This course is intended to serve as the first course in the department for English majors and minors, providing training in the disciplinary conventions of close reading and academic writing. Focus on attention to form and structure. Definitions of genre and examples of a variety of genres (poetry, fiction, drama, possibly film), with particular emphasis on poetry.
An introduction to the major issues in the craft and practice of creative writing, covering at least two genres. Combines close analysis with creative experimentation and investigates genre and form through process. This course serves as the foundation course for English majors concentrating in creative writing and introduces non-majors to the practice of writing as an artistic medium.
Teaches strategies that are vital in writing for scholarly audiences, primarily in situations that require you to present well-reasoned arguments, supported with evidence. The course will provide instruction and sustained practice for students interested in familiarizing themselves with the conventions of academic inquiry and effective college-level writing, laying a strong foundation for future scholarly writing projects. Through systematic feedback from the instructor and peers, the course will emphasize techniques for generating, revising, and editing texts, as well as the effective use of readings and other source materials in writing.
A semester-long study of topics in English. Topics and emphases will vary according to the instructor. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics. See the New and Topics Courses page on the Registrar’s webpage for descriptions and applicability to majors/minors in other departments.
A foundational course for all English majors, ENGL 213W introduces students to the variety of research methods and contexts they will encounter throughout their academic careers and beyond. Through analytical and reflective writing, field trips, interviewing, and other experiential learning activities, students will encounter a range of environments in which English majors regularly find futures employing their communication and research skills.
A semester-long study of topics in English. Topics and emphases will vary according to the instructor. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics. See the New and Topics Courses page on the Registrar’s webpage for descriptions and applicability to majors/minors in other departments.
Continued study of literary conventions and practice, including periodization and theory as modes of approaching literary study. Examples of historical periods and movements, canonical and non-canonical works, and conceptual and applied study of various literary theories.
In-depth study of a significant topic in literary study. Topics, tests, and emphases will vary with semester and instructor but might include a study of a particular literary genre, movement, author, or approach. Past topics have included Sentimentalism, Adaptation, Postcolonialism, and Dramatic Monologue. The course will consider the representational possibilities and limitations of literary works, as well as how literary works may embody and convey cultural values. Thiis course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
Students in this course will examine literature from various geographic locations comprising a particular culture's (South Asian or Latin) dispersal of people, language, and culture-and study how various contexts influence and shape cultural production and representations of identity. Within these myriad sites, we will investigate the double consciousness necessary to maintain a sense of 'self' outside one's place of cultural origin, and the impact of colonization on definitions of 'home.' Our primary focus will be textual analysis, including questions of genre, language, narration, and perspective. We will also study the sociopolitical and cultural conflicts and causes for emigration that provide the fiction's contexts (in the case of South Asian diaspora: caste and religious divisions; India's partition; civil war in Sri Lanka; tensions within England, North America, and the Caribbean), and discuss how national divisions play out in the microcosm of each text. Discussions and readings of primary literature will be aided by (post) colonial discourse and contemporary multimedia.
Practice and analysis of various modes and subject matter of creative nonfiction. Combines writing workshop with discussion of craft and assigned readings. Students will produce a significant portfolio of creative nonfiction, through drafting and revision, as well as complete critical analyses of published work.
Practice and analysis of short- or long-form fiction. Combines writing workshop with discussion of narrative craft. Students will produce a significant portfolio of fiction, through drafting and revision, as well as complete critical analyses of published work.
Practice and analysis of traditional or contemporary poetics and poetic form. Combines writing workshop with discussion of poetics and assigned readings. Students will produce a significant portfolio of poetry, through drafting and revision, as well as complete critical analyses of published work.
This course is a study of the origins of African American literary and vernacular traditions. Formal and thematic analysis of this tradition in 18th century and Antebellum America (with some examination of Britain). A goal is to understand the influence of this tradition on the form and focus of contemporary African American Writers.
A study of modern/contemporary literature written by African-Americans. Formal and thematic analysis of the novel with secondary examples from folktale, lyrics, and drama.
Practice and analysis of fiction, poetry, or dramatic writing, depending on the interests of the instructor. Taught by visiting writers or prominent writers in the community, this course will focus on a single genre or a particular issue of the writing craft that crosses genres. Topics may include playwriting, the novella, the novel, the prose poem, the poetic sequence, collage, multiple voices, non-linear narrative strategies, hybrid forms.
A study of plays by Shakespeare, representing development through his dramatic career as well as across genres of comedy, tragedy, and history. Attention to questions of form, genre, sources, and theatrical practice; to the role of the theatre in early modern English culture and politics; to recurring cultural, historical, and political issues the plays engage; to the history of Shakespeare as a cultural artifact.
A study of Chaucer in Middle English, including the entire Canterbury Tales and a selection from the short poems and dream visions. Extensive secondary reading establishes Chaucer's context in the 14th century; examines the Classical, French, Italian, and English literary influences on his work; and proposes various theoretical approaches to interpretation in the 21st century.
This course is a study of British literature from roughly A.D. 800-1500, the early and middle English periods. The survey will cover a range of authors and their works, including the Beowulf and Gawain poets, Chaucer, Marie de France, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and William Langland. Among other topics, we will examine form and genre; the recurring cultural, historical, and political issues the literature engages; how medieval literature anticipates and shapes modern and early modern literature.
This course introduces students to English poetry written in the 16th and 17th centuries. Exploration of this literary period and genre will attend to topics like the development of the sonnet cycle in English; the growth of English courtier culture and the rise of poetry as a profession; the role of women poets in responding to and complicating a traditionally male-dominated poetic canon; poetry as an expression of religious devotion and in ecclesiastical politics; the employment of poetry to negotiate private, erotic desire and public, political authority.
Study of the development of the novel in Britain, from Restoration-era spiritual autobiography, fable, and romance to Jane Austen's psychological realism. Attention to questions of form, genre, and canon-formation, as well as the novel's intervention in debates about courtship, domesticity, and female authorship, middle-class individualism and national community, reason and feeling, empiricism and enchantment, and the social value of reading.
Study of approaches to cinema from a variety of feminist perspectives. Consideration of the impact of feminist thought on film study, and analysis of feminist innovation, revisions, and critiques of critical methods and theories. Conventions of feminist critical discourse. Applications of feminist theories and criticism to the study of motion pictures.
A study of works by early modern playwrights, representing the diverse range and scope of drama, other than Shakespeare, written and performed in 16th and 17th century England. Attention to questions of form, genre, and the theatrical practice; to the role of the theatre in early modern English culture and politics; to recurring cultural, historical, and political issues the plays engage; to the unique relationships between playgoers and London's states.
This course is a study of innovation and change in English-language poetry from 1800 to the present including but not limited to Romanticism, Modernism, and Post-modernism. Texts and emphases will vary depending on instructor.
This course will examine the connections between literature in English and the specific culture of a region in the Americas (possibilities include the Northwest, Borderlands, the Southern States, and the Caribbean) as reflected in a variety of works of prose, poetry, and drama. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
This course examines U.S. Latina/o cultural expression in post-War literature, performance, and popular media. The historical and cultural focus may change each semester. Areas of emphasis may range from canonical works of Latina/o fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, visual art and film, to Latina/o feminist and queer art and criticism, political movements, punk, the avant-garde, sexual cultures, the paraliterary (such as comic books, zines, and speculative fiction) and DIY (do-it-yourself) culture and publishing. Course material may place Latina/o culture in transnational and comparative ethnic contexts across the Americas, examining national distinctions among Latina/o artists, and the racial and ethnic heterogeneity of Latina/o identity and cultural production, including Asian and Asian American, African and African American, and indigenous histories and intersections. Primary texts may include novels, plays, poems, graphic novels, scholarly monographs, art, film and performance footage. Scholarly insights may be drawn from the fields of gender, feminist and queer studies; performance studies; ethnic studies; and literary theory and history.
To enable a student to acquire the necessary knowledge and experience of literary periods which are not covered by courses offered at Willamette University.
See the internships section for more information.
A semester-long study of topics in English. Topics and emphases will vary according to the instructor. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics. See the New and Topics Courses page on the Registrar’s webpage for descriptions and applicability to majors/minors in other departments.
A semester-long study of topics in English. Topics and emphases will vary according to the instructor. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics. See the New and Topics Courses page on the Registrar’s webpage for descriptions and applicability to majors/minors in other departments.
The role of tradition, authorial influence and literary history in a broad range of works chosen from English, American and world literatures.
An intensive study of specific topics arising from close study of an author's works. Topics will vary, but may include historical development of the idea of authorship, theoretical debates about the nature of authorship, and opportunities for upper-level students to apply their skills in analytical thinking and critical writing to problems arising from an author's texts. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
The advanced studies in literature courses are designed specifically for the English major who is contemplating graduate study in English or Comparative Literature. Both courses are in-depth studies of British and American canonical texts. Not open to first-year students. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
The advanced studies in literature courses are designed specifically for the English major who is contemplating graduate study in English or Comparative Literature. Both courses are in-depth studies of British and American canonical texts. Not open to first-year students. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
Examination of generic conventions through study of exemplary literary texts and critical works. Emphasis will vary. (Possibilities include Lyric, Epic, Novel, Autobiography) Not open to first-year students. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
This course will offer students intensive readings in major theoretical texts from Formalism to the present. We will also examine the mutually influential relationships between recent literary theory and such disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and psychoanalysis. Possible theories might include: Formalism, Structuralism, Deconstructionism, Reception Theory, New Historicism, Psychoanalytical Theory, Post-Colonialist Theory. Not open to first-year students. This course may be repeated for credit with different topics.
Intensive study of a selected area.
A capstone course for students concentrating in creative writing in the English major. Students will participate in an intensive semester-long workshop and produce a significant body of creative work, in poetry or prose. In consultation with faculty, students will generate individual reading lists and develop a critical study of craft or process. Seminar participants will write and revise, ready and critique the writing of others, and present their finished work in a public forum. Student who elect this senior experience must submit a proposal to the English faculty a semester in advance.
The Senior Seminar is a capstone experience for English majors who wish to undertake intensive independent research and writing on a literary text or topic of their own choosing, with the approval of the English faculty. The Seminar will provide instruction in framing a research question, developing a theoretical approach, conducting library research, evaluating criticism, and structuring a substantial essay. Seminar participants will write and revise their papers in stages, read and critique the papers of others, and present their papers aloud. Students who elect this senior experience must submit a proposal to the English faculty a semester ahead.
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