British Culture to 1660

MWF 12:40-1:30 | R.D. Perry

The past decade or so has witnessed a veritable renaissance in the genre of the horror movie. This class will use the recent horror renaissance in order to think about horror in a very different period: the premodern. We will ask where and of what horror consisted in the premodern world. If premodernity itself is understood as horrific by modernity, could it even experience horror as a distinguishable category of experience? Was horror just the appropriate reaction to everyday life or was it instead, as it is for us, a genre that encodes specific cultural concerns? In addition to watching several recent horror films, we will read works of medieval and early modern literature, roughly from Beowulf to Shakespeare, to think through how those writers and audiences understood what we think of as the defining aspects of horror.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, and three tests.

British Culture 1660 to Present

MWF 9:10-10:00 | John Han

This course explores spaces in British literature that allow characters to escape authority, conventions, traditions, and even meaning itself. Thus, this course will examine the representation of such spaces as the underworld, the sewer, the alley, the street, the attic, the hill, etc, in order to examine how major philosophical movements, changes in cartography, and rapid technological advancements inflected the literary perception and representation of space in British literature 1660 to the Modern. We will read texts including Milton’s Paradise Lost, Pope’s Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad, Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness as well as poems and novellas that stage these spaces.

Requirements

Attendance, 2 papers, and final exam.

Women in American Literature

TR 11:20-12:35 | La Vinia Jennings

English 332 examines selected novels written by American women in the twentieth century that treat diverse geographical regions, ethnicities, social classes, and cultures. Discussions will emphasize various institutions—patriarchy, marriage, family, and motherhood—and their impacts on female selfhood and identity.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, and quizzes.

Black American Literature and Aesthetics

MW 9:10-10:00, F Asynchronous | DeLisa Hawkes

How have Black American authors unpacked Black belonging in their writings, and more specifically, how have they done so with attention to the US as a nation built on dispossessed Indigenous lands? This course will contemplate these questions through novels, poetry, and essays written by Black American authors.

Requirements

Attendance, active participation, pop quizzes, discussion board posts, two short essays, and a final paper.

Caribbean Literature

TR 2:30-3:45 | Gichingiri Ndigirigi

ENGL 336 focuses on contemporary Anglophone Caribbean literature’s deployment of anarchic aesthetics informed by the polyrhythms of Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. We study the works of the most prominent writers who push the boundaries of modernism, speculative fiction, life writing, and Western genre conventions more broadly. Discussion of Caribbean popular culture is integrated into the course to illuminate the ways Carnival and other festivals, popular genres like reggae, calypso, and soca animate the literature. By the end of the course, students should be able to competently analyze Caribbean texts using conventional literary tools—or explain aesthetic justifications for deviations from convention, comprehensively situate the texts in an emergent literary tradition, and explicate its larger contexts. Major authors include Kamau Brathwaite, George Lamming, Earl Lovelace, V.S. Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid, Derek Walcott and Nalo Hopkinson.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, mid-term and final exams.

Children’s/Young Adult Literature

Online Asynchronous | Amy Billone

In this class we will watch the young adult as it floats from innocence to experience and back again in various genres from literature to video games to other forms of media today. We will study fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Sherlock Holmes, Peter Pan, Narnia, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games and a number of other works of interest to college students today.

Requirements

Written posts, video replies, final exam, final project (analytical or creative).

Children’s Literature

TR 11:20-12:35 | Robin Nicks

From the earliest literary fairy tales through the graphic novels and picture books of today, this course will explore the evolution of children’s and young adult literature through the ages. We will focus our attention on changing perceptions of children and childhood, as well as what constitute appropriate topics for children and young adults and controversies surrounding certain books and authors. A major thread through the course will be how children’s and young adult literature reflects, reinforces, and/or critiques social norms of the eras in which the texts were written and published. Texts will include picture books, comics and graphic novels, poetry, novels, biographies or other informational works, films, and more.

Requirements

Weekly reading log, book bentos, and other literary analysis projects.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

TR 4:05-5:20 | Amy Elias

Today space advocacy for orbital flight and space exploration, settlement, and colonization is debated across fields, from Elon Musk to Joon Yun; the Space Exploration Alliance was formed in 2004 to “advocate for the exploration and development of outer space” to members of the US Congress. But fiction has been exploring space since Lucian of Samosata’s A True History in the 2nd century CE and has always asked how space connects to human aspirations, human values, and human needs. This course looks at contemporary space travel fiction from modern allegory to hard SF to examine what space travel can mean to us as humans with AI, and what kinds of space worlds are built and why. The course may sync with Astronomy 490, which blends SF into its astronomy instruction, giving students the opportunity to work across fields and apply humanistic values concerning space travel, life in space, and world-building.

Requirements

Attendance, quizzes, midterm and final, course project.

MWF 10:20-11:10 | Dawn Coleman

This course focuses on American fictions from 1945 to the present that draw on diverse religious and spiritual traditions to address the challenges of the modern world. Authors studied include luminaries such as Flannery O’Connor, Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Leslie Marmon Silko, Philip Roth, and Lydia Millet, considered with respect to relevant traditions such as Christianity, Daoism, Native American spirituality, Judaism, and secular spirituality. No prior knowledge of religion or spirituality is necessary.

Requirements

Attendance, active class participation, reflection assignments, two take-home midterms, a 5-page essay, and a take-home final exam.

Online Asynchronous | Stan Garner

This popular course examines literary representations of illness, medical care, and biotechnology through the study of fiction, drama, poetry, essays, nonfiction, and film. It asks the following questions: How have writers represented and given meaning to illness and health? How are these states and experiences invested with social meanings? How has literature clarified the stakes of biomedical ethical debates? Finally, how have writers responded to pandemics and other public health crises throughout history? This course will be valuable to English majors, students contemplating careers in medicine and health, and students with other plans who are interested in the human body and the stories we tell about it.

Note: May be taken for Honors-by-Contract.

Requirements

Two papers, weekly Spotlight worksheets, participation in online discussions, midterm and final exams.

TR 11:20-12:35 | Laura Hoffer

Is there a difference between comics and the form (not genre) known as the graphic novel? If so, what is that difference? Using Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics as a springboard, this course offers students the opportunity to investigate the comics form and its appearance in various graphic novels. The class will cover the coining of the term “graphic novel” in 1964 and explore a variety of texts that engage topics such as race, gender, LGBTQ+ rights, disability, and, of course, superheroes, including Watchmen, Fun Home, and The Black Panther Party.

Requirements

Close reading exercises; critical analysis essays; quizzes; two exams; presentation.

TR 2:30-3:45 | Doug McKinstry

Students will read short stories spanning the life of the genre. American and British authors will be a primary focus, but five or six continents will be represented. Slight emphasis may be on mystery and sci-fi/fantasy genres. Course requirements will be three open-book tests, two short papers, a journal, and a brief oral report. Class meetings will feature lecture and discussion, small-group activity, a few exercises in creative writing, one or two viewings of film adaptation.

Requirements

Graded class requirements will be three open-book tests, two short papers, a journal, a brief oral report.

Online Asynchronous | Robin Nicks

This course serves as an introduction to the rhetoric and writing concentration of the undergraduate major in English and covers both theory and practice, focusing on multiple modes and genres of writing. Students will learn rhetorical theory, discourse analysis, and more as we analyze rhetoric produced by and about communities in our lives to better understand audiences and how to better reach them. The course requires extensive reading and writing, with review and revision at all stages of the writing process.

Requirements

Discussion posts, semi-daily homework assignments, proposals, 3 major projects, and reflections.

MWF 12:40-1:30 | Hooman Saeli

This course provides students with a foundation in the theory of rhetoric, writing, and genre. Through readings, class discussions, student-led presentations, and major writing projects, the course explores contemporary theories of rhetoric and their relationships to writing and, subsequently, develops students’ discipline-specific knowledge of rhetoric and writing skills. We will consider ways in which rhetorical situations contribute to evidence-based, genre-specific, audience-focused, organized, and well-established arguments. Specifically, we will closely examine how writers construct their identities, engage audiences, and move readers to action through shared/conflict values. Major writing projects will involve students analyzing published writing from various critical perspectives as well as producing a variety of genres for rhetorical ends.

Requirements

3 group presentations, 4 HW assignments, 3 writing projects.

Writing for Remote Work

Online Asynchronous | Sally Harris

In this fully online, asynchronous class, students develop rhetorical strategies for clear communications and for working in teams remotely. They also hone critical thinking skills by analyzing the content, channels, genres, and audiences of their communications. Students complete seven projects, including genres such as process descriptions, application materials, proposals, and major reports. Additionally, they work in teams strengthening their online collaboration and document creation skills.

Requirements

Weekly readings, videos, quizzes, worksheets and discussions; tech writing projects.

Online Asynchronous | Daniel Wallace

This is a great time to be sharing complex ideas with the public. Thanks to new tools that enable writers, organizations, and companies to communicate effectively with an engaged audience, it is possible to earn a living, make a difference, and find a community through serious writing. This course introduces you to the major forms of technical writing: the instructional guide, the complex essay, the proposal, and others. We will approach these forms as if we are each forming our own email newsletter or similar writing enterprise: you will finish the class with a portfolio of technical writing you can show to a future employer or use to begin your own independent venture.

Requirements

Five major assignments, discussions, homework assignments, and a final exam.

Technical and Professional Writing

TR 11:20-12:35 | Anne Snellen

Several hacks have occurred throughout the 12 Colonies. Though we have received no clear indication of culpability, some veterans of the Cylon Wars worry these hacks may precipitate a larger event, prompting the question, “have we adequately prepared for a full-scale Cylon attack?” To prepare, this class will create technical writing to disseminate to Colonial personnel should a Cylon attack become eminent. To aid in our research, we will study Battlestar Galactica as well as primary sources and other materials. If we are lucky enough to survive Cylon attack, focusing on human adoption of artificial intelligence technology is easily transferable to other disciplines. Those who study digital security, robotics, nuclear safety, political diplomacy and emergency preparedness often use killer robots as a generic stand-in for specific enemies or other disasters. Thus, the writing skills you learn in this class can be transferred to other non-Cylon contexts—should we survive.

Requirements

Large manual, reports, graphics and character/situation study, DBAs.

Technical and Professional Writing

TR 9:45-11:00 | Jeff Ringer

This is a hybrid course that requires in-person attendance for two 50-minute class sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Students will be required to complete extensive asynchronous reading, writing, and other activities outside of class. 

Congratulations on being named to the University of Tennessee’s taskforce for the Interplanetary Campus on Mars initiative! As a member of the ICoM taskforce, you’ll have the opportunity to provide guidance to the UT community concerning the development of UT’s first interplanetary campus. Those issues range from questions about basic human survival and logistics to questions about how students might thrive on Mars. You’ll provide guidance to interested parties by researching and writing a variety of genres, such as feasibility reports, proposals, definitions, instructions, public service announcements, procedures, and policies. Working in smaller teams, you’ll keep the taskforce leader apprised of your progress via regular memos, emails, and progress reports. Resources will include the novel and movie forms of “The Martian”, NASA’s extensive website, and episodes from streaming series like “Away.”

Requirements

Extensive writing, including emails, reports, memos, definitions, and instructions, capped off with a collaboratively-written recommendation report or handbook for ICoM

MWF 12:40-1:30 | Iliana Rocha

This course provides a focused instruction to the joys and insights of poetry through an attentiveness to craft (tone, persona, voice, literal and figurative imagery, diction, poetic forms, style, symbolism, myth and archetype, allusion, sound). Specific aims of English 363 are, primarily, to increase the ways we can all become more curious and engaged readers of poetry; to inspire confidence as writers thinking through the work of both established poets and that of our peers; and to provide us with the vocabulary to respond critically to literary texts, as well as to our own poems. In exploring how contemporary poets are in conversation with voices from the past, we will learn that poetry, too, can be an instinctive response to the world.

Requirements

Attendance, discussion board posts, in-class discussion, poetry workshop.

TR 9:45-11:00 | Jose Hernandez Diaz

This class is for students interested in writing poetry and working with generative prompts. We will have close readings and discussions on contemporary poetry masters like Diane Seuss, Eduardo C. Corral, Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, Alberto Rios, Dean Young and Claudia Rankine. We will study a range of contemporary poetry forms and styles including odes, prose poetry, and haiku. In addition to the close readings and discussion, students will work with generative prompts crafted by the instructor. One-on-one feedback will be provided by the instructor. Feedback will consist of attention to line break, form, voice, style, and other elements of poetry.

Requirements

Attendance, participation in discussions, two papers, creative portfolio.

MWF 9:10-10:00 | Elizabeth Gentry

This class invites students to learn the craft of short fiction with the goal of becoming better readers and writers of fiction. We will analyze the core elements of published short stories, practice our own writing through low-stakes exercises, produce a short story to share with the class, and revise the story based upon peer and instructor feedback.

Requirements

Attendance, participation, writing exercises, peer reviews, original story, revision.

TR 2:30-3:45 | Sarah Harshbarger

In this section of English 364 we will use the short story to explore lots of aspects of reading and writing fiction. We will spend the first half of the semester reading published stories paired with craft readings and discussing concepts such as character, setting, conflict, and plot, and we will spend the second half of the semester workshopping short stories of our own. You will write and submit two major drafts of a short story, and you will submit those drafts along with Writer’s Notes at the midterm and final. While I don’t expect you to be one hundred percent done with your story (are we ever?) by the end of the semester, I do expect you to move through all of the stages of the writing process with it, including drafting, workshopping, conferencing, and revising. These steps, from reading about craft through the final draft of your story, are meant to help you grow as reader and writer.

Requirements

Attendance, participation, discussions, two story drafts, and peer feedback.

TR 11:20-12:35| Michael Knight

This class is designed to provide an introduction to the craft of writing screenplays. Students should leave this class with a basic understanding of the core elements of the form (dramatic structure, imagery and visual storytelling, building characters and conflict, creating mood and atmosphere, the development of theme and so on), the ability to recognize how those elements function in a feature length film and the ability to put those core elements into practice in screenplays of their own.

Requirements

Attendance, class participation, writing exercises, writing a screenplay.

MWF 12:40-1:30 | Emily Moeck

In this class we will examine and practice the art of screenwriting. We will interrogate story and cinematic structure—through reading full-length scripts and, occasionally, watching the films produced from those scripts—in an attempt to understand what makes screenwriting different from other creative writings, and, more generally, what makes film different from other narrative arts. Through this work, and the practice and analysis of our own writings, we will consider character development, tension, structure, visual storytelling, and other craft and narrative techniques and concerns. By the end of the semester, you should have a foundational understanding of what makes a high quality screenplay, the craft choices screenwriters use in creating stories for film, and the developed the materials to complete a feature-length screenplay of your own.

Requirements

Creative Drafts, Reading Responses, Attendance, Participation, Peer Feedback, Final Portfolio.

TR 12:55-2:10 | Gabriel Reed

“Creative nonfiction” texts describe factual experiences and situations through creative techniques found in both poetry and prose. This course will survey the formal and historical development of creative nonfiction, with example essays charting its evolution from Montaigne to the present, and will include thorough creative experimentation in the genre, with an emphasis on reading responses and workshops.

Requirements

Short exercises; two longer essays (memoir or personal story and a travel essay); peer workshops; responses to classmates’ drafts; a final portfolio with one revised essay.

Online Asynchronous (Distance Learning Only) | Margaret Dean

The term “creative nonfiction” refers to essays that are grounded in fact but use tactics of creative writing to achieve their purposes. These creative tactics can include description, scenes, dialogue, and most importantly, a strong sense of voice. Units will include the history of creative nonfiction as a genre and the ethics of truth and lies in creative nonfiction.

Requirements

Students will write one full-length essay, multiple short assignments, and many responses to peer essays and published work.

Foundations of the English Language

MWF 11:30-12:20 | Roy Liuzza

This course will examine English language and culture through the first half of its 1500-year history. The class begins with some basic concepts about language and language change, including phonology (where sounds come from and how they are made), orthography (how language is represented visually), morphology (how words are formed), syntax (how words are put together) and semantics (how words mean). From there we will move to the prehistory of English, including the Indo-European language family and its reconstruction, and then chronologically forward through Old English (before 1100), Middle English (12th-15th centuries), and Early Modern English (16th-18th centuries). Along the way we will explore a number of ideas about language – the notion of linguistic correctness, the construction of standard and non-standard English, ‘literary’ language, simplified or plain language, pidgins and creoles, lexicons and dictionaries, and issues of language contact, change, and variation.

Requirements

Attendance, participation, quizzes and take-home exercises, midterm and final exams, research project.

MWF 1:50-2:40 | Hooman Saeli

This course explores the complexities of contemporary English from a linguistic perspective. We will study how English works linguistically—from its phonology (system of sounds), the makeup of its words (morphology), to its syntax (grammatical structure), and how we use it in ongoing speech (discourse and pragmatics). We will cover how English varies, how it has changed, and how a linguistic understanding of English language makes us better consumers of the information in the world around us.

Requirements

10 WH assignments, 2 writing projects, 3 group presentations, 2 exams, 1 final presentation.

TR 9:45-11:00 | Lisi Schoenbach

This class poses two related questions: “What is literature?” and “What should we do about it?” The “we” of the second question could be broad or specific enough to include literary critics, students of literature, English majors, or the members of this class. We will spend the semester trying to figure out what it means to be a reader of literature. What intellectual, artistic, psychological, and ethical lessons are we trying to learn from literature? What different modes of reading are available to us? Why do different texts seem to invite or benefit from different sorts of readings? We will focus these questions around a variety of theoretical approaches, including feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, and postcolonial. We will spend time developing a shared vocabulary for literary study, sharpening our close reading skills, developing literary arguments, and positioning ourselves within current critical debates.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, presentation, final exam.

American Tales, Songs, and Material Culture: An Introduction to Folklore

TR 12:55-2:10 | Marie Taylor

Like Madonna, Early Americans were “living in a material world.” Storytelling, communication, and other linguistic interactions were shaped not only by intellectual and imaginative aims, but by the physical world as well. Drawing upon developments in New Materialism, this course will investigate the role that bodies, objects, and the natural world played in textual production in North America before 1800. We will think not only about the material practices required to facilitate book production, but also about the materials and practices that facilitated craft, trade, diplomacy, entertainment, and religion. As part of the course, we will make extensive use of UT’s resources including the Hodges Library Archives, the McClung Museum, and UT’s Makerspace.

Requirements

Attendance, papers, discussion boards, and final project.

MWF 11:30-12:20 | Randi Marie Addicott

Aside from its position as the sacred text of a major world religion, the Bible is also a text with a wide variety genres including but not limited to poetry, folktales, ritual, and narratives ranging from apocalyptic to biographical. Analysis of those forms can reveal much about the culture that surrounded those genres; further, looking at different translations can demonstrate how later cultures shifted those narratives. Therefore, our perspective will not be theological or devotional but historical and analytical. Class readings will draw on both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments as well as secondary materials.

Requirements

Attendance, annotated bibliography, two papers, journals, midterm and final exams.

Shakespeare’s Contemporaries I: Renaissance Drama

TR 11:20-12:35 | Heather Hirschfeld

This class picks up where Shakespeare classes leave off: with the provocative, rich, sometimes decadent plays written by the dramatists (Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Webster and Elizabeth Cary) whose work was essential to the flourishing of English Renaissance stage. The course introduces students a variety of playwrights and plays of the early modern period and the continuity of their themes and conventions. We focus on the development of London as a theatrical community, paying special attention to the emotional effects of playing and to the representation of the kinds of political, social, and economic issues that still concern us today. Our goal is to understand the early modern theater as a total enterprise–as an entertainment industry and culture that involved more than just words on the page.

Requirements

Short response papers; one biographical essay; one exam; one final research paper.

Donne, Milton, and Their Contemporaries

TR 2:30-3:45 | Anthony Welch

Aristocrats kissing trees; lovers dissected on autopsy tables; petticoat fetishes; angels firing heavy artillery. This course explores the poetry of seventeenth-century Britain, from John Donne’s racy love poems to John Milton’s astonishing religious epic, Paradise Lost. We will study a wide range of poets, including Herbert, Jonson, Lanyer, Herrick, and Marvell, and the critical debates that have sprung up around them. For all its beauty and polish, their poetry took shape in an age of violent social upheaval. We will read their writings against the backdrop of the scientific revolution, religious conflict, gender debate, and a bloody civil war. A central theme will be the tangled relationship between flesh and spirit, between the worldly and the divine, that endlessly perplexed the early modern imagination.

Requirements

Active participation, weekly discussion board posts, two essays, and one exam.

TR 11:20-12:35 | Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud

The British Romantics (1789-1820s) lived through many social upheavals, resulting in the modern freedoms and divides that define us today: the rise of democracy, activism, mass media, feminism, individualism, alienation, sexual nonconformity, commercialization, industrialization, technological advances, and class conflict, to name a few. In this class we’ll examine how the Romantics felt about these changes, mostly through the poetry for which they remain famous. We’ll read poems by Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth, among others, as well as a representative novel from the period.

Requirements

Two papers, a letterpress poster, weekly discussion posts, and online quizzes.

Women Writers in Britain

TR 2:30-3:45 | Mary Dzon

This course seeks to examine the strategies that medieval women employed to legitimate their authority to speak and write, and the types of texts they used as ways to express themselves, develop their talents, and pursue their interests. We will attempt to reimagine the cultural settings in which medieval women lived, made use of books, and produced their texts. Some of the issues we will consider include: the states of life and activities available to medieval women, the link between sexual status and female authority, the permeability of gender, the portrayal of female non-conformity, the dissemination of women’s writings within medieval textual communities, and the fate of medieval women’s writings within modern literary and historical studies. Works to be studied include the poetry of Marie de France, the letters of Heloïse, The Book of Margery Kempe, The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, and the Lives of female saints.

Requirements

Besides doing a handful of Discussion Board posts on our weekly readings, students will take a midterm, do a presentation, and write a short essay, in preparation for which they will construct an annotated bibliography. Students may also produce a creative comparative work, if they prefer.

Early American Literature

TR 9:45-11:00 | Marie Taylor

In Early America the concept of family central to communal identity though family was not limited to genetic relations. For early Puritans, family included like minded Christians, like wise, for Indigenous people, one’s kinship ties determined how one lived one’s life. In this course, we will explore Early American texts through the lens of family by deterring how the concept of family is changing in this time period. We will explore questions such as what does it mean to be part of a family? Who is allowed to join a family? What does it mean to be kicked out of a family? How are family politics intertwined with power, status, and control? Among the texts will be Olaudauh Equino’s An Interesting Narrative, Susana Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, and William Apess’ A Son of the Forest.

Requirements

Attendance, short papers, final project.

Modern American Novel

TR 2:30-3:45 | La Vinia Jennings

English 436 provides a critical introduction to prominent, twentieth-century, American novels written between 1920 and 1980 and their defining historical, racial, and political themes and stylistic elements. The class will identify, compare, and contrast the driving historical and aesthetic forces at work in and between these selected works.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, and quizzes.

Race and Ethnicity in American Cinema

MF 12:40-1:30, W 12:40-2:40 | Dionte Harris

This seminar is dedicated to examining gender and sexuality in African American film. We will use film (and television) as our primary medium to focus in on debates in Black studies, women, gender, and sexuality studies, and film and cultural studies, outlining and probing the most generative currents of these schools of thought. We will consider how the filmmakers, producers, and artists studied employ race, gender, and sexuality as a medium for social critique and artistic innovation in the Black social imaginary.

Requirements

Active attendance, quizzes, response posts, short presentation, analysis paper, research abstract, annotated bibliography, and research paper.

Topics in Black Literature

TR 11:20-12:35 | Katy Chiles

Why does the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African slave trade continue to impact contemporary American literature and culture? How did early African-Americans describe the slave trade and life in the Americas? This course will begin to answer these questions and more. We will consider how texts written by black authors are part of what we call the “Black Atlantic”: a transnational cultural space produced by travel across the Atlantic Ocean—to and from Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and Great Britain. We will examine how these writings explore the “impossible” place of many of these writers who, although living in a certain country, were not considered “citizens” before the law. From the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, texts might include first-person narratives by Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and Frederick Douglass; Phillis Wheatley’s poetry; and Martin Delany’s Blake.

Requirements

Active participation, a presentation, informal writing assignments, a close reading paper, an annotated bibliography and abstract, and a final paper.

MWF 12:40-1:30| Bill Hardwig

This class will investigate the complex history of the Appalachian region. By tracing key traditions and events in Appalachian history, literature and arts, we will examine the various ways in which Appalachia was understood and described (from within and from without). This class is interdisciplinary in design, and we will approach our topics by looking at literature, history, photography, music, and popular culture. Along the way, we will unearth the heterogeneity (of people, ethnicities, opinions, and communities) in the region commonly known as Appalachia.

Requirements

Two papers, 3 exams, micro-essays.

Modern Drama

TR 9:45-11:00 | Stan Garner

This course will explore the development of modern drama from the realist revolution of the late nineteenth century through the Second World War. In addition to studying important playwrights and plays, we will consider a range of issues that characterize this, one of the greatest and most daring periods of dramatic art. Because plays are designed for the stage as well as the armchair, we will also consider the challenges and opportunities involved in reading dramatic texts. By seeing clips of videotape productions and by attending to the performance dimensions of individual plays, we will cultivate the art of “theatrical” reading. We will read and discuss plays by the following playwrights: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Yeats, Gregory, Synge, O’Neill, Glaspell, Treadwell, Pirandello, Brecht, Williams, Garro, and dramatists of the French Avant-garde and the Harlem Renaissance.

Requirements

Paper, resource portfolio, ten blog entries, live production worksheet, midterm and final exam, attendance and participation.

Online Asynchronous | Sean Morey

The focus of English 460 is writing and editing for the world of work: government, industry, science, technology, and business. It offers theory, practice, and evaluation of editing skills, as well as orientation to careers and concerns in technical/professional communication. Though it focuses on the skills necessary to intelligently edit the text of documents, this course embraces a larger range of editing considerations, such as organization, layout, and visuals. For this semester, we will consider how generative AI affects the profession of technical editing and experiment with editing technical documents produced by gen-AI.

Requirements

Two major editing projects, smaller scaffolded editing assignments, discussion posts, and attendance; a contract grading will be used for assessment.

TR 4:05-5:20 | Cornelius Eady

This course is a generative workshop. Poets write, Poets read. These two statements will be the emphasis of this course. You will be doing three main things here: 1) weekly writing and revising your own work (including exercises and prompts), 2) Doing close reading of the poems assigned. 3) Interviewing visiting poets about craft. In this course, you will not only get a general sense of the craft of poetry, but how, though live interviews, it is put to use by working, contemporary poets. Your workshop drafts will not be graded. Your final will. The “final” in this workshop will be a chapbook of 8-10 of your best poems written and revised over the semester, with a short, (two page min) introduction written in the third person by the author, due the last day of our exam week, along with a portfolio, set up on Canvas of all your prompts, and any re-writes you made during the semester, again, either posted on Canvas, or sent to me via e-mail as a PDF. The chapbook must include a cover, cover art, a title page, and a table of contents. If the student prefers, the chapbook can include media. The chapbook can be more than 10 poems, but it cannot be less than 8. Again-8-10 POEMS is the goal. 4 poems that make up 8 -10 PAGES is only 4 poems and will be marked down. Students who have taken my class before will write an introduction that compares the work of their earlier chapbook to the one they wrote now.

Requirements

Attendance and participation: 10% Exercises and prompts: 25% Author interviews: 20% Chapbook (8-12 pages) 45%.

TR 4:05-5:20 | Michael Knight

This course is designed as a continuation of ENG 364. We will be focused on workshopping your original novels and short stories with the goal of applying the lessons of craft learned in 364 and enhancing your knowledge of style and technique through the workshop experience.

Requirements

Attendance, class participation, writing and revising fiction.

Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing

W 5:10-7:55 | Margaret Dean

This course will explore the scope of contemporary creative nonfiction and support writers in the creation of a suite of essays or other major creative nonfiction project. Wide readings within the genre will give us a grounding and frame of reference; students will read contemporary essays, submit a substantial collection of work (including revision), and participate in workshops of student essays (including written feedback for each workshop). To some extent this course will build on the work of English 369 (Writing Creative Nonfiction), but 369 is not a prerequisite, and writers new to the genre are welcome.

Requirements

Attendance, extensive writing assignments (including revision), written workshop notes.

MWF 11:30-12:20 | Tanita Saenkhum

This course provides an introduction to some of the major basic theories, key concepts, and issues surrounding teaching English as a second/foreign language in different contexts and settings. We will consider various topics related to English language teaching, including first and second language acquisition, learner variables in language learning, and traditional and innovative approaches to language teaching. Through readings, class discussions, and assignments (e.g., teaching observation and teaching demonstration), students will be able to design English language lessons that address the learner needs and institutional context, among others. The course aims to develop students’ knowledge about English language teaching and to prepare them to work with linguistically and culturally diverse English language learners.

Requirements

Class participation, weekly discussion questions, a teaching observation report, a teaching demonstration, and a final project.

MWF 9:10-10:00 | Rima Elabdali

This is a hybrid course that requires in-person attendance on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Monday, students will be required to complete asynchronous readings, writing, and discussions outside of class as well as attend individual conferences with the course instructor

This course introduces students to the field of second language acquisition (SLA) or, in other words, the learning of more than one language. The course provides students with a broad overview of theoretical underpinnings, empirical research, and the history of the field. The main purpose of the course is to help students attain basic SLA literacy. Through readings, discussions, and assignments, we will explore cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and critical perspectives on second language acquisition, examine typical language learning processes and outcomes, and consider how cognitive factors (e.g., age, aptitude) and dimensions of human difference (e.g., race, socioeconomic status) affect these processes and outcomes.

Requirements

Attendance + participation, class discussions, and a research project (e.g., topic pitch, annotated bibliography, research proposal, first draft, oral presentation, final draft).

MWF 10:20-11:10 | Tanita Saenkhum

This course explores different approaches to teaching grammar in second language (L2) classrooms. We will examine pedagogical grammar research and its implications for L2 instruction. Topics covered in the course include grammar in use, grammar acquisition processes, and grammar feedback, among others. The course will also offer cover materials development, task design, and classroom assessment. The major goals of this course are to develop students’ understanding of grammar instruction and to prepare them to work with linguistically and culturally diverse English language learners.

Requirements

Class participation, a “current events related to grammar” presentation, a grammar-focused communication task design, and a final project.

Fairy Tale, Legend, and Myth: Folk Narrative

Online Asynchronous | Amy Billone

What makes fairy tales popular today? In this class we will study the evolution of popular fairy tales from Greek mythology to the Arabian Nights through versions of stories by Basile, Straparola, Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. We will simultaneously trace the cinematic and televised adaptation of these stories by Disney and other major media outlets.

Requirements

Written discussion posts, video replies, final exam, final project (analytical or creative).

Major Authors

TR 9:45-11:10 | Stephen Blackwell

Nabokov is famous for writing some of the most beautiful prose of the 20th century, as well as some of its most beguiling novels. In this course, we will examine how Nabokov’s literary art confronts the ethical implications of existence and, especially, of the use of language. What responsibilities does one take on when one decides to engage with others, or to address or describe them with language? How does the desire to create beauty or art relate to other facets of human desire—for power, love, control, physical gratification, wealth, fame? How does the creation of art bring into focus some of the major ethical concerns of life? In this course we will explore these and other questions posed by Nabokov’s rich and diverse literary output

Requirements

Three 1,000-word essays, one 2,500-word essays, attendance, quizzes, an annotated bibliography of around 10 scholarly articles or chapters.

Special Topics in Literature

TR 12:55-2:10 | Lisi Schoenbach

This course will examine the ongoing conversations between modernist authors and the philosophical thinkers who influenced them and were influenced by them. Authors such as Woolf, Joyce, Proust, and Stein have long been recognized for their aesthetic and formal experiments, their revolutions in style and genre. However, modernist authors not only rethought the novel, the play, and the lyric poem; building on the revolutionary ideas of their moment they also reimaged philosophical problems, including induction, consciousness, perception, memory, time, and identity. We will explore these shared preoccupations in the work of authors including Gertrude Stein, Henry James, William James, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Mann, John Dewey, Jean Toomer, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Requirements

Active class participation, research presentation, short response papers, final paper.

Special Topics in Writing

TR 2:30-3:45 | Jose Hernandez Diaz

This class is for students interested in exploring prose poetry and working with generative prompts. We will have close readings and discussions on prose poetry masters like Charles Baudelaire, Marosa di Giorgio, Ada Limón, James Tate, and Claudia Rankine. We will study a range of prose poetry styles including fabulism, surrealism, and realism. In addition to the close readings and discussion, students will work with generative prompts crafted by the instructor. One-on-one feedback will be provided by the instructor. Feedback will consist of attention to voice, style, persona, and other elements of prose poetry. We will read and discuss an influential essay by Pulitzer winner, Charles Simic, on the subversive nature of prose poetry.

Requirements

Attendance, two papers, creative portfolio.

Special Topics in Language

TR 4:05-5:20 | Thorsten Huth

This course investigates how language use creates meaning. The premise is that using language is not just “saying” something, but that “saying” serves the overall purpose of achieving specific actions. In conversation or on the phone, in group chats, memos, or emails: How do we know what people mean based on what they say? Words can achieve countless actions: We greet, we compliment, we invite, and we request things from others. Furthermore, we greet back, respond to compliments, and decide whether to accept an invitation or to decline a request. To achieve and recognize these actions, understanding words alone is not sufficient. Words always interact with a host of contextual resources that are highly systematic while varying across cultural and linguistic lines. Drawing primarily from research in linguistic pragmatics and interactional linguistics, participants in this course explore the nature of meaning and learn to unpack the basic architecture of talk.

Requirements

Attendance, response papers, research project.

Special Topics in Film

MF 10:20-11:10, W 10:20-12:20 | Eleni Palis

This course considers the classical period of film noir and the enduring legacy of neo-noir in contemporary American cinema. Film noir is a French term retrospectively applied to a wave of dark, brooding mystery and crime thrillers produced during and after World War II. This course will echo the retrospective gaze of the neo-noir itself, considering classic noir from the 1940s and 1950s alongside neo-noir films of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. What can this popular film genre tell us about Hollywood’s representation of crime and punishment, gender and sexuality, heroism and anti-heroism, race and ethnicity—especially as it has been adapted, revised, and reanimated by neo-noir? The importance of setting, lighting, cinematography, and montage to the creation of shadowy noir world will allow us to sharpen close viewing skills. As we consider films that revise the classical noir representations of gender and sexuality, students will be able to pursue their own research on film genre formation, generic revision and fusion, and onscreen representations of crime, sexuality, gender, and race.

Requirements

Grades are determined by attendance, weekly discussion posts, a scene analysis or video essay, and a final research project.

Independent Study

MWF 12:40-1:30 | Urmila Seshagiri

NEW COURSE! Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival is an eclectic, brilliant, and inspiring gathering of musicians and performing artists from around the world. Now in its 12th year, Big Ears takes place in downtown Knoxville and offers festival-goers 200 concerts, workshops, film screenings, poetry readings, and other performances by artists ranging from Esperanza Spalding, Meshell Ndegeocello, Bela Fleck, Rufus Wainwright, Zakir Hussain, Yo La Tengo, and Taj Mahal. Intimate solo concerts, bands in large venues, open-air jam sessions on Market Square, talks by scholars of jazz history: Big Ears is an immersive celebration of art, language, music, and creative collaboration. This course will take a deep dive into the careers of diverse 2025 Big Ears artists prior to the March 27-30 Festival; we will spend 4 days attending performances at Big Ears; students will then give presentations about artists of their choosing. Thanks to a generous donation from the Big Ears Festival, each enrolled student will receive a free pass to the Festival (a $400 value). Students are responsible for their own transport to downtown Knoxville for Festival events and must be available to attend concerts on all four days of the Festival, Thursday-Sunday, March 27-30, in addition to the once-weekly class session during the semester. Enrollment for this course is by application; please fill out this Google Form by Oct. 25.

Requirements

All students MUST commit to attending all four days of Big Ears 2025 (March 27-30) and attending a MINIMUM of 12 events. Required work: 3 short response papers, Playlist Project, final presentation.

TR 12:55-2:10 | Lisa King

This course endeavors to think of rhetorics – all rhetorics – as culturally situated. In this class, we will be reading about and examining rhetorics of race, ethnicity, cultures, gender, sexuality, class, abilities, etc. to understand rhetoric’s relationship to these constructions and how they intersect and relate to one another. We will explore categories of writing, texts, digital rhetorics, performance, popular culture, material rhetorics, visual rhetorics, and more. Our reading will cast a broad net, and provide you with opportunities to both expand rhetorical and cultural knowledge and dig into a rhetorical phenomenon of your choice for further research.

Required Texts and Materials:

• Burgett’s Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 3rd edition, ISBN 978-0-8147-0801-9
• Access to a computer, the internet, and Canvas to access posted course materials

Requirements

Coursework will include class discussion, reading, regular discussion posts, three written projects (two with presentation components), and a final portfolio

Online Asynchronous (1st Session) | Daniel Wallace

English majors bring strong writing, analytic, and communication skills to today’s job market. But translating what they studied in the English classroom into the language of careers and employment can be a tricky task. 

This fully-online, asynchronous 1-credit class will help students understand how to approach jobs in diverse fields, market their skills through compelling application materials, and learn how to take the initiative in their job-seeking and career development. The interactive course will include opportunities for feedback, questions, and discussion. At the end of the course, students will have prepared various materials for the job market (resume, job letters, narratives)