Upcoming Course Offerings

Winner of the Best Novel Hugo award three years running for the Broken Earth trilogy (2016-2018), N. K. Jemisin says she tried short stories just hoping to pay the utility bills. She learned to appreciate the form for itself and for testing the novel’s world building and character development. Jemisin’s stories exemplify speculative genres and address recurring conceptual issues such as monstrosity, sentience, gender, race, belief, disability, environmental justice, Afrofuturism, AI, and being human. We will read and analyze a small selection of Jemisin’s short fiction because her stories afford close-reading, inquiry, and writing literary criticism. This course hones skills practiced in other core English courses: reading stories for formal patterns, figurative language, and conceptual implications; attending to diction, sentence variety, and other stylistic choices; conducting research to expand and deepen observations and to join critical conversations; and exercising effective writing strategies to make and develop persuasive claims that matter.

The American writer and journalist Joan Didion explained the motives behind her craft: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear." Gaining one’s critical voice involves this same drive—discovery, observation, insight, reflection—along with awareness of the conventions and methods common to writing literary criticism. Our section will cultivate these aptitudes, looking at, and learning to better see and understand Emily Brontë’s 1847 gothic romance Wuthering Heights. We will discuss and write about the gothic genre’s unique affordances for mediating fear and desire, with the novel as our touchstone. Wuthering Heights both fascinated and repulsed its 19^th-century readers, and endures, popular and polarizing, almost two hundred years later. A film adaptation starring Margo Robbie as Catherine and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff will be released during the semester, providing us an opportunity to reflect on the cultural afterlives of the novel and what the new adaptation signifies in our own time.

Literary criticism is all about asking questions. It is the practice of becoming confounded by a word, phrase, or image and then wrestling to make some sense of it. Throughout the semester, we will consider writing and research as processes of inquiry. We will learn how to ask questions about the texts we read, how to understand other scholar’s questions about those texts, and how to develop answers to our own questions in the form of academic essays. We will augment our discussions about the craft of writing by reading the first collection of poetry published by a woman in the English literary tradition: Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. As we read this dynamic text, we will consider how Lanyer re-fashions the world around her including her place in the social hierarchy, the stigma about Eve’s guilt in the Fall, women’s place in God’s redemptive plan, and women’s role in Christian history.

The game is afoot in this section of ENGL 303! Or maybe it’s “afeet” because we’ll be reading the work of not one but two British writers of detection fiction: Arthur Conan Doyle and L. T. Meade. You know Doyle, but did you know that published alongside his Sherlock Holmes stories were a series of stories written by the Victorian era’s most popular female crime fiction writer? Like Doyle, Meade makes use of the doctor-sidekick trope in her Stories from the Diary of a Doctor. And she imagines a female Moriarty in the villainous criminal genius of her Sorceress of the Strand stories, Madame Sara. This semester, we’ll put the stories of Meade and Doyle side by side as we think carefully about the processes of reading and writing literary criticism. There will be plenty of "ratiocination" and suspicious characters with large mustaches who will allow us to examine issues of race, ethnicity, language, narrative, ecology, gender, and more as we perform research and compose a series of essays that will hone your academic writing skills.

One of the watershed texts in the history of the novel is about a guy wandering around Dublin for a few hours in 1904. The mundane setup of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) belies the infamous difficulty, complexity, and utter strangeness of what many regard to be the most important novel of the 20th century, if not all time. Ulysses may be the most important, but it is far from the only novel of significance to come out of Ireland. Since the publication of Gulliver’s Travels in 1726 to recent Booker Prize winners and nominees like Roddy Doyle, Anna Burns, Kevin Barry, Paul Lynch, Claire Keegan, and more, Irish writers have had a major influence on the evolution of the novel as a genre. In this class, we will probe that influence and scrutinize novelistic conventions along the way, reading six texts published between 1726 and 2021 that fall within and contribute to a distinct Irish tradition but also shape the development of the Anglophone novel more broadly. (We’ll also touch briefly on the lesser-known Irish language—i.e., Gaelic—novel.) And, yes, we will be reading Ulysses, so buckle up. Other texts include Gulliver’s Travels, The Wild Irish Girl (1806), Dracula (1897), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993), and Small Things Like These (2021).

In our time, most people's experience of poetry comes in the form of popular song lyrics. Lyrical poetry tends toward intimate, confessional topics, like love and longing, the pain of lost love, etc. But the lyric is also devotional--as with hymns--and can be political, as in protest songs. When set to music lyrics are perhaps the most affecting and universal form of literature. We will consider the lyric form beginning with Sappho, whose poetry, set to the lyre, gives us the term. We will trace the development of the lyric from antiquity and other eras, putting accomplished contemporary lyricists like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Tom Waits, and Taylor Swift into conversation with old troubadours, minstrels, and other purveyors of the genre through time.

Christian poetry in America is thriving, with a large number of wonderful new and established poets, new and established presses, new anthologies, and an emergent body of excellent, rigorous criticism. For many of these writers, poetic inspiration is tantamount to spiritual discernment, making the production, reception, and interpretation of this poetry an act of opening oneself to the Spirit and engaging in worship. Learning to appreciate and interpret this poetry thus helps us become more spiritually minded, merging critical mastery with character development and Christian discipleship.

This course will focus on Shakespeare as a great poet whose work often reflects on poetry: its techniques, its traditions, its importance as a mode of human expression. We will focus on two plays that are especially rich and layered reflections on poetry. Romeo and Juliet engages profoundly with the sonnet tradition, so we will prepare to study it by reading Shakespeare's sonnets in conversation with other Elizabethan sonnets by authors such as Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. As You Like It features (deliberately bad) poems in the broad sonnet tradition, but it also engages deeply with the genre of pastoral, which we will consider by reading Virgil's Eclogues and parts of Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar. Our aim will be not only to gain a firmer grasp on Shakespeare's place within these poetic traditions but also to move toward a deeper understanding of how Shakespeare thought about poetry.

A reading of The Divine Comedy juxtaposed with English writers whose work is inspired by Dante. The main course is the grand tour of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven -- wholly pleasurable in itself. But then we wheel in the desert trolley, loaded with English writers from the sixteenth century to the present day who learned from, imitated, and expanded on Dante.

A Wild Romp through the Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theater: This section of English 386R focuses on the drama produced during what is often referred to as the Long Eighteenth Century, roughly 1660 to 1800. Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the theater, which had been effectively shut down during the Puritan Interregnum, had to essentially reinvent itself, which led to a number of theatrical innovations, such as the introduction of women actors on the stage, and the development of new dramatic types, including Heroic Drama and the Comedy of Manners. An extremely rich and productive era in the history of English drama followed, during which time the theater established itself as a mainstay of English culture that continues to this day. We will examine the social and cultural forces that influenced the dramatic arts and consider the ways drama informed social and cultural practices. We will likewise give attention to contemporary criticism of eighteenth-century literature, investigating the preoccupations and methods of literary critics.

From pre-Columbian Indigenous stories to the writings of the American Revolution, this course will explore the coinciding—often directly competing—literary origins of America and will trace the diverse, intergenerational legacies that pre-1800s American stories put into being. In addition to becoming familiar with the literary history of early America, this course will engage diverse literary genres and communities of writers to wrestle with what it means to be an American.

African Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka recently opined that “A truly illuminating exploration of Africa has yet to take place.” Part of the challenge is that Africa means and has meant so many different things to so many different people. This course will attempt to bring together past and present in two of the major areas of the continent: West Africa and South Africa. Our West African cluster will include works such as Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The Road, Okri’s The Famished Road, and Gyasi’s Homegoing. Our South African cluster will feature Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, Magona’s Mother to Mother, and Wicomb’s October.

Alice, Long John Silver, Peter Pan, Mowgli: the fact that you know these characters by name (and perhaps by heart) attests to the enduring literary significance of nineteenth-century British children’s literature, which will be the focus of this section of ENGL 387R. We’ll use these texts to become familiar with the overlapping theoretical projects of nineteenth-century realism and fantasy, to study the changing notions of childhood and adolescence, to explore Victorian perceptions of empire, industrialism, and the rising middle class, and to examine related fields of study like adaptation and illustration. You’ll have the opportunity to work individually and collaboratively in Special Collections as you perform original research that brings the enduring alongside the ephemeral. And yes, we will spend time thinking about the relationship between nineteenth-century children’s literature and the later texts it inspired, works by writers like Lewis, Dahl, Rowling, and Gaiman. 

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line . . .” – W.E.B. Du Bois

In this section of 389R we will focus on the intersection of racial and religious identity as we examine how various black American writers construct or articulate diverse understandings of the American dream. Course material will be diverse in both genre and time period, ranging from W.E.B. Du Bois's 19^th century sociological essays to Toni Morrison's 21st century fiction. The course is both reading- and writing-intensive, and assignments are designed to give students opportunities to increase their understanding of and ability to articulate the function, purpose, and efficacy of literature in shaping contemporary interpretations of historical and cultural events.

This course examines women's writing in and about nature. Historically, nature has been feminized as a site of conquest, domination, and profit. The women writers we will read this semester challenge and complicate those narratives, instead embracing nature as a vehicle for understanding identity, community, spirituality, and creativity. We will read essay, memoir, fiction, and poetry that invite different ways of seeing the world and our place in it. Our course will be discussion-based and will include both conventional and creative writing, as well as time spent outside.

Inscape: Journal of Creative Writing and Art is published every fall and winter semester on its shiny new website at inscape.byu.edu. The journal is managed and edited by graduate students in the creative writing MFA program and students in the art department. All staff members, either students enrolled in ENGL 394R or volunteers, learn the business and craft of editing and publishing through soliciting and evaluating creative writing and visual art submissions, content editing, and formatting pieces of writing. They also receive hands-on training and experience with web design and web editing, social media marketing, event planning, and writing contests. The staff uses Instagram, Facebook, Wordpress, Photoshop, Canva, and Monday.com for team assignments, as well as the submission platform Submittable. Experts in publishing, writing, visual art, editing, and marketing are guest presenters every Thursday evening.

Requirements: Students enrolled in ENGL 394R are required to create a professional portfolio that includes a resume and cover letter/letter of application for graduate school, a mock interview, a fleshed-out LinkedIn profile, a job networking experience, and stellar staff assignment participation. The Inscape internship is designed for students interested in careers in publishing, which makes it an exceptional opportunity for editing or creative writing minors. Inscape is the best student journal experience on campus—and it looks great on a resume.

Students will work on the staff of the new national children’s literary magazine, Whirligig. Staff members will be a part of each stage of magazine production: concept creation, acquisitions, writing, editing, art direction, designing, marketing, networking, and distribution. This is a great place to learn about writing for children and gain valuable practical experience in acquiring, revising, and preparing manuscripts for publication. Students will collaborate with authors and other publishing professionals both on and off campus. 

This weekly, 3-unit seminar is designed to give majors at BYU an overview of possible career and internship options in professional writing and ways to pursue their professional interests. Each student will be placed in a competitive professional writing internship and will produce a polished writer’s portfolio they can use in applying for future internships and employment. Each month, students will meet and talk with guest professionals working in diverse professional writing-related fields such as web design, journalism, public relations, corporate and media relations, technical writing, medical communications, and non-profits. The visiting professionals talk about their own and related careers, show samples of their work, and answer student questions.

This course has two dimensions: publishing a scholarly journal and developing competencies that empower students to connect their BYU education to a variety of professional contexts. The publishing side involves taking an issue of Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism through all stages of the publication process from soliciting submissions to producing the issue in both print and electronic formats. Alongside this work, the course engages students in a process of learning how to communicate the value and relevance of skills developed at BYU in resumes and job interviews.

This course is geared toward juniors. Criterion will continue to function as a club alongside the class, and students at other stages are invited to participate. Future members of the editorial team (as part of the course) will be drawn from club participants. Joining the club in preparation for the course is a good way of making English+ an integral part of your time at BYU.

How do faith challenges in the modern LDS church intersect with faith challenges in Western Christian history? This course combines a history of agnosticism from Hume to the present with questions of urgent and personal relevance. How can we explain times of divine silence? Are the scriptures infallible? Why do the innocent suffer? Is doubt a spiritual sin? Readings will include Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Twain, C. S. Lewis, and many others. We will explore the power of literature, science, and philosophy to help us navigate our own wrestles with faith.

This course examines women's writing in and about nature. Historically, nature has been feminized as a site of conquest, domination, and profit. The women writers we will read this semester challenge and complicate those narratives, instead embracing nature as a vehicle for understanding identity, community, spirituality, and creativity. We will read essay, memoir, fiction, and poetry that invite different ways of seeing the world and our place in it. Our course will be discussion-based and will include both conventional and creative writing, as well as time spent outside.

African Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka recently opined that “A truly illuminating exploration of Africa has yet to take place.” Part of the challenge is that Africa means and has meant so many different things to so many different people. This course will attempt to bring together past and present in two of the major areas of the continent: West Africa and South Africa. Our West African cluster will include works such as Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The Road, Okri’s The Famished Road, and Gyasi’s Homegoing. Our South African cluster will feature Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, Magona’s Mother to Mother, and Wicomb’s October.

What do ordinary language philosophy, linguistics, deconstruction, gender studies, political theory, and performance studies have in common? Performativity. We’ll dive into this alluring topic, investigating its winding genealogy and multiple deployments. In each iteration we’ll circle back to J. L. Austin’s organizing question: how do words do stuff? The pronouncement “Let there be light” is a divine performative that is both utterance and action. So is the legal designation of hate speech. This course gives occasion to ask several questions, including: How is language also action? What is the relationship between speech and the body? What kinds of force proceed from speaking, and what implications does this have for forming not just identity but also materiality and what is real? Performativity is a great ride.

How do emerging technologies change not just how stories are told but what stories are told? The shape and content of popular narratives in American culture shift as the means of production, distribution, and consumption of story changes with new inventions. How does the nature of visual texts like film and television change as the way audiences engage with media transforms from movie screens to television screens to computer screens to phone screens? How do comics and graphic novels adapt to evolving print technologies and then distribution through websites and phone apps? How do publishing practices and electronic distribution alter what novels and short stories are released? The content of stories adjust to how audiences will engage with those stories. As a class, we will consider theoretical and critical texts and apply those concepts to a variety of media content as we consider the role of technology in shaping story in American culture.

A buffalo, watching his kid drive off to college, shouts, “Bye, son!” (It’s better when you hear it aloud.) Why is funny stuff funny? How does humor do rhetorical work by influencing judgment, by giving us what rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke calls “perspective by incongruity”? How does humor reinforce or challenge relevant social norms? How might we make every funny thing around us profoundly unfunny by theorizing it to death? And how many questions can a course description throw at you before you stop reading? In this course we will take deadly seriously the notion that laughter is no joke. Arming ourselves with a variety of rhetorical theories on humor, we’ll storm across a variety of genres: literature, memes, memoirs, stand-up, sketch comedy, and dad jokes (and yo’ mama jokes, too). You’ll work in teams to analyze and design humorous product campaigns (or get fired trying). You’ll consider, through rhetorical analysis, the moral freight of funny. You’ll complete a multimodal scholarly project that will synthesize unfunny theorists to help you evaluate funny artifacts.

Can a work of literature be noisy or quiet, musical or cacophonous? Do some texts have an almost cinematic soundscape? How does reading with an awareness of sound (musical or otherwise) and silence relate to aural memory, audience reception, authorial composition, narrative structure, and interpretation? From classical to modern texts, authors frequently blur the lines between artistic fields, bringing sound, broadly conceived, into their literary works, those ostensibly silent lines of text on a page. Together we’ll read critical and literary works that engage the question of the sonic within the literary, and consider various texts in light of the role of sound in the rhetorical, aesthetic, and interpretive work of literature.