LITR 110 LIT HAPPENS: INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE (4 credits)

Literature reminds us that we are never truly alone--that across time and place, people have wrestled with the same questions of love, loss, joy, injustice, and hope. In this course, you'll practice reading not just for plot, but for the deeper connections between words on a page and lives in the world. Together, we'll explore stories, poems, films, comics, and plays that expand our sense of what it means to be human.

(CREATIVE STUDIES, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)

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 UNLOCKING STORIES: CRITICAL METHODS OF LITERARY STUDY (4 credits)

Why do we read literature, and how do we decide what it means? Unlocking Stories: Critical Methods of Literary Study introduces you to the wide range of approaches critics use to interpret literature and culture. Together, we'll ask questions about how texts make meaning, how history, gender, race, class, disability, environment, and law shape interpretation, and why we all read through particular lenses. Theories can feel overwhelming at first, but you'll discover that they provide powerful tools for thinking through ultimate questions about truth, justice, identity, and belonging. By the end of the course, you'll be able to approach literature with a richer set of perspectives-and a clearer understanding of your own. Designed as the foundation for majors and minors in Literature.

Typically offered: Fall Semester, Annually

(CREATIVE STUDIES, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)

LITR 220 AMERICAN DREAMING: RESISTANCE, FREEDOM, OPPORTUNITY (4 credits)

Explore the history of U.S. literature from its earliest beginnings to today. This course looks at how writers have responded to the challenges of their times--colonial life, the rise of industry, social change, and modern diversity--while shaping ideas about identity, nature, and society. You'll read key texts, engage with scholarly interpretations, and develop your own arguments about how the past connects to the present, gaining insight into both historical change and the shared experiences that unite people across time.

Typically offered: Spring Semester

(U.S. PLURALISM, VITAL PAST)

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.

Concurrent Or Previous Courses: INQS 125 or currently enrolled in INQS.

(CREATIVE STUDIES, U.S. PLURALISM, VITAL PAST)

LITR 251 GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS (4 credits)

Exploration of major works of world literature dealing with a particular theme, subject, or cultural legacy.

(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

Concurrent Or Previous Courses: INQS 125

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.

Typically offered: Fall Semester, Annually

LITR 285 LIFE'S NOT FAIR: TRAGEDY IN FILM (4 credits)

Life's Not Fair: Tragedy in Film explores the enduring power of cinematic tragedy to reflect, challenge, and illuminate the human condition. Through classic and contemporary global films, students will analyze how stories of suffering, injustice, and fate provoke emotional and philosophical responses. The course examines core assumptions about values, character, and moral ambiguity in tragic storytelling across cultures and genres. Screenings, reading and discussion will deepen understanding of why we watch tragic films--and what they reveal about us.

Typically offered: Fall and Spring Semesters, As Needed

(GLOBAL PLURALISM, ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)

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.

(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. (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 321 VOICES OF INEQUALITY (4 credits)

This course examines social inequalities in the United States, their causes and consequences, their representations in literature, and their intersection with politics. We will be asking how we know what we know and how we come to believe what we believe when it comes to inequality. This course is cross-listed with Political Science and English and will incorporate methodologies from both the social sciences and the humanities.

Prerequisites: INQS 125

Typically offered: Fall Semester, Every Third Year Or Less Often

(CREATIVE STUDIES, INDIVID/SYSTEMS/SOCIETIES, 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. (Listed as JAMS 327 and LITR 327)

Prerequisites: INQS 125.

(CREATIVE STUDIES)

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 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.

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.

Prerequisites: INQS 125 or consent of instructor.

(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)

LITR 355 QUEER THEORY (4 credits)

This course investigates the critical theories associated with queer life, aesthetics, and politics. Like all critical theory, this course considers existential questions alongside questions of power, philosophy, and culture. We will explore Queer Theory as both an academic discipline and a creative practice and approach queerness as a noun and queering as a verb. Assignments will involve writing and creative projects as a means to examine queerness means in the US and abroad.

Typically offered: Fall Semester, Alternate Years

(ULTIMATE QUESTIONS)

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 375 HEALTH AND HUMANITY: FILM AND MEDICINE IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL (3 credits)

This interdisciplinary travel course explores questions of healthcare--such as illness, caregiving, and bodily autonomy--in Spain and Portugal. Anchored in Spanish and Portuguese cinema, the course examines how cinema portrays key healthcare debates through the lens of everyday lives and ethical dilemmas. Through pre-departure film screenings and in-country site visits to healthcare facilities, sports rehabilitation centers, cultural landmarks, and conversations with local experts, students will gain firsthand insight into how cultural and historical contexts influence healthcare systems and social attitudes toward medicine, and how those systems and attitudes are reflected back to us in art. No prior knowledge of Spanish or film studies is required; students seeking Spanish credit may complete coursework in Spanish.

Typically offered: Summer Term, As Needed

(CREATIVE STUDIES, GLOBAL PLURALISM)

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.

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.

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 492 LITERATURE: SENIOR THESIS (2 credits)

Completion in conference of a publishable critical article of 25+ pages on a literary topic of the student's choice as the final requirement in the literature major. Deadlines include, at minimum, a 50% draft, initial working draft, a major revision of the entire work, and a minor revision of the entire work.

Prerequisites: LITR 491 and senior standing in the literature major.

Typically offered: Spring Semester, Annually

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.

Prerequisites: LITR 211 and at least two additional literature classes. Concurrent enrollment in the related regular 300-level class is required.

Corequisites: Concurrent enrollment in the related regular 300-level class.

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