Literature (LITR)
LITR 110 INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE (4 credits)
Introduction to literary genres through texts addressing particular theme. Emphasis on developing close reading skills central to literary analysis. Practice in writing effective papers about literature. Repeatable only for non-English Department majors. English Department majors who earned credit for ENGL 250 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or currently enrolled in INQS.
(CREATIVE STUDIES)
LITR 198 SPECIAL TOPICS: JAN TERM TRAVEL (4 credits)
Topics vary according to faculty availability and interest. Past topics have included The Brontes, Jane Austen, Irish Literature, Creative Writing in Literary Britain, King Arthur in Britain, The Literary Sea of Cortez, and Politics and Change in Southeast Asia. Offered only as student interest and university resources permit. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
Typically offered: January Term
LITR 211 CRITICAL METHODS OF LITERARY STUDY (4 credits)
Formal initiation of majors and minors in both literature and creative writing to critical and aesthetic analysis of literary texts. Concentrated practice in close reading of major works in various genres, as well as exploration of different critical methodologies. Should be completed before the start of the junior year. Students who earned credit for ENGL 275 may not enroll in this course.
LITR 214 CHILDREN'S LITERATURE (3 credits)
Literature available in various forms for children. Development of skills in the understanding as well as the presentation and teaching of the literature. Students who earned credit for ENGL 303 may not enroll in this course. OFFERED THROUGH ONLINE AND CONTINUING EDUCATION (OCE) ONLY.
LITR 220 PURITANS TO POSTMODERNS: FIRST CONTACT TO LASTING CONTACT (4 credits)
Introduction to sweep of U.S. literature from its pre-Columbian antecedents to the present, including colonialism, the American Renaissance, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Emphasis on themes involving nature, modernity, and U.S. literary pluralism. Lecture/discussion. Students who earned credit for ENGL 285 may not enroll in this course.
Typically offered: Spring Semester
(CREATIVE STUDIES, U.S. PLURALISM)
LITR 221 WESTERN AMERICAN LITERATURE (4 credits)
Investigation into literatures and cultural issues of the American West. Study of significant western writers. May include Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner, Maxine Hon Kingston, H.L. Davis, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ken Kesey or others. Students who earned credit for ENGL 270 may not enroll in this course.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, U.S. PLURALISM, VITAL PAST)
LITR 230 HERO(IN)ES, MONSTERS, PROTEST: BRITISH LITERATURE TO 1660 (4 credits)
Writers and works from the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English traditions, continuing through early modern, Elizabethan, and early seventeenth-century developments. Students who earned credit for ENGL 240 may not enroll in this course.
(CREATIVE STUDIES)
LITR 231 SEX, LANGUAGE, AND EMPIRE BRITISH LITERATURE FROM 1660 TO THE PRESENT (4 credits)
Introduction to literature created in English from the Restoration to 1901. Exploration of historical contexts and effects of linguistic and literary change, including writers and works from the Restoration, Eighteenth century, the Romantics and Victorians. Students who earned credit for ENGL 241 may not enroll in this course.
(CREATIVE STUDIES)
LITR 251 GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS (4 credits)
Exploration of major works of world literature dealing with a particular theme, subject, or cultural legacy. Students who earned credit for ENGL 301 may not enroll in this course.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)
LITR 272 CONTEMPORARY ARTS IN PORTLAND (4 credits)
In this course, we will read widely in contemporary drama, literature, and arts criticism, and adventure into Portland to experience plays, music, literary readings, and other performances, currently running in the Portland arts scene. We will become arts critics, identifying goals of productions and artists, analyzing how elements of a work of art contribute to those goals, and debating how successfully those goals are realized. We will examine new art, broadly understood, in the context of contemporary social concerns as well as artistic history, exploring the power of theater, dance, music, and literature to stage conflict and resolution. And we will pay attention to the difference between reading plays and seeing them, reading criticism and experiencing live art, and appreciating art and situating it in a broader landscape of social concerns and artistic genealogy. along with design elements that contribute to a performance. (Listed as THTR 272 and LITR 272)
Total Course fees: $120.00
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or currently enrolled in INQS.
Typically offered: January Term
(CREATIVE STUDIES, U.S. PLURALISM)
LITR 279 PORTFOLIO & PROFESSIONALIZATION SEMINAR (2 credits)
Initial portfolio course for Literature majors. Documents learning outcomes of major and provides professionalization skills. Designed to be taken in the fall semester of sophomore year. Students who earned credit for ENGL 279 may not enroll in this course.
Typically offered: Fall Semester, Annually
LITR 298 SPECIAL TOPICS: JAN TERM TRAVEL (4 credits)
Topics vary according to faculty availability and interest. Past topics have included The Brontes, Jane Austen, Irish Literature, Creative Writing in Literary Britain, King Arthur in Britain, The Literary Sea of Cortez, and Politics and Change in Southeast Asia. Offered only as student interest and university resources permit. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
Typically offered: January Term
LITR 300 WOMEN WRITERS (4 credits)
Examination of literary works by women writing in English across the globe. Study of the relationship between dominant literary traditions and the politics of gender as a source of constriction and aspiration. Exploration of the impacts of race, class, religion, nationality and sexual orientation upon conceptions of the female. Close reading, literary analysis, and exploration of feminist theory. May be repeated once for credit with a different topic. Students who earned credit for ENGL 300 may not enroll in this course. (Listed as GENS 300 and LITR 300)
Prerequisites: INQS 125.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)
LITR 310 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS (4 credits)
Exploration of works of contemporary literature dealing with a particular theme, subject, school, or region. An emphasis on reading for technique and reading as writers. Especially recommended for creative writing majors and minors. Students who earned credit for ENGL 307 may not enroll in this course.
(CREATIVE STUDIES)
LITR 311 LEADERSHIP, ETHICS, AND PERSUASION (4 credits)
Examines the two-thousand-year-old tradition of rhetoric and addresses the difficult question of ethical argument. Begins with the Greeks, and moves into the twenty-first century. After establishing a theoretical understanding of the important questions and practices, students will consider a variety of speeches by American leaders. Ends with participants creating their own speeches on current topics. Taught as a Socratic, discussion-based seminar. Students who earned credit for ENGL 311 may not enroll in this course. (LISTED AS LEAD 311, POLS 311, AND LITR 311)
Prerequisites: INQS 125.
(ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)
LITR 312 ULTIMATE QUESTIONS IN LITERATURE (4 credits)
Literary investigation into concerns fundamental to human existence such as the nature of good and evil; the origins and condition of the human being in the universe; the nature of religious quest and experience of the sacred; ethical inquiry and behavior; utopian social aspiration; the nature of human knowing. May be repeated once for credit with different content.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)
LITR 313 MAJOR FIGURES (4 credits)
Focus on the work of one writer such as John Milton or Virgina Woolf, or closely connected writers such as W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, or Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. May be repeated once for credit with different writers.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, MAJOR WRITING INTENSIVE)
LITR 320 THE NOVEL IN THE UNITED STATES (4 credits)
Examination of one of the preeminent literary genres in U.S. literary history as a window into recurrent themes linking American fiction writers across decades. A study of aesthetic experimentation within the genre. Topics will vary. May be repeated once for credit.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, U.S. PLURALISM)
LITR 327 INTRODUCTION TO FILM (4 credits)
This course explores how film differs from other media due to its stylistic and formal properties, institutional production, and historical reception. Students learn the basic language of film analysis and composition (like editing, mise-en-scene, lighting); examine a range of film scholarship and criticism (like auteur theory, documentary, genre, star studies); and consider how the medium has evolved since its emergence at the turn of the 20th century. Students who earned credit for ENGL 327 may not enroll in this course. (Listed as JAMS 327 and LITR 327)
Prerequisites: INQS 125.
(CREATIVE STUDIES)
LITR 330 EPIC & ROMANCE (4 credits)
Writers and works from the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English traditions, reflecting the medieval outlook from Beowulf to Chaucer to Malory. Students who earned credit for ENGL 340 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or cnsent of instructor.
(VITAL PAST)
LITR 331 SEX AND POWER IN THE RENAISSANCE (4 credits)
Investigation of erotic, religions, and political desire in literary texts from 1500-1660. Exploration of representative Renaissance genres (comedy, tragedy, lyric, epic, satire) that raise questions of sex and power in their historical context. Attention to the construction of gender roles and individual identity in a dangerous social environment. Students who earned credit for ENGL 341 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(VITAL PAST)
LITR 334 SECRET LIVES IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE (4 credits)
Focus on the detective story, the sensation novel, the bildungsroman, and the dramatic monologue, Victorian forms that policed the boundary between public and private selves. Exploration of representative works across literary genres from 1837 to 1901. Psychological and historical approaches to identity inflected by changes in gender, science, and imperialism. Students who earned credit for ENGL 344 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(VITAL PAST)
LITR 335 20TH CENTURY GLOBAL BRITISH LITERATURE (4 credits)
Representative forms and ideas in English prose and poetry of the 20th century. Students who earned credit for ENGL 345 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)
LITR 350 SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES AND HISTORIES: PERFORMING GENDER & SEXUALITY (4 credits)
Selected comedies and histories in their historical and critical context. Emphasis on comedy as a dramatic form and questions of gender and sexuality as they are represented through performance. Students who earned credit for ENGL 350 may not enroll in this course. (Listed as GENS 350 and LITR 350)
Total Course fees: $40.00
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, VITAL PAST)
LITR 351 SHAKESPEARE: TRAGEDIES & TRAGICOMEDIES (4 credits)
Selected tragedies and tragicomedies in their historical and critical context; emphasis on tragedy as a dramatic form. Students who earned credit for ENGL 351 may not enroll in this course. (Listed as THTR 351 and LITR 351)
Total Course fees: $40.00
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, VITAL PAST)
LITR 352 DIVERSE VOICES IN LITERARY EXPRESSION (4 credits)
Literary works addressing issues of race, gender, class, minority experience, or national literatures besides those of the U.S. or England. May be repeated once for credit with different content. Students who earned credit for ENGL 305 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)
LITR 354 RACE, IMPERIALISM, JUSTICE (4 credits)
Exploration of postcolonial literature and theory in English interrogating themes of war, colonization, decolonization, empire, imperialism, law and justice, displacements, migrations and transnational identities, hybridity and globalization. Authors studied may include but are not limited to Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, Aime Cesaire, Jamaica Kincaid, Zadie Smith, Arundhuti Roy, Salman Rushdie, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, V.S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott, Nawal El Saadawi, Edward Said. Students who earned credit for ENGL 365 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)
LITR 360 LITERATURE AND LANDSCAPE (4 credits)
Introduction to the relationship between literary texts and environmental issues. Authors studied may include Annie Dillard, Gary Snyder, John McPhee, Mary Austin, Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold. Students who earned credit for ENGL 304 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.
(CREATIVE STUDIES, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)
LITR 398 SPECIAL TOPICS: JAN TERM TRAVEL (4 credits)
Topics vary according to faculty availability and interest. Past topics have included The Brontes, Jane Austen, Irish Literature, Creative Writing in Literary Britain, King Arthur in Britain, The Literary Sea of Cortez, and Politics and Change in Southeast Asia. Offered only as student interest and university resources permit. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
Prerequisites: IDST 098 previous fall.
Typically offered: January Term, Every Third Year Or Less Often
LITR 439 PEER INSTRUCTION (1-3 credits)
Advanced opportunity for outstanding students to assist faculty members in the classroom or laboratory. Focus on course content and pedagogy.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
(EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING)
LITR 479 PORTFOLIO (1 credit)
Senior portfolio course for literature and creative writing majors. Documents learning outcomes for major. Students should register with departmental academic advisor as instructor. May be repeated once for credit when earning two majors in the English Department.
LITR 480 INDEPENDENT STUDY (1-5 credits)
Program of directed tutorial reading on some topic or problem within the discipline relating to the special interests of the student and supervised by a departmental faculty member.
LITR 481 DIRECTED READING (1 credit)
Reading and discussion course organized around a writer or theme. Emphasis on close reading, articulate discussion and evaluation of cultural significance of literary and/or popular texts. May be repeated once for credit. Students who have already earned credit for ENGL 395 twice may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: INQS 125 and one literature course.
LITR 487 INTERNSHIP (1-8 credits)
Supervised employment in a work setting which draws upon the writing, speaking, oral, and analytical skills developed by literature majors. Open to seniors and second-semester juniors with permission from faculty supervisor. No more than 4 credits to be counted toward the major.
(EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING)
LITR 490 HONORS THESIS: LITERATURE (4 credits)
Research and writing of an honors thesis or senior-level literature majors. Students who earned credit for ENGL 490 may not enroll in this course.
LITR 491 SENIOR SEMINAR: LITERATURE (4 credits)
Advanced study of a specialized literary subject in a seminar setting. Completion of a substantial critical paper. A senior level course for students who have previously completed most of the requirements for the literature major. Students who earned credit for ENGL 486 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: LITR 211.
(MAJOR WRITING INTENSIVE)
LITR 495 PRO-SEMINAR (1 credit)
In-depth investigation of topic covered in a related 300-level literature course, completed concurrently with that course (registration required in both). Allows junior-level literature majors who plan to research and write an honors thesis to initiate the project prior to senior year. Requires reading, research, writing and presentations beyond assignments associated with the related course. Students who earned credit for ENGL 495 may not enroll in this course.
Prerequisites: LITR 211 and at least two additional literature classes. Concurrent enrollment in the related regular 300-level class is required.
LITR 498 SPECIAL TOPICS: JAN TERM TRAV (4 credits)
Topics vary according to faculty availability and interest. Past topics have included The Brontes, Jane Austen, Irish Literature, Creative Writing in Literary Britain, King Arthur in Britain, The Literary Sea of Cortez, and Politics and Change in Southeast Asia. Offered only as student interest and university resources permit. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
Prerequisites: IDST 098 previous fall.
Typically offered: January Term, Every Third Year Or Less Often