Spring 2027 Courses Revealed!
Spring 2027 Course Descriptions
ENG
7100 Trans Literature, 1609-1993
Dr. Travis Foster
ENG 7150 Fictions
of Motherhood
Dr. Jean Lutes
ENG
9100 Indigenous Lit is American Lit
Dr. Kimberly Takahata
GWS
8000 Critical Perspectives on
Gender
Dr. Lau Sández
ENG 7100: Trans Literature, 1609-1993
Dr. Travis Foster
CRN 32219
Monday
from 5:20 pm to 07:20 pm in Driscoll Hall 227
This course traces how transness has been recognized and contained across four centuries of Anglo-American literary history, from earlier categories of gender variance through the rise and fall of the invert and the emergence of transsexuality as a distinct identity category. Reading Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 20,” Henry Fielding’s The Female Husband, short stories by writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, among others, we will ask what forms of trans life different historical moments made possible and how anti-transphobic approaches to the literature of the past might influence our understanding of transness in the present.
ENG 7150: Fictions of
Motherhood
Dr. Jean Lutes
CRN 32220
Wednesday 5:20-7:20 pm in Driscoll Hall 227
What power do mothers have? Who has the power to define motherhood? You
will examine U.S. narratives of motherhood from the nineteenth century to the
present, with special attention to definitions of reproductive justice, and you
will study how literary representations of human reproduction have reflected
and reframed the evolving scientific and legal definitions of motherhood and
pregnancy. Throughout, we will treat gender as a category best understood in
relation to other key identity factors such as race, ethnicity, class, and
religion. Likely texts include Anne Bradstreet's “The Author to Her Book”
(1678), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1851), Harriet Jacobs’
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), William Faulkner’s As I
Lay Dying (1930), Gwendolyn Brooks’ “the mother” (1945), Adrienne Rich’s Of
Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1973), Emma Heaney’s This
Watery Place: Four Essays on Gestation (2025), and Arundhati Roy’s Mother
Mary Comes to Me (2025).
ENG 9100: Indigenous
Lit is American Lit
Dr. Kimberly Takahata
CRN 32227
Tuesday 5:20-7:20 pm in Tolentine Hall 407
Image credit: https://native-land.ca/maps/native-land
When we view North
America as Native space, what sort of map emerges? When highlighting Indigenous
presence and kinship, what kinds of stories emerge? This course explores
Indigenous writings, theories, and methods from the seventeenth century through
the present day to examine how the Americas have always been Native space.
Reading stories, reports, poetry, speeches, petitions, and letters, we will
explore how these writings emerge out of landscapes of kinship, negotiation,
and extraction. We will simultaneously use these texts to remap the landscapes
of the Americas and disrupt colonial narratives that erase Indigenous presence
and futures. In doing so, this class will reframe conceptions of
"American" literature and answer the ever-urgent question: why does
literary studies matter? Along the way, we will explore secondary readings in
Indigenous and American Studies to further deepen skills of literary analysis,
secondary research, and thoughtful argumentation.
GWS 8000: Critical Perspectives on
Gender
Dr. Lau Sández
CRN 32413
Thursday 5:20-7:20 pm in John Barry Hall 201A
In this course, we will examine feminist theories and
other theories centered on gender subjectivity and performance produced in and
across different disciplines, intellectual and political traditions, and
generations. We will study contemporary socio-political and theoretical
viewpoints on the study of gender in relation to specific histories of class,
race, ethnicity, nation and sexuality in both US-based and global contexts.
Alongside these theoretical readings, we will read select literary and cultural
texts that will help us work through the implications of these concepts and
questions together. Through lectures and group discussions, students will also
reflect on the intellectual and political stakes involved in different modes of
engaging and thinking about gender. Participants in the seminar will
incorporate an analysis of gender into a culminating final project based on
independent research. Key readings include works by Linda Alcoff, Judith
Butler, Patricia Hill Collins, Ana Maurine Lara, Maria Lugones, Eve Sedgwick,
Hortense Spillers, Monique Wittig, and others.
NB: This is a GWS course which counts automatically toward the English MA; it will NOT count against your two allowed ‘courses outside the department’
ENG 9035: Professional Research
Option (PRO)
Dr. Mary Mullen
CRN 32225
This option for second-year graduate students is a three-credit
independent study in which students identify one or a cluster of jobs or
professions in which an advanced degree in literature is of benefit. During the
semester, students will research the career options of interest, identifying
one or two fields as the focus of their work. They must generate a research
paper that explores the history and future prospects of the field of interest,
as well as current information about the requirements of the work, geographical
information about centers of activity for the profession, and desirable
employers. This research should include at least two meetings with professionals
who work in the field. The paper must also analyze how advanced study of
literature serves to enhance the students' desirability in the profession in
question. As part of their final project, students must develop a cover letter
outlining the ways their particular training makes them suitable to work in
this field. Students will make their research available to other students in
the program by uploading part of their final project onto a special section of
the Graduate English Program blog. Potential fields of research include the
following:
E-Book Industry Teaching
Public relations Rare
book broker
Advertising Web
design
College admissions Journalism
University administration Testing
industry
Arts administration Tutoring
industry
Library science Technical
writing
ENG 9800: Internship in Teaching
English
CRN 32228
Graduate students entering their second year (or sometimes their second
semester) have the option to serve as an intern for a graduate faculty member
in an undergraduate English course. Interns will attend all class sessions,
confer at least once with each student on their written work, lead two or three
class sessions under the supervision of the faculty member, and complete a
final project that is either (1) a substantial critical essay concerning the
subject matter of the course or (2) a research project concerning trends and
issues within college-level pedagogy. The aim of the program is to provide
students with teaching and classroom experience. Students may apply to serve as
interns by consulting with a faculty member who is teaching in an area of
interest, and, if the faculty member is amenable, submitting a one-two page
statement, outlining how this course addresses their larger intellectual goals,
and what they hope to accomplish as an intern.
ENG 8090: Thesis Direction
CRN 32221
Direction of writing of the thesis, focused research on a narrowly
defined question, under supervision of an individual instructor.
ENG 8092: Field Examination
CRN 32222
A broader exploration of a theme or area of literature than a thesis.
The examination comprises a comprehensive statement essay and an oral exam
component.
ENG 9031: Independent Study
CRN 32224
A special project pursued under the direction of an individual
professor.
ENG 9080: Thesis Continuation
CRN 32226
ENG 8093:
Field Exam Continuation
CRN 32223