This course may be taken for CAPSTONE credit by English Majors following requirements in place prior to Fall 2023. Pick up a Capstone Declaration Form in the main ENGL office (HS 230F) if interested. 

This course may be taken as an upper level elective by any Major in the English Department. 

Fall 2024 Special Topic: Reporting New England

In this course, we’ll read, report and produce stories that explore the complex meanings and identities of New England. Through these stories, we’ll consider questions of what it means to be a New Englander, who defines that meaning, and how telling new stories can challenge this definition of identity, heritage and culture. Students should be ready to read critically, think analytically, and report ambitiously. 

This course counts as one of three on-campus upper-level Journalism classes required for English/Journalism majors. 

This course may be taken for upper-level elective credit by any English Department major with permission of the listed instructor. 

Welcome to English 725L! This seminar “lab” is a practicum experience that runs alongside of English 725, its co-requisite. Traditionally, this lab has encouraged students to design either a classroom-based mini-internship or a qualitative research project (e.g. an interview study, a case study of a young reader/writer, or a article-based study). We will meet every other week during the semester to collaboratively respond to and track students' experiences in these projects.

Fall 2024 Detailed Description:

How can we talk about environmental crisis? What words can we use to represent the natural world—and human interactions with it? Is it possible to describe nature without cultural projections? How can language change vision, policy, action? In this course, we will grapple with the urgent need to articulate environmental issues by reading contemporary ecocritics who are inventing vocabularies to do so, such as Rob Nixon on “slow violence” and Stacy Alaimo on “trans-corporeality.” We’ll also read 19^th-21^st century nature writers, poets, and fiction writers who write about different environments from different perspectives, shaped in part by race, gender, and indigeneity, from Henry David Thoreau and Mary Austin to Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez, Joy Harjo, and Octavia Butler. We’ll explore ecofeminism, environmental justice, postcolonial ecology, and the concept of the Anthropocene.

Writing intensive. Satisfies a post-1800 literature requirement for English majors. In fall 2024, this class fulfills a DH (Digital Humanities) requirement for the TBD major. ENGL 736 is an approved elective for the Sustainability Dual Major. Undergraduate students taking this class for Women’s and Gender Studies credit will write papers that focus on women writers or on gender and the environment. Graduate students taking 897N will write a graduate-level research paper; those taking 897N for credit towards a Graduate Certificate in Feminist Studies will also write such a paper and will focus their written work on women writers, ecofeminist theory, or gender and the environment. Finally, ENGL 736 is a good choice for honors work. If you are an Honors-in-Major English student and would like to take this as an honors course, please talk to me during the first week of class.

This course satisfies the Literature after 1800 requirement for English Majors. 

This course satisfies one of two Post-1800 Literature requirement for English LIterature, English/Journalism, English: TBD, English/Law 3+3 Majors. 

This course may count as one of two Literature courses taken at the 600/700 level for English Teaching majors. 

This course satisfies the DH Component requirement for ENGL:TBD majors. 

This course may be taken for Capstone credit by general ENGLISH majors following requirement guidelines in place prior to Fall 2023. Fill out a Capstone Declaration form (available in the main English office,  Ham Smith 230F) if you wish to declare it as Capstone.