Course Listings

Use the pull-down menus to find classes based on day of the week, department, campus, course number or term. View courses at a glance for a quick view of all courses by day, campus and term.

In his introduction to Chicago Stories: Tales of the City, Chicago writer Stuart Dybek says, "There are several recognizable qualities that the writers of the Chicago Tradition share . . . the city is their subject, it pervades their work, broods over it, assuming almost the presence of a character in its own right. And, like everything else in Chicago, its writers divide into ethnic neighborhoods..." (page xii). This course explores Chicago's neighborhoods and the stories that emanate from them, and students write their own Chicago stories in the form of academic essays. Focus is on Chicago writers such as Stuart Dybek, Sandra Cisneros, Alex Kotlowitz, Nelson Algren, and Sudhir Venkatesh. Students write a personal essay, an informative essay, and an academic argument, in addition to writing exercises.

Everybody has a story to tell. In this course, students examine the way people tell the stories of their lives. While reading five recent and noteworthy memoirs, students learn the art and craft of storytelling, while also learning how to tell their own stories by writing a personal narrative essay and two other informative essays. Each class is comprised of a short grammar/punctuation tip, a discussion about one of the five memoirs, and a lecture about a certain writing process and/or a writing workshop.

In this course, students gain experience with fundamental rhetorical structures such as comparison/contrast, cause and effect, and classification, while addressing questions of metamorphosis and transformation. We look at the modern self-help/transformation phenomenon and its historical roots in the late 19th century. For instance, students might compare and contrast one school of thought that views the task of self-development as similar to the task of a small business (e.g., Tom Peters) with the views of others who take a romantic view the self as a work of art in progress. To fuel the exploration, students read analysts and scholars who have commented on the self-transformation phenomenon, as well as draw on sources in popular culture such as self-help books, advice columns, and reality- and talk-TV shows.

Movies hold a fascination that is arguably unrivaled by other media or popular art forms. This course explores how writing about the movies can actually enhance appreciation of them, helping us understand their value to us as well as their importance in society. Assignments include a personal essay, a comparison/contrast essay, and opinion/argument. This course is designed in a two-quarter sequence with ENGLISH 111 Writing Seminar II: Movies, Culture, and Society. However, enrollment in the spring section of ENGLISH 111 is not required.

Despite the worries of past generations that television was an "idiot box" or "plug-in drug," TV is still going strong after several generations at the center of American life. In fact, we still devote more time to TV than to any other medium, over four hours a day for the average adult. But where is old-fashioned television's place in the new-media world of the iPod, YouTube, and video on demand? After a brief look at the history of TV, we investigate television's role in our culture today and how it--and our relation to it--is likely to change in the future. Reading and writing assignments may consider television's economic, political, social, aesthetic, or historical contexts. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent.

Persuasion based on evidence is common to all areas of life and scholarship. But what counts as evidence, and what makes a person qualified to judge the merits of a particular argument? In a society that depends on experts and expert testimony for its laws, its technologies, and its therapies, how should a non-expert approach the arguments made by experts? This course examines how to read arguments critically, and write arguments that are both persuasive and clear. Using examples drawn from contemporary controversies, the course addresses the problem of how to become expert--or expert enough--in order to evaluate and engage arguments based on different kinds of evidence. Students write and revise several essays, including a medium-length research-based argument on an issue of their choice that draws on both popular and scholarly sources. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent.

Since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Darwin's writing has been a never-ending source of inspiration, controversy, and conflict. The 2005 court decision on "intelligent design" (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) is only one recent example of the bitter disputes in American courtrooms and classrooms over the stakes of Darwin's theory. This course investigates those stakes--social, moral, and political--through reading and discussion of Darwin and some of his interpreters, critics, and defenders. Students write and revise several essays on topics of their choice, including a longer essay. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent.

In this research-oriented course, writers learn to identify a promising topic for research, review the literature, develop a working bibliography, write a formal proposal, and author a researched persuasive essay of substance. Our discourse centers on the theme of metamorphosis, ranging from literature to popular culture, from history to psychotherapy, and we identify and analyze some of the myths and metaphors that effect personal and social transformation. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent.

There is no question that movies influence every aspect of our culture, from ideas on lifestyle and morality to race relations and international politics. But what exactly is the relationship between the movies and the way we think and behave? Why do some movie themes resonate with the American public and how have these themes evolved? Do movies bring about or simply reflect attitudinal and social change? These questions are the starting point for one short essay and two longer papers using research. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent. This course is designed as a two-quarter sequence with ENGLISH 110 Writing Seminar I: Writing about the Movies. However, enrollment in the fall section of ENGLISH 110 is not required for enrollment in the spring section of ENGLISH 111 Movies, Culture, and Society.

A widely-read 2008 magazine article asked, "Is Google making us stupid?" It's the latest in a long tradition of questions about the ways that, as psychologist Sherry Turkle puts it, "the tools we use to think change the way we think." In this age of information, such questions have begun to spring up more and more often (recent examples: Does Sesame Street" turn kids into passive information receptacles? Can the crash of a space shuttle be blamed on engineers' over-reliance on PowerPoint?) In this course we'll dip briefly into research on the cognitive effects of our "thinking technologies" - educational TV, video games, Blackberry and the internet - and delve into the reasons behind our persistent worries about these technologies' effects. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 110 or equivalent.

Introduction to the vocabulary, techniques, and pleasures of literature through close study and discussion of poems, plays, short stories, and novels. Short critical papers develop ability to analyze and interpret literature. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 111 or equivalent.

This course is designed for those who have experience with college-level writing but who want to sharpen their writing and communication skills. Students learn to apply measures of excellence in business writing and communication. Assignments relate to business environments, including audience analysis, persuasive writing, verbal and interpersonal communication, and document design and graphics. Writers gain experience writing in collaborative environments. Students produce multiple drafts and receive feedback from their peers and the instructor. This course combines classroom lecture and discussion with an online component. For the lecture and discussion components, the class meets every other Saturday: 9/26, 10/10, 10/24, 11/7, 11/21, 12/5. For the online component, students must have ready access to the Internet. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 111 or equivalent. Carries business credit.

What makes writing work well both on the page and aloud? How do scientists understand the connections between music, language, and the brain? How have journalists combined research and personal experience to tell new kinds of stories? How can we make our sentences sing? Students explore these questions, first by reading and listening to the writings of experts, and then by writing, critiquing, revising, and recording essays of their own. Likely reading and listening assignments will include selections from speeches by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama; David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day; Studs Terkel's Hard Times; Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation; Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession; Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia; and Ira Glass's anthology, The New Kings of Nonfiction. Students will need reliable access to recording equipment that will allow them to submit audio recordings, either on cassette tape or electronically as MP3s. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 111 or equivalent.

Most people like to travel or would like to travel. And many do travel--even traveling in an effort to get to the United States as immigrants. But everyone can travel through travel writing. This course examines the various forms (genres) that travel writing can take. Students produce three different kinds of travel writing, while also read some of the best travel writing available, from humorous writers, like Tim Cahill and Bill Bryson, to writers of historical importance, like Gertrude Bell and Lawrence of Arabia. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 111 or equivalent.

Ever since we declared its pursuit as one of our inalienable rights, Americans have been hot on the trail of a happiness that often seems to be just beyond our grasp. The hunt takes many paths: finding love, wealth, or fame; earning an education, job, or lifestyle; attaining bliss, heaven, or a fairy tale ending. This writing course explores how we have defined, pursued, and, at times, attained happiness. The course also asks the question: 'is happiness a goal or a journey?" while examining how the ideal of happiness finds expression in our culture through philosophy, art, literature, music, and film. Social phenomena such as the quest for higher education, the explosion of the self-help industry, and the ebb and flow of our consumer culture are also explored. NU Philosophy professor John Laing will be a regular guest speaker to guide the class to philosophers who have shaped ideas of happiness. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 111 or equivalent.

For those with little or no formal training in the elements of writing poetry, this course is conducted in a workshop format and includes extensive reading of poetry. Students use analytical skills presented in the course to critique each others' drafts of approximately six poems written during the quarter. Emphasis is on development of individual style and voice. Individual conferences with the instructor. May not be audited or taken P/N. Advanced composition course or equivalent writing experience strongly recommended.

For those with little or no formal training in the elements of writing fiction, this course emphasizes the processes and assumptions unique to fiction writing and the development of a personal voice. Students analyze technique and form in works of various authors. Writing assignments include at least two stories developed and revised in a workshop format. Lectures, workshops, and individual conferences. May not be audited or taken P/N. Advanced composition course or equivalent writing experience strongly recommended. This course is presented in a five-week format (along with others during each academic term), to provide more flexible course schedule options. Each quarter, students can take one or two intensive Saturday courses that meet for six hours, in addition to the regularly scheduled weeknight courses. This course, ENGLISH 207-CN, meets for five Saturdays from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm: 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24, and 5/1. Its companion course, CLASSICS 260-CN, meets the following five Saturdays, between May 15 and June 12. In this format, there is no class meeting for either course on Saturday, May 8. Enrollment in both courses is not required.

Explores a number of creative nonfiction forms, including personal essay, biography and autobiography, criticism, and creative analysis. Students write several short essays and one long essay, discuss the work of outside authors and fellow students in a workshop format, and participate in discussions and exercises on such matters as style, point of view, and critical thinking. May not be audited or taken P/N. Advanced composition class and strong basic writing skills highly recommended.

This course covers masterpieces of American literature written from the Puritan era to the Civil War. We will read and discuss the works closely in order to explore their artistry and meaning, and also consider the works in relation to one another, examining the qualities of thought, sensibility, and style that comprise a distinctly American literature. Authors include Bradstreet, Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, and Dickinson.

This course explores major works of American literature representative of the period from the Civil War to the 1990s in order understand the trajectory of the American literary tradition. Students discuss the language, structure, and themes of the works, examining their relations to one another, to the society that created them, and to parallel developments in world literature.

In this writing-intensive course, we read canonical and noncanonical American texts in order to develop some theoretical sophistication in reading narrative and crafting literary arguments. We explore different methods of interpreting narrative in terms of genre (What happens to us as readers when we place a text in a specific genre, such as the detective story or Great American Novel? How do generic expectations work on our interpretive experience?); aesthetic form (What do we mean when we call a writer's prose "beautiful" or a plot well constructed? How do literary standards work to constitute values?); and ideological content (How do we judge a text's position in relation to historical and contemporary political issues, including--but not limited to--matters of gender, race and class?). Our focusing lens is the theme of criminality: What counts as transgression against norms, both within texts (Who are the criminals? Who makes the laws? What is appropriate punishment for crimes?) and in our wider literary culture (What makes a text obscene and therefore criminal? What makes a text worthy or unworthy of serious consideration? Who makes these literary "laws"?) As an introductory seminar and requirement for English majors, the course focuses deeply on the composition and revision of effective literary arguments.

For students who have taken courses in fiction writing or who have been writing fiction on their own, further practice and study in the development of short stories. Students are assigned readings in the short story, which are discussed in class, and also submit drafts and revisions of at least two stories. Student writing is discussed in a workshop format and in individual conferences. May not be audited or taken P/N. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 207 or consent of instructor. Obtaining instructor consent: Contact the SCS Registrar's office to receive the instructor's contact information. Once the instructor has been contacted and consent obtained, the instructor will report the student's name to the Registrar's office for approval to enroll in the course.

For experienced fiction writers, continuing work in the study and development of short stories. Builds on the premises, assignments, and goals of 307-A. Emphasis is placed on writing and revising long stories. May not be audited or taken P/N. Prerequisites: ENGLISH 207 or consent of instructor. Obtaining instructor consent: Contact the SCS Registrar's office to receive the instructor's contact information. Once the instructor has been contacted and consent obtained, the instructor will report the student's name to the Registrar's office for approval to enroll in the course.

For students who have taken courses in creative nonfiction or who have been writing creative nonfiction on their own. Students apply their developing command of creative writing techniques and forms to frequent short writing exercises and essays. Class discussion of published essays and excerpts from longer works and student drafts may address such topics as voice, style, structure, the uses of research, and truth. Lectures, workshop discussions of student exercises and drafts, and individual conferences with instructor. May not be audited or taken P/N. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 208 or consent of instructor. Obtaining instructor consent: Contact the SCS Registrar's office to receive the instructor's contact information. Once the instructor has been contacted and consent obtained, the instructor will report the student's name to the Registrar's office for approval to enroll in the course.

For experienced nonfiction writers, continuing work in the analysis and writing of creative nonfiction, emphasizing close reading of assigned selections and careful writing and revision of student work. Builds on the premises, assignments, and goals of 308-A, with focus on the writing of a longer work. May not be audited or taken P/N. Prerequisite: ENGLISH 208 or consent of instructor. Obtaining instructor consent: Contact the SCS Registrar's office to receive the instructor's contact information. Once the instructor has been contacted and consent obtained, the instructor will report the student's name to the Registrar's office for approval to enroll in the course.

In this course, students engage in close reading of various works of literary journalism, and write a series of short exercises, which will function as the segue into two longer pieces of literary journalism. In the process of reading, discussion and writing of literary journalism, students hone their abilities to manipulate language for the purposes of communicating in a powerful, creative manner a subject or topic in which they are interested and about which they are curious. Among the aspects of literary journalsim the course explores are travel writing, nature writing and media writing. This course, ENGLISH 310-CN, meets on five Saturdays from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm: January 9, 16, 23, 30 and February 6. Its companion course, MUSIC HIST 335-CN sec. 17, meets the folling five Saturdays, between February 20 and March 20. In this format, there is no class meeting for either course on Saturday, February 13. Enrollment in both courses is not required.

Why humans feel compelled to leave the known world of their tribe and travel into the unknown world of other lands and peoples is to ask the very question of what it means to be human. The journey is perhaps the very source of our need and fascination with storytelling. This survey course traces the origins of travel literature and follows its development, particularly in the West, through various periods (the age of exploration and Colonialism, the era of the Grand Tour, and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century era known as the "Hey Day"), so that the various themes and issues modern writers explore in this evolving subgenre of nonfiction may be placed into context. One key theme in the course explores how a writer's motive for travel often shapes not only how they depict lands and cultures but determines choices of style and structure of the writing itself. The course also pays particular attention to how gender, race, culture, and class provide different perspectives on not only the worlds described by writers but on the very tradition and enterprise of travel itself. Some of writers covered include: Herodotus, Christopher Columbus, Strabo, Basho, Jonathan Swift, Lady Montagu, William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Berl Markham, Freya Stark, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Bowles, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Jan Morris, Amitav Ghosh, Peter Matthiesen, Gretel Ehrlich, V.S.Naipaul, Bruce Chatwin, Pico Iyer, Bill Bryson, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Baldwin. Students work on both a critical essay dealing with themes from the course and explore the form by working on a travel essay of their own.

Geoffrey Chaucer was a "renaissance man" before the concept was conceived. In the second half of the 14th century, Chaucer served as courtier, diplomat, civil servant, husband, father, and spy. However, it is for his poetry that Chaucer is remembered; his Canterbury Tales ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. This course is essentially a "survey" of these tales in which we discover the richness of Chaucer's literary creation offering various medieval genres (epic, chivalric narrative, fabliaux, allegories, and homilies) and medieval themes (fate and providence, marriage, the role of women in society, sexuality and sin, patience, and love). The tales are read in Chaucer's dialect of Middle English, that of the City of London, from which the forms of Modern English are derived. Participants discuss the tales as a class and to independently research the literature, history, and culture of Ricardian England. Meets the pre-1798 requirement for English majors.

Though sometimes called the age of reason and the age of Johnson, the eighteenth century might more aptly be described as the age of satire, the age of wit, or even the age of the outlandish. This course examines some of the most rollicking, rambunctious novels of the period. In addition to focusing on the way authors like Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne used humor in their novels to skewer the follies, vices and pretensions of their society, some of the recent films based on these novels will be viewed. The course also discusses the ways the respective writers/directors presented their own modern visions of this exuberant time. Readings include Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Rudolf Erich Raspe, The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent; films include Tom Jones (Richardson, 1963), A Cock and Bull Story (Winterbottom, 2006), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Gilliam, 1988).

This course is an introduction to major works of Charles Dickens, who is arguably England's second greatest writer next to Shakespeare. The course examines these novels in the context of Victorian society--its values, tensions, and problems--and the complex relationship between the author and his audience, whom Dickens aimed both to please and to chastise. Texts include David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend.

"ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this. VLADIMIR: That's what you think." The persistence of humor in the midst of crisis in this dialogue from the play Waiting for Godot is characteristic of Beckett's work, but also of some other twentieth century Irish writers as they grapple with a range of political and social crises. This course explores this and other literary strategies in the major writers and movements of the the twentieth century in Ireland: W.B. Yeats and the Celtic revival; the work of John Synge and Sean O'Casey for the Abbey Theatre; the modernist innovations of the self-exiled James Joyce; Samuel Beckett's late-modernist "theatre of the absurd"; the postcolonial plays of Brian Friel; and the great Irish short story tradition, including Edna O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Maeve Benchy, William Trevor, and, most recently, Colm Toibin. The struggle for Irish independence; the revival of interest in Gaelic; religious conflicts; changing notions of national, literary and gender identity; and, of course, the uses of humor, will also be explored.

American novels written during this boom-and-bust era shed light on the social upheaval that we are currently experiencing in this country. The works brilliantly portray characters struggling to find meaning in the face of rapid and overwhelming social change. Moreover, in experimenting with new fictional techniques and forms, the authors of this period produced some of our most memorable novels. Authors discussed in this course include Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel West, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright.

Chicago has a rich literary tradition. In addition to covering works by some of the important earlier Chicago writers (Upton Sinclair, James Farrell, Saul Bellow, and Langston Hughes), this course focuses on Chicagoans writing today, including Studs Terkel, Ana Castillo, David Mamet, Tina De Rosa, Stuart Dybek, Ward Just, and Aleksandar Hemon. The course examines how, and if, these writers interact with Chicago as a setting, as an influence, and even as a character in their writing. Readings are drawn from novels, short stories, journalism, non-fiction, plays, and poetry.

What makes popular fiction--the stuff of bestseller lists--popular? What makes literary fiction---the stuff of the college classroom--literary? Is there a tie that binds the two? Though we tend to perceive popular texts as entirely separate from literary classics--one is a guilty pleasure, the other, a serious "art"--closer examination of popular texts shows that the notion of their distinction from literary "classics" is reductive, both historically and contemporaneously. This course pairs popular and literary novels from different periods of American history while considering the responses of a variety of theorists to this topic (including Roland Barthes' Mythologies). Readings may include Mario Puzo, The Godfather; E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime; Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind; William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!; Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs; Christian Messenger, The Godfather and American Culture. Meets the literary theory requirement for English and American literature majors.

This course explores the culture of literature and literary publishing and the place of serious writing in contemporary society. "Situation" in this context means both the condition of writing itself and how it is positioned in the greater social and cultural world; students consider their roles as readers and writers. The course has a particular focus on the role of publishing in shaping and reflecting literary culture and examines topics in the history and current state of book and journal publishing. Topics discussed include the establishment of literary publishers, the evolution of the paperback and other publishing models, the development and diffusion of publishing programs, the changing profiles of university presses, the effects of the Internet and online publishing on conventional structures, the roles of review publications and reviewers, and related matters.