Lower Division Courses

Layne Craig

TR 12:30-1:50, 2-3:20

Core: CA, HUM

This section of ENGL 20223 will begin by exploring history and theory related to reproductive decision-making in the United States in the twentieth century and theorizing about the ways utopian and dystopian literature might reflect that history. In the first half of the class, we will examine literature and films that imagine reproduction as a means to a perfect society. In the second half of the class, we’ll examine literature and films that depict dystopian crises in human families. Assignments will include exams, response papers, and class community work. The course will end with a creative adaptation project in which students will reimagine assigned readings in new genres or contexts.

Jill C. Havens

TR 9:30-10:50, 11:00-12:20

Core: LT, HUM

This course explores the literature and culture of the medieval period through the specific lens of the crime of murder. Though the act of murder is found in all time periods and in all societies, how people grapple with this horrible crime differs and this treatment is often shaped by a variety of other factors. By examining literature, like Viking Sagas and Arthurian Romances, we will learn how societies in medieval Europe accepted that violence was a part of human nature, but how they also tried to control that violence through government, the law, and the church. We will examine the factors that are particular to Europe in the Middle Ages by examining both the literature that incorporates stories of murder and violence and the documentary evidence that is historical witness to the realities of the time.

 

David Colon

TR 2-3:20

Core: CA, LT

Introduction to Latinx Literature is an introduction to writings of diverse genres and historical periods by Hispanic and/or Latinx writers from what is now U.S.A. Latinx literature will serve as the primary readings for students to engage and examine key concepts of literary criticism and cultural history. Our readings, discussions, and writings will cover issues relevant to a long span of greater American history, from precolonial indigenous intellectual traditions to intersectional identities prominent in 2025 society, e.g. Afro-Latinx culture, queer Latinx community. Our readings and assignments are geared towards developing the critical thinking skills, vocabulary, and sensitivity necessary to both achieving competency in university-level discourse in literature and the humanities; and engaging responsibly and constructively in present-day conversations about culture, ethnicity, and citizenship in all its forms (e.g. cultural, global, legal).

Azadeh Ghanizadeh

MW 4-5:20

Core: LT, HUM

This course offers an introduction to women’s writing and literary expression from both national and global perspectives. We will read works by women from diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds, exploring how gender intersects with power, history, race, class, sexuality, and nation. Our focus will be on how women have used writing as a mode of resistance, self-definition, and cultural intervention across different historical moments and geopolitical contexts. Readings include fiction, memoir, poetry, essays, and visual texts, with authors ranging from canonical figures to contemporary voices. Alongside literary texts, we will engage feminist theory, postcolonial thought, and transnational perspectives to deepen our understanding of women’s narratives in the contexts in which they are produced and received.

Through discussion, close reading, and critical writing, students will develop analytical tools to question dominant literary traditions and to think critically about voice, authorship, and representation. This course invites students to consider how women’s literature contributes to broader conversations about identity and civic life in the world today.

Anne Frey

MWF 2-2:50

Core: CSV, HUM

When is the law just?   Is it ever ethical to break the law?  Should the law adjust to different times, cultures, or circumstances?  What are the responsibilities of moral individuals?  What would it mean for society to be just to each individual?  We’ll discuss how legal theory and literary texts from ancient Greece to contemporary America have established competing ethical frameworks to answer these questions.  We will conclude the semester by examining how the issue of abolition in 19th-century Britain and America dealt with a situation in which ethics and law conflicted.  Along the way, we’ll examine the strategies by which literary texts debate concepts of legality and justice, and refine our own strategies of literary analysis.  We will also devote class time as needed to improving students’ approaches to writing about literature.     

Kit Snyder

TR 9:30-10:50, 11-12:20

Core: LT, HUM

Is a cyberpunk future inevitable? And what happens after this future? In this course, we will explore these questions through three important cultural texts that raise questions about the cyberpunk future and what may (or may not) happen after. The video games Transistor, Stray, & Horizon Zero Dawn allow us to not only think about this future but to explore it. Video games are important cultural artifacts. We will use these texts to explore cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic worlds and consider what they may be saying about our society and culture today.  Gaming skills and knowledge is not required to participate in this course. If you are worried about gaming or you have any access issues, please come talk to me and I can discuss alternative ways to engage with the course texts. 

Sarah Parijs

MWF 10-10:50

Core: LT, HUM

Science fiction as a multi-genre tradition is invested in imagining alternative natural worlds, alien beings, and sociocultural futures through estrangement. And often these alternative worlds are either environmental dystopias or utopias, or a mixture of both. This course outlines the aesthetics and stakes of imagining dystopian and utopian ecological worlds by engaging with science fiction literature and films in the context of climate fiction (stories about climate change and ecological collapse) and the Anthropocene (the popular term for our contemporary geological epoch in which Earth is in its sixth mass extinction event). We will explore the following questions: how do science fictional portrayals of utopian and/or dystopian ecological worlds influence ideas about identity in relation to gender, sex, class, and species? How do texts warn against threatening planetary futures and imagine alternative national and international futures within destroyed natural spaces? What does it mean to question interspecies modes of inhabitance in the speculative terrains of these future worlds?

Shea Hennum

MWF 2-2:50

Core: LT, HUM

What does it mean to be an alien? To what use have aliens been put in film, television, and prose fiction? Inversely, what does it mean to be a human? This semester, we will explore these questions as we survey the history of cultural representations of aliens, alienation, and alienness.

Ismael Quinones

MW 5:30-6:50

Core: CSV, HUM

In this class, we are going to take an active learning approach towards speech, writing, and rhetoric in the context of power and protest. The class will engage in organizing a class debate, running elections during class, doing public speeches, and creating a poster. Finally, the course will engage with primary sources of writers who engaged in power and protest.

 

Carmen Kynard

TR 9:30-10:50

Core: CA, CSV

Together, we will examine Black communicative histories in the identities of Black activist groups, performers, artists, and public leaders. We will study expressive and linguistic strategies of multiple public texts that have channeled the racial justice issues of their time. Come ready to explore Black music, the visual arts, public speeches, social media designs, fashion, and even more all while homing in on your own creativity! (More at funkdafied.org)