This course may be taken for Capstone credit by English majors; please fill out a Capstone Declaration Form. Contact the ENGL Main Office for assistance: 603-862-1313.

Reminder: 700-level classes taken to fulfill the English Major Capstone MAY NOT be double counted towards other major requirement areas.

Fall 2021 Course Details:

This course offers you an overview of the best writing for the modern and contemporary stage. After surveying some of the key figures who revolutionized theater in the early twentieth century, we'll sample such contemporary genres as absurdist drama, psychological gothic, “in yer face” theater, work by African-American, Latinx, queer and immigrant writers, documentary theater, and plays that incorporate new media. We'll be asking how theater addressed changes in its status and social function in the eras of film, television and the internet, how plays engage with identity politics both on and off the stage, and how and why contemporary theater has taken up controversial dramatic techniques like sex, shock, violence and audience participation. Interspersed in our conversations will also be snippets from key theorists of modern theater, so we can address the philosophies behind the plays. Where they are available, we'll also look at video and filmed performances to see how practitioners have realized and adapted these works.

This course satisfies a Post-1800 literature requirement for English Department Majors.

This course may be taken for Capstone credit by English majors; please fill out a Capstone Declaration Form. Contact the ENGL Main Office for assistance: 603-862-1313.

Reminder: 700-level classes taken to fulfill the English Major Capstone MAY NOT be double counted towards other major requirement areas.

This class will be taught online.  Students on the Durham as well as the Manchester campus are welcome to enroll.

English 787/800, English Major Seminar: GENDER AND GENRE: AWAKENINGS.

This course focuses on women writers whose narratives strive to “wake up” the world to progressive change, and whose protagonists (if not already “awake”) gain a keener understanding of their lives and their societies. Texts will come from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  We’ll start with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (a critique of patriarchal culture and glory-struck “discoverers”), and move to Mary Seacole’s Wonderful Adventures (the autobiography of a pioneering healer and businesswoman), Amy Levy’s Reuben Sachs (a novel centered on Jewish communities in London), Katherine Mansfield and Kate Chopin’s stories (incisive portraits of women’s desires in New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. South), Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (an exploration of perception, art, and family), Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (a feminist utopia—perhaps?), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (an indispensable tale of one woman’s quest-journey), in addition to other works by Harlem Renaissance writers (for instance Jessie Redmon Fauset’s “The Sleeper Wakes”). 

English 787/800, English Major Seminar: GENDER AND GENRE: AWAKENINGS is a Writing Intensive course that fulfills part of the Capstone requirement for the Literary Studies option and the Digital Language Arts option within the Literary Arts & Studies / English Studies major. At UNH Manchester, it also fulfills the diversity requirement for the B.A. in English Teaching.  Prerequisite: English 419, or instructor’s permission.  Although the course is titled “English Major Seminar,” students from other majors are very welcome and may find the subject matter of interest.

English 787/800 may be repeated for credit, up to a maximum of 8 credits, provided that content is not significantly duplicated.  4 credits.

This course satisfies the Capstone requirement for English Teaching majors.

In Fall 2021 this course satisfies a "DH"/Digital Humanities requirement for English/TBD majors.

This course may be taken for Capstone credit by English majors; please fill out a Capstone Declaration Form. Contact the ENGL Main Office for assistance: 603-862-1313.

Reminder: 700-level classes taken to fulfill the English Major Capstone MAY NOT be double counted towards other major requirement areas.

English 789/889:  Teaching Young Adult Literature

Adolescence, for many students, seems to be a period during which love of reading dies. In fact, studies reveal that “less than one-third of 13-year-olds read daily” and “only 16 percent of high school students” identify as “high frequent readers” (Gilmore 47; Newkirk 117).  But there is hope in the field of popular young adult (YA) literature!  In YA lit, adolescents can find books that match their interests and reading levels.  In this course, we’ll explore how YA literature can be used to foster lifelong readers.  We will read widely among genres of young adult literature (including both contemporary YA works as well as canonical literary works written for an adult audience but deemed appropriate for secondary students), focusing on the particular skills of literary criticism and theory required to establish a developmentally appropriate literature curriculum at the secondary level and to link young adult literature to canonical literary traditions.  Students should prepare themselves for quick-paced reading, discussion, research, and assignments in varied formats, from written responses to booktalks.