Literary Theory

LIT 3213.001｜MacDonald｜Req.｜Second Half｜Distance｜Online Live Lecture｜M/W 6:30pm-9:40pm

Intro to Literary Studies

ENG 3822.002｜Taylor｜Req.｜First Half｜Distance｜Fully Online

This course explores literature from the African diaspora; we read texts from Nigeria, Kenya, Haiti, and the U.S. (among other countries). A range of questions will guide our discussion including: What constitutes the African diaspora? What is the relationship between diaspora and nation? What are the connections between the African diasporas in the construction of a black identity? Upon completion of this course, students should be able to: understand what constitutes literature of the African diaspora while recognizing the challenges in studying the African diaspora, understand the impact of the legacies of slavery and colonialism on the African diasporic community, pinpoint “Africanisms” in the literary expressions of African diasporic writers, and engage in comparative literary analysis.

 

This course focuses on writers who have written about Florida, from the Everglades to the scrub brush to the Keys to south Florida’s Latinx culture. Along with learning about these writer’s lives and reading their work, we will consider the ways they refract culture in the state through the lens of gender, paying close attention to their stylistic approaches and the major themes that drive their respective fictional visions. Writers will include Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, and Karen Russell.

 

The aim of this course is to explore representations of adolescence, in literary texts classified as “YA” and texts that take up adolescence as theme. Participants will assess texts (drawn primarily from Black and Latinx cultural contexts) to examine conditions of adolescence and their effects. We will uncover how adolescence intertwines with matters of friendship, sexuality, and violence, as well as ways in which it involves processes of nation, including immigration and assimilation. We will also interrogate renderings of young adulthood as innocent, ignorant, even disposable. Other questions orienting this course include: How is adolescence evoked by the body? How do devices, such as flashback, mediate adolescent longings? How do religion and education regulate adolescent self-expression? In what ways does class privilege inform naiveté? In what respects do gender and race influence one’s upbringing? How might those circumstances be reimagined to alternate ends?

 

This course explores how contemporary literature engages the ecological crises of our time, including climate change, pollution, resource depletion, environmental injustice, and the global systems that shape them. Through short fiction, novels, and critical theory, students will examine how writers imagine environmental futures, narrate planetary catastrophe, and rethink the relationship between humans, technology, labor, and the nonhuman world.

 

This course surveys American literature from the Pre-Colonial period to the Civil War. Throughout the course, we examine literature from early America to better understand American literary and cultural legacies. Our readings will begin with early accounts of European arrival in the New World and will end with fiction and poetry written before and during the years of the American Civil War. In between, we’ll sample the rich and extensive multinational, multilingual, and multicultural American literature, considering how that literature imagines America.

 

References and stories of King Arthur and his court have existed since around 500 CE with Gildas’s Latin The Ruin of Britain and then references to an “Arthur” figure in the early 7th-century Welsh Y Gododdin with more fully developed stories having been part of Welsh oral culture as early as 1000 CE. Welsh bards carried their stories beyond the borders of Wales, bringing Arthuriana to England, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Italy (by way of Hebrew!) and more! Join the class for a quick tour of such tales!

 

max of 2 courses (6 credits) can be in lower division for the entire major

The writer Toni Morrison once said, “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.” And, similarly, the poet Ezra Pound said, “Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” The best kind of creative writing—poem, story, essay—comes when we can find fresh and unexpected ways to present language. Stories and poems are only as strong and fresh as the language they contain, and only through strength and originality of language we can achieve depth in our writing. In this course we will approach creative writing in several ways: Through exercises designed to help you find new approaches to writing prose and poetry; By reading and discussing works of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry; By spending significant time on writing as well as on the revision process; By developing your critical eye and ear as you read and critique each other’s work.

Professional & Technical Writing Certificate

Professional & Technical Writing Certificate

Professional writing is a vital skill for college students inside and outside of academics. This course will prepare students to write for professional settings with a heavy emphasis on practical application of skills, such as networking, writing, and collaborative assessment (peer review). Students will gain knowledge about their own professional goals and those of their peers.

TBA

Building on writing experiences in previous writing classes, such as College Composition I & II, in this course, student will develop writing skills needed in the workplace. After targeting an audience, students will complete an array of assignments: memos, instructions, proposals, formal analytical reports, etc. Students will learn how to format pages, incorporate visuals into their writing, and present reports based on business writing standards.

Professional Writing

ENC 3213.004｜Frost｜Cat 3｜First Half｜Boca Raton｜In-Person｜T/R 9:45am-12:55pm