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English 1A: Composition I: See MySJSU for selection of sections.

English 1B: Composition II: See MySJSU for selection of Sections.

English 7: Critical Thinking

Nature and meaning of critical thought, Western and non-Western. Relationship between logic and language. Examination of contrasting arguments on related subjects as a means for developing skill in analysis of prose. No credit in the English major.G.E. Area A3.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1A.

MW 1030-1145: Lore
MW 1330-1445: Lore
TR 0900-1015: Mesher
TR 1200-1315: Strachan

English 10: Great Works of Literature

Emphasis on critical appreciation of fiction, drama, and poetry and various literary forms. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.

TR 1500-1615: Miller

English 22: Fantasy and Science Fiction

Students will examine works of literary fantasy and science fiction to understand them as expressions of human intellect and imagination; to comprehend their historical and cultural contexts; and to recognize their diverse cultural traditions. Both contemporary and historical works will be studied. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.

TR 0900-1015: Coughlan
TR 1030-1145: Eastwood

English 56A: Survey of British Literature to 1800

This course is a survey of British Literature from its earliest works through the eighteenth century. The goals of the course are to help students to gain an overview of the major literary periods, genres, authors, and works of English literature. We will discuss these texts from a variety of perspectives, including the dynamic relationship between heroes and villains throughout early English history, considering what these representations reveal about the various societies that produced them.

MW 1330-1445: Baer
TR 1330-1445: Mesher

English 68A: American Literature to 1865

A survey of major and significant texts, movements, and writers exemplifying the literature of the United States of America, covering the period from the Columbian contact to around the end of the Civil War. 

MW 1030-1145: Engell
TR 1030-1145: English

English 68B: American Literature from 1865

Survey of American literature, Emily Dickinson to the present.

TR 1030-1145: Karim

English 71: Introduction to Creative Writing

Writing in various literary genres; emphasis on eliciting and developing talent in various kinds of creative writing. English major elective that also satisfies G.E. Area C 2.

MW 0900-1015: Evans
MW 1030-1145: Taylor
MW 1200-1315: Harrison
TR 0900-1015: Karim
TR 1030-1145: Maio
TR 1330-1445: Miller
M 1330-1615: Mcleod
T 1630-1915: Levy
F 0930-1215: James

English 78: Introduction to Shakespeare

What made Shakespeare great in his own time? What makes Shakespeare meaningful today? This course offers an introduction to Shakespeare by giving us a chance to read plays from each of the genres, learning the features of each kind of play and appreciating what made them successful with Elizabethan audiences and continues to make them compelling in our global economy. We’ll laugh with Beatrice and Benedick, stand in horror of Macbeth, and weep with Lear. A fun, whirlwind tour through some of Shakespeare’s best work. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.

MW 1200-1315: Baer

English 100W: Writing Workshop

English 100W is an integrated writing and literature course designed to provide English majors with a firm foundation for the professional study of literature. Over the course of the semester, students will engage in all phases of those reading, thinking, researching, and writing processes that produce clear and purposeful critical essays that demonstrate an understanding of and illuminate for others how literature contains and conveys its effects and meanings. Approximately one half of the semester will be spent on the study of poetry. Prerequisite: Passing score on WST.

MW 1200-1315: Chow
TR 0900-1015: Dowdys
TR 1330-1445: Rice
W 1800-2045: Wilson

English 100WB: Writing Workshop

English 100WB is a participatory upper–division core course in which students will develop advanced proficiency in college-level writing. While reinforcing and advancing the students’ understanding of the genres, audiences, and purposes of college writing developed in Written Communication 1A and 1B, English 100WB broadens and deepens those abilities to include mastery of the discourse specific to business communications. With an emphasis on critical thinking through scenario-based assignments that utilize both practical and theoretical aspects of organizational communication, English 100WB provides students with opportunities to practice both the oral and the written skills necessary for successful business communications.

MW 1200-1315: Sparks
MW 1500-1615: Poindexter
TR 0900-1015: Lindelof
TR 1200-1315: Lindelof
M 1800-2045: Hessler
T 1630-1915: Mujal
T 1800-2045: Hessler
W 1800-2045: Hessler
R 1800-2045: Hessler

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism

Students will be exposed to important critical concepts as well as various historical and contemporary approaches to literature, such as formalism, structuralism, cultural studies, new historicism, post-structuralism, Marxism, post-colonialism, feminism, etc. Students will learn to apply these approaches to works of literature through various assignments, including presentations, short essays, and a research paper. Prerequisite: English 100W

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism
Do you see hidden meanings in literary texts? Billboards? Movies? Advertisements? Can you come up with 3 variant meanings for Ezra Pound’s poem, “In a Station of the Metro”? There are many possible readings of all literary and visual texts. Even your own identity governs your interpretation of the material. What kind of critic are you? For this course, we will discover and apply critical models to various literary, visual, and digital texts. Critical models will include foundational twentieth-century theory as well as contemporary approaches to literature (feminism, Queer theory, Marxism, post-colonialism, and more). Though we will apply these critical models to texts across several historical periods and literary genres, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will be our ur-text. Prerequisite: English 100W

TR 1030-1145: Professor Harris

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism

Study of various historical and contemporary approaches to literature, such as New Criticism, Structuralism, Cultural Studies, New Historicism, Post-structuralism, Marxism, Feminism, Post-colonialism, etc. An emphasis will be placed on learning to apply these different methods of interpretation through a workshop format. Prerequisite: English 100W

MW 0900-1015: Krishnaswamy
MW 1330-1445: Krishnaswamy

English 103: Modern English Grammar

A survey of the growth and structure of modern English, including its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Attention to social and regional varieties, with implications for language development and literacy among native and non-native speakers.

MW 0900-1015: Baer
TR 1500-1615: Rice

English 106: Editing for Writers

Copy editing, substantive editing, and document design. Review of grammar and punctuation to ensure technical mastery and ability to justify editing decision. Prerequisites: English 1A and 1B.

MW 1500-1516: Lore

English 107: Professional Technical Writing

Research methods, audience analysis and development of reader-based techniques. Writing based on models from scientific and technical discourse. Prerequisites: English 1A and 1B. Note: offered only in Spring

^{F 1000-1245: Professor Harrison}

English 112A: Children’s Literature

Study of literature for elementary and intermediate grades, representing a variety of cultures. Evaluation and selection of texts.

MW 1200-1315: Krishnaswamy
TR 0730-0845: Jacoby
R 1630-1915: Hager
W 1630-1915: Brownes

English 112B: Literature for Young Adults
The goal of this course is to acquaint students with as many YA books and authors as possible; we will read six novels as a class: After the First Death, Speak, Whale Talk, Witness, Prisoner of Azkaban, and First Crossing (a collection of short stories). The texts for the class, Literature for Today’s Young Adults and Adolescents in the Search for Meaning: Tapping the Powerful Resource of Story, introduce YA literature from several genres and provide author resources. Book Talks and a unit plan or annotated bibliography project are two other course requirements that will further students’ knowledge of the expansive range of YA Literature.

W 1630-1915: Professor Browne

English 115: The Bible as Literature

In this course we study the Bible from the perspective of literature, reading extensively from this signature work of Western Civilization.We examine key portions of the Bible, exploring its array of subjects, themes, literary styles and genres, and its vast influence on much of Western Literature. Students will write three essays—two connected to TANAK (or the Old Testament) and one related to the Christian Foundational Writings (or the New Testament). In addition to these essays, there will be a midterm, final exam, and weekly Sustained Silent Writing. No “respectable” English major should graduate without familiarity with the Bible!

MW 1500-1615: Professor Warner

English 117: Film, Literature, and Culture

An exploration and comparison of narrative in world literature and film, the class will focus on texts that “create and define cultural identity, explore cultural interaction, and illustrate cultural preservation and cultural difference over time.” English major elective and single-subject credential requirement that also satisfies upper-division G.E. area V.

M 1630-1915: Shillinglaw
TBA : Fleck

English 123A: Literature for Global Understanding: The Americas

Course promotes global understanding by examining the cultures and literary arts of a selected region of the world, the Americas, and covers representative texts and authors from Latin America and the Caribbean/West Indies. Prerequisite: Completion of core GE, satisfaction of Writing Skills Test and upper division standing. For students who begin continuous enrollment at a CCC or a CSU in Fall 2005 or later, completion of, or corequisite in a 100W course is required.General Education Area V

TR 1030-1445: Karim

English 125A: European Literature, Homer to Dante

Study of European literature from Homer to Dante. Two critical essays, midterm and a final.

TR 1500-1625: Mesher

English 126: Holocaust Literature

Survey of literature written by survivors or witnesses of the Holocaust, the destruction of European Jewry during World War II, focusing upon diaries, memoirs, fiction, and occasionally poetry and drama. Writers may include Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Anne Frank, Charlotte Delbo. Prerequisite: Upper division standing

English 129: Introduction to Career Writing

This course provides an introduction to writing as a profession. Students will practice a variety of written genres for a variety of purposes and audiences. Students will also plan, write, and publish two newsletters.

R 1800-2045: Miller

English 130-1: Writing Fiction

A workshop for students with experience writing fiction. Each participant will submit two new short stories for consideration by the class and a substantial revision in lieu of a final exam. Other requirements include assigned readings of published stories and thoughtful criticism of classmates’ work. Course may be repeated once for credit. Prerequisite: English 71 or instructor permission.

MW 1200-1315: Taylor

English 130-2: Writing Fiction

Workshop in short stories or other short fiction. Beginning the novel in individual cases. 3 units English 131. Writing Poetry. Workshop in verse forms. Study of traditional and contemporary models.
Course may be repeated once for credit.
Prerequisite: English 71 or instructor permission.

W 1630-1915: Evans

English 131: Writing Poetry

This upper-division course will emphasize the metrical and formal techniques of lyric poetry, particularly the Greek ascending meters and the Italian and French rhyming forms such as the sonnet, villanelle, terza rima, ottava rima, etc.—although the brief narrative modes will be treated as well, including the ballad form, the sestina, and blank verse. Students will have the opportunity to write well structured vers libre also. Graduate students will do extra work, including the writing and presentation of a paper on the craft of a major modern poet. Prerequisites: English 71 or English 132, graduate standing, or instructor consent. May be repeated once for credit.

TR 1200-1315: Professor Maio

English 133: Reed Magazine

Established in the 1920s, Reed is one of the oldest student-edited literary magazines west of the Mississippi. In this course we will cover all aspects of the editorial process, from solicitation and selection of material to production and distribution. This year we will also examine the trend toward web publishing of literary journals and the establishment of online literary communities. Open to all majors. May be repeated once for credit.

M 1630-1915: Professor Taylor

English 135: Writing Nonfiction

Advanced writing workshop in creative nonfiction. In this class we will experiment with four subgenres of nonfiction: the personal essay, travel writing, profile, and feature article. Prerequisite: One of the following: English 71, 100W, 105, 129, or instructor consent. Repeatable once for credit.

T 1800-2045: Professor Miller

English 141: Medieval English Literature.

Middle English and continental literature, including such forms as the lyric, allegory, narrative, romance, and biblically based drama.

MW 1030-1145: Cox

English 144. Shakespeare I: Shakespeare, Early and Late.

What do Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night have in common? And why is one so much more beloved than the other? “Shakespeare, Early and Late” will explore examples of the great playwright’s early efforts, later high points, and final complications of genre. We’ll get a chance to see a great mind at work, improving on earlier efforts—such as Comedy of Errors—to hit a stride in masterpieces—like Twelfth Night. We’ll read several comedies, histories, and tragedies, giving us a chance to enjoy some of the classics we’ve come to love and some works we might not know as well..

TBA: Professor Fleck

English 144: Shakespeare I

Major plays such as Twelfth Night, Henry IV, Part I and Hamlet. Prerequisite: Upper division standing.

MW 1030-1145: Cox
TR 0900-1015: Eastwood

English 145: Shakespeare in Performance*

In this course, we will examine in-depth several of Shakespeare’s plays, specifically addressing issues of performance and interpretation. Placing each play in the context of its original performance during Shakespeare’s time, and its life on stage and screen in the ensuing centuries, encourages an engagement with the ways in which re-imagining Shakespeare’s works helps them retain their vitality and cultural relevance. Paying particular attention to modern productions, we will analyze the ways in which production elements such as setting, casting, staging, costumes, editing, and individual performances shape and create meaning (or fail to do so) for the audiences of today. Placing these plays within this context of performance will raise larger issues about the complex relationships between the Shakespearean canon and its ever changing audiences. Students will respond to each play through both writing and oral interpretation, integrating speech and dramatic performance with an understanding of the complexities of plot, characterization, and dramatic form. *Required for the English Single-Subject Credential. Note: offered only in Spring

TR 1200-1315: Eastwood

English 148. British Literature 1660-1800.

_{^{Lord Byron Major writers including Dryden, Behn, Swift, Pope, and Johnson. Repeatable for credit with instructor approval.}}

TR 1030-1145: Brada

English 151: Twentieth-Century Poetry

In this course we will read selected works by a diverse group of Modern poets. We will investigate the work of several poets in depth rather than conduct a shallow survey of the entire field. The poets we will study have influenced all the work written since their time, or whose work introduced something new into the canon of Modern and Contemporary poetry. Included on the reading list are: W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Robinson Jeffers, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and James Wright. Students are urged to read as widely as possible, beyond the poets and on the required reading list. The class will be conducted in both a lecture/discussion and a seminar format.We will use Smartboard technology and various sites on the World Wide Web as well as other electronic materials to enhance students’ understanding of these poets and their works. The class is open to undergraduate and graduate students. All undergraduate students will give two individual seminar presentations, based on papers two 2,000 word papers that students will write for the class. There will be a take-home mid-term and take-home final exam. This class is particularly recommend for students interested in Creative Writing. 

MW 1200-1315: Professor Soldofsky

English 153B. Nineteenth-Century British Novel.

_{^{Study of the novel through the modern period. Novelists may include Shelley, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot, Hardy, and Conrad.}}

TR 1200-1315: Harris

English 154. British & Irish Fiction Since 1900.

^{_{Study of British and Irish fiction since 1900. Authors may include Conrad, Forster, Ford, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Lessing, Greene, Fowles, Ishiguro, Byatt, Doyle, O'Brien.}}

T 1800-2045: Wilson

English 162. American Literature 1830-1865.

Writers may include Emerson, Douglass, Fuller, Hawthorne, Stowe, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman.

MW 0900-1015: English

English 165. African-American Literature.

Writers might include Douglass, Toomer, Wright, Brooks, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, and Morrison.

TR 0900-1015: Brada

English 169: Ethnicity in American Literature

This course concentrates on the study of ethnicity as represented and constructed in American literature in relation to the formation of the concept of self, the place of self in society, and issues of equality and structured inequality in the United States; issues to be addressed include race, culture, history, politics, economics, etc., that arise as contexts relevant to the study of literature by and/or about Americans (including immigrants) with Indigenous, African, European, Latino(a)/Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. English major elective that also satisfies upper-division G.E. area S.

MW 0900-1015: Chow

English 174: Literature, Self, and Society

This discussion course invites readers who like to write (and vice versa). Readings will be drawn from interesting, well written contemporary American literature, presenting multiple perspectives on significant subjects and events or contemplating the world through prisms of race, religion, class, geography, history, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Importantly, none will be “about” any of those things in any single-minded or polemical way: they will be “about” what it means to be alive in the world. G.E. Area S

TR 1330-1445: Cullen
TBA: Fleck

English 177: Twentieth-Century Fiction

Novels and short stories as works of art and as expressions of intellectual and social movements.

MW 1330-1445: Chow

English 181: Topics in Women’s Literary History  

This seminar will focus on key issues in women’s literary history, with a special emphasis on the complex relationship between feminism and modernism.  We’ll begin with an historical overview of the problem of women’s creative authority in a male-dominated literary tradition and then go on to examine such crucial genres as feminist polemic (in works by writers from Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft to Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker) and female gothic (from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre to its twentieth-century “prequel,” Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea).  With these investigations as background, we’ll consider the aesthetic implications of the suffrage movement, the accelerated entrance of women into the public world, the rise of a modernism shaped by feminism ( and the ensuing battle[s] of the sexes) and finally the contemporary evolution of  richly diverse global traditions inflected by differing racial and ethnic identities as well as varying sexual orientations.  
 
In considering this range of topics,  we'll study the writings of women novelists and poets from (in addition to those mentioned above) Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Willa Cather and Katherine Mansfield to Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath, Ursula K. Le Guin, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and Caryl Churchill, along with a number of others. Our primary text will be the two-volume third edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English but we’ll supplement its offerings with three novels–Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye–along with optional readings in Feminist Literary Criticism and Theory: A Norton Reader.
            
W 1330-1615: Gilbert

Requirements: two one-page “position papers” to open discussions, a take-home midterm, and a final research paper.
 
Texts:
 
Required:
 
Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar, eds., The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English(3d edition; 2 volumes).
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye.
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea.
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.
 
Optional:
 
Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar, eds., Feminist Literary Criticism and Theory: A Norton Reader.

English 184Y: Student Teaching II

TBA: Dummy
TBA: Burchard
TBA: Hamor
TBA: Morella
TBA: Chase

English 184Z: Student Teaching III

TBA: Dummy
TBA: Burchard
TBA: Hamor
TBA: Morella
TBa: TBA

English 193: Capstone Seminar in Literature and Self-Reflection

As the Capstone Course for English majors, this course allows students to assess and demonstrate how well they have met the department Learning Goals. Students will compile a Portfolio of written work from at least fiveother courses completed in the major; significantly revise one of those Portfolio selections; write an introduction to the Portfolio that comments on its contents; read and respond regularly to assigned texts; and write aresearch-informed critical paper. Readingswill include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. A capstone seminar that focuses on the representations of the self from nineteenth-century realism to postmodern fiction. Two critical essays, one seminar project, and one class presentation.

MW 1030-1145: Shillinglaw
W 1900-2145: Professor Wilson
TR 0900-1015: Heisch

English 199: Writing Internship and Seminar

Earn three units of elective credit by completing an on- or off-campus writing or editing internship. Units do not count toward the English major, but they do count toward graduation. Contact Professor Cox for specifics.

TBA: Cox
TBA: Cox
TBA: Fleck

English 202: Poetic Craft and Theory

M 1900-2145: Soldofsky
R 1900-2145: Brada
M 1600-1845: Krishnaswamy

English 211: Seminar in Twenthieth Century

R 1600-1845: Maio

English 226: Seminar in Tragedy

T 1900-2145: Cox

English 233: Seminar in Vicotrian Period

M 1600-1845: Wilson

English 240: Poetry Writing Workshop

T 1600-1845: Gilbert

English 241: Fiction Writing Workshop

W 1600-1845: Taylor

English 253: Seminar Period Studies American Literature

W 1900-2145: Shillinglaw

English 254: Seminar in Genre Studies

R 1900-2145: Douglass

English 257: Seminar in History of Rhetoric

W 1600-1845: Gabor

English 298: Special Study

TBA: Cox
TBA: Cox
TBA: Cox

English 299: Master's Thesis

TBA: Cox
TBA: Cox
TBA: Cox

English 353: Methods of Teaching

R 1600-1845: Haliford

T 1630-1915: Lovell