In this introduction to literary studies course, we will be reading poetry and fiction that will be considered in 3 modules: Contemplative Existential Fiction, Meditational and Metaphysical Poetry, and Autobiographical and Confessional Fiction. The course will emphasize issues of genre, reader-response, alternative worldviews, existential awareness, imaginative sympathy, and the relationship of lived experience to artistic expression. The coursework will consist of weekly short-answer quizzes and 3 assigned essays. The course will be taught via zoom online. The lecture-discussions also will be recorded and it is possible to take the course entirely as an asynchronous course without penalty, although bonus points will be available to those who attend and take the quizzes in real time.

Catalog Course Description: Introduces various schools of critical and literary theory to bear upon the interpretation of literary texts, such as new criticism, psychoanalysis, myth studies, poststructuralism, phenomenology, feminism, postcolonialism, Marxism and more.

Catalog Course Description: Introduces various schools of critical and literary theory to bear upon the interpretation of literary texts, such as new criticism, psychoanalysis, myth studies, poststructuralism, phenomenology, feminism, postcolonialism, Marxism and more.

This course is a gateway course for English majors; it “prepares students to enter the field of literary studies by introducing three genres and key literary concepts . . . and will emphasize close textual analysis and basic research skills.” The three genres for this course are creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. We will also be looking at a few key literary theories, including Historical and New Criticism, Marxism, Feminism, Post-Colonial and Multicultural Criticism. In sum, you will learn crucial critical terms, explore various critical/theoretical approaches, become familiar with research techniques, and apply these skills toward the close-reading of primary literary material across three genres.

In this course, we will be reading works of world literature in translation that will be considered in 3 modules: Existence and Transcendence, Perspective and Change, and Love and Obsession. We will be reading works translated from Sanskrit, Russian, German, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, and Polish. The focus in the course will be on alternative world views and the ethical challenges and existential opportunities offered by them. Coursework will consist of 3 assigned essays and weekly simple-answer quizzes. The course will be taught via zoom online. The lecture-discussions also will be recorded and it is possible to take the course entirely as an asynchronous course without penalty, although bonus points will be available to those who attend and take the quizzes in real time.

The course examines both contemporary canonical and less canonical women writers and the ways women are portrayed in twentieth and twenty-first century literature. How does women’s literature represent the diverse experiences of those who identify as women and/or challenge conventional notions of gender and sexuality? We will explore how women writers think about gender roles, address various forms of oppression, and confront social and political issues. The course readings (short stories, novels, one graphic novel) are authored by women writers with different social, racial, and geographic roots and thus we will pay close attention to how women’s writing is conditioned by race, class, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and sexuality.

This honors course will highlight Black fantasy worldbuilding. Attending to questions of genre and intertextual influence, the course will address the role and roots/routes of fantasy centering on Black characters and contexts and the ways these contexts both carry and contest the European fantastic as it developed in the 20th century from forebears in the neo-folk tales of MacDonald and the bucolic anti-Modernisms of Dunsany, Tolkien, and others. Authors include Samuel Delany, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, Octavia Butler and Kai Ashante Wilson.

African-American Lit to 1895

AML 4604.001｜R. Fox｜Cat 1｜Boca Raton｜In-Person｜W/F 11:00am–12:20pm

American-Indian Literature

AML 4640.001｜D. Medina｜Cat 1｜Boca Raton｜In-Person｜T/R 2:00pm–3:20pm

Asian Literature in English

LIT 4832.001｜TBA｜Cat 1｜Boca Raton｜In-Person｜T/R 9:30am–10:50am

This course will take a close look at the premodern English language and literature from approximately 750 until 1500. We will learn the basics of the Old English and Middle English languages before delving into the prose and poetry that spanned nearly a millennium - and that still inspires our pop culture today. In addition to reading riddles and fantastical descriptions of the "East," romances and religious texts, we will supplement this reading with a classical Arabic travel narrative, Anglo-French werewolf story, and much more!

In this course, we will be reading 6 modern poets considered in three modules: Imagining Alternative Paradigms of Reality, Making Oneself A(t) Home in the World, and Exploring the Emotional Self. The coursework will consist of weekly short-answer quizzes and 3 assigned essays. The course will be taught via zoom online. The lecture-discussions also will be recorded and it is possible to take the course entirely as an asynchronous course without penalty, although bonus points will be available to those who attend and take the quizzes in real time.

This course is designed to introduce you to the various—while often interconnected—authors and works that define the broad period of American literature from its earliest beginnings to the US Civil War. While we will pay close attention to the aesthetic or “literary” elements in these works, we will also pay close attention to the inextricable connections between these aesthetic features and the historical, cultural, and political upheavals of these tumultuous early years of our Republic. As such, the course will engage with various competing notions of what it means to be an American and will bear upon some of our ongoing debates over such matters. Your historical research assignment and two short thesis-driven papers will offer the opportunity to engage with these synergies.

Catalog Course Description: Overview of selected texts relevant to the emergence and definition of 20th-century American literary movements, such as modernism and postmodernism. Writers will be studied in social and historical contexts and may include James, Cather, Eliot, Faulkner, O'Connor, Bellow, Morrison and Nabokov.

Catalog Course Description: Required for honors students but open to those interested in more advanced literary study. Allows students to synthesize literary knowledge and critical skills gained in the English major. More intensive and interactive than the Department's other courses and organized in ways that anticipate graduate-level courses. Topics of the seminar change from year to year. Offered once a year in the fall.

This course surveys American literature from the 1600 to 1800. Readings begin with Native American narratives and Indigenous accounts of European arrival in the New World and end with American fiction and poetry written near the of end of the 18th century. In between, we’ll sample the rich and extensive multinational, multilingual, and multicultural American literature, considering how that literature imagines America—whether as home or as foreign territory, as indigenous, colonial, national, or imperial space. We will aim to read selected literary texts closely and carefully, and work toward understanding those texts within their historical and cultural contexts.

This survey attempts the impossible feat of covering British literature from its beginnings to roughly 1798, a span of well over one thousand years. The course will acquaint you with several major authors of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and after; begin to give you a sense of the radical changes taking place in the English language itself; and to provide historical perspective on the texts that have most shaped our collective literary and linguistic heritage as speakers of that language. Readings include examples of Old English poetry including J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved Beowulf; a medieval Arthurian romance; an Elizabethan play; and a sampling of the works of Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, and many more. We will also do our best to recover the voices of women and otherwise marginalized authors of this time, and to this end we will even watch Sally Potter’s 1992 film Orlando, a postmodern love letter to early “Brit Lit” that does not hesitate to critique it.

Catalog Course Description: Representative plays.

In this course we’ll explore the genre of science fiction as well as the field of science fiction studies. We’ll focus our studies on a breadth of Anglophone science fiction and pay particular attention to the way contemporary authors are reshaping how we view the sf genre. Our course readings will primarily be short stories, though we will also read 2-3 novels.

This is an introductory course on the writing of literary short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry.

This creative writing workshop will assist students in creating fiction for middle grade and teenage readers. Class will include studying published work and giving peer responses to fellow students' work.

Catalog Course Description: Examines the theory and practice of rhetoric with special attention to contemporary developments in rhetoric and their applicability to writing.

Using elaborate tree diagramming and Chomskyan linguistic theory, the course will teach students to describe the structure of Modern English sentences. The textbook is Max Morenberg’s Doing Grammar.

Catalog Course Description: Guidance and criticism for beginners in writing prose fiction and poetry.

This course will provide a combination of theoretical background and practical, hands-on experience in the field of literary editing and publishing. Students will work together to produce Coastlines, the undergraduate literary journal of Florida Atlantic University. Duties involved in the production of the magazine include soliciting and evaluating submissions, editing, proofreading, marketing, publicity, research, fundraising, web design, public relations, and more. NOTE: While this is a one-semester course, working on Coastlines is a full-year commitment. When you are deciding how you want to be involved in the magazine, please keep this in mind.

Catalog Course Description: Guidance and criticism for beginners in writing prose fiction and poetry.

Catalog Course Description: Concentrates on essentials of the short story form through emulations of varied modern authorial styles. Point of view, narrative form, voice, creating characters, tone and atmosphere are some of the topics covered. Students write several stories, revise and critique. Reading consists of single-author collections and anthology selections. Course may be repeated for credit once.

Catalog Course Description: Application of creative techniques to non-fiction subjects in essay and autobiographical writing. Includes study of works by master non-fiction writers and themes in non-fiction literature. Course may be repeated for credit once.

Catalog Course Description: Prepares the student to write professionally for audiences within and outside a corporation or nonprofit enterprise. Proofreading skills stressed.

Catalog Course Description: A study of rhetorical techniques, including principles of classical rhetoric.