Scheduling ENGL 15 and ENGL 202 FAQ
Scheduling a Full Literature Course FAQ
Select Fall 2024 Courses
Instructor: Christopher Castiglia
Instructor: Sean Goudie
Designed to help students answer the age-old question, “What are you going to do with an English major?,” this two-credit class introduces students to the special career-building opportunities that Penn State English has to offer—internships, organizations, fellowships and prizes, and study abroad activities—and shows them the value of the skills that the English major emphasizes. As part of this endeavor, we will hear from some of our most successful alumni who have turned their Penn State English degrees into engaging careers and who will help students envision the possibilities of their own futures. Students will prepare questions to pose to guest speakers about their career journeys as they develop their own “Personal Strategic Plan” for pursuing professional opportunities, both as a student and beyond (no exams).
For a student-focused “news” story that conveys the many benefits of taking ENGL 111 authored by a former student in the class, please see here.
Instructor: Michael Anesko
General Education: Humanities (GH)
United States Cultures (UL)
Instructor: Claire Bourne
What can the writing of William Shakespeare still offer us more than four hundred years after his plays débuted in London’s commercial playhouses? This course takes up exactly that question through close, collaborative study of Shakespeare’s plays and poems. You will practice how to read Shakespeare’s well-crafted verse, explore how his plays used the multi-sensory environment of the playhouse to communicate with socially diverse audiences, and feel empowered to explain how his works resonated on stage and page in his time and continue to resonate in our own moment. We will visit the Eberly Family Special Collections Library to work with Shakespeare editions published four centuries ago, and you will have the chance to set type and print passages from Shakespeare’s corpus using a moveable-type letter press, that is, the same technology used to print the first editions of Shakespeare’s plays and poems. You should expect to complete small weekly writing assignments (designed to keep you on track with your reading and thinking), which will culminate in a final project. Previous experience with Shakespeare is welcome but not required.
General Education: Humanities (GH)
International Cultures (IL)
Instructor: Christian Haines
Instructor: Steele Nowlin
Instructor: Marcy North
General Education: Humanities (GH)
International Cultures (IL)
United States Cultures (US)
Instructor: Julia Spicher Kasdorf
Develop some of the disciplines and skills you will need to practice this splendid art. Consider the basic elements of poetry in the American/English language tradition, examine some approaches to the craft, and most of all, foster the habits of writing, mind, and conversation that poets share. Be prepared to read, write, and share your poems as an artist-apprentice in a workshop.
General Education: Arts (GA)
Creative Writing Concentration
Instructor: Chris Reed
General Education: Arts (GA)
General Education: Humanities (GH)
General Education – Integrative: Interdomain
Instructor: Brian Lennon
Suitable for students in any area, from the liberal arts and communications to IT, computer science, engineering, and business, who are interested in cultural approaches to digital technologies. Covers fundamentals of the digital representation of linguistic, visual, and other cultural data; considers the difference between language and code; surveys the history of creative and expressive computing; explores examples of algorithmic culture; and concludes by reflecting on the limits of the digital, in the question of what computers can’t do. Many materials are web-based; others are in book form. Assignments include blog posts and a final project including creative options. No exams. For ENGL majors, this course counts toward the Professional and Media Writing concentration.
General Education: Humanities (GH)
Professional and Media Writing Concentration
Instructor: Carla Mulford
How does fiction work? How does it differ from other genres in how it works? These are some of the questions we will consider by reading novels that offer stories about the coming of age of the central characters. Becoming an adult is challenging enough, but how to cope with that challenge when facing significant moral dilemmas – this forms part of our concern. We will read three novels from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. All three novels enable us to consider the challenges faced in the American West. Notably, two of these novelists are of Native descent, enabling us to examine issues faced by both settlers and indigenous peoples. By the end of the semester, we will assess whether the genre of Bildungsroman changed across time or whether it seems to have had a fairly stable set of generic qualities. The novels we will read include: Larry McMurtry, Horseman, Pass By (1961); James Welch, Fools Crow (1986); and Louise Erdrich, The Round House (2012). Written work includes three relatively short papers (about 4 pages each). Active engagement, including class participation, matters (and counts) in this class. This course is a general humanities course, and it suits the other cultures requirement, as well.
General Education: Humanities (GH)
Instructor: Jeffrey Nealon
General Education: Humanities (GH)
Instructor: Garrett Sullivan
The horror story and film have often been denigrated as cheap, frivolous forms of lowbrow entertainment. And yet, horror taps into aspects of the human experience sometimes downplayed in more “serious” genres and raises profound questions about ontology (who—or what—we are); epistemology (what we know, or think we do); vitality and mortality (the porous boundaries between the living and the dead); (class-, gender-, race-, and nation-based) forms of difference; and, more generally, about the lived experience of embodiment. Horror centers on therelationship between the self and the Other and it invites us to consider the nature and limitations of dominant belief systems. And it does all of this by scaring the bejesus out of us, which in itself raises some interesting questions: Why do we like to be frightened? Is there a salutary dimension to our fear? Or, to the contrary, does horror have a corrosive effect on our psyches?
What do our individual and collective responses to horror say about us and the world in which we live?
This course focuses specifically on the sub-genre of supernatural horror, with a particular emphasis on some of the landmark literary and cinematic texts within that sub-genre. We will read writers such as Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Stephen King, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker; and watch films such as Paranormal Activity, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead, An American Werewolf in London, The Shining and Horror of Dracula. Additionally, we will read and discuss some key critical works in horror studies and monster theory. Assignments will include short papers, discussion posts, reading quizzes, in-class examinations, and a final project.
The Nineteenth Century Time Period
Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period
Literary and Cultural Studies Concentration
Writing Across the Curriculum course
Instructor: Hester Blum
Herman Melville’s novels have a monumental reputation. Less well known are his works’ unexpectedly weird, funny, queer, tantalizing, messy, and wondrous moments. We’ll read much of Melville’s body of work, which brings outlandish curiosity to bear on the multitudinous, oceanic scale of our diverse world.
The Nineteenth Century Time Periods
Literary and Cultural Studies Concentration
Writing Across the Curriculum course
Instrutor: Elizabeth Kadetsky
Through analysis of literary journals that are most highly represented in the “Best of” anthologies (essays/short stories/poetry), this course will explore the landscape for literary magazine publishing today and get into the mechanics of how selection and acquisitions work for such magazines. Students will gain an inside knowledge of how, why, and to what extent a diversity of voices from different cultures and communities is represented and foregrounded as part of the journals’ editorial vision, while also exploring elements of taste, style, and aesthetic across journals. Modules will include guest speaker visits from journal editors, discussing submissions from the reader queue (aka slush pile) at New England Review, and students’ trying their hand at a literary submission and effective cover letter geared toward one of the journals.
Creative Writing Concentration
Writing Across the Curriculum course
Instructor: Paul Kellermann
In this class, we apply the principles of narrative nonfiction to writing about science-related topics. This is not a science class; it’s a writing class. It’s a writing class where students employ the creative writer’s tools to translate empirical esoterica into digestible narratives. Accordingly, students develop a deeper understanding of the correlation between science and storytelling.
English 416 has one simple goal: to cultivate the skills necessary to convey scientific knowledge to lay audiences. To facilitate the process, students will research, interview, and observe faculty affiliated with Penn State’s Sustainability Institute–and coordinate with communications professionals across the university–to write stories for publication.
Professional and Media Writing Concentration
Instructor: Brian Lennon
Suitable for students in any area, from the liberal arts and communications to IT, computer science, engineering, and business, who are interested in literary approaches to digital media. Covers early examples of computer-generated literature, time-based or streaming electronic or digital literature, and new media poetry as an extension of print literature; includes a focus on the literary and cultural history of password authentication and the importance of randomness in expressive and creative computing; and examines depictions of new media as literary experience and cultures of new media in contemporary speculative fiction. Many materials are web-based; others are in book form. Assignments include blog posts plus a final project including creative options. No exams.
Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period
Literary and Cultural Studies Concentration
Instructor: Robert Edwards
We will spend the semester reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, his most innovative, experimental, and influential work—full of memorable characters, great stories, and occasional scandal. Chaucer writes at a moment of intense cultural change. We will look at the various contexts (historical, social, literary) that bear on the Tales and draw on the criticism and scholarship. At the start, we will review the fundamentals of Chaucer’s language so that we can read and perhaps hear him in his own idiom. But our focus will be on a close critical reading of the texts—the same skill required for reading a modern novel, short story, or poem. There will be several short quizzes to check in on your progress, a midterm to pull ideas together, and in the second half of the semester a project on one of the Tales. You will have a chance to develop the project in a short abstract, do preliminary research on your topic, and write a final paper (10-12 pages). There is no final exam. Your participation in class discussion and discussion posts remains important throughout the course. This course fulfills the requirement that English majors take one 400-level course from the medieval period through the sixteenth century. No previous work in early period courses is expected; non-majors welcome.
Medieval through Sixteenth Century Time Period
Literary and Cultural Studies Concentration
Instructor: Carla Mulford
Prose fiction in Britain became popular around the same time that Britain experienced dominance in the transatlantic trade in human beings. Given that prose fiction experienced a rise in readerly interest during an era of empire-building and enslavement, it is worthwhile for us to consider the potential intersections between enslavement (a form of perpetual imprisonment) and the emplotment of novels (usually, the imprisonment of women) appearing before and during the time of Jane Austen. We will examine a chronological selection of novels against this backdrop of the erasure of liberty and the consequent rise (for the dominant group), in Britain, of both capital and leisure. Readings will include: Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740); Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest (1791); (anonymous), A Woman of Colour (1808); and Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814). Written work includes three papers (about 5 pages each) and quizzes on each of the novels. Active engagement, including class participation, matters (and counts) in this class. This course meets the sixteenth through eighteenth century requirement for English majors.
Sixteenth Century through Eighteenth Century Time Period
Literary and Media Studies Concentration
Instructor: John Marsh
Instructor: Kevin Bell
The person who complains that the film is ‘nothing like the book’ ought to read the book; so writes one of the more incisive intellectuals of our moment. This course invites you to do both–and in so doing, to explore more intensively the zone of suspension between the literary work and the film that is shaped from the thematic basis of the literature. We investigate not only the sounds, images, intensities and textures of the literary source materials; but that we also work from within the sounds, images, intensities and textures of the temporal cadences and incessantly re-shaped spaces of the rejected (perhaps because unfamiliar and differently provocative) ‘nothing like’ that is figurational cinema’s point of departure. One thing we will take from every encounter with each novel, short narrative and film we work with in this course, is that no moment of any of these artworks can be flattened into ‘just another way of presenting stories’ or into a work of representational mimesis. On the contrary, we learn that the very conversion of thought into a new linguistic or imagistic figure radically alters the scope of possibilities for thinking and imagining the boundaries of any idea.
Writing Across the Curriculum course
Instructor: Lisa Sternlieb
You have grown up in what is now called “the age of mass incarceration.” How did “the land of the free” come to have the largest penal system on the planet? And what can we do about it? We will consider our country’s addiction to imprisoning its citizens while reading some of the best writers in our language on the subjects of crime and punishment. I will choose readings from among the following: Charles Dickens on the criminal underworld in Oliver Twist, Philip Roth on the trial of a Nazi war criminal in Operation Shylock, and Kate Grenville on the conflict between British convicts and aboriginal Australians in The Secret River. We may read Jane Hamilton’s description of a women’s prison in A Map of the World, Herman Melville’s vision of the workplace as prison in “Bartleby the Scrivener,” Ann Patchett’s tale of a group of international music lovers held hostage in Bel Canto, Matthew Kneale’s stories about feckless tourists in Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance, and Ian McEwan’s tragedy about an innocent man’s imprisonment in Atonement. We will definitely read Humbert Humbert’s prison confession in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and the long letter, De Profundis, Oscar Wilde wrote to his lover while serving time in prison.
Writing Across the Curriculum course
Instructor: Marcy North
Medieval through Sixteenth Century; Sixteenth Century through Eighteenth Century Time Periods
Literary and Cultural Studies Concentration
Older Course Descriptions
- Spring 2024 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Fall 2023 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Spring 2023 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Fall 2022 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Spring 2022 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Fall 2021 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
- Spring 2021 Undergraduate Course Descriptions