2023-2024 Academic Year

Fall 2023

FYSM 100 First-Year Seminar
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces students to Dickinson as a "community of inquiry" by developing habits of mind essential to liberal learning. Through the study of a compelling issue or broad topic chosen by their faculty member, students will: - Critically analyze information and ideas - Examine issues from multiple perspectives - Discuss, debate and defend ideas, including one's own views, with clarity and reason - Develop discernment, facility and ethical responsibility in using information, and - Create clear academic writing The small group seminar format of this course promotes discussion and interaction among students and their professor. In addition, the professor serves as students' initial academic advisor. This course does not duplicate in content any other course in the curriculum and may not be used to fulfill any other graduation requirement.

CRWR 218 Creative Writ:Poetry & Fiction
An introductory creative writing workshop in poetry and fiction.

ENGL 331 Reading Contemporary Fiction
This course will consider two questions in tandem. First, how do contemporary conditions (of media, technology, economics, history) alter how we read fiction? Second, what aspects of fiction as a craft and genre do contemporary conditions make especially significant? To answer the latter question, we will analyze how books from the last five years test the limits of autobiography, the artificiality of character, and the border between narrative and history, among other issues. Meanwhile, to answer the former, we will consider how advances of social media, changes to journalism and education, and developments in publishing shape our own and others' reading lives. This is not intended to be a comprehensive survey; rather, we will consider a selection of recent Anglophone novels that raise pertinent issues. Authors may include Ayad Akhtar, Rachel Cusk, Danielle Evans, Sheila Heti, and Charles Yu.

Spring 2024

ENGL 101 Letters and Literature
Cross-listed with WGSS 101-02. From personal messages sent by post to emails and texts today, correspondence has been an importance source of connection and self-expression. But are personal letters literature? How has the letter form influenced literary texts? And how do letters clarify literary questions of time, material, privacy, and power (among other issues)? This class will read letters and letter-indebted work from the last two and a half centuries-including fiction, nonfiction, and poems-to think about what letters are and what letters do.

WGSS 101 Letters and Literature
Cross-listed with with ENGL 101-04. From personal messages sent by post to emails and texts today, correspondence has been an importance source of connection and self-expression. But are personal letters literature? How has the letter form influenced literary texts? And how do letters clarify literary questions of time, material, privacy, and power (among other issues)? This class will read letters and letter-indebted work from the last two and a half centuries-including fiction, nonfiction, and poems-to think about what letters are and what letters do.

ENGL 220 Intro to Literary Studies
In literary studies, we explore the work texts do in the world. This course examines several texts of different kinds (e.g., novel, poetry, film, comic book, play, etc.) to investigate how literary forms create meanings. It also puts texts in conversation with several of the critical theories and methodologies that shape the discipline of literary study today (e.g., Marxist theory, new historicism, formalism, gender theory, postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, etc.). This course helps students frame interpretive questions and develop their own critical practice. Prerequisite: 101. This course is the prerequisite for 300-level work in English.