English Department Spring Course Descriptions

MW 10:00 am–1:50 pm (In-person) Duneer

Literary history is full of doppelganger figures that invite us to consider a wide range of questions about reality—age-old questions that seem especially urgent in our current cultural moment of rapid developments in the power of AI to impersonate, simulate, and replicate personal identities and virtual images. What happens to a literary character facing their double? What happens to all of us as we are increasingly likely to face doubles—reflected and refracted through the lenses of various algorithms—in our very near future? This course will analyze the figure of the double in stories, film, and popular culture. Course requirements include active participation, in-class writing, and a creative project.

MTWThF 4:00 pm – 6:20 pm (Hybrid) Potter

This intensive Early Spring course examines narratives of cultural contact both "factual" and "fictional,” between European explorers of the Arctic and its indigenous peoples in the comparative context of European and colonialism, visual representation, and emergent literatures. Material will include historical accounts, fiction, and film, as well as music and other performative arts. Requirements include attendance, active participation in discussion, two weekly online discussion responses, and a 4–6 page critical essay, which will go through a draft reading process.

MW 4:00 pm – 5:50 pm (In-person) Holl

As an introduction to the English major, this course offers students practice and instruction in the strategies and critical vocabularies of literary and cultural studies. As we read works of poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, and cultural texts from various time periods and cultural contexts, we will hone our skills in close reading, analysis, research, and careful writing. Course requirements include active participation, short writing assignments, three papers, and a presentation.

TuTh 8:00 am – 9:50 am (In-person) Hawk

This course serves as an introduction to British literature from the early medieval period up to the eighteenth century (c.500-1700). Along the way, we will encounter such sights as a talking tree, a headhunter heroine, Arthurian romances, raucous religious plays, a mad king, the world of faerie, a sympathetic devil, and at least one sexy flea. With works sometimes familiar and sometimes foreign, we will explore what literature reveals about storytelling, adaptation, cultural values, history, as well as past and present assumptions about the world. Readings will be in modern translation, although we will look at examples of texts in their original languages—including Old, Middle, and early modern English.

MW 10:00 am – 11:50 am (In-person) Shonkwiler

This course aims for the impossible: to survey American literature from the colonial period to the present. We will take a sampling of voices, touching on some (but not all) key texts and authors. Students will be introduced to major literary movements and historical contexts of the seventeenth through twentieth centuries, including the literature of Puritanism, colonialism, contact with Native Americans, eighteenth-century republicanism, transcendentalism and romanticism, slave narratives, American poetic voices, literary realism, the Harlem Renaissance, modernism and postmodernism, and finishing with the cultural conflicts of the 1960s and their resonances today. The course will strongly emphasize what one writer termed the “trans-national” character of our national literature and national identity.

TuTh 4:00 pm – 5:50 pm (In-person) Quintana Vallejo

Why do books for young people get banned? What do these bans show about social and cultural taboos, power, and freedom of speech? In this course, we will answer those questions by studying adolescent literature by authors, Nicola Yoon (The Sun is Also a Star), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), Toni Morrison (Paradise), and Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians). This course does not have exams and, instead, requires active class participation, a research paper (5-7 pages), and a creative adaptation project.

TuTh 10:00 am – 11:50 am (In-person) Hopkins

Basic techniques of writing fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry are introduced. Emphasis is on fundamental methods and forms basic to contemporary creative writing. This is a Writing in the Discipline (WID) course.

TuF 12:00 pm – 1:50 pm (In-person) Hopkins

Basic techniques of writing fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry are introduced. Emphasis is on fundamental methods and forms basic to contemporary creative writing. This is a Writing in the Discipline (WID) course.

MW 10:00 am – 11:50 am (In-person) Staff
MW 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (In-person) Staff
Tu 4:00 pm – 7:50 pm (In-person) Staff
Th 4:00 pm – 5:50 pm (Hybrid) Staff
 

MW 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (Hybrid) Michaud

Do health professionals write on the job? If so, what? And why? And how? And what can you learn about writing in the health professions now, while you’re in college, that will help you succeed later, in what will be a critical aspect of your daily work (writing!)?

This course attempts to answer these questions and more. It will provide you with the tools to understand the role of writing in numerous health fields. You’ll conduct writing research in a health workplace of your choosing and explore genres of writing unique to that context. Course assignments include informal writing and a semester-long workplace writing research project.

This course will meet in person twice a week during the first and last several weeks of the semester, with once-a-week meetings planned for much of the middle of the semester and one-on-one writing conferences held via zoom during this period as well.

MW 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (Hybrid) Potter

This class examines narratives of cultural contact both "factual" and "fictional,” between European explorers of the Arctic and its indigenous peoples in the comparative context of European and colonialism, visual representation, and emergent literatures. Material will include historical accounts, fiction, and film, as well as music and other performative arts. Requirements include attendance, active participation in discussion, a weekly online discussion response, and two 4-6 page critical essays, each of which will go through a draft reading process.

MW 4:00 pm – 5:50 pm (Hybrid) Potter

This class examines narratives of cultural contact both "factual" and "fictional,” between European explorers of the Arctic and its indigenous peoples in the comparative context of European and colonialism, visual representation, and emergent literatures. Material will include historical accounts, fiction, and film, as well as music and other performative arts. Requirements include attendance, active participation in discussion, a weekly online discussion response, and two 4-6 page critical essays, each of which will go through a draft reading process.

MTh 12:00 pm – 1:50 pm (In-person) Shonkwiler

What books captivated the American reading public and had a profound impact on the twentieth century? What can our reading of them today tell us about the concerns of the time—and about our culture now? Beginning with Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the novel that exposed the meatpacking industry to a revolted public in 1906, we will read bestsellers—fiction and nonfiction—that changed the ways Americans saw themselves. These books taught skills of self-help, exposed conditions of poverty, confronted the enormity of the atomic bomb, attacked racial and social injustice, inspired the modern environmental and feminist movements, and fueled the “culture wars” on college campuses. Class meetings will focus on the close reading of each text. We will analyze works for their meaning and significance and also consider secondary sources about their historical impact. 

MW 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (In-person) Holl

This course provides an introduction to the various schools of literary and cultural theory that inform English scholarship. In this class, we will think about how we think, read, use language, and engage with literary and non-literary texts, as we explore the ways that various theorists have probed the most fundamental questions of our field: How do we make meaning of and through language? What is the relationship between the self and the text? What is the relationship between texts and the social, political, and economic conditions in which they are produced or consumed? As we discuss the ways that theorists and critics have attempted to unravel some of these enduring questions, we will engage in the practice of criticism, as we apply various theoretical models to our course texts to uncover new ways of reading and understanding. Course requirement include active participation, short writing assignments, a research paper, and a presentation.

TuTh 10:00 am – 11:50 am (In-person) Hawk

This course offers a deep dive into literature from early England between about 700 and 1100. Our readings will include narrative poetry, sermons, riddles, and historical records dealing with a range of topics like heroes, animals, cannibals, riddles, lives of saints and kings, Jesus taming dragons, talking trees, visions of hell, and signs of the apocalypse. Readings will be in modern translation, although we will look at examples of texts in their original languages, including Latin and Old English.

Th 4:00 pm – 6:50 pm (Hybrid) Shonkwiler

We will read American and British fiction from the early to mid-twentieth century to ask what writers in this dramatically changing historical period understood “modernity” to mean and the ways a new, “modern” identity could be constituted. We will consider literature’s responses to urbanism, migration, war, new technology, and new visual media such as cinema. We will attend closely to the formal experimentation that defined modernism as a literary movement, with attention to historical and social attitudes toward sexuality, upward mobility, racial transformation, and the family. Writers are likely to include Joyce, Stein, Dos Passos, Woolf, Hurston, Yezierska, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Larsen, and Faulkner. Active participation, graded papers, and an exam are required. For graduate students, additional critical readings will be assigned, along with a longer critical paper. 

This seminar is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. All students will meet once a week in person (for 3 credit hours). Undergraduate students will have an additional, 4th credit hour of asynchronous class work each week. The course mode is therefore “in person” for graduate students (3 hours) and “hybrid” for undergraduates (3+1 hours). 

MTh 12:00 pm – 1:50 pm (In-person) Quintana Vallejo

What does it mean to become an adult, citizen, and worker in the U.S. today? Can all people living in the U.S. call themselves American? How do marginalized and oppressed people come of age in a nation-state that limits who can access the institutions that mediate maturity—such as citizenship, democracy, marriage, and full-legal rights? This course encourages students to address these difficult questions by studying recent literature centering migration and displacement. The reading list will include novels and memoirs by Christy Lefteri, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, and Mohsin Hamid; as well as films by Diego Quemada-Diez and Amy Tan. Requirements include class participation, quizzes, a creative adaptation, and a final paper (6-10 pages).

TuTh 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (In-person) Duneer

In our current age of economic and cultural globalization, postcolonial writers have been telling stories that experiment widely with narrative voice, perspective, and form. What do these postmodern narrative choices tell us about the intersections of global, national, ethnic, racial, and gendered identities? And in what ways is the prefix “post” helpful or inadequate as we consider the stylistic experimentation in a range of genres from around the world? Readings will include a sampling of poetry, short stories, novels, memoirs, and films by African, Caribbean, Native American, and Asian writers. Requirements include active participation, reading quizzes, informal writing, a presentation, and two papers (6-8 pages each).

TuTh 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm (In-person) Boren

This semester we will explore the many variations of literary nonfiction through the reading and writing of literary nonfiction.  Because most students are unfamiliar with the form, we will, to some extent, learn by reading.  Primarily, students will produce creative nonfiction writing of their own, which will be submitted for peer workshop review.  Revision will be stressed as students experiment with aspects of craft such as narrative distance, scene construction, characterization of “real people”, dialogue, style, and voice. Course Expectations: 20-30 pages of writing, workshop discussion, and professional-development project.

Tu 12:00 pm – 1:50 pm (In-person) Shipers

Editing!  Proofing!  Layout!  Planning a launch party!  This course will focus on the tasks necessary to produce the annual issue of SHORELINE, RIC’s literary and art magazine.

Requirements include regular attendance and active participation.  It is important to note that some of the SHORELINE production work will occur outside of our weekly class sessions, so students will need to allow time to complete the necessary tasks.  (But it’s really fun work, I promise.  We get to make a magazine!)

MW 4:00 pm – 5:50 pm (In-Person) Quintana Vallejo

English 460W offers students opportunities to reflect upon their experiences as English majors and apply the skills and strategies they have acquired toward the next steps in their academic and professional careers. In this semester-long, culminating workshop, we will revisit and revise past work; craft an educational narrative; prepare a professional profile for life beyond RIC; and draft an individualized capstone project that explores students’ own interests and showcases their achievements in reading, writing, and research. This seminar also includes invited talks from recent RIC graduates who will share their life stories and career objectives.

W 4:00 pm – 6:50 pm (In-person) Duneer

In this course we will explore the resonances of literary naturalism in contemporary global literature and film. The most salient aesthetic principle of literary naturalism is the exploration of what it means to be human—how to maintain our humanity when social, economic, and/or environmental conditions elicit survival instincts of the animal within. We will begin with the prominent 19^th-century French novelist and social activist, Émile Zola, and a brief philosophical and theoretical grounding by turn-of-the-century American practitioners, before exploring diverse uses of literary naturalism to express the global struggle for human dignity under a range of intersecting forces—socio-economic inequity, labor exploitation, territorial expansion, and environmental threats—that disproportionately affect marginalized individuals and communities. Readings may include novels, stories, and a film or two set in South America, the Caribbean, India, Sweden, and South Korea. Requirements include class participation, informal writing, a presentation, a short paper (5-8 pages), and a seminar paper (15-18 pages).

Th 4:00 pm – 6:50 pm (In-person) Shonkwiler

We will read American and British fiction from the early to mid-twentieth century to ask what writers in this dramatically changing historical period understood “modernity” to mean and the ways a new, “modern” identity could be constituted. We will consider literature’s responses to urbanism, migration, war, new technology, and new visual media such as cinema. We will attend closely to the formal experimentation that defined modernism as a literary movement, with attention to historical and social attitudes toward sexuality, upward mobility, racial transformation, and the family. Writers are likely to include Joyce, Stein, Dos Passos, Woolf, Hurston, Yezierska, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Larsen, and Faulkner. Active participation, graded papers, and an exam are required. For graduate students, additional critical readings will be assigned, along with a longer critical paper. 

This seminar is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. All students will meet once a week in person (for 3 credit hours). Undergraduate students will have an additional, 4th credit hour of asynchronous class work each week. The course mode is therefore “in person” for graduate students (3 hours) and “hybrid” for undergraduates (3+1 hours). 

Tu 4:00 pm – 6:50 pm (In-person) Boren

This course focuses on fiction and literary nonfiction writing.  The primary texts will be student-produced prose, which we will use to explore various techniques such as characterization, scene construction, plot, diction, point of attack, dialogue, symbol, imagery, and language precision.  In addition to student work – work in progress – we will also examine craft by considering non-student, published work through the writer’s eye, discussing theories of narrative craft, and viewing/hearing readings from published writers. Classes will include group workshop, one-on-one tutorials, and individualized reading lists, so students may pursue their areas of particular interest. Course Expectations: 30-40 pages of writing, weekly workshops, and professional development project.