your analytical and expressive skills. As a result, my feedback will be tailored to each individual student’s strengths and targeted to address areas of improvement. In this course, you should expect to read great works of literature and to compose in response in a variety of media. You should also expect that the skills developed in this course will help you in other coursework at UofL and in your life outside of the university. Please reach out to me if you’re interested in this course and/or English Honors: joseph.turner@louisville.edu

English 405-01

Edit, Publish, Design

TTh 2:30 pm to 3:45

Robin Mozer

How we edit documents and how we design our writing for the page and for the screen determines whether public audiences will listen to our message. In this class, students will learn how to write, edit, and design works that are accessible and engaging to outside readers. We will enhance our abilities to step back and view situations and discussions from the perspective of the nontechnical or unfamiliar reader and then use that perspective to create, edit, and publish written material for local audiences. (WR)

English 407-50

Writing Social Change

Stephen Schneider

This class will look at writing directed toward changing political and socio-economic norms within local and national arenas in the United States. While we will look at some theories of what constitutes social change, most of the class will be devoted to those genres of writing that attend different forms of organization and mobilization. These may include op-eds, press releases, proposals, reports, and speeches. Students will be asked to write within a range of these genres, and to identify broader social forums for their work to circulate within. (WR)

English 415-01

Classic British Novels of the 19th Century

TTh 9:30 am to 10:45

Karen Hadley

What comes to mind when you think of classic English novels? Very likely at least a few of your choices would have been written in the 19th century, a time of the explosive growth of the novel in its proliferating forms. In this course we will explore some of these classics, penned by beloved authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Anne Radcliffe, who was seen to have single-handedly changed the gothic, and who was frequently referred to as the “Shakespeare of Romance writers.” Course readings will be bookended by novels featuring the theme of doubling: Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and its counterpart for our purposes, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Please be aware that as a course in the novel, readings will progress at a steady pace of 100-120 pages/week. Also, and as the course fulfills a WR requirement, there will be regular writing assignments.

English 420-01

American Literature from 1865-1910

TTh 11 am to 12:15 pm

David Anderson

This literature survey will introduce American literature from 1865-1910, which was a period notable for distinctly American forms of literary realism and naturalism, the development of mass-marketed books and periodicals, keen interest in ethnic and regional writing, and the opening of publishing opportunities for women writers. The course will also provide information about the historical, social, and cultural contexts of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America (including the effects of the Civil War, Reconstruction, rapid urbanization and industrialization, sweeping economic changes, and large-scale immigration). Grading will be based on essay examinations, a research paper, journaling, and in-class writing and participation. (WR)

English 450-01

Cooperative Internship in English Studies

Mark Alan Mattes

The English Department’s internship program is designed to grant students college credit in fulfillment of English degree requirements for apprentice work in a field that has clear connections with their degree. Work in technical writing, business writing, publishing, grant writing, editing, public relations, marketing, film, broadcasting, law, museums, and libraries and archives - to name some possibilities - can provide valuable experience reflecting the department’s student learning outcomes. In order to enroll and gain credit through the internship program, students must gain approval from the program director (Dr. Mark Alan Mattes).

For Spring 2025, we are actively recruiting for curated placements with Louisville Story Program, Thumbprint Consulting, the UofL English Dept Social Media Internship, and the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage. In addition, we strongly encourage students to check out standing programs with Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs, Frazier History Museum, the Teach for America Ignite Fellowship, and the UofL Commonwealth Center for Humanities and Society. You find details about all of these openings and many others on the internship program website: https://louisville.edu/english/undergraduate/undergrad-internship

If you’re wondering about internship possibilities, please reach out (mark.mattes@louisville.edu). We can discuss whether our curated opportunities are a good fit, and we can also think about approaching other partners. If you are interested in receiving college credit for an internship that you’ve already landed, please get in touch right away to assess whether your position qualifies for credit.

English 450-02

Miracle Monocle Internship

Sarah Anne Strickley

This internship will offer students a front-row seat to the process of selecting and editing work for publication in Miracle Monocle. In addition to addressing many of the challenges specific to digital publishing—web design, social media integration, online submission management—students will also earn hands-on experience in maintaining an editorial calendar, corresponding with contributors, building editorial consensus, and preparing work for publication—skills that are directly translatable to a career in print or digital publishing. Students will also address many of the ethical and technical issues still problematizing the global shift to a digital media environment. The course will culminate in the publication of the 24th issue of Miracle Monocle; students will also have an opportunity to help bring a print project into being. Interested students should fill out an interest form that will land on Dr. Strickley's desk upon completion.

English 491-01

Interpretive Theory: New Criticism to the Present

TTh 1 pm to 2:15

Andrew Rabin

This course will trace the development of literary theory from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Our primary goal will be to develop an understanding of how different theoretical approaches offer us useful tools and strategies for interpreting literature in its social, historical, philosophical, political, and linguistic contexts. In doing so, we will gain a better understanding of how the study of literature plays a crucial role in both social thought and academic discourse. Of course, these are only a few possible subjects, and I suspect our discussions will encompass topics as diverse as the texts themselves. As this is a discussion-based class, we will no doubt cover a wide variety of topics, and I strongly encourage students to bring their own intellectual interests into the classroom. (This course fills requirements for all three major tracks)

English 504-02

Advanced Poetry Writing: Experiments in the Lyric

MW 2pm to 3:15

V. Joshua Adams

This advanced creative writing course will focus on the long and still-vital tradition of lyric poetry. Students will generate original work, but will also read widely in the contemporary and canonical lyric, and consider some of the dominant topics and problems of the lyric tradition: subjectivity, praise, loss, time, thinking, and society. We will also read some theory and criticism around what has come to be called "the New Lyric Studies." Assignments will include writing exercises, written responses to peer manuscripts, two book reviews, and a final portfolio.

English 504-04

Advanced Fiction Writing

MWF 10 am to 10:50

Ian Stansel

This upper-division fiction course offers students who have already completed introductory and intermediate workshops the opportunity to further refine their craft. The discussion-based class will focus on the study and creation of linked stories, with students reading and responding to stories from linked collections and discussing strategies for both short-term and sustained engagement with the reader. The class will examine different aspects of the storytelling craft, including scene-building, plot and sub-plot development, writing voice, among others. In addition to creating and workshopping short stories, students will work on developing story ideas and structuring approaches for storytelling.

English 506-50

The Teaching of Writing

Karen Kopelson

“The Teaching of Writing” seems like a simple title representing a simple, everyday classroom phenomenon. But what do we mean when we say “teaching writing?” Is “writing” one thing? If we say no, then what kind(s) should be taught, and to what ends? That is, what should be our goals for teaching “writing”? What do we hope to enable our students to do? In what contexts? These are the questions with which we begin the course, and to which return again and again throughout the semester.

This course, taught fully online, will be of interest to students planning to teach writing in the future. It will also be of interest to anyone wanting to learn more about (what is misleadingly called) “the writing process,” and to reflect on their own experiences as writers and as students. The course is grounded in making reflective connections between our own experiences as students and writers and the course readings, which are drawn from Composition Studies and English Education scholarship. The course involves weekly writing, on either the discussion board or in other written responses to readings, and culminates in a scholarly research project driven by independent inquiry into a research question of interest to you.

English 522-01

Structure of Modern English

MW 2 pm to 3:15

Thomas Stewart

Have you ever tried to explain a grammar point to someone, or wondered about one yourself, but in the end had to fall back on:

“Guess you have to feel it” or “This way just sounds better”?

At some level you may know, but it’s not clear enough for you to talk about.

If you expect to be responsible for helping anyone with their English language skills (as a teacher, parent, editor, etc.), this class will help you discover and explain how words and phrases go together, and why some patterns … don’t.

Learning about English language structures can account for differences between dialects and clarify changes in patterns of speech and writing over time.

This course is especially recommended for those training to teach English/ESL.

English 544-50 CUE

Studies in Restoration and 18thC British Literature. Re-drawing the World: Imagining New Worlds.

Glynis Ridley

The catalog course title encompasses British literature from the 1660s-1830s. Trying to find a way through the best part of two centuries, the course will focus on a single theme - the idea of scientific and geographic discovery – for this is the period during which the Pacific was finally mapped, Australia was colonized by Europeans and circumnavigated, and the modern map of the world was drawn. The class will look at a variety of fictional and non-fictional works from the period which show British men and women of different classes writing about their encounters with a range of others, all of whom have their own cultures and beliefs. Texts studied will represent the well-known and less well-known, fiction and non-fiction, written and graphic works, and will include Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World, called The Blazing World (1668); Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719); Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726); Joseph Banks, excerpts from The Endeavor Journal (1768-71); and Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, Denmark (1796). We'll look at a famous fraudster, George Psalmanazar, who persuaded London society he was from "Formosa" and wrote a book about all aspects of Formosan life. We’ll look at maps of the real and imaginary, to see how he could have sustained his fraud. We'll also look at illustrations of flora and fauna; considerations of new worlds opened up by both the microscope and telescope, by ballooning and cave exploration, and realms revealed by the new sciences of meteorology and geology. By the end of the course, we’ll hopefully have gained an overview of the socio-political issues driving exploration during the period, and of the range of literary forms and material culture to which exploration gave rise.

Please note that this is an asynchronous online course. Assessments will include weekly discussion board postings, a reading journal, and final paper. If you have any questions before or after signing up for the class, please don't hesitate to email me: glynis.ridley@louisville.edu (Literature before 1800)

English 551-51

Special Topics: Page-to-Screen Adaptation

Ian Stansel

This upper-division distance education course offers students the opportunity to explore the art and craft of page-to-screen adaptation. Over the course of the semester, students will read stories and essays and then watch and analyze screen adaptations of them. We will go over basic screenwriting format and techniques (no previous experience with the form is necessary) and read and discuss different approaches to working with another person’s intellectual property (IP). Students will then try their own hand at adapting particular scenes and sequences. The course’s final project will be a short adaptation of a story or essay. (CW Track)

English 555-01

Mark Alan Mattes

Cooperative Internship in English Studies - CUE

English 555-02

Sarah Anne Strickley

Cooperative Internship in English Studies - CUE

English 570-01

Language and Identity

Th 4 pm to 6:45

Hilaria Cruz

This course examines how language shapes ethnic identity, both individually and collectively. We explore how speakers select from available linguistic resources—including languages, dialects, registers, and styles—to project different identities across contexts. These language choices prompt others to make judgments about our socioeconomic status, personal attributes, and group affiliations. We'll investigate the reciprocal relationship between language and social constructs, and how language can both challenge and reinforce existing power structures.

English 573-01

Madness in US Literature

TTh 11 am to 12:15

Karen Chandler

This in-person course will focus on literature from 1910 to 1960 that tells stories about mental illness and its personal and social causes. Although fictional representations of psychological illness from other eras are important, in the early to mid-20th century literature and film were popular cultural vehicles for dramatizing the devastating psychological effect of wars, increased urbanization, shifting gender roles, minoritized groups’ fight for justice, and evolving ideas about identity and society. Also relevant within this period was the emergence and popularization of psychological theories, and literary and cinematic artists’ responses to them. In ENGL 573, we will investigate these cultural developments through close attention to selected literary and film texts. Required readings will include fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Hughes, Shirley Jackson, Ralph Ellison, and Grace Paley; plays by Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams; and poetry by Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton. Required films may include Spellbound (1945) and Shock Corridor (1963). Secondary sources may include short readings by Sigmund Freud and other theorists. Work requirements will include consistent engagement, short position papers, and a research project.

English 599-01

Texts and Technologies

TTh 11 am to 12:15 pm

Bronwyn Williams

The recent excitement – perhaps even uproar – over generative AI programs like ChatGPT is just the latest example of a long, long history of developments and debates about the ways in which we read and write. Socrates wasn’t in favor of literacy. Critics in the Renaissance worried that the printing press was going to allow too many ordinary people to read. And some people in the 19th Century feared that pencils with erasers would encourage students to make mistakes. Now, with digital media, we are in another age of change – and often controversy – about the impact of technologies on how we read, write, and think. In this course we will explore the ways in which the ways we read and write, and how the technologies we use to do so shape the texts we create, our conceptions of authorship, and the larger culture around us. We’ll think about the disruptions, and the possibilities of changes in technology and how we can respond to these in creative and critical ways. This means we will look back at the history of literacy and technology, to understand how we’ve gotten to this moment and what those forces looked like. And then we will look around us at the transformations in writing and communication happening at a pace that sometimes seems difficult to fully process or adapt to. We’ll think about how different kinds of texts – from books to video to sound – have evolved and how we can imagine and use them for our own ideas and explorations. We will also be considering the ways technologies of reading and writing have shaped culture, power, privilege, and identity and how we can understand those influences on our lives and culture today. And we’ll try to have some fun. (WR; CUE)