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1 - 10 of 69 results for: ENGLISH

ENGLISH 1C: Comics: More than Words (DLCL 238, FILMEDIA 38)

This research unit looks at Comics from a transnational, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspective. Each quarter we organize a series of lectures, reading sessions, and workshops around a main topic. This year we plan on exploring topics such as Environmentalism (Fall 2025), Sci-Fi (Winter 2025), and Early Comic History (Spring 2025). Some previous topics that we have explored are: Postcolonialism and Decoloniality, Feminism, Superheroes, Manga, Computer Science, and Comic Theory. We meet three times per quarter on Zoom or in-person. To earn the unit, students must attend all events hosted during the quarter, do the readings in advance of the meeting, and participate actively in the class discussions.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 20 times (up to 20 units total)
Instructors: Soler, C. (PI) ; Wolfe, L. (PI)

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 5VA: Influencers: Conduct Literature from Medieval Origins to Social Media

Books that promise their audience the key to a better life have always had undoubtable mass-market appeal, as have fictional texts with less overt yet no less moralizing themes. Since the late Middle Ages, various iterations of what is broadly known as "conduct literature" have perennially proved some of the most popular content among readers and consumers. This course will explore the development of this phenomenon, tracing our collective taste for media that models "the good life" (whether in moral, social, or material terms) from some of the earliest Middle English instructive poems, to Victorian etiquette guides, to mid-twentieth-century magazine columns, to modern-day influencer content. Interweaving explicitly instructional works with selections from poetry and fiction, we will ask: How do we define "conduct literature", and what makes it unique as a genre? What do readers seek within these texts, and what are they offered in return? What can the historical prevalence of this gen more »
Books that promise their audience the key to a better life have always had undoubtable mass-market appeal, as have fictional texts with less overt yet no less moralizing themes. Since the late Middle Ages, various iterations of what is broadly known as "conduct literature" have perennially proved some of the most popular content among readers and consumers. This course will explore the development of this phenomenon, tracing our collective taste for media that models "the good life" (whether in moral, social, or material terms) from some of the earliest Middle English instructive poems, to Victorian etiquette guides, to mid-twentieth-century magazine columns, to modern-day influencer content. Interweaving explicitly instructional works with selections from poetry and fiction, we will ask: How do we define "conduct literature", and what makes it unique as a genre? What do readers seek within these texts, and what are they offered in return? What can the historical prevalence of this genre tell us about our own culture's reading habits? And do texts of this nature play into traditional patterns of conformity and control? As we explore such questions about literary and cultural values across time, we will also hone our skills in critical reading and research writing. (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 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: Adams, R. (PI)

ENGLISH 8F: Science Fiction: Time (Travel) in Narrative

In this course, we'll explore how time functions as a core element in narrative, shaping character as well as plot, as we read examples from the genres of time travel, the multiverse, and generation ships. We'll consider how representations of time are interwoven with depictions of space, and we'll discover that science fiction can allow for both social critique and the imagination of alternative worlds, all while telling an engaging story.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: Ekiss, K. (PI)

ENGLISH 8G: Climate Lit: Survival, Activism, and Writing 'The Natural World'

This seminar will ask you to consider stories not just entertainment or moral instruction, but as models of survival, joy, and personhood in a complex future. Frameworks of Ecocriticism, political activism, and narrative technique will inform our central texts - Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, and Richard Powers's Overstory. The questions of our texts will be the questions of our course: in a fraying world, how might we imagine new ways of living, being, and thriving?
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: Hutchins, S. (PI)

ENGLISH 8J: American Sports Literature: Critical and Personal Perspectives (AMSTUD 8J)

This class surveys American sports writing across essays, memoirs, profiles, and longform journalism. We'll read work by athletes, critics, and cultural commentators from the twentieth century to today, with a focus on how identity, performance, and power shape the stories we tell about sports. Our central theme will be the interplay of personal experience and cultural critique: how writers blend memory, observation, and analysis to reflect on athletic life. The course welcomes students from a range of backgrounds: athletes reflecting on their lived experience, fans exploring their emotional connection to sports, and readers drawn to its broader cultural meaning. Together, we'll explore how these perspectives can and do speak to one another, as well as how the conversation has evolved alongside innovations in media and genre. Our goal is to foster a classroom where storytelling and critical thinking inform and challenge each other. Alongside weekly readings and discussion, students wil more »
This class surveys American sports writing across essays, memoirs, profiles, and longform journalism. We'll read work by athletes, critics, and cultural commentators from the twentieth century to today, with a focus on how identity, performance, and power shape the stories we tell about sports. Our central theme will be the interplay of personal experience and cultural critique: how writers blend memory, observation, and analysis to reflect on athletic life. The course welcomes students from a range of backgrounds: athletes reflecting on their lived experience, fans exploring their emotional connection to sports, and readers drawn to its broader cultural meaning. Together, we'll explore how these perspectives can and do speak to one another, as well as how the conversation has evolved alongside innovations in media and genre. Our goal is to foster a classroom where storytelling and critical thinking inform and challenge each other. Alongside weekly readings and discussion, students will write short responses that experiment with both creative and analytical forms. Workshopping will be a part of the course, and the final project may be a critical essay, personal narrative, or hybrid work. No prior experience in sports or sports writing is necessary, just a willingness to think, read, and write with care. Readings will include excerpts from critical texts and athlete memoirs, as well as pieces from The Year's Best Sports Writing, as well as selections from The Player's Tribune, The Athletic, The New Yorker, The Ringer, and other platforms. We'll also draw on podcast segments, documentary clips, and author interviews to expand our sense of what sports literature can be.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors: Evans, J. (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.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-CE

ENGLISH 9CI: Inspired by Science: A Workshop (OCEANS 119CI)

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.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: Michas-Martin, S. (PI)

ENGLISH 10H: Introduction to English I: What Women Want in Med/Ren Literature

This course grapples with female desire - for knowledge, for sex (straight and queer), and for sovereignty - in the canonical works of early English literature. It features heroines who are transgressive, bold, and unapologetic, including Chaucer's proto-feminist Wife of Bath and Shakespeare's diva Cleopatra and froward Rosalind. Female poets, including Mary Wroth and Aemilia Lanyer, wrote of and for women's right to education, power, and love. As Lanyer puts it, "If Eve did error, it was for knowledge sake."
Terms: Spr | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: Hubbard, C. (PI) ; Haberfield, C. (TA) ; Woodland, O. (TA)

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: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
Instructors: Bullitt-Rigsbee, M. (PI) ; Richardson, J. (PI) ; Bullitt-Rigsbee, M. (TA) ; Starovoitov, S. (TA)
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