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ENGLISH 1D: Dickens Reading

Through the academic year, we will read one Dickens novel, one number a week for 19 weeks, as the Victorians would have done as they read the serialized novel over the course of 19 months. The group gets together once a week for an hour and a half to discuss each number, to look carefully at the pattern that the author is weaving, to guess, as the Victorians would have done, what might be coming next, and to investigate the Victorian world Dickens presents. We look carefully at themes, characters, metaphorical patterns, and scenes that form Dickens' literary world, and spend increasing time evaluating the critique that Dickens levels at Victorian life. The weekly gatherings are casual; the discussion is lively and pointed.
Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 5 times (up to 5 units total)
Instructors: ; Paulson, L. (PI)

ENGLISH 5FA: The Romance and its Readers

What does it mean for a text to be "realistic" or "unrealistic"? Why does it feel natural to us, as readers, to evaluate a book based on its ability to represent "reality"? Then again, why attempt to reproduce the real when you could simply put the book down and walk outside? In this course, we will consider these questions through the lens of "the romance." Though extremely variable across time, the romance emerges time and again as the genre of the unreal or decidedly fictional. Here are the books, we are told, that lead to fantasy and self-delusion. Reexamining such judgments, we will read a selection of "romances" - ranging from saints' lives to lesbian pulp fiction and the contemporary romance novel - while also devoting attention to the romance-reader (as a supposedly deluded and ineffectual participant in reality) to explore the development of the novel as a category and to trouble our understandings of "real" and "unreal" modes of experience and representation. How has the romance historically been used to reject, distort, or transform reality? What gender - or other - biases inform the perennial devaluation of the romance as escapist fluff? What might it mean? What insights into literary history and politics emerge? if we take the romance and its readers seriously? (Note: This Writing-Intensive Seminar in English (WISE) course fulfills WIM for English majors. Non-majors are welcome, space permitting. For enrollment permission contact farrahm@stanford.edu.)
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Pitts, V. (PI)

ENGLISH 5GA: Shakespeare and His Critics

In this seminar, we delve into foundational topics in Shakespearean drama, Shakespeare Studies, and literary theory by reading key plays alongside touchstone analyses drawn from the major critical schools of the twentieth century. Each class pairs dramatic verse with academic argument, introducing theatrical characters alongside prominent scholars. Primary texts include Hamlet, As You Like It, and Richard III. Secondary works survey historicist, psychoanalytic, new critical, post-structuralist, and feminist perspectives, among others. By the end of the quarter, students will have expanded their understanding of Shakespeare and of literary criticism and will have developed their competencies as critics in their own rights. (Note: This Writing-Intensive Seminar in English (WISE) course fulfills WIM for English majors. Non-majors are welcome, space permitting. For enrollment permission contact farrahm@stanford.edu)
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Koon, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 9CE: Creative Expression in Writing

Primary focus on giving students a skill set to tap into their own creativity. Opportunities for students to explore their creative strengths, develop a vocabulary with which to discuss their own creativity, and experiment with the craft and adventure of their own writing. Students will come out of the course strengthened in their ability to identify and pursue their own creative interests. For undergrads only. NOTE: For undergraduates only. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE

ENGLISH 9CI: Inspired By Science: A Writing Workshop

How can your interest in science and the environment be enriched by a regular creative practice? How do you begin to write a poem or essay about the wonders of the natural world or the nuances of climate change? What are the tools and strategies available to creative writers, and how can these techniques be used to communicate complex concepts and research to wide-audiences? We begin to answer these questions by drawing inspiration from the rich tradition of scientists who write and writers who integrate science. Emphasizing writing process over finished product, students maintain journals throughout the quarter, responding to daily prompts that encourage both practice and play. Through open-ended and exploratory writing, along with specific exercises to learn the writer's craft students develop a sense of their own style and voice. Note: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Michas-Martin, S. (PI)

ENGLISH 9R: Humanities Research Intensive

Everyone knows that scientists do research, but how do you do research in the humanities? This seven-day course, taught over spring break, will introduce you to the excitement of humanities research, while preparing you to develop an independent summer project or to work as a research assistant for a Stanford professor. Through hands-on experience with archival materials and museum collections, you will learn how to formulate a solid research question; how to gather the evidence that will help you to answer that question; how to write up research results; how to critique the research of your fellow students; how to deliver your results in a public setting; and how to write an effective grant proposal. Students who complete this course become Humanities Research Intensive Fellows and receive post-program mentorship during spring quarter, ongoing opportunities to engage with faculty and advanced undergraduates, and eligibility to apply for additional funding to support follow-up research. Freshmen, sophomores, and qualifying transfer students only. All majors and undeclared students welcome. No prior research experience necessary. Enrollment limited: apply in October at https://humanexperience.stanford.edu/undergraduates/humanities-research-intensive.
Terms: Spr | Units: 2

ENGLISH 11B: Introduction to English II: American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150)

In this course we'll explore the uncanny world--at once strange and strangely familiar - of early American literature and culture, as we read diverse works - including poetry, captivity and slave narratives, seduction novels, Native American oratory, short stories, essays, autobiographies, and more - in relation to political, social, and artistic as well as literary contexts from the colonial period to the eve of Civil War. Note: students majoring (or planning to major) in English or American Studies should take the course for 5 units and for a letter grade.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Richardson, J. (PI)

ENGLISH 12C: Introduction to English III: Modern Literature

Survey of the major trends in literary history from 1850 to the present.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)
Instructors: ; McGurl, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 13P: Media and Communication from the Middle Ages to the Printing Press (ENGLISH 113P, HISTORY 13P, HISTORY 113P, MUSIC 13P, MUSIC 113P)

Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Phillips, J. (PI)

ENGLISH 16Q: Family Stories

This creative writing workshop will explore the idea of family. We'll begin with our questions: How do we conceptualize the word family? How do family histories, stories, mythologies, and languages shape our narratives? What does family have to do with the construction of a self? How can we investigate the self and all of its many contexts in writing? We'll consider how we might work from our questions in order to craft work that is meaningful and revealing. Students will have the opportunity to write in both poetry and prose, as well as to develop their own creative cross-genre projects. Along the way, we'll discuss elements of craft essential to strong writing: how to turn the self into a speaker; how create the world of a piece through image, detail, and metaphor; how to craft beautiful sentences and lines; how to find a form; and many other topics.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Perham, B. (PI)

ENGLISH 17Q: After 2001: A 21st Century Science Fiction Odyssey

In 1968, Stanley Kurick's 2001: A Space Odyssey imagined the future in the then distant year of 2001. Now that year is more than 20 years in the rearview and his science fiction future is now our past (with fewer PanAm flights to the moon and a stunning dearth of murderous AI). What is science fiction in the 21st century? What does it do? Who writes it? And, importantly, who is it for? In this class we will explore the questions of topic, author, audience, and community through the lens of the Hugo winning short stories since 2001. Hugo Awards are chosen by the fans, so this will allow us to examine the ways in which fandom and popular culture have changed in the last two decades in ways that has made the genre broader and more inclusive of writers and readers of every gender, race, and sexuality, while at the same time provoking a reactionary response in a minority of writers and fans who consider themselves decentered by these developments. Readings will include the Hugo winning short stories, some classic science fiction stories, and contemporary reports about the annual science fiction convention where these awards are given (WorldCon), and articles about science fiction fan culture. We will also view some of the science fiction visual works that have been important or influential in the past two decades. Timing and health permitted we will attend a local science fiction convention. This course will be reading- and writing-intensive but will also offer opportunities for spirited discussion. We will be engaging with sensitive subjects such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Assignments include weekly short essays, discussion leadership, individual presentations, and a final research paper.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

ENGLISH 24Q: Leaving Patriarchy: A Course for All Genders (FEMGEN 24Q)

This is a creative writing course for writers of all genders who are interested in thinking about patriarchy and how to resist it. Our course will aim to complicate the idea that men benefit from patriarchy and are its primary enforcers, while the rest of us are simply suffering under it. We'll ask ourselves how patriarchy is bad for ALL of us, and how ALL of us are implicated in its perpetuation. Do we ALL have the reasons and the resources to leave patriarchy--and can we start to leave it right now? We'll read works of scholarship and literature that investigate patriarchy as a human relational problem. We'll write fiction and nonfiction in which we explore the ways patriarchy has shaped us, challenge ourselves to resist its manifestations in our relationships, envision a future without patriarchy, and begin to live that future right now. Most crucially, we will practice creating a space in which all of us can speak without fear of judgment about our experiences of a fraught topic.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE

ENGLISH 39Q: Were They Really "Hard Times"? Mid-Victorian Social Movements and Charles Dickens (HISTORY 39Q)

"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it." So begins Charles Dickens description of Coketown in Hard Times. And it only seems to get more grim from there. But the world that Dickens sought to portray in the novel was a hopeful one, too. And that tension is our starting point. The intent of this class is to more closely examine mid-Victorian Britain in light of Dickens' novel, with particular focus on the rise of some of our modern social movements in the 19th century. While things like the labor movement, abolitionism, feminism, and environmentalism, are not the same now as they were then, this class will explore the argument that the 21st century is still, in some ways, working out 19th century problems and questions. At the same time, this is also a course that seeks to expand the kinds of sources we traditionally use as historians. Thus, while recognizing that literary sources are particularly complex, we will use Hard Times as a guide to our exploration to this fascinating era. We will seek both to better understand this complex, transitional time and to assess the accuracy of Dickens' depictions of socio-political life.Through a combination of short response papers, creative Victorian projects (such as sending a hand-written letter to a classmate), and a final paper/project, this course will give you the opportunity to learn more about the 19th century and the value of being historically minded.As a seminar based course, discussion amongst members of the class is vital. All students are welcome
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI

ENGLISH 50: Humanities House Workshop

For student-run workshops and research seminars in Ng House / Humanities House. Open to both residents and non-residents. May be repeated for credit. This course code covers several discrete workshops each quarter; sign up for a particular workshop via the Google Form at https://goo.gl/forms/TRU0AogJP3IHyUmr2.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable for credit (up to 99 units total)
Instructors: ; Shanks, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 53Q: Writing and Gender in the Age of Disruption (FEMGEN 53Q)

In this course, we will read a wide cross-section of British and American women writers who turned to fiction and poetry to examine, and to survive, their times: Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen, Rebecca West, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Rhys, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Katherine Mansfield, H.D., Marianne Moore, and Una Marson. You will learn how to pay close attention to the often radically new ways these writers bent language to their purposes to express complex emotions and vexed political realities; in your own essay writing, you will learn how to write clearly and persuasively about small units of text and to craft longer critical analyses attentive to language, history, and culture. Always, students will be encouraged to draw connections between then and now, to ponder what has changed, and what remains to be changed, in our own turbulent times.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Staveley, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 66: 'A Model Island': Britain in Historical and Cultural Perspective

What's `culture'? There is no such thing as `British culture' as a coherent singular phenomenon, but `culture' can be a useful lens to think about a place, its entanglement with the past and the rest of the world. In this class we can understand how the ideas and social relations that constitute the common-sense fiction of British culture and the very notions of `Britishness', `Englishness', etc. came about historically and are sustained in contemporary contexts. As well as learn how to use `culture' as a heuristic-critical tool to make sense of a particular place's entanglement in history, politics, and cultural production.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 2

ENGLISH 71: Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X, SLAVIC 36, TAPS 36)

Ideas matter. Concepts such as progress, technology, and sex, have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like cultural relativism and historical memory, play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these "dangerous" ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space.
Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 4 times (up to 4 units total)
Instructors: ; Safran, G. (PI)

ENGLISH 90: Fiction Writing

The elements of fiction writing: narration, description, and dialogue. Students write complete stories and participate in story workshops. Prerequisite: PWR 1 (waived in summer quarter). NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE

ENGLISH 90FC: First Chapters

Novels only get one chance to make a good first impression. Chapter One is that opportunity, and in this course we'll read, discuss, and analyze a variety of historical and contemporary novels with a particular focus on their opening chapter (and sometimes prologue). We'll study strategies around world-building, characterization, creating the engine of a novel (its voice), and in establishing a lively, complex, and surprising world that a reader can't wait to explore in greater detail.
Terms: Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Kealey, T. (PI)

ENGLISH 90H: Humor Writing Workshop

What makes writing funny? What are we doing when we try to be funny? In this creative writing workshop, you'll exercise your native wit by writing short pieces of humor in a variety of forms. We'll practice writing jokes, parody, satire, sketches, stories, and more, study theories of humor, research practical principles and structures that writers have repeatedly used to make things funny, and enjoy and analyze examples of humor old and new to use as models. In the service of creating and understanding humor, we'll also explore questions about what purposes humor serves, and what relationship humor has with power, culture, and history.
Terms: Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Porter, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 90R: American Road Trip

From Whitman to Kerouac, Alec Soth to Georgia O'Keeffe, the lure of travel has inspired many American artists to pack up their bags and hit the open road. In this course we will be exploring the art and literature of the great American road trip, including prose, poetry, films, and photography. We will be reading and writing in a variety of genres, workshopping our own stories, and considering the ways in which our personal journeys have come to inform and define our lives. The course includes a number of campus-wide field trips, and an end-of-quarter road trip down the California coast.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Carlson-Wee, K. (PI)

ENGLISH 91: Creative Nonfiction

Historical and contemporary as a broad genre including travel and nature writing, memoir, biography, journalism, and the personal essay. Students use creative means to express factual content. Prerequisite: PWR 1 (waived in summer quarter and for SLE students). NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE

ENGLISH 91NW: Nature Writing

In this course we will be reading some of the most beautiful, magical, vital, dangerous andrevolutionary essays and stories and poems ever written, and, in our own writing about nature, will be joining that lineage that includes writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, John Muir, Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, and many others. Expect to spend lots of time immersed in nature, literally and literarily. Required materials include: pen, notebook, magnifying glass, binoculars, and a good pair of shoes.NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Smith, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 92: Reading and Writing Poetry

Issues of poetic craft. How elements of form, music, structure, and content work together to create meaning and experience in a poem. Prerequisite: PWR 1. NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE

ENGLISH 93Q: The American Road Trip

From Whitman to Kerouac, Alec Soth to Georgia O'Keeffe, the lure of travel has inspired many American artists to pack up their bags and hit the open road. In this course we will be exploring the art and literature of the great American road trip. We will be reading and writing in a variety of genres, workshopping our own personal projects, and considering a wide breadth of narrative approaches. Assignments will range from reading Cormac McCarthy's novel, 'The Road,' to listening to Bob Dylan's album, 'Highway 61 Revisited.' We will be looking at films like 'Badlands' and 'Thelma and Louise,' acquainting ourselves with contemporary photographers, going on a number of campus-wide field trips, and finishing the quarter with an actual road trip down the California coast. Anyone with a sense of adventure is welcome!
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Carlson-Wee, K. (PI)

ENGLISH 113A: African American Ecologies (AFRICAAM 113A)

African American perspectives on the environment have long been suppressed in mainstream ecological discourse, despite the importance of questions of land, labor, and resource to the historical and ongoing experiences of Black people in the United States. Against this exclusion, this course takes up African American literature as a unique site of ecological knowledge and environmental thought. Drawing on texts, art, music, and film from the late nineteenth century to the present, this course considers planetary problems of ecological catastrophe and climatic change in relation to the everyday structures of U.S.-American racial politics. Through close analyses of texts and films set on plantations and steamships, in gardens and coal mines, students will explore the environmental dimensions of African American literature, and gain a deeper understanding of the real-world histories with which these works engage. Texts will include novels by Zora Neale Hurston, Percival Everett, and Toni Morrison, short stories and essays by Charles Chesnutt, Jamaica Kincaid, Katherine McKittrick, and adrienne marie brown, and films and multimedia works by Julie Dash, Stephanie Dinkins, and Jordan Peele. Important topics will include the ecology of the plantation, black feminist ecological thought, and the significance of water in African American life and culture.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Gordon, W. (PI)

ENGLISH 113P: Media and Communication from the Middle Ages to the Printing Press (ENGLISH 13P, HISTORY 13P, HISTORY 113P, MUSIC 13P, MUSIC 113P)

Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Phillips, J. (PI)

ENGLISH 122C: Medieval Fantasy Literature

This is a comparative medieval literature course that surveys Anglo-Norman and English romance, English and Norse heroic epic, and Norse and Celtic mythology. What significance and meaning did medieval writers from different times and places see in magic and monsters; what superstitions and beliefs converged in their efforts to represent things from the other side, and what compelled them to do so? We will address such questions by reading the literature against the social, cultural, and religious contexts that shaped medieval life and artistic production. Finally we will turn to some modern works inspired by these medieval texts, reflecting on how literary medievalism has cultivated the tropes of medieval fantasy to produce works which mediate between an imagined history, sublime fabrication, and contemporary concerns.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Ashton, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 144B: Contemporary British Fiction: History, Language, Place

How do contemporary British novelists represent dramatic changes in culture, class, demography, generation, economy, gender, race, and national identity following the allied victory in the Second World War (1939-1945)?¿ Focusing on writers born between 1948 and 1975, we examine the structuring of historical consciousness in novels by Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, Hanif Kureishi, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith, and Hilary Mantel.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Staveley, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 146F: Fiction Intensive: Crafting a Short Story Collection

In this seminar, we will take a deep dive into the creation of short stories. You will come away from the course with an expansive sense of what goes into crafting a short story collection, from its earliest ideas to a fully realized book. Reading some of the most exciting contemporary fiction -- including work by Jhumpa Lahiri, Edward P. Jones, Carmen Maria Machado and Joy Williams -- we will examine each story as a model for inspiration and imitation. Through weekly writing prompts and in-depth discussions, we will explore and practice how writers build nuanced and multi-dimensional characters, sharp and believable dialogue, sustained suspense and other techniques essential to writing powerful short fiction. We will read a variety of short story collections, with each week centered around a specific topic, including World Building and Ghost Stories. Some weeks the author will visit the class, giving us the unique chance to analyze their work with them, and to learn about the craft and life of a working fiction writer. Fulfills short story literature requirement for the Minor in Creative Writing and the Creative Writing Emphasis in the English Major.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Antopol, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 146W: Iconic Short Stories

Exploration of classic (mostly) and contemporary short stories emphasizing craft aspects useful to writers and looking closely at how Chekhov, Kafka, Woolf, Flaubert, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Munro, and others evoke emotion. Fulfills short story literature requirement for the Minor in Creative Writing and the Creative Writing Emphasis in the English Major. Admission by consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Tallent, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 152K: Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AFRICAAM 226, AMSTUD 152K, CSRE 152K)

Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement. If you have any questions about enrollment or need a permission number, please contact Farrah Moreno (farrahm@stanford.edu).
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Elam, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 159: James Baldwin & Twentieth Century Literature (AFRICAAM 159, AMSTUD 159, FEMGEN 159)

Black, gay and gifted, Baldwin was hailed as a "spokesman for the race", although he personally, and controversially, eschewed titles and classifications of all kinds. This course examines his classic novels and essays as well his exciting work across many lesser-examined domains - poetry, music, theatre, sermon, photo-text, children's literature, public media, comedy and artistic collaboration. Placing his work in context with other writers of the 20C (Faulkner, Wright, Morrison) and capitalizing on a resurgence of interest in the writer (NYC just dedicated a year of celebration of Baldwin and there are 2 new journals dedicated to study of Baldwin), the course seeks to capture the power and influence of Baldwin's work during the Civil Rights era as well as his relevance in the "post-race" transnational 21st century, when his prescient questioning of the boundaries of race, sex, love, leadership and country assume new urgency.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Elam, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 160: Poetry and Poetics

Introduction to the reading of poetry, with emphasis on how the sense of poems is shaped through diction, imagery, and technical elements of verse.English majors must take this class for 5 units.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II

ENGLISH 161: Narrative and Narrative Theory (COMPLIT 161E)

An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? Focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative. nEnglish majors must take this class for 5 units.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II

ENGLISH 165: Perspectives on American Identity (AMSTUD 160)

Required for American Studies majors. In this seminar we trace diverse and changing interpretations of American identity by exploring autobiographical, literary, and/or visual texts from the 18th through the 20th century in conversation with sociological, political, and historical accounts. *Fulfills Writing In the Major Requirement for American Studies Majors*
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Kessler, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 177: Contemporary Novel in U.S. Perspective (AMSTUD 177)

This course investigates a selection of novels from 2001 to the present, either authored in the United States or strongly and meaningfully received here by critics and gatekeepers. In the absence of a fixed academic canon or acknowledged tradition of exemplary works, this course includes evaluation as one of its central enterprises. Students help to make arguments for which works matter and why. Students consider topics including the demotion of the novel to a minor art form, competition from the image, transformations of celebrity culture (in literature and outside it), relevance or irrelevance of the digital age, aftermaths of the modernist and postmodernist project, eccentricity and marginality, race and gender politics in putatively post-feminist, post-racial,and post-political vantage, and problems of meaning in rich societies oriented to risk, probability, economization, health, consumption, comfort, and recognition or representation (rather than action or event). Novels and short stories may be supplemented by philosophical and sociological visions of the contemporary.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Greif, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 177B: Contemporary American Short Stories (AMSTUD 177B)

An exploration of the power and diversity of the American short story ranging from the 1970s to the present day. By examining short stories historically, critically, and above all as art objects, students will learn how to read, interpret, critique, and enjoy short stories as social, political, and humanist documents. Students will learn techniques to craft their own short stories and their own critical essays in a course that combines creative practice and the art of critical appreciation.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE

ENGLISH 180A: Velocity and Suspension: The Sense of Time in Early Modern Writing

'A book that never ends, an ongoing book to tell you what is true.' Thus one literary critic describes the strangest of literary innovations from the late seventeenth century: the periodical form. Between 1641-1700, periodicals made up fully one-fourth of printed titles. Authors more often recognized as practitioners of other forms (Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood, Jonathan Swift, Frederick Douglass) also headed up their own journals as editors. This course, which prioritizes breadth of exposure, will also consider the temporal rhythms that a literary form like the periodical introduces and alters. By situating journalistic time within a range of calendrical regimes from the medieval period onward (the seasonal, monastic, public, scientific and yes, academic), students should find resources anew to guide their own practices of recurrent writing.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Yu, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 190: Intermediate Fiction Writing

Intermediate course in the craft and art of fiction writing. Students read a diverse range of short stories and novel excerpts, complete writing exercises, and submit a short and longer story to be workshopped and revised. Prerequisite: 90 or 91. NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)

ENGLISH 190A: AAPI Fiction Writing (ASNAMST 190)

This intermediate fiction writing course will feature readings from a variety of contemporary AAPI fiction writers. We will examine the various approaches and forms writers have utilized in writing about subjects political and personal. We will also look beyond the story itself to understand the authors' approaches to centering the AAPI experience, confronting intergenerational trauma, employing multilingual dialogue, repurposing genre, and navigating the ethics of incorporating family narratives. Students will write their own short stories which will be workshopped by the class. Entry into the course is via application.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Tanaka, S. (PI)

ENGLISH 190NS: Novel Salon

Who better to discuss a book with than its author? In this course we will immerse ourselves in eight novels and meet with their authors to hear about their drafting, revising, and publishing experiences. We will read as writers¿for inspiration and craft¿and analyze novels for structure, scope, character development, dialogue, setting, style, and theme. We will examine how craft conventions are applied and subverted, while asking, ¿What makes a novel work?¿ Students will write about, discuss, and present the novels we read, participate in Q&A with visiting authors, and complete in-class writing exercises designed to inform and inspire. Note: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)

ENGLISH 190SW: Screenwriting Intensive

The main requirement for this course is a full length film script. The course explores elements of screenwriting including beat structure, character creation, scene vs. montage, as well as description and dialogue. Students will read four to five screenplays during the first half of the course and then write a 90-page film script in the second half of the course. Students will additionally write synopses, treatments, character sketches, and beat sheets. Designed for any student who has always wanted to write a screenplay
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE | Repeatable 2 times (up to 5 units total)

ENGLISH 191DC: DCI Intermediate Memoir Workshop

Open to DCI Fellows & Partners only. DCI Intermediate Memoir Workshop will take as its occasion for your creative development a continuing examination of memoir essays and memoir book excerpts. These texts broadly innovate within and outside of the formal traditions you studied in DCI Memoir workshop, to find new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. We will read authors including Kathryn Harrison, Brian Doyle, Jerald Walker, Patricia Hampl, MFK Fisher, Jo Ann Beard, and Tressie McMillan Cottom. This course will also serve as the continuing examination and practice of formal memoir writing. My goal for your learning in this class is that you walk out of our last session having done the following: 1) Written a next piece to follow in some way on your work in DCI Memoir: a new or next chapter, a related or new essay, an expansion into a larger piece, etc. 2) Looked at more sophisticated models for writing about your own life in a meaningful way, including hybrids of journalism and personal writing (e.g., The New Yorker), deep dives into personal subjects that twin with passions or areas of expertise, travel writing, and lyric forms of the essay. 3) Written two Short Essays based on more sophisticated writing prompts. 4) Participated in whole-class workshops for both Short Essays, and in a full-class workshop for your next piece. 5) Practiced giving and receiving helpful individual and workshop peer feedback. A variety of creative prompts, critical exercises, and assigned readings will foster your understanding and appreciation of creative nonfiction, as well as your growth as a creative writer. Energetic, committed participation is a must.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5

ENGLISH 192V: The Occasions of Poetry

Taught by the Mohr Visiting Poet. Prerequisite: 92. By application. Permission number required to enroll.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | Repeatable 4 times (up to 20 units total)
Instructors: ; Sze, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 194C: Curricular Practical Training

CPT course required for international students completing degree.Following internship work, students complete a research report outlining work activity, problems investigated, key results and follow-up projects. Meets the requirements for curricular practical training for students on F-1 visas. Student is responsible for arranging own internship and faculty sponsorship.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1

ENGLISH 197: Seniors Honors Essay

In two quarters.
Terms: Win, Spr | Units: 1-10 | Repeatable for credit
Instructors: ; Staveley, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 199: Why Literature Matters (To Me)

A hands-on, co-taught seminar with English and Creative Writing faculty/lecturers, featuring a complimentary commonplace book and fountain pen as gifts of the department. The development of topic or themes from reading, examination of commonplace books and manuscripts, friendship albums, notebooks, scrapbooks, and journals in Special Collections. Close reading of canonical poets and prose writers on their own reading experience. Study of and creative exercises in notation and annotation. Development of a final project in creative nonfiction on the topic of "Why Literature Matters to Me." Requirements: 5 literature courses in any department.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3

ENGLISH 215E: Shakespeare and His Contexts: Race, Religion, Sexuality, Gender

This course will explore contexts of race, religion, sexuality and gender in multiple Shakespeare plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest), with critical readings on topics including feminist and queer theory, transvestite theater, historically blackface performance, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, forced conversion, competing empires, colonialism and postcolonialism, and racial profiling (among others).
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Parker, P. (PI)

ENGLISH 255A: Old English Anew (ENGLISH 355A)

Why are the thoughts, feelings, and actions of English poets a millennium ago still so important in modern and contemporary poetry? Early English literature has long had an extraordinary influence on later writers from John Milton to Elizabeth Elstob, William Morris, W. H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Evan Boland, Denise Levertov, Jorge Luis Borges, and Maria Dahvana Headley. This course will ask what is so special about these creative connections across time. We'll closely examine English lyrical, devotional, heroic, and fantastic poetry from the tenth to the twelfth centuries to consider the themes, ideas, and emotion that motivated later poets to adopt, adapt, and echo their age-old predecessors. Students will learn?through hard work?how to translate and evaluate Early English (getting an excellent knowledge of English grammar, lexis, and form into the bargain) in order to produce their own inventive poetry in the vein of inspired Old English shapers of verse.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4-5
Instructors: ; Treharne, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 283: The Sublime and the Ugly

Why is it that the aesthetic pleasures resulting from artistic representation so often depart from the "pure" ideal of beauty? Is tainted beauty more, or less, than beautiful? Is there any such thing as a "pure" aesthetic category, after all, or is all experience in relation to the arts hybrid? Pain may enhance pleasure in the case of the sublime, but where does disgust fit in? or does it? And what about ugliness? Campiness? Grotesqueness? The uncanny? This course is designed to put literary, psychoanalytic, sociological, architectural, post structural, and queer theory as well as philosophical and art historical writings in conversation with poetry, narrative fiction, creative nonfiction, and film, in order to develop a critical skill set designed not only to address such questions but, more critically for an active mind, to posit new ones.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Gigante, D. (PI)

ENGLISH 290: Advanced Fiction Writing

Workshop critique of original short stories or novel. Prerequisite: Intermediate prose workshop.
Terms: Win, Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)

ENGLISH 291: Advanced Creative Nonfiction

English 291 takes as its occasion for your creative and critical development an examination of essays and book excerpts in various creative nonfiction subgenres. These essays and excerpts work within traditional and innovative forms to find new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. This course also serves as the continuing examination and practice of creative nonfiction in English 191. You will write, workshop, present to the class, and revise drafts of work. All workshops will serve as the springboard for larger class conversations about theme and craft. A variety of creative prompts, critical exercises, and assigned readings will foster your understanding and appreciation of creative nonfiction, as well as your growth as a creative writer. All prompts will move you toward a culminating project of realizing either an essay to submit for possible publication or a draft book-length synopsis and outline. This course is designed for students who have completed English 191. Students who have completed creative nonfiction writing course elsewhere or who have extensive other writing workshop experience may petition the instructor for enrollment. Energetic, committed participation is a must.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)
Instructors: ; Frisch, S. (PI)

ENGLISH 292: Advanced Poetry Writing

The focus of the course will be both on the generation of new work and on strategies to solve artistic problems through studies in poetic craft.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)
Instructors: ; Jordan, A. (PI)

ENGLISH 293: Literary Translation: Theory and Practice (COMPLIT 293, DLCL 293)

An overview of translation theories and practices over time. The aesthetic, ethical, and political questions raised by the act and art of translation and how these pertain to the translator's tasks. Discussion of particular translation challenges and the decision processes taken to address these issues. Coursework includes assigned theoretical readings, comparative translations, and the undertaking of an individual translation project.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ; Santana, C. (PI)

ENGLISH 300A: Theories and Methods in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE 300)

This course examines the concept of race, processes of racial formation, and theory and methods for the interdisciplinary study of race and ethnicity. The course will focus on expressions and representations of race and racialization through comparative analyses and conceptualizations, and will feature guest lecturers drawn from within and beyond Stanford.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Moya, P. (PI)

ENGLISH 308B: Gilded Age American Literature

Introduction to the creative innovations and the political tensions that stemmed from the formation of a multicultural society during the age of industrialization. We will attempt to place literary works in their historical and cultural contexts, while also surveying recent critical and theoretical developments in areas such as Realism, Naturalism, Regionalism, Minority and Race Studies, and so on.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Jones, G. (PI)

ENGLISH 314: Epic and Empire (COMPLIT 320A)

Focus is on Virgil's Aeneid and its influence, tracing the European epic tradition (Ariosto, Tasso, Camoes, Spenser, and Milton) to New World discovery and mercantile expansion in the early modern period.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Parker, P. (PI)

ENGLISH 342: Milton

This course reads through the poetry and prose of a writer whose whole course of life was given, as one critic puts it, to "pursuing practical ways of restoring paradise." Non-specialists are welcome; Milton arguably represents the single best figure from the English literary past with whom to think about the problem of poetry as a vocation. Depending on participant interest, a portion of this seminar may be set aside for joint preparation towards the departments comprehensive exam.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Yu, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 355A: Old English Anew (ENGLISH 255A)

Why are the thoughts, feelings, and actions of English poets a millennium ago still so important in modern and contemporary poetry? Early English literature has long had an extraordinary influence on later writers from John Milton to Elizabeth Elstob, William Morris, W. H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Evan Boland, Denise Levertov, Jorge Luis Borges, and Maria Dahvana Headley. This course will ask what is so special about these creative connections across time. We'll closely examine English lyrical, devotional, heroic, and fantastic poetry from the tenth to the twelfth centuries to consider the themes, ideas, and emotion that motivated later poets to adopt, adapt, and echo their age-old predecessors. Students will learn?through hard work?how to translate and evaluate Early English (getting an excellent knowledge of English grammar, lexis, and form into the bargain) in order to produce their own inventive poetry in the vein of inspired Old English shapers of verse.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4-5
Instructors: ; Treharne, E. (PI)

ENGLISH 362C: Language Politics and the Literary Imagination in Africa

This seminar considers the tremendous linguistic diversity of the African continent and the cultural, political, and socioeconomic dilemmas that define the question of language policy in Africa since decolonization. In the modern world, some languages die, and others are killed. In this course, we will ask how the slow or rapid death of a language - the phenomenon known as linguicide - is a crucial but underexplored dimension of colonialism and slavery in the Atlantic, Saharan, and Indian Ocean worlds. In my usage, the search for a mother tongue denotes an array of literary and linguistic efforts to unify disparate peoples and to heal the divisions of colonialism in Africa and its diaspora. This phrase names an aspiration for individual and collective restoration of selfhood through language. But this effort has come at the cost of intense internal conflict in the African world. The quest for linguistic restoration is a key determinant of internecine strife and civil war in Africa. In Sudan, for example, British colonial authorities employed indirect rule to elevate the Arabic-speaking Muslim populations in the northern regions at the expense of the linguistically and religiously diverse populations of southern Sudan. Over time, the south became politically subordinate to - and economically exploited by - the north, and this process of disenfranchisement fomented a protracted civil war of the late twentieth century that resulted in the secession, in 2011, of South Sudan from Sudan. How have creative writers, theorists, and policy makers sought to reconstitute the colonized self via language and linguistic practices such as state-imposed language rationalization policies or the collective recovery of lost languages? And how do these thinkers strive to resolve or reimagine ongoing antagonisms in literary form? This course ponders these questions via readings of key authors such as Ngugi wa Thiong¿o, Assia Djebar, Abdulrazak Gurnah (winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature), Leila Lalami, and Sulaiman Addonia, among others."
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; Rasberry, V. (PI)

ENGLISH 363: Modern Physics and Literature (APPPHYS 363)

Reading and discussion of selected works of contemporary literature (fiction) and philosophy that engage concepts of modern physics grounded in relativity and quantum theory. This is intended as a seminar that mixes students from physical sciences and the arts/humanities, with no specific prerequisites-- we will discuss the physics invoked by works of fiction and philosophy in a conceptually rigorous but non-mathematical way. How do writers of speculative fiction make sense of challenging ontological claims from empirical science, what implications do they explore, and how is the worldview of theoretical physics augmented or contested?
Terms: Spr | Units: 2-4
Instructors: ; Mabuchi, H. (PI)

ENGLISH 366F: Media Theory for Literary Studies

Introduction to media theory by way of some of its key texts and themes, with particular emphasis on how questions of medium, media, and mass media might be useful to literary studies in particular - that is, the study of predominantly textual artifacts. Works by Innis, McLuhan, Derrida, Adorno, Kittler, Hayles, Flusser and others.
Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: ; McGurl, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 390: Graduate Fiction Workshop

For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 3 | Repeatable for credit

ENGLISH 392: Graduate Poetry Workshop

For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 3 | Repeatable for credit

ENGLISH 394: Independent Study

Preparation for first-year Ph.D. qualifying examination and third year Ph.D. oral exam.
Terms: Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1-10 | Repeatable for credit

ENGLISH 398L: Literary Lab (COMPLIT 398L)

Gathering and analyzing data, constructing hypotheses and designing experiments to test them, writing programs [if needed], preparing visuals and texts for articles or conferences. Requires a year-long participation in the activities of the Lab.
Terms: Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 2-5 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)
Instructors: ; Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI)

ENGLISH 398W: Orals, Publication and Dissertation Workshop

For third- and fourth-year graduate students in English. Strategies for studying for and passing the oral examination, publishing articles, and for writing and researching dissertations and dissertation proposals. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable for credit

ENGLISH 399: Thesis

For M.A. students only. Regular meetings with thesis advisors required. To enroll, make an appointment with English student services and provide confirmation of advisor consent.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1-10 | Repeatable for credit
Instructors: ; Greif, M. (PI)
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