English Department Summer/Fall Course Descriptions

Summer Session I (May 19, 2025–June 27, 2025)

ENGL 120

TTh 10-12:43 pm (hybrid)
Jalalzai

ENGL 120

(Online Asynchronous)
Staff

ENGL 230: Workplace Writing

(Online Asynchronous)
Michaud
What kind of writing do college students do after graduation? What will you need to learn to communicate effectively on the job? What role does writing play in 21st century workplaces? And how is AI reshaping the way we write at work? This course attempts to answer all these questions (and more!).

ENGL 230 will provide you with the tools you need to understand the role of writing in the workplace so that you can successfully navigate the many challenges you will face as a workplace writer. Course assignments include frequent informal writing assignments, design of job application materials, and participation in online discussions with peers.

ENGL 350: Shakespeare’s England/England’s Shakespeare*

MW 8-11:43 am (in person)
Holl
This study-abroad course will explore connections between Shakespeare’s plays, his life in early modern England, and his multiple “afterlives,” or the ways that his memory and work have lived on through performance, scholarship, and popular appropriations. In the classroom, we’ll read four plays to be determined by what's playing in London in summer 2025, and we’ll examine the ways that Shakespeare negotiated his political, cultural, and, perhaps, personal worlds through his plays. We’ll explore the available biographical information—from his early days in Stratford-on-Avon, to his two decades on the London theater scene, to his eventual retirement back to Stratford—as well as the competing speculations about his possible scandals, loves, and pastimes. Most importantly, we’ll visit sites in England important to his life and work. Course requirements will include active participation in all activities in the classroom and abroad, regular blog posts, and a final presentation.

ENGL 450: Advanced Topics in English: Mapping Queer London*

TTh 8-12 pm
Quintana-Vallejo
This study-abroad course will explore London’s queer literary landscape through the lens of “metaphorical cartography” and the interdisciplinary lens of queer studies. Students will be asked to create a personal map that details their experiences in specific places in London as they reflect on identity and queerness (see, for reference, Queering the Map); this map will also include the important places of the texts we read with descriptions of their significance. Students will also have a final conference presentation. Central to the curriculum are literary and cinematic works, including Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, and the film Pride. Additionally, we will study one play (or musical) relevant to our subject staged in London at the time of the course. This course aims to provide a profound understanding of the multifaceted, intersectional nature of queer existence in this major metropolitan setting.

ENGL 550: Shakespeare’s England/England’s Shakespeare*

MW 8-12:43 pm
Holl
See (ENGL 350)

ENGL 560: Mapping Queer London*

TTh 8-11:35 am P
Quintana-Vallejo
See (ENGL 450)

*Study abroad offerings. All students interested in participating must contact Professor Jenn Holl for advance information in spring.

Summer Session II (June 30, 2025–August 8, 2025)

ENGL 120

MTWTh 1-3:10 pm (in person)
Staff

ENGL 230: Workplace Writing

(Online Asynchronous)
Staff

ENGL 340: Studies in Poetry, Drama or Prose (Poetry)

MTW 4:00-6:56 pm (in person)
Hawk
This course will provide a deep dive into poetics in terms of both the study and the craft of poetry. Throughout the course, we will explore key elements of poetic arts (such as voice, image, figurative language, and form) with examples drawn from poetry across various periods, geographies, languages, cultures, and forms. We will especially focus on theories of form, including recent developments in poetics and theories related to New Formalism, but we will also discuss how other aspects of cultural theory might be brought to bear on the craft and analysis of poetry. This course will develop skills in critical reading, vocabulary, and writing of and about poetry. Assignments will include reading poetry, theory, and criticism; composing poetry; and writing literary analysis.

ENGL 525: Topics in Genre (Poetry)

MTW 4:00-6:13 pm (in person)
Hawk
See (ENGL 340)

TuTh 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 class participation, regular short writing assignments, three papers, and a presentation.

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

What is a literary text? What are we doing when we read literature? How do we engage it, judge it, interpret it, or use it in our lives? This course will use such questions to develop the knowledges and skills of literary study. We will pay close attention to language and literary form, including learning some of the basic vocabulary of literary study. Content will include fiction, poetry, and drama. We will consider how close reading helps us to engage with the world around us and how the skills of reading help us think critically about all kinds of texts, literary or otherwise. Participation and class discussion are crucial. Critical writing skills will be stressed throughout the semester.

F 10:00 am–10:50 am (In-person) Hawk 

This course will help students to understand their Humanities major, get the most from that major based on their own interests, and prepare for employment post-graduation. Many students wait till their senior years to think about careers, when some important prep work should be done much earlier. English 203 aims to jump start students’ thinking about what they want to do with their degrees while they still have plenty of time to choose particular courses, arrange internships, and investigate possibilities.

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

This course examines American national identities and literary production from the first inhabitants, explorers, and settlers to the present day. All along we will explore what constitutes American citizenship and literary production. Who was included, excluded, and why? How did outsiders become insiders? What struggles for inclusion still persist? We shall follow American literature historically and critically as well as through developments in literary form. Asking how politics and history shape the form as well as the content of literature, our analyses will include the following areas of American literature and culture: 

•             Exploration

•             Puritanism

•             Revolution

•             Transcendentalism

•             American Gothic

•             Slavery and Race

•             Harlem Renaissance

•             Modern/Postmodern America

•             Contemporary Multiethnic literature

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

Together we will trace the evolution of American literature from the 17th century to the present, exploring how writers have shaped and challenged national identity. We begin with the Pilgrim colonizers and move through the Enlightenment voices of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson before examining Henry David Thoreau’s Transcendentalism and his brand of resistance in the face of a corrupt culture. We’ll read Frederick Douglass’ autobiography to confront the realities of slavery, then turn to the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. In the 20th century, we’ll engage with key works from the Modern and Postmodern eras, including fiction, poetry, and film. Class sessions combine lecture, discussion, and small-group work. Assignments include 20 pages of formal writing (midterm and final essays), reading quizzes, and informal writing exercises.

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

Over the semester we shall look at a variety of texts produced for children, including poetry from Mother Goose to modern verse, a variety of fairy tales, film versions of texts for children, picture books by Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown and more, and novels from Louisa M. Alcott to Gary Soto. We shall consider, throughout, authors' attitudes toward and depictions of children, alongside issues of identity, gender, and race. As a literature course, the primary aim is to help you develop the necessary critical understanding and skills to allow you to examine and evaluate children's literature on your own, and to reach a better awareness of how our culture views and, in a sense, creates the child. Requirements include active attendance, reading quizzes and response papers, 2 critical essays (4-6 pages), short class presentation, short answer midterm and final.

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

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

This course introduces students to some of the basic elements of writing and reading creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. We will spend a lot of time discussing, studying, and practicing the five techniques essential to all three genres: image, voice, character, setting, and story. Students will complete approximately six formal assignments that will be workshopped by the entire class and at the end of the semester will turn in a portfolio of polished final pieces. Attendance, thoughtful reading of assigned texts, active participation in class discussion, drafting of creative work, and thorough revision are all required elements of the course.

MW 10:00 am–11:50 am (In-person)

MW 2:00 pm–3:50 pm (In-person)

TuTh 4:00 pm–5:50 pm (In-person)

Th 4:00 pm–7:50 pm (In-person)

MW 2:00 pm–3:50 pm (In-person) Michaud

Websites, blogs, Instagram stories, tweets, memes—these are the tools of 21st-century multimodal composers. ENGL 231 is designed to build on the knowledge you have already to help you become a more rhetorically sophisticated composer of digital and multimodal texts. You’ll write for a range of purposes and audiences, gain experience navigating different communications technologies and platforms, and develop knowledge of how to communicate effectively in a global and visual world. Course requirements include frequent informal reflective writing and weekly deadlines for self-generated digital and multimedia projects.

M 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 American 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 response paragraph, 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) Zornado

We will read literary and other texts from both eastern and western traditions that explore the way of Zen. We will compare Christianity with Buddhism. We will read, compare, and contrast various philosophical, literary, and religious responses to big questions. We will engage in class discussion, work in groups both large and small in order to explore the assigned readings and think about what they mean. Class discussion will encourage the development of “connections” across academic disciplines, historical periods, and famous statements about big questions. Successful students will participate in class by demonstrating their engagement with the course material in class discussions, through quizzes on reading assignments, and three papers that total 20-25 pages.

TuTh 2:00 pm–3:50 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, changed views of childrearing, 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.

TuTh 8:00 am–9:50 am (In-person) Hawk

Of all the tools in the English major’s toolbox, cultural theory is one of the most powerful. But to use theory effectively requires mindful knowledge and careful handling of the tool. This course serves as an introduction to cultural theory for literary critics, creative writers, and professional writers, with the goal of developing rhetorical strategies to navigate ongoing critical conversations about our objects of study and our creations. Course materials will include introductions to theory, contributions to the field by major theorists, various pieces of media for us to analyze, and scholarship that demonstrates how theory can be put into conversation with cultural artifacts to better understand the world around us.

TuTh 2:00 pm–3:50 pm (In-person) Holl

How does a body mean? This course will examine modes of embodiment in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British literature, including issues of gender, race, sexuality, and disability. We’ll look at the way human body was constructed, staged, theorized, and interrogated in a diverse array of early modern prose, poetry, and drama, and how various bodily identities intersected and unsettled categorization. We will also pay significant attention to the processes of research and writing, as we consult theoretical and critical texts and work toward crafting a final research paper. In addition to a research paper, course requirements will also include active class participation and short papers.

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

Notoriously absent from standard dramatic histories and contributing less than 20 percent of plays currently produced in the US, female playwrights have nevertheless done much to expand the potential of drama both in theme and form, from the 10th century playwright Hrotsvitha to Suzan-Lori Parks, Maria Irene Fornes, Caryl Churchill, and Paula Vogel in the present. To appreciate the challenges, compromises, and achievements of these and other women dramatists, we shall study the plays they wrote, paying particular attention to their concern with gender issues and the feminine drive for self-definition, self-representation, and agency. With shorter plays we shall sometimes cover two a week, though slow down for longer ones, but be warned that there is a fair amount of reading required in this course. Requirements include active attendance (with prepared responses to share based on the texts under study), a review of a live play, short answer midterm and final (open book), and one research essay (6-10 pages).

MTh 12:00 pm–1:50 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).

MW 2:00 pm–3:50 pm (In-person) Quintana Vallejo 

What does it mean to be working class, and how do race, gender, and sexuality shape that experience? In this course, we’ll explore literature that reveals the struggles and resistance of the working class—with a focus on queer and feminist theory. From the revolutionary ideas of The Communist Manifesto to the raw portrayals of labor in The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath, we’ll examine how class intersects with identity and power. Gwendolyn Brooks and Sandra Cisneros will challenge our understanding of voice and agency, while Las Biuty Queens and Paris Is Burning will spotlight queer survival and kinship. Assignments include a 6-10-page analytical essay and a creative adaptation project. If you’re ready to rethink labor, literature, and resistance, this is the class for you.

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

This course focuses on the craft of fiction writing. The primary texts will be student-produced fiction, 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 non-student, published work. Regular attendance, active verbal and written participation, revision of written work, and peer critique through workshop are required elements of this class. At the end of the semester, students will turn in a portfolio of written work. 

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

This class is an intermediate poetry workshop where we will read, discuss, and steal techniques from a wide variety of contemporary poets, including some whose work is delightfully weird. Along the way, we will read individual poems, short craft essays, and books by three debut authors, as well as devote a substantial portion of class time to discussing student work. Attendance, thoughtful reading, poem drafts, commenting on classmates’ work, collaborating in small groups to lead class discussion, and thorough revision are all required elements of the course.

W 2:00 pm–3:50 pm (In-person) Shipers 

This course focuses on the basic principles of producing RIC’s very own literary and art journal, Shoreline. Topics include what a literary magazine is and does; various forms of marketing; inviting and judging submissions for the annual fall literary contest; and sponsorship, promotion, and attendance at a literary event (reading, discussion, or workshop). Requirements include attendance and active participation, informal writing assignments, and a class presentation. Because some of the Shoreline production work will occur outside of our weekly class sessions, students will need to plan accordingly in order to complete their tasks.

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

Our differences in language use are shaped by our identities, our geographies, our bodies, and our education. Everyone uses language differently, and yet in our society—in our schools and workplaces, in our communities and governments—certain language uses are valued more than others. In this course, we'll consider language difference from a rhetorical perspective, analyzing how our ability to persuade is closely tied to how we use language. We'll consider the expectations set for standardization, specifically in terms of who sets those standard and whose languages are privileged. Finally, we'll consider the emergence of artificial intelligence and its far-reaching implications for language difference. Students should come to this course expecting thoughtful readings, a series of low-stakes writing, at least two major projects (one of which will be a self-study), and some archival work.

MW 4:00 pm–5:50 pm (In-person) Duneer

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.

TBA Michaud

Please contact Dr. Mike Michaud (mmichaud@ric.edu) for information about internships.

Th 4:00 pm–6:50 pm (In-person) Hawk

This course serves as an introduction to graduate study in English, with a focus on cultural theories and methods. We will survey some of the exciting yet challenging offerings of “theory” and consider how it relates to reading, writing, and culture. The central goals of the course are for students to 1) learn to approach graduate study as professional training, substantially different from undergraduate study; 2) develop a working knowledge of issues and methods in cultural theory; and 3) learn and practice essential research skills. Requirements include engagement in class discussions, presentations, short written exercises, and an end-of-semester project that combines analysis with interrogation of a selected theoretical method.

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

How do race, power, and identity shape literary traditions? This course explores foundational and revolutionary texts in multicultural American philosophy, engaging deeply with critical perspectives from thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Marcus Garvey. We’ll examine Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Barbara Smith’s interventions in feminist and queer theory, alongside postcolonial critiques from Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. Through these readings, we’ll interrogate concepts of double consciousness, intersectionality, and cultural resistance. Assignments include leading one class discussion, writing a 10-15 page conference paper, and presenting your research in a conference-style setting. If you’re ready to challenge dominant narratives and rethink the literary canon, this is the class for you.

M 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.

ENGL 200: Reading Literature and Culture

ENGL 208: British Literature

ENGL 212: Young Adult Literature

ENGL 220: Introduction to Creative Writing

ENGL 222: Introduction to Professional Writing

ENGL 232: Public and Community Writing

ENGL 233: Writing for Health Professions

ENGL 261: Arctic Encounters

ENGL 263: Zen East and West

ENGL 265: Women’s Stories across Cultures

ENGL 300: Introduction to Theory and Criticism

ENGL 301: Early American Literature

ENGL 327: Multicultural American Literature

ENGL 341: Literature and Film

ENGL 345: Shakespeare

ENGL 372: Intermediate Creative Writing: Poetry

ENGL 373: Intermediate Creative Writing: Nonfiction Prose

ENGL 376: Shoreline Production

ENGL 432: Studies in the English Language

ENGL 460: Seminar in English

ENGL 477: Internship in Professional Writing

ENGL 520: Topics in Composition Theory and Rhetoric

ENGL 540: Topics in American Literature before 1900

ENGL 581: Workshop in Creative Writing