Instructor: Richard Doyle

The King James Bible, translated and compiled in 1611 under the direction of King James I of England, is one of the most influential and best selling English language texts of all time. In this course students will practice rhetorical analysis to explore the text of the King James Bible and its likely effects on readers, with a focus on exegesis and close reading. In parallel with our collective exegesis, we’ll explore texts and visual art – e.g. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, William Blake’s Job, Soren Kierkegaard’s reading of Abraham and Issac – that incorporate and respond to the Bible in order to take some small measure of its influence on art, literature, philosophy and rhetoric. Along the way we’ll contextualize the Bible as a work of world literature by comparing it with passages in the Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Taoist traditions as we collectively and individually evaluate the hypothesis of the ‘Perennial Philosophy” – Aldous Huxley’s notion that all religions all offer texts and practices “attempting to describe the same essentially indescribable Fact.” This course will be taught as a hybrid course mixing live workshops with Zoom work in discussion and editing. Short weekly writing responses are paired with two short papers.

Section 001 | Monday and Wednesday 2:30–3:45 p.m.

Section 002 | Monday and Wednesday 4:00–5:15 p.m.

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Garrett Sullivan

This course considers Shakespeare both on the page and in recorded performance. We will discuss plays drawn from the four dramatic genres he worked in—comedy, history, tragedy and romance—as well as a handful of his sonnets. Additionally, we will watch video recordings of all but one of the assigned plays and discuss how these productions interpret the written texts. Titles are likely to include, among others, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Julius Caesar and The Winter’s Tale. This will be a discussion-oriented class, with reading and viewing quizzes, short papers, in-class exams and a final.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 10:10–11:00 a.m.

International Cultures (IL)

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Teresa Hamilton

Instructor: Cheryl Sterling

This course will focus on the relation between fantasy and speculative fiction through the lens of Black writers and cultural producers. These creatives use storytelling to rethink history, reconstruct identities and gender subjectivities, create new technological centers, transform ecologies, and global relations. Using literature, film, hip hop, and the visual arts, students will explore the sameness and differences in works that cross the genres of fantasy, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism. The questions we will explore together are: How do these works works challenge dominant narratives of what we know about the world? And, how do their imagination of the future (or the past) reshape the world?

Tuesday and Thursday 4:35–5:50 p.m.

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Cheryl Sterling

There is something about the way the novel captures the human experience, its connections and conflicts, its relation to cultures near and far, our socio-political beliefs and stances, our everyday lives and understandings of far-flung existences. The world novel allows us to travel through space and time, explore the historical and the contemporary, embroil us in events in our backyard and in the globe. This course will explore different aspects of what I would like to call the “poetics of disruption,” unexpected changes to life’s order. These writers take us to West Africa, Latin America, India, East Asia, and the Middle East, and along with generating compelling narratives about human resilience, they generate new stylistic patterns in the way the novel is written for us to compare and contrast. Course requirements include regular class participation, essay exams, and student presentation.

Tuesday and Thursday 3:05–4:20 p.m.

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Christian Haines

Aliens, monsters, robots, cyborgs, time travel, the end of the world, the terrifying depths of outer space: this course examines science fiction as a way of thinking about the deepest truths of human existence and of imagining the best and the worst that the future might hold for us. The course brings together the study of literature with the natural and physical sciences, as well as social and political theory. We will read short stories, novels, and comics, as well as watch/play some films and digital games. Assignments will include a short essay; midterm and final exams; and small-scale creative projects (including opportunities to write very short science fiction stories). Possible readings include: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” (the basis of the film Arrival); Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’s Saga; N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season; H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine; William Gibson’s Neuromancer; Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower; and Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. Possible viewings: Alien, Blade Runner, Snowpiercer, The Terminator, The Thing.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:05–9:55 a.m.

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Paul Kellermann

English 215 is designed to acquaint students with the principles of nonfiction writing and give them practice in producing quality writing. While providing students the opportunity to dabble in a variety of nonfiction forms, the course emphasizes literary writing techniques that exemplify contemporary magazine writing. Learning occurs primarily experientially: students study the principles of effective article writing and relate the principles to professional samples; then, they research and write their own articles. Students should expect to read and write extensively.

Web Course

Instructor: David Loewenstein

ENGL 221 introduces students to some of the most creative and outstanding works in English literature before 1798. The course will especially concentrate on works by the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Defoe, and Swift, though the class will include selections from other significant authors: for example, the Gawain poet, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, George Herbert, Ben Jonson, Amelia Lanyer, Alexander Pope, and Aphra Behn. Students will learn to read these writers and their works in relation to their cultural, political, social, and religious contexts. At the same time, the course will emphasize close analysis so that students become more informed and thoughtful readers of earlier works of literature in English. The course will enable students to appreciate the remarkable power, richness, flexibility, and nuances of the English language as writers from the Middle Ages to the 18th century used and experimented with it. The course will also consider the genres and forms employed and often revised by pre-1800 writers. The course will likewise address issues of gender and human sexuality as they are represented in earlier literature. Many of the writers studied in this course―for example, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Swift―are also profoundly influential in the history of English and American literature. ENGL 221 will address General Education learning objectives, including critical and analytical thinking and effective communication.

Tuesday and Thursday 3:05–4:20 p.m.

International Cultures (IL)

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Michael Bérubé

Disability is a complex feature of human bodies and minds; disability is perceptible and imperceptible, acquired and congenital; disability has widely misunderstood relations to identity, to citizenship, to temporality, and to narrative. It is part of who are we as a species– though we don’t always want to acknowledge that. In the course of this introduction to disability studies in the humanities, we will look at disability from the perspectives afforded by contemporary films, works of literary fiction and nonfiction, and American history. We will compare disability studies to the other major “identity-based” intellectual formations of recent decades, such as feminist theory, critical race theory, and queer theory. And we will try to get some adequate sense of what it means to be human. Given the wide variety of forms of human embodiment and human consciousness, as well as the ranges of impairment and disability, we will address some important preliminary questions: what counts as “normal” in human cultures? How have fluctuating assumptions about ability and disability structured the institutions and practices of law, citizenship, education, and culture? How does disability affect and inform key social issues such as identity, community, autonomy, and justice, as well as the problems of civil rights, health care, and discrimination?

Tuesday and Thursday 3:05–4:20 p.m.

United States Cultures (US)

General Education: Humanities (GH)

Instructor: Jess Rafalko

Over the past 150 years, American society has undergone many changes. But no matter what’s happening in the world around us, one thing remains constant: we all have to get up every morning and go to work. This is as true for the CEO as the warehouse worker, the doctor as the UberEats driver, the lawyer as the TikTok influencer. The American novel has long documented these social changes and told these workers’ stories. But the American writer is no mere observer of these narratives—they are workers themselves, typically juggling their “day job” with their artistic pursuits. In this course, we will consider the writer as a worker, on and off the page, by reading novels alongside author interviews and essays about the creative process. We will come to understand work—the writer’s and our own—as a push-and-pull between bad and good, failure and success, what is and what could be. We will consider the struggles of the American worker, past and present, and begin to imagine a better future for us all.

Tuesday and Thursday 4:35–5:50 p.m.

General Education: Humanities (GH)

United States Cultures (US)

Instructor: Elizabeth Parfitt

The course is an introduction to the knowledge, skills, and awareness required for successful peer tutoring in writing. English 250 aims to create writers who are also tutors and communicators who are strong listeners. Students will learn strategies for tutoring writing, along with rhetorical approaches to reading and analyzing writing projects in multiple disciplines and genres. This course pairs a semester-long tutoring practicum with guided study in writing instruction, cultural studies, rhetorical awareness, tutoring and teaching theory, and collaborative learning strategies. Through class discussion, hands-on tutoring practice, and written analysis and reflection, students will learn to approach writing and tutoring with a collaborative stance. The course also involves personal reflection on language practices, linguistic differences, and educational experiences. The goal is that by the end of the course, students are prepared to read, research, tutor and write with curiosity, confidence, openness, and empathy. Successful completion of the course qualifies students for employment with the undergraduate writing center.

Rhetoric and Writing Concentration

Instructor: Scott Smith

This course examines how a range of traditions and influences shaped the creation and reception of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fiction and nonfiction. Students will consider Tolkien’s creative and scholarly work with languages, especially early languages such as Old English and Old Norse, and with medieval literature, such as Beowulf and the Elder Edda. Students will also read Tolkien’s fiction within the historical context of World War I, with some attention to war writing in general. Finally, students will explore the reception of Tolkien’s fiction, visual art, and scholarship, with attention to its contributions to the formation of the modern fantasy genre. This course would fulfill the Twentieth Century to the Present requirement.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 2:30–3:20 p.m.

Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period

Literary and Media Studies Concentration

Instructor: Oliver Baker

This course studies the experience of the working class in American literature. We will read literary works that explore how workers have both produced and shaped literature in support of labor’s struggle against capital. The course will address questions such as: What is social class? What is the relationship between labor and capital? What is the history of the formation of the working class? How have labor struggles, from slave revolts to strikes to revolutions, shaped US history and literary culture? In addressing these and other questions, the course will examine the various sectors of the working class that compose its history from the nineteenth century to the present. This includes the history of enslaved workers, indentured servants, contract laborers, sharecroppers, and industrial wage workers. Within the course’s focus, we will also analyze how stratifications related to race, gender, colonialism, and nationalism have been constructed and renewed to maintain capital’s power over labor. Students will learn how to discuss, interpret, and write about works of literature that tell the story of workers and their fight for dignity and justice in the face of poverty, exploitation, and repression. Coursework will include periodic reading responses and two analytical essays. No quizzes or exams.

Tuesday and Thursday 9:05–10:20 a.m.

The Nineteenth Century Time Period

Honors course

Writing Across the Curriculum

Instructor: Deborah Lutz

In this course we will read and discuss nineteenth-century British writers who, in today’s terms, could be called queer. They cross dressed, had same-sex sex and “marriages,” cruised, slummed, and wrote and read gay pornography. Yet identities we would today call by other names (transgender, non-binary, etc.), wouldn’t take on their current forms until well into the twentieth-and-twenty-first centuries (and still remain malleable, ever changing). Other ideas and themes that will interest us, in their intersection with queer sexuality: material culture, collecting, photography, London as a modern metropolis, the Gothic, race, disability, Marxism, labor unions, the climate crises, and industrialization. We will read fiction and poetry from the period by such writers as Oscar Wilde, Michael Field (pseudonym for the lesbian couple Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper), and Amy Levy as well as diaries and autobiographical writing by Anne Lister (also called Gentleman Jack), John Addington Symonds, Edward Carpenter, and others. We will write essays mostly in class, by hand and without screens. Some assignments will have creative components, usually optional, that will allow you (if you want) to write fiction, memoir, poetry, and more.

Tuesday and Thursday 3:05–4:20 p.m.

Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period

Honors course

Writing Across the Curriculum

Instructor: Ali Araghi

Coming from the introductory course, you are now ready to expand your knowledge of fiction writing techniques. In this course, you will hone your skills in analyzing fictional texts and reading for craft. Our readings include a wide range of styles and through them we will explore many different ways of forming a narrative. You will write two full-length short stories and have them workshopped in class. You will also write several flash fiction pieces and give feedback on your peers’ work on online discussion boards and/or in class. With shorter exercises, you will focus on a specific aspect of craft or get creative with prompts. For your final portfolio, you will revise your stories and two of your flash fiction pieces and write an author statement. Fiction classes work best when we have vibrant discussions as a group, so attendance and participation are required. If you care about writing, reading, and discussing fiction, this course is for you.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 2:30–3:20 p.m.

Creative Writing Concentration

Instructor: Noah Davis

This course’s title sufficiently encompasses both our topic and commitment this semester. To be committed to advanced poetry writing means we will read and write daily, take risks, lean into imagination, and be prepared and present for each class. This semester, we’ll memorize poems, submit poems, keep a writer’s notebook, draft and revise original poems, attend readings, and participate in exercises and workshops. During this course, we will practice and engage with poetry at an advanced level.

Tuesday and Thursday 10:35–11:50 a.m.

Creative Writing Concentration

Instructor: Genevieve Gordon

In ENGL 418 Advanced Technical Writing and Editing, students will learn to approach the accommodation of technical and/or specialized information using a diverse range of genres, media, and audience contexts. Specifically, this course takes an expansive view of what counts as technical writing and the places it happens, placing an emphasis on public-facing technical communication. We will practice standard documents like the instruction set and the proposal, but we will also experiment with genres like the technical encomium (a piece that praises while it explains) and formats like social media posts and video essays. At the start of the semester, students will be asked to identify a subject they are interested in that has technical components (e.g., the science of skin care, video game development, or nuclear energy) and will write about something related to that subject for every assignment. This practices accommodating similar information for a variety of audiences and rhetorical purposes.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 2:30–3:20 p.m.

Professional and Media Writing Concentration

Prescribed course for Technical Writing Minor

Instructor: Paul Kellermann

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. Incorporates a micro-course in AI literacy. Many materials are web-based; others are in book form. Applied and analytic assignments with creative alternatives. No exams. For ENGL majors, this course satisfies the 20th century or later period requirement and counts toward the Literary and Cultural Studies concentration.

Instructor: David Loewenstein

Shakespeare’s plays provide an outstanding resource for understanding the nature of political ambition and power. In this course, we’ll study selections from his English and Roman history plays, his tragedies, and his romances to see how these dramas represent political power and the means to achieve and maintain it. However, in order to understand better the dynamics of political behavior and power in Shakespeare’s age, we’ll start by studying Niccolò Machiavelli’s Prince (1532), one of the most significant handbooks about skillful political behavior written in any period. Then we will turn our attention to Shakespeare’s plays, including Henry IV (Part 1), Henry V, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest. We’ll consider how Shakespeare’s plays explore, among other topics, the nature of kingship, usurpation, tyranny, nationhood, empire, and republicanism. As we study his plays, we’ll pay close attention to politics in relation to rhetoric and language and in relation to theatricality and the manipulation of appearances. We’ll also use film productions, especially productions by the BBC and the Globe Theatre in London, to understand better the theatrical nature of Shakespeare’s plays and their representations of political power. Written assignments include two tests and a paper.

Tuesday and Thursday 12:05–1:20 p.m.

Medieval through Sixteenth Century Time Period

Sixteenth Century through Eighteenth Century Time Period

Literary and Media Studies Concentration

Instructor: Steele Nowlin

Not long after Shakespeare died, two of his friends and fellow actors published the first collected edition of his plays in what is now referred to as the First Folio. They decided to organize the plays according to genre. Taking a cue from their decision, this class will make genre the starting point for a semester-long exploration of some of Shakespeare’s major works. We’ll consider not only the limitations and the opportunities for innovation that genre presents, but also how genre might provide us with a way of discussing ideas Shakespeare explores in his plays—ideas about identity, power, history, culture, family, friendship, emotion, imagination, and the place of writing. We’ll think too about the sources on which Shakespeare drew, the social, political, and theatrical environments that shaped his writing, and what his centuries-old plays and poems might have to offer us now, in our own time, in our own lives. We’ll read plays from the four major genres in which Shakespeare wrote—comedy, tragedy, history, and romance—as well as a selection of his sonnets. Our class meetings will center on lively discussion, and assignments are likely to include written reflective and critical pieces, in-class quizzes and exams, and a final project that combines both creative and analytical approaches to Shakespeare’s works.

Tuesday and Thursday 9:05–10:20 a.m.

Medieval through Sixteenth Century Time Period

Sixteenth Century through Eighteenth Century Time Period

Literary and Media Studies Concentration

Instructor: Karrieann Soto Vega

Remember when Bad Bunny ended his 2026 Super Bowl halftime show by holding a football to the camera with the caption “Together, We Are America”? In this course, students will be asking questions about how “culture” relates to rhetorical practice. A guiding question of this class will be: what, exactly, does “culture” mean for us as an individual, and/or as individuals in a collective? More importantly, what happens when multiple conceptions of concepts like “America” collide? Besides academic texts, in this class we will study news reports, magazine articles, social media posts, songs, music videos, and more. Students will engage in academic rhetorical analyses of specific case studies of interest to them, and remix one of these in a multimodal format. This is an Honors class for English majors and fulfills the diversity requirement.

Honors Course

Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period

Writing Across the Curriculum

Diversity Course

Instructor: Sherita Johnson

Instructor: Sierra Parker

Instructor: Michael Bérubé

This creative writing senior seminar is devoted to creative nonfiction—long-form personal essays, journalistic essays, and/or memoir. We will read various modes and genres of nonfiction to learn about technique, and to explore the blurry line between fiction and nonfiction. (Also, the blurry line between what one should or should not disclose about one’s family and friends!) We will be especially attentive to the demands of personal narrative, looking for how writers cast and craft themselves as characters in their own work. Required texts: Alison Bechtel, Fun Home; Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me; Priscilla Gilman, The Critic’s Daughter; Elizabeth Kadetsky, The Memory Eaters; Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior; Patti Smith, Just Kids. There will be two writing requirements, a critical essay about one of our readings (2000-3000 words) and an essay of creative nonfiction (3000-5000 words).

Tuesday and Thursday 10:35–11:50 a.m.

Creative Writing Concentration

Writing Across the Curriculum course

Instructor: Jennifer Wagner Lawlor

“Feminist Speculative and Science Fiction” (SSF) captures some of most exciting writers working today! Students who love SF generally will love this exploration of the growing field of feminist and queer SSF writers in the 20th-21st centuries, with stories, (short), comics and media (film, TV) exploring gender and technology, social power, time-travel and possible futures, human and post-human reproduction, u/dystopianism, ecological crisis, apocalypsism, Afrofuturism. Students will visit PSU Libraries’ Lewis Collection of SF, utopian, and dystopian texts–including rare editions, and wild original book covers. Authors include: Shelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, C.E. Moore, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Nalo Hopkinson, Jeanette Winterson, N.K. Jemison, Rivers Solomon & others. Reading journal/response papers, short essay and final project to be expected.

Tuesday and Thursday 10:35–11:50 a.m. 

Twentieth Century to the Present Time Period

Literary and Media Studies Concentration