Course Descriptions

SPRING 2026 Course Descriptions

General course descriptions can be found in the English Catalog

SPRING 2026 Courses

Download SPRING 2026 Course Descriptions

ENG 101: Exploring Writing in College Contexts
CRN: 10002-100029
Meeting Day/Time: Varies by Course
Instructor: Varies by Course

A course in academic writing, focused on analysis, argument, and critical reflection. Instruction in writing for specific audiences, purposes, and contexts, with attention to drafting, revising, and compilation of a final portfolio. Prerequisite: None; Notes: Equivalent to FMS 115 or RCO 101; Students may not receive credit for both ENG 101 and either FMS 115 or RCO 101.

ENG 102.01: Academic Research and Writing
CRN: 10030
TR 9:30-10:15
Instructor: Catherine Sawyers

A course in research-based writing, focused on analysis, argument, and critical reflection. Instruction in research methodologies as relevant to academic writing projects.

ENG 103.01-03: Essentials of Professional and Business Writing
CRN 10031-10033
Asynchronous
Instructors: Sam Phillips and Mohammed Ataullah Nuri

Focus: written skills needed for workplace success. Emphasizes process strategies for clear, concise, and accurate messages. Develops skills in producing professional documents, analyzing the writing of others, and collaborating on written assignments.

ENG 105.01: Introduction to Narrative: Reimagining Pasts: Historical Narratives and Fictions
CRN: 10034
Asynchronous
Instructors: Blair Lunn

This course will explore the interplay of fact and fiction in narratives that reimagine the past. Breaking down elements of narrative to address themes of memory, identity, and ethics, we will examine the blending of “fact” and “fiction” to recreate historical stories that still find life in contemporary issues. Through readings, online discussions, analyses, and creative projects, we will explore the possibilities and limitations of historical fiction in filling the gaps left by traditional histories and in challenging established narratives. We will also consider how historical fiction might elevate marginalized voices and reimagine possibilities, while balancing the ethical implications of the recreative process itself.

ENG 105.02: Introduction to Narrative
CRN:10035
Asynchronous
Instructor: Abigail Fitzpatrick

Cardinals are said to symbolize deceased loved ones watching over us. Rabbits used to symbolize spirits of angels and demons. Floriography was a whole Victorian language based on flowers. Humans have always looked toward nature for signs, or answers, or an easier way to convey messages and meaning. In this course, we’ll read works by writers such as Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and more to assess how narratives are so often shaped by images, admiration and discussions of nature. Satisfies MAC Critical Thinking Humanities and Fine Art requirement.

ENG 105.WR1: Introduction to Narrative
CRN: 14053
Asynchronous
Instructor: Henriikka Koivisto

Critical reading and analysis of American and British novels, short stories, and narrative poems. Attention to historical, cultural, and literary backgrounds as appropriate.

ENG 110.01: World Literature in English (Multispecies Solidarity)
CRN: 10036
TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Mohammad Ataullah Nuri

How can a story bridge the worlds of humans, animals, and ecosystems? The course invites students to explore how contemporary novels, poetry, plays, and films from South and East Asia and the Caribbean imagine shared worlds of connection among humans, animals, plants, and even elements like stones and rivers. Centering on the idea of multispecies solidarity, we will ask how stories confront ecological degradation and reimagine “collaboration” between human and more-than-human bodies as pathways toward healing and survival in a time of planetary climate change. Students will engage deeply with literary and cultural texts, develop evidence-based arguments, and strengthen their ability to think, write, and speak critically about literature and the environment

ENG 112.01: Interconnected: Foundations of American Democracy
CRN: 10037
MWF 1-1:50
Instructor: Michael Pittard

During the Harlem Renaissance, the poet Langston Hughes wrote “I, too, sing America.” Every American, in their way, “sings America.” Democracy is a participatory process, a foundational promise between the peoples of a country to listen to and trust each other while constructing & running a shared government. But how do you listen to people you aren’t familiar with, or hold disagreements with about important issues and values? How has the United States of America, since its inception, listened to its many different peoples and citizens while staying true to its organizing principles? In this course, held on the eve of our country’s 250th anniversary, we will read the continually inspiring seminal documents of American history, and supplement those core readings with two histories of the United States with different political projects: A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart & Michael Allen and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Along the way, we’ll also analyze songs, poems, music videos, video games, & films that will help us answer the question: how do we all “sing America?”

ENG 115.01/03: Literature off the Page
CRN:10038/10040
MW 2-3:15/ TR 12:30-1:15
Instructor: Beth Miller Ball

In this course, students will hone their oral communication skills through in-class discussions, group assignments, and individual presentations with a focus on creative adaptation of literary texts. We’ll explore the dramatic and performative aspects of different literary genres (drama, poetry, fiction) and develop compelling arguments—compellingly presented—interpreting the texts and their modern resonance.

ENG 115.02/04: Literature off the Page
CRN: 10039/10041
TR 11-12:15/ TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Rachael Hershon

Words aren’t always meant to stay on the page. This course explores literature that’s meant to be heard, seen, and felt. From slam poetry and staged drama to literary podcasts and audio storytelling, we’ll study how literature thrives beyond print. Expect to read, listen, perform, and experiment with forms that make language come to life.

ENG 123.01/02: Speaking Out for Change: Advocacy Communication Across Contexts
CRN: 10042-10043
TR 11-12:15 / TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Nellie Hildebrandt

What does it mean to use your voice as a tool for change? In this course, we’ll explore how to amplify our voices in public spaces, discussing everything from formal speeches to protest poetry to open letters addressing AI avatars. Using critical readings, personal storytelling, and multimodal projects like social media posts, we’ll learn how to listen closely, speak more confidently, and connect with audiences across mediums. We’ll dive into work by writers and speakers like Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Gloria Anzaldúa to explore how stories shape perception, and how even a small act of speaking up can shift culture. This class fulfills the MAC Oral Communication requirement.

ENG 123.WR1: Speaking Out for Change: Advocacy Communication Across Contexts
CRN: 10044
Asynchronous
Instructor: Jordan Williams

Advocacy is an important act that we practice on a daily basis, for ourselves and for the movements and people we care the most about. Speaking Out for Change is a course that will help you hone your advocacy skills through reading and delivering speeches, analyzing social movements on and off the page, and sharing advocacy-centered art. From early feminist movements to environmentalism to the Black Lives Matter Movement you will not only learn about the history of social movements and the impacts they have on the world now, but you will also strengthen the critical thinking, public speaking, and advocacy writing skills that you have been harboring all along.

ENG 124.01/03: Voices of Democracy
CRN: 10045/10047
MW 2-3:15/ TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Joe Dunne

This course focuses on understanding the history and current impact of the Founding Documents, the Founders’ intention in making them, and how discourse around these documents have evolved over the lifetime of this country. By engaging in debates with your peers, you will begin to understand how governing—and construction of a government—occur. Following important documents and people throughout the history of America, you will examine and analyze how the voices of this country have shaped its growth. You will also engage in contemporary news reflections, seeking to understand and interrogate the current civic landscape of the United States of America.

ENG 124.02: Voices of Democracy
CRN: 10046
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Andrew Saulters

Democracy is very popular, but hardly anyone agrees on what democracy is, or what it should do. “Voices of Democracy” will introduce students to a spectrum of texts about democracy and focus on the rhetorical situation and construction of each. We will develop and consider critiques of these texts, on our way to gaining an expanded sense of the many potential meanings of democracy, as well as some of the ideas and goals for which “democracy” has been invoked as a vehicle.

ENG 140.01: Literature, Health & Wellness: Medical Gothic
CRN: 10048
MW 2-3:15
Instructor: Henriikka Koivisto

From Frankenstein to today’s “influencer horror,” gothic fiction has always engaged intimately with fears pertaining to the human body and mind. This course explores subjects in the realm of health and wellness through gothic and horror texts, including scientific and medical experiments, fitness culture, mental illness, and the dark aspects of the beauty and wellness industry. The assignments in this course have an emphasis on critical reading, analysis, reflection, and collaborative exploration of themes of health and wellness.

ENG 140.02: Literature, Health, and Wellness
CRN: 10049
MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Breanna Harris

An exploration of literature in relation to mental and physical health and wellness. Variable topics and time periods, with emphasis on how literature represents, challenges, and changes historical and contemporary ideas about health and well-being.

ENG 140.WR 1: Literature, Health, and Wellness
CRN: 10050
Asynchronous
Instructor: Abigail Fitzpatrick

ENG 190.01: Literature, Gender, & Identity – The Power of Play: Women and Gaming in Medieval Literature and Video Games
CRN: 10051
Asynchronous
Instructor: Brittany Hilliard

Games such as chess were crucial social arenas where medieval players negotiated gender, sexuality, courtship, and more—and contemporary video games draw on medieval settings to engage students in similar explorations. This course studies medieval texts and present-day video games together, asking how players use video games to control their own identities, in-game fates, real-life enjoyment, and write their own stories. All texts will be read in modern English. We will also study selections from The Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age video game franchises. Coursework will consist of weekly discussion board posts, a midterm writing project, and a final creative project in which students will develop a mod proposal for a video game that reflects different audience types or interests than the original game does.

ENG 205.01: Sports and Literature
CRN: 10052
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Joe Dunne

Sports and Literature are not two things that we often consider hand-in-hand, but games and competition have been at the heart of many pieces of great literature. In this course, students will read a variety of literature surrounding games, sports, and competition, seeking to understand how authors examine the competitive spirit and interrogating that spirit in light of social norms and cultural customs. Students will play games themselves, stretching their literary studies into active play, to better understand how these pieces of literature examine the human condition. Through stories, poems, and plays, students will gain an understanding of how games and sports operate in our culture.

ENG 208.01: Topics in Global Literature
CRN: 10053
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Ben Clarke

Variable topics, with emphasis on regional interconnections. Offerings may include Europe at War, World Women Writers, Literature and Revolution, and Holocaust Literature.

ENG 215.01: Literature and Film
CRN: 10054
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Abigail Fitzpatrick

What are the benefits of being alone? What are the harmful things that can come from it? In this course, we’ll be looking at pieces that depict lonely or isolated characters such as Into the Wild, the book and film based on Christopher McCandless, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty which challenges us to see the loneliness in everyday lives. We’ll read texts by writers such as Robert W. Service who portrays the isolation and madness of men during the gold rush working in the Yukon. We’ll discuss how loneliness is shown in literature and translated into film, and how it could hurt and inspire us simultaneously. Satisfies MAC Critical Thinking Humanities and Fine Art requirement.

ENG 215.02: Literature and Film: Shakespeare! The Movie
CRN: 10055
MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Chris Hodgkins

Hollywood’s most successful screenwriter was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, and he continues to thrive; though the move from Shakespearean page to stage to screen seldom runs smooth, it certainly runs wide and deep. From the 1911 Richard III (the first British feature film) through over 400 movies to the 2025 Hamnet (starring Paul Mescal as the playwright bereaved of his only son), Shakespearean cinema encompasses some of the finest films of the past century—both direct adaptations and free modernizations, from towering tragedy to political drama to spoofy teen comedy, to biopics and satires. In this course we will enter the Shakespearean screening room by viewing multiple versions of six “tentpole” plays—The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Hamlet, and Macbeth—and by sampling scenes from dozens of others. Assignments: one reading quiz per “tentpole” play; two brief essays comparing paired film versions; and a midterm and final examination. Even if you’ve read these plays before, you haven’t read them like this! Texts: Any good, well-edited print version of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, such as David Bevington’s, which I will use in class; plus assigned film and videos, both inside and outside of class.

ENG 219.01/02: Journalism 1: Fundamentals of Newswriting
CRN: 10056/57
Asynchronous
Instructor: Elma Sabo

Want a peek into the world of journalism? This course provides it. You’ll learn what makes something news and how journalists deliver it. By writing in several journalism forms, you’ll pick up basic skills that can help you when writing in other classes, during internships, or at your workplace after graduation. You’ll also get better at fact-checking and at noticing bias. Some students who have taken this course have gone on to work in journalism or public relations. All students should leave the course with a better understanding of journalism and its role in society.
MAC Written Communication

ENG 219.03: Journalism I: Fundamentals of Newswriting
CRN 10058
MW 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Carole -Anne Morris

Introduction to newspaper journalism. Emphasis on basic newswriting and reporting. Combines writing workshop and lecture.

ENG 221.01: Writing of Poetry: Introductory
CRN: 10059
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Jordan Williams

Introduction to the craft and practice of writing poetry, including reading and analysis of published poems, creative writing exercises, and submission of poems for group workshop discussion.

ENG 221.02: Writing of Poetry: Introductory
CRN: 10060
TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Caroline White

Introduction to the craft and practice of writing poetry, including reading and analysis of published poems, creative writing exercises, and submission of poems for group workshop discussion.

ENG 221.03: Writing of Poetry: Introductory
CRN: 10061
TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Destiny Hemphill

This course invites students to explore their relationship to poetry not only as critics but as practitioners/ writers. We’ll explore a variety of methods and techniques of poetic craft. To do this, we will cultivate practices of attentiveness, vulnerability, openness, and discernment. Why do we choose to show up the way we do on the page, and how do we choose which elements to leave behind? At the core of this creative engagement is the understanding that language is political as which languages we speak, how we speak them, and whose speech we value and whose speech we devalue always has some relationship to power. During this semester, as we engage and generate poetry, we’ll meditate on how does language shape our ethical commitments as we discuss themes of systems of oppression, imperialism, displacement, bilingualism, interpersonal trauma, colonization, joy, liberation movements, and community.

One of our goals together is that by the end of the course we can all critically and creatively approach a text, regardless of its form. More importantly though, this space that we co-create should help you sharpen and enhance your own writing and allow you to be more conscientious of the techniques that you employ for your own work, the voices and styles to which you are drawn, and why you find them compelling. This is not an ‘easy A’ course. However, it is a course that invites you to dare yourself to seek actively from the course what you need to grow, which is a worthwhile (and even fun!) endeavor.

ENG 223.01: Advocacy Writing
CRN: 10062
MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Jordan Williams

Advocacy Writing is a writing course created to connect our hopes of changing the world with real-life avenues to realize that goal. We will strengthen your pre-existing writing and persuasive skills while implementing them in advocacy-oriented contexts. We will prepare you to engage purposefully and thoughtfully with the world around you through speeches, video essays, petitions, and more. By the end of the term, you will leave with new strategies to deliver effective arguments that inspire positive social change in areas you are most passionate about.

ENG 225.01: Writing of Fiction: Introductory
CRN: 10063
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Elise LeSage

What makes a story sing? In this class, we’ll survey the craft of short fiction, exploring how stories hook readers, create tension, and bring characters to life. You’ll write and revise your own stories while studying how award-winning authors like Kelly Link, Ling Ma, and Lesley Nneka Arimah make their magic on the page. We’ll also look closely at literary journals to see what makes a short story “publishable” today. Whether your work leans realist, speculative, or somewhere in between, you’ll leave the class with a polished short story and a deeper understanding of fiction as both art and practice.

ENG 225.02: Writing of Fiction: Introductory
CRN: 10064
TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Katie Worden

Introduction to the craft and practice of writing fiction, including reading and analysis of published stories, creative writing exercises, and submission of short fiction for group workshop discussion.

ENG 225.03: Writing of Fiction: Introductory
CRN: 10065
TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Nellie Hildebrandt

In this course, we will learn craft techniques to create vivid and life-like fiction by exploring a wide selection of short stories, from Raymond Carver’s minimalist prose to Aimee Bender’s magical realism and the ghost stories of Carmen Maria Machado. These writers will show us how to stitch together the tapestry of a story—compelling characters, immersive settings, and memorable images. Over the course of the semester, you will culminate and articulate your own unique aesthetic and voice. Through peer workshops, you will not only share your own work but also practice critical skills in providing constructive feedback. This class fosters a collaborative and imaginative space for growth.

ENG 227.01: Storylab: Multimodal Storytelling
CRN: 10066
MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Michael Pittard

What does it mean to be a good storyteller? Often, we think of the best yarn-spinners as master practitioners of a single craft: witty poets, wise novelists, or inspired film directors. But true storytellers know that their narratives are shaped by their form and medium, and actively lean into the potential of cross-genre and multi-modal work.

In this class, we will create stories that transgress, overstep boundaries, and resist categorization. We will write pop song lyrics with enemies-to-lovers character arcs, or a podcast about a fictional murder pretending to be “true crime,” or a video game script about your favorite comic book superhero, or any topic and any mode of media you’re excited by. No experience with digital technology, creative writing, or visual art is necessary. All you need is the willingness to follow your stories into whatever world they lead you!

ENG 227.02: Storylab: Multimodal Storytelling
CRN: 10067
MW 2-3:15
Instructor: Xhenet Aliu

Short stories and novels tell stories, of course, but storytelling is also at the heart of comics, podcasts, video games—essentially all forms of contemporary, creative media. In this course, students will examine how traditional elements of storytelling—such as character development, theme, world-building, and plot—can be augmented with interactive and/or multisensory narrative techniques. In addition to studying published multimodal forms, students will develop their own multimodal projects, which may include graphic fiction/comics, audio stories, podcast and videogame scripts, and hypertext writing. Due to the collaborative nature of these forms, which often require co-work with visual artists, audio/visual production, actors, coders, and others, students will be expected to formally articulate and present their ideas in a manner that fulfills the Oral Communications MAC requirement.

ENG 230.01: Writing in Digital Environments
CRN: 10068
MWF 1-1:50
Instructor: Virginia Weaver

Writing for diverse digital genres, contexts, and communities across a range of workplace and public settings.

ENG 230.02: Writing in Digital Environments: Authentic Intelligence: Fostering Mindfulness in Digital Content Engagement
CRN: 10069
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Talia Gray

Digital content has become a primary mode for communication across contexts. With this in mind, we must consider how our approaches to writing or composition must adapt to an ever-changing digital landscape. This course will explore the ways we communicate and assemble across various digital platforms. Through reflection and data collection, students will be encouraged to think critically about how their identity is displayed online as well as the ethos of major companies and media personalities. Students will also learn the key tenets of digital rhetoric and consider how elements like voice, style, tone, and purpose may appear in the digital content they consume. The course invites students to analyze and evaluate digital media genres like webpages, podcasts, social media posts, public forums, AD campaigns, and video games. Our class discussions and assigned readings will delve into ethical concerns like misinformation, disinformation, cancel culture, AI (artificial intelligence), and algorithmic bias. Additionally, we will examine the ways users have shaped digital platforms and cyberculture broadly. These conversations will serve as a precursor for students to design their own public-facing platform that encourages interactivity and audience engagement.

ENG 236.01: Genre Literature: The Black Short Story
CRN: 10070
TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Magana Kabugi

This course examines how Black writers in the United States have shaped and personalized the short story as a literary genre. We will probe what it means for a short story to be “Black,” and how Black authors have mobilized the short story as a platform for social commentary and artistic expression. Possible authors include James Baldwin, Deesha Philyaw, Ann Allen Shockley, Paule Marshall, and ZZ Packer.

ENG 237.01: Videogames and Literature: Videogames without Voices
CRN: 10071
MWF 1-1:50
Instructor: Josh Benjamin

Videogames with little or no voices or dialogue are a very different experience than those featuring extensive conversation in gameplay or cut scenes. This class is all about how visual storytelling and environmental storytelling, along with sound, music, and gameplay, tell a story without spoken language. We’ll play a bunch of games without (or with very little) voice acting, and we’ll read a couple of short written works that have no dialogue. Our collection of sources will inspire us to consider how creators use alternative narrative techniques and what those methods of storytelling are like for players.

ENG 237 WR1: Videogames and Literature
CRN: 10072
Asynchronous
Instructor: Evan Moore

Co-Creation in Gaming
When we play games, we create the world. In this Winter term asynchronous course, explore what it means to write your own story in a world made just for you. Over these five weeks, you will play an open-ended game (your choice of Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Aka, Animal Crossing, or a 4X grand strategy game) and create the world you want. We are going to look at ourselves as active co-creators with the game, rather than as a passive audience. You will also read a couple short pieces of academic videogame writing. Over the five weeks, you’ll write some short reflections, contribute to a discussion board, and pitch a brand new game based on the ideas from the class.

ENG 241.01: Food and Literature: Culture, Identity, and Place
CRN: 10073
TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Ben Clarke

Literature reflects and shapes culture—and so does food. This course examines diverse texts in which food figures importantly. How does it promote health and wellness, continue cultural traditions, or speak to environmental concerns? This course is for everyone who likes to grow, buy, cook, eat, or share food.

ENG 270.01: Big Questions in the Humanities and Fine Arts: What is Love?
CRN: 10074
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Keith

How have writers, artists, and philosophers represented or defined love? How can their work enrich our understanding of this central passion? After we examine several inherited Western influences that continue to shape notions of love, we will explore works from the Renaissance to the Romantic and modern eras. Studying visual art, essays, poems, and short stories, we will focus on romantic love, love of the divine, and love of friends and family. Writers studied will include Sappho, Ovid, Saint Teresa of Avila, John Donne, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Munro, Robert Hayden, Toni Morrison, Angela Carter, Alice Walker, Marilyn Nelson, and Audre Lorde.

ENG 273.01: Big Questions in Global Engagement and Intercultural Learning – Where is the World?
CRN: 10075
MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Gary Lim

How do narratives transport us across geographical and cultural boundaries to instill a distinct view of the world? How does storytelling explore fantastical myths and legends while rooting us in tradition? How do we use stories to encounter the strange, marvelous, and utterly ordinary? In this course we will travel across the world, exploring narratives that have intrigued diverse cultures by examining the relationship between the imagination and the transmission of cultural beliefs. In the first part of the course, we will read excerpts from the Chinese classic, “The Journey to the West,” the Hindu epic, “The Ramayana,” and perhaps one of the most popular narratives of the European Middle Ages, Marco Polo’s “Description of the World.” In the second part of the course, we will read a short story and a novel, Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” and Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.” Throughout the course we will also view graphic-novel and film adaptations of these works to appreciate the transformation and transmission of these narratives through time.

ENG 301.01: Topics in Theory and Method – Reading Bodies
CRN: 10076
MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Gary Lim

The rise of AI text generators has created the illusion that the complex activity called “reading” – once thought of as a uniquely human endeavor – can now be done by machines. But humans are a different species of reader: we possess bodies and interact with other bodies even as we read the world. The first half of the course considers theories of reading and interpretation that strive to account for this mind-body connection. We will explore the application of cognitive science to literary concerns, read theories of narrative empathy, and survey the rich vocabulary of affect theory. In the second half of the course, we turn to how literary scholars read other, non-human, bodies. In this section we consider the animal turn in literary studies as well as the different phases of ecocriticism. This is CIC Writing course and there will be a range of scaffolded short writing assignments that will culminate in a larger piece by the end of the semester. We will use sections from Rivkin and Ryan’s Literary Theory anthology (available as an ebook through the UNCG library) as well as King Lear and selected short stories that illustrate these theories.

ENG 301.02: Topics in Theory and Method: Theory after the Postmodern
CRN: 10077
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Christian Moraru

A course in the major, this English 301 Topics in Theory and Method class looks at how, oftentimes in response to theoretical models defined as “postmodern,” recent thinkers, theorists, and critics have attempted to move away from worldviews, concerns, and approaches orbiting around “us” (humans) and overall from the notion that the world and its phenomena, whether “natural” or “cultural,” are merely “our” constructions. If postmodernism as a body of theory, cultural-aesthetic practices, and modes of reading thereof can be said to be informed by social constructionism, post-2000 scholars advance in a direction driven less by the desire to “debunk” constructions and thus sanction the world as a human, anthropocentered domain where everybody else is relegated to subaltern, instrumental status. This shift has had notable critical consequences across well-known and lesser-known fields and disciplines, from narratology to animal and plant studies to ecocriticism. To explore these developments, we will read critics and theorists such as Timothy Morton and Donna Haraway, and we will read fiction by Murray Bail. They all raise intriguing questions about what things “do” and how trees “talk.” This is a CIC College Writing class where students submit and revise at least one paper. Midterm and final essay.

ENG 303.01: Literary Theory
CRN: 10078
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Gary Lim

What are some of the assumptions that inform how we analyze texts? Did we always read as we do today? Is there a difference in reading a text for pleasure and studying it for college credit? Why will two English professors have vastly different interpretations of the same poem? What defines English as a discipline? By studying several major areas of literary and critical theory we will begin to formulate answers to these questions. We will consider several major approaches to the study of literature that came to the forefront of American literary studies from the mid-twentieth century. In this history of ideas, we begin with the formalist and reception theories that dominated literary interpretation in the middle of the twentieth century and observe the shifts towards approaches that accounted for historical, cultural, and social context. While we will spend a good deal of the course considering literary theories in their own right, we will also study scholarly articles with an eye to exploring how they are applied to spark literary insight and develop arguments about interpretation. This is CIC Writing course and there will be a range of scaffolded short writing assignments that will culminate in a larger project by the end of the semester.

ENG 305.01: Contemporary Rhetoric: Rhetoric with and beyond Words
CRN: 10079
MW 2-3:15
Instructor: Heather Brook Adams

Rhetoric isn’t just what people say—it’s how a building can make you feel small, how a city street guides your movement, how a graphic novel’s panel layout controls time itself. This course explores persuasion, especially as it unfolds through language and across physical and visual space.

Together, we’ll investigate how humans use language (and silence) and how language uses us. We’ll apply ancient and contemporary rhetorical concepts as we consider challenges in our current moment. All the while we’ll be thinking, too, about our built and natural environments as places of persuasion and contexts to which we are attuned.

Then we’ll turn to the page, where graphic novels and comics deploy their own spatial grammar. In sequential art, the gutter between panels becomes a site of meaning-making, page layout creates rhythm and emphasis, and the interplay of word and image generates arguments that neither could make alone.

Through this course, you’ll develop a critical vocabulary for understanding the complexities of language use and for reading spaces and images as rhetorical acts. Your in-class conversation and course assignments will ask you to apply this knowledge in creative and thought-provoking ways.

ENG 307.01: Public Advocacy and Argument
CRN: 10080
MWF 12-12:50
Instructor: Erin Green

Have you watched a debate from Jubilee’s YouTube series called Surrounded and thought to yourself, “Where on Earth do they find these people?” This reflection may have prompted you to wonder what makes a writer or speaker rhetorically effective, or ineffective, at conveying their message in the public sphere. In ENG 307, we will explore public advocacy by examining the relationship between public policy and public writing, and how they inform one another. We will read from and write in several public genres such as petitions, op-eds, letters to elected officials, campaign websites, speeches, policy proposals, debates, and more. Through these public genres, we will analyze contemporary policy issues like climate change, prison reform, reproductive justice, poverty, healthcare, voting rights, and many more. Most importantly, ENG 307 is a course for students of all majors interested in writing for real-world audiences through a range of rhetorical strategies about current social, political, and economic issues impacting their communities.

ENG 315.01: Postcolonial Literatures
CRN: 10082
TR 2-3:15
Instructor: Beth Miller Ball

Literature from South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, and Canada marked by the experience of European colonialism. Topics include non-European literary forms, colonization, political resistance, nationalism, gender, postcolonial predicaments.

ENG 320.01: Journalism III: Feature Writing and Reviewing
CRN: 10120
MW 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Carole-Anne Morris

Writing workshop: values and journalistic practices in writing feature articles and reviews; includes book reviewing and critical writing on other arts.

ENG 325.01: Writing of Fiction: Intermediate
CRN: 10083
MW 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Joe Dunne

Continuation of introductory workshop in writing fiction for students beyond the freshman year.

ENG 325.02: Writing of Fiction: Intermediate
CRN: 10084
TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Katie Worden

Continuation of introductory workshop in writing fiction for students beyond the freshman year.

ENG 326.01: Writing of Poetry: Intermediate
CRN: 10085
MW 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Andrew Saulters

Continuation of introductory workshop in writing poetry for students beyond the freshman year.

ENG 327.01: Writing for Professionals and Entrepreneurs
CRN: 10086
MW 2-3:15
Instructor: Elise LeSage

Situated at the intersection of branding and writing, this course will prepare students to communicate effectively in entrepreneurial and corporate settings. Assignments will emphasize practical application: analyzing audiences, crafting persuasive messages, and maintaining brand consistency across platforms. Students will leave the course with a professional portfolio that includes a brand style guide, a functioning website, and a sample social media campaign suitable for use in job or internship applications.

ENG 327.02/03: Writing for Professionals and Entrepreneurs
CRN 10087/88
Asynchronous
Instructor: Candace Chambers

Principles of written communication emphasizing clarity, precision, audience analysis, arrangement, and collaboration applied to a variety of professional and entrepreneurial writing tasks and workplace settings; includes elements of summaries, reports, and proposals.

ENG 331.01: Women in Literature: “Boo, Shiver, Swoon! Women’s Genre Fiction: Mystery, Horror, and A Little Romance”
CRN: 10089
MWF 10-10:50
Instructor: Maria Sanchez

Mystery, horror, and romance are all having a moment. Despite numbers for leisure reading dropping overall, each of these genres is doing very, very well. Authors working in each genre light up Book Tok and pad their publishers’ bottom lines. They have inspired the opening of numerous dedicated bookstores, from The Twisted Spine in Brooklyn to Trope in Charlotte and Friends to Lovers in Virginia. Many of these books and businesses are the creations of women artists and women entrepreneurs. So what is it that these authors are getting right? Why do mystery, horror, and romance speak to this moment we are in?

This class will focus on understanding these genres, especially as they sometimes overlap; studying their critical reception and their pop culture representation, especially social media where applicable; and when possible, gathering and analyzing market data. (What can we determine about who is reading, buying, and promoting these books and their genres?)

Assigned books include:

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Silvia Moreno-García, Mexican Gothic
Isabel Cañas, Vampires of el Norte
Alexis Henderson, The Year of the Witching
Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library
Nicola Yoon, One of Our Kind
Emily Henry, Book Lovers

ENG 333.01: Southern Writers
CRN: 10090
TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Scott Romine

Fiction, poetry, drama of the modern and contemporary South. Emphasis on Southern perspectives, values, traditions. Faulkner, Welty, Wright, Tate, O’Connor, Percy, and others.

ENG 340.01: Shakespeare Mirror: Later Plays
CRN: 10091
MWF 1-1:50
Instructor: Christopher Hodgkins

“Hold the mirror up to nature,” he said; and no one has reflected more of human nature in his dramatic mirror. In this course we’ll read nine plays from across Shakespeare’s later career (1602-1611), including “problem comedies,” the “great tragedies,” and tragicomedies/romances: All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. Primary emphasis on the close reading of Shakespeare’s language, on careful written and oral analysis of particular scenes and episodes, and on engaging varied critical approaches to the plays. Secondary but substantial emphasis on late Elizabethan and early Jacobean historical, philosophical, religious, and aesthetic contexts, as well as on questions of production and stagecraft. Class will consist of lecture and discussion. Assignments: One reading quiz per play, two examinations (midterm and final), 1-2 oral presentations of scene analyses, 1 oral presentation of critical annotations, one shorter paper (scene analysis), one longer research essay. Texts: Any well-edited, carefully annotated edition of the complete works such as Pelican, Signet, Riverside, or Norton editions, or David Bevington, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare, which I will use in class; MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th through 8th edition.

ENG 347.01: Topics in post-1800 Literature – Videogames and Storytelling
CRN: 10092
TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Evan Moore

Are videogames really worth our time in upper-level literary analysis? What can we get out of them? In this course, you will play a few games that ask a lot of us, as players and as scholars. These games will not require any “gaming” skill. You’ll also read two scholarly books about videogame analysis, along with a couple other short chapters and articles. As we play and read, we’ll discuss the frameworks and methods for game studies and literary analysis—and, most importantly, how to put them together. Our work over the semester will culminate in a large final project, for which you will either create a workable preview of a new game or write an argumentative academic essay.

ENG 351.01: The American Novel through World War I: “Really Great Novels by Totally Dead People”
CRN: 10093
MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: Maria Sanchez

The 19th century is the era in which the novel took over U.S. literary culture, and became the dominant force that it remains for readers and writers today. But earlier Americans distrusted fiction and even warned against reading it. How did novels become a thing, as it were? We’ll read a range of authors and styles so as to trace a history of what our ancestors were reading, and what they hoped that reading would do for them. Our novels will include: Nathaniel Hawthorne,

The Scarlet Letter; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition; Willa Cather, My Antonia; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

ENG 353.01: The Contemporary American Novel
CRN: 10094
MW 2-3:15
Instructor: Holly Goddard Jones

You’ve probably heard the “curse,” of apocryphal origin, that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Here’s another quotation, by the fiction writer Janet Burroway: “Only trouble is interesting.” From Y2K panic to Covid lockdowns, not to mention the shadow of 9/11 and the social upheaval of the first smartphone, the 21st-century experience has certainly been interesting, and the American novel, both Great and small, has gone about documenting the anxieties of this age. We will spend the semester reading novels (and novellas) of the last 25 years by authors such as Barbara Kingsolver, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Jeff VanderMeer, Ted Chiang, Tayari Jones, Ann Patchett, Cormac McCarthy, Louise Erdritch, and Jesmyn Ward. We’ll talk about the novel’s strengths and limitations as a response to the contemporary moment, especially as media that privilege rapid-fire, high-volume engagement have moved to the center of public discourse (and often shape that discourse in profound, empire-changing ways). Grades will be based on participation, in-class writings, exams, and a creative final project.

ENG 360.01: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
CRN: 10095
TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jennifer Keith

Satisfies: Pre-1800 Literature Requirement and Historical Depth and Context Requirement

How can the writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries help us understand the seeds of our current search for happiness? How did these writers explain happiness and the ways to find it? What were the difficulties they revealed in this search? To answer these questions, we will examine the values that informed ideas about many kinds of happiness. Such values have had far-reaching consequences, from the American Declaration of Independence to today’s “Retail Therapy.” This narrative of the search for happiness uncovers important shifts in how we understand our relation to the divine and to each other. Topics include: the transfer of religious beliefs about the happiness after death into expectations for human happiness in this world; rising estimations of the power of the individual in obtaining happiness; increasing concern for alleviating the suffering of others in emerging discourses of human rights; and a focus on the powers of the imagination as they foster pain or pleasure. We will read works by several writers, including Michel de Montaigne, John Milton, Aphra Behn, Mary Astell, Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy, Samuel Johnson, Voltaire, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, and John Keats.

ENG 374.01: Early African American Writers
CRN: 10096
TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Magana Kabugi

This course explores the birth and development of the African American literary tradition from slave narratives to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. From poetry and novels to autobiography and film, we will consider some of the following questions: how did Black writers help to shape racial, political, and cultural discourses in the early days of the United States? What can these authors teach us today in our current moment? Possible authors include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Jessie Redmon Fauset.

ENG 374.01: Early African American Writers
CRN: 81167
MWF 2-2:50
Instructor: Magana Kabugi

This course traces the birth and development of the African American literary tradition in the United States across various genres. From poetry to short fiction to novels and slave narratives, we will consider some of the following questions: how do freedom and un-freedom shape one’s relationship to the idea of authorship? Can African American literature be separated from the political? How do factors such as gender, audience, and geography shape these texts? Possible authors include Lucy Terry, Harriet Wilson, Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, and Harriet Jacobs.

ENG 383.01: Topics In Queer and Trans Studies
CRN: 10097
TR 11-12:15
Instructor: Emilia Phillips

In the poem “Queer,” Frank Bidart writes that if you “lie to yourself [about being queer], what you will // lose is yourself.” In this course, we’ll read poets who proudly articulate, hesitantly code, or even intentionally hide their queer identities in their poetry so that we might better understand the genre’s historical and contemporary relationships to the representation and embodiment of queer experiences. Building upon a foundation of the queer 19th century poets Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, the course will focus on writers from the 20th and 21st centuries whose gender and sexual identities either directly embrace or analogously correlate to the gender and sexual identities in the contemporary LGBTQIA2S+ acronym. Some writers we will read include Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O’Hara, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Thom Gunn, CAConrad, Natalie Diaz, Jos Charles, Danez Smith, Chen Chen, and more. As we read these poets, we will ask and (attempt to) answer the following questions:

Is there such a thing as a “queer poem”?
Is “queer poetry” an operative and distinct poetic aesthetic and ethos?
How does one write about queer experiences in one of the most colonizing languages in the world?
How might LGBTQIA2S+ poets innovate with language and form to represent uniquely queer experiences?
How does queer poetry and poetics intersect with queer theory?
What are the sociohistorical contexts for queer representations in poems?
How does queerness intersect with race, ethnicity, class, citizenship, and disability?

These questions will inform the course’s major assignment: a Queer Documentary Poetics Project, in which students will conduct archival research at Jackson Library’s Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) and, optionally, oral histories into LGBTQIA2S+ experiences at UNCG, the Piedmont Triad area, or their own communities. This project will be guided by the professor with help from archival research and oral history experts, especially SCUA archivists and librarians.

No previous experiences with archival research, oral history, or even poetry writing are needed for this project, but these skills will expand students’ dexterity at undergraduate research as well as critical and creative thinking. Students considering this course also do not need to have previous positive experiences reading and/or understanding poetry. These skills will be taught and refined throughout the course. All students, regardless of their own gender and sexuality dimensions of their identity, are welcome in this course.

ENG 425.01: Writing of Fiction: Advanced – Looking Again—Revision as Discovery
CRN: 10098
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Derek Palacio

ENG 425 is an advanced-level fiction writing course with an emphasis on revision. This course will treat revision as an act of discovery rather than a process of rigid refinement. Students will identify and explore the potential of early drafts while also cultivating self-aware techniques for advancing and expanding their initial creative visions. This is a workshop-based class that will introduce writers to multiple modes of collective critique and self-analysis. Ultimately, students will leave the course with a better understanding of their artistic interests, their craft impulses, and their personal writing process.

Prerequisite: ENG 325 or permission of instructor

ENG 426.01: Writing of Poetry: Advanced
CRN: 10099
TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Destiny Hemphill

Building upon the work you did in your Introductory and Intermediate Poetry Writing courses, students in Writing of Poetry: Advanced will deepen their practice of poetry. Through intensive reading and rigorous workshop, you will sharpen your craft. Our course readings will have an emphasis, though will not be limited to, procedural poetics (or poetics that consciously introduces a rule, constraint, and/or operation that guides how language is generated). Writers we’ll engage might include Solmaz Sharif, m. nourbese philip, Srikanth Reddy, Lyn Hejinian, and more. We’ll consider the how procedural poetics reveals the way that language can reinforce, complicate, or destabilize expressions of power.

We’ll workshop your individual poems throughout the semester as well as reflect on collections of poems, individual poems, videos, and more. There will be space for generative writing at times, too. At the end of the course, we will workshop groups of your poems as a final portfolio to get a more holistic sense of your poetic and linguistic concerns and tendencies.

ENG 431.01: Feminist Theory and Women Writers
CRN: 10100
TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Feather

This course will examine how feminist theory can inform our reading of fantasy worlds. By blending both formative texts of feminist theory and newer theorists, we will interrogate how creators in various media (prose, film, art, videogames) use fantasy worlds to pose alternatives and interrogate current structures. How can these theories enrich our understanding of fantasy worlds and vice versa? How do these two modes of thinking shape our shared reality? Final projects will include both analytical and creative options.

ENG 432.01/632.01: Literary Editing practicum with a focus on The Greensboro Review
CRN 10101/10102
TR 11-12:45
Instructor: Jessie Van Rheenen

English 432 is a literary editing practicum with a focus on The Greensboro Review (GR), UNCG’s own international literary magazine. The GR, in print since 1965, has published risk-taking poetry and fiction for nearly 60 years. This practicum offers hands-on experience as part of the journal staff, emphasizing production, publicity, and editing (reading and evaluating submissions, fact-checking, editorial correspondence, proofreading). We’ll explore the duties and skills of a literary editor, among other essential jobs within print media. Together, we will produce a new issue of the magazine, plus select online features at greensbororeview.org. The work in this course will be directly related to the work necessary to publish the magazine each semester—so expect to see the effects of your coursework rippling out into the wider world!