2022-2023 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
|
|
| |
English Literatures and Writing |
| |
-
ENG 205, 206 - Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR (and W when offered as 206).
In this course students will be introduced to the art of writing creative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction is a form of storytelling that employs the creative writing techniques of poetry, fiction and drama to retell a true story in a compelling, vivid and dramatic manner. There will be weekly reading and writing assignments that focus on various aspects of craft, such as showing and earning the right to tell, scene development, pattern development, psychic distance, point-of-view, dialogue and insight. The goal of the course is to create a writer’s community where students are actively engaged in the writer’s project: writing creative nonfiction, sharing their work with their peers, receiving helpful peer feedback, always talking about issues of craft and aesthetics. The course will culminate in a final portfolio. Satisfies Departmental “Prose” requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 207 - Introduction to Playwriting Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR.
Students will learn the rudiments of dramatic writing through lecture, readings, and weekly assignments dealing with structure, characterizations, dialogue, and other areas of the playwright’s art. Students’ works will be shared and critiqued by the class, operating as a playwrights group. Each student will complete at least a ten-minute play and a 30-minute one-act play during the semester. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 208 - Reading (In)Justice Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and DE.
An examination of the relationship–often the collisions–between traditional “western” conceptions of justice and representations of injustice by African American writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Satisfies Departmental “Reading X”, “Social Justice,” and BIPOC requirements
|
| |
-
ENG 210 - Introduction to Narrative Journalism Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
This course will introduce students to the basics of long-form, magazine-style news writing with the aim of publishing an original article online or with the Muhlenberg Weekly. Students will learn how to pitch story ideas, research, interview experts, and craft a long-form non-fiction article. The class will focus on skills such as peer editing, writing to a word count, fact-checking, and writing under a deadline to create an authentic news writing experience. Additionally, students will read examples of great long-form journalism from magazines and newspapers, analyze the articles for best practices in reporting, and critique writing style and storytelling technique through reflections and discussion. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement
|
| |
-
ENG 212 - Reading Frankenstein Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and W.
Students will examine the three distinct versions of Mary Shelley’s novel (1818, 1823, 1831), read selected criticism and biographical material, and then focus on various literary, film, and theatrical adaptations, including H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), Lynd Ward’s woodcut adaptation of the novel (1934), the original Boris Karloff film (1931), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). The course will begin by examining Frankenstein’s important progenitors: The Book of Genesis, the Pygmalion and Prometheus myths, and selections from Milton’s Paradise Lost. Satisfies Departmental “Drama/Transmedia”, “Prose”, and “Reading X” requirements
|
| |
-
ENG 213 - Reading Pinter and Stoppard Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU and W.
Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard routinely make the short list of Britain’s greatest playwrights; Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005, and Stoppard has only won multiple drama awards but was knighted in 1997. While both playwrights were recognized almost immediately for their theatrical style, their later works got increasingly ambitious and political. This course will involve an in-depth examination of their theatrical careers. Satisfies departmental Reading X and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 215 - Reading Caryl Churchill Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
Regarded by many as the world’s greatest living playwright, Caryl Churchill has been writing daring and innovative plays for more than half a century. Her political theatre is known for its formal experimentation as well as for themes socialism, feminism, science, ethics, war, terror, and climate change. We will read works spanning Churchill’s career from the 1970s to today. Satisfies departmental Reading X, Social Justice and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 218 - Reading Place Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and W .
A study of the representation of place and space in literary texts and of the aesthetic and ideological implications of the way novelists, poets, and playwrights highlight the distinctive characteristic of the cities, regions, and nations in which their work is set. Satisfies departmental Reading X requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 219 - Solitary Voice: Theatre/Creative Writing-Ireland Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements AR and DE and satisfies the IL requirement.
This team-taught MILA course focuses on creative writing (creative nonfiction and dramatic) and Irish literature, culture and history. The class meets during the spring semester and culminates in an 18-day intensive experience in the west of Ireland. During the spring semester, we will spend our time reading and discussing Irish plays, fiction, poetry and nonfiction, in order to develop an understanding of the cultural identity that informs a contemporary sense of Irishness. We will also work to build an ensemble, learn the basics of creative writing, and develop the needed analytic skills demanded of revision in the arts. The course will weave together the arts of performance and writing by focusing on the first person point-of-view in fiction, poetry and nonfiction writing and stage drama. In Ireland, we will turn our attention to the development of original work. The course will culminate in a public performance of original writing in the Aran Islands. During our stay in western Ireland, we will, in addition, attend performances, readings, literary events, films, and engage with other embodied cultural practices. We will also engage with the landscape and unique histories of the country through a number of excursions. No previous experience in creative writing or theater required. Satisfies departmental Prose or Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 221 - Introduction to Poetry Writing Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meet general academic requirement AR.
In this introductory course students will learn to create, shape, and hone their own poetry, and in the process learn to savor the pleasure of poetry and interrogate how and why it affects us. The focus will be on the process of writing, including finding inspiration, experimentation with form and content, drafting, active de-familiarization, imaginative play, and the re-envisioning of one’s ideas. By studying the modus operandi of great writers, students will discover multiple ways of poetically expressing themselves. There will be weekly reading and writing assignments that focus on various aspects of poetic craft, such as imagery, figurative language, lineation, and rhythm. One goal of the course is to teach students to foster a writing practice: keeping a writer’s journal, engaging seriously with contemporary poetry, giving and receiving articulate peer feedback, and talking “shop” (i.e., about stylistic, technical, and philosophical considerations). This course will build up to and culminate in a final portfolio. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 222 - Science on Stage Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and W.
Theatre models the way the world works, asks us to consider what makes things happen and why people act as they do. Science gives us another kind of model. So what happens when the modeling system of theatre reimagines the modeling systems of science? This course is a study of theatre, as a way to ask questions about the world, as a site for experimentation, as a way to learn about science, and as a mode of critical cultural inquiry into scientific ideas. To investigate the theatrical fascination with science, we will study works by playwrights interested in heredity and evolution (Strindberg, Glaspell), in mathematics and physics (Stoppard, Auburn, Frayn), in astronomy (Brecht), biology and cloning (Churchill), robotics and technology (Kopit, Capek). We will also consider the scientist on stage, looking at plays that dramatize their stories. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 226 - Introduction to Screenwriting Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR.
Examination of screenwriting fundamentals: story structure (theme and plot), character, dialogue, scene description and development, and script formats. Students will prepare character profiles, treatments, and at least one screenplay. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 227 - Introduction to Fiction Writing Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR.
In this course students will be introduced to the art of writing short fiction. The focus will be on the process of writing, and students will be encouraged to explore new terrain, to experiment with narrative form, and play with words, sentences and paragraphs. By studying great writers, students will create a ‘tool box’ of techniques which they will use in their own work. There will be weekly reading and writing assignments that focus on various aspects of craft, such as character and scene development, imagery, psychic distance, point-of-view, and dialogue. The goal of the course is to create a writer’s community - where students are actively engaged in the writer’s project: writing fiction, sharing their work with their peers, receiving helpful peer feedback, always talking about issues of craft and aesthetics. The course will culminate in a final portfolio. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 228, 231 - Modern Drama Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 228).
This course will examine the emergence of a realistic and naturalistic “modern drama” out of its nineteenth century theatrical melodramatic roots. We will pay particular attention to late nineteenth and early twentieth century plays about gender conflict and “The New Woman,” which emerged out of the suffragette movement, and to the evolution of theatrical forms. Students will be expected to distinguish between melodrama, the well-made play, the realist play, the naturalistic play, and expressionism. The first half of the course will establish how these forms were created and expanded by famous male European dramatists; in the second half, we will explore how these themes and forms were adopted and used by female playwrights. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 229, 232 - Black Drama/Black Comedy Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement DE and HU (and W when offered as 229).
A study of nineteenth and twentieth century plays addressing the cultural impact of the African Diaspora. In addition to plays, the syllabus incorporates theoretical and historical writing exploring Africanisms in the work of writers like Suzan-Lori Parks and August Wilson and the efforts of African American playwrights to remember often unrecorded histories. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 230 - The Tragic Action Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
A study of tragic drama in action from its origins in Athens, through its rediscovery by the Elizabethans, to its revision by Ibsen and Checkov in the 19th century. We will spend the first half of the term on Greek tragedy and its problems, then we’ll move forward in time. We will spend time with basic theatre criticism too, including Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 233 - Sherlock, James, and Harry Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
In this course we will examine the texts and contexts surrounding three icons of British masculinity: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Harry Potter. While each of these figures was born in text, all three rapidly went “transmedia,” appearing in on stage, and in magazines, movies, television, comics, video games, theme parks, and across the internet. Each also has the ability to conjure up an entire literary, historical, and cultural milieu: Victorian London, Europe during the Cold War, and the Great Britain of New Labour. We will study various theories of adaptation as we follow these characters’ transmedia adventures; we will consider them as astonishingly successful representations of masculinity and nation that have been exported around the world. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 234 - Writing About Place Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements AR and IL.
Place is a powerful force in our lives, pulling us back toward the fields of our childhoods and forward toward dream destinations. We, of course, traverse many places in our lives, but they also move in and through us. In this MILA course, we will investigate how we come to know the physical world and to know ourselves in relationship to it by writing creatively about how the natural and built environments we inhabit influence and transform us. We will introduce students to a variety of genres: creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, and explore various interrelated literary traditions: nature writing, travel writing, exploration literature, adventure literature, epistolary accounts, and travel journaling. We will encourage students to become native informants-exploring what it means to live in a particular time, place, culture, and body-and curious explorers, letting negative capability (the power of not knowing) lead them into unexpected and unmapped territory. While inventing, shaping, and honing our creative writing, we will explore the poetics of place, the politics of space, and the historical and cultural significance of particular sites. The topic of place puts us at the intersection of identity and community, the boundaries of subjectivity and otherness, ontology and eschatology (Where did we come from? Where are we going?). Eudora Welty wrote, “One place understood helps us understand all places better.” As such, we will explore what it means to have a relationship with a place, how such relationships change over time, how the places we inhabit and visit affect how we view ourselves and the rest of the world. We will commit to the process of writing, including drafting, active defamiliarization, imaginative play/risk, development, and the serious re-envisioning of our ideas. We will read closely, think boldly, write creatively, and practice self-evaluation. The course will culminate in a short study abroad experience at a writer’s retreat in Italy, where the foreign environment will heighten our sense of place through intense direct experience and observation, giving us the opportunity to better apprehend all we’ve learned up to this point. Satisfies departmental Poetry or Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 235, 236 - Contemporary Drama Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 236).
In this class we will examine several intertwined strands of contemporary theatre practice: postmodern theatre, political and documentary theatre, and performance art. We will be using postmodernism as our primary theoretical lens; in particular, we will look at how contemporary art questions traditional dramatic narratives and problematizes not only theatre history but history itself. This course will focus both on dramatic texts and performance art; we will examine the way in which the body, as well as the word, carries meaning and how dramatic meaning can change over time and through performance. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 237, 294 - Postwar Drama Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 294).
An exploration of the ways in which theatre and representational practice were challenged and changed by the Second World War and its political, cultural, and social aftermath. We will examine British, American, and German plays by writers such as Osborne, Pinter, Weiss, Handke, Bond, and Griffiths. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 238, 239 - Plays on Film Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 239).
Plays on Film is a study of the (all too few) aesthetically successful films made from stage plays, approached in the context of why adaptations of plays to film typically do not in fact, work. In addition to studying a canon of plays and films, this course will also engage (and contrast) textual, performance-based and image-based methodologies, and students will be asked to write papers demonstrating proficiency in all three theoretical approaches. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 240, 241 - The Nature of Narrative Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 241).
This course will explore the forms and functions of primarily prose narratives with particular attention to structure, point of view, and narrative conventions of time, space, plot, character, and “realism”. Different versions of the course will vary in focus and emphasis: some may survey a variety of forms and genres (short story, novel, memoir, autobiography) while others may concentrate on one or two of these. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 243, 244 - Genres of Popular Fiction Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 244).
A study of the nineteenth century genesis and twentieth century development of three of the major genres of popular writing: mystery, horror, and science fiction. We will be reading not only particular works from these categories but theoretical essays on the nature of the genre itself. Authors may include Poe, Lovecraft, Conan Doyle, Hammett, Chandler, Shelley, Le Guin, and others. This course will not only focus on reading popular literature and writing standard literary critical papers but will also examine literary genre as a category and ask students to write creatively within the specific literary genres - mystery, horror, romance, adventure, science fiction - studied by the course. In this way, the course will provide a thorough exploration (i.e. historical, theoretical, and practical) of the various modes of popular literary expression. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 245, 246 - Poetry & the Imaginative Process Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 246).
What is poetry? How is it made or constructed? Is it the product of sudden inspiration or of something more mundane? This course will address such questions by examining the work of poets who, in addition to their poems, have left behind letters, journals, and notebooks that allow us to reconstruct the processes through which their poems develop and progress to completion. Students will be encouraged to write and chart the development of their own poems in process. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 247, 248 - Shakespeare Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 248).
A study of Shakespeare’s work in different genres drawn from the full range of his career as poet and playwright and, occasionally, of one or two plays by his contemporaries. Plays are treated both as literary texts requiring close reading and as scripts designed for theatrical performance in public playhouses of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Attention paid throughout to questions of gender and sexuality, authority in family and state, and drama as social expression. Satisfies Departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement and Social Justice requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 251, 252 - Contemporary Fiction Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU and DE (and W when offered as 252).
A study of representative late twentieth and twenty-first century English language novels and stories. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 253 - Modern Jewish Writers Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
A study of the narrative, drama, poetry, memoirs and essays produced over the past two centuries by writers who identified with or were identified by their Jewish backgrounds, both secular and religious, and beginning in the nineteenth century, produced work written in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and other European languages. Foci will include literary enactments of conflicts between heritage and “assimilation”; literary engagement with such ideological developments as Zionism and Socialism; cultural practices associated with Diaspora and cosmopolitanism; the emergence of a distinctive urban Jewish sensibility in the mid-twentieth century; ethnic voicing and ideological conflict; immigrant and immigrant-offspring writers’ contribution to the paradigms subsequently employed in the development of other ethnic literatures. Writers studied are likely to include Franz Kafka, Heinrich Heine, Emma Lazarus, Sholem Aleichem, Philip Roth, Henry Roth, Joseph Roth, Grace Paley, Ayelet Tsabari, Paul Celan, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Abraham Yehoshua, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Primo Levi, Muriel Rukeyser, S.Y. Agnon, Aharon Appelfeld, Bernard Malamud, Allen Ginsberg, Mordecal Richler, Stefan Zweig, Clifford Odets, Mike Gold, Abraham Cahan, Chaim Grade, etc. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Poetry or Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 255, 256 - Literature & Film Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and IL when offered as 256).
This course considers how stories are told differently through different media and to different audiences, and how such differences inform the many decisions involved in the translation of works across media and across time. To do so, we will consider key literary works (novels, stories, plays) as well as their (multiple) re-workings for film and television. Possible groupings may include Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and its 1940, 1995 and 2005 films and mini-series, as well as Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist along with David Lean’s 1948 film, the 1968 film of the Broadway musical Oliver!, and the 2005 South African representative to the Cannes Film Festival, Boy Called Twist. Other works whose life in literature and film we may explore include: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Lost World, Howard’s End, Witness for the Prosecution, Murder on the Orient Express, and Lolita. Satisfies departmental Prose or Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 261 - Literature & The Visual Arts Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
The course will explore the multiple relationships between word and image in a variety of interdisciplinary texts. We will examine the genres of illustration (poem and novel), composite text, ekphrasis, children’s story, concrete and imagist poetry, the graphic novel, and film. Historically, the scope of the course is broad, reaching from the classical period to last year. We’ll move from The Iliad to a comic strip, from a children’s picture book to the revolutionary poetics of Blake’s dynamic art. The course will trace the increasing sophistication and partnership of the word/image relationship as we move deeper into the digital age. Texts may include: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794); Jonathan Safron Foer’s erasure novel, Tree of Codes (2010); Robert Frank’s photographic essay, The Americans (1958); Richard McGuire’s graphic novel, Here (2014); Christopher Nolan’s film, Memento (2000); Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1964); and Lynd Ward’s wordless novel, Mad Man’s Drum (1930). Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia or Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 263, 264 - Postwar British Theatre & Film Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 264).
This course explores what has been called the “second renaissance” of British drama - “the new drama” of 1956 and after - and the parallel British New Wave of cinema. We will begin by examining the cultural and social influences leading up to the “annus mirabilis” of 1956. We will then trace the emergence of John Osborne and other “Angry Young Men” and the development of a drama overtly engaged with issues of class, gender, and sexuality. We will then look at the ways these plays helped to revitalize the British cinema of the postwar era, creating a cinematic scene in which the free cinema and “kitchen sink” films of the 1950s gave way to the bold, taboo-breaking movies of the 1960s. Playwrights may include John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Ann Jellicoe, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, Edward Bond, and Shelagh Delaney. Films are likely to include Billy Liar, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Alfie, Tom Jones, The Servant, The Knack and How To Get It, and A Hard Day’s Night. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 265 - Literature, Social Justice & Current Events Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and DE.
In this class, we will examine the ways that literature is intertwined with social justice and current events. The course will be comprised of units revolving around current events that center on social (in)justice issues in the United States, such as mass incarceration, violence against transgender populations, immigration, and more. For each unit, we will read texts that explain relevant historical contexts, current event articles related to the issue, and a novel or memoir that speaks to the unit’s theme. Throughout the semester, we will also watch films that are related to our written material. Our goals for the semester will be to understand the ways that literature both influences and reflects our cultural landscape and to fully comprehend the transformative role literature can have in helping us create a more just twenty-first century. Satisfies Departmental “Social Justice/BIPOC” requirement, and also “Prose” requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 267 - Literature & Sexuality Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
An exploration of the way literature reflects and shapes understandings, attitudes toward, and representations of, sexual identities and practices. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 269, 270 - Pages, Screens, & Sounds Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 270).
A study of the relationship between ostensibly literary writing and popular entertainment (movies, rock-and-roll, TV, etc.) and of the sometimes competitive, sometimes symbiotic relationship between literary practice and popular cultures. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 271, 272 - Ethnicity in US Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements DE and HU (and W when offered as 272).
A study of the construction and representation of ethnic heritages, affiliations, differences, and commonalities in narratives, poetry, and plays by American writers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, writing in English and adapting and revising established literary practices. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Poetry or Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 274 - Reading African American Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement DE, HU and W.
Explores important literary works for what they reveal about the ever-changing status of the Black condition and blackness in the United States and about the unique aesthetic, formal, and ideological innovations developed by African and African descendant writers in the U.S. Some of the major questions that guide our study include: What does a work reveal about its historical and social context─e.g., slavery, colonization, reconstruction, Jim Crow, civil rights, and beyond? How do power relations and class struggle intersect with aesthetic choice and composition? How do gender and sexuality shape the production of African American literature? The course may also consider interactions between African American literary production and the cultural movements of the greater African diaspora, Europe, and the Americas. Satisfies departmental Reading X, Social Justice/BIPOC, and Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 275 - Reading Analytically Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and W.
Intended primarily as a foundations course for current and prospective English majors and minors, Reading Analytically develops a common language and shared ideas about the enterprise called English Studies. It requires close readings of works in three different genres ─ poetry, plays, and fiction ─ focusing on various crisis points in literary history: the Renaissance, the Romantic revolution, and the Modernist moment. We consider, of course, the theory and methods of English studies as these have evolved over time, but especially since the 1970s to the present. We examine the history of English as a discipline, what it means to call something “literary,” as well as questions of why and how people go about analyzing literary texts and how literary and critical practices change over time. Satisfies departmental Reading X requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 277, 278 - Transcendentalism, Abolition, & Emancipation in American Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 278).
A study of the first flourishing of American literature in the generation preceding the Civil War, focusing on such influential figures as Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Thoreau, Poe, and Whitman. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Poetry or Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 279, 290 - Literature as Politics Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU and W (and IL when offered as 290).
Students in this class will approach narratives, poems, and plays as rhetorical acts and sites of ideological struggle and will address and question widespread arguments that, on the one hand, reduce, literary works to the politics of writers and their times and, on the other hand, claim that as “art,” literary works “transcend” politics. Writers studied are likely to include Shakespeare, Edmund Burke, William Blake, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, W. B. Yeats, W. E. B. DuBois, W. H. Auden, Langston Hughes, George Orwell, Muriel Rukeyser, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, Joan Didion, Mohsin Hamid, etc. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Prose or Poetry requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 293 - Living Writers Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
This team-taught course focuses on the work of six well-known writers (of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry) who visit Muhlenberg to discuss their work, meet with students, and give a public reading. The class meets as one group on a weekly basis, either for a lecture or for a presentation by one of the visiting writers, and again in sections for discussions of each writer’s work. Writers who have participated in this course include Peter Carey, Jonathan Franzen, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Andrea Barrett, Robert Pinsky, Carolyn Forche, Paul Muldoon, David Bradley, Alice Fulton, and Jay Wright.
Offered every three years.
|
| |
-
ENG 295, 296 - The English Language Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU and DE (and W when offered as 296).
The English language is often described as the de facto language of international business, trade, politics, and science, but how did this come to be? And what are the consequences of the English’s global dominance on the human experience? This course provides an introduction to English linguistics from a critical sociolinguistic perspective and using real-world language for analysis. Topics include foundational theories in formal linguistics and language study, the sociopolitical history of English, an examination of contemporary World Englishes, and the inequitable relations of power between speakers of different varieties of English that result in linguistic hierarchies. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the intersections between language and identity, especially social class, gender, race, national origin, and native-speaker status. We will also examine linguistic ideologies related to language standardization, racialization, and mono- and bilingualism that marginalize communities of color and nonative speakers. Satisfies departmental Social Justice requirement.
This course meets the English language requirement for teacher certification in 7-12 English and 4-8 Language Arts.
Meets the English language requirement for teacher certification in English.
|
| |
-
ENG 297, 298 - Writing Theory Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 298.
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission.
A required course open only to students who have been selected to serve as Writing Center tutors and Writing Assistants. The course will focus (1) on writing, reading, and evaluating analytic and literary essays and (2) on theoretical essays in the field and how these theories translate into classroom and one-on-one tutorial practice. In addition, students will spend an hour a week in the Writing Center, first observing tutorial sessions, then co-tutoring, and finally tutoring students one-on-one. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 301 - Writing Children’s Literature Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): Any 200-level creative writing course.
In this workshop course, we will focus on writing for children. While we will emphasize fiction, we will also write creative nonfiction, poetry and dramatic pieces. We will pay special attention to issues of character, story structure and language. An equal amount of class time will be spent on student writing and published works. Readings will include recent Newberry and Caldecott Medal Award winners, along with classics by writers such as C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web), Antione De Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince), Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach, Matilda), Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), Ezra Jack Keats (The Snowy Day), Katherine Peterson (Bridge to Terabithia), Pam Munoz Ryan (Esperanza Rising), Jacqueline Woodson (Locomotion), John Steptoe (Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale), Virginia Hamilton (The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales), Mildred D. Taylor (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), among others. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 303 - Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 210 Introduction to Narrative Journalism , ENG 221 - Introduction to Poetry Writing , or ENG 227 - Introduction to Fiction Writing .
An intensive course in creative nonfiction. This upper level workshop will focus on the personal essay, such as memoir, travel writing, and portrait, and students will read examples. Writers will comment on each other’s work in a workshop setting. Issues of linguistic theory, the form of the essay, and other conventions of nonfiction will be discussed. It will culminate in a portfolio, final project, and/or student reading. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
|
| |
-
ENG 307 - Advanced Playwriting Workshop Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): ENG 207 - Introduction to Playwriting or ENG 227 Introduction to Fiction Writing .
An intensive course in the craft of playwriting in which writers comment on each other’s work, focusing on the elements and structure of a play (character, action, spectacle, diction, “music”, thought), dramatic forms and conventions (monologue, farce, melodrama, comedy, tragedy), selected published plays, and attending theatrical performances, all culminating in staged readings of selected student work and submission of a portfolio. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 309 - Advanced Poetry Workshop Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement AR.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 221 - Introduction to Poetry Writing or ENG 245, 246 Poetry & the Imaginative Process
An intensive course in the craft of poetry. Poets will comment on each other’s work in a workshop setting. The problem of poetic form and its relation to the tradition and the issue of the self and self expression will be explored in terms of linguistic theory, poetic tradition, and poetics. The course will culminate in a portfolio submission. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 313, 314 - Medieval Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 314.
A broad-based study of the literature of the European Middle Ages. Readings will include selections from the romances of Chretien de Troyes, the lais of Marie de France, Dante’s Inferno, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and a representative sampling of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that highlights Chaucer’s transformation of romance conventions in the context of emerging bourgeois and mercantile social values. Satisfies departmental Poetry or Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 315, 316 - The Renaissance Imagination Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 316.
A study of the writing and other popular art forms of Renaissance England with attention to the newly articulated stress on self and the emergence of Tudor England as a world power. Texts include at least one Shakespeare play and plays by some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, poems and songs from the courts of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, and selections from Spenser’s epic poem, The Faerie Queene. We also give attention to sixteenth-century developments in music and the visual arts.
|
| |
-
ENG 317, 318 - Lyric Traditions Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 318.
The course starts with forms and kinds of lyric poetry written before 1800 and then invites class members to consider how selected poets of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries rework and reinvent these traditions. We will learn about various lyric traditions by experimenting with writing as well as reading them. Students can expect to read poems by John Donne, Shakespeare, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell, and poems by Emily Dickinson, Allen Ginsberg, Hart Crane, Adrienne Rich, and others. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 321, 322 - Shakespeare Reproduced Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 322).
Prerequisite(s): THR 100 Theatre & Society: An Historical Introduction or any 200 level ENG course or permission of instructor.
A study of the reproduction of Shakespeare’s plays on film and television and of the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays by modern playwrights, concentrating on the most adventurous recent work in these genres. Particular emphasis throughout on strategies of adaptation, substitution, and transformation. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 323, 324 - Renaissance Plays in Process Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 324.
Prerequisite(s): THR 100 Theatre & Society: An Historical Introduction or any 200-level ENG course or permission of instructor.
This course normally explores the making and performance of plays in early modern London, attending closely to such subjects as spectatorship, staging practices, and the conditions of playing, while also focusing on evolving views of marriage and sexuality, culture change and social mobility. Students carry their understanding of the plays forward in the form of production histories, dramaturgical research, text-preparation, speculative set-designs, small group performance, or video projects. We will integrate a pronounced “then and now” perspective, combining social history with contemporary applications, focused particularly on gender, sexuality, and queer emergence. We start with Arden of Faversham, a fact-based drama in which a lusty woman pays neighbors to help kill her boring (but wealthy) husband: an act considered so transgressive that it was recorded in Elizabethan political histories. We then move to Marlowe’s Edward II, which explores the troubled reign, dangerous liaisons, and vicious murder of an unabashedly homosexual king, before engaging in a more sustained engagement with Derek Jarman’s 1991 filmic “violation” of the play, considering how his Queer Edward II screenplay might be repurposed for the stage. Next up is Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, a Jacobean tragedy featuring a powerfully appealing, risk-taking woman, caught up in lurid intrigues fueled by incestuous desires that lead on to acts of terror, murder, and (even) lycanthropy. We then turn to Hotel, Mike Figgis’s remarkably free 2001 adaptation of the play set in Venice, featuring John Malkovich among many others. We’ll finish up with a longer study of The Roaring Girl, another fact-based play that features the famous Jacobean cross-dresser Moll Firth as very much a (wo)man of our time. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 328 - Staging the Restoration Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W.
Prerequisite(s): THR 100 Theatre & Society: An Historical Introduction or any 200 level ENG course or permission of instructor.
This course examines stagings of Restoration England. The first half of the course investigates Restoration Comedy in historical and theatrical context. Likely themes include the relationship between theatre and politics, the intersection of nationality and sexuality, and the shift from aristocratic to bourgeois cultural forms. The second half of the course examines recent theatrical and cinematic representations of the Restoration era. We will look at contemporary productions of Restoration plays, new plays set in the Restoration era, and feature films. The Restoration emerges as a period of sex, fashion, class struggle, and nascent imperialism. What is at stake in these representations for our own historical moment? Why stage the past to address the present? Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 329, 330 - Nineteenth Century British Fiction Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 330.
In this course, we will read some of the best-loved novels of all time, written during the century when the novel as we know it came to be. Writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and the Brontë sisters adapted the romance and the gothic to help create a new form for a widespread and expanding middle-class readership. During the time of rapid social change, the novel became a site for public debate about child labor, marriage, sexuality, the rights of women, the impact of technology and the progress of empire. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 331, 333 - English Romanticism Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 333.
Explores the English Romantic movement as it develops in the work of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Felicia Hemans, and the Shelleys. Among other works, readings will include Visions of the Daughters of Albion, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Frankenstein, and a more contemporary novel influenced by the Romantic writers. The course may also include dramatic readings and performances by guest artists. Attention will be paid to the relationship between the visual and verbal arts in poets like Blake and Keats. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 338, 339 - City, Frontier, & Empire in American Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 339.
The course will focus on U.S. literature produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from the post-civil war era to the years shortly after World War I and the enactment of the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments to the Constitution. Texts studied will include work by such writers as William Dean Howells, Theodore Dreiser, Rebecca Harding Davis, Abraham Cahan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and others. Contexts considered will include changes in American identity, and U.S. literary practices in response to immigration, urbanization, the “closing of the frontier,” the triumph of Jim Crow, and U.S. imperial expansion. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 347, 348 - Modern British Fiction Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 348.
A study of British modernist fiction and formal experimentation from 1900 to 1950: stream of consciousness, open form, mythic plot patterns, poetic prose, alienation, and self-conscious and fragmented narration. Texts may include Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier; Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse; E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India; and D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 349, 350 - Modern American Fiction Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 350.
A study of representative fiction published in the United States between the World Wars, including works by Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and William Attaway. Contextual questions will focus on legends of “the Lost Generation,” the Depression-era radicalization of cultural production, the impact of immigration and Nativism, and relations between European and American modernisms in various arts. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 352, 353 - Modern Poetry I: 1889-1945 Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 353.
The Modernist turn in poetry parallels that in the other arts ─ the change from Yeats’ Wind in the Reeds to Eliot’s The Waste Land and Pound’s Pisan Cantos is a sea-change in the forms, rhythms, and narrative techniques in poetry. But what is “modernism” ─ is it truly new, or is it a shift within the larger movement called Romanticism to a ‘harder” rhetoric? What is “the occult” in poetry? The emergence of women’s poetry? Poets may include Yeats, Pound, Eliot, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and others publishing poetry in English between 1889-1945. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 354, 355 - Modern Poetry II: 1945-2000 Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 355.
This course will look closely at some poets who began to publish in the 1950’s and came of age later - after the passing of the generation of heroic modernists, Pound, Williams, Moore, Stevens, HD, Eliot - in the 1960’s and 70’s. Most of the class work will consist of intense discussion and close reading of poems and will tackle such themes as the function of poetry in the contemporary world, public and private language, formalism and “free” verse, poetic voice and its relation to the self, issues of gender, and sexual politics. Poetry will be considered as a special kind of thinking. Poets read might include Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Amiri Baraka, Jay Wright, Philip Levine, and Carolyn Forche. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 360 - Gay and Lesbian Theatre & Film Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and DE.
This course explores a “gay and lesbian” canon of plays and films that both shaped and mirrored the evolution of a specific (historical) “gay and lesbian” subjectivity over the course of the twentieth century. We will also examine how the very forms of twentieth century theatre and film the subtexts of modern drama, the psychoanalytic mirrors of the silver screen were themselves seen as symbolic of gay and lesbian subjectivity and experience. Satisfies Departmental “Social Justice” and “Drama/Transmedia” requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 364 - Advanced Screenwriting Workshop Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): ENG 226 - Introduction to Screenwriting or permission of instructor.
Students will conceptualize, outline, and write a feature-length screenplay, focusing on story structure, character development, conflict, dialogue, and resolution. Writers will comment on each other’s work in a workshop setting. Students should start conceptualizing their ideas well in advance of the start of the semester. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 365, 366 - Contemporary Poetry Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 366.
The American poets and poetry of now - its roots, its various directions, transformations of previous work, and its diverse nature from the last decades of the twentieth century to the present. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Poetry requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 370 - Living Writers Workshop Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): ENG 293 - Living Writers or any 200-level creative writing class.
An advanced workshop in writing. Students will read the work of, participate in Q & A sessions with, and attend readings by the writers in our Living Writers Reading series. In class, student writers will comment on each other’s work in a workshop setting and commit to the process of drafting, active de-familiarization, imaginative play, development, and serious revision. The course will culminate in the submission of a portfolio.
|
| |
-
ENG 373, 374 - The Literary Marketplace Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 374.
This course examines literary texts as a form of mass media and considers their circulation in the marketplace. We will trace how and why fiction was commodified in the nineteenth century and book publishing exploded in profitability and prestige in the twentieth. Lastly, we will look at the exciting (and terrifying) developments of the twenty-first century, which are continuing to unfold every day. Will the book as we know it survive?
|
| |
-
ENG 375 - Postcolonial African & Caribbean Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement DE.
A study of postcolonial literatures in Africa and the Caribbean. The course is variously taught as a survey of these literatures or as a more concentrated study of the literature of one or two nations or regions. The course includes the study of novels, memoirs, autobiographies, and essays. Additionally, we will watch films that complement the literature. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 378 - Holocaust Literature Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements HU and DE.
Approximately twenty years after the Holocaust, literature by survivors began appearing in multitudes. Today, there are countless texts on the genocide, including memoirs, fiction, and poetry by survivors and by authors unaffiliated with the Holocaust. Almost every genre and category of authors has come under intense scrutiny, leading to questions such as: Can the violence of the Holocaust – and genocidal, racialized violence more broadly – be represented? If so, who can represent it? What is the relationship between trauma and memory? What about the relationship between literature and trauma? Does literature possess unique capabilities for producing empathy? What are the ethical questions involved in interviewing Holocaust and genocide survivors to produce literature? How does one write about collective trauma? In this course, we will examine these questions and others as we study a range of Holocaust memoirs and fiction about the Holocaust and put these primary texts in conversation with theories of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Comparative Genocide Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies. Throughout the semester, we will also watch and read interviews with Holocaust survivors, including some of our authors. Additionally, we will consider the relationship between race and memorialization; the under-examined role of sexual assault in the Holocaust; the under-discussed murders of the Roma, Black, disabled, and queer communities in the Holocaust; the relationship between the Holocaust, other genocides, and other forms of racialized violence; and the urgent importance of Holocaust literature in our current moment. Satisfies departmental Social Justice/BIPOC and Prose requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 391, 392 - Decadence: The Literature of the 1890s Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 392.
England in the 1890s was a place of great anxiety about a number of explosive issues. The power of the old imperial regime - and the stability of the Victorian ethos - were increasingly threatened by colonial insurrections; advancements in science, technology, and psychology; the collapse of a puritanical sexual order and the emergence of new sexualities; the political and social empowerment of women; various social and economic uncertainties; and the radically new aesthetic politics of the “art for art’s sake” movement. The course will focus on cultural texts such as Max Nordau’s Degeneration and various tracts about the “New Woman,” popular novels like Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did, as well as more canonical literature like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds; and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salomé. Satisfies departmental Poetry or Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 393, 394 - Literary Remix Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 394.
It is perhaps ironic that so many of our contemporary ideas about “intellectual property” were developed by “landscape” poets like Wordsworth, who argued that the descendants of a poet should be able to live off his “intellectual property” just as the heirs to a landed gentleman could derive a living from his “estate.” Today, issues of copyright and intellectual property are in radical flux as IP regimes tighten even as “the remix”- the adaptation, transformation, or other use of culture is used to make new culture-becomes perhaps the defining art form of the twenty-first century. While most discussion of remix culture tends to focus on mass media-music mashups, video remix, YouTube and Napster, etc-remix culture, like intellectual property, has its roots in the literary. This course will examine the nineteenth-century emergence of intellectual property regimes in the arts and consider the ways in which the historical transformation and adaptation of stories is in conflict with increasingly rigid IP regimes. Texts will change radically from term to term, but might include such adaptations as West Side Story, Wicked, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Ahab’s Wife, March, The Wind Done Gone, Shylock, Lo’s Diary, Moulin Rouge, and other adapted works. Satisfies departmental Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 395, 396 - Literature & Film of the Cold War Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 396.
The course focuses on how fiction, poetry, plays, and movies produced in the second half of the twentieth century responded to - sometimes promoting, sometimes resisting - the global ideological, diplomatic (and occasionally military) conflict that came to be known as “the Cold War.” Writers likely to be studied include Ralph Ellison, Sylvia Plath, John Le Carré, Philip Roth, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac, J. D. Salinger, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Don Delillo, E. L. Doctorow, and James Baldwin, along with movies such as On the Waterfront, Rebel Without a Cause, North by Northwest, and Dr. Strangelove. Satisfies departmental Prose or Drama/Transmedia requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 397, 398 - Gender, Sensation, & the Novel Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 398.
The 1860s saw the widespread circulation of the “sensation novel” ─ a widely popular and somewhat scandalous genre whose common themes included kidnapping, theft, adultery, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction, and murder. These novels were “sensational” both in their extreme popularity and their appeal to the senses ─ their habit, as one Victorian reviewer put it, of “preaching to the nerves.” As these novels fictionalized the seamy underside of Victorian life, they often engaged with some of the most disturbing social issues of the day. The first part of our course will investigate five such novels in their Victorian context: Oliver Twist, The Woman in White, Lady Audley’s Secret, East Lynne, and The Moonstone. The second will consider the remaking of sensation fiction in the film and fiction of the 1940s and from the 1990s onward. Satisfies departmental Social Justice and Prose or Drama/Transmedia requirements.
|
| |
-
ENG 400-449 - CUE: Seminar in English Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement W.
English Department seminars are offered once or twice a semester by different members of the department on a rotating basis. They are required of all senior English majors and may also be taken by juniors with instructor permission.
|
| |
-
ENG 903 - Creative Nonfiction Tutorial Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission required.
This course is a creative nonfiction writing workshop course for students who have already taken ENG 303 Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop .
|
| |
-
ENG 905 - Fiction Tutorial Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission required.
This course is a fiction writing workshop course for students who have already taken ENG 305 Advanced Fiction Workshop .
|
| |
-
ENG 907 - Playwriting Tutorial Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission required.
This is a playwriting workshop course for students who have already taken ENG 307 Advanced Playwriting Workshop .
|
| |
-
ENG 909 - Poetry Tutorial Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission required.
This is a poetry workshop course for students who have already taken ENG 309 Advanced Poetry Workshop .
|
| |
-
ENG 960 - Internship in Writing
Each internship is to be designed in consultation with a faculty sponsor and an on-site supervisor, and will include an academic project to be defined by and submitted to the faculty sponsor for evaluation. Graded Pass/Fail only.
|
| |
-
ENG 970 - English Independent Study/Research
Each independent study/research course is to be designed in consultation with a faculty sponsor.
|
| |
-
ENG 975 - Writing in the Prisons Course unit(s): 0.5
Students in this course will help facilitate a creative writing class in a minimum security unit at Lehigh Valley County Corrections Center or Northampton County Prison, both in Bethlehem. In addition to facilitating weekly workshop sessions, students meet periodically with the professor to discuss assigned readings and discuss drafts of a required writing project. At the end of the semester, students will also be required to edit an anthology of the prisoner’s work and help organize a public reading for the inmates at Muhlenberg College. Signature of professor required. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.
|
| |
-
ENG 976 - Writing in the Schools Course unit(s): 0.5
Students in this course will learn - in practice - how to facilitate a creative writing class within the community, in this case at a local Allentown elementary or middle school: Jefferson Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, or South Mountain Middle School. In addition to designing lesson plans, considering the pedagogical needs of the students, and facilitating weekly workshop sessions, students meet periodically with the professor to discuss assigned readings and required writing and to plot the direction of the course for the community students. At the end of the semester, students will be required to create and anthology of the student’s work and submit a portfolio of lesson plans geared to the appropriate age group. Signature of the professor is required. Satisfies departmental Prose or Poetry requirement.
|
Environmental Science |
| |
-
ESC 101 - Exploring the Physical Earth Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement SC.
This course is an introduction to the science of geology for non-science majors. Students will learn how the scientific method is used by geologists in their study of materials, structures, and physical features of the earth. Specific topics of interest include: the scientific method and the development of geology as a science; the formation and properties of minerals and rocks; plate tectonics and continental drift; the origins and consequences of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and flooding; factors affecting water movement and availability; how humans affect and are affected by earth’s physical environments, including how geology is used in land-use planning; and, the history of the earth. Students cannot earn credit for both ESC 101 and ESC 201 .
|
| |
-
ESC 111 - Topics in Environmental Science Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement SC.
Prerequisite(s): Science majors wishing to enroll require permission of the instructor.
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary subject area that draws on biology, chemistry, geology, and ecology to study the earth’s natural systems. Students learn how science is conducted and study the earth’s natural environments, interactions of organisms with each other as well as their physical surroundings, and the sources and effects of environmental stress. Three hours of lecture/discussion each week.
This course is open to non-science majors only.
|
| |
-
ESC 113 - Environmental Science I Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement SC.
An introductory environmental science course that investigates the functioning of earth’s natural systems. Topics include the cycling and flow of water, energy, and nutrients; biodiversity; the basic principles of ecology; and the interrelationships between organisms and their environments. The causes and effects of, as well as possible solutions to, several environmental problems are also covered. Human population growth, agriculture, and energy utilization are discussed in detail. Laboratory exercises and field trips teach basic techniques for collecting and analyzing ecological and environmental data and reinforce topics discussed in the lecture. Three hours lecture/discussion. Three hour laboratory meets every other week.
|
| |
-
ESC 114 - Environmental Science II Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement SC.
Prerequisite(s): ESC 113 - Environmental Science I .
This is a continuation of ESC 113 . Students study a number of human activities that can alter natural ecosystems and adversely affect human health. Topics include waste management, resource exploitation, and the behavior of pollutants in soil, air, and water. The science of controversial political issues, such as global climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain are explored and debated. In addition, the basic principles of human and environmental toxicology, risk assessment, and environmental impact analysis are covered. Laboratory exercises and field trips reinforce topics discussed in the lecture. Three hours of lecture and three hours of laboratory per week.
|
| |
-
ESC 201 - Environmental Geology Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements SC and W.
Organisms are inextricably bound to their physical environments. An understanding of the interactions between the earth’s geology and biology is therefore fundamental to a study of environmental science. This course examines earth’s physical environments as they relate to environmental science. Topics will include the basic principles of geology, natural hazards such as volcanoes, earthquakes, mass wasting, flooding, and the global hydrologic cycle. Global water resources will be examined with an emphasis placed on groundwater supply, movement, and pollution. Three hours of lecture/discussion and three hours of laboratory per week.
Offered alternate years.
|
| |
-
ESC 301 - Environmental Microbiology Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): BIO 160 Foundations of Biological Inquiry or CHM 103 General Chemistry I
This course is a study of the functions and activities of microorganisms in natural and artificial environments. Microbial diversity and ecology will be discussed as a basis for understanding the interactions among microbial species in soil, air, and water. The effects of environmental stressors on the growth and distribution of microorganisms, interactions among microorganisms and multicellular organisms (e.g., plants and animals), and applications of microbiology to industrial, agricultural, environmental, and medical practices will also be described.
|
| |
-
ESC 310 - CUE: Environmental Chemistry Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): CHM 104 - General Chemistry II or permission of the instructor.
The behavior of chemical pollutants in earth’s natural systems is critical to a study of environmental science. This course will examine the chemistry of soil, air, and water; the interactions and cycles of elements among them; and the pollutants that can adversely affect these important resources. Topics will include an overview of the physical chemistry of soil’s reactions and fates of pollutants in soil, reactions and movement of pollutants in water, wastewater treatment, and chemical reactions in the atmosphere, including the mechanisms of smog production, ozone depletion, and global warming. The chemistry of power generation involving fossil fuels, radioactive isotopes, solar energy, fuel cells, and other resources will also be considered. Three hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Offered alternate years.
|
| |
-
ESC 312 - CUE: Toxicology Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): BIO 165 From Ecosystems to Organisms is required. CHM 104 General Chemistry II and CHM 201 Organic Chemistry I are recommended.
Toxicology is in broad terms the science of poisons. This course will provide an overview of the many branches of toxicology and examine the effects of poisons or toxins on individual organisms and ecosystems. Of specific interest will be the uptake (ingestion), metabolism, storage, and excretion of toxins and the adverse effects experienced by organisms exposed to toxic substances. The mechanisms by which substances induce cancer, birth defects, and nervous and immune system damage will be studied. Additionally, fundamental principles of toxicology, such as dose-response and selective toxicity, will be described. The sources, chemical properties, environmental fates, and regulation of toxins will be addressed. Three hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Offered alternate years.
|
| |
-
ESC 960 - Environmental Science Internship Course unit(s): 1
|
| |
-
ESC 970 - Environmental Science Independent Study/Research
Each independent study/research course is to be designed in consultation with a faculty sponsor.
|
Finance |
| |
-
FIN 105 - Family Finance I Course unit(s): 0.5
This course will explore several broad areas of family finance: taxes, banking, money management, credit, personal loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, and insurance. Specific topics will include the Federal income tax return, checking accounts, electronic banking, money market funds, CDs, debit and credit cards, car leases, fixed rate vs. adjustable rate mortgages, refinancing, auto and homeowner’s insurance, HMOs and PPOs, disability insurance, term vs. whole life insurance, and reading the financial press. Students will develop a subject mastery through assigned readings, class discussion, and completion of assigned exercises.
|
| |
-
FIN 106 - Family Finance II Course unit(s): 0.5
This course will explore several broad areas of family finance: saving and investment, retirement planning, and estate planning. Specific topics will include risk preferences and tolerances, risk-return tradeoffs, the stock market, bonds and their features, diversification, mutual funds, open-end and closed-end funds, load vs. no-load funds, index funds, asset allocation, pension plans and vesting, the defined benefit plan, the defined contribution plan, the 401(k), traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, wills, trusts, and gifts. Students will develop subject mastery through assigned readings, class discussion, completion of assigned exercises, and participation in workshop-style presentations.
|
| |
-
FIN 144 - Introduction to Portfolio Management (The Investment Society) Course unit(s): 0.5
The course offers students the opportunity to participate in the active management of a portfolio of assets which was originally funded by a loan from the College. Students will study current financial markets, lead discussions, arrange for speakers, and monitor and analyze current portfolio holdings. The primary goals are to learn how to manage a portfolio and to promote an understanding of financial assets and markets.
|
| |
-
FIN 237 - Corporation Finance Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): ECN 101 - Principles of Macroeconomics and ECN 102 - Principles of Microeconomics , or INE 201 New Venture Creation ; and MTH 119 - Statistical Analysis .
This course develops the major propositions of modern financial theory and the guidance that they provide to the corporate financial manager. The focus is primarily on two major decision making areas: the investment decision and the financing decision. The exposition of these two areas requires that the following topics be covered: time value of money, valuation, portfolio theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, capital budgeting, and the cost of capital. The use of EXCEL is emphasized.
|
| |
-
FIN 241 - Current Topics in Financial Markets: Investment Strategies Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): FIN 237 Corporation Finance .
This seminar course will explore the role of financial intermediaries, e.g. the Federal Reserve, institutional investors, hedge funds, private equity partners, and investment banks in domestic and foreign markets. Based on anticipated actions of these intermediaries, various investment strategies will be formulated.
|
| |
-
FIN 311 - Mathematics for Financial Analysis Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): ECN 101 - Principles of Macroeconomics and ECN 102 - Principles of Microeconomics and MTH 119 - Statistical Analysis and MTH 121 - Calculus I .
The study and application of the mathematical tools needed for making financial decisions. Present value and future value are reviewed in preparation for more advanced topics, including mortgages, bond valuation, yields, duration, and convexity. Bond immunization strategies are covered. Other topics include foreign currency futures, the optimal hedge ratio, gap analysis, interest rate swaps, pension funding, and advanced issues in capital budgeting. Teamwork is emphasized through a team research project and team presentations. The use of Excel is integrated throughout the course.
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
-
FIN 365 - Mergers & Acquisitions Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): FIN 237 - Corporation Finance .
A seminar course covering selected financial topics, focusing on acquisition, mergers, and business combinations facing senior business managers. The course will review and build upon materials presented in prior courses. Numerous readings, class discussion, presentations, and case analyses will be required.
|
| |
-
FIN 367 - Derivative Markets Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): FIN 237 - Corporation Finance .
This course will explore the economic rationale for and benefits of the derivative markets. Coverage will include stock options, commodity, financial and foreign exchange futures, as well as the investment strategies that make use of these instruments. The roles of hedgers, speculators, and arbitragers will be examined, along with risk management, portfolio insurance, program trading, the regulatory setting, and other related topics. Special emphasis will be given to issues of interest to the corporate financial manager.
|
| |
-
FIN 490 - CUE: Advanced Topics in Financial Management Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): FIN 237 - Corporation Finance and senior standing, or permission of the instructor.
The practical aspects of financial management are stressed. The course is a blend of applications, case studies, and theory. Topics include the bond refunding question, capital budgeting under conditions of uncertainty, the theory of capital structure, dividend policy, leasing, mergers and corporate restructuring, bankruptcy, pension funding, and international financial management.
|
| |
Page: 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
| 8
| 9
| 10
| 11
-> 12 |
|
|
|
Print this Page