Descriptions from the 2007-08 Course Catalog
Please check the Class Schedule for classes offered this year.

ENG 150
Literary Analysis
An introduction to the techniques of literary analysis through the detailed study of individual texts. 6 units.

ENG 170
Shakespeare in London
Students will study several plays by William Shakespeare selected from among the current offerings by the Royal Shakespeare and other companies. Discussions will address the plays themselves, production techniques, and the audiences to whom they appeal. Students are required to attend performances of the plays under study. 6 units. Also listed as Theatre Arts 170. Offered at the London Centre

ENG 230
Major British Writers I
Intensive study of five or six major British authors from Chaucer to Swift. Emphasis on close reading and critical writing. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 150 or its equivalent or sophomore standing

ENG 240
Major British Writers II
Intensive study of five or six major British authors from Wordsworth to Yeats. Emphasis on close reading and critical writing. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 150 or its equivalent or sophomore standing

ENG 250
Major American Writers
Intensive study of major American authors from Cooper to Wallace Stevens. Emphasis on close reading and critical writing. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 150 or its equivalent or sophomore standing

ENG 260
Survey of African American Literature
A survey of African American literature from slave narratives through contemporary literature. Readings include works by Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison. 6 units. Also listed as Ethnic Studies 360. Prerequisite: ENG 150 or its equivalent or sophomore standing

ENG 270
Women’s Literary History
An examination of how and why linear narratives of literary history have traditionally omitted or obscured women’s contributions. Topics will include the stereotypical links drawn between print and sexual promiscuity, as well as other factors that have impacted the roles that women have played in literary history. 6 units. Also listed as Gender Studies 250. Prerequisite: ENG 150 or GEST 100

ENG 350
Creative Writing: Non-Fiction
Practice in the writing of non-fictional prose. 6 units.

ENG 360
Creative Writing: Fiction
Practice in the writing of short fiction. 6 units.

ENG 370
Creative Writing: Poetry
Practice in the writing of poetry. 6 units.

ENG 400
Satire
A study of the theory and practice of satiric writing. Readings in Aristophanes, Pope, Swift, Gay, Byron, Waugh, West, Orwell, Heller, and others. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor

ENG 420
Studies in Medieval Literature
A study of Middle English literature and culture, focusing especially on the oral and performative dimensions of literature produced between 1300 and 1550. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 425
Shakespeare
An introduction to Shakespeare’s plays and their literary, historical, and theatrical context. 6 units. Also listed as Theatre Arts 432. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 430
Renaissance Literature
A study of selected poetry and prose in 16th-century England. Readings will include Spenser's Faerie Queene and lyric poetry from Wyatt to Sidney. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 435
Renaissance Drama
A study of eight to ten plays from the early modern period, excluding Shakespeare. Readings include Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, and Webster. 6 units. Also listed as Theatre Arts 436. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 440
Milton and the 17th Century
A study of Donne and the metaphysical poets, the poetry and prose of Milton, and the poetry of Dryden. Emphasis on Milton. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 445
Restoration and 18th-Century Comedy
A study of English comedies as reflections of changing taste and thought in the period 1660-1800. Authors include Wycherley, Etherege, Congreve, Farquhar, Steele, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Sheridan. 6 units. Also listed as Theatre Arts 434. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 450
18th-Century Literature
A study of major works in satire, poetry, and fiction as reflections of 18th-century thought and taste. Readings in Swift, Defoe, Pope, Fielding, Samuel Johnson, and others. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 455
Romanticism
A study of the period from 1790 to 1830, focusing on the development and elaboration of what we now call Romanticism. Readings in the major authors of the period: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 460
The Victorian Age
A study of the period from 1830 to 1900, focusing on poetry, fiction, and critical prose. Readings range widely, including selections from Carlyle, Tennyson, the Brownings, the Rossettis, and Oscar Wilde. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 465
The English Novel
A study of English fiction from 1740 to 1900. Readings include novels by Richardson, Burney, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 470
American Literature to the Civil War
A study of the ways early writers of America attempted to adapt “Old World” forms and styles to the “New World” — as they sought initially to compose and sustain themselves and gradually to constitute the United States of America in literary terms. Selected readings from the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by readings in Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 230, or consent of instructor

ENG 472
American Literature and the Civil War
A study of American literature of the Civil War era, including readings from the abolition movement as well as the texts, photography, and painting produced in response to the war. Selected readings from Douglass, Jacobs, Grant, Stowe, and Chesnutt, as well as poets such as Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, and Harper. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, an intermediate course in English, or consent of instructor

ENG 475
American Literature: The Civil War to The Great Depression
Examination of selected prose and poetry in relation to late 19th- and early 20th-century thought. Readings in Twain, Dickinson, James, Stein, Eliot, Hemingway, and Faulkner. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250, or consent of instructor

ENG 480
Modern British Fiction
A study of selected works of British fiction in relation to early 20th-century thought. Authors include Conrad, Lawrence, Joyce, Mansfield, Forster, Woolf, and others. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 482
Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group
A study focused on the literature and art produced by the Bloomsbury Group, an early 20th-century London-based network of novelists, painters, economists, and philosophers that includes Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell, J. M. Keynes, and the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. 6 units. Also listed as Gender Studies 440. Prerequisite: Junior standing, an intermediate course in English, or consent of instructor

ENG 483
American Autobiography
A study of prominent American autobiographies from the 19th and 20th centuries. The course will examine how autobiography responds to social, cultural, and aesthetic conditions and the relationship of the genre to the larger American literary tradition. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250, or consent of instructor

ENG 485
Modern Poetry
Consideration of principal tendencies in 20th-century poetry as illustrated in the work of representative authors, including Yeats, Eliot, H. D., Stevens, Williams, Moore, and others. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 490
Modern Drama
Studies in some of the major playwrights in Europe, England, and America from the time of Ibsen to the present. 6 units. Also listed as Theatre Arts 440. Prerequisite: Junior standing, an intermediate course in English, or consent of instructor

ENG 495
Modern American Fiction
A study of American fiction from the first half of the 20th century. Authors include Wharton, Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner, Ellison, and others. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250, or consent of instructor

ENG 500
Contemporary American Fiction
A study of the two most prominent American literary movements since World War II, Postmodernism and Multiculturalism. Readings include the work of Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Tim O’Brien, Philip Roth, Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich, Danzy Senna, and Julia Alvarez, as well as selected films and short theoretical texts. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250, or consent of instructor

ENG 503
Contemporary American Poetry
Examination of selected works of American poetry with particular emphasis on the post-World War II era. The course will consider individual poets’ responses both to poetic traditions and to formal and thematic innovations of the 20th century. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250, or consent of instructor

ENG 507
Contemporary British and Post-Colonial Fiction
A survey of contemporary fiction in Britain, with an emphasis on the impact of post-colonial and multicultural writers and perspectives. Authors may include Chinua Achebe, Angela Carter, Keri Hulme, Hanif Kureishi, Patrick McCabe, V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, Salman Rushdie, Amos Tutuola, and Irvine Welsh. 6 units. Also listed as Ethnic Studies 560. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 240, or consent of instructor

ENG 510
Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
A study of poetry, fiction, and essays by African American writers from the era of World War I through the 1930s. Authors include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, W.E.B. Du Bois, and others. 6 units. Also listed as Ethnic Studies 561. Prerequisite: Junior standing, ENG 250 or 260, or consent of instructor

ENG 515
Gender and Modernist British/American Literature
A study of the construction of gender in early 20th-century fiction and poetry. Authors include Cather, Woolf, Lawrence, Hemingway, Sassoon, and others. 6 units. Also listed as Gender Studies 445. Prerequisite: Junior standing, an intermediate course in English or gender studies, or consent of instructor

ENG 525
Contemporary Critical Theory
A survey of important movements. Among the readings are selections by Derrida, Foucault, and Bakhtin as well as selections from more recent figures, such as Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, and bell hooks. 6 units. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor

ENG 530
The English Language
A study of the historical background of English and the sounds and structure of modern English. 6 units. Also listed as Linguistics 530. Prerequisite: LING 105 or 150 or consent of instructor

ENG 550
Advanced Creative Writing: Nonfiction
A writing workshop for students with previous creative writing experience. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 350 or ENG 360

ENG 560
Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
A workshop for students with previous fiction writing experience. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 360 or permission of instructor

ENG 565
Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry
A workshop for students with previous poetry writing experience. 6 units. Prerequisite: ENG 370 or consent of instructor

ENG 190, 390, 590, 690
Tutorial Studies in English
Tutorial study in the literature of various periods, English and American, and in literary forms and composition. Intended primarily for juniors and seniors. Arrangements should be discussed with the department chair. Variable units. Prerequisite: Counter registration required

ENG 199, 399, 599, 699
Independent Study in English
Advanced study, arranged in consultation with the department chair. Students considering an honors project should register for this course. Variable units. Prerequisite: Counter registration required

Recent tutorial topics in English
Studies in Spenser’s Faerie Queen
Shakespeare and Feminism
Multiethnic Literature
20th-Century Experimental Literature
Virginia Woolf
Nature and Poetry