university of utah english creative writing

Department of English

College of humanities, main navigation, about the program.

The undergraduate program in the Department of English is frequently recognized as one of the strongest in the university. The variety of courses and the quality of the faculty create an excellent environment for undergraduate education. Most English courses are taught by full-time faculty, and most have fewer than 40 students. As a result, English majors at the University of Utah receive a level of personal attention not possible at most large public universities. Our faculty members are deeply committed to their students and consistently win teaching awards.

A degree in English prepares you for no particular job because it prepares you for any job. Instead of being given problems to solve, English majors discover them; instead of memorizing narratives, they challenge them; they develop an adaptable creative intelligence, learning to analyze complex systems and understand nuance. English majors become lawyers, doctors, politicians, activists, artists, educators, scholars, journalists, advertisers, entrepreneurs, and CEOs—producers of culture rather than consumers of it.

The kind of versatility trained by English is especially valuable in today’s economy because those with the most successful careers often move between jobs and even fields. At the core of the English major lies the conviction that the analytical agility fostered by rigorous and imaginative thinking constitutes the best preparation for the world that awaits students after graduation.

The Department of English Undergraduate Majors & Minors

English Teaching, BA

English, BS

English, BA

British studies minor, english minor.

English Teaching Minor

Creative Writing Minor

English Teaching, BA

About the english teaching major (ba).

Content coming soon

Degree Requirements

• Scholarship

Required Courses

44-45  TOTAL CREDITS

 View Course REQUIREMENTS

View Sample Course Plan

Graduation Requirements

Minimum Degree Hours

122  TOTAL CREDITS

Minimum Major Hours

44  TOTAL CREDITS

• All courses must be completed with a grade of B- or better

Student Experience

Career opportunities, scholarship opportunities.

View and Apply for ScholarshIps

English, BS

About the english major (bs).

27-30 TOTAL CREDITS

 VIEW COURSE REQUIREMENTS

36  TOTAL CREDITS

• All courses must be completed with a grade of C- or better.
• A maximum of 4 transfer courses may be accepted upon approval of the department.
• A minimum of 18 credit hours at the 5000-level in English are required. 

VIEW AND APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIPS

About the English Major (BA)

36-38  TOTAL CREDITS

About the British Studies Minor

18  TOTAL CREDITS

21  TOTAL CREDITS

• Complete 21 hours at the 3000-level or above with substantial content drawn from British society and culture, including areas of the former British Empire.

Coming soon

About the English Minor

24  TOTAL CREDITS

41  TOTAL CREDITS

English Teaching Minor

Content Coming Soon

65-87  TOTAL CREDITS

29  TOTAL CREDITS

English Creative Writing Minor

• All courses must be completed with a grade of C- or better

Search Utah State University:

Creative writing.

Major (Emphasis)

English majors in the Creative Writing emphasis study and practice the art of writing with award-winning faculty-authors. Through writing workshops, students hone their craft alongside their peers. They study the work of established authors, explore diverse genres, practice scene-building, narrative and character development, lyric voicing, as well as the fundamentals of imagery, metaphor, diction, tone, rhythm, and closure.

Beyond taking innovative courses in the varied genres, students have the opportunity to work on   Sink Hollow , USU’s international undergraduate literary magazine, join the Bull Pen creative writing club, and engage with widely published writers through our May Swenson Writers Series and the Ken Brewer Festival of Writing. These yearly events have included such visiting writers as Rick Barot, Paisley Rekdal, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Snyder, Robert Wrigley, and Meg Day. Through a partnership with Helicon West, a local, ongoing reading and open mic series, students also frequently share their work in the community.

Career Application

Graduates of the Creative Writing emphasis are prepared for careers as writers, editors, publishers, or teachers, or to continue graduate study in creative writing. The skills developed in our courses make graduates competitive applicants for positions as literary consultants, librarians, business administrators, web content creators, public relations and marketing specialists, and copywriters.

Students and graduates have won regional and national awards for their creative work, including The Norman Mailer Prize, The Utah Original Writing Competition prize, and The Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize. They have published essays, poems, and stories with literary magazines like Orion , Bellingham Review , Ninth Letter , The American Scholar , Sugar House Review , Cimarron Review , Mud Season Review , and Brevity , as well as book-length work with Finishing Line , SLAB , Dzanc , and The Cupboard Pamphlet presses. Creative Writing emphasis students have also gone on to attend prestigious MFA and PhD programs.

Program Highlights

Helicon West

This uncensored open-mic is the perfect place to read your poetry and other writing in front of an audience.

Sink Hollow

Gain valuable publishing experience by curating, producing, and marketing USU's undergraduate literary magazine.

Student Opportunity Award

This scholarship supports English majors who are planning to further their educational development and employability through opportunities outside the classroom.

The Bull Pen

Discuss your creative writing with other writers, participate in poetry slams, and flex your creative muscles with other students.

USU Creative Writing Contest

Compete against other writers and artists for an opportunity to be published in a special contest edition of Sink Hollow.

USU Honors Program

Participate in discussion-oriented classes and reading groups while taking advantage of other Honors-specific benefits.

Creative Writing News 

April 19, 2024

Senior Lecturer Shanan Ballam Celebrates Forthcoming Book

Senior Lecturer Shanan Ballam was recently interviewed by both The Herald Journal and KSL, discussing her experiences recovering from a stroke and returning to language and writing. Her forthcoming book, first poems after the stroke, delves into these.

USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Winners

On Thursday April 25th at 7 pm in Logan Library Community Room A, there will be a reading, presented by Helicon West, by the USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Winners

March 29, 2024

The Unquiet Country

On Wednesday, April 3 at 11:30 am in the Merrill-Cazier Library room 101 Patrick Milian will be reading from his book Unquiet Country. Patrick Milian is the author of The Unquiet Country (Entre Ríos Books) and the chapbook Pornographies (Greying Ghost).

Program Advisor

Madeline Thomas

Academic Advisor

+1 435 797 3883 [email protected]

Schedule an exploration appointment

Appointments for majors

Related Programs

• English Teaching
• General English
• Technical Communication and Rhetoric

Suggested Supplements

• Folklore Minor

Scholarships & Financial Aid

• Utah State University offers many options for financial aid, including university level scholarships and aid available to specific colleges and majors. Financial Aid Information

Department of Writing & Rhetoric Studies

College of humanities, main navigation, symposium: student guiding pathways.

Now published in the journal Teaching English in the Two-Year College !

“In this symposium, seven community college transfer students present their perspectives on Guided Pathways curricular reforms. Drawing on published scholarship and policy documents as well as their own lived experiences, they identify positive aspects of the Guided Pathways model as well as shortcomings in its conceptualization and local implementation.”

Read the full piece here

Authors: Professor Christie Toth, Emily Brown, Priscilla Hansen, Laura Burnham, Adriana Zarate, Aloyious Soranno, Trey Sanders, Kathryn Henderson.

Congratulations again to all on this tremendous achievement!

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2024 Faculty and Student Awards

May 15, 2024 English

Congratulations to English faculty and students on their awards and accomplishments!

Faculty awards & fellowships.

Long Faculty Fellowship: Gerard Passannante

Professor Gerard Passannante has been selected as the AY24-25 Long Faculty Fellow. Passannante will use the time afforded by the Long Faculty Fellowship to develop a course that puts imagined museums into dialogue with real institutions, as students consider the museum as a critical performance space, a site of political and social resistance, and a site of cultural imperialism and theft. The class centers experiential learning, which will entail visits to area collections and archives, and conversations with the people who work there, including curators and directors at the Phillips collection, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The course will also introduce students to guests like the author Chloe Aridjis and filmmaker Jem Cohen.

Faculty Service Award: Karen Nelson

Director of the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies Karen Nelson received the Faculty Service Award. The Faculty Service Award seeks to recognize a member of the Department of English faculty who is particularly dedicated to service to the department, leadership, and support of graduate students.

"Karen Nelson is a wonderful member of the our literary community who is tirelessly dedicated to service. She goes above and beyond in her mentorship of graduate students, organizing of departmental events and community, and more. She is instrumental in supporting faculty of all stages in learning about funding and other opportunities."

"Her devotion to the students of the department alongside her willingness to be honest about the state of our world and the attentive detail she pays to everyone and everything makes her deserving of this award year after year."

Kandice Chuh Mentorship Award: David Simon

Professor David Simon received the Kandice Chuh Mentorship Award. Named for former UMD English Professor Kandice Chuh, the Mentorship Award seeks to honor a faculty member for their fostering of community, intellectual generosity, support and commitment to graduate students and their causes.

"David is the embodiment of intellectual generosity. His feedback on graduate papers is evidence of that. He is thoughtful, engages openly with ideas, asks questions and makes suggestions for how you can improve your analysis. His openness spreads to the classroom and individual mentorship meetings. David is dedicated to helping students build generative thoughts, ideas and writing."

"David Simon is a thoughtful and supportive mentor to all graduate students who meet him. He does what many won’t: he thinks with you. As a result of our conversations and feedback on writing, my dissertation is so much stronger and exciting. And maybe most importantly—I enjoy the work more! He is a treasure of the English department!"

Professional Track Faculty Teaching Awards: Aysha Jawed, Alan Montroso and Daune O'Brien

Lecturer Aysha Jawed, Lecturer Alan Montroso and Senior Lecturer Daune O'Brien received the 2024 Teaching Excellence Award, with an honorable mention to Lecturer Liam Daley.

Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Professor Lillian-Yvonne Bertram has received a 2024 Grants to Artists award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The $45,000 awards are unrestricted, and “intended to provide recipients with the financial means to engage in whatever artistic endeavors they wish to pursue.”

Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship: Vessela Valiavitcharska

Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska has received a Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Byzantine Studies for 2024–25.

Teaching Innovation Grant: Marisa Parham

Professor Marisa Parham was awarded a TLTC grant for NarraSpace. $400k will support innovation in digital storytelling and interactive scholarship, with a focus on investigating ways to center BIPOC, queer and transnational perspective through experimental and emergent technologies.

Graduate Student Awards & Highlights

Da Som Lee and Dylan Lewis won the James A. Robinson Awards for outstanding graduate student teaching of undergraduate courses. Lee also received the Mary Savage Snouffer Dissertation Fellowship.

Diana Proenza and Annemarie Mott Ewing won the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award. Proenza also won the English Summer Archival Research Award.

Aaron Bartlett received honorable mention for the Sally Mitchell Prize for North American Victorian Studies Association Best Graduate Student Paper.

Fernando Duran received the Wylie Dissertation Fellowship.

Dalton Greene received the Kwiatek Fellowship.

Charlie Mitchell won the Kinnaird Award (M.A.) and Declan Langton won the Kinnaird Award (Ph.D.)

Jeannette Schollaert won the Carl Bode Dissertation Prize.

Job Placements

Frederick O’Neal Cherry Ph.D. '24 is assistant professor of African American literature at Auburn University.

Alexis Walston Ph.D. '24 is assistant professor of English at Belmont University.

Creative Writing Accomplishments

Current students.

Kimberly O'Connor MFA ’09, judge of the Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize, has chosen “Manic Pixie Dream Sestina” by January Santoso, a first-year MFA student.

Mary Lynn Reed MFA ’13, judge of the Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, has chosen “In the Shape of a Man Whose Feet Face Backwards” by Subraj Singh, a third-year MFA student. Singh's “All That Hunger, All That Thirst” was published in Agni 98. “Ship Sister” was published in the New England Review. Singh is a finalist for the 2024 Chautauqua Janus Prize and was also admitted into the Ph.D. Program in Creative Writing at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Preet Bhela’s poem "Hollows" received an honorable mention in the 2024 Pratt Library Poetry Contest, and will be published in the Little Patuxent Review this summer. Preet will also be reading at the Pratt Library on August 20 along with the two other honorees.

Eliamani Ismail has new publications with Puerto Del Sol, Brittle Paper, and Hooligan Magazine. Ismail was also invited to be a featured reader at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was a BIPOC scholar at this year’s Washington Writers Conference. Eliamani also became a fiction editor at Lampblack Magazine.

Olivia McClure published a poem in Atticus Review.

Tega Oghenechovwen’s "We Can Start This Story” was published in the Kenyon Review.

Annie Przypyszny’s poetry was published in Broad River Review, Atticus Review, the Institutionalized Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, SPANK the CARP, Barnstorm Journal, Cola Literary Review and the Madison Review.

Ava Serra's “Methodology: Inner Child Mercy Massacre” was included in Under Her Eye. “Internal Ultrasound on a PMDD Patient;” “Baby Diner Blood Rent;” “a coward pretends he’s bambi” and “This is Not a Conversation About My Body” was published in Jelly Bucket. “This is Not a Conversation About My Body” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. “Sarah” was published in Salt Hill.

Elizabeth Bryant, Corinne Brinkley and Tega Oghenechovwen have been named 2024 Kimbilio Fellows and will attend The Kimbilio Retreat on the Taos, New Mexico campus of Southern Methodist University in the Carson National Forest this summer. Bryant also received a full scholarship to the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at UMass Amherst and a Douglass Center grant for summer funding.

Tega Oghenechovwen was accepted for the 2024 Tin House Summer Workshop at Reed College.

Emily Banks MFA ’15 has been hired as a tenure-track assistant professor of English and creative writing at Franklin College, where she previously was a visiting assistant professor.

Derek Ellis MFA ’19 completed his first year in the Ph.D. program in creative writing at SUNY Binghamton University.

Book Publications

“Family Lore” by Elizabeth Acevedo MFA ’15, published in August 2023 by Ecco, was a Good Morning America Book Club pick; winner of the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction and shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

“Green Island” by Liz Countryman MFA ’06 is forthcoming in June 2024 from Tupelo Press.

“Velvet” by William Fargason MFA ’14 was published in May 2024 by Northwestern University Press.

“City of Laughter” by Temim Fruchter ’02, MFA ’19 was published in January 2024 by Grove Atlantic.

“The Bomb Cloud” by Tyler Mills MFA ’08 was published in March 2024 by Unbound Edition Press.

“Bitter Water Opera” by Nicolette Polek MFA ’19 was published in April 2024 by Graywolf Press and was a New Yorker Best Book of 2024.

Undergraduate Student Awards

The Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award

Each year, we honor outstanding creative writing minors with the Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award. Henrietta Spiegel was the widow of a UMD faculty member. After her husband’s death, she completed her B.A. in English in 1989 at the age of 85 with a GPA of 3.9. Upon the completion of her degree, she established this award to honor undergraduate work in creative writing judged by the creative writing faculty to be the most outstanding. This year’s Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award for Fiction goes to Allison Faith Choi and the award for Poetry goes to Caleigh Marie Larkin.

The Sandy Mack Award for the Outstanding English Honors Thesis

English Honors is a selective program within the English major, one in which students take intensive writing and research seminars, and develop a lengthy critical thesis or creative workover the course of three semesters. An award is given each year to the student with the most outstanding overall record in English Honors. This award is named for Sandy Mack, the faculty member who developed the English Honors Program and guided it for a decade. This award goes to Bossman Kwaku Owusu-Ayim for “I. The Old Genesis & II. His Grateful Children,” directed by Rion Scott and Emily Mitchell.

The Joseph W. Houppert Memorial Prize

The Joseph W. Houppert Prize was named for Joseph Houppert, a scholar of the English Renaissance and a distinguished member of this department from 1963 until his death in 1979. Professor Houppert was always very concerned with the teaching of undergraduate students and particularly for the teaching of good writing. Consequently, his colleagues established this competition in his memory, with a prize to be awarded annually to the undergraduate who has written the best essay on Shakespeare during the academic year. The Houppert Prize was awarded to Ariel Marie Hammerash for her essay entitled “Apparitions and Agency: The Staging of the Banquet Scene in The Tragedy of Macbeth.”

Sara Ann Soper English Undergraduate Service Award

The Sara Ann Soper English Undergraduate Service Award was established by Shannon Altman, who graduated in 1999 with a double degree in English and Education. While she was an undergraduate, Shannon designed and implemented an undergraduate tutoring service at nearby Eleanor Roosevelt High School. Two years after she graduated, she gave the department a significant gift to endow the Sara Ann Soper English Undergraduate Service Award to honor a graduating senior who has volunteered time, energy, and commitment to community service. Shannon named the award after her mother, as a testimony to her achievements as a role model for others. This year, the recipient of the Sara Ann Soper Award is Julia Janet Pavlick.

The Mike Angel Award

The Mike Angel Award recognizes a student who has faced extreme hardship in completing his or her degree, and has demonstrated distinction, extraordinary merit, and perseverance as an English major. It was established by faculty and students in 1984 to honor the achievements of Mike Angel, a fine student and wonderful human being who overcame great obstacles in order to earn a B.A. in English. This year’s Mike Angel Award goes to Nicholas John Pietrowski.

The Joyce Tayloe Horrell Award

The Joyce Tayloe Horrell Award is the largest award by the department to any student, and was established in 1989 through the generosity of Joseph Horrell in memory of his wife Joyce Tayloe Horrell. Tayloe Horrell was an Honors graduate student, a scholar of the works of the writer Henry James, and a teacher in the English Department from 1960 until 1967. The Horrell Award is conferred annually on the English major who has demonstrated the highest academic achievement overall among the graduating class. It is a pleasure to present this year’s Horrell Award to Abigail Fealy Furman.

Academic Excellence Awards

In every graduating class, certain students stand out for their consistently high performance. Today, we are presenting thirteen Academic Excellence Awards to those students with the most outstanding academic records in their major coursework. Each of these students has received a major GPA of 4.0.

• Isabella Francesca Diaz Baker
• Emma Rose Behrens
• Abigail Fealy Furman
• Shannon Estellyn Ganley
• Chloe Lilah Johnson
• Laura Catherine Kazdoba
• Ananyaa Malhotra
• Rachel Abigail Morris
• Auset Nso Nkem
• Bossman Kwaku Owusu-Ayim
• Cassandra Annalee Rochmis
• Rebecca Shriver Scherr
• Alison Vy Vo

Professional Writing Contest Awards

• Elijah Martin: Alternative Media, "The 'Right To Repair' Smartphones"
• Andy Szekerczes: Grant Proposal, "Young Writers Workshop"
• Elena Rangelov: Campus Proposal, "Improving Meat-Restricted Diet Accommodations in UMD Dining Halls"
• Asma Tariq: Civic Proposal, "Combating Feline Upper Respiratory Infections in Montgomery County Adoption Centers"
• Pearl Tamrakar: Review of Research, "The Impacts of Health Disparities on Minority Health"
• Asongafac Asaha: Artistic Review, "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio: A Retelling of the Real Boy"
• Cody Cochrane: Manual, "How to Build a Desktop Computer"
• Sara Stromberg: Manual, "Terrapin's Turf Server Training Manual"
• Matthew Heinz: Narrative Non-Fiction, "Oh, Deer: An Exploration of White-Tailed Deer Management. Its Impacts in Suburban Maryland"
• Riley Lowther: Bill Analysis, "Collective Bargaining @ UMD Campuses"
• Sage Phillips: Business Proposal, "Carbon Neutral Florida Gypsum Plant"
• Jessica Gorski: Business Proposal, "Expanding La Finca's Online Sales to Brick & Mortar"

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Creative Writing courses:

Requirements

The creative writing program’s goal is to develop the writing skills and encourage the creative talents of undergraduate students. The curriculum for the major and minor includes both traditional literature and beginning and advanced creative writing courses in fiction, poetry, non-fiction, expressive writing, popular genre writing, and script writing. All writing courses include a substantial reading requirement, but with emphasis on craft. The faculty includes regular members of the English Department as well as writers-in-residence from the Northwest. A student interested in the major or minor in English/Creative Writing should speak with the director.

In order to earn the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English/Creative Writing, students must complete a minimum of 180 quarter credits, with a cumulative and a major/program grade point average of 2.00, including the following:

I. Core Curriculum Requirements

Module i: engaging academic inquiry.

• UCOR 1100 - Academic Writing Seminar
• UCOR 1200 - Quantitative Reasoning (or MATH 1010 or above)
• UCOR 1300 - Creative Expression and Interpretation
• UCOR 1400 - Inquiry Seminar in the Humanities
• UCOR 1600 - Inquiry Seminar in the Social Sciences
• UCOR 1800 - Inquiry Seminar in the Natural Sciences (or BIOL 1610/1611, 2200, CHEM 1500/1501, PHYS 1050/1051, 1210/1211)

Module II: Engaging Jesuit Traditions

• UCOR 2100 - Theological Explorations
• UCOR 2500 - Philosophy of the Human Person
• UCOR 2900 - Ethical Reasoning

Module III: Engaging the World

• UCOR 3100 - Religion in a Global Context
• UCOR 3600 - Social Sciences and Global Challenges
• UCOR 3800 - Natural Sciences and Global Challenges

II. College of Arts and Sciences Requirements

• Modern Languages 1150, 1250, 1350, or equivalent (15)

Students earning this major must demonstrate competency through the level of 1350 in a language other than English. This competency is ordinarily achieved by successful completion of the three-course sequence: 1150, 1250, and 1350. Because these courses are a college requirement, no course in the sequence may be taken on a pass/fail, correspondence, or audit basis. Placement into other than the beginning course of the sequence is achieved by acceptable performance on the Modern Language Competency Examination. See the Modern Languages and Cultures Department for details on the examinations. Courses used to satisfy the College of Arts and Sciences modern language requirement may not be used to fulfill major requirements.

Choose one of the following three courses:

• HIST 1200 - Constructing Past and Present I
• HIST 1210 - Constructing Past and Present II
• HIST 2310 - US in the World

III. Major Requirements

60 credits in English, including:

• ENGL 2000 - Literary Studies

Choose three of the following four courses (15):

• ENGL 2010 - Encountering British Literatures
• ENGL 2020 - Encountering American Literatures
• ENGL 2030 - Encountering Intercultural Literatures
• ENGL 2050 - Encountering Creative Writing

Required areas: (15)

Choose a total of fifteen credits of upper-division courses, including:

• Pre-1800 Literature (5)
• 1800-Present Literature (5)
• One of the above courses or additional Pre-1800 or 1800-Present Literature must be CT
• Any one of the above courses or an additional elective must be Intercultural/Intersectional Literature
• One course may satisfy multiple requirements within the 15 credit Required Area requirement.
• Courses which satisfy the CT requirement vary each quarter and will be identified in the schedule of courses.

Choose courses from the following categories (3000-4000 level): (20)

Complete at least one course from Forms and one from Hybrids . The remaining 10 credits may be selected from either category.

Complete at least one course from the following:

• ENGL 3110 - Writing Non-Fiction
• ENGL 3120 - Writing the Personal Narrative
• ENGL 3130 - Writing Fiction: Storytelling Principles
• ENGL 3140 - Writing Fiction: Novels
• ENGL 3150 - Writing Lyric Poetry
• ENGL 3180 - Multimedia Scriptwriting
• ENGL 3190 - Writing Fiction: Hypoxic Short Forms
• ENGL 3111 - Digital Fiction
• ENGL 3121 - Writing Prose: The Long Form
• ENGL 3131 - Podcasting: A Story in Sound
• ENGL 3141 - Queer Experience and Poetic Memoir
• ENGL 3151 - Hybrid/Interdisciplinary Poetry
• ENGL 3161 - Writing Self, Society, Story
• ENGL 3171 - Travel Writing: Near and Far
• One of the above courses must be Intercultural/Intersectional Creative Writing

Senior Synthesis Capstone: (5)

• ENGL 4900 - Senior Synthesis Capstone

Additional Information

Literature (2000-level).

2000-level courses are foundational to the advanced study of literature and creative writing. Students will learn to identify different literary genres and conventions, and to develop close reading skills. In “Encounters” courses students will develop an understanding of English and American literary history and of literatures that reflect on transnational and transcultural differences.

Creative Writing

These courses focus on the craft of imaginative writing in four genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, scripts) and are available to all students, though priority may be given to English and English/Creative Writing majors.

• ENGL 3100 - Writers Workshop Abroad
• THTR 4040 - Playwriting

Literature (3000-level)

3000-level courses build on the skills of close reading developed in 2000-level courses, extend students’ repertoire of interpretive strategies, and teach sound habits of scholarship needed for success in 4000-level courses. 3000-level courses offer a wide range of approaches to literature. Instructors’ teaching strategies and course assignments aim to help students read with sophistication, develop theoretical awareness, and understand disciplinary methods of inquiry and analysis. 3000-level courses are designed for both majors and non-majors. English Majors are advised to complete 3010   , 3011   , 3012   , 3013   , or 3014   before taking a 4000-level literature course.

• ENGL 3010 - Lit to 1500 Context and Theory
• ENGL 3011 - Lit 1500-1800 Context and Theory
• ENGL 3012 - Lit 1800 - Present Context and Theory
• ENGL 3013 - American Literature Context and Theory
• ENGL 3014 - Intercultural/Intersectional Context and Theory
• ENGL 3080 - History of the English Language
• ENGL 3230 - Medieval Marvels
• ENGL 3270 - Arthurian Romance
• ENGL 3450 - Irish Literature
• ENGL 3470 - Modern Drama
• ENGL 3510 - American Novelists
• ENGL 3520 - American Poets
• ENGL 3530 - American Drama
• ENGL 3540 - What is Ethnic American Literature?
• ENGL 3630 - Modern African American Literature
• ENGL 3720 - Literature of India
• ENGL 3730 - African Literature
• ENGL 3820 - Introduction to Film Analysis
• ENGL 3840 - Ecocriticism
• ENGL 3910 - Special Topics
• ENGL 3960 - Directed Study

Writing (3000-level)

3000-level writing courses are designed for writers in any discipline who wish to learn advanced strategies for producing effective prose in a variety of academic, civic, or professional contexts. Prerequisites are UCOR 1100 or equivalent transfer credit, plus junior standing or permission of instructor.

• ENGL 3040 - Advanced Writing: Argument and Persuasion
• ENGL 3090 - Tutoring Writing: Theory and Practice

Literature (4000-level)

Courses with a 4000 number are advanced studies in literature and writing that build on the research writing skills developed in 3000-level courses. 4000-level courses have three goals: first, to help students gain a depth of understanding of a focused series of texts, e.g. on a major theme, by one or two authors, or in a particular genre; second, to help students gain an understanding of various theories and methods of literary criticism, as well as learn to apply them to the central texts of the course; and third, to assist students in the writing of a major scholarly paper or creative portfolio. The literary paper will demonstrate close reading, the raising of a   literary question in relation to debates among the critics, and the pursuit of an extended and persuasive literary argument.

• ENGL 4210 - Medieval Masculinities
• ENGL 4230 - Medieval Sexualities
• ENGL 4310 - Donne and His Critics
• ENGL 4430 - Time Travels
• ENGL 4510 - Indigenous American Literature
• ENGL 4550 - Americans in Paris
• ENGL 4720 - Writing Resistance: Women in Non-Western Cultures
• ENGL 4730 - Postcolonial Literature and Theory
• ENGL 4850 - Major Author Seminar
• ENGL 4910 - Special Topics
• ENGL 4950 - Internship
• ENGL 4960 - Independent Study
• ENGL 4990 - Directed Research

Departmental Honors

• English/Creative Writing with Departmental Honors, BA    

University Honors

• English/Creative Writing and University Honors Program, BA    
• English/Creative Writing with Departmental Honors and University Honors Program, BA