Designed for the potential major in English and other interested students. Prerequisite to advanced courses in English. These courses introduce students to the close reading of selected poetry, drama, and prose, with training in analysis and critical writing. (5T) May be taken for credit only once. (Also listed as Comparative Literature 190. English majors should register for English 190.) Offered each semester.

This course introduces students to the formation and transformation of literary traditions in English, through a comparison of historical, cultural, national, or transnational works spanning at least three centuries. As case studies in comparative historical reading, these courses address literary pattern recognition, aesthetic value and form, and the social and political factors involved in making, breaking, and questioning the literary canon. Courses may explore selected developments in American, Anglophone, British, or transnational literature. These reading-intensive courses provide groundwork crucial for advanced literature and creative writing classes. (5T) Topics course. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

Experimentation and practice in writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Readings to suggest and illustrate forms and techniques. (2A) May be taken for credit only once. Offered each semester.

Analysis of representative poems to increase understanding and appreciation of the nature, styles, and methods of poetry. Composition and discussion of original poems in various forms. Offered each spring. Prerequisite: English 205 and junior standing.

This course introduces students to the art and craft of screenwriting. Students will analyze the formal elements of screenplays and learn essential mechanics of writing for the screen. They also begin the process of writing their own original screenplay. Offered each spring. (Also listed as Media Studies 215 and Theater and Dance 233.) Prerequisite: English 205 or Media Studies 100, and junior standing; or permission of instructor.

Study and practice of the techniques of short story writing to increase understanding and appreciation of the nature, styles, and methods of fiction. Includes analysis of representative examples and practice in writing fiction of various lengths. Offered each fall. Prerequisite: English 205 and junior standing.

This course examines specific modes of creative writing that cross traditional literary genres. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Offered every year. Topics course. Prerequisite: English 205 and sophomore standing.

This course examines the video essay, an emerging form of digital art and academic discourse, which has lately come into its own as a powerful new mode of media expression. First and foremost, it explores ways in which the literary essay—a form that dates back centuries, if not millennia—has come to inform various cinematic and videographic impulses. It provides students an opportunity to develop skills as writers, video makers, and cultural critics. (2A) (Also listed as Media Studies 251 and Journalism 251.) Offered every other year.

Study and practice in the essay as a literary form. Some historical survey of the personal essay in the English-speaking world, especially in Britain and America. Special attention to what makes essays “literary,” and practice in writing such essays. Offered each spring. Prerequisite: English 205 and junior standing.

Advanced practice in poetry-writing, fiction-writing, play-writing, or essay-writing. Genre varies with the particular instructor, who will always be the Lois and Willard Mackey Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing. Prerequisite: junior standing.

This course is an editing workshop aimed at selecting manuscripts for publication in the Beloit Fiction Journal, an established national literary magazine. Students will read and critically assess unpublished manuscripts submitted by writers from all over the world. They will also participate in various facets of literary magazine production. (Also listed as Journalism 228.) English majors should register for English 228. Offered each fall. Prerequisite: junior standing or consent of instructor.

Comparative approaches to medieval and early modern literature before 1780, including epic, lyric, romance, or drama. Courses explore classical or other early literature in translation in dialogue with early English literary traditions. (5T) Topics course. Offered each semester. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Prerequisite varies with instructor.

English literature before 1500, or 1500 to later 1700s. First of a set of courses, “Texts and Historical Contexts,” all of which approach literature by locating it in its historical context. Recent topics have included Chaucer and His Contemporaries, Shakespeare and Film, and Milton and Satanic Rebellion. Topics course. Offered occasionally. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

Second of a set of courses, “Texts and Historical Contexts,” all of which approach literature by locating it in its historical context. Recent topics have included Jane Austen, Green Romanticism, and Gothic Horrors. Topics course. Offered each semester. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

Third of a set of courses, “Texts and Historical Contexts,” all of which approach literature by locating it in its historical context. Recent topics have included African American Women Writers, American Cultures after 1945, and 9-11 Fiction. Topics course. Offered occasionally. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

These courses study literature in dynamic relation with critical theories of culture and power. Courses may engage with one or more critical traditions, including critical race theory, Marxism, feminism, and queer theory. Whatever their emphasis, these courses integrate theory and practice, testing the usefulness of theoretical insights through the actual reading of literary and cultural texts. (C) Topics course. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. (Also listed as Comparative Literature 261.) Offered every year. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

These courses focus on a literary genre, examining it across different periods, cultures, and/or media. Whatever their subject, these courses define it, trace its development, and locate its uses in relation to specific contexts and purposes. Courses of this kind might engage, for example: science or detective fiction, confessional poetry, the novel, or the Gothic. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Topics course. Offered occasionally. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

These courses focus on literature written in English through the lens of the imperial/colonial experience. Writers may belong to previously colonized nations, or may be members of diasporic or marginalized communities. Works are contextualized theoretically as well as in relation to specific international, cultural, and/or historical regions. (C) Topics course. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Offered every year. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

These courses focus on media and other facets of popular culture, examining specific texts and artifacts. They may employ rhetorical and discursive analysis, historical study, cultural theory, digital humanities, computational analytics, or comparative approaches. Topics may include print media, digital media and culture, film, television, stage, history of the book, or the graphic novel. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Offered every other year. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

This course uses literature to understand the human history of information and information technology. Students explore both the early modern “story” of data and more recent periods and genres. They consider both how to imagine information as narrative and how narratives, in turn, serve as information systems. Their ultimate goal is to recognize how, as human fictions, data may be used to change their world, their identities, and their relationships. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

Individually planned programs of reading, writing, research, and consultation supervised by a member of the department. No more than 1 unit of standard independent study credit or special project credit may be applied toward any major. Prerequisite: English 190 or Comparative Literature 190, sophomore standing, and consent of instructor.

These advanced capstone seminars examine literature in ideological, artistic, historical, and/or rhetorical contexts. Courses address culminating problems or topics, require sustained individual projects, and/or explore practical questions and applications arising from literary studies and creative writing. Topics course. May be repeated for credit if topic is different. (CP) Offered every year. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

These advanced capstone seminars examine specialized literary forms, studying texts that define the history and development of literary genres and/or questions. Recommended for creative-writing majors or literary-studies majors with interests in particular types of genre writing. Topics course. May be repeated for credit if content changes. (CP) Offered every year. Prerequisite: varies by instructor.

Individually planned programs of reading, writing, research, and consultation supervised by a member of the department. No more than 1 unit of standard special projects credit may be applied toward any major. Prerequisite: junior standing, and English 190 or Comparative Literature 190, and English 194 for literature projects; English 205 plus appropriate genre course for creative-writing projects.

Work with faculty in classroom instruction. Graded credit/no credit.