Spring 2025 Course Descriptions
English Program and Writing Program
Penn State Abington
ENGLISH MAJOR (WRITING AND LITERATURE IN CONTEXT) REQUIREMENTS:
ENGL 200 or 201: ENGL 201
Pre-1800: ENGL 441, ENGL 455
Post-1800: ENGL 400
Literature, Writing, or Rhetoric: ENGL 050, ENGL 165N, ENGL 182A, ENGL 211, ENGL 213, ENGL 215, ENGL 221W, ENGL 223N, ENGL 229, ENGL 400, ENGL 413, ENGL 415, ENGL 420, ENGL 441, ENGL 455, ENGL 462, ENGL 474
Diversity: ENGL 400, ENGL 455, ENGL 462, ENGL 487W
Senior Seminar: ENGL 487W
WRITING MINOR COURSES: ENGL 050, ENGL 211, ENGL 213, ENGL 215, ENGL 413, ENGL 415, ENGL 419, ENGL 420
ENGLISH MINOR COURSES: ENGL 050, ENGL 165N, ENGL 182A, ENGL 201, ENGL 211, ENGL 213, ENGL 215, ENGL 221W, ENGL 223N, ENGL 229, ENGL 400, ENGL 413, ENGL 415, ENGL 420, ENGL 441, ENGL 455, ENGL 474, ENGL 487W
English 050: Introduction to Creative Writing (GA)
Professor Heise
Want to write, but aren’t quite sure how to get started or what to write about? This course is meant to ignite your interests, hone your skills, and introduce you to the foundational elements of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction so as to set free your imagination. You will learn to craft images, music, lines, and narrative in the poetry we practice. In fiction, you will learn how to create characters, develop themes, modulate tone and atmosphere, plot a conflict, and manipulate setting. And you will learn to translate and reconstruct personal experience, memory, and research into arguments, scenes, and narratives for creative nonfiction. Along the way, our conversations will turn to the writing and revision process, to why one writes in the first place, and to age-old inexhaustible questions, such as, what are the functions and purposes of poetry, short story, and the essay, what is the difference between truth and fact, and what are the ethics of writing about our own lives and the lives of others. In this course, you’re a writer. And that means you will be writing all the time in an exercise of imagination and perseverance. ENGL 050 welcomes all students interested in creative writing: no previous creative-writing experience is necessary.
English 165N: Work and Literature (GH, GS, Interdomain)
Professor Rigilano
If you get a job out of college, work eight hours a day, fifty weeks a year, and retire at age 65, at that point you will have spent roughly one third of your adult, waking life at work. And that is just paid work. Add in housework, childcare, and other forms of unpaid labor and the share of your waking hours devoted to work creeps closer to one half. And those calculations may actually underestimate the influence work has over your life. What you do will determine where you live, how you live, and, perhaps, whether you believe you have ultimately done something meaningful with your life. With work playing such an outsized role in a life, you may as well understand it as best you can.
In this interdomain course, we will consider a broad array of literary texts that take up the issue of labor, as well as philosophical, sociological, ethnographical, political, and cultural studies that address labor from scholarly points of view. From Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853), whose titular character prefers not to work, and Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman (2016), whose protagonist identifies with the role of the worker a bit too much, to excerpts of Karl Marx’s magisterial Capital and Studs Terkel’s illuminating oral history, Working (1974), students will read and discuss essential texts across genres and disciplines. Students enrolled in the course will engage in class discussions, take exams, and write essays as they explore the variety of ways both labor and literature can help them understand the place of work in culture and society.
English 182A: Literature and Empire – Embedded Study Course in Ghana (IL, US, GH)
Professor Walters
This spring break study abroad to Ghana will allow students to apply and compare what they’ve learned in class with their in-person experience of Ghanaian culture through workshops, lectures, excursions. As the first sub-Saharan African country to regain its independence from colonization by the British, Ghana is an important country to study and visit when exploring post-colonial literary traditions. With Ghana's rich social and cultural traditions, we will immerse ourselves in the complicated questions of gender, ethnicity, and nationality that arise in the imperial context and see how authors from these former British colonies set about defining personal and national senses of self in the wake of the empire. On this faculty-led program, you will see and learn about Ghanaian culture with trips to historical sites such as the UNESCO Cape Coast Castle and visits to local markets, the capital Accra, the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, and the W.E.B. Dubois Center for PanAfrican Culture. Unique to this program, we will have the opportunity to develop relationships with members of a rural village through a community service learning partnership with a school. Please reach out to Dr. Walters if you have preliminary questions about this course.
English 201: What Is Literature (GH)
Professor Naydan
What is literature and how does it work? How do literary texts differ from supposedly non-literary ones? What forms does literature take and why do those forms matter? And how do we go about investigating the wide range of possible meanings that literary texts may have? This course will focus on these among other questions about the nature and features of literature. It will familiarize students with theories and practices that are foundational to studying different kinds of literary texts and contexts. Specifically, we will focus on post-1945 U.S. literature written in different genres, namely a novel, a novella, a memoir, a play, short stories, and poetry. Authors will likely include Alison Bechdel, Don DeLillo, Ling Ma, Claudia Rankine, Philip Roth, and others. We will also read a handful of brief works by critical theorists to gain insight into the different kinds of lenses we might bring to literary works and the world. Through reading and writing about literature and critical theory, we will acquire technical vocabularies used by literature scholars and literary historians. We will also develop an understanding of how literary works operate and how responsible scholars can and do make meaning of them.
English 211: Introduction to Writing Studies
Professor Lee-Amuzie
Writing isn’t just something you do or a skill to check off your list. Its power and complexity have long been recognized, and it has been the subject of study for a long time. In this course, we’ll dive into some of the key questions that have sparked engaging conversations among scholars and communities about writing and writers, shaping writing theories and practices we see today.
Some of the questions we’ll explore include:
- How do different cultures and communities practice literacy?
- What impact does technology have on the way we write today?
- How do writers find their voice, and how does that shape identity and authority?
- Can writing be a tool for activism and social change?
- How do marginalized voices use writing to push back against dominant power structures?
This course is designed to foster conversation and collaboration, rather than lectures. There are no exams; instead, you’ll engage in projects, small group work, reading, writing, and in-depth discussions.
English 213: Introduction to Poetry Writing (GA)
Professor Pack
Our Fiction Writing Workshop will focus on developing each individual writer’s voice. Our semester will start by reading and critiquing the work of established poets throughout different eras (Keats, Shelley, Yeats, Dickinson, Cullen, Larkin, Sexton, Giovanni, Sanchez, Carver, Walcott, Galvin, to name a few). Then students will submit their own work to be read and workshopped by the entire class. Students will have the opportunity to work on forms of their own choice but will also be challenged to write in free verse as well as traditional and experimental forms. Students will engage in written and oral critiques of student work in this workshop environment, providing constructive feedback to help foster the writer’s artistic talent, and they will engage in a safe, productive learning environment. (ENGL. 213 will be expected to produce a minimum of seven edited, final-draft poems for their final.)
English 215: Introduction to Article Writing
Professor Cohen
Share your perspectives on campus and community issues! In this course, you will research, compose, edit, and publish articles for our digital news outlet The Abington Sun. Students in ENGL 215 will be expected to conduct primary research--conducting interviews and analyzing data, in order to generate ideas for stories of interest to our campus community. Students will pitch their story ideas weekly to an audience of their peers, and decide collectively with editors which stories will move forward. Over the course of the semester, each student should plan to produce and publish several news articles and feature pieces, improving writing skills in a hands-on process as they work to publish well-researched, impactful articles. Subjects for articles range from politics to current events, sports and arts and culture. Feel free to browse past topics at The Abington Sun. If you like to write, are interested in learning and writing about current events, and want to see your work published, ENGL 215/415 is the place for you! If you haven’t worked with us before, you should enroll in ENGL 215. If you’re a veteran of our writing staff who wants to further hone your skills, you should register for ENGL 415.
English 221W: British Literature to 1798 (IL, GH)
Professor Nicosia
In 1492 Christopher Columbus, and his European shipmates, arrived on the shores of the Americas. 1492 also often marks the divide between the medieval era and the Renaissance as distinct literary and historical periods. However, medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century authors alike depicted the known world, documented global exploration, and imagined possible places. In this course, we will read accounts of real and imaginary places described in English and American literature from the premodern era (beginnings to 1800) by authors such as Marie de France, Aphra Behn, Anne Bradstreet, Thomas More, Phillis Wheatley, Margaret Cavendish, John Donne, and John Milton, as well as anonymous texts by indigenous authors. Class discussions and assignments will address histories of race and colonialism, issues of gender and authorship, and utopian studies that emerge from our readings. We will use free, online textbooks for this class and the final project for the course will invite students to remix and augment these online resources for future students enrolled in the course. This course is “stacked.” Students can enroll in this course at an introductory level (ENGL 221W, which also fulfills a writing-intensive requirement) or at an advanced level (ENGL 455).
English 223N: Shakespeare: Page, Stage, and Screen (IL, GA, GH, Interdomain)
Professor Nicosia
“He was not of an age but for all time!” Ben Jonson, a poet and playwright, wrote these words to celebrate the life and work of William Shakespeare. This course is designed to introduce students to Shakespeare and his world. Students of all levels are welcome and no prior experience is required or assumed. We will read six of Shakespeare’s plays, including some of his most celebrated. As we read these plays, we will analyze their genre, dramatic structure, and language as well as how they engage with social and political issues of Shakespeare’s time and our own. We will consider issues of performance, film adaptation, and publication history through interactive assignments.
English 229: Digital Studies (GH)
(Stacked with DIGIT 100 Introduction to Digital Humanities)
Professor Nicosia
This course will introduce students to concepts, methods, and resources for digital studies and the digital humanities, meaning both the study of culture using digital means and the study of digital culture and digital cultural objects in themselves. In some cases, digitization and digital production enrich existing approaches to English studies; in other cases, they present new paradigms and practices, requiring the cultivation of new analytic and theoretical approaches along with new technical skills. Accordingly, the course will emphasize both that enrichment of existing approaches to English studies, in the use of computers to present and analyze English-language materials preserved in the past, and the application of computing to the creation of expressive cultural artifacts unique to networked and programmable media. This course will challenge you to experiment with new techniques, and students who are resourceful, creative, and energetic will find this course an ideal forum to test their curiosity and inquisitiveness.
The central project of this course will be to create a student-generated transcription of a digitized eighteenth-century cookery manuscript held at Penn State Libraries Eberly Family Special Collections: Cookbook compiled in Camberwell, Surrey. For the first ten-weeks of the course, we will collaboratively transcribe this manuscript and discuss readings about digital studies, debates in the digital humanities, recipe manuscripts, eighteenth-century cookery and medicine, and labor and digital projects to understand both our object of study and how we have come to interact with it today. During the final five weeks of the course, students will work individually or in teams on multimodal projects that research, curate, and share our collective knowledge about the Camberwell manuscript.
English 400: The Literature of Imperialism
Professor Walters
From the 17th to the early 20th century, it was said that “the sun never sets on the British empire.” This was a fact. Britain had an extensive formal and informal imperial presence across the globe, and during this period, Britain underwent profound cultural, social, and economic upheaval. These violent changes included the beginning and dissolution of the transatlantic slave trade, the establishment of the East India Company and the Raj, and the process of decolonization in the 20th century. This was followed by what has been called the re-colonization of England by those people who formed the overseas empire. In this course, we will examine a variety of fictional and non-fictional texts, including primary and secondary critical works, to scrutinize how empire and imperialism shaped aspects of British identity from the 17th to the 21st century. We will focus most extensively on writings from the 19th and early-20th century.
ENGL 400 fulfills the diversity requirement. Note that ENGL 400 is stacked with ENGL 487W. Students may not enroll in both courses at the same time.
English 413: Advanced Poetry Writing
Professor Pack
Our Fiction Writing Workshop will focus on developing each individual writer’s voice. Our semester will start by reading and critiquing the work of established poets throughout different eras (Keats, Shelley, Yeats, Dickinson, Cullen, Larkin, Sexton, Giovanni, Sanchez, Carver, Walcott, Galvin, to name a few). Then students will submit their own work to be read and workshopped by the entire class. Students will have the opportunity to work on forms of their own choice but will also be challenged to write in free verse as well as traditional and experimental forms. Students will engage in written and oral critiques of student work in this workshop environment, providing constructive feedback to help foster the writer’s artistic talent, and they will engage in a safe, productive learning environment. (ENGL. 413 will be expected to produce a minimum of ten edited, final-draft poems for their final.)
English 415: Advanced Nonfiction Writing
Professor Cohen
Share your perspectives on campus and community issues! In this course, you will research, compose, edit, and publish articles for our digital news outlet The Abington Sun. Students in ENGL 415 will build on the skills they learned in ENGL 215 to conduct primary research--conducting interviews and analyzing data, in order to generate ideas for stories of interest to our campus community. Students will pitch their story ideas weekly to an audience of their peers, and decide collectively with editors which stories will move forward. Over the course of the semester, each student should plan to produce and publish several news articles and feature pieces, improving writing skills in a hands-on process as they work to publish well-researched, impactful articles. Subjects for articles range from politics to current events, sports and arts and culture. Feel free to browse past topics at The Abington Sun. If you like to write, are interested in learning and writing about current events, and want to see your work published, ENGL 215/415 is the place for you! If you haven’t worked with us before, you should enroll in ENGL 215. If you’re a veteran of our writing staff who wants to further hone your skills, you should register for ENGL 415.
English 419: Advanced Business Writing
Professor Esposito
Although there are many shared skills needed for both academic and business writing, including evidence evaluation, knowledge of audience, and basic writing skills such as the ability to organize content in a helpful way for readers, craft engaging sentences, and cite borrowed material, business writers use very different document formats, various media, and often have goals that include persuasion.
In this course, we will create business correspondence and documents including summaries, memos, memo revisions, sales letters, posters, and job communications including a resume, cover letter, 30-second elevator pitch, and interview video. We will also learn how to write effective bad news letters, instructions, and documents with tables and graphics. An important part of the course is learning how to write collaboratively with a team, a very common business practice, to develop a proposal, research report, and presentation -- all valuable skills for successful business communication.
English 420: Writing for the Web
Professor Travers
This course focuses on the analysis and composition of informative, persuasive, and “creative” web-based texts. You’ll analyze and write for various audiences and purposes on the web. Learn how to organize and write for readers more likely to scan through or locate specific information than read word for word. You’ll also learn how some information may be better expressed via clear graphics or videos and use various tools and platforms to create multimedia content (may include Adobe Express, Google Sites, WordPress, Sway, Wix, and Medium). Throughout the course you will add to an online writing portfolio featuring your skills in writing for the web. Note that this semester the course will be delivered in Zoom synchronous mode.
English 441: Chaucer
Professor Archer
This course introduces students to several of Geoffrey Chaucer’s major works, including his Canterbury Tales, dream-vision poems, and Troilus and Criseyde. All works will be read in modern English, though time will also be spent in class engaging them in the original Middle English. This course is broken up into three units, each of which includes 4 weeks of lecture with weekly quizzes, followed by one major assessment. Each assessment will cover the material and readings addressed in that essay’s unit and will consist of identification questions, matching scenarios, short-answer questions, and a take-home essay segment. Upon successful completion of the course, students can expect to deepen their understanding of Chaucer’s life, language, and literature and gain practical experience reading, translating, and (if they choose to do so) reciting works in Middle English. This course fosters an interdisciplinary approach toward the study of Chaucer's texts and centers around biographical, historical, cultural, scientific, religious, philosophical, and comparative interpretations of his poetry. Whether you are looking to satisfy your Pre-1800 course requirement or you simply want to read fun and fascinating poetry from the medieval period, I hope that you will join us!
English 455: Topics in British Literature: Premodern Worlds
Professor Nicosia
In 1492 Christopher Columbus, and his European shipmates, arrived on the shores of the Americas. 1492 also often marks the divide between the medieval era and the Renaissance as distinct literary and historical periods. However, medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century authors alike depicted the known world, documented global exploration, and imagined possible places. In this course, we will read accounts of real and imaginary places described in English and American literature from the premodern era (beginnings to 1800) by authors such as Marie de France, Aphra Behn, Anne Bradstreet, Thomas More, Phillis Wheatley, Margaret Cavendish, John Donne, and John Milton, as well as anonymous texts by indigenous authors. Class discussions and assignments will address histories of race and colonialism, issues of gender and authorship, and utopian studies that emerge from our readings. We will use free, online textbooks for this class and the final project for the course will invite students to remix and augment these online resources for future students enrolled in the course. This course is “stacked.” Students can enroll in this course at an introductory level (ENGL 221W) or at an advanced level ENGL 455. Students enrolled in ENGL 455 will read and deliver presentations on articles and book chapters written by literary critics and historians. ENGL 455 fulfills the diversity requirement and the “Pre-1800” requirement.
English 462: Reading Black, Reading Feminist
Professor Sims
This course examines intersectional identity and its representations of gender, class, race, sexuality, and cultural difference in texts by black American women. The course also identifies and analyzes major issues concerning the discovery and development of a black feminist tradition and the ways in which that tradition has engaged issues of racism, sexism, class exploitation, and/or heteronormativity.
English 474: Issues in Rhetoric and Composition: Rhetorics of Health and Medicine
Professor Cohen
This course will explore the social dimensions of scientific inquiry, especially relating to the cultural and persuasive aspects of the practice of medicine. We will focus on sites where medical practice is shaped by language, including the diagnostic interview, the creation and distribution of treatment protocols, and perceptions of virtue and risk as applied to pharmaceuticals. We will read the work of prominent theorists in the field of Rhetorics of Health and Medicine, examine genres that circulate in medical practice, and analyze texts that circulate in popular culture, such as pharmaceutical ads. We will aim to discover how current rhetorical theory can illuminate our interactions with the field, policy, and practitioners of healthcare in the US, including how these interactions are influenced by issues of race, disability, gender identity, sexuality, and socioeconomic status.
English 487W: Senior Seminar: The Literature of Imperialism
Professor Walters
From the 17th to the early 20th century, it was said that “the sun never sets on the British empire.” This was a fact. Britain had an extensive formal and informal imperial presence across the globe, and during this period, Britain underwent profound cultural, social, and economic upheaval. These violent changes included the beginning and dissolution of the transatlantic slave trade, the establishment of the East India Company and the Raj, and the process of decolonization in the 20th century. This was followed by what has been called the re-colonization of England by those people who formed the overseas empire. In this course, we will examine a variety of fictional and non-fictional texts, including primary and secondary critical works, to scrutinize how empire and imperialism shaped aspects of British identity from the 17th to the 21st century. We will focus most extensively on writings from the 19th and early-20th century.
ENGL 487W fulfills the diversity requirement. Note that ENGL 487W is stacked with ENGL 400. Students may not enroll in both courses at the same time.