ENGLISH (ENG)

Courses

COM 201: PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION

Credits 3
Words matter. Of course, so do images and ideas, which can be expressed linguistically but also stylistically in terms of both the form and the function of a persuasive piece of communication. This course will therefore take up the rhetorical force of words (not to mention images and ideas) by first considering “rhetoric” itself not as a pejorative label but rather as a source of communicative power. Students will engage the uses (and abuses) of words and phrases, categories of language choices, varieties of verbal techniques, figures of argument, and more, all with the learning objective of developing a strong sense of rhetorical style. Emphasis will be on written argument, with some attention to reading, listening, and speaking. Consequently, you will analyze and then produce communications like micro-analysis papers, letters to editors, op-eds, and congressional testimonies. Students will then have the option to create an artful piece of persuasion for a final project in the form of an advertisement, a public service announcement, a podcast episode, or some other mode of public argumentation.

COM 219: MEDIA ANALYSIS

Credits 3
Designed to give students the means and opportunities to understand and analyze types of functions of mass media, this is a course in media literacy. Students will critically examine the evolution of mass media through active participation in discussing, reading, viewing, and writing theory and practical application of issues, such as media and ethics, politics and media, and ways in which we are informed, entertained, persuaded, and manipulated by means of media.

COM 295: VIDEO PRODUCTION I

Credits 3
Video Production I will introduce students to the basics of field and studio video production through demonstrations, in-class exercises and assignments. Emphasis will be placed on creative storytelling using camerawork, lighting, sound recording and non-linear editing techniques. We will be using HD field and studio video cameras and the latest professional Avid editing systems. Students will share the roles and responsibilities of a professional television production team, on location and using the studio facilities in the Assumption University Media Center.

COM 390: VIDEO PRODUCTION II

Credits 3
Video Production II will build on skills acquired in Video Production I so students can produce their own high end video productions. We will create story ideas, storyboards, and develop pre-production approaches to ensure an engaging presentation. We will learn advanced camera, lighting and audio techniques as well as more elaborate editing. Projects will include documentaries, narrative fiction, sports reporting, and others based on what students want to create.

COM 415: SEMINAR IN COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA

Credits 3
The goal of this course is to assist you in making the transition from life as a student of communications to life as a communications professional. Over the course of the semester, students will work with other members of the class to 1) interview professionals from a variety of communications fields; 2) assess professionally produced advertisements, brochures, websites, and e-portfolios; 3) master the use of software and hardware used by communications professionals; and 4) complete a series of projects based on professional models. Collaborating with a team, students will design and produce an advertisement, a brochure, and a website for outside clients. At the completion of each project students will submit an assessment evaluating the process, the product, the team, and their own performance. For their final projects, students will design and produce an e-portfolio for prospective employers showcasing their accomplishments in this and other courses.

COM 420: COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA PRACTICUM

Credits 3
The Practicum consists of a seminar and an internship, taken in the same semester. The seminar provides interns with opportunities to reflect on the internship experience and to examine issues of the field of communications relevant to that experience. The purpose of the Internship that goes with the Practicum course is to provide Communication and Media majors with practical, hands-on experience in the field. A list of sites for internships is available at the Career Development and Internship Center in Alumni Hall, and in the English Department Office. Students must complete ENG 130, an application form (available also at the English Department Office), and set up an interview with the Department Chairperson before the deadlines set for fall and spring. NOTE: Internships and the Practicum course are to be taken the same semester. Requirement for taking the Practicum and Internship: 2.8 minimum GPA in the major. Those who do not fulfill this requirement must consult the Department Chairperson.

ENG 130: WRITING IN THE UNIVERSITY

Credits 3

This writing course emphasizes planning, composing, and revising. Specifically, the course deals with strategies for generating ideas, recognizing audience, clarifying purpose, focusing on a perspective, and choosing effective arrangements of ideas. Techniques of revision, which are central to the course, focus on appropriateness of language and effectiveness of development, as well as on editing. 

ENG 140: LITERATURE AND ITS INTERPRETATIONS

Credits 3

This course is designed to acquaint the students with the form and structure of various genres of literature. Readings are mainly drawn from English and American literature. Class discussion and writing assignments will make use of such critical concepts as point of view, imagery, and tone. 

ENG 217: INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES

Credits 3
How does what is shown in a film prompt viewers to draw inferences about what is not shown? This course introduces the concepts and technical vocabulary central to filmmaking and film criticism, allowing students to discuss films with greater awareness and precision, both in conversation and in writing. One emphasis of the course will be form and narrative. We will ask questions about the composition of the individual frame, as well as about the structure of the sequence, of the scene , of the story. Other emphases, include point of view, cinematography, editing, and sound.

ENG 220: APPROACHES TO READING AND INTERPRETATION

Credits 3
This course considers fundamental issues of textual interpretation, primarily but not exclusively in the print media. Representative readings, limited in number, will be chosen from a variety of genres and historical periods. In addition to adopting a critical vocabulary that will assist close reading of texts, the course also introduces the student to various interpretive strategies. Required for all English Majors.

ENG 221: SURVEY OF BRITISH LITERATURE: BEGINNINGS TO THE 18TH CENTURY

Credits 3

This course provides a broad overview of British literature from the Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century. We will read a variety of literature and historical works, examine their historical and cultural contexts, debate issues of periodization and canonizataion, and consider questions of genre and innovation. 

ENG 222: SURVEY OF BRITISH LITERATURE II: NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT

Credits 3
In this course, we will survey major writers of the Neoclassic, Romantic, Modernist, and Contemporary eras, probing the ways in which their world views were conditioned by their times, examining the formal elements that enhanced their art, and coming to terms with how their works challenge us as readers.

ENG 223: SURVEY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

Credits 3
Students in this course will read, discuss, and write about American literature from the 17th century to the present day. The focus of the course will be on literature as a form of rhetoric, that is, how literature contributes to the debate of key issues in American life.

ENG 226: MAJOR AMERICAN WRITERS

Credits 3
Through selected works of Nathanael West, Flannery O’Connor, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Eudora Welty, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, and several of the major American poets of the late 19th and 20th centuries, we will explore the connections between art and our changing culture, and the consequences of dreams, disillusionment, and the potential for discovery.

ENG 233: MODERN SHORT STORY

Credits 3
In The Lonely Voice, Frank O’Connor writes that the short story is the literary form best suited to dealing with “submerged population groups.” We will go deep-sea diving in this course, encountering a wide variety of tramps, vamps, dreamers, drug-abusers, lovers, master manipulators, lonely idealists, and losers.

ENG 237: FILM AND LITERATURE

Credits 3
This course will explore the rich tradition of film adaptations of literary texts, focusing on the exciting changes that occur when artists produce their own cinematic translations and interpretations of important literature. Student will develop their abilities to analyze texts and film productions with pleasure and critical insight and learn a critical vocabulary for this analysis. We will examine the effects of genre and medium on the adaptive process and investigate how film adaptations contain cultural responses to literature and deploy literary texts to respond to culture.

ENG 241: FANTASY LITERATURE

Credits 3
The myths, legends, epics, sagas, and fairy tales that we usually associate with Romance literature were rediscovered in the 18th and 19th centuries and are still being rewritten today as both popular and subversive expressions of cultural movements. Fantasy is universal and is the framework for fictions that examine cultural norms. This course is a survey of fantasy literature intended to introduce students to major works of fantasy and familiarize them with the variety, importance and conventions of the fantasy tradition in Western literature. The tales and novels in this course include representative fantasies from several time periods and genres, beginning with the second century C.E. Greek romance of Cupid and Psyche, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, several fairy tales and short stories, and N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.

ENG 263: CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Credits 3
This course provides a general overview of the field of children’s literature. Students read representative classic and contemporary works of children’s literature from a variety of genres, including fairy and folk tales, picture books, modern fantasy, realism, and books of information. They evaluate text and illustration, as well as address current issues in the field. Further, through disciplined examination of the history and tradition of children’s literature, students develop an appreciation for children’s books and the authors and illustrators who create them.

ENG 281: WOMEN IN LITERATURE: THE RISE OF ROMANCE FICTION

Credits 3
The romance novel is perhaps the most maligned of all fiction genres, but romance writers and readers can take solace in its soaring books sales, with romance and romantasy genre fiction on track to dominate the publishing industry in 2025. What exactly is a “romance novel” and why does it attract so much disdain, considering its undeniable popularity? In this course, we will trace the literary roots of romantic fiction, especially those novels that have given rise to the contemporary “bodice ripper,” reading novels by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and E.M. Forster. Moreover, we will examine some of the most popular examples of the genre from the last 25 years, from romantasy fiction and hockey romance stories to Julia Quinn’s historical romance juggernaut, the Bridgerton novels. To contextualize the billion-dollar romance book industry, we will read several chapters from Pamela Regis’s A Natural History of the Romance Novel, a critical reconsideration of the genre.

ENG 287: LITERATURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN OF COLOR

Credits 3

This course looks at the intersection between race, ethnicity, and gender in American literarure by examining narratives by African-American, Asian-American, Chcana/Latina, and Native American women. While each author represents her ties to her ethnic community differently, we'll look at overlapping concerns between cultures such as the negotiation of the roles of mother, wife, lover, and daughter, family relationships, class position, the construction of sexuality and consequences of sexual transgression, the formation of a collective ethnic or racial consciousness, and concepts of nationalism and Americanization. 

ENG 320: MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Credits 3
The course will provide an introduction to medieval English literature, language, and culture between the years of 600 and 1500. While our primary focus will be on texts written in English, we will also read (in translation) selections from other major literatures that flourished in Britain during this period, including Irish, Welsh, Norse, French, and Latin. We will examine a variety of genres ranging from heroes’ tales, sagas, and lyric poetry to saints’ lives, and medical/scientific treatises. Major themes will include multicultural influences on English literature during the Middle Ages and the evolving conceptualization of the medieval hero.

ENG 353: NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN

Credits 3
In this class, we will read five of Jane Austen's six novels and attempt to understand their enduring appeal to readers for over 200 years. We will focus on both the cultural and historical context of the novels and the way academic and popular readers have responded to Austen over the centuries. Most importantly, we will examine Austen's perceptive criticism of the complex dynamics of family, friendship, work, and marriage.

ENG 360: ROMANTICISM

Credits 3
This course investigates the rationale behind Berlin’s bold claim for this period of literary history. We cover the major writers in the Romantic tradition, (1789 to 1848) with primary emphasis on British authors, and to some extent, those from continental Europe and America. Since Romantics often actively opposed certain beliefs and values of the previous era, we spend time differentiating them from Neoclassic/Enlightenment writers. We also look to ways in which subsequent, so-called ‘Realist’ writers, in their turn rejected stylistic and ideological tendencies of the Romantics. Finally, we look to the impact of Romanticism as it has been sustained through modern texts. As a final project, students will explore connections of Romantic literature with one of the following: painting, architecture, painting, music, and philosophy.

ENG 371: THE 1920s

Credits 3
The shock of World War I and the new developments in science, psychology, politics, geography, and art helped produce some of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. In this course, we will look at key texts representative of High Modern period.

ENG 387: SURVEY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Credits 3

This course introduces and explores the vibrant and entertaining work of African-American authors throughout American literature. The authors to be surveyed are always creative, often filled with the fervor of revolutionary passions, and always important. 

ENG 396: AMERICAN FILM

Credits 3
For many, American film is synonymous with the Hollywood studio production system that operated between the 1920s and the 1960s: the art and business of financing, creating, and marketing films that whether they were star vehicles, genre definers, or auteur statements shared a distinctive look and style that are still recognized and copied by a global cinematic community today. Successful films today may take years and massive budgets to make or can be recorded on a smartphone, edited on a laptop, and produced for under $100,000; still, every new film owes something to those early studio years in American film. This course introduces students to the analysis and history of American film in the age of the studio system and will compare and contrast a group of films from the studio system years with contemporary films that reflect the shift from film stock to digital production and streaming platforms. Students will screen and analyze twelve films, complete a small group research project, and read several screen plays. Quizzes, an exam, and weekly writing assignments will reinforce students’ familiarity with the language and techniques used to analyze film. Netflix, Amazon Prime, or other streaming service required.

ENG 399: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Credits 3
Open to highly qualified juniors and seniors with the recommendation of an English Department faculty member who will design and supervise the study.

ENG 412: SENIOR SEMINAR: “SOMEONE MADE ALL THIS,” THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE SAUNDERS

Credits 3
In the preface he wrote for a new edition of his first book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, George Saunders describes the first time his family went to a theme park—and the effect it had on him: “I loved it so thoroughly that, all the way back to Chicago in the car, I conspired with my sister to build a scale model of it…. Well, that never happened. But I still remember the baffled joy I felt on leaving the place, thinking: Wow, someone did this, someone made all this, some grown-up sat down and designed the little Mexican back alleys and cowboy boardwalks, the fake bird sounds….In a sense, these stories were that scale model, much delayed.” Saunders writes satire with a heart, exploding the pretensions of corporate language and values and the ways such language and values infect us as thinking, feeling people. This course will focus on his thoughtful, provocative essays, short stories, and close readings of short stories by Russian masters (Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol). Saunders teaches us to notice details and interpret them, in fiction and in life.

WRT 202: JOURNALISM

Credits 3
Students will explore important issues in print and broadcast journalism as well as in the writing techniques used in each medium. Students will study reportorial styles, newsgathering, research and interviewing skills, and put each into practice through regular submissions to the University newspaper, Le Provocateur. In the Fall semester, this course is taught as a Community Service-Learning (CSL) course, which includes a combination of academic classroom learning and experiential learning in the community.

WRT 209: CREATIVE WRITING

Credits 3
In this course, students will study the techniques used by published poets and fiction writers and will learn to employ some of these techniques by writing original poetry and fiction. We will also learn the critical language for discussing these genres in a more precise and meaningful way and will have ample opportunity to develop our understanding of the formal characteristics of poems and stories by both published and student writers.

WRT 304: BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL WRITING

Credits 3
The course helps students learn techniques for composing various types of on-the-job writing tasks: memos, reports, letters, and proposals. It emphasizes clarity and functionality of language, and the need to suit format, style, and content to the purposes of the audience. It provides students opportunities for collaborative writing and for discussion of the ethical dimensions of writing on the job. Students are encouraged to learn the use of various technological tools for writing and research.

WRT 306: WRITING WORKSHOP: POETRY

Credits 3
Ideally suited for, but by no means limited to, students who have completed ENG 209 Creative Writing, this course will extend the discussion of craft begun there. Our discussions will be informed by reading the work of established poets, but we will focus most insistently on the poems produced by members of the workshop. Through a variety of exercises, writers in this course will develop greater technical proficiency with image, metaphor, musical devices, grammar, enjambment, and metrical forms.

WRT 308: WRITING AND EDITING

Credits 3
In this course, students will learn how to address different audiences persuasively in several different genres of writing, including (but not limited to) academic writing, creative writing, and professional writing. We will focus especially on how they may deploy these skills effectively in the workplace, especially when seeking employment (which, given that this course is intended primarily for upper-level students, is likely imminent). Above all, this course will focus on the writing process, with a heavy emphasis on re-writing, revision, and peer-editing.

WRT 309: CREATIVE NONFICTION

Credits 3
In this course students will read and write essays in various forms of nonfiction. This course will focus especially on the personal essay, in which writers drawn upon and narrate elements of their history or perspective to address broader social, political, or philosophical themes.