Virtually all courses in the English Department are open to all students, majors and non-majors alike. 100-level courses have no prerequisites. 200-level courses have Writing 120 (Writing and Rhetoric), Writing 111 (FYW), or its equivalent as a prerequisite. 300-level courses ordinarily build upon prior work in the English Department. 300-level creative writing courses generally require prior completion of a relevant a 200-level creative writing course as a prerequisite. 300-level courses in literary studies (English courses other than those in creative writing), generally require as prerequisites English 185 and two 200-level English courses. Any course offered in the English department can count as an elective in any of our majors (English, English with CAL, and Creative Writing).
100-level (Level I)
English 150 Craft of Creative Writing
This course introduces the craft of creative writing through contemporary readings and writing exercises in poetry and prose. Students learn to read and to write literature with attention to how a literary work is made. Emphasis on the elements of craft and revision provide preparation for students who want to continue into creative writing workshops at the 200- and 300-levels. Prerequisite: None. OLE Core: CRE.
Section A – D LeBlanc
Section B – C Bucciaglia
English 185 Literary Studies
The foundation course of the English major, English 185 introduces students to poetic and dramatic form, narrative structure, and critical theory. In addition, students engage with literature as a living practice and address its role in a culture by attending dramatic performance and readings by visiting writers and critics. Although texts vary with the instructor, all sections explore the contemporary vitality of literature in English and their strong connections to the past. Prerequisite: None. GE: ALS-L. [Note: This course previously carried WRI. It will not carry WRI in 2023-2024]
Section A – K Cherewatuk
Section B – J Shaiman
200-level (Level II)
English 200 A Topic: Black Science Fiction – D Horton
OLd major Reqs: cross cultural, post 1800
New Major Reqs: american lit oR antiracism requirement
“Beyond time and memory – where the computer cannot reach – is dreaming.” – Janelle Monáe, The Memory Librarian And Other Stories of Dirty Computer
English 200 B Topic: Queer of Color Literature – J Sepulveda Ortiz
OLd major Reqs: cross cultural, post 1800
New Major Reqs: american lit oR antiracism requirement
This course offers a survey of key issues and developments in LGBTQ studies with a central emphasis on the co-constitution (the intersectionality) of sexuality, race, class, geographic location, and gender identities, and the contributions of writers of the African diaspora and the postcolonial world to queer-of-color thinking and being. Thus, while the class considers the ways that European thinkers have developed a dominant discursive context for thinking about sexuality and gender difference in the West and the academy, students learn to center the thinking of queer-of-color critics and the Global South as a site of critical knowledge making. The class explores what it means to challenge, disrupt, or complicate the conceits to universalism visible in what postcolonial and ethnic queer of color writers name “mainstream” queer theory. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L, MCD. OLE Core: PAR.
English 204 South Asian Literature – E Alderks
OLd major Reqs: cross cultural, post 1800
New Major Reqs: Anglophone Lit
Exciting writing in English is coming from South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. An area once shaped by British colonization, South Asia is changing rapidly now with globalization. Students explore this region’s history, culture, and religions through a selection of primarily 20th- and 21st-century literary texts. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L.
English 205 American Racial/Multicultural Literature – S Ward
OLd major Reqs: cross cultural, post 1800
New Major Reqs: american lit oR antiracism requirement
This course explores the experiences of an array of citizens in the U.S.: Native Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans. Our study covers such themes as their double consciousness, alienation, survival strategies, Americanization, and especially their unique stories and cultural traditions. In addition multicultural writers understandably express a concern with voice, and many of their protagonists desire to be heard and understood, at times around issues of gender, beauty, and violence. Linked to this issue of personal voice is protagonists’ search for an identity, a quest prompting them to embrace their ancestral pasts, only they cast the customs they come to value in the English language. Attention is given then to ways in which they mold the English language around their ethnocentric world views and narrative structures, separate at times from those mainstream white Americans. Aspects of culture differ with groups, as well. Of interest, too, are diverse images of mainstream identity and cultural practices, especially as they are projected in media and popular culture. In any case, our approach is literary. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L, MCD. OLE Core: PAR.
English 223 Old and Middle English Lit: The Weird and the Wonderful – K Cherewatuk
OLd major Reqs: literary history, pre 1800
New Major Reqs: british lit, pre 1800
Two themes persist in early British literature: the role of fate (Old English wyrd) versus free will and the power of wonders–from the miraculous to the magical. These themes are traced in the Old English period in sermons, charms and riddles, biblical epics and Christian texts, and the heroic epic Beowulf. Readings from the Middle English period include lyric and ballad, romance from the Arthurian and non-Arthurian traditions, drama, allegory, mystical treatises, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Also counts toward medieval studies major. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L, WRI. OLE Core: WAC.
English 253 Major Authors: Hemingway – J Mbele
OLd major Reqs: elective, post 1800
New Major Reqs: American Lit
This course explores the work of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is known for his involvement in big game hunting, deep sea fishing, world travel, bull fighting and boxing. His experiences inspired his writings, and students read several of his novels, short stories, poems, and articles. In addition to the above, the course examines the popular image of Hemingway and highlights two aspects that are not properly acknowledged: Hemingway as a global citizen and the role of Africa in his life and work. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L.
English 258 Folklore – J Mbele
OLd major Reqs: elective, post 1800
New Major Reqs: elective
Focuses on verbal folklore: narratives, songs and shorter forms such as proverbs. Explores the intrinsic qualities of each as literary creations and also the ways in which they operate together when combined or in dialogic relationship. The folktale or the epic, for example, incorporates a variety of these forms, such as the proverb, the song, or the riddle, to form a complex whole. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L, MCG. OLE Core: GHS.
English 260 Shakespeare and Material Culture – K Marsalek
OLd major Reqs: Cross Disciplinary, pre 1800
New Major Reqs: british, pre 1800
Students examine a range of plays by Shakespeare with particular attention to the material goods that appear in them as well as the material conditions of early modern performance and textual production. Students will investigate how objects matter in the plays: how they construct gender, class and racial identities, or create a sense of space, time and location. In addition to analysis of the play texts and some productions, assignments will include practical work with early recipes, artifacts, and rare books housed on campus and in the Twin Cities. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L.
English 280 A Topic: Nature Writing- R Eichberger
OLd major Reqs: genre, post 1800
New Major Reqs: elective
In this course, students read nonfiction about the natural world, including memoirs, travelogues, field guides, and essays. Students examine the historical development of the idea of nature. Focus is also given to recent nature literature, which aims to preserve vanishing language for the environment and “re-enchant” the human appreciation for local nature. Students read about landscapes, animals, and plants from a wide variety of viewpoints, including indigenous, queer, and neurodivergent perspectives. As they discuss readings, students also work to deepen their own connection with local nature at St. Olaf. Prerequisite: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent. GE: ALS-L.
English 292 Creative Nonfiction Writing – J Patterson
OLd major Reqs: genre, post 1800
New Major Reqs: elective
From the intimate personal essay to more externally driven literary journalism, creative nonfiction covers a range of forms. Students learn to combine fictional techniques, personal recollections, and direct exposition in assignments that might include memoir, personal essay, cultural criticism, nature writing, book and film reviewing, and “new journalism.” Contemporary nonfiction writers such as Annie Dillard, Scott Russell Sanders, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and John McPhee provide models and inspiration for writing in the course. Offered annually. Prerequisites: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent and at least sophomore status. GE: WRI. OLE Core: CRE, WAC.
English 293 Fiction Writing – K Schwehn
OLd major Reqs: genre, post 1800
New Major Reqs: elective
In this course students read and analyze contemporary fiction from an artistic perspective and write intensively, exploring the writer’s craft. Students compose multiple pieces of original fiction and peer-edit each others’ writing. English 150 can be helpful but is not required. Prerequisites: WRR, FYW, or its equivalent and at least sophomore status. GE: WRI. OLE Core: CRE, WAC.
300-level (Level III)
English 340 The City in American Literature and Film – L Mokdad
OLd major Reqs: 300-level (literary studies)
New Major Reqs: 300-level (literary studies), AMERICAN LITERATURE
This course explores depictions of the city and urban space in American literature and film. We examine the city in relation to modernity, industry, architecture, space, identity, and community. In doing so, we address representations of class, race and gender. Novels may include Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, John Dos Passos’ The Manhattan Transfer, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Paul Auster’s City of Glass, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. Films may include Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Mick Jackson’s L.A. Story, Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke. Prerequisites: ENGL 185 plus at least two English courses at level II, or permission of the instructor.
English 360 Literary Criticism/Theory – B DeFries
OLd major Reqs: 300-level (literary studies)
New Major Reqs: 300-level (literary studies), antiracism requirement
This course will provide an introduction to major topics in modern and contemporary literary theory and criticism. The works on the syllabus have been arranged so as to trace out the development of specific, though often intersecting lines of inquiry: aesthetic and formalist approaches to literature; structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction; Marxist and materialist theory; psychoanalytic and feminist theory; postcolonial theory; queer theory; and several examples of influential theory from the opening decades of the twenty-first century. The bulk of our time will be spent reading and discussing works of theory, but you will also develop a better understanding of its application through assignments and in-class activities. Prerequisites: English 185 and at least two level-II English courses or by permission of instructor.