Department of English Courses

About Course Numbers:

Each Carnegie Mellon course number begins with a two-digit prefix that designates the department offering the course (i.e., 76-xxx courses are offered by the Department of English). Although each department maintains its own course numbering practices, typically, the first digit after the prefix indicates the class level: xx-1xx courses are freshmen-level, xx-2xx courses are sophomore level, etc. Depending on the department, xx-6xx courses may be either undergraduate senior-level or graduate-level, and xx-7xx courses and higher are graduate-level. Consult the Schedule of Classes each semester for course offerings and for any necessary pre-requisites or co-requisites.

76-050 Study Abroad: All Semesters
No course description provided.

76-100 Reading and Writing in an Academic Context: Fall and Spring: 9 units
Designed as an entry point for other first-year writing courses at Carnegie Mellon, 76100 is an academic reading and writing course for multilingual students which offers a space for learners to recognize and use the communicative strengths that are created by knowing two or more languages. Experiences in the course give students the opportunity to draw on multiple cultural and linguistic understandings and practices when analyzing and creating meaningful texts. The course emphasizes critical reading and research strategies for a variety of sources which become the basis for individually and collaborativelyproduced texts. The course introduces students to rhetorical choices within and across languages at the sentence, paragraph, and whole text or genre levels. Students will explore a variety of practices in academic writing (e.g., paraphrase, synthesis, counterargument and refutation, citation) as they relate to genre, audience, purpose, and other factors of a communicative situation. We discuss and practice explicit rhetorical and linguistic conventions for writing in academic English so that writers make choices to connect with readers in academic and professional discourse communities. Students who take this course identify as multilingual students who use English skillfully but perhaps with less comfort as they use another language. These students complete an online placement process that guides them through making their own informed course placement. Students may also skip the placement process and enroll directly into the course. For some students, 76100 is a prerequisite requirement for other first-year writing courses; therefore, students should check with their academic advisors regarding how 76100 fulfills their general education course requirements. All 76100 courses are structured by the learning objectives shared across sections of the course, but sections present different themes in their readings.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-101 Interpretation and Argument: All Semesters: 9 units
Interpretation and Argument, an inquiry-driven writing course, is one of a number of first-year writing course options available to students at Carnegie Mellon. A full-semester course experience, 76101 introduces students to foundational practices for reading, synthesizing and producing scholarly knowledge within an academic context. Within the course, students learn transferable, genre-based skills applicable to a variety of different fields. Students use a comparative genre analysis method for using models to complete new writing tasks, including an academic research proposal and a research article that contributes to an ongoing academic conversation. Faculty who teach 76-101 typically select a range of texts (e.g., scholarship, journalism, film) about an unresolved issue, so that students can identify relevant questions to frame their own research projects. Students should expect explicit, research-based instruction within the course, reflecting upon their writing processes, as well as planning, drafting and revising drafts. Because the course emphasizes authentic stakes and purposes for communicating with academic audiences, students will regularly share their work with their peers in oral and written forms within an interactive and collaborative classroom environment. Due to the limits of our schedule, we are unable to meet each student's individual preferences for course topics, but we do offer a wide variety from which to choose.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-102 Advanced First Year Writing: Special Topics: Fall and Spring: 9 units
76-102, Advanced First-Year Writing courses are designed for students who have demonstrated an understanding and practice of academic writing that most incoming freshmen have not, both in terms of mindful writing knowledge and experiential range. Because of the students' level of preparedness, the First-Year Writing Program provides intensive, advanced courses for students to work closely with senior faculty within the English department. Advanced courses assume that students have established strong reading and synthesizing skills, as well as a demonstrated interest in writing and communication, prior to entering Carnegie Mellon. The course topics shift each semester, but for every advanced first-year writing course, the core goals are to deepen students' rhetorical knowledge and production skills that align with the faculty member's specialty. Because the course emphasizes authentic stakes and purposes for communicating with academic audiences, students will regularly share their work with their peers in oral and written forms within an interactive and collaborative classroom environment. Students enroll through special invitation, after completing an application process. There are no prerequisites for the course.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-106 Writing about Literature, Art and Culture: Fall and Spring: 4.5 units
This mini or half-semester course (one of two minis students can choose to fulfill their FYW requirement) uses artistic, literary, and cultural texts (e.g., poetry, short story, lyrics, video clips) to introduce students to a variety of academic reading and writing practices that enable students to engage with texts and write about them with complexity and nuance. Within the course, we will discuss texts and evidence from multiple perspectives. We will examine how literary and cultural scholars write about texts (defined broadly), how they make claims, provide reasoning, and use textual support to argue for particular ways of seeing cultural objects. Throughout the semester, students will draw upon prior strategies and develop new ones for close reading and for critical analysis in order to produce their own thesis-driven arguments about why texts matter. We will consider and write about the extent to which these reading strategies are relevant for other kinds of reading and analysis by comparing texts from a variety of different disciplinary contexts. Because the course emphasizes authentic stakes and purposes for communicating with academic audiences, students will regularly share their work with their peers in oral and written forms within an interactive and collaborative classroom environment.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-107 Writing about Data: Fall and Spring: 4.5 units
This mini or half-semester course (one of two minis students can choose to fulfill their FYW requirement) focuses upon interpreting and making arguments using mainly numerical data but also qualitative data. We will look at research in a range of disciplines including psychology, education, medicine, engineering, and the sciences and note how writers select and analyze the data they collect. We will also examine what happens to this research when it is picked up by the popular media. Students will also practice collecting and analyzing their own data and reporting it to suit the needs of various stakeholders. There are two primary audiences for this section. Students in data-driven majors will find the section useful preparation for communicating in their disciplines. Students in other fields will learn how to critique and respond to the many ways that numbers shape our lives. This section presumes a basic ability to calculate averages, percentages, and ratios, but no advanced mathematical or statistical preparation. Instead, this section provides a fascinating look at how numbers and words intersect to create persuasive arguments in academic, professional, and popular contexts. Students will compare and analyze texts that make arguments with data, practice rhetorical strategies for synthesizing and representing data so that by the end of the class, students will apply these strategies to write an original data-driven research proposal. Because the course emphasizes authentic stakes and purposes for communicating with academic audiences, students will regularly share their work with their peers in oral and written forms within an interactive and collaborative classroom environment.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-108 Writing about Public Problems: Fall and Spring: 4.5 units
This mini or half-semester course (one of two minis students can choose to fulfill their FYW requirement) centers on introductory professional writing and offers students the opportunity to develop a proposal for change; students will examine a public problem of their choice, conduct primary and secondary research, and create a public-facing presentation. This course asks students to recognize that many problems we encounter in our communities require an invested stakeholder, like ourselves, to conduct a careful investigation of perspectives and constraints before proposing a feasible solution that considers diverse stakeholders' values and viewpoints. Students will learn how public problems are defined and argued in the proposal genre by reading a range of expert texts and analyzing a variety of sample proposals. Students will conduct various forms of social research (email, interview, survey, and/or observation) to gain perspective on a problem and develop a solution mindful of others' expertise and experience. Students will also synthesize relevant secondary research to rhetorically frame a proposal in ways that will compel their intended audience to take action. By the end of the course, students will write and present their own change proposal that identifies a community-based problem, proposes a thoughtfully-researched solution, and recommends a feasible plan for change in one of their own communities. Because the course emphasizes authentic stakes and purposes for communicating with professional and academic audiences, students will regularly share their work with their peers in oral and written forms within an interactive and collaborative classroom environment.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-203 Literature & Culture in the 18th Century: Fall: 9 units
Topics vary by semester. Fall 2022 This section will examine race, gender, and their intersections as points of entry into the major literary and cultural movements of the long eighteenth century, which continue to shape our present. From about 1660 to 1820, historical phenomena such as European empires, the Rights of Woman, and slavery and abolition coincided with changes in print and media culture to produce the rich literary productions we will study. Through reading and graded assignments such as short essays and oral presentations, students will learn methods for analyzing the formal features of literary texts (such as narrative structure and poetic rhythm) and how such texts respond to the pressures of history. Furthermore, students will develop their ability to think critically about race and gender, to argue persuasively, and to express ideas clearly. Examples of readings include Aphra Behn's Ooronoko, Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room," Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince, and William Wordsworth's "To Toussaint L'Ouverture."
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-204 Race, Ethnicity, Controversy: Intermittent: 9 units
Coverage of police violence. Condemnations of Critical Race Theory. Book bans. "Kung flu." In recent years, current issues around race have proliferated, and with them, complex layers of discourse and controversy. This course examines current issues around race through the twin lenses of rhetoric and ethnic studies, asking how power is expressed through rhetorics of race and controversy. What are the communicative practices involved in framing or responding to racial violence, prejudice, and controversy? How do these practices harness various cultural, political, and historical forces, and to what effect? How do these discourses contribute to racialization, and where, and how, are differential distributions of power being expressed? We will seek to understand discourses around these issues and the backgrounds of various debates, from policing and abolition, to recurring anti-Asian racism, to affirmative action debates, to transracial adoption. Students will learn to analyze discourses around race rhetorically, identify structures of power at work in these discourses, and produce a final paper analyzing the rhetorics of a current issue or controversy around race.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-206 Intro to Creative Writing: Intermittent: 9 units
In this course we will explore how stories work and why we tell them. Using screenplays, short fiction and personal essays, we will analyze how narratives function and how, upon reflection, narratives often function in very similar ways no matter what the genre. Storytelling has a shape. It dominates the way all stories are told and can be traced back in history to the very beginning of the recorded word. We will study traditional structure in screenplays and contemporary prose pieces, and consider stories from fairy tales to serialized television shows. These master texts will be used to guide the students as they write and develop their own stories.

76-207 Special Topics in Literature & Culture: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics very by semester and section. F24: Drama of Power and amp; Resistance - Writers throughout history have harnessed the power of the pen to give a voice to the silenced, center the marginalized, or dissent from systems of oppression. Politically charged poems, novels, and essays have changed the world. But of all genres, drama, one of the oldest art forms in the world, has been uniquely impactful in speaking truth to power and effecting social change. Dramatists from Ancient Greece until the modern age have harnessed the power of political commentary, resistance, and protest in their works for the stage. This class will examine politically engaged dramatic literature from a wide array of international and diverse voices ranging from protest plays of Ancient Greece (such as Aristophanes' Lysistrata), through Shakespearean histories that question the legitimacy of rulers and their power (King John or Coriolanus), to modern plays that force contemporary audiences to reconsider political polarization, war, and systemic inequalities in our society, such as Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the rock musical Hair, or Lynn Nottage's Ruined. We will look at the scripts, cultural contexts, and performance histories of such works, as well as interrogate what makes drama so unique as a genre and collaboratively develop reading strategies for plays. We will explore how realities of society such as systems of power, class, race, gender, and marginalization have been taken up by centuries of playwrights to comment on social and political systems. To supplement our reading, we will engage with multimedia adaptations and reimaginings of plays. In addition, our inquiry into how drama has impacted society will take a broad view of 'theater,' and look beyond the stage to examine how non-literary forms of activism and political response can also be seen as theatrical.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

Course Website: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U81b4BSF0aij6u_zYq39Uf7q2ZTiqqAQaOIJ9V2LhnA/edit?usp=sharing

76-210 Banned Books: Fall: 9 units
Literature is powerful! Indeed, we're interested in books that are so controversial that people will shout, argue, and try to change laws in order to have a book removed from a curriculum, a school or public library, or a prison. At the same time we'll learn about how, in response, other people work extremely hard to defend books against removal and censorship. The term "banned books," can be a bit misleading in the US context; only in very rare cases does the US federal government get involved in trying to ban or censor a published work. Nonetheless, the US is a hot spot for those who seek to attack books, and for those who seek to defend them. In this course you will find that the actions of attackers and the actions of defenders are often mutually reinforcing. Every student in this course will contribute to a public facing website called The CMU Banned Books project. This website is used by journalists, scholars and activists around the world. This semester's books for reading and discussion include some of the most frequently banned and challenged books of the last five years, including The Handmaid's Tale, Gender Queer, The 1619 Project, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Since 2020, organizations that track book banning tell us that the numbers of books banned and/or challenged are at an all-time high.

76-214 Understanding Cultural Complexities: Fall and Spring: 9 units
In today's society that explores Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, one can ponder if Arab societies have made progress to achieve DEI towards minorities of religions (Muslims, Christians, Jews), sects (Sunni and Shi'a), ethnicities (Copts, Nubians, Kurds), Palestinians in Israel, homosexuals, and physical disabilities. This course aims to enrich students' understanding of the diversity of Arab countries and histories of intercommunal relations and conflict, explore the progress made in equating minorities to majorities, including them in various sectors, and granting them more rights. We will use readings, films, arts, and music, to engage with students in 4 Arab countries to further their learning.

76-216 Happily Ever After: Fantasies of Romance: Intermittent: 9 units
TBD

76-217 Literature & Culture of the 20th and 21st Century: Intermittent: 9 units
Spring 2022: If you're in college now, you're probably a member of "Generation Z." There are a number of studies of Generation Z and its disposition, habits, and interests. While we are familiar with factors that make up our identities and #8212;nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, income, and abledness and #8212;one's generation is probably just as influential, and according to some sociologists, more important than those other factors. In this class we will look at portraits of American generations in fiction, from the Baby Boomers and Generation X through Millennials and Generation Z. We will also look at some of the sociology and see how it bears on the fiction. In addition, we might look back at past generations, such as the generation that came of age after World War I, the Lost Generation, which inspired writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Beat Generation, which inspired Jack Kerouac. In more recent fiction, we might read fiction such as Coupland's Generation X, Lauren Groff's portrait of the sixties generation in Arcadia, or Ling Ma's portrait of Millennials in Severance. We will also look at film along with novels, possibly including The Big Chill, Reality Bites, and other movies.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-219 Law & Blame: Intermittent: 9 units
How do we use language to accuse and defend? How do we attribute responsibility to specific individuals or institutions and dispute such claims, either by debunking them or shifting the blame? What makes the stories we tell and the arguments we make about responsibility succeed or fail? What unintended consequences can they produce and for what groups? This course will examine these and related questions through the lens of legal cases in which individuals or institutions are accused of responsibility for harm, from vehicular accident cases to criminal trials. The study of these questions is not only valuable for understanding the legal process, participating in it, or writing about it, but the practice of attributing responsibility is common in many social and institutional contexts beyond law, even in daily conversation. The course explores fundamental questions about culture, ethics, and politics, including issues involving systematic and structural inequalities involving race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin, which are evident both in the legal cases studied and in the public imagination and controversy beyond the courtroom. The societal implications explored include inequitable constraints on freedom in criminal justice and economic inequalities perpetuated through civil lawsuits, as well as inequalities in cultural power and status in the ways some voices are recognized in the legal process and others are not. Drawing on readings from rhetoric, linguistics, and legal studies, as well as briefs, opening and closing arguments, direct and cross-examinations of witnesses, physical and documentary evidence, and judicial opinions from legal cases, we will examine the strategies advocates use to attribute responsibility, enhance equity, and manage such disputes.

76-220 Mystery: From Detective Fiction to True Crime: Intermittent: 9 units
Mystery fiction is one of the most enduring and popular literary genres, and there is no doubt that the current media landscape has hugely expanded the concept of the "armchair detective" to include podcasters, journalists, and true crime addicts. This course provides a better understanding of narrative and genre, as well as social norms around gender and race, by looking at the conventions of mystery fiction and true crime. What can these "formulaic" genres teach us about storytelling, character development, and narrative point of view? What do they reveal about a society's notions of justice and order? And how is textual analysis itself an act of detection? Texts may include podcasts, documentaries, and newstories; classic works by Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Walter Mosely; and contemporary works by Kiley Reid and Oyinkan Braithwaite
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-221 Books You Should Have Read By Now: Fall and Spring: 9 units
Topics vary by semester and section. F24: The United States prison system continues to grow, with nearly 2 million incarcerated people and over 6,000 prisons, jails, and detention centers nationwide. Its expansion disproportionately impacts impoverished communities, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, as it is connected to a fraught history. Throughout this class, we will engage with novels, memoirs, letters, essays, and poetry written by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people to understand the critiques they wage against the carceral state. We begin with early depictions of penitentiaries, then turn to political responses to imprisonment throughout the twentieth century, and close with literature about the contemporary carceral state. In studying representations of the US prison's development over time, we will ask: How do prison writers bear witness to and resist the prison-industrial complex? Readings might include works by Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Jack Henry Abbot, and Chester Himes.

76-223 Contemporary Black Literature: Spring: 9 units
This course will take a transatlantic approach to what constitutes blackness as well as black literature and expression from the turn of the 20th century until the present. We will investigate the relationship between poetic forms and expressions of social and self-representation. However, this class will primarily focus on prose works (novels, memoirs and non-fiction essays) that span a multitude of genres from mystery to literary and science fiction. Authors include: W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Zadie Smith, Claude McKay, Amiri Baraka, Franz Fanon, Marlon James, Edouard Glissant, Nnedi Okorafor, Merle Collins and Jamaica Kincaid to name a few.

76-230 Literature & Culture in the 19th Century: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics vary by semester. Fall 2023: Literature and amp; Social Change - From the French Revolution to the beginning of the twentieth century, literature began to play an explosive role in the forces of political transition and the struggle for social justice. This course studies novels, poetry and prose in relation to both political and industrial revolutions during the rise of empire and capitalism and the road to climate change. We will study apocalyptic novels like Mary Shelley's The Last Man and novels of empire like Jane Eyre and its retelling in Wide Sargasso Sea; poetry about living in revolutionary times by Wordsworth and Phillis Wheatley Peters; and anti-capitalist anti-slavery writing such as Ottobah Cugoano's "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery."
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-232 Introduction to Black Literature: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will take a transatlantic approach to what constitutes blackness as well as black literature and expression from the turn of the 20th century until the present. We will investigate the way authors and artists use literature and other mediums of expression for social and self-representation. Our primary focus will be on prose works (novels, memoirs and non-fiction essays) that span a multitude of genres from mystery to literary and science fiction. There will also be sections of the course that focus other mediums such as visual art, comics, music, film and television. We will cover figures such as: Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Amiri Baraka, Franz Fanon, Toni Morrison, Merle Collins, Kyle Baker, Kara Walker and Beyonce to name a few.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-233 Literature and Culture in the Renaissance: Intermittent: 9 units
The Renaissance was a time of world-shattering change brought about by innovation, exploration, colonization, religious upheaval, the emergence of capitalism, the print revolution, scientific discovery, and unprecedented flourishing in the creative arts. In England, the same years also ushered in a golden age for English literature, which grew into its own with the arrival of canonical authors such as Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, and many others. This course will introduce students to literary and cultural studies by convening a survey of works from the English Renaissance alongside a selection of critical readings that will help to bring England's extraordinary literary output into connection with its equally fascinating cultural context. In addition to canonical works by authors such as Shakespeare and Milton, we will also study lesser-known works by brilliant female authors such as Elizabeth Carey and Margaret Cavendish, women who have been left out of the traditional canon, not for a lack of literary merit, but because of their gender. On a similar note, the course will also consider questions such as, "How can modern readers best navigate the ethical hazards presented by problematic, centuries-old artworks?" "To what extent can we hold such artworks responsible for ideas that violate contemporary values, or contemporary boundaries of appropriateness?" and "To what extent can one study and learn from such artworks without endorsing or perpetuating the objectionable ideas or opinions they represent?" As we read, write, and converse together, we will work toward a broad understanding of what the literature of the English Renaissance means in a 21st century context, and how it has helped to shape the culture of modernity.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-236 Major Fiction Then and Now: Intermittent: 9 units
We read newspapers for reports about what is happening in our world. But we also read fiction and #8212;novels and stories and #8212;that tell us about imaginary worlds. Sometimes they are very much like our world, sometimes different. In this course we'll read classic novels like Charles Dickens' Great Expectations or Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment up to contemporary ones like Station Eleven or Severance. We will consider how they represent the world, their use of literary forms, and how they lead us into their alterior world. We will also consider what they say about their culture and society. Do they make a statement about the world, or are they more for entertainment? This course is based on the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, and will be taught at SCI Somerset, a nearby prison. The course will include both "outside" students from CMU, as well as "inside" students at SCI Somerset. The course focuses on active participation and discussion between students. It runs from 2:30-5:10 on Friday afternoon. CMU students will travel together by bus, leaving our campus at 12:30 and returning by 6:30. To enroll, students in the course will submit a brief application and interview with faculty. The course is part of an exciting new initiative by CMU to bring education into America's prisons.

76-239 Introduction to Film Studies: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This course is an introduction to the history, technology, aesthetics, and ideology of film. Our main focus is the narrative fiction film, but we will also discuss documentaries, avant-garde work, and animation. The central organizing principle is historical, but there are a number of recurring thematic concerns. These include an examination of the basic principles of filmmaking, the development of film technology, the definition of film as both art and business, and the history of film as an object of critical and cultural study. The goals of this course are threefold. First, it will provide you with a solid grounding in the key issues and concepts of film studies. Second, it will expand your ability to knowledgeably critique individual cinematic works and their relationship to the larger culture. Lastly, it will provide you with experience in expressing your critiques in writing.

76-241 Introduction to Gender Studies: Fall and Spring: 9 units
Intersectional feminism. Structural oppression. Biological sex vs. gender roles. LGBTQIA+ rights. Consent. Masculinity. #metoo and gender-based violence. Sexual politics. Global feminism. This course offers students a scholarly introduction to these social and political issues through critical readings, literature and film. In this discussion-based class, students read and discuss contemporary gender studies that speaks to questions of identity, race, nation, sexuality, and disability. Critical readings include work by Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Judith Butler, Kimberl and #233; Crenshaw, Sara Ahmed, Eve Sedgewick, Raewyn Connell, Mari Matsuda, Mona Eltahawy, Rosemarie GarlandThomson, and Kate Bornstein. Fiction might include Toni Morrison, Ocean Vuong, and Alison Bechdel.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-242 American Woman Writers: Intermittent: 9 units
In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne lamented to his publisher that "America is now wholly given to a damned mob of scribbling women and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash." Even today, The New York Times Book Review and other gatekeepers rarely give women writers the coverage that male writers receive. In this course we will trace the multiple traditions of 20th century American women's writing and examine how women writers question, resist, subvert, and revise traditional gender roles. Our readings will address: the social construction of gender; the relationship between gender and genre; the cultural positions of women as writers and readers; women's rights and suffrage; women and work; female sexuality and sexual freedom; constructions of motherhood; intersections of gender with race, class, and ethnicity. Readings include: The House of Mirth, Pale Horse Pale Rider, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Raisin in the Sun, To be Young, Gifted and Black, Woman Warrior, Fun Home, and The Namesake. Every other week (or so) we will be reading excerpts from Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism.

76-244 Immigrant Fictions: Intermittent: 9 units
Contemporary writers offer vibrant portrayals of questions around identity and belonging that accompany migration and immigration to the United States. Their works show how displaced people and their children reinvent themselves, even as they look back to other homelands. This contemporary literature course combines fiction, poetry, drama and scholarly non-fiction readings to examine the experiences of the transnational movement of people to the United States, including international students, refugees, and documented and undocumented migrants and their families. We will consider not only the experience of personal migration, but also the global social, economic and political processes that structure that movement. Possible fiction readings draws from Asian American studies, Latinx studies, and African American studies, and might include Jhumpa Lahiri, Valerie Luiselli, Chimamanda Adichie, Christina Garcia, Juno D and #237;az, Lisa Ko, Cathy Park Hong, and Edwidge Danticat.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-245 Shakespeare: Tragedies & Histories: Spring: 9 units
For F24 only: In the closing decades of the sixteenth century, enterprising cultural producers in early modern London began to develop a new commercial venture called 'playing': a business that offered ordinary people a few hours of dramatic entertainment for the price of one penny. In addition to watching the professional players onstage, spectators also participated in a form of play themselves (in a sense) because theatrical experience provided a unique opportunity to engage imaginatively with otherwise inaccessible people, worlds, and ideas. More than four hundred years later, the drama of the period now ranks among the most esteemed texts in all English literature, and the name 'Shakespeare' has become a byword for literary genius. This course will offer an overview of Shakespeare's tragedies and histories. As we read through a selection of key works, we will endeavor to understand what, and how, they meant in their original context, thereby developing a historically informed perspective on their influence over our own cultural landscape. The course counts toward the GenEd requirement, and is also part of the CMU Prison Education Project. Classes will take place at Somerset State Correctional Institution. CMU students will study alongside incarcerated students. A bus will provide transport for the students from CMU. Students will have to fill out a brief questionnaire before enrolling.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/students/undergraduate/programs/pep/index.html

76-247 Shakespeare: Comedies and Romances: Fall: 9 units
Sometime around the late sixteenth century, enterprising cultural producers in early modern London began to develop a new commercial venture called 'playing': a business that offered ordinary people a few hours of dramatic entertainment for the price of one penny. In addition to watching the professional players onstage, spectators also participated in a form of play themselves, in a sense, because theatrical experience provided a unique opportunity to engage imaginatively with otherwise inaccessible people, worlds, and ideas. More than four hundred years later, the drama of the period now ranks among the most esteemed texts in all English literature, and the name 'Shakespeare' has become a byword for literary genius. This course will offer a selection of Shakespeare's delightfuland sometimes surprisingly edgycomedies and late romances. As we read through these works, we will endeavor to understand what, and how, they meant in their original context, thereby developing a historically informed perspective on their influence over our own cultural landscape.

76-253 Information Graphics: Intermittent: 3 units
This micro-course introduces the basics of designing information graphics to students in all disciplines who are interested in learning to communicate complex information clearly and ethically using information graphics. Information graphics are ubiquitous. They are used by both practitioners and academics across many disciplines to communicate complex ideas, processes, and systems. While millions of decisions are made based on information graphics daily, creating an effective graphic is not simple. Designing information graphics requires careful consideration from multiple perspectives, including visual perception, social psychology, semiotics, and design ethics. What makes information graphics effective? What is required to optimize the design of an information graphic? How should information graphics be evaluated? Can information graphics be neutral, without bias? In this introductory course, we will address these and other questions through a hands-on project and discussions on various threads of studies around the analysis of information graphics. Assigned readings will complement the projects allowing students to examine information graphics from the perspectives of relevant theories and research findings. Class discussions and critiques are an essential part of this course.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-259 Film History: Fall: 9 units
This introductory course will focus on the history of the American film industry, 1930-1980. On most weeks, we will screen two films that reflect the most important genres and most enduring achievements of the era. We will be concerned with understanding how the studio system produced and marketed these works, and how that system changed significantly from the 1950s-1970s. By focusing on individual studios (for example, MGM and Warner Bros.) as "test cases," the class will also examine how particular companies produced films of a certain type in terms of such parameters as genre, theme, player, class address, and/or style. Readings will deal with the history of Hollywood, the various films, stars and/or filmmakers considered, as well theoretical/critical issues such as authorship, reception, and high vs. low culture. Students will learn important skills for film history, including reception study, archival research, and contextual analysis. Grades will be based on three papers that require different kinds of historical research, a midterm, and a final.
Prerequisite: 76-239

76-260 Introduction to Writing Fiction: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This is an introduction to the reading and writing of short fiction. Character development and the creation of scenes will be the principal goals in the writing of short stories during the course of the semester. Revisions of the stories will constitute a major part of the final grade. Reading assignments will illustrate the different elements of fiction reviewed and practiced, and students will analyze and discuss stories from a writer's point of view.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-261 Intro to Writing Creative Nonfiction: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will expose you to several contemporary Creative Non Fiction writers, while helping you connect with your own life stories so that they can be shaped into narratives. You'll be reading and analyzing both short and long form non fiction, so as to learn the elements of the art and craft of this genre. A high priority will be given to creating a community spirit in our class, so as to inspire you and your writing through connections not just to professional writers, but to the writers who will be your classmates.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-265 Introduction to Writing Poetry: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This course is meant to serve as an introduction to the craft of poetry. We'll look closely at traditional forms in an effort to understand the effects of more formal choices on the page, and we'll examine the craft choices of modern and contemporary poets to expand our understanding of poetic approaches. Our analysis of poetry will begin at the level of the syllable and progress to words, lines, stanzas, series, and collections. You will be required to read both published work and the work of your classmates with a critical eye, to write your own poems, both formal and not, to write several short analysis essays, to write a longer critical essay, and to demonstrate your knowledge on one in-class exam. The most important take-away from this class is the ability to talk knowledgeably and critically about poetry. What you learn here will pave the way for your future as both a writer and a reader.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-269 Introduction to Screenwriting: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This is a course in screenplay narrative. The screenplay has a certain format observed by every screenwriter. It is not so difficult to learn the format. The difficulty is in developing a screen story populated by believable characters, creating an expressive and logical relationship between the scenes by manipulating screen space and screen time (knowing what to omit from the story and what to emphasize), and finally writing dialogue that sounds real, but that does not simply copy everyday speech. The class will be structured into weekly writing exercises, discussion of the narratives under consideration, presentation and discussion of student work, and a final writing project.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-270 Writing for the Professions: All Semesters: 9 units
Writing in the Professions is a writing and communication design course for mainly sophomores and juniors (although it can be relevant for some freshmen and seniors) in all majors other than English. The course is appropriate for upper-level students in all CMU colleges and assumes that they may not have had much college-level writing instruction beyond the first year. The basic idea of the course is to give experience in developing the design skills for writing and communicating as students transition from student to professional. The course will cover some foundational principles of designing multimodal writing and communication within a variety of tasks including resume and cover letter writing, proposal writing and writing instructions. Students will discern the difference between writing for general and specific audiences, and analysis of visual aids in various texts. The course requires that students work both independently and in groups. All sections of 76-270 align with particular core objectives. However, some sections of 76-270 are discipline-focused and reserved for students from specific programs or colleges. Students should review the section title before attempting to register to discern which section is most appropriate for them. Dietrich College students can count any 76-270 section toward their GenEd requirement: Disciplinary Perspectives-Design.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/academic-programs/writing-and-communication/index.html

76-271 Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing: Spring: 9 units
Professional and technical communicators use words and images to connect people with information. With a strong foundation in rhetoric, this course will sharpen your abilities to communicate information clearly, effectively, and responsibly to real readers, stakeholders, and decision makers. Our assignments and conversations will include a wide range of genres and rhetorical situations you can expect to encounter as a professional and technical communicator, including job application genres, narrative genres like feature articles that blend subject matter interviews with keen observation, research genres like proposals, and team writing genres like technical documentation. A high level goal for the course is to combine theory, methods, and best practices for putting real readers and users of information at the center of our communication strategies. By the end of the course, you will have a portfolio of polished work that you can use to narrate your professional strengths and interests. This course is designed for undergraduates pursuing majors and minors in a writing and communication field, and who want to explore professional and technical communication as a discipline and career area.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-275 Introduction to Critical Writing: Fall: 9 units
(This course was formerly titled Critical Writing Workshop.) The goal of this course is to sharpen your ability to read and write about literary and other imaginative works. Critical reading and writing mean gathering and evaluating language and images to form an interpretation of a print, visual, or other media text. To that end, you will learn analytical keywords and terms from literary and cultural theory and how to apply them to texts and other objects. The focus will be on theories of race, gender and empire and how they inform literary texts and our reading of them. Our course's method for critical writing instruction will be to workshop drafts of your essays. To that end, you will write four short interpretive papers in the course. You will also gain practice at oral presentation, peer-review and critique. Since this is a writing workshop and our time for reading will be somewhat limited, we will read a several shorter literary texts in a range of genres (fiction, drama, poetry) while we consider questions of form. The communication and analytic skills you acquire in this class will transfer to your work in a wide range of academic disciplines and professional contexts.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-278 Japanese Film and Literature: The Art of Storytelling: Intermittent: 9 units
This course explores how the art of storytelling is in tandem with the vicissitudes of the human condition as illustrated in Japan's variety of fictions, non-fictions, and films in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Analyses of each storytelling not only reveal the cultural dynamics behind Japanese modernity, but also invite students to find new insights into Japanese culture and their ways of perceiving our globalized world. What kind of cultural exchanges took place between modern Japan and the West? How are Japan's traditional values transformed in the face of modern technicalization and industrialization, compared to the modernization of other countries? And, in turn, what kind of impact has modern Japanese culture had on today's world? Tackling these questions among others, the course also extends to such issues as the legacy of traditional Japanese culture, the modern Emperor system, World War II experiences, emerging voices of minorities, and popular culture (e.g., anime and subculture).

76-282 Disability in Pop Culture: All Semesters: 9 units
In 2016, ABC debuted the show Speechless, which follows the life of JJ, a high school teenager with cerebral palsy. In 2015, Deaf West Theatre premiered a revival production of Spring Awakening on Broadway, debuting a cast of both deaf and hearing actors who performed the show using American Sign Language and English simultaneously. In 2013, Allie Brosh released a book version of her blog titled Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happeneda combination of web comics and stories that included discussions of depression. These examples are a mere few of more recent representations of disability in pop culture. In this course, we will investigate how representations of disability tell stories about difference. Using the tools of rhetorical analysis, we will ask the following questions: How do memoirs, films, comics, health initiatives, advertisements, blogs, laws, and poetry use language and images to influence or construct our understanding of disability? How do these representations engage differences of gender, race, class, and sexuality? And finally, how does this work expand broader cultural, aesthetic, and political views of embodiment, disability, and difference? This course has two major parts: 1) We will examine various models of disability in order to theorize concepts such as normal, the gaze, passing, and access. In the process, we will consider how these concepts intersect with gender, race, class, and sexuality. 2) We will engage these theories through close reading of actual representations of disability that circulate in our worlds around us and shape our understandings of disability. We will pay particular attention to the rhetorical elements central to these representations such as purpose, genre, audience, context, form, and style.

76-286 Oral Communication: Intermittent: 6 units
Oral presentations are essential to professional success. Yet many people find themselves growing weak in the knees at the thought of presenting in front of a group. They read off of notes, speak too fast, or pepper their speech with nervous filler words such as "um" or "you know." 76-286 Oral Presentations is a mini intended for students who want to boost their confidence in presenting in front of others. You will learn strategies for structuring the content of a presentation, designing effective presentation slides, and controlling your voice and body language to produce a smooth, confident-sounding oral delivery. We will begin with giving short informal presentations and gradually increase the stakes as your confidence improves. You will have weekly opportunities to practice and improve your skills. We will also find opportunities to practice in a variety of physical settings so you can envision yourself as a calm, confident speaker no matter your surroundings. Grades in the course will be based on improvement and effort to encourage students to focus on their development rather than on final outcomes.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-287 Sex & Texts: Intermittent: 9 units
Please see *Content Warning* Below In this course, we will consider how writing and communication serve as means to create, define, and bound our worlds, shaping our ideas about "sex" and "sexuality" at their intersections with gender, disability, race, geographic location, religion, age, and so on. Using a rhetorical perspective, we will interrogate how everyday experiences with and performances of sex and sexuality are tied to legal, medical, corporate, cultural, and historical practices and ideologies. Readings will consist of public, scholarly, and creative genres such as Roxane Gay's Unruly Bodies, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Cardi B's "WAP" (feat. Megan Thee Stallion), and the Hulu series Shrill and will address topics including but not limited to bathroom bills, rape culture, the beauty industry, intellectual property, citizenship, and marriage equality. Students in this course will 1) develop a vocabulary for talking about sex and sexuality; 2) examine how sex and sexuality are shaped by public, historical, and cultural norms; and 3) practice analyzing rhetorical elements such as purpose, genre, audience, context, form, and style. Student projects will include weekly discussion posts, two shorter papers, and one creative project. This course meets the Dietrich College Communicating Gen Ed requirement. *Content Warning* Because this course takes up questions of sex and sexuality, we will discuss the body/embodiment and issues related to violence (sexual, racial, intellectual, domestic, linguistic, etc.). While projects will ask students to examine questions of sex and sexuality, students will not be required to write about issues related to violence.

76-289 Billingual & Bicultural Experiences in the US: Intermittent: 9 units
What does it mean to be bilingual in the USA, when approximately 80% of Americans are monolingual English-speakers? In this course, we will learn about the nature and experience of bilingualism and biculturalism (past and present) and how it shapes different perspectives and worldviews and #8212;within an individual, between individuals, and on a larger (societal, cultural) level. The course highlights the experiences of groups such as immigrants, racial/ethnic minorities, indigenous communities, and users of signed languages to foreground experiences that may be similar to or different from those of the students. We use a variety of resources (e.g., social media, film and documentaries, historical documents, literature, music, art) to accomplish this, and students are encouraged to be creative in the ways they design their own hands-on projects. This discussion-based course is taught in English and is open to all students, whether they identify as bilingual/bicultural, or are simply interested in the course topic.

76-290 Literature & Culture in the 20th Century: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics vary by semester and instructor. For example: Spring 2020: Black Fiction This course will take a transatlantic approach to what constitutes black literature and artistic expression from the nineteenth until the early twenty-first century. We will investigate how black authors use literature and other mediums of expression for social, political and self-presentation. Our primary focus will be on fiction with some memoir, poetry and non-fiction essays thrown into the mix. We will cover canonical black writers of the diaspora as well as key literary periods and movements. Along with these more conventional ways of accounting for literary history we will look at the way gender, sexuality, (trans) national belonging, ideology and political economy shape the reception, aesthetics and context of black writing. Authors covered in this course include: Fredrick Douglass, Nella Larson, Audre Lorde, Ralph Ellison, Melvin Tolson, Percival Everett, Merle Collins, Claudia Rankine and Tayari Jones to name a few.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-291 Getting Heard/Making a Difference: Intermittent: 9 units
How can a college student get people to pay attention to a problem, whether it is a personal, social, environmental, ethical, or public issue? In particular, how do people who don't already have what is called "standing"such as the authority or credentials to speakget their community to listen? In this course you will learn how to create real dialogue and carry out effective (not simply adversarial) engagement within a university and later in your professional lives. It introduces you to the rhetorical art of savvy, issue-centered social engagement. Drawing on research, theory, and our own campus investigation, we will try out methods for collecting competing perspectives, for framing a shared actionable problem, and for creating well-supported, persuasive and motivating accounts in proposals, reports, editorials, stories, or media. The theory and strategies we study are designed to create what is called a rhetorical presence for your ideas, to put them into circulation, and help create a more engaged local public. This course meets the Dietrich College Communicating Gen Ed requirement.

76-292 Introduction to Film Production: Fall: 9 units
This course is an introduction to the process of filmmaking. Students will develop a personal cinematic language and create a short final film from the ideation, to the synopsis and shot list, the set then to the editing room. The course will introduce technical tools to create audio and visual forms that serve the content developed in a film treatment through filming assignments, planning and producing a short film, peer review and group work. The focus will be on understanding shots and coverage of a scene, the various aspects of the cinematic language, with an emphasis on the basic visual components such as space, movement, and rhythm - and how they are used to tell the story visually. Audio layering to create a meaningful soundscape and the art of Editing will be discussed extensively.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-293 Writing about Research in Your Discipline: Intermittent: 9 units
This course introduces the characteristics and types of writing required of students at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels while building sentence-level editing skills. Topics addressed include the role of writing in the academy, the writing process including editing and revision strategies, expectations for content associated with different genres, bibliographic styles and reference management software, and an introduction to the reporting of empirical research. Students will work through modules on sentence structures associated with academic language as well as workshop their own writing projects. This course is appropriate for students considering writing a senior thesis and/or applying to graduate school.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/courses/fall-2020-course-descriptions.pdf

76-295 Russian Cinema: From the Bolshevik Revolution to Putin's Russia: Fall: 9 units
"Last night I was in the kingdom of shadows," said the writer Maxim Gorky in 1896 after seeing a film for the first time. "How terrifying to be there!" Early film inspired fear and fascination in its Russian audiences, and before long became a medium of bold aesthetic and philosophical experimentation. This seminar-style course surveys the development of Russian and Soviet film, paying equal attention to the formal evolution of the medium and the circumstanceshistorical, cultural, institutionalthat shaped it. We will examine Sergei Eisenstein's and Dziga Vertov's experiments with montage in light of the events of the Bolshevik Revolution and the directors' engagement with Marxism; Georgi Alexandrov's and the Vasiliev brothers' Socialist Realist production against the backdrop of Stalinist censorship; Andrei Tarkovsky's and Kira Muratova's Thaw-era films within the broader context of New Wave Cinema; and the works of contemporary directors, including Aleksei Balabanov, Alexander Sokurov, and Andrey Zvyagintsev, in connection with the shifting social and political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Besides introducing students to the Russian and Soviet cinematic tradition, this course will hone their skills in close visual analysis. No prior knowledge of Russian language or culture is required. The course is conducted in English, but students will have the option to do work in Russian for three extra course units.

76-296 20th Century Russian Masterpieces: Intermittent: 9 units
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire underwent a series of dramatic changes in quick succession: industrial modernization, the unsuccessful 1905 rebellion, terrible losses in the First World War, finally culminating in the 1917 October Revolution. The literature and culture of the era were deeply impacted by these upheavals as artists and writers of the era attempted to capture and convey the world rapidly shifting around them. This course will acquaint students with canonical texts from 20th-century Russian literature and will also examine the highly specific context in which they were produced. From the fin-de-si and #232;cle aesthetics of a crumbling Russian Empire to the avant-garde experimentalism of the Russian Revolution and Civil War era, to the establishment of Socialist Realism and the implementation of a Totalitarian regime under Stalin, the course invites students to think about both the realities of life and artistic production in a rapidly transforming country as well as the ways in which these works bring contemporary readers to the inner lives of Soviet citizens.

76-300 Professional Seminar: Fall: 3 units
This weekly, 3-unit seminar is designed to give professional and technical writing majors an overview of possible career and internship options and ways to pursue their professional interests. Each session will feature guest presenters who are professionals working in diverse communications-related fields such as web design, journalism, public relations, corporate and media relations, technical writing, medical communications, and working for non-profits. The visiting professionals talk about their own and related careers, show samples of their work, and answer student questions. The course is required for first-year MAPW students and is open to all English undergraduates, who are urged to participate in their sophomore or junior years to explore options for internships and careers.

76-301 Internship: All Semesters
This course is designed to help you explore possible writing-related careers as you gain workplace experience and earn academic credit. You'll work on- or off-campus as an entry-level professional writer for 8-10 hours per week in a field of interest to you (public relations, journalism, advertising, magazine writing, non-profit, healthcare, etc.). You are responsible for finding an internship. Most of your class time for the course will be completed at your internship site - a minimum of 120 hours (8-10 per week) over the semester for 9 units of credit. As the academic component of the course, you'll keep a reflective journal and meet periodically with the internship coordinator to discuss your internship and related professional issues. You must register for the course before the add/drop deadline of the semester in which you want to do your internship. Before you can register, you must contact the internship instructor listed above to express your interest in the course and to be cleared for registration. Credit for the internship course cannot be retroactively awarded for past internships.

76-302 Communication Support Tutoring Practicum: Fall
The Communication Support Practicum is designed to introduce students to communication scholarship and pedagogy as well as the methods and theories that inform them for the purpose of communication support and tutoring in CMU's Student Academic Success Center. Students will explore communication (written, oral, and visual) in multiple disciplines and genres with a focus on gaining knowledge and skills to respond to communicators and their texts. Lectures, discussion, and assignments will offer a chance to think critically about tutoring practices and the ideologies and values on which they are based as well as ways to challenge the bias inherent in them. There will be many occasions to reflect on and evaluate tutoring skills, observe others in tutoring situations, and practice a variety of methods that consider the different needs of communicators. Students will gain awareness of how various spaces, identities, technologies, and abilities inform textual production as well as how to create a meaningful response to meet the diverse needs.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/gcc/faqs/index.html

76-303 Independent Study in Creative Writing: All Semesters
An Independent Study course is a course taken with faculty supervision that goes beyond the courses offered in a particular area of interest. It should not duplicate a course offered in the regular schedule of classes. A student wishing to take an independent study needs to locate a faculty member whose research interests are close to the area of proposed study and meet with the faculty member to discuss whether it is something the faculty member is interested in doing. The department requires that the student and instructor submit a written contract (available in the English Department) detailing the expectations (description of course of study, readings, how often the student/faculty member will meet) and requirements for the completed independent study project (number and amp; length of papers) and a time-line for completion of the work. You should think of this as developing the equivalent of a detailed course syllabus/schedule, and typically involves development of a bibliography of readings.

76-306 Editing and Publishing: Fall and Spring
Note: Registration in this course is by permission only. In this course students will work closely with the editors of Carnegie Mellon University Press to learn many of the facets of producing books. These range from business management and marketing to the elements of editing, book design, and production.

76-307 Advanced Editing and Publishing: Fall and Spring
Note: Registration in this course is by permission only. In this course students will work closely with the editors of Carnegie Mellon University Press to learn many of the facets of producing books. These range from business management and marketing to the elements of editing, book design, and production.
Prerequisite: 76-306

76-308 Literary Journal Publishing: Intermittent
In this course, students will learn about the landscape of and publication process for literary journals in the United States. We will read a variety of literary journals in print and online, will host guest speakers, and will do a variety of hands-on activities related to editing and publishing. Students will gain experience by working on The Oakland Review, an international literary journal run out of CMU, in capacities as varied as editorial, design and production, or promotion. If you are interested in registering for this course, please go to the Course URL and fill out the questionnaire. Thank you.
Prerequisites: 76-265 or 76-260
Course Website: https://form.jotform.com/CMUEnglish/literary-journal-publishing-course

76-310 Advanced Studies in Film and Media: Spring: 9 units
This course will focus on several key technical components of filmmaking and the ways they function within the film text, as well as the ways they can be read as an indication of the underlying ideology of a work. Individual units of the course will concentrate on performance, production design, photography, editing and music. Films will be drawn from a variety of national cinemas from around the world. A primary goal of the course will be the development of skills useful for filmmaking, film analysis and scholarship. Students will engage in focused projects designed to facilitate the pedagogical goals of each unit.
Prerequisite: 76-239

76-311 Independent Study in Humanities Analytics: Intermittent
An Independent Study course is a course taken with faculty supervision that goes beyond the courses offered in a particular area of interest. It should not duplicate a course offered in the regular schedule of classes. A student wishing to take an independent study needs to locate a faculty member whose research interests are close to the area of proposed study and meet with the faculty member to discuss whether it is something the faculty member is interested in doing. The department requires that the student and instructor submit a written contract (available in the English Department) detailing the expectations (description of course of study, readings, how often the student/faculty member will meet) and requirements for the completed independent study project (number and amp; length of papers) and a time-line for completion of the work. You should think of this as developing the equivalent of a detailed course syllabus/schedule, and typically involves development of a bibliography of readings.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-312 Crime and Justice in American Film: Intermittent: 9 units
Films dealing with criminal activities and criminal justice have always been popular at the box office. From the gangsters of the Thirties and the film noir of the Fifties to the more recent vigilante avenger films of Liam Neeson, the film industry has profited from films about crime and its consequences. How those subjects are portrayed, however, tells us a great deal about larger trends in American history and society. Every imaginable type of criminal activity has been depicted on screen, as have the legal ramifications of those acts. But these films raise profound questions. What is the nature of crime? What makes a criminal? Are there circumstances in which crime is justified? How do socioeconomic conditions affect the consequences? How fair and impartial is our justice system? Perhaps most importantly, how do depictions of crime and justice in popular media influence our answers to these questions? This class will utilize a variety of films to discuss the ways in which popular media portrays the sources of crime, the nature of criminals, the court and prison systems, and particular kinds of criminal acts. Films to be screened may include such titles as The Ox-Bow Incident, Out of the Past, 12 Angry Men, Young Mr. Lincoln, Brute Force, The Equalizer, Jack Reacher and Minority Report. By thoroughly discussing these films and related readings we will be able to trace the various changes in attitude towards crime and justice in America over the last century.

76-313 Creative Visual Storytelling in Film Production: Intermittent: 9 units
Visual storytelling cuts to the heart of the filmmaking process, combining all elements of the craft to engage the viewer. Every picture is comprised of a story, visuals, and, sometimes, sounds. This class is about learning how to understand and control time-based images to better tell your story. We will learn essential skills for becoming a creative technological storyteller - how to think visually and aurally. Fundamental focus will be on understanding the basic visual components -using space, tone, line, shape, color, movement and rhythm- and how they are used to visually tell a story, define characters, communicate moods, emotions, thoughts and ideas. We often are not consciously aware of them within a film but are critical in establishing the relationship between story structure and visual structure. Through readings, film analysis, creative brainstorming, assignments and individual critiques this class will guide each student into translating their creative vision into a short final film.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-314 Data Stories: Fall: 9 units
Every dataset has a story. In the age of big data, it is vital to understand the unlikely casts of algorithms, data miners, researchers, data janitors, pirates, data brokers, financiers, etc. whose activities shape culture. This course will feature a range of "farm to table" data stories, some going back hundreds of years, and introduce students to resources and strategies for contextual research. It will explore cases such as the London cholera epidemic, Google Books, Netflix, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Strava map, and the Queen Nefertiti scan alongside several pieces of art and fiction that capture aspects of data stories typically obscured elsewhere. Research methods introduced will include book history, media archeology, history of information, infrastructure studies, ethnography, narratology, and digital forensics. Students will read scholarly articles, novels, journalism, and popular non-fiction; they will test algorithms; and they will develop individualized long-form research and writing projects informed by computational methods in data studies, journalism, and art.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-315 19th Century American Literature: Intermittent: 9 units
These days, it's pretty easy to get to Walden Pond. It's right off route 126 South (not too far from Concord) and there is a nice little farm stand there called the Farm at Walden Woods, where you can get corn and raspberries and freshly baked bread. In this class we'll go back in time to the Walden Pond of Thoreau's time, with a focus on the Green Nineteen and #8212;-writers and thinkers who considered the relationship between human civilization and the American wilderness (Thoreau, Emerson and Hawthorne). We will think about the interrelationship between the environment and nascent capitalist industries by reading the poetry and prose by young women who worked in the Lowell Mill (The Lowell Mill Offerings). We will also think about the environment in relation to two slave narratives (Douglass, The Slave Narrative of Frederick Douglass and Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Finally we will consider the environmental consciousness of the two most important poets of the 19th century, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. As for coursework, we will use the class to practice meditation, natures walks, and one group project in which you will design your own environmentally conscious Utopian community.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-316 Topics in Literature: Watching HBO's The Watchmen: Intermittent: 9 units
This course is centered on the graphic, social and political universe created by HBO's The Watchmen series. Course viewings/readings will include: the 9-episode HBO series from 2019, the original The Watchmen comic series from the 1980s, and various cultural influences on the HBO series, including the musical Oklahoma, and the 1930s era singing group the Ink Spots, whose hit, "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," is featured in the series. The course will include the intro to film studies text, Writing about Movies, and one of the goals of the course will be for students to write original, accessible, and interesting 1000 word essays about the series to be published on a public website.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-317 Contemporary American Fiction: Intermittent: 9 units
No one seems to know quite how to define contemporary American fiction. It's clear that fiction has changed since the 1960s and 70s, the heyday of postmodernism, but it's hard to pin down what characterizes the work that has come since. In this course, we will read a selection of American fiction from the 1980s to the present and try to get a sense of its main lines. In particular we'll look at the turn to "genre," the expansion to multicultural authors, and the return to realism. Also, we will consider how it relates to American society. Authors will include authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Egan, Emily St. John Mandel, Weike Wang, and Colson Whitehead.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-318 Communicating in the Global Marketplace: Intermittent: 9 units
Effective intercultural and global communication has become increasingly salient in today's hyper-connected world, simultaneously presenting us with challenges and rewards. A vivid thread that unspools once one begins to unravel the embroidery of intercultural and global communication in contemporaneous times is computer-mediated communication (CMC) and social media. With more than half of the world's population connected to the Internet, we are more connected than ever. But, despite how seamless the Internet may have made communication, the fact that language is rooted in culture complicates CMC, even if the language is English. The omnipresence of English leads people to assume that a common language implies a shared understanding of a given topic. But, speaking the same language does not mean we share the same cultural values, or that we even understand or are aware of other cultural values and beliefs. English may be the lingua franca in many organizations and professional settings, but the commingling of globalization and CMC raises some questions including "How can professional communicators contribute to shaping a workplace discourse that transcends national or regional borders to reach a global audience"? This course will address these questions by explaining the specific ways in which our backgrounds (from personal to social and even national) influence professional and technical communication; the impact of globalization on the workplace, especially in times of crisis; and the ways in which we can rely on general concepts and principles in order to communicate effectively in specific international settings and situations.
Prerequisites: 76-270 or 76-271 or 76-272

76-319 Environmental Rhetoric: Fall: 9 units
Should you take a hike or seize the mic? Environmental rhetoric combines commitment with contention We start by exploring its multiple discourses, from Muir's vision of conservation, to Leopold's introduction of ecology, to Carson's call for public action, to contemporary scientific research and competing public discussions. To uncover their hidden logic, we study rhetorical strategies first, for analyzing arguments (over issues such as wolves, clean water, or sustainable design), and then for communicating risk (in the face of climate change, fracking, as well as wind power). In response, this course will prepare you to act as a research-based rhetorical consultant for a group of your choice, analyzing the issues and arguments it faces, in order to propose a rhetorically effective response, supported by your own imaginative prototype of a brochure, web page, press release.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-323 Text to Screen: Intermittent: 9 units
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of narrative filmmaking and the attendant creative processes. Students will explore the symbiosis between film literature, visual storytelling, team building and the practical planning essentials universal to making film.
Prerequisite: 76-269

76-324 Topics in Rhetoric: Language and Place: Intermittent: 9 units
TBD
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-325 Intertextuality: Spring: 9 units
What do we mean when we say that someone has "twisted" our words, or that our words have been "taken out of context"? Why is Martin Luther King Jr. best remembered for saying, "I have a dream," and not for saying, "War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity"? What are political "talking points" and how are they perpetuated? How does a claim (unfounded or not) become a fact? How does a fact become a myth? These are just some of the questions that we will consider. More specifically, this is a course in how meaning changes as texts created in one context and for specific purposes are repeated, cited, and used in other contexts and for other purposes, sometimes related and relevant, sometimes not. More technically, we'll be focusing on the rhetorical nature of intertextual discourse. Our goal will be to examine the ways that people of all kindsincluding politicians, journalists, and scientistsstrategically draw upon and transform the statements, arguments, and evidence of other people to promote their own viewpoints or purposes. We will begin by investigating scholarship that views language as an extended conversation in which people struggle to have their own voices heard, and other voices countered or even suppressed. Later, we will survey a number of studies that suggest how individuals and organizations recontextualize and reinterpret prior discourse for persuasive ends. More specifically, we will analyze how the micro-features of the language (for example, qualifications, evaluations, and attributions) are used to persuade audiences that certain assertions are (not) factual, that certain speakers are (not) authoritative, and that certain proposed actions are (un)desirable. Ultimately, you can conduct your own research on intertextual rhetoric on a topic of specific interest to your academic or professional goals.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-326 Contemporary Global Literature: Intermittent: 9 units
In this course, students will read, interpret, discuss and write about novels and short stories written in English in the past ten years by writers originally from Africa, South Asia, East Asia and the Caribbean. While these works represent the "large stories" of economic globalization, refugee migration, and ecological catastrophe, they are crafted around the "small stories" of love, longing, friendship and family.We will talk about both kinds of narratives, tracing the entanglements of one in the other.Students will reflect on the relationship between history, society and culture in a global context, situating the contemporary within the longer trajectories that mark the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. This course is virtual and almost entirely synchronous; barring unexpected situations, attendance is expected for what should be a lively class discussion.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-327 Equity & Communication: Strategies for Institutional Change: Intermittent: 9 units
Communication is always embedded in power relationships with unstated social rules that govern who is able to say what when. But communication also offers us a tool for rewriting oppressive social scripts. In this class, we will look both at inequities built into our communication and strategies for overturning these inequities. The focus will be on practical actions that you can take to improve your school, workplace, or extracurricular groups. Our readings will come from diverse sources and fields, including sociolinguistics, psychology, education, organizational communication, and writing studies. While our readings might occasionally depress (or enrage) you, the overall focus of the course will be optimistic, challenging you to imagine solutions to the problems we discuss.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-328 Introduction to Corpus Linguistics: Intermittent: 9 units
This is a hands-on, project-based class that will help students build a methodological toolkit for computer-based textual analysis. That toolkit will include methods for the collection of data, its processing via off-the-shelf software and some simple code, as well as its analysis using a variety of statistical techniques. In doing so, the class offers students the opportunity to engage in scientifically oriented inquiry, giving priority to the use of corpus evidence to answer research questions. The first part of the term will be devoted to introducing fundamental concepts and taking a bird's eye view of the potential application of corpus methods in domains like academic writing, technical communication, and social media. From there, students will initiate projects of their own choosing and develop them over the course of the semester. The goal is to acquaint students with the strengths and limitations of computer- based textual analysis and to provide them with the necessary foundational skills to design projects, to apply appropriate quantitative methods, and to report their results clearly and ethically to a variety of audiences. This class requires neither an advanced knowledge of statistics nor any previous coding experience, just a curiosity about language and the ways in which identifying patterns in language can help us solve problems and understand our world.

76-329 Performing Race in Early Modernity: Intermittent: 9 units
The earliest known use of the term "white" in reference to Europeans occurs in The Triumphs of Truth, a 1613 play by Shakespeare's contemporary, Thomas Middleton. In addition to suggesting an important connection between race and drama in 17th-century England, this simple historical note raises a range of questions that have a direct bearing on some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century: Where do ideas about race come from? By what processes do the distinctions of racial concepts emerge, evolve, calcify, and mutate? How does the conceptualization of race relate to media? How do racial representations bolster and conduct political power? In this course, we will broach these questions by taking a close look at the race-making function of drama in early modernity, a period when race was an inchoate, incipient concept, caught up with the emergence of colonialism, capitalism, and increasing interconnection between peoples, cultures, and worlds. As we think, read, and converse together, we will endeavor to come to terms with the problems and paradoxes of racial representation in the early modern theater, a forum that offered access to innovative, daring thinking about human equality and ethical responsibility, but was also a site for the perpetuation of hateful stereotypes and exploitative theories of white supremacy. In a wide-ranging survey of drama, historical documents, and contemporary criticism, we will work toward an understanding of how race-based concepts operated in the theater, and how the drama early of modernity continues to influence thinking about race in our own time. This course meets the Dietrich College Reflecting Gen Ed requirement.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-332 Writing about Research in Your Discipline: Intermittent: 9 units
This course introduces the characteristics and types of writing required of students at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels while building sentence-level editing skills. Topics addressed include the role of writing in the academy, the writing process including editing and revision strategies, expectations for content associated with different genres, bibliographic styles and reference management software, and an introduction to the reporting of empirical research. Students will work through modules on sentence structures associated with academic language as well as workshop their own writing projects. This course is appropriate for students considering writing a senior thesis and/or applying to graduate school.
Prerequisite: 76-101
Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-335 20th and 21st Century American Fiction: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will examine American fiction from 1900 to the present. It will cover the movement from modernism, through midcentury realism and postmodernism, to the contemporary. We will look at scholarly definitions of those modes, as well as some of the cultural context that has informed American literature. Some of the authors will include modernists like Stein and Faulkner; midcentury writers and postmodernists like Ellison, McCarthy, and Pynchon; and contemporary writers like Diaz, Lahiri, and Franzen.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-337 Intersectional Feminism: Intermittent: 9 units
The concept of intersectionality first appeared in African-American feminist legal theory, but it rapidly spoke to other ideas and movements authored by other women positioned on the margins in the United States and beyond. Now widely disseminated as a feminist practice embraced by many identities, intersectional feminism acknowledges how interlocking power structures produce systematic oppression and discrimination to create distinctive gender identities in terms of such aspects as sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, language (and accent), and neuro- and physical diversity. In this class, we will consider a wide variety of texts that mobilize this movement, including fiction, poetry, memoir, scholarly works, drama, popular media and films. We will consider voices from the "global south," non-Western countries that are speaking back to the economic and political centers of globalization. Pairing analysis with these texts with some examples of praxis, or political practice, we will think through and debate how critiques of power can move toward social change. Students will be encouraged to use these texts and a series of shorter writing assignments about texts to build toward a final project relevant to their own discipline. Readings might include Kimberl and #233; Crenshaw, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Roxane Gay, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mona Eltahawy, Erika L. S and #225;nchez, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Fatima Mernissi and Mari Matsuda, Fatima Mernissi, and Aiwah Ong.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-338 Internship Mini: Intermittent
This course is designed to help you explore possible writing-related careers as you gain workplace experience and earn academic credit. You'll work on- or off-campus as an entry-level professional writer in a field of interest to you (public relations, journalism, advertising, magazine writing, non-profit, healthcare, etc.). You are responsible for finding an internship. Most of your class time for the course will be completed at your internship site. As the academic component of the course, you'll keep a reflective journal and meet periodically with the internship coordinator to discuss your internship and related professional issues. You must register for the course before the add/drop deadline of the semester in which you want to do your internship. Before you can register, you must contact the internship instructor listed above to express your interest in the course and to be cleared for registration. Credit for the internship course cannot be retroactively awarded for past internships.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-339 Topics in Film and Media: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics very by semester and section. For Fall 2023 section descriptions, visit the course URL.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

Course Website: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzTjLjBFM73kSJver61zYwMb2GfFYzS7zFdxzMyH6Ig/edit?usp=sharing

76-340 Hospitable Worlds: Migration and Settlement on Earth and in Space: Intermittent: 9 units
Are you an artist, writer, designer, science major or film major who has ever thought about living on Mars? Do you watch sci-fi movies and think, "whoa, that looks cool," or "no way, that's not how it would work!" Do you worry about climate change on planet Earth, and think about how to use your creativity to imagine a better future? This class invites students in the visual/literary arts and the sciences to explore planetary hospitality. With each passing year, climate change makes our planet less hospitable for human life. As concerns about Earth's climate grow and the costs of space travel shrink, there has been renewed interest in establishing settlements in outer space. The goal of this class is to explore both the diminishing hospitability of our planet and the prospects of hospitality on others. We will investigate these themes through a variety of media (written, visual, auditory, etc.) and use the questions/themes of the course as inspiration for creating collaborative artistic productions incorporating art and media of all kinds (sketches, poems, paintings, videos, music, etc.).
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-341 Race & Gender in the Age of Jane Austen: Intermittent: 9 units
From Bridgerton (Netflix) to Sanditon (ITV), there is a current boom in Regency adaptations that practice "colorblind" or "color-conscious" casting while interrogating the period's gendered and racial dynamics. But how were race and gender, and their intersections, actually forged and navigated in the age of Austen? This 300-level course will look at Romantic-era in both a historical and a contemporary context. Through reading, viewing, and graded assignments including short essays and oral presentations, we will practice methods for analyzing the formal features of literary and visual texts, such as the structure of a novel, the rhythms of poetry, or the costuming of period drama. In doing so, we will ask: how do these texts respond to historical phenomena such as empire, the rights of women, and slavery and abolition? How and why do contemporary adaptations take up these questions? Examples of readings include Aphra Behn's Ooronoko, Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room," Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince, and William Wordsworth's "To Toussaint L'Ouverture."
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-342 Love: A Cultural History: Spring: 9 units
This is a course about the cultural history of love. We will focus on romantic love, with an emphasis on how ideas about love have been a dynamic part of our social, political and economic world. Some of the questions to be addressed include: How, historically, did the idea of love become coupled with freedom? How did romantic love come to be considered the epitome of self-fulfillment and what are the problems with that idea? How has the idea of romantic love been mobilized on behalf of things like the state, the nation, capitalism or revolution? How do types of love function as a measure of belonging or deviance? How does the discourse of love enter different kinds of institutional arrangements, such as marriage or state citizenship? As a way to explore these questions, this course looks primarily to literature, including fiction, poetry, and drama, but also to philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology and law. Students will immerse themselves in an interdisciplinary range of material as they read, discuss and write about these representations. We will roam through cultural theory of affect, psychoanalytic notions of love, historical constructions of marriage, and feminist discussions of love and sexuality. Possible texts include works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy and Ocean Vuong.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-343 Rise of the American Novel: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will survey American fiction from the beginning of the nation through the first half of the twentieth century. We will look at early fiction, like Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" and mid-1800s classics like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, up to twentieth-century works like The Great Gatsby and perhaps some contemporary novels. Through the term, we will ask how the fiction represents the special character of American experience. Alongside readings, you will write several short papers and present some of your research to the class.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-347 Major Fiction: Intermittent: 9 units
We read newspapers for news about our world. But we also read fictionnovels and storiesto tell us about how it feels to live in the world. Sometimes they are like our world, and sometimes very different. In this course we'll read fiction that offers realistic portraits of 19th century society, like Charles Dickens' Great Expectations or Anne Bronte's The Governess, alongside more fantastical portraits like "Rip van Winkle" or contemporary scifi. We will sample fiction from the 19th through the 21st century to trace the course of fiction from romance to realism through modernism to contemporary genre, like dypstopian masterpieces like Station Eleven or Severance. We will also consider about what they say about their culture and society.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-349 Climate Fictions: Intermittent: 9 units
During the last 20 or so years, a new kind of fiction has emerged responding to scientific models of climate change. Climate fiction, or "cli-fi," most often imagines a future in which nothing has been done or done soon enough to limit global warming. Much of this literature fits into the broad genre of science fiction, but some of it uses other fictional modes, including realism and postmodernism. This course will look at a variety of fictional approaches to climate change, including a few in visual media. We will consider why fiction is a necessary component of our understanding climate changecomputer models are fictions of a sortbut also whether and how fictional narratives such as novels and films can help motivate action. We may also read some earlier narratives of environmental catastrophe, and some nonfictional discussions of climate change. Likely authors include Amitav Ghosh, Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Richard Powers.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-350 Critical Theories about Literature: Intermittent: 9 units
This course studies the long-debated problem of how readers or spectators respond to texts (in print, performances, film, or painting) from ancient rhetoric and tragedy to contemporary mass culture.We will read in a range of critical theories, from thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and Longinus to recent theorists in poststructuralism, gender studies, Marxism, and affect theory. How have such critics and theorists thought about the nature of the text and of representation and #8212;or the relation of authorship to reading, ideas, and affects? What techniques of analyzing literary texts have such theories stimulated? Two papers and vigorous in-class discussion will be required.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-351 Rhetorical Invention: Intermittent: 9 units
Rhetorical invention is a discursive approach to the process of inquiry, discovery, and problem solving, or how we decide what to say, what arguments to advance, and what means of persuasion to use in any situation. In other words, it is a rhetorical approach to content generation in any speaking or writing situation. Although invention is centrally important to rhetoricwithout it rhetoric becomes a superficial and marginalized study of style and arrangementfrom the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment through the mid-twentieth century invention all but disappeared as a topic of rhetorical study, influenced by the view that the content of communication should be exclusively governed by deductive logic and the scientific method rather than rhetorical considerations such as audience, situation, or the history and figurality of language. This repudiation of rhetorical invention fundamentally shaped modern thought and continues to influence the ways we think and communicate today. In this course, we examine the status of rhetorical invention in the development of modern thought and then attend to scholarly efforts to revive a rhetorical understanding of invention from the mid-twentieth century forward, surveying contemporary theories of rhetorical invention including those promoted by postmodern, posthuman, and digital rhetorics. The course is designed to explore the central importance of invention to contemporary rhetorical theory through a pairing of historical and contemporary readings. In addition to regular reading responses, students select a research project examining the history or theory of rhetorical invention.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-353 Transnational Feminisms: Fiction and Film: Intermittent: 9 units
How do controversial practices related to women become touchstones that draw women together across cultures or, conversely, push them into separate cultural and political spheres? This introductory-level course familiarizes students with the challenges transnational feminism has posed to Western notions of feminism. To explore these contestations, we will look at a series of controversies. We will read these controversies through novels, drama, short stories and films, with some secondary theoretical readings. This course will take six case studies concerning cultural practices that have generated global debates about the status of women and issues like consent, freedom, and equality. Beginning with several works about regional/Islamic practices of veiling, we will look specifically at the close connections made between womens practices and elements of tradition, including religion. With an eye toward historicizing feminist interventions, we will look at 19th century debates on sati, commonly called widow burning, in India, to see how certain issues became loci for global intervention during colonial periods and, later, for global feminist movements. Within the contemporary period, we will turn to cultural, economic and political practices like female genital cutting, transnational domestic labor, global sex trade, and transnational forced marriage. For each of these controversies, we will be reading a range of positions represented in different types of writing across genre, with a focus on literary and filmic depictions.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-354 Watchdog Journalism: Intermittent: 9 units
The practice of journalism involves covering the news of the day. Investigative journalism uncovers it, digging through public records and data to expose corruption or correct social injustices. The process takes patience and persistence, as well as familiarity with right-to-know laws, to find that gold nugget of information that exposes secrets or becomes the missing piece to a larger puzzle. In this course, students will learn investigative techniques that make the powerful accountable, using government documents, financial filings and databases to spot undetected crime patterns, an unfair housing policy or perhaps questionable spending by a non-profit charity. Investigative journalism has a storied history of exposing wrongdoing and today many of the tools historically used to tell those stories are available to everyone. This course will help budding journalists, researchers and anyone else interested in addressing societal problems find those tools and learn how to use them. This course meets the Dietrich College Deciding Gen Ed requirement.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-357 Linguistic & Social Aspects of Immigration: Intermittent: 9 units
This course introduces students to the linguistic and social aspects of immigration in today's global society. Immigration will be studied as a socio-political construct with an emphasis on the linguistic, socio-cultural, and political challenges and opportunities that migration creates for the individual and society. Throughout the course we will explore one key question: What challenges and opportunities do different aspects of migration posses for multilingual societies and individuals? A great deal of the course focuses on the linguistic challenges that migration creates for the individual and society, with a special emphasis on the development of bilingualism and the education of immigrant children. From a larger socio-political perspective, the course focuses on various case studies of immigrant populations throughout the world in order to obtain a better understanding of the characteristics, opportunities, and challenges faced by immigrant populations internationally.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-358 Making the Documentary: Spring: 9 units
Making The Documentary This will be an experimental one-of-a-kind course where students will be working alongside an experienced film director while taking part in a hands-on documentary project from concept to finished product. This course will explore the filmmaking process from concept and development through to production and postproduction with the intention of completing a feature documentary. The documentary subject this semester will focus on artists, journalists, filmmakers and writers who are living in exile from their home countries. In many places around the world, oppressive regimes still do not respect the right to freedom of expression. Artists resisting oppression sometimes have no other choice than to abandon their countries. Their engagement continues abroad in safer countries, where they can continue to create politically-infused art. The documentary project will focus on several exiled artists living in Pittsburgh in collaboration with the City of Asylum, the world's largest sanctuary for writers and artists living in exile. Our focus will be to reveal the existential creativity and the role of these artists in a time of crisis. Students will be required to engage in concept development, researching, producing, and editing through to final distribution. Students will take part in organizing and ordering the footage, choosing screen selects, creating rough cuts, and fine cuts in order to find the heart of the documentary. Pick-up shoots, B-roll, archival material, music, and sound design will also be considered as needed.
Prerequisite: 76-292

76-360 Literary Journalism Workshop: Intermittent: 9 units
S23: How can storytelling and reading literature help us understand the worlds of healing and illness? We'll read texts focusing on doctors, nurses, patients, caregivers, those living with chronic illness, and disability. Students will write about their own experiences, and those of loved ones.
Prerequisites: 76-262 or 76-261 or 76-270 or 76-271 or 76-472 or 76-372 or 76-265 or 76-260

76-361 Corpus Rhetorical Analysis: Intermittent: 9 units
The Digital Humanities is a huge and growing field spanning many disciplines and skill sets. The focus of this course is on tools and methods that allow students to analyze textual corpora as purveyors of stories, information, and arguments that seek to influence cultural thinking, reveal existing cultural mindsets, and often both in tandem, either synchronically or diachronically. This is the point of view often taken by analysts who work for universities, think tanks and intelligence agencies who seek to understand cultural trends and mindsets from volumes of digital texts. For such analysts, close reading is an indispensable part of their work and computing tools help focus their reading while reading helps refine their understanding of the computer output. The course will give students intensive practice with methods and tools for analyzing corpora of text at the word, phrase, and sentence level, and with working with large scalable dictionaries and multivariate statistics.
Prerequisites: (76-106 or 76-108 or 76-107 or 76-108 or 76-106 or 76-107 or 76-102 or 76-101) and 76-380

76-362 Reading in Forms: Nonfiction: Intermittent: 9 units
In this reading-intensive course we will analyze and discuss different types of narrative structure, narrative suspense, voice, metaphor, and point of view that make for effective non-fiction writing. We will also examine the difference between good writers and good work, the functions of objective distance from and intimate investment in a subject, as well as the philosophical questions spurred by non-fiction writing. What is the non-fiction writer's role, and how does it differ from that of the fiction writer? Where do the two genres overlap? What gives non-fiction writing integrity? What does the term "creative non-fiction" mean? How have the form and aims of non-fiction writing - from memoir to essays to long-form journalism - evolved for better and for worse? We'll be reading a selection of essays from a variety of writers, as well as full works from a few writers considered masters of the form.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-363 Reading in Forms: Poetry: Intermittent: 9 units
How does identity color our reading or alter our expectations of a poem? How does a poet's identity inform their poetic approach? In this course, we'll shift our focus from poetry to poet, text to context, and back, as we explore how the poet's identity operates both within their work and outside of it. Through class discussion and readings of poetry and essays we'll approach questions of permission, permissibility, responsibility, appropriation, and the identity poetics and politics at play in the evolving landscape of contemporary American poetry.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-364 Reading in Forms: Fiction: Fall and Spring: 9 units
What does it mean to feel at home? In this course, we will read and discuss fiction, memoir, and other creative work that centers on the search for home. We'll expand the idea of home to include not only the desire for comfort in a particular place, but also for a feeling of home in one's body, family, or culture. Expect to read nine or ten books, to write a response paper for each class, and to do one in-class presentation, in which you will lead the discussion. Active participation in discussions is a major part of your course work.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-365 Beginning Poetry Workshop: Fall and Spring: 9 units
In this workshop, we'll explore the building blocks of poetry, as participants develop their eye and ear as poetry readers, and practice different poetic techniques in their writing. Students will read the work of contemporary poets, attend poetry readings, respond to writing prompts, and read and respond to each other's work. Through our reading, discussions, and creative exercises, we'll examine the role of line, line break, shape, sound, silence, rhythm and form in poetry, with an eye toward how craft choices communicate on the page and how they reflect the world of the poet.
Prerequisites: (76-102 or 76-101 or 76-106 or 76-107 or 76-108) and 76-265 Min. grade B

76-367 Fact Into Film: Translating History into Cinema: Intermittent: 9 units
From the very beginning, film has provided a window into the past. But how useful are the images we see through that window? For every person who reads a work of history, thousands will see a film on the same subject. But who will learn more? Can written history and filmed history perform the same tasks? Should we expect them to do so? How are these two historical forms related? How can they complement each other? This course will draw examples from across the history of film in order to examine how the medium of film impacts our understanding of facts and events, the ways that film transfers those facts to the screen, and how that process affects the creation of historical discourse. Films may include such titles as The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Saving Private Ryan, World Trade Center, Enemy at the Gates, Lagaan and Hero.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-368 Role Playing Game Writing Workshop: Fall: 12 units
Role playing games (RPGs) are a vibrant and viable popular medium for interactive storytelling. This workshop builds upon dramatic theory DNA existing in plays, TV and film. Gameplay is performance. The skills developed when creating any time-bound media transfer well to games but must be seen through a different lens - the lens of the player. To do so, we first examine and dissect both RPG story and game design (using pencil and paper examples) seeking an understanding of both game systems as well as narrative best practices. In class we focus our examination on the most popular existing intellectual property (The Lord of the Rings). Students who desire admittance to this class should be at least somewhat familiar with that world to succeed in the class. Each student works on a four-person team to create an original RPG campaign-style adventure for an already existing story world. The final product is a portfolio-quality set of dramatic scenes, epic tabletop encounters, and character sketches. This is not an RPG design course. Any level of writing experience is welcome, BUT experience playing RPGs and #8212; either tabletop or video game and #8212; is a must. Experience as a GM for an RPG is a big plus, and applicants who possess such experience should be sure to let the instructor know in advance.
Prerequisites: 76-269 Min. grade C or 76-260 Min. grade C

76-370 Independent Study in Literary and Cultural Studies: All Semesters
An Independent Study course is a course taken with faculty supervision that goes beyond the courses offered in a particular area of interest. It should not duplicate a course offered in the regular schedule of classes. A student wishing to take an independent study needs to locate a faculty member whose research interests are close to the area of proposed study and meet with the faculty member to discuss whether it is something the faculty member is interested in doing. The department requires that the student and instructor submit a written contract (available in the English Department) detailing the expectations (description of course of study, readings, how often the student/faculty member will meet) and requirements for the completed independent study project (number and amp; length of papers) and a time-line for completion of the work. You should think of this as developing the equivalent of a detailed course syllabus/schedule, and typically involves development of a bibliography of readings.

76-372 News Writing: Fall: 9 units
In this course, we will study and learn the fundamental skills of journalistic writing as well as discuss topics related to how different media outlets cover news. On the writing side, we will start with the basics - the importance of accuracy, clarity and fairness, writing for audience, striving for objectivity, judging newsworthiness, meeting deadlines. The core class work (and most of your grade) will be based on seven writing assignments due approximately every two weeks throughout the semester. Expect to do some writing each class period. We will learn how to write a story lead, how to structure a story and how to write different kinds of news stories, from crime news to features to editorials and commentary. We also will learn how to research a news story, conduct an interview and sort through mountains of information to discern what's important so we can write about it in a clear, concise manner.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-373 Argument: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This course introduces the fundamentals of argumentation theory and offers guided practice in analyzing and producing arguments. Through analysis, we will learn what an argument is, how to identify one, and what the names and functions of a variety of argument features are. We will also explore the production of argument by pursuing the questions: What are my argumentative goals? How do I build a theory of my audience? What means of persuasion are available for me to achieve my goals? And how should I order the contents of my argument? To answer these questions, we will explore argument in a variety of genres including visuals, op-eds, presidential speeches, and congressional testimonies.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-374 Mediated Narrative: Spring: 9 units
We are offering the opportunity to travel into the future, build it, and represent it in creative and critical ways. The Mediated Narrative: Futuristic Explorations course aims to explore the concept of the future, analyze its representations, and create a media project based on potential utopian/dystopian areas of human progress and evolution. Students will have to recreate and represent their own visions of the future through a media project. Essential to the research and development of the class is the concept of humanity and empathy within a technological social world. Ideas such as: "reality ahead of schedule"; "high tech, low life"; "neon and corporate dystopias"; "cyberpunk"; "post-human"; "sustainability"; etc, will be analyzed and discussed in class. Concepts of civilization, the cityscape, the individual, the body and the mind will be examined as we have seen technology and society evolve. During the 2024 spring semester there will be two onsite visits to historical places that under similar idealist social premises of the future have embodied diverse existential outcomes: a) The city of Arcosanti in the Arizona dessert b) The Old Economy Village in Pennsylvania. Both places represent a utopian philosophy of life which attempted to be in synchronicity with everyday life. The idea is to map traditional futuristic themes and styles and find new ways to represent them based on the needs and contradictions in our present world.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-376 Crafting Race in 19th-Century Britain: Intermittent: 9 units
This course explores how the idea of race was developed, deployed, and reinforced through nineteenth-century British culture, from novels to museums to ballet. Students investigate how literature and art produced and replicated arguments about race that justified or fought against oppression. Alongside literary texts, students will also work with advertisements, paintings, filmic adaptation, and theatrical practice. We take an intersectional approach, thinking not only about race, but also the connections between gender, class, sexuality, and disability. What are the roots of problems we think of as modern, like whitewashing in media? How has racial thinking been passed down through time and across oceans? Ultimately, our investigation aims to provide insight to modern issues of race through a better understanding of cultural history. Note: we will have one field trip during class time (Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History)
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-377 Shakespeare on Film: Intermittent: 9 units
The dramatic works of William Shakespeare have inspired an extraordinarily rich and varied corpus of films that includes legendary performances, adaptations from across the full breadth of world cinema, and experiments in every major genre. This course will consider a selection of key Shakespeare films alongside critical readings centered on questions of authorship, adaptation, technology, and performance. As we watch, read, write, and converse together, we will work toward a broader understanding of what Shakespearean drama means in a 21st century context and how film has helped to shape Shakespeare's unparalleled cultural influence.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-380 Methods in Humanities Analytics: Spring: 9 units
The computer-aided analysis of text has become increasingly important to a variety of fields and the humanities is no exception, whether in the form of corpus linguistics, stylometrics, "distant reading," or the digital humanities. In this course, we will build a methodological toolkit for computer-aided textual analysis. That toolkit will include methods for the collection data, its processing via off-the-shelf software and some simple code, as well as its analysis using a variety of statistical techniques. In doing so, the class offers students in the humanities the opportunity to put their expertise in qualitative analysis into conversation with more quantitative approaches, and those from more technically-oriented fields the opportunity to gain experience with the possibilities and pitfalls of working with language. The first part of the term will be devoted to introducing fundamental concepts and taking a bird's eye view of their potential application in domains like academic writing, technical communication, and social media. From there, students will initiate projects of their own choosing and develop them over the course of the semester. The goal is to acquaint students with the strengths and limitations of computer-aided textual analysis and to provide them with the necessary foundational skills to design projects, to apply appropriate quantitative methods, and to report their results clearly and ethically to a variety of audiences. This class requires neither an advanced knowledge of statistics nor any previous coding experience, just a curiosity about language and the ways in which identifying patterns in language can help us solve problems and understand our world.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-384 Race, Nation, and the Enemy: Intermittent: 9 units
Conflicts over racial and national identity continue to dominate headlines in the United States as they often have during the nation's history, from debates regarding the immigration, naturalization, and birthright citizenship of racial minorities to debates regarding racial disparities in access to civil rights. This course explores the discursive practices through which racial and national identities are formed and the frequent conflicts between them, particularly by focusing on the role of enemies, threats to the nation, and sacrifices made on behalf of the nation in American public discourse. Alongside primary sources of public discourse regarding wars, the immigration and citizenship of racial minorities, racial segregation and civil rights, and the criminal prosecutions of dissidents during periods of crisis, we will read secondary sources offering multiple theoretical and disciplinary approaches to the study of racial and national identity formation. Along with regular brief responses to readings, assignments will include a short rhetorical analysis paper and a longer research paper.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-385 Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Intermittent: 9 units
"Discourse" is language: people talking or signing or writing. Discourse analysts ask and answer a variety of questions about how and why people do the things they do with language. We study the structure of written texts the semi-conscious rules people use to organize paragraphs, for example as well as the unconscious rules that organize oral discourse such as spontaneous stories and arguments. We study how people signal their intended audience-interpretations of what they say as foreground or background information, a casual remark or solemn promise, more of the same or change of topic. We look at how grammar is influenced by what people need to do with language, and how discourse affects grammar over time. We ask how children and other language learners learn how to make things happen with talk and writing. We ask how people learn what language is for, from exchanging information to writing poetry to perpetuating systems of belief. We analyze the choices speakers and writers make that show how they see themselves and how they relate to others. (Choices about how to address other people, for example, both create and reflect relationships of power and solidarity). We study how people define social processes like disease, aging, and disability as they talk about them, and how language is used to mirror and establish social relations in institutional settings like law courts and schools as well as in families and among friends. This course touches on a selection of these topics and gives students practice in analyzing the complex nuances of language. The course is meant for anyone whose future work is likely to involve critical and/or productive work with language: writers and other communication designers, critics who work with written or spoken texts, historians, actors, sociologists, and so on.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-386 Language & Culture: Intermittent: 9 units
This course is an introduction into the scholarship surrounding the nature of language and the question of how language shapes and is shaped by social, cultural and political contexts. We will begin by studying important literature in linguistics and language theory, both to introduce us to how scholars think about language and to give us a shared vocabulary to use for the rest of the semester. We will then move into case studies and theoretical works exploring the intersections of language use, individual and group identities, and the exercise of power, in its many forms. In particular, we will focus on the relationship between language and culture by asking, in what ways does language influence and constitute social change? How is social change reflected by changes in the way we use language? Over the course of the semester, you will work on applying the knowledge and theoretical tools you gain to your own analysis of a linguistic artifact that you choose.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-387 Writing in the Disciplines: Intermittent: 6 units
This mini will introduce you to the theory and practice of writing instruction in contexts outside of English studies. We will learn about the distinction between Writing across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines and challenges to providing integrated, high quality writing instruction across the university. We will explore the implications of the wide variety of forms of academic writing for instruction in English classrooms, including high school and first-year writing classrooms. Assessments will include reading responses and a final paper reviewing research on writing in a specific writing context of your choosing. Students enrolled in the course for six units will be expected to do additional readings and give an oral presentation. Please note that in terms of time commitment, a 3-unit mini will require approximately six hours per week (three hours homework and three hours class meetings) and a 6-unit mini will require twelve hours per week.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-388 Coding for Humanists: Intermittent: 9 units
This course provides students with the foundational knowledge and skills to develop and/or utilize computer-aided research tools for text analysis. Through a series of hands-on coding exercises, students will explore computation as a means to engage in new questions and expand their thinking about textual artifacts. This course is designed for students with no, or very little, coding experience. So, if you have already taken a programming course, this course is most likely not for you. Students who have taken 15-110 and/or 15-112 may not take this course. For the final project, you will develop a small research project involving a computational analysis of a corpus of texts. You will plan, design, and write a computer program that processes and analyzes a textual corpus of your choice. Students who are taking the course for 9-unit will write a brief project report (3-5 pages) that summarizes your final project. Graduate students in the MA in Rhetoric/PhD programs must register for 12-unit, and will complete a research paper (4,000-5,000 word).
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-389 Rhetorical Grammar: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This is a course in fundamental grammatical structures of English and how these structures fit into the writer's toolkit. This means you will learn a lot about English-language grammar in this course en route to understanding a lot about English language writing. This course is designed for MA students in professional writing and undergraduates who want to improve their grammar, their writing, and their depth of understanding of how improvement in grammar impacts improvement in writing.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-390 Style: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This course teaches you how to write clearly. Specifically, the principles you learn in this course will help you 1) to clearly represent actions and the characters responsible for them; 2) to make your paragraphs coherent and cohesive; 3) to write sentences that stress important information; 4) to cut unnecessary prose; and 5) to reshape lengthy sentences so as not to perplex your reader.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-391 Document & Information Design: Fall: 9 units
This course provides students who have already learned the foundation of written communication with an opportunity to develop the ability to analyze and create visual-verbal synergy in printed documents. Students will be introduced to the basic concepts and vocabulary, as well as the practical issues of visual communication design through a series of hands-on projects in various rhetorical situations. Assigned readings will complement the projects in exploring document design from historical, theoretical, and technological perspectives. Class discussions and critiquing are an essential part of this course. Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator will be taught in class, and used to create the assigned projects.
Prerequisites: 76-390 or 76-270 or 76-271

76-392 Special Topics in Literature & Culture: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics vary by semester. See course URL for details.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

Course Website: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U81b4BSF0aij6u_zYq39Uf7q2ZTiqqAQaOIJ9V2LhnA/edit?usp=sharing

76-395 Science Writing: Spring: 9 units
You will learn how to write clear, well-organized, compelling articles about science, technology and health topics for a general audience. You will learn how to carry out research on scientific topics using primary and secondary sources, how to conduct interviews, and how to organize that information in a logical fashion for presentation. For writing majors, the course will increase their understanding of scientific research and how to describe it accurately and in a compelling manner to a general audience. For science majors, this course will teach them how to craft fluid, powerful prose so that they can bring their disciplines to life. The course is not intended just for those who want to become science writers, but for anyone who may have the need to explain science, medicine, or technology to a general audience, whether it is an engineer describing a green building project at a public hearing or a computer programmer describing new software to a firm's marketing staff. Scientists and educators today are increasingly concerned about the public's lack of understanding about scientific principles and practices, and this course is one step toward remedying that deficit. You will get a chance to read several examples of high-quality science writing and interview researchers, but the primary emphasis will be on writing a series of articles, and rewriting them after they've been edited. Your assignments will range from profiles of scientists to explanations of how something works. In particular, this year's class will focus on how science and society interact, whether that means the way that science writers write about public health and the COVID pandemic or climate change. The class will be run partly as a writing workshop where students will be organized in teams where they will discuss ideas, as well as edit and critique each other's work in class, in a process similar to what journalists routinely go through.
Prerequisites: (76-108 or 76-106 or 76-107 or 76-101 or 76-102) and (76-372 or 76-270 or 76-271)

76-397 Instructional Text Design: Intermittent: 9 units
This course focuses on the planning, writing, and evaluating of instruction of various kinds, especially instructional texts. It is particularly appropriate for professional and technical writers, but also a good option for anyone interested in fields that involve substantial instruction, such as teaching or employee training. In the first part of the course, we'll examine the recent history of instructional design and the major current theories. Then we'll take a step back and study the concepts of learning upon which these theories are based, with particular attention to their implications for how instruction is structured. You'll find that different learners (e.g., children, older adults) and goals (e.g., learning concepts and principles, learning to apply principles to solve novel problems, learning a procedure, learning to change one's behavior, etc.) require different types of instruction. In the second part of the course, we'll look in detail at models of how people learn from texts and what features (e.g., advanced organizers, examples, metaphors, illustrations, multimedia) enhance learning under what circumstances. We will study and analyze particular types of texts. Some possible examples include an introduction to the concept of gravity; a tutorial for computer software; a self-paced unit in French; adult educational materials in health care; a workshop on sexual harassment in the workplace; or a unit to train someone how to moderate a discussion. We will also look at various methods (concept mapping, think-aloud, comprehension tests, etc.) that are used to plan and evaluate instructional text. You will do a project, either individually or in a small group (2-3), in which you design, write and evaluate instruction.
Prerequisites: 76-271 or 76-270

76-401 Hollywood vs. the World: Intermittent: 9 units
For almost a century the American film industry has dominated popular media worldwide. Anywhere in the world, American stars, American films, and American modes of storytelling are never far away. Why and how was that dominance achieved, and how have other cultures and industries challenged it? Film and television account for billions of dollars of U.S. exports and provide one of the key sources of global "soft power" and cultural influence. Understanding how that dominance works is therefore crucial to the question of America's economic, political and cultural place in the world. This course will examine ways in which other national cinemas have fought, or are currently fighting, against the hegemony of American popular film culture, and the ways in which the American film industry has maintained its dominant position in world markets for nearly a century.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-407 Topics in Literary & Cultural Studies: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics vary by semester. Spring 2022: There Are Black People in the Future. In 2018 the African American artist and CMU professor, Alisha Wormsley created a slogan for a billboard in Pittsburgh's East Liberty that read: THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE. The billboard had featured many artists and slogans over a period of years, but this one was taken down when the building's landlord objected to the content. The controversy over this piece of art gives this course its name. There are black people in the future, and there are extraordinary black artists in Pittsburgh at this very moment. This special topics course will consider what some are calling a new Pittsburgh Renaissance in the black arts, from art to literature to film and music. Featured writers include Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Life of Church Ladies, Brian Broome, Punch Me Up To The Gods, and Damon Young, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker. We will also look at the work of the writer Jason England, the artists Alisha Wormsley, Vanessa German, Devan Shimoyama, the rapper Jasiri X, and the film maker Chris Ivey. An in depth look at these artists will be paired with an examination of the history of African Americans in Pittsburgh, and current economics, sociology and politics surrounding race in the city.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-408 Culture and Globalization: Intermittent: 9 units
We are often told we live in a period of globalization, but what that means differs widely. Theories of globalization describe such diverse processes as international capital and markets, neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism, environmental devastation, transnational labor and migration, modernity, shifts in spatial and temporal relations, cosmopolitanism, global cultural production and consumption, and the resurgence of nationalism. In this course we will explore and historicize the concept of globalization from both a global literary perspective and an interdisciplinary lens. Pairing literary works from around the world with scholarship from sociology, political science, gender and critical race studies, and anthropology, we will examine the contradictions, conflicts and possibilities of associated changes in the world. We will investigate the role of representation and aesthetics by considering the work of literary writers as well as some filmmakers, journalists and activists. The course will be organized as a series of topical foci that might include neoliberalism and labor, the local and the global, environmental changes, secularism and tradition, the globalization of feminism, and global migration and border control.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-410 The Long Eighteenth Century: Intermittent: 9 units
Angela Davis wrote that "freedom is a constant struggle": how do the freedom struggles of the long eighteenth century continue into the present? How were "modern" categories of race and gender forged and navigated in the long eighteenth century? In this course, we will study literature and culture between roughly 1660 and 1820, an era in which historical phenomena such as European empires, the Rights of Woman, and slavery and abolition coincided with changes in print and media culture to produce profound cultural changes that are still with us. Through reading, discussion, and graded assignments including short essays and oral presentations, we will examine the interanimating relationship of literature and history in moments of crisis. Examples of primary readings include Aphra Behn's Ooronoko, selections from Milton's Paradise Lost, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince, and William Wordsworth's "To Toussaint L'Ouverture." Secondary readings will draw from a variety of critical traditions such as post- and de-colonial studies, Black studies, post-structuralism, and material culture studies.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-414 Decolonial Imaginaries: Intermittent: 9 units
TBD
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-415 Mediated Power and Propaganda: Intermittent: 9 units
For most of us, the word "propaganda" triggers a familiar script. We tend to think of totalitarian regimes where the State controls information and prohibits the expression of dissenting views. We also tend to associate propaganda with certain rhetorical techniques - highly emotional words, deceptive representations, and glittering generalities that inhibit rational thought and manipulate public opinion. According to such popular views, propaganda is linked to the dissemination of false information and is antithetical to the norms of democratic society. Our class will challenge these assumptions. First, instead of confining propaganda to authoritarian governments, we will examine how propaganda functions within democratic society. Indeed, we will focus on domestic propaganda in America, especially political propaganda but also propaganda in advertising and public relations. Next, instead of focusing exclusively on deceptive rhetorical techniques, we will ask a more elemental question: What enables propaganda to circulate? Answering this question will force us to consider the routines and values of corporate media as well as the power relations that give some people special access to channels of mass communication. Certainly, we will also examine propaganda messages themselves, attending to manipulative tactics as well as rhetorical strategies used to induce uptake in the mainstream press. We begin our seminar by studying key theories of propaganda, looking at primary texts for various definitions and criticisms of the concept. We will then examine how powerful institutions, especially media organizations, manage the dissemination of propaganda in democracies. Finally, we will consider how to analyze propaganda, generating methodological prerequisites for scholarly study. Ultimately, students will have the opportunity to conduct their own research on propaganda as it relates to their academic and professional goals.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-416 Rhetorics of Race & Empire: Intermittent: 9 units
The construction and enforcement of racial hierarchies has been a central phenomenon in empire-building around the world. This class takes as its main focus the relationship between imperialism and race, especially in, but not limited to, the United States. How has the U.S. justified imperial expansion around the world-military, economic, and cultural? How have its actions triggered the movements and migrations of populations, and how have those movements and displacements been explained? What cultural shifts around racial meanings have occurred, here and abroad, as a result of U.S. imperialism? How has the role of the U.S. in relation to the rest of the world, particularly peripheries and the global South, been narrated? We will take a special interest in the role of language in constructing and perpetuating racial meanings in the context of empire, and in the everyday communicative practices that both shape and have been shaped by imperial impulses. Students will learn to think critically about the presence of such discourses in everyday life, and produce a final paper or project analyzing a narrative of their own choosing in which race and empire intersect.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-418 Rhetoric and the Body: Intermittent: 9 units
This course offers an introduction to rhetorical studies of the body and is centered on the following three questions: What is the role of the body in rhetorical theory? What role does rhetoric play in constructing the body as a raced, gendered, dis/abled, cultural, fleshy, and political entity? And, how might moving, feeling bodies challenge, regulate, or disrupt these rhetorical constructions and furthermore, our theories of rhetoric? Our readings will explore the role of embodiment in rhetorical theory, examining a number of contemporary and historical theories of the body. In the process, we will explore how to put rhetoric and the body into conversation with one another and what methodological implications this conversation has for rhetorical studies more broadly. The goal of this course is to provide breadth rather than depth, with the assumption that most students, even those relatively familiar with body and/or rhetorical theory, will approach rhetorical studies of the body as novices. Students will conduct their own research on a topic related to rhetorical studies of the body that also aligns with their professional and academic goals. Graduate students interested in research will benefit from this course's focus on theory and the professional genres central to rhetorical studies. Undergraduates students (both majors and non-majors) will have the opportunity to examine how the body intersects with communication and writing contexts in their everyday public and professional lives. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-423 Transnational Feminisms: Intermittent: 9 units
How do controversial practices related to women become touchstones that draw women together across cultures or, conversely, push them into separate cultural and political spheres? This course introduces the challenges transnational feminism has posed to Western notions of feminism. To explore these contestations, we will look at a series of controversies. This course will take six case studies concerning cultural practices that have generated global debates about the status of women and issues like consent, freedom, and equality. Beginning with several works about regional/Islamic practices of veiling, we will look specifically at the close connections made between women's practices and elements of tradition, including religion. With an eye toward historicizing feminist interventions, we will look at 19th century debates on sati, commonly called widow burning, in India, to see how certain issues became loci for global intervention during colonial periods and, later, for global feminist movements. Within the contemporary period, we will turn to cultural, economic and political practices like female genital cutting, transnational domestic labor, global sex trade, and transnational forced marriage. For each of these controversies, we will be reading a range of positions represented in different types of writing across genre, including scholarly writing, legal cases, media debates, films and literature.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-424 Theories of Social Class: Spring: 9 units
How do we define social class? And how do we define popular culture? And what is the relationship between the two? In this class we'll try to answer these questions by looking at the history of class identity in the US, the rise of staggering inequality in the 21st century, and what Newman calls the "labor theory of culture," juxtaposed against the "commodity theory of culture." Texts for the course will include: White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America, Robert Reich's documentary Inequality for All, the Oscar winning film Parasite, Netflix's TV series The Maid as well as readings from Marx/Marxist influenced cultural theory.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-425 Rhetoric, Science, and the Public Sphere: Intermittent: 9 units
In the 21st century science and technology are ubiquitous presences I our lives. Sometimes these phenomena spark our imagination and affirm our confidence in a better future. In other instances, they create fear and generate protests over the risks new technologies and scientific ideas pose to prevailing social, cultural, economic, and political orders. In this course we will examine the complex dynamics in the relationships between science, technology, and society. Towards this end we will engages with questions such as: How do we decide who an expert is? To what extent do scientists have an obligation to consider the social and ethical consequences of their work? Is public education about science and technology sufficient for addressing social concerns about risk and controversial scientific ideas? We will grapple with these and other questions by exploring public debates including conflicts over global warming, vaccinations, and the AIDS crisis. With the help of analytical theories from sociology, rhetoric, and public policy, we will develop a framework for thinking about argument and the dynamics of the relationship between science, technology, and the public. We will also look to these fields for tools to assess public debate and to complicate and/or affirm prevailing theories about the relationship between science and society.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-429 Introduction to Digital Humanities: Intermittent: 9 units
This course is a "learn by doing" introduction to questions and methods in digital humanities, with special emphases on common tasks in digital history, digital literary studies, library science, and cultural analytics. Students will likely partner with a national humanities organization to tackle real-world humanities problems while developing core computational competencies such as those required for gathering data (text mining, APIs), transforming data (OCR, regular expressions, natural language processing, image magick), file management (shell commands), data visualization (matplotlib, arcGIS), and more. This course is for juniors and seniors.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-431 Gender Play in Early Modern Drama: Intermittent: 9 units
The playhouses of early modern London offered access to an astonishing spectacle that would be difficult to find anywhere else in the city: men dressed as women, skillfully reproducing (but also exposing, interrogating, and refining) the significations that structure concepts of gender difference. In addition to this fundamental condition of performance and theatrical experience, the plots of the plays themselves regularly engaged with issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, an interest that runs through the raunchy satires performed by companies of adolescent boys, the innumerable comedies of cross-dressing and mistaken identity, and the equally numerous tragedies centered on problems of inequality and imbalances of power. This course will consider a wide range of drama from the period alongside a selection of readings in sexuality and gender theory, thus bringing early modern dramatists such as William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton into conversation with contemporary thinkers such as Judith Butler and Sarah Ahmed. The body of core texts will include Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Roaring Girl, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tamer Tamed, The Island Princess, The Witch of Edmonton, The Silent Woman, Women Beware Women, and Galatea. Please note: First-year students are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomore students must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-434 Literature & Social Change in the 19th Century: Intermittent: 9 units
From the French Revolution to the Victorian era, literature began to play an explosive role in the forces of political transition and the struggle for social justice. This course studies novels, poetry and prose in relation to both political and industrial revolutions during the rise of empire and capitalism and the road to climate change. We will study apocalyptic novels like Mary Shelley's The Last Man and novels of empire like Jane Eyre and its retelling in Wide Sargasso Sea; poetry about living in revolutionary times by Wordsworth and Phillis Wheatley Peters; and anti-slavery writing such as Ottobah Cugoano's "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery." Secondary readings for graduate students will draw from a variety of critical traditions such as critical race studies, environmental studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-437 Global Realisms:: Intermittent: 9 units
In the standard history of the novel, the genre emerges in distinction from earlier narrative romances as a form bounded by a greater fidelity to ordinary life. In the nineteenth century, this general tendency is further specified in new narrative strategies and subject matter that define realism, which according literary historians, becomes identified with the novel per se. The standard history also insists that realism, while dominant in the 19th century, becomes a residual form in the 20th, replaced first by modernism, then postmodernism. In global/postcolonial fiction, ludic form, especially magical realism, becomes an important standard bearer of progressive politics in the mid20th century, again perceiving realism as residual. This course interrogates that history by looking again at classic realist texts from France and England, reading them in conjunction with novels from the U.S., India, the Caribbean, and Africa, by charting uneven development of forms and richer modes of reading. We will explore the continued importance of realist fiction and the ways it changes across time by placing it in a global context. Likely authors: Balzac, Zola, George Eliot, Joyce, Adiga, Adichie, Updike, Petry, and Semb and #232;ne. Theoretical/critical writings: Woolf, Barthes, Jameson, Luk and #225;cs, Howells, Zola, Brecht, Bloch, and others.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-439 Seminar in Film and Media Studies: Intermittent: 9 units
Topics vary by semester. Fall 2023: Novelistic Television - Topics vary by semester. Fall 2023: Novelistic Television: In this course we will look at television series defined by narrative complexity developed over the course of a season and beyond. We will watch whole seasons of such shows as The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire, Six Feet Under, and Slings and Arrows, which bear greater similarity to the novel than to traditional, episodic TV. We will trace the development of the novelistic form of television from the first wave of "quality television" series in the 1990s, in which HBO changed the way people conceived of the artistic possibilities of the medium, through the 2000s, when The Wire and Mad Men fully exploited the new form, and finally into the streaming era, when it has become common but less innovative. We will read media history and theory, and narrative theory to develop an understanding how and why the new form emerged. We will endeavor to understand these shows as expressions of and commentaries on the social and political conditions under which they were produced. We may read a novel or two for purposes formal comparison, and we will watch some episodes of more traditional TV series. Likely theorists include Raymond Williams, Linda Williams, Jason Mittell, Pierre Bourdieu, and Fredric Jameson.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-440 Postcolonial Theory: Diaspora and Transnationalism: Intermittent: 9 units
Arjun Appadurai argues that one of the primary transformations in this period of globalization has been in the capacity for people to imagine themselves or their children will live and work in places other than where they were born. Although the novel has long been considered a national form, contemporary novels frequently represent transnational mobility, both in their plots and as global commodities. A significant body of contemporary fiction focuses on imaginative and physical movement across national borders. This global literature course combines literary and theoretical readings to examine the experiences of transnationalism and diaspora. Theories of transnationalism look at the interconnections that cut across nations. The concept of diaspora, a term first used to reference the movement of a people out of a homeland, has become a way to think about the identities of immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees. Readings for the course will be drawn from a diverse group of writers from around the globe. Literary readings might include works by Caryl Phillips, Jamaica Kincaid, Christina Garcia, Nadeem Aslam and Jhumpa Lahiri; theoretical readings might include works by Salman Rushdie, Paul Gilroy, Gloria Anzaldúa, Arjun Appadurai, Inderpal Grewal and Avtar Brah.

76-442 Black Lives in Pre-1900 Britain: Intermittent: 9 units
This course engages with Black voices writing from, to, about, and against Pre-1900 Britain, from abolitionists to actors to royalty. We explore topics including racial philosophy, the transatlantic slave trade, revolution, abolition, imperialism, and popular culture, from both contemporary and modern sources. Our texts and conversations trace how the lives and experiences of individuals like Ignatius Sancho, Sarah Baartman, Ira Aldridge, and Alemayehu Tewodros presage those of a modern global Black diaspora.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-445 Milton: Intermittent: 9 units
Although censored and reviled by many in his own day, John Milton (1608-1674), author of Paradise Lost among other powerful anti-monarchical writings of the English Revolution, has influenced writers as varied as William Blake, Mary Shelley, Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Engels, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm X, and Philip Pullman. This course will investigate what has made Milton a writer at once so much imitated and beloved by his admirers and loathed and denigrated by detractors. The bulk of this course will center on a careful, challenging, and chronological reading of Milton's works, primarily Paradise Lost but also his great shorter poems including Lycidas, Paradise Regain'd, and Samson Agonistes, and selections of his voluminous prose (Areopagitica, Of Education, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Readie and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth). Studying Milton's development as a poet, controversialist, and pamphleteer, students will examine Milton's contexts (chiefly, literary, political, and theological) in order gain further insights into the complex relations between Milton's 17th-century world and his major poems and prose. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-446 Revenge Tragedy: Intermittent: 9 units
Attendants to the early modern English theater seem to have had an almost insatiable appetite for revenge tragedy: a lurid, blood-soaked genre distinguished by plots involving insanity, skulls, ghosts, poisonings, stabbings, suicide, and other forms of unnatural death. This course will cover key examples of the genre, putting particular emphasis on the depiction and interrogation of justice, analyses of death, and playful engagement with theatricality. Our central curriculum will include the following plays: Thyestes (Seneca), The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd), Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), Hamlet (Shakespeare), The Revenger's Tragedy (Middleton), and The Duchess of Malfi (Webster). We will also read a selection of critical essays and related literature from the period.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-107 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-106)

76-448 Shakespeare on Film: Intermittent: 9 units
The dramatic works of William Shakespeare have inspired an extraordinarily rich and varied cinematic legacy that began in the era of silent films and now boasts masterpieces by directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski, Peter Greenaway, and Orson Welles, not to mention history-making performances by icons including Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ian McKellen (among many others). This course will consider a selection of key Shakespeare films alongside critical readings centered on questions of adaptation and performance. As we watch and read together, we will work toward a broader understanding of what Shakespearean drama means in a 21st century context, and how film has helped to shape the author's massive cultural impact.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-450 Law, Culture, and the Humanities: Intermittent: 9 units
"I'm not a lawyer, but..." How many times have you heard this disclaimer, closely followed by a lay analysis of law? This course, an introduction to the cultural study of law for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students, can be seen as an introduction to what goes into the making of such a statement. Where do we get our ideas about law? What do we mean when we say "law"? What counts as law? How does culture influence law, and law, culture? And to what degree should historical context condition any answers we might be tempted to give? Students in the course will study works in a range of genres (novels, plays, poems, judicial opinions, pamphlets) and develop methods for investigating ways that law and culture have been made by one another from the 16th-century to the present. Readings will include influential theoretical accounts of law (Aristotle, Hobbes, Cover, Habermas, Bordieu, MacKinnon, Alexander), canonical texts in Law and Literature (Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Melville's Billy Budd, Kafka's The Trial) and some "weird fiction" by the novelist/legal theorist China Mi and #233;ville. As a counterpoint to the fiercely anti-historical "law and economics" movement, however, the course will put special emphasis on rooting intersections of law and culture in rich historical context, considering both local and international legal contexts (sometimes in fairly technical detail) alongside so-called "ephemera" of culture. Students will tackle the especially fruitful "case" of Renaissance Britain before developing final research projects, whether on the Renaissance or another period of their choosing.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-452 Generations and Culture: Intermittent: 9 units
We frequently hear about generations and #8212;the Millennials and their multitasking, Gen X and their minivans, and the Baby Boomers and their self-satisfaction and #8212;but generations have usually been ignored in cultural studies. Yet generations have significant impact on cultural tastes, consumer choices, and political views, as a good deal of research shows, and identity, alongside other factors such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and abledness. This course will study the theory of generations, as well as novels and films that tell us about generations. Please note: first-year students are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomore students require instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-453 Literature of Empire: Fall: 9 units
Nineteenth and early twentieth-century British literature was shaped by events taking place outside as well as inside of national borders. Even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with international trade and slavery supporting the manor house and plantations abroad providing the cotton for British looms, the "England" of English literature spanned the globe. By the first half of the twentieth century, this empire had begun to collapse in upon itself, a process witnessed by writers inside Britain and its colonies. This course will investigate British literature within the international context of global imperialism. A section on gothic stories takes us into the realm of popular culture with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories. We take to the seas with Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, before we consider W. Somerset Maugham's exploration of sexuality in the tropics in The Painted Veil. Finally, we return to England to outline the links between colonial empire and international war rendered in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. These literary works will be read alongside some of the most important works of postcolonial theory. While course readings focus on 19th and early 20th century, student's will undertake a research project over the semester in their own period of interest in British literature in connection with empire studies.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108)

76-454 Rise of the Blockbuster: Intermittent: 9 units
The term "blockbuster" has been a part of the American film industry for over sixty years, but, like "pornography," it's extremely difficult to define from a critical standpoint. For most of the viewing public the "we know it when we see it" definition seems to suffice. In an academic sense, however, such vagueness is problematic. This course will explore the idea of the "blockbuster" over time and across cultural boundaries. What is the origin of the concept? What is the structural impact of the "blockbuster" on the film industry? How does the meaning of the term change from genre to genre? Is it a genre in and of itself? How does a "blockbuster" reinforce our cultural conceptions? How might the concept change in the future? What does all of this tell us about ourselves? This course will draw examples from across the history of film in order to develop a holistic understanding of what the term might encompass from a variety of perspectives. By thoroughly discussing a wide selection of texts we will be able to better understand the ways in which the "blockbuster" has influenced the film industry, how the concept has both manifested itself and changed over time, and how it has shaped our cultural perspectives. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisite: 76-101

76-456 Independent Study in Film & Media Studies: All Semesters
TBA
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-457 Rhetorical Invention: Fall: 9 units
Rhetorical invention refers to the discursive process of inquiry, discovery, and problem solving, or how we decide what to say, what arguments to advance, and what means of persuasion to use in any situation. Although invention is centrally important to rhetoricwithout which it becomes a superficial and marginalized study of clarity, style, and arrangementfrom the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment through the mid-twentieth century invention all but disappeared as a topic of rhetorical study under the pressure of the view that invention should be exclusively governed by deductive logic and the scientific method rather than rhetorical considerations such as audience or the figurality of language. This repudiation of rhetorical invention fundamentally shaped modern thought and continues to influence the ways we think and communicate today. In this course, we begin by examining the status of rhetorical invention in the development of modern thought before focusing on various scholarly efforts to revive a rhetorical understanding of invention from the mid-twentieth century forward, surveying a variety of contemporary theories of rhetorical invention including those promoted by postmodern, posthuman, and digital rhetorics. The course is designed to explore the central importance of invention to contemporary rhetorical theory through a pairing of historical and contemporary readings.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-458 Sociology of Literature & Culture: Intermittent: 9 units
This course introduces you to the sociology of literary and cultural media, emphasizing how texts arise within "the field of cultural production" and its dynamics. We will first read in the classical social theory of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, then move to late 20th and early 21st century sociological thinking about literature by Raymond Williams, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, Sara Ahmed and others. Key topics will include the problem of social conditioning and "habitus"; the structure of the literary and media fields; the question of "affect" and emotiona topic not usually considered sociologicalin the writing of Ahmed, Williams, and others; the politics of social networks in Latour and other network theorists who have been aiming to redefine what the "social" means. Literary writers to be read alongside these theorists will include William Blake, the Shelleys, Herman Melville, William Morris, Bertolt Brecht, and Toni Morrison. The last two weeks of the course will be devoted to students' presentation of their research. Two papers and several in-class presentations will be required. This course is for juniors and seniors only.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-460 Beginning Fiction Workshop: Fall and Spring: 9 units
In this writing-intensive workshop students will be laser-focused on producing and polishing their own fiction. We'll complement our workshops with readings from masters of short fiction and novels, with an eye on sharpening our own facility with dialogue, structure, and voice. Each student must be prepared to constructively critique and deconstruct her/his peers' work, as well as actively contribute to class discussions about the elements of craft that undergird successful works of fiction. Each student will be expected to produce a portfolio of original writing (short exercises originating from thematic prompts and a substantial story) by the end of the semester.
Prerequisite: 76-260 Min. grade B

76-461 Refugee Stories: Literature, Art and Film: Intermittent: 9 units
Contemporary literary, film and other visual culture have reimagined the experiences of transnational migration and asylum claims. These global works focus on recent and ongoing wars, state regulations, borders, detainment, and transnational labor. In this discussion-based, interdisciplinary course, students will study Anglophone and some translated global literature, documentary and feature film and photojournalism, art installations, and digital activist projects. We will ground our analysis using theoretical insight from Critical Refugee Studies, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies. We will encounter a wide range of forms, aesthetics and themes that represent these experiences, including unexpected elements like humor, romance and horror. Possible readings might include Dina Nayeri, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Thi Bui, Isabel Allende, Valerie Luiselli, Mohsin Hamid, and Shailja Patel; art by Ai Weiwei, Marc Quinn, Christoph B and #252;chel, Banksy, Mona Hatoum and Reza (Deghati); and films/television by Remi Weekes, Sally El Hosaini, Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Mohammed (Mo) Amer.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-462 Advanced Fiction Workshop: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This course will give you experience reading and writing in two genres: fiction and creative nonfiction. The course is discussion based, and several classes per month will be devoted to generative, in-class writing exercises, which students will then work on as drafts to revise. Readings will include novels, stories, essays, and short journalistic pieces. Attendance and participation is mandatory. If you're interested in delving more deeply into the craft and art of these prose genres, and willing to put the time in to develop your own writing, this is a good class for you. I stress that a classroom is a community, and emphasis will be on establishing real connection between students. We will see how writing can help create and build on these connections between people, and serve as a tool for healing during a particularly rough time in our culture.
Prerequisites: (76-260 Min. grade B and 76-460 Min. grade B) or (76-261 Min. grade B and 76-460 Min. grade B)

76-464 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Intermittent: 9 units
Narrative Medicine looks at the intersection of writing and healing. How does narrative help heal the mind, and how are the mind and body inextricably linked? The couse will introduce you to several books and essays centered around the theme of wellness and illness and #8212;- and how these modes of being are represented and shaped by culture. You will write your own personal essays on these topics along with a final research paper. A great class for anyone interested in the power of story-telling in our own lives.
Prerequisites: 76-265 Min. grade B or 76-365 Min. grade B or 76-460 Min. grade B or 76-262 Min. grade B or 76-260 Min. grade B or 76-261 Min. grade B

76-465 Advanced Poetry Workshop: Fall and Spring: 9 units
In this workshop, we'll investigate what's possible in poetry, as participants examine their relationship to the poetic practice both as readers and as writers. Through writing exercises, discussion, and readings, we will explore the diverse landscape of contemporary poetry, and experiment with form and technique. As we study different methods of making a poem, and different notions of what makes a poem, and what makes a poem great, participants will work to discover imaginative ways of approaching the line and the page.
Prerequisite: 76-365

76-467 Crime Fiction and Film: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will be concerned with hardboiled crime fiction in print and on screen. The hardboiled emerges in Ernest Hemingway a distinctive literary style, and about same becomes a formula for pulp crime fiction. The language and attitude of the hardboiled became associated with urban gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy. Newspaper crime coverage beginning in the 1920s becomes increasingly frank in both its language and photographic coverage of crime. These various elements will be the material for a new kind of literature represented Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and especially Raymond Chandler, and for a cycle of films that owe much to their work, film noir. Chandler was responsible for invention of one of most enduring types in American fiction, the hardboiled detective. The course will focus on Chandler and the crime stories after him that make various uses of that type and the formula that has become associated with it. Throughout the course we will consider the social and political contexts in which these cultural forms developed, and what cultural work the hard-boiled performed. We will be especially interested such questions as the function of the misogyny typical of much of it, the different representations of race by white and black artists, the representation of police, whether the hardboiled is best understood as having a working-class affiliation, and the degree to which its various manifestations might be called realist. NOTE: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-468 Space and Mobilities: Intermittent: 9 units
This course will investigate space and movement as social constructions. Space is something dynamically created that may be interpreted for the ways it creates meaning, while movement reproduces and constitutes power and institutions. This interdisciplinary course considers theories of space and movement as a field of study and in reference to literary and film texts. The course might include discussions of migrants and state borders, cultural constructions of transport, the poetics of space, and the dynamic mapping of the city through movement and sound. Readings might include Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, Edward Soja, Gaston Bachelard, Wendy Brown, John Urry, Tim Cresswell, Marian Aguiar; literary texts might include Brian Friels Translations, Christina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban, W.G. Seabald's Austerlitz and Teju Cole's Open City. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission. Students across disciplines are encouraged and may work on a final project related to their primary field.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-469 Screenwriting Workshop: Spring: 9 units
This semester will begin with a review of the fundamentals of screenwriting, including character development, scene construction, dialogue, and story structure. Student work will include exercises that encourage writers to take creative risks with genre, tone, character, and structure, one collaborative project, and two short scripts. We will also view mainstream, personal, and experimental narrative films in both American and international cinema.
Prerequisite: 76-269 Min. grade B

76-473 Rhetoric & the Construction of Race: Intermittent: 9 units
In their seminal book on race, Michael Omi and Howard Winant write that race is "socially constructed and historically fluid." This course takes their assertion seriously by examining the role of communicative practices in constructing race, from discourses around the NFL national anthem protests to dominant discussions around transnational and transracial adoption. We'll look for common themes in the discourse around certain events and practices, asking why certain ideas or tropes are used and repeated, and what historical, social, cultural, and political associations inform these tropes that help them to perpetuate racial stereotypes in popular culture without overtly claiming racism. Students will practice thinking critically about everyday cultural narratives, and produce a final paper identifying the work one such set of narratives does to shape reality and create, reinforce, or perpetuate the construction of racial meanings.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-474 Software Documentation: Spring: 9 units
This course teaches theory, techniques, and best practices for creating software documentation. We will learn to plan, architect, write, and publish audience-appropriate user assistance, while applying concepts and approaches like minimalism, topic-oriented authoring, single-source publishing, content reuse, and metadata. Students will complete homework assignments and larger projects to reinforce principles and provide experience in all phases of the software documentation lifecycle. Readings and class discussion will bridge theory and practice. This course is for juniors and seniors only.
Prerequisites: 76-270 or 76-271

76-475 Law, Performance, and Identity: Intermittent: 9 units
Although rhetoric and law have long been closely associated, the modern professionalization of law has often promoted the idea that legal discourse is not rhetorical but a rigorously defined technical discourse that can be applied free of social, cultural, or political considerations. This view of legal discourse is disputed by critics who point out the figurative aspects of legal language, the relevance of character, emotion, and narrative in legal communication, and the ways in which law protects social structures of power such as race, class, and gender privilege. The course broadly examines the fraught relationship between rhetoric and law by considering the ways in which a variety of legal discourses serve to construct and reinforce identities, with a particular focus on the ways in which legal systems are portrayed to reflect the ideals of democracy to suit particular foreign relations goals. We begin by studying the ways in which Cold War foreign policy goals influenced desegregation and civil rights discourse in the United States, then we turn to the ways in which the prosecutions of deposed authoritarian rulers in various regions of the globe have been orchestrated to persuade global audiences that emerging democracies observe the "rule of law" for purposes of garnering international support. Alongside primary sources of legal discourse, we will study a selection of interdisciplinary scholarship about the relationship between rhetoric and law. Students write a two-stage research paper on a topic of their choosing regarding the relationship between legal discourse and the construction of identity. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-476 Rhetoric of Science: Fall: 9 units
This course explores questions about scientific argument and communication that are of interest to students in the sciences, rhetoric, and professional/technical writing. These include questions like: How are scientific arguments structured? How is scientific information and argument transformed when it moves from research papers for specialist audiences to publications for non-specialists? How does the social, historical, and cultural context of science shape the way it is communicated and/or argued? What contributions do visuals make to scientific argument and communication? To investigate these questions, we will be examining a wide variety of real-world communications in and about science as well as texts in rhetoric, history, and philosophy of science.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-479 Model Minorities? Race, Rhetoric, & Identity in Asian America: Intermittent: 9 units
"Asian American" is a self-conscious political identity developed by pan-Asian ethnic groups in solidarity with one another in 1968. What does it mean now, 55 years later, to be Asian American? How do Asian Americans fit into the differentially racialized landscape of the U.S., and how, in turn, are Asian American identities and experiences shaped and expressed in culture? How does the political and activist history of Asian America inform social movements today? And how do rhetorical scholars engage Asian American communities, identifying both varied processes of racialization, and patterns of counterdiscourses in which Asian Americans speak against the mainstream images that have circumscribed their subjectivities? This course brings together Asian American studies and Asian American rhetoric with a focus on the study of culture, examining the currents of global and domestic power that have shaped Asian American experience, the movements and communities that have acted in solidarity among and against those forces, and the communicative practices that both shape and are shaped by Asian Americans. By the end of the course, students will be well versed in significant topics and theories in Asian American studies and Asian American rhetoric, and will produce a final paper analyzing a topic, issue, policy, movement, or historical/cultural artifact that speaks to, or illustrates a new nuance about, Asian America. This course is for juniors and seniors.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-481 Introduction to Multimedia Design: Fall: 12 units
This class meets the increasing demand for professional/technical writers who understand multimedia and its communicative possibilities. It provides students with the opportunity to create both an explainer video and a more persuasive animation merging text, spoken voice, music, images, and video clips. Students will learn the basic concepts and vocabulary of motion graphics, practical issues surrounding designs that change over time, and digital storytelling through hands-on projects. Inspiration is drawn from popular Vox and Ted Ed explainer videos that have come to represent the genre. Students explore writing and recording their own narration and how to best utilize elements of time, motion, and sound to enhance their visual communication skills. Adobe After Effects will be taught to complete assignments and explore multimedia possibilities. Some Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Audition will also be taught to support specific tasks. Basic experience with Photoshop or Illustrator prior to taking this class is helpful, but not required. In-class discussions and critiques are essential components of the course.
Prerequisites: (76-270 or 76-271) and (51-261 or 51-262 or 76-391)

76-482 Rise of the Art Film: Intermittent: 9 units
The years between 1945 and 1970 saw an explosion of filmmaking talent around the world. Directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray completely changed the way narratives looked on screen. Just as important, however, was the fact that American audiences used to the standards and storytelling strategies of the Hollywood studio system were suddenly presented with a variety of international cinemas which collectively came to be known as "art films." This class will examine a broad cross section of such films while also scrutinizing the impact of the "art film" on Hollywood narrative strategies, domestic distribution networks, film criticism and American culture.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-483 Research Methods in Technical & Professional Communication: Fall: 9 units
This course provides you with practical, hands-on experience with designing, collecting, and analyzing research in Technical and Professional Communication. These same research methods are also applicable to Writing Studies and classroom research. We will go into depth on three main methods in this class: interviews, surveys, and think-aloud protocols. In addition, we will touch on focus groups, eye-tracking analysis, and collaborative analysis techniques. More specifically, in this class you will learn how to design well-worded questions that produce reliable information; critically reflect on and improve your interview technique; explore software designed to aid in open-ended analysis of qualitative data; design an A/B (or control/experimental) study; write a data-driven research report, and experiment with a range of data collection techniques. Students taking the course for 12-units will have additional readings that look at how these research methods have been applied in Technical and Professional Communication and Writing Studies.
Prerequisites: 76-270 or 76-271

76-484 Discourse Analysis: Fall: 9 units
Discourse is a focus of study in most of the humanities and social sciences, and discourse analysis is practiced in one way or another by anthropologists, communications scholars, linguists, literary critics, and sociologists, as well as rhetoricians. Discourse analysts set out to answer a variety of questions about language, about writers and speakers, and about sociocultural processes that surround and give rise to discourse, but all approach their tasks by paying close and systematic attention to particular texts and their contexts. We are all familiar with the informal discourse analysis involved in paraphrasing the meanings of written texts and conversations, a skill we learn in writing and literature classes and in daily life. Here we ask and answer other questions about why people use language as they do, learning to move from a stretch of speech or writing or signing outward to the linguistic, cognitive, historical, social, psychological, and rhetorical reasons for its form and its function. As we look at resources for text-building we read analyses by others and practice analyses of our own, using as data texts suggested by the class as well the instructor. In the process, we discuss methodological issues involved in collecting texts and systematically describing their contexts (ethnographic participant-observation and other forms of naturalistic inquiry; transcription and "entextualization;" legal and ethical issues connected with collecting and using other people's voices) as well as methodological issues that arise in the process of interpreting texts (analytical heuristics; reflexivity; standards of evidence). The major text will be Johnstone, Barbara. 2008. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers). Other reading will be made available as .pdf files.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-487 Information Architecture & Content Strategy: Fall: 9 units
In the digital age, the vast amount of information available online can be overwhelming, and even individual websites often struggle to present their content in a user-friendly manner. In this course, students will immerse themselves in a semester-long real-world project with practical exercises designed to address this challenge. This course equips students with the skills necessary to develop user-centered information architecture and content strategy/design, enabling them to create user-friendly websites that align with user expectations and industry best practices. Throughout the course, students will adopt a user-centered approach, utilizing essential usability methods to gain insights into the information needs, behaviors, and preferences of users. They will develop the ability to identify and rectify usability issues on websites. Additionally, students will delve into the principles of online information design, encompassing topics such as information architecture, navigation, and effective labeling. In the required lab section of the course, students will gain hands-on experience with core web technologies, including HTML and CSS, to shape and style web content. They will also gain an understanding of JavaScript and APIs, which play a pivotal role in integrating data and services into websites.
Prerequisites: (76-102 or 76-101 or 76-272 or 76-270 or 76-271) and (51-261 or 51-262 or 76-382 or 76-391)

76-488 Information Architecture & Content Strategy Lab: Spring: 3 units
Lab exercises for this course include the following: basic HTML, images, tables, animation, image maps, interactive forms, Web interfaces to databases, and basic Javascripting. All students must do the lab exercises. The exercises are designed so that those students who already know particular topics (e.g., basic HTML) do not need to attend the lab session. Students who would like guided practice in doing the lab exercises must attend the lab session. Lab sessions take place in a computer cluster.
Prerequisites: (76-271 or 76-379 or 76-270) and (76-382 or 76-383 or 76-391)

76-490 Digital Rhetorics: Intermittent: 9 units
As most of the communication now takes place using digital technologies (such as Generative-AI, blockchain, AR and VR, and the Internet of Things), the nature of public speech has been fundamentally transformed in these environments. This course explores the connection between rhetoric, socio-political systems and digital media. In today's world, it is difficult to separate digital from human. Students in this class will examine a variety of digital media as they intersect with humans as well as with theories of rhetoric. Students will also have the opportunity to explore digital technology by actively participating in digital spaces and creating digital artifacts. The course provides in depth coverage of rhetoric as an historically rooted but evolving humanistic perspective covering argumentation and figuration, performance and text, and delineating its connections to logic, aesthetics, politics, and ethics.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-491 Rhetorical Analysis: Intermittent: 9 units
Students in this course will learn various approaches to analyzing discourse artifacts from a rhetorical point of view. Early in the course, students will identify an artifact or artifacts they wish to analyze. From there, students will be encouraged to explore their own methods of analysis based on two required books for the course and reviews of literature. For the midterm, students will create an annotated bibliography of five specimens of criticism taken from a single journal. For the final project student will first present and then hand in a polished 15 page piece of criticism based on one or some combination of methods. The presentation and final paper count 50% of the grade, with the mid-term, class attendance, participation, and homework making up the final 25%.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-492 Rhetoric of Public Policy: Intermittent: 9 units
This course explores a rhetorical approach to public policy which focuses on the interconnected role that data, values, beliefs, and argument play in the policy process. From this perspective we will examine the important public debate over the pros and cons of various forms of energy production including nuclear, natural gas, and solar. In these investigations, we will explore questions like "How do policy makers use rhetoric to shape public perspectives on energy production?" "How can rhetorical approaches to argument function as tools for policy analysis and development?" And "What role does technological expertise play in public debate?" To pursue these questions, we will be reading works in rhetorical theory and public policy and applying the concepts and methods in those works to exploring primary artifacts of public argument like records of public hearings, social media memes, handbooks designed by activists, and stories about energy production in the popular media.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-107 and 76-106) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-494 Healthcare Communications: Fall: 9 units
Healthcare communications is designed for students with an interest in how medical and health care information is constructed and transferred between medical experts, health care providers, educators, researchers, patients and family members who are often not experts but need a thorough understanding of the information to make important health decisions. Throughout the course, we will explore the interactions of current theory and practice in medical communication and the role of writing in the transfer and adoption of new therapies and promising medical research. We will also study how the web and social media alter the way information is constructed, distributed, and consumed. We will examine the ways medical issues can be presented in communication genres (including entertainment genres) and discuss how communication skills and perceptions about audience can influence clinical research and patient care. Additionally, we will explore clinical trials, grant writing, and press releases, and will feature guest speakers from these fields will discuss their experiences.
Prerequisites: 76-271 or 76-395 or 76-270

76-495 Other People's Words: The History, Theory, and Practice of Interviews: Intermittent: 9 units
In literary studies, we usually draw our research from books and articles, or sometimes from documents in archives. But one other way to find out information is from interviews. Historians, anthropologists, and journalists use interviews, albeit in different ways. How might we apply their methods to literary study? This course will look at different modes of interviewing. You will also conduct various kinds of interviews yourselves. Thus the course will be a mix between a criticism course and a workshop. Through the semester you will be responsible for conducting and editing one long-form interview with a person about art, literature, or another field. In addition, you will develop a project conducting multiple interviews on a topic. Lastly, you will build a portrait or report drawn from one of those projects.
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-108 and 76-106) or (76-107 and 76-108)

76-496 Research Methods in Rhetoric & Writing Studies: Intermittent: 9 units
NOTE: This course is only available for seniors with special permission. This course is a survey introduction to historical, empirical, text-based, and qualitative methods of inquiry used in the fields of rhetorical and writing studies. We will read broadly to understand the philosophical questions, research traditions, practical applications, and innovative directions that shape the field, exposing students to a range of methods and methodologies. Studies of rhetoric, writing, and literacy have evolved tremendously, and we will examine approaches for how to trace, analyze, and critique the use of meaning making in a variety of cultural, political, workplace, technological, and pedagogical contexts. By the end of the course, students will develop a sense of how to put together an effective research project on their own and design and articulate the research methods and methodologies appropriate to that study. Throughout, we will ask a fundamental question: How do rhetoric, writing, and literacy work and for what consequences?
Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or (76-106 and 76-107) or (76-106 and 76-108) or (76-108 and 76-107)

76-700 Professional Seminar: Fall: 3 units
This weekly, 3-unit seminar is designed to give professional and technical writing majors an overview of possible career and internship options and ways to pursue their professional interests. Each session will feature guest presenters who are professionals working in diverse communications-related fields such as web design, journalism, public relations, corporate and media relations, technical writing, medical communications, and working for non-profits. The visiting professionals talk about their own and related careers, show samples of their work, and answer student questions. The course is required for first-year MAPW students and is open to all English undergraduates, who are urged to participate in their sophomore or junior years to explore options for internships and careers.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-702 Communication Support Tutoring Practicum: Fall
The Communication Support Practicum is designed to introduce students to communication scholarship and pedagogy as well as the methods and theories that inform them for the purpose of communication support and tutoring in CMU's Student Academic Success Center. Students will explore communication (written, oral, and visual) in multiple disciplines and genres with a focus on gaining knowledge and skills to respond to communicators and their texts. Lectures, discussion, and assignments will offer a chance to think critically about tutoring practices and the ideologies and values on which they are based as well as ways to challenge the bias inherent in them. There will be many occasions to reflect on and evaluate tutoring skills, observe others in tutoring situations, and practice a variety of methods that consider the different needs of communicators. Students will gain awareness of how various spaces, identities, technologies, and abilities inform textual production as well as how to create a meaningful response to meet the diverse needs.

Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/gcc/faqs/index.html

76-708 Literary Journal Publishing: All Semesters
In this course, students will learn about the landscape of and publication process for literary journals in the United States. We will read a variety of literary journals in print and online, will host guest speakers, and will do a variety of hands-on activities related to editing and publishing. Students will gain experience by working on The Oakland Review, an international literary journal run out of CMU, in capacities as varied as editorial, design and production, or promotion. If you are interested in registering for this course, please go to the Course URL and fill out the questionnaire. Thank you.

Course Website: https://form.jotform.com/CMUEnglish/literary-journal-publishing-course

76-719 Environmental Rhetoric: Fall
Should you take a hike or seize the mic? Environmental rhetoric combines commitment with contention We start by exploring its multiple discourses, from Muir's vision of conservation, to Leopold's introduction of ecology, to Carson's call for public action, to contemporary scientific research and competing public discussions. To uncover their hidden logic, we study rhetorical strategies first, for analyzing arguments (over issues such as wolves, clean water, or sustainable design), and then for communicating risk (in the face of climate change, fracking, as well as wind power). In response, this course will prepare you to act as a research-based rhetorical consultant for a group of your choice, analyzing the issues and arguments it faces, in order to propose a rhetorically effective response, supported by your own imaginative prototype of a brochure, web page, press release.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-720 Leadership & Organizational Communication: Intermittent
Please note: In order to register for this course, students must have had an internship with an organization prior to registration. Even as most organizations continue to change, one constant is the importance of effective communication. Upward, downward, and lateral communications are the lifeblood of organizations. If you are in a leadership position, communication become your key tool for managing teams, improving performance, and creating change. In any position, you can spearhead progress by designing effective documents and improving existing communication practices. Proficiency in written and oral communications tends to be recognized and rewarded in organizations. Combined with the ability to leverage formal organizational structures and social networks, it helps one excel, and thrive, in organizations. This course is designed as an overview to the field of organizational communication with an emphasis on leadership roles and behaviors. The content will blend the conceptual with the practical. It will focus on problems that are likely to arise in the workplace and ways to solve them through communication. The students will build a portfolio of "solutions" that will demonstrate their evolving skills of applying rhetoric in organizational contexts. Specific topics will include the attributes of great communicators (including leaders and managers as communicators), the challenges of communicating in organizations as we play particular roles (e.g., individual contributor, manager or team member), ways to build credibility and enhance internal resumes, and techniques to master communication requirements related to performance management processes, conflict situations, and changing organizational culture and design. We will also explore a myriad of organizational issues such as communicating across generations and cultures, communicating externally, and communicating through technology.

76-727 Equity & Communication: Strategies for Institutional Change: Spring
Communication is always embedded in power relationships with unstated social rules that govern who is able to say what when. But communication also offers us a tool for rewriting oppressive social scripts. In this class, we will look both at inequities built into our communication and strategies for overturning these inequities. The focus will be on practical actions that you can take to improve your school, workplace, or extracurricular groups. Our readings will come from diverse sources and fields, including sociolinguistics, psychology, education, organizational communication, and writing studies. While our readings might occasionally depress (or enrage) you, the overall focus of the course will be optimistic, challenging you to imagine solutions to the problems we discuss.

76-729 Performing Race in Early Modernity: Intermittent
The earliest known use of the term "white" in reference to Europeans occurs in The Triumphs of Truth, a 1613 play by Shakespeare's contemporary, Thomas Middleton. In addition to suggesting an important connection between race and drama in 17th-century England, this simple historical note raises a range of questions that have a direct bearing on some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century: Where do ideas about race come from? By what processes do the distinctions of racial concepts emerge, evolve, calcify, and mutate? How does the conceptualization of race relate to media? How do racial representations bolster and conduct political power? In this course, we will broach these questions by taking a close look at the race-making function of drama in early modernity, a period when race was an inchoate, incipient concept, caught up with the emergence of colonialism, capitalism, and increasing interconnection between peoples, cultures, and worlds. As we think, read, and converse together, we will endeavor to come to terms with the problems and paradoxes of racial representation in the early modern theater, a forum that offered access to innovative, daring thinking about human equality and ethical responsibility, but was also a site for the perpetuation of hateful stereotypes and exploitative theories of white supremacy. In a wide-ranging survey of drama, historical documents, and contemporary criticism, we will work toward an understanding of how race-based concepts operated in the theater, and how the drama early of modernity continues to influence thinking about race in our own time. This course meets the Dietrich College Reflecting Gen Ed requirement.

76-731 Dissenters and Believers: Romantics, Revolution, and Religions: Intermittent
This course examines the relation of Romantic writing to religion in the age of revolutions. We will read a number of Romantic-age writersWilliam Blake, S. T. Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Edmund Burke, Monk Lewis, Percy Shelley and #8212;in relation to the most "orthodox" religious modes (Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, and Evangelical) and the most "heterodox"Enthusiasm, Rational Dissent, Unitarianism, Deism, Pantheism, or atheism. We will also distinguish between "religions" (as formally institutionalized) and "religiosity"defining religiosity as more diffused or displaced feelings, ideas and practices that are often not clearly marked as religious or related to any one institutional religion. Two papers are required.

76-749 Climate Fictions: All Semesters
During the last 20 or so years, a new kind of fiction has emerged responding to scientific models of climate change. Climate fiction, or "cli-fi," most often imagines a future in which nothing has been done or done soon enough to limit global warming. Much of this literature fits into the broad genre of science fiction, but some of it uses other fictional modes, including realism and postmodernism. This course will look at a variety of fictional approaches to climate change, including a few in visual media. We will consider why fiction is a necessary component of our understanding climate changecomputer models are fictions of a sortbut also whether and how fictional narratives such as novels and films can help motivate action. We may also read some earlier narratives of environmental catastrophe, and some nonfictional discussions of climate change. Likely authors include Amitav Ghosh, Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Richard Powers.

76-750 Critical Theories about Literature: Fall
This course studies the long-debated problem of how readers or spectators respond to texts (in print, performances, film, or painting) from ancient rhetoric and tragedy to contemporary mass culture.We will read in a range of critical theories, from thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and Longinus to recent theorists in poststructuralism, gender studies, Marxism, and affect theory. How have such critics and theorists thought about the nature of the text and of representation and #8212;or the relation of authorship to reading, ideas, and affects? What techniques of analyzing literary texts have such theories stimulated? Two papers and vigorous in-class discussion will be required.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-754 Watchdog Journalism: Intermittent
The practice of journalism involves covering the news of the day. Investigative journalism uncovers it, digging through public records and data to expose corruption or correct social injustices. The process takes patience and persistence, as well as familiarity with right-to-know laws, to find that gold nugget of information that exposes secrets or becomes the missing piece to a larger puzzle. In this course, students will learn investigative techniques that make the powerful accountable, using government documents, financial filings and databases to spot undetected crime patterns, an unfair housing policy or perhaps questionable spending by a non-profit charity. Investigative journalism has a storied history of exposing wrongdoing and today many of the tools historically used to tell those stories are available to everyone. This course will help budding journalists, researchers and anyone else interested in addressing societal problems find those tools and learn how to use them. This course meets the Dietrich College Deciding Gen Ed requirement.

76-755 Leadership, Dialogue, and Change: Fall
This course offers an alternative to the "great man" theory of leadership and #8212;in which success is built on charisma, power, status, or institutional authority. The contemporary model of "adaptive leadership," however, depends on an ability to draw a divided community into a dialogue that re-frames the problem and may even call on us to re-interpret our values. We will see this in action, comparing the methods of Martin Luther King to the radical community organizing of Saul Alinsky, and in the influential of African-American cultural critiques of Cornel West and bell hooks, and in the work of students calling for change on campuses. All this work poses a question: how does dialogue work in the rhetoric of making a difference? So in the second half, we put theory into practice, organizing a CMU Community Think Tank on a campus issue, in this case on student empowerment will learn strategies for analyzing a problem, framing, issues, giving rhetorical presence to those problems and creating counterpublics that put new ideas into circulation. The class collects data across diverse, often competing perspectives, to create a Briefing Book, that will guide your live Round Table problem-solving dialogues, and then document, write and publish your Findings www.cmu.edu/thinktank. Aa a portfolio project it will demonstrate your ability to support problem-solving dialogues across difference in a community or organization.

76-758 Rhetoric & Storytelling: Spring
What are stories and why do we tell them? What purpose do they serve? What makes a story true? What effect do stories have on those who hear them? In this course, we will ask how narratives work rhetorically to shape how we perceive and encounter events, movements, places, and experiences. Students can expect to read and discuss narrative theories and practice employing these theories to analyze story artifacts, such as written collections, political speeches, newspaper articles, curated experiences, and oral histories. We will begin the semester by exploring and analyzing the many stories surrounding September 11 but will also consider the stories that infuse recent or local subjects of interest. Students will investigate the effect these and other narratives have on contemporary contexts. Any student who is interested in developing a critical awareness of the rhetorical power of storytelling and enhancing their analytical toolkit will benefit from this course. Most class sessions will involve guided student discussions of theoretical texts as well as collaborative opportunities to analyze story artifacts. Weekly assignments will include short analyses and reflection activities. The course will culminate in a final project where students will select and analyze a collection of stories within a cultural, social, and/or historical context.

76-762 Introduction to Translation: Fall: 9 units
In "Introduction to Translation," we will survey a number of different translation theories in order to understand the various approaches that are at our disposal when translating a text. In addition, we will briefly explore several fields of translation studies, such as health care, business or literature, that require specialized terminology and expertise in the subject. All theory taught in class will be accompanied by hands-on translation projects that will give students the opportunity to try out their knowledge first-hand and evaluate the usefulness of different approaches on a personal basis.

76-763 Translation as Profession I: All Semesters: 3 units
In "Translation as a Profession," we will learn from professionals in the field of translation. Every class will feature a guest speaker from the Pittsburgh area and beyond who will present his or her own educational background, experience in the field and current relation to the translation industry. Students will meet a variety of professionals, learn about the field, and establish valuable connections for the future.

76-765 Beginning Poetry Workshop: All Semesters: 9 units
tbd

76-766 Essay Writing Workshop: Fall
In this course we will analyze the different types of narrative structure, narrative suspense, voice, metaphor, and point of view that make for effective non-fiction writing. We will also examine the difference between good writers and good work, the functions of objective distance from and intimate investment in a subject, as well as the philosophical questions spurred by non-fiction writing. What is the non-fiction writer's role, and how does it differ from that of the fiction writer? Where do the two genres overlap? What gives non-fiction writing integrity? What does the term "creative non-fiction" mean? How have the form and aims of non-fiction writing - from memoir to essays to long-form journalism - evolved for better and for worse? We will scrutinize the writing of Eula Bliss, Kate Fagan, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Jo An Bear, Gary Younge, David Foster Wallace, Umberto Eco, and many others. In addition to critical writing assignments, students will have several opportunities to write their own non-fiction pieces.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-771 Teamwork for Innovators: Fall
Academic teams, campus organizations, workplaces are all dynamic activity systems, organized and driven by institutional habits and rules, by roles, status and power, and by the material and conceptual tools we draw on. Yet as we have all observed, these Rules, Roles and Tools often operate in contradictory ways, even in conflict with one another. Effective team leaders are able to recognize these contradictions and draw a writing group, a project team, a social organization or a workplace into what is called an "expansive transformation." That is, to innovate new ways of working together. In this course, you will learn how to become more effective not only as a team member, but also a project leader, and even group consultant in your college work and workplace. Looking at films, case studies, research, and your own experience, we will learn how to analyze how teams of all sorts are working, to communicate more effectively across different expectations and values, and to collaboratively innovate new ways of working together. Your final project will let you document your ability to be a knowledgeable team leader and effective collaborator.

76-772 News Writing: Fall: 9 units
In this course, we will study and learn the fundamental skills of journalistic writing as well as discuss topics related to how different media outlets cover news. On the writing side, we will start with the basics - the importance of accuracy, clarity and fairness, writing for audience, striving for objectivity, judging newsworthiness, meeting deadlines. The core class work (and most of your grade) will be based on seven writing assignments due approximately every two weeks throughout the semester. Expect to do some writing each class period. We will learn how to write a story lead, how to structure a story and how to write different kinds of news stories, from crime news to features to editorials and commentary. We also will learn how to research a news story, conduct an interview and sort through mountains of information to discern what's important so we can write about it in a clear, concise manner.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-773 Argument: Fall and Spring
This course introduces the fundamentals of argumentation theory and offers guided practice in analyzing and producing arguments. Through analysis, we will learn what an argument is, how to identify one, and what the names and functions of a variety of argument features are. We will also explore the production of argument by pursuing the questions: What are my argumentative goals? How do I build a theory of my audience? What means of persuasion are available for me to achieve my goals? And how should I order the contents of my argument? To answer these questions, we will explore argument in a variety of genres including visuals, op-eds, presidential speeches, and congressional testimonies.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-784 Race, Nation, and the Enemy: Intermittent
Conflicts over racial and national identity continue to dominate headlines in the United States as they often have during the nation's history, from debates regarding the immigration, naturalization, and birthright citizenship of racial minorities to debates regarding racial disparities in access to civil rights. This course explores the discursive practices through which racial and national identities are formed and the frequent conflicts between them, particularly by focusing on the role of enemies, threats to the nation, and sacrifices made on behalf of the nation in American public discourse. Alongside primary sources of public discourse regarding wars, the immigration and citizenship of racial minorities, racial segregation and civil rights, and the criminal prosecutions of dissidents during periods of crisis, we will read secondary sources offering multiple theoretical and disciplinary approaches to the study of racial and national identity formation. Along with regular brief responses to readings, assignments will include a short rhetorical analysis paper and a longer research paper.

76-786 Language and Culture: Fall
This course is an introduction into the scholarship surrounding the nature of language and the question of how language shapes and is shaped by social, cultural and political contexts. We will begin by studying important literature in linguistics and language theory, both to introduce us to how scholars think about language and to give us a shared vocabulary to use for the rest of the semester. We will then move into case studies and theoretical works exploring the intersections of language use, individual and group identities, and the exercise of power, in its many forms. In particular, we will focus on the relationship between language and culture by asking, in what ways does language influence and constitute social change? How is social change reflected by changes in the way we use language? Over the course of the semester, you will work on applying the knowledge and theoretical tools you gain to your own analysis of a linguistic artifact that you choose.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-787 Writing in the Disciplines: All Semesters
This mini will introduce you to the theory and practice of writing instruction in contexts outside of English studies. We will learn about the distinction between Writing across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines and challenges to providing integrated, high quality writing instruction across the university. We will explore the implications of the wide variety of forms of academic writing for instruction in English classrooms, including high school and first-year writing classrooms. Assessments will include reading responses and a final paper reviewing research on writing in a specific writing context of your choosing. Students enrolled in the course for six units will be expected to do additional readings and give an oral presentation. Please note that in terms of time commitment, a 3-unit mini will require approximately six hours per week (three hours homework and three hours class meetings) and a 6-unit mini will require twelve hours per week.

76-788 Coding for Humanists: Intermittent
This course provides students with the foundational knowledge and skills to develop and/or utilize computer-aided research tools for text analysis. Through a series of hands-on coding exercises, students will explore computation as a means to engage in new questions and expand their thinking about textual artifacts. This course is designed for students with no, or very little, coding experience. So, if you have already taken a programming course, this course is most likely not for you. Students who have taken 15-110 and/or 15-112 may not take this course. For the final project, you will develop a small research project involving a computational analysis of a corpus of texts. You will plan, design, and write a computer program that processes and analyzes a textual corpus of your choice. Students who are taking the course for 9-unit will write a brief project report (3-5 pages) that summarizes your final project. Graduate students in the MA in Rhetoric/PhD programs must register for 12-unit, and will complete a research paper (4,000-5,000 word).

76-789 Rhetorical Grammar: Fall and Spring: 9 units
This is a course in This is a course in fundamental grammatical structures of English and how these structures fit into the writer's toolkit. This means you will learn a lot about English-language grammar in this course en route to understanding a lot about English language writing. This course is designed for MA students in professional writing and undergraduates who want to improve their grammar, their writing, and their depth of understanding of how improvement in grammar impacts improvement in writing.grammatical structures of English and how these structures fit into the writer's toolkit. This means you will learn a lot about English-language grammar in this course en route to understanding a lot about English language writing. This course is designed for MA students in professional writing and undergraduates who want to improve their grammar, their writing, and their depth of understanding of how improvement in grammar impacts improvement in writing.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-790 Style: All Semesters
This course teaches you how to write clearly. Specifically, the principles you learn in this course will help you 1) to clearly represent actions and the characters responsible for them; 2) to make your paragraphs coherent and cohesive; 3) to write sentences that stress important information; 4) to cut unnecessary prose; and 5) to reshape lengthy sentences so as not to perplex your reader.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-791 Document & Information Design: Spring: 9 units
This course provides students who have already learned the foundation of written communication with an opportunity to develop the ability to analyze and create visual-verbal synergy in printed documents. Students will be introduced to the basic concepts and vocabulary, as well as the practical issues of visual communication design through a series of hands-on projects in various rhetorical situations. Assigned readings will complement the projects in exploring document design from historical, theoretical, and technological perspectives. Class discussions and critiquing are an essential part of this course. Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator will be taught in class, and used to create the assigned projects.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-793 Narrative & Argument: Spring
This is a course for non-English majors interested in understanding and practicing writing as an art of design thinking and decision-making. We work through seven writing exercises divided into "experiential" and "informational" clusters and we discuss the underlying design principles that unite and divide these clusters. Experiential writing (think character-based fiction, personal profiles, travel writing, narrative histories) supports reader learning but in an indirect, unsupervised fashion. Students write short papers within each of these clusters to glimpse and grapple with the different compositional (design) challenges. Within experiential writing, students practice making themselves (from the first person) and third parties characters readers can come to know and care about. They practice immersing readers within immediate and historical scenes by creating the feel of extended space or elapsed time. Within information writing, students practice presenting readers with new ideas by following the readers' native curiosity (exposition), guiding readers through manual tasks (instruction), and structuring readers' decision-making (argument) in controversies when there are multiple decision paths. Argument is a capstone of information writing that bids for social and political change. While writing for experience and writing for information are distinct clusters, they are highly interactive and the best information writers routinely import techniques of experiential writing into their craft to enliven and layer the reader's experience. Technologies for making visible for students their tacit decision-making over hundreds and thousands of compositional moves when writing experience and information are introduced and provide students a literal "lens" on the texts they write as an endlessly curious design artifact.

76-796 Non-Profit Message Creation: Intermittent
Non-profit organizations support a multitude of causes ranging from the arts to animals to the environment to health care to human rights to scientific research to many great causes in between. Non-profits achieve their missions by advocating on behalf of their organization's cause, raising public awareness about issues surrounding their cause, and fundraising to make their advocacy possible. In this course, students will select a local, Pittsburgh-area non-profit to examine and produce materials based on the organization's needs. Over the course of the semester students will research the organization's persona and values via interviews with chosen organization's staff and analysis of existing communication channels and different forms of content currently used by the organization. Students will use this research and analyses to inform and shape a final project that should meet the specified, needed deliverables from the selected non-profit. Previous example projects include: Revising a newsletter and specifying future best practices for an organization; developing new format and copy for an organization's website; developing a social media campaign for an upcoming event; developing a grant proposal for an organization's project; among many others. Students will have a wide selection of organizations to choose from and know projects associated with the organization at the beginning of the semester, as these will be organized by the professor. At the end of the course, students will have a portfolio ready material and an increased understanding as to how non-profit organizations advance their causes.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-805 Institutional Studies: English as a Discipline: All Semesters: 6 units
While literature has existed for centuries, the discipline of literary studies is relatively new, only forming in the late 19th century and not coalescing until after World War II. This course will look at the history of the discipline of literary studies, from its roots in scholarly methods like philology, to its expansion into cultural studies. We'll read some key texts, such as Gerald Graff's Professing Literature, and critiques by Richard Ohman and many contemporary critics.

76-807 Topics in Literary & Cultural Studies: All Semesters
Topics vary by semester. Spring 2022: There Are Black People in the Future. In 2018 the African American artist and CMU professor, Alisha Wormsley created a slogan for a billboard in Pittsburgh's East Liberty that read: THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE. The billboard had featured many artists and slogans over a period of years, but this one was taken down when the building's landlord objected to the content. The controversy over this piece of art gives this course its name. There are black people in the future, and there are extraordinary black artists in Pittsburgh at this very moment. This special topics course will consider what some are calling a new Pittsburgh Renaissance in the black arts, from art to literature to film and music. Featured writers include Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Life of Church Ladies, Brian Broome, Punch Me Up To The Gods, and Damon Young, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker. We will also look at the work of the writer Jason England, the artists Alisha Wormsley, Vanessa German, Devan Shimoyama, the rapper Jasiri X, and the film maker Chris Ivey. An in depth look at these artists will be paired with an examination of the history of African Americans in Pittsburgh, and current economics, sociology and politics surrounding race in the city.

76-808 Culture and Globalization: Intermittent
We are often told we live in a period of globalization, but what that means differs widely. Theories of globalization describe such diverse processes as international capital and markets, neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism, environmental devastation, transnational labor and migration, modernity, shifts in spatial and temporal relations, cosmopolitanism, global cultural production and consumption, and the resurgence of nationalism. In this course we will explore and historicize the concept of globalization from both a global literary perspective and an interdisciplinary lens. Pairing literary works from around the world with scholarship from sociology, political science, gender and critical race studies, and anthropology, we will examine the contradictions, conflicts and possibilities of associated changes in the world. We will investigate the role of representation and aesthetics by considering the work of literary writers as well as some filmmakers, journalists and activists. The course will be organized as a series of topical foci that might include neoliberalism and labor, the local and the global, environmental changes, secularism and tradition, the globalization of feminism, and global migration and border control.

76-813 Book Design: A Cultural History: All Semesters: 12 units
Today the book is thriving despite earlier predictions of its "death" at the hands of the digital media. What has made the book so powerful a medium over six centuries? This course will take you into the book's makeup, design, and impact over time. We study how the book was made at different times in its historyfor instance, the manuscript book (medieval), the hand-press book (Renaissance and eighteenth century), the machine-made book (1800s to present). We also ask how today's databases like Google Books make us see new dimensions of the print medium that were not visible earlier. Likewise we will study theories of the print medium and the cultural effects of the book among readers and social groups. Students will have hands-on experience with a printing press and the Rare Book archives at Hunt and Hillman libraries. Two papers and shorter assignments will be required.

76-818 Rhetoric and the Body: Intermittent
This course offers an introduction to rhetorical studies of the body and is centered on the following three questions: What is the role of the body in rhetorical theory? What role does rhetoric play in constructing the body as a raced, gendered, dis/abled, cultural, fleshy, and political entity? And, how might moving, feeling bodies challenge, regulate, or disrupt these rhetorical constructions and furthermore, our theories of rhetoric? Our readings will explore the role of embodiment in rhetorical theory, examining a number of contemporary and historical theories of the body. In the process, we will explore how to put rhetoric and the body into conversation with one another and what methodological implications this conversation has for rhetorical studies more broadly. The goal of this course is to provide breadth rather than depth, with the assumption that most students, even those relatively familiar with body and/or rhetorical theory, will approach rhetorical studies of the body as novices. Students will conduct their own research on a topic related to rhetorical studies of the body that also aligns with their professional and academic goals. Graduate students interested in research will benefit from this course's focus on theory and the professional genres central to rhetorical studies. Undergraduates students (both majors and non-majors) will have the opportunity to examine how the body intersects with communication and writing contexts in their everyday public and professional lives. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-822 Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies: Intermittent: 6 units
This graduate-level course offers students a scholarly introduction to theories of gender and sexuality. In this class, we will use intersectional approaches to consider gender theories, feminist theory, masculinity studies, queer theory and scholarly discussions of sexuality. Readings will include Kimberl and #233; Crenshaw, bell hooks, Judith Butler, Raewyn Connell, Sara Ahmed, Eve Sedgewick, and Jasbir Puar, among others.

76-825 Rhetoric, Science, and the Public Sphere: Intermittent
In the 21st century science and technology are ubiquitous presences I our lives. Sometimes these phenomena spark our imagination and affirm our confidence in a better future. In other instances, they create fear and generate protests over the risks new technologies and scientific ideas pose to prevailing social, cultural, economic, and political orders. In this course we will examine the complex dynamics in the relationships between science, technology, and society. Towards this end we will engages with questions such as: How do we decide who an expert is? To what extent do scientists have an obligation to consider the social and ethical consequences of their work? Is public education about science and technology sufficient for addressing social concerns about risk and controversial scientific ideas? We will grapple with these and other questions by exploring public debates including conflicts over global warming, vaccinations, and the AIDS crisis. With the help of analytical theories from sociology, rhetoric, and public policy, we will develop a framework for thinking about argument and the dynamics of the relationship between science, technology, and the public. We will also look to these fields for tools to assess public debate and to complicate and/or affirm prevailing theories about the relationship between science and society.

76-829 Introduction to Digital Humanities: Intermittent
This course is a "learn by doing" introduction to questions and methods in digital humanities, with special emphases on common tasks in digital history, digital literary studies, library science, and cultural analytics. Students will likely partner with a national humanities organization to tackle real-world humanities problems while developing core computational competencies such as those required for gathering data (text mining, APIs), transforming data (OCR, regular expressions, natural language processing, image magick), file management (shell commands), data visualization (matplotlib, arcGIS), and more.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-831 Gender Play in Early Modern Drama: All Semesters: 12 units
The playhouses of early modern London offered access to an astonishing spectacle that would be difficult to find anywhere else in the city: men dressed as women, skillfully reproducing (but also exposing, interrogating, and refining) the significations that structure concepts of gender difference. In addition to this fundamental condition of performance and theatrical experience, the plots of the plays themselves regularly engaged with issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, an interest that runs through the raunchy satires performed by companies of adolescent boys, the innumerable comedies of cross-dressing and mistaken identity, and the equally numerous tragedies centered on problems of inequality and imbalances of power. This course will consider a wide range of drama from the period alongside a selection of readings in sexuality and gender theory, thus bringing early modern dramatists such as William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton into conversation with contemporary thinkers such as Judith Butler and Sarah Ahmed. The body of core texts will include Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Roaring Girl, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tamer Tamed, The Island Princess, The Witch of Edmonton, The Silent Woman, Women Beware Women, and Galatea.

76-833 Historicisms: All Semesters
What is a critical historicism? What theories of history, texts, and social life have been driving literary and cultural scholarship since the late twentieth century? What is the ongoing tension between historical accounts of literature/culture? This course will introduce students to ways of thinking about how literary and cultural texts or genres can be studied historically, whether they were written in the early modern age or the twentieth century. We will especially explore controversies about methods of studying texts in history and #8212;about historicism vs. presentism, the relation of text and context, periodization, longue dur and #233;e, reception history, transhistorical meanings. Readings will include Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Jack Halberstam, Stephen Greenblatt, Judith Newton, Joan Scott and others.

76-844 History of Books and Reading: Fall
Rather than putting an end to the book, digital media have had the oddly exhilarating effect of making us look at all kinds of print, past and present, through newly focused lenses. This course will introduce you to the history of books and reading, a cross-fertilizing field of study that is having an impact on many disciplines, from the history of science to literary history, cultural studies, and the arts. Scholarship in this still-emerging field will include work by Roger Chartier, Michel Foucault, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, , and the current scholars who appear in one of our key books, "Interacting with Print: A Multigraph." We'll also read primary texts by Joseph Addison, Jane Austen, Samuel Coleridge, and Wilkie Collins to see how differing modes of print and reading became highly contested cultural and political matters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other topics include the division between new reading publics and their ways of reading books; important changes in book production, typography, printing methods (hand-press to steam press). Such knowledge of the history of print has become especially crucial in an era of emerging "new media" and the field of digital humanities in the university. Two papers will be requiredone shorter paper (5-7 pp.) and a longer research paper on the uses of books and print by producers and readers. Though the course meets in Baker Hall, you will have hands-on experience with early books and other forms of print as we also meet periodically in the Rare Book Room at Hunt Library.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-846 Revenge Tragedy: All Semesters
Attendants to the early modern English theater seem to have had an almost insatiable appetite for revenge tragedy: a lurid, blood-soaked genre distinguished by plots involving insanity, skulls, ghosts, poisonings, stabbings, suicide, and other forms of unnatural death. This course will cover key examples of the genre, putting particular emphasis on the depiction and interrogation of justice, analyses of death, and playful engagement with theatricality. Our central curriculum will include the following plays: Thyestes (Seneca), The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd), Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), Hamlet (Shakespeare), The Revenger's Tragedy (Middleton), and The Duchess of Malfi (Webster). We will also read a selection of critical essays and related literature from the period.

76-849 Race and Media: Intermittent
This course will introduce students to useful methodological approaches to analyze race and representation within a variety of media formats. Media in this course is understood broadly: technologies used to store and deliver information. With this rather broad understanding in mind our course will look at how artists and intellectuals use discrete formats (print, film/video, electronic, and other recording mediums) to imagine, remediate and study the circulation of racialized bodies and identities within global capitalism. We will also think about the concept of race itself as another, particularly problematic "media" format used to store and deliver information about the human for political, economic, ideological and juridical purposes. The class will be organized around specific material and "immaterial" media objects that will allow us to explore the processes of (re)mediation that characterize racialized bodies and formats. We will look at a range of formats from literature and music to film, television, and social media. The course is structured to provide both a chronological and historicist approach to the discourses that define race and media. More than likely, we will watch and (or) read the works of D.W. Griffith, Nella Larson, Melvin Van Peebles, Lizzie Borden, Audre Lorde, Claudia Rankine, Alex Rivera and Nia DaCosta. We will also read the theoretical works of Jacques Ranciere, Huey P. Newton, Dallas Smythe, Lisa Gitelman and Michael Gillespie, Simone Browne, Theodore Adorno, Sara Ahmed and many others.

76-850 Law, Culture, and the Humanities: Intermittent
"I'm not a lawyer, but..." How many times have you heard this disclaimer, closely followed by a lay analysis of law? This course, an introduction to the cultural study of law for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students, can be seen as an introduction to what goes into the making of such a statement. Where do we get our ideas about law? What do we mean when we say "law"? What counts as law? How does culture influence law, and law, culture? And to what degree should historical context condition any answers we might be tempted to give? Students in the course will study works in a range of genres (novels, plays, poems, judicial opinions, pamphlets) and develop methods for investigating ways that law and culture have been made by one another from the 16th-century to the present. Readings will include influential theoretical accounts of law (Aristotle, Hobbes, Cover, Habermas, Bordieu, MacKinnon, Alexander), canonical texts in Law and Literature (Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Melville's Billy Budd, Kafka's The Trial) and some "weird fiction" by the novelist/legal theorist China Mi and #233;ville. As a counterpoint to the fiercely anti-historical "law and economics" movement, however, the course will put special emphasis on rooting intersections of law and culture in rich historical context, considering both local and international legal contexts (sometimes in fairly technical detail) alongside so-called "ephemera" of culture. Students will tackle the especially fruitful "case" of Renaissance Britain before developing final research projects, whether on the Renaissance or another period of their choosing.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-852 Generations and Culture: Intermittent
We frequently hear about generations and #8212;the Millennials and their multitasking, Gen X and their minivans, and the Baby Boomers and their self-satisfaction and #8212;but generations have usually been ignored in cultural studies. Yet generations have significant impact on cultural tastes, consumer choices, and political views, as a good deal of research shows, and identity, alongside other factors such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and abledness. This course will study the theory of generations, as well as novels and films that tell us about generations.

76-853 Literature of Empire: Fall
Nineteenth and early twentieth-century British literature was shaped by events taking place outside as well as inside of national borders. Even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with international trade and slavery supporting the manor house and plantations abroad providing the cotton for British looms, the "England" of English literature spanned the globe. By the first half of the twentieth century, this empire had begun to collapse in upon itself, a process witnessed by writers inside Britain and its colonies. This course will investigate British literature within the international context of global imperialism. A section on gothic stories takes us into the realm of popular culture with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories. We take to the seas with Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, before we consider W. Somerset Maugham's exploration of sexuality in the tropics in The Painted Veil. Finally, we return to England to outline the links between colonial empire and international war rendered in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. These literary works will be read alongside some of the most important works of postcolonial theory. While course readings focus on 19th and early 20th century, student's will undertake a research project over the semester in their own period of interest in British literature in connection with empire studies.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-854 Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies: Fall
Cultural Studies is an intellectual and professional movement identified with the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. This movement grew out of literary studies. It is neither identical with literary studies, nor opposed to literary studies. It is today one form that the study of literature or other cultural works may take. This course offers a theoretical genealogy of cultural studies, showing how and why its theories and practices emerged and developed. As a genealogy, the course does not assume that cultural studies has an essence or an origin. The texts and topics will reflect the heterogeneity of its emergence and development. The course does, however, embody what we see as several historical changes in cultural studies, from idealism to materialism, from mono to multiculturalism, and from high culture exclusiveness to democratic inclusivity. The course is not designed to teach "approaches," but to explore and interrogate the founding assumptions of the academic project that you are being trained to join. Students should, by the end of the class, have a sense of where cultural studies came from and of the problems and possibilities raised by the theories it continues to invoke.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-864 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Fall
Narrative Medicine looks at the intersection of writing and healing. How does narrative help heal the mind, and how are the mind and body inextricably linked? The couse will introduce you to several books and essays centered around the theme of wellness and illness and #8212;- and how these modes of being are represented and shaped by culture. You will write your own personal essays on these topics along with a final research paper. A great class for anyone interested in the power of story-telling in our own lives.

76-867 Crime Fiction and Film: Intermittent: 12 units
This course will be concerned with hardboiled crime fiction in print and on screen. The hardboiled emerges in Ernest Hemingway a distinctive literary style, and about same becomes a formula for pulp crime fiction. The language and attitude of the hardboiled became associated with urban gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy. Newspaper crime coverage beginning in the 1920s becomes increasingly frank in both its language and photographic coverage of crime. These various elements will be the material for a new kind of literature represented Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and especially Raymond Chandler, and for a cycle of films that owe much to their work, film noir. Chandler was responsible for invention of one of most enduring types in American fiction, the hardboiled detective. The course will focus on Chandler and the crime stories after him that make various uses of that type and the formula that has become associated with it. Throughout the course we will consider the social and political contexts in which these cultural forms developed, and what cultural work the hard-boiled performed. We will be especially interested such questions as the function of the misogyny typical of much of it, the different representations of race by white and black artists, the representation of police, whether the hardboiled is best understood as having a working-class affiliation, and the degree to which its various manifestations might be called realist.

76-868 Space and Mobilities: Intermittent
This course will investigate space and movement as social constructions. Space is something dynamically created that may be interpreted for the ways it creates meaning, while movement reproduces and constitutes power and institutions. This interdisciplinary course considers theories of space and movement as a field of study and in reference to literary and film texts. The course might include discussions of migrants and state borders, cultural constructions of transport, the poetics of space, and the dynamic mapping of the city through movement and sound. Readings might include Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, Edward Soja, Gaston Bachelard, Wendy Brown, John Urry, Tim Cresswell, Marian Aguiar; literary texts might include Brian Friels Translations, Christina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban, W.G. Seabald's Austerlitz and Teju Cole's Open City. Please note: Freshmen are prohibited from registering for this course. Sophomores must obtain instructor permission. Students across disciplines are encouraged and may work on a final project related to their primary field.

76-870 Professional and Technical Writing: Fall
This course is an introduction to the theory, research, and practice of professional and technical communication as a discipline. Through readings, discussions, projects, and writing workshops, you will develop a rhetorically-grounded approach to analyzing communications problems and producing a range of effective and situation-specific professional documents. This user-centered approach views professional documents as means to accomplish specific, well-defined purposes: getting funding or support for a project (proposals), supporting managerial decision-making (reports), communicating effectively within organizations (email, correspondence), guiding action (instructional writing), getting a job or internship (resumes and application letters), or making choices among various medical treatments (science writing for general audiences). Because writers need a range of skills that go well beyond the actual inscribing of words on a page, you also gain practice in how to test documents on actual users, edit and revise your own work and that of other writers, and participate in and manage collaborative writing projects. The course features three major writing assignments. Core course for MAPW students.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-881 Introduction to Multimedia Design: Fall: 12 units
This class meets the increasing demand for professional/technical writers who understand multimedia and its communicative possibilities. It provides students with the opportunity to create both an explainer video and a more persuasive animation merging text, spoken voice, music, images, and video clips. Students will learn the basic concepts and vocabulary of motion graphics, practical issues surrounding designs that change over time, and digital storytelling through hands-on projects. Inspiration is drawn from popular Vox and Ted Ed explainer videos that have come to represent the genre. Students explore writing and recording their own narration and how to best utilize elements of time, motion, and sound to enhance their visual communication skills. Adobe After Effects will be taught to complete assignments and explore multimedia possibilities. Some Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Audition will also be taught to support specific tasks. Basic experience with Photoshop or Illustrator prior to taking this class is helpful, but not required. In-class discussions and critiques are essential components of the course.
Prerequisites: 76-391 or 51-262 or 76-791
Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-884 Discourse Analysis: Fall
This course teaches an empirical and systematic approach to analyzing texts. The central question we ask is this: how does language shape contexts and how do contexts, in turn, shape language? We typically focus on micro-linguistic elements, but also examine visual aspects of texts.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html

76-885 The New Public Sphere: Fall
Public deliberation about issues that matter to us is at the heart of the rhetorical tradition. But is meaningful public dialogue really a live option in a divisive, media-saturated world of sound bites addressed to partisan publics? Moreover, is the process of debate, deliberation, and decision making (in which the best argument wins) really the normal (or even ideal) model? Or can people use local public spaces to develop new, more inclusive positions? How might such a process create a boundary-crossing public in which diverse groups enter intercultural deliberation around racial, social, economic or environmental issues? This course looks at critical ways people use rhetoric to take literate social action within local publics. From the debate spurred by Habermas's canonical version of the public sphere, we move to a feminist "rereading" of the Greek Sophists, to more contemporary studies of deliberation in workplaces, web forums, grassroots groups, new media, and community think tanks. Working as a rhetorical consultant into the meaning making process of a local public of your choice, you will also learn how to support your inquiry with a variety of methods, from an interactive activity analysis to a more focused probe into the social/cognitive negotiation conflict may require.

Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/hss/english/courses/courses.html

76-891 Rhetorical Analysis: Fall and Spring
Students in this course will learn various approaches to analyzing discourse artifacts from a rhetorical point of view. Early in the course, students will identify an artifact or artifacts they wish to analyze. From there, students will be encouraged to explore their own methods of analysis based on two required books for the course and reviews of literature. For the midterm, students will create an annotated bibliography of five specimens of criticism taken from a single journal. For the final project student will first present and then hand in a polished 15 page piece of criticism based on one or some combination of methods. The presentation and final paper count 50% of the grade, with the mid-term, class attendance, participation, and homework making up the final 25%.

76-893 Introduction to Global & Postcolonial Studies: Intermittent: 6 units
Since the 1978 publication of Edward Said's groundbreaking work Orientalism, postcolonial theory has gained currency as a critical discourse examining global experiences of colonization and decolonization. Since the term "postcolonial" was first invoked to describe the cultural effects of colonization, the field of study has expanded considerably. Today postcolonial studies looks backwards at earlier works on nationalism and cultural identity, gazes forwards towards seemingly dire futures, and unpacks present conjunctures. In this course, we will follow several threads of postcolonial theory to talk about the discursive operations of empire, the politics of representations, the problems of nationalism, the intersections of race, gender and sexuality in a global context, and the effects of colonialism, imperialism and globalization on economies, ecology, climate, and migration.

76-894 Digital Humanities: Intermittent: 6 units
Digital Humanities is an emerging discipline as well as a broad collection of scholarly activities that apply new technologies to humanities research while expanding traditional forms of scholarly communication. Some of its many facets include: book history, cartography (using maps to better understand the cultural production of texts), the preservation and sharing of collections that are otherwise difficult to access. DH can also include the fostering of new creative expression by using digital media. In this mini we'll be reading a variety of leaders in the field including Robert Binkley, Franco Moretti, Matthew Jockers, Peter deBolla, Johanna Drucker, Alan Liu, Jerome McGann, Christopher Warren, and Bethany Nowviskie, attending the CMU DH lunch workshops, and taking some field trips around the city to see some DH projects in action.

76-896 Research Methods in Rhetoric & Writing Studies: All Semesters
This course is a survey introduction to historical, empirical, text-based, and qualitative methods of inquiry used in the fields of rhetorical and writing studies. We will read broadly to understand the philosophical questions, research traditions, practical applications, and innovative directions that shape the field, exposing students to a range of methods and methodologies. Studies of rhetoric, writing, and literacy have evolved tremendously, and we will examine approaches for how to trace, analyze, and critique the use of meaning making in a variety of cultural, political, workplace, technological, and pedagogical contexts. By the end of the course, students will develop a sense of how to put together an effective research project on their own and design and articulate the research methods and methodologies appropriate to that study. Throughout, we will ask a fundamental question: How do rhetoric, writing, and literacy work and for what consequences?

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