Upcoming - Fall 2026

1110: Composition I

Many days, times, and online sections available

Covers Composition I: Stretch I and II in one semester, focusing on analyzing rhetorical situations and responding with appropriate genres and technologies. (EPW)

Credit for both this course and ENGL 1110X may not be applied toward a degree program.

Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area I: Communications.

Prerequisite: ACT English =16-25 or SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing =450-659 or Next Generation ACCUPLACER Writing =>279 or Lobo Course Placement English Placement Tool = 20 or WritePlacer = 6-8.

1110X: Composition I (Stretch I)

Many days, times, and sections available

First semester of Composition I stretch sequence. Focuses on analyzing rhetorical situations and responding with appropriate genres and technologies. (EPW)

This is the first course in a two-part sequence. In order to receive transfer credit for ENGL 1110, all courses in this sequence (ENGL 1110X, ENGL 1110Y) must be taken and passed.

Credit for both ENGL 1110X and ENGL 1110 may not be applied toward a degree program.

Students with ACT English  =<15 or SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing  =<449 or ACCUPLACER Sentence Skills =<278 or Lobo Course Placement English Placement Tool = 10 will begin their English Composition Sequence with ENGL 1110X. 

1110Y: Composition I (Stretch II)

Many days, times, and sections available

Second semester of Composition I stretch sequence. Focuses on analyzing rhetorical situations and responding with appropriate genres and technologies. (EPW)

This is the second course in a two-part sequence. In order to receive transfer credit for ENGL 1110, both courses in this sequence (ENGL 1110X and ENGL 1110Y) must be taken and passed.

Credit for both ENGL 1110X and ENGL 1110 may not be applied toward a degree program.

Prerequisite: 1110X.

1120: Composition II

Many days, times, and online sections available

Focuses on academic writing, research, and argumentation using appropriate genres and technologies. (EPW)

Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area I: Communications.

Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z or ACT English =26-28 or SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing =660-690 or Lobo Course Placement English Placement Tool = 30.

1410.001: Introduction to Literature

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045

Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu 

The work of reading literature involves a particular set of processes and tools. This semester, we will practice close reading and critical analysis, while examining how select works of fiction, poetry, drama, and film reflect the history of the development of the category of literature. In our engagements with Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Nella Larsen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Américo Paredes and others, we will address the influence of historical and cultural forces as well as intellectual and artistic movements on theories of reading and writing. Our introductory foray will enable us to recognize key methodologies from literary theory, alongside evidence-based argumentation and comparative interpretation. On midterm and final essay examinations as well as regular unannounced quizzes, students will be expected to demonstrate their ability to present informed arguments about literary works, supported by specific textual evidence.

1410.004: Introduction to Literature

Online

Finnie Coleman, coleman@unm.edu 

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2000-Level

1000-Level | 2000-Level | 300-Level | 400-Level

2110.001: Traditional Grammar

Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
C. Tyer Johnson, ctylerjohnson@unm.edu

In this course, I hope to convince you that grammar is not something to fear; grammar is your friend. You rely on grammar all day and every day, regardless of whether you realize it. As a speaker of English, you have an enormous repository of grammar information. This course will use that intuitive, unconscious knowledge of grammar to create an explicit, conscious roadmap of English grammar so that you can be more confident of your communicative choices. By the end of the semester you will have the ability to:  

• Recognize word forms and explain their functions in phrases and sentences; 
• Identify sentence constituents and analyze common sentence patterns; 
• Recognize and understand structural relationships among verb phrases, noun phrases, and adverbial and adjectival modifying phrases and clauses; 
• Demonstrate flexibility of composition through phrase modification, nominalization, and other writing strategies that employ knowledge of grammatical forms and functions; 
• Distinguish differences of prescriptive and descriptive grammar.

2120.001: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2120.002: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2120.003: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2120.004: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2120.005: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, TR 930-1045
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2120.006: Intermediate Composition: 

Online
TBD

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

2210: Professional & Technical Communication

Many days, times, and online sections available

Professional and Technical Communication will introduce students to the different types of documents and correspondence that they will create in their professional careers. This course emphasizes the importance of audience, document design, and the use of technology in designing, developing, and delivering documents. This course will provide students with experience in professional correspondence and communicating technical information to a non-technical audience. (EPW)

Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area I: Communications.

Prerequisite: 1120 or ACT English =>29 or SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing =>700.

Course description video

2240.001: Intro to Studies in English

Face to Face, T 1230-1345

1H *This course is scheduled for the FIRST eight weeks*

Diane Thiel, dthiel@unm.edu

English 2240 is a one-credit, eight-week class that brings together students majoring in English. It is a required course and must be taken before embarking on the major coursework. Students are introduced to the subfields of rhetoric and professional writing, creative writing, and literary studies. Students will be introduced to the life of the department through in-person class visits with faculty members, attendance at departmental events, and a variety of additional online readings and discussions. Some class sessions will include conversations about employment or opportunities for graduate school. The final task will be to craft a letter of intent documenting an intended course of study and future goals.

2240.002: Intro to Studies in English

Face to Face, W 1300-1350

2H *This course is scheduled for the SECOND eight weeks*

Diane Thiel, dthiel@unm.edu

English 2240 is a one-credit, eight-week class that brings together students majoring in English. It is a required course and must be taken before embarking on the major coursework. Students are introduced to the subfields of rhetoric and professional writing, creative writing, and literary studies. Students will be introduced to the life of the department through in-person class visits with faculty members, attendance at departmental events, and a variety of additional online readings and discussions. Some class sessions will include conversations about employment or opportunities for graduate school. The final task will be to craft a letter of intent documenting an intended course of study and future goals.

2310.001: Introduction to Creative Writing

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350

TBD

This course will introduce students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study published works as models, but the focus of this "workshop" course is on students revising and reflecting on their own writing. Throughout this course, students will be expected to read poetry, fiction, and non-fiction closely, and analyze the craft features employed. They will be expected to write frequently in each of these genres. Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z.

2310.002: Introduction to Creative Writing

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215

TBD

This course will introduce students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study published works as models, but the focus of this "workshop" course is on students revising and reflecting on their own writing. Throughout this course, students will be expected to read poetry, fiction, and non-fiction closely, and analyze the craft features employed. They will be expected to write frequently in each of these genres. Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z. 

2310.003: Introduction to Creative Writing

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345

TBD

This course will introduce students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study published works as models, but the focus of this "workshop" course is on students revising and reflecting on their own writing. Throughout this course, students will be expected to read poetry, fiction, and non-fiction closely, and analyze the craft features employed. They will be expected to write frequently in each of these genres. Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z. 

2310.007: Introduction to Creative Writing

Online

TBD

This course will introduce students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study published works as models, but the focus of this "workshop" course is on students revising and reflecting on their own writing. Throughout this course, students will be expected to read poetry, fiction, and non-fiction closely, and analyze the craft features employed. They will be expected to write frequently in each of these genres. Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z.

2510.001: Analysis of Literature

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045

Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu 

This course provides an in-depth examination of literary analysis across various genres, focusing on how to critically examine, interrogate, and analyze literary techniques, devices, conventions, and themes. Students will learn how to write focused literary analyses, demonstrating their understanding of textual, biographical, critical, cultural, and historical contexts of various writers and genres. Students will learn the analytical skills of close reading, literary interpretation, and how to construct a text-based argument to uncover meaning in literary texts. This course introduces literary analysis, teaching students the skills necessary for literary scholarship. First, we will begin with the question: What is literature? Why should we care about literature? Next, we will move on to reading and discussing the essential skills for reading literature to construct a literary argument. We will then move on to how to write a literary analysis, examining the key components of a literary essay, including explanation, summary, interpretation, paraphrasing, and review. You will then learn about various theoretical approaches to reading literature, including close reading, cultural materialism, Marxism, feminism, structuralism, and post-structuralism. While learning all the techniques required to write a literary analysis, you will be reading canonical texts from American literature. We will examine the major literary movements, considering texts in the context of new poetics, realism, modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary literature. You will be required to write three (3) short essays, take in-class quizzes, an in-class midterm, and a final paper and presentation (with many components attached to this assignment).

2510.002: Analysis of Literature

Online

Scarlett Higgins, shiggins@unm.edu 

English 2510 is the gateway course to the English major. In it you will learn the fundamental skills needed for textual analysis in literary and cultural studies, including critical reading practices, the construction of an argument, the use of textual evidence to support an argument, and the best practices for bringing all of these skills together in a research essay.

To do so, you will study a variety of texts in the major genres (literary fiction, poetry, and drama, as well as film and graphic novels), many of which have then been adapted, transformed, or created as an homage to a text in a different genre. Close analysis of these texts will allow us to see clearly the ways that concepts of genre, inherently involving reader/viewer expectations, affect our reading practices.

2610.001: American Literature I

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Melina Vizcaino-Aleman, mviz@unm.edu 

This course surveys American literature from the time of contact and conquest to the first half of the nineteenth century. It begins with a critical consideration of the term “America” and sub-divides readings into six genres that move across early American literature, beginning with captivity and enslaved narratives and ending with folklore. In addition to major English and Spanish writers, the class reads works by Mexican, Black, and Native people whose work covers a broad literary history from the Enlightenment to Revolutionary eras and into the eras of expansion and civil war. The class pays particular attention to the ways conquest, territorial expansion, and slavery inform the major genres and literary movements that define early American literature. Fulfills a pre-1830 literature survey requirement for the English major. Attendance is counted as a grade; assignments include in-class discussions, response papers, and analysis essays.

2620.001: American Literature II

Online
2H *This course is scheduled for the SECOND eight weeks*
Jesse Aleman, jman@unm.edu 

This course is a general survey of American literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The course content will roughly span from the end of the Civil War to the contemporary period. The purpose of the course is to read a variety of writers from the late nineteenth to the later twentieth centuries to sample key themes in American literary history and chart the way the nation developed after the Civil War. We’ll acquire a sound, broad base of American literary history and learn how to use specific examples and passages from literary writings to state and support an argument about literature.

2630.001: British Literature I

Face to Face,  TR 1100-1215
Jonathan Davis-Secord, jwds@unm.edu 

A dragon, a drunken lout, a trans saint, and Satan! This course covers the developments of British literature beginning with Old English, continuing through the Middle English and Early Modern periods, and ending in the “Enlightenment.” We will read representative and important works within their historical and cultural contexts to explore issues of race, gender, power, enslavement, literacy, and changing conceptions of genre, form, and even literature itself.

Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts.

300-Level

1000-Level | 2000-Level | 300-Level | 400-Level

304.002: Bible As Literature

Online
Kelly Van Andel, kvanande@unm.edu

This course studies biblical texts within their historical and literary contexts, and it examines how the authors of the Bible utilize literary forms and tools such as the parable, proverb, allegory, and so on, to convey particular messages. It additionally explores the importance of the Bible as a source of English and American literature. Units of study include Narrative, Poetry, the Gospels, the Letter, Apocalyptic Literature, and the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament in English and American Literature. There are weekly quizzes and class discussions, two exams, and one short presentation. 

305.001: Mythology

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Nicholas Schwartz, nschwar@unm.edu

There are no more important texts for understanding the world of the past and of today than cultures’ earliest: myths. The texts covered in this course—some thousands and others hundreds of years old—provide a lens through which one can glimpse the development of ideas, cultural mores, and traditions which continue to exert great influence in the Western world today. While these stories are often remembered and retold because they include accounts of perseverance, the miraculous, superhuman accomplishment, love, devotion, success, justice, and other fodder for inspiration, many of those same texts betray darker motifs like heteropatriarchal dominance, cultural chauvinism, misogyny, intolerance, and the victimization of the young, the powerless, the poor, and the other, amongst other themes. This course invites students to grapple with this duality present in so much of mythology. It encourages critical examination of these texts that have been so fundamental, for better and for worse, to the development of what has traditionally been called “Western Civilization.” No previous knowledge of mythology is required, and all are welcome to sign up for this course.

306.001: Arthurian Legend and Romance

Face to Face, TR 1530-1645
Anita Obermeier, aobermei@unm.edu 

The description for this course is not currently available, but should be available soon. 

320.001: T: Rhetoric of Sports

Online
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu

321.002: Intermediate Creative Writing – Fiction

Online
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

         —Stephen King

In this class, we’re going to do as Stephen King suggests—we’re going to read a lot and write a lot. And we’re going to talk about what we read and what we write because discussing writing is also an important part of growing as a writer.

At this point in your undergraduate career, everyone in the class should have taken at least one creative writing class, if not more. So you’ve been exposed to the genres of literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. In this class, we will build upon what you have already learned and focus specifically on fiction.  You will read, analyze, and discuss published examples of fiction, examining elements of craft. You will also complete writing exercises, write at least one complete story, and share your work with classmates, giving and receiving feedback as a way to improve your writing and the writing of your classmates.

322.001: Intermediate Creative Writing – Poetry

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Diane Thiel, dthiel@unm.edu

In this intermediate workshop course, the readings and class sessions will focus on particular techniques or elements of poetry (i.e.: perspective, diction, rhythm, forms of poetry, etc.).  Creative exercises and assignments will accompany these discussions. Students will also be workshopping several poems throughout the course. Because students arrive in such courses with a variety of backgrounds, styles, and interests in poetry, conversations about lineage and the different schools of thought in poetry will be a vital element of the class. Some of this discussion will arise from the workshop of student poems.

323.001: Intermediate Creative Writing – Nonfiction

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu 

This is an intermediate level creative writing class in creative nonfiction, a wide-ranging genre that includes memoir, personal essay, literary journalism and the lyric essay, among others. Though we will likely focus on memoir, you will be introduced to a variety of different types of essays, and you will learn how to craft compelling scenes and reflection, as well as learn some of the unique ethical challenges of writing and discussing this genre. In addition to writing, we will read a lot—both work by established writers and work by you and your classmates.

352.001: Early Shakespeare

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515

Carmen Nocentelli, nocent@unm.edu 

Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice – you may think that you know these plays, but think again! In this fully online course you will revisit these plays as well as encounter new works, such as the Quentin Tarantino-like revenge plays Titus Andronicus and the Machiavellian history of Richard III. Using a variety of online resources and active-learning strategies, you will develop knowledge of Shakespeare’s earlier writings and the contexts of their creation and reception. Special attention will be paid to Shakespeare’s language on page and on stage. Organizing our study of these texts and contexts will be, on the one hand, early modern notions of race and intersecting identity positions, such as gender and disability, and on the other hand, your self-identification and affinities with classmates.

353.001: Later Shakespeare

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu

The Globe playhouse, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed, was loud, smelly, and crowded. Many of his characters also refer to what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. This course uses the senses to organize your study of plays that Shakespeare wrote in the second half of his career. You will read Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, and more in terms of the sensorial experiences, both imagined and actual, that they evoke. Through curated instructional content and individual sensorial research, such as place-based performance and cooking activities, you will gain understanding of how Shakespeare mobilizes bodily sensations to create characters, plots, and poetry that continue to move audiences around the world.

This class is for anyone who enjoys literature and is curious about why Shakespeare remains so prominent on bookshelves, stages, and course syllabi. So you don’t need to major in English, Theater Arts, or Secondary Education with a concentration in English Studies to get something out of this class! Students who have experienced trauma should be aware that this course includes potentially triggering content, including but not limited to discriminatory language, scenes of war, and depictions of domestic abuse.

365.001:  Chicanx Cultural Studies

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu 

This course is a comparative exploration of the cultural and political aesthetics of Chicana/o cultural production in relation to Chicanx Studies. We will explore the shift from the Chicano Movement to Chicanx Studies in our contemporary moment. Will be looking at the cultural production that shapes the field of Chicano/a Studies in relation to the growing field of Chicanx and Latinx Studies. We will consider themes such as race, colonialism, gender, sexuality, class, and migration. As a course in cultural studies, our class will traverse both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include literature, art, film, performance art, and other cultural productions. Secondary texts will introduce the class to key theoretical concepts that will elucidate the primary sources. While not exhaustive, this class will take a historical approach to Chicana/o/x Studies and grapple with contemporary cultural production. 

400-Level

1000-Level | 2000-Level | 300-Level | 400-Level

413.001: Scientific Environmental Medical Writing

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Julianne Newmark, newmark@unm.edu 

This course will focus on Scientific, Medical, & Environmental Writing, each in its own module and then in an integrative, end-of-course manner.  Students will be designing a final multimodal project around a subject of their choosing, a subject currently of interest to communicators in the medical, scientific, or environmental fields—and also to members of the citizenry, public intellectuals, and even politicians.  We will examine the tactics and structures of popular and field-specific scientific, medical, and environmental documents and other communication forms. We will consider how these texts (audio, print-based, film) make the arguments they make (what their rhetorical appeals are).  We will explore genre-specific documents, multimodal communications for a particular discourse community, and outputs intended to education and persuade the general public.

418.001: Proposal and Grant Writing

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Charles Paine, cpaine@unm.edu

In this course, you will learn how to write persuasive grant proposals. Drawing on the principles of rhetorical analysis, you will learn how to develop a clear statement of need, offer achievable objectives, design logical step-by-step plans, create specific and accurate budgets, and present your project clearly and compellingly. We will explore how to locate appropriate funding opportunities and how to evaluate requests for proposals. We will also discuss methods for writing persuasively and for designing documents that are organized transparently and inviting to read.

Although it is not essential, I urge you to seek out a proposal project that is real or at least realistic. Some of you may be working on your own individual research or startup project. Some of you may be working with an organization or company with which you can work and develop your all-important collaboration competencies. Others should do their best to find such an organization or company. In any case, by working on a real or realistic proposal project, you’ll probably encounter some additional challenges, but you’ll enjoy the process more and you’ll learn a lot more.

This course should be useful for advanced undergraduates who are within a year or two of graduation. It should also be useful for students who are already operating within a professional setting where proposals are important and who want to enhance their understanding of how proposals work, how to critique them, and how to write them more effectively.

420.001: T: Blue Mesa Review I

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu

This course introduces you to the production of UNM’s national literary magazine, Blue Mesa Review. We receive hundreds of submissions each year from writers hoping to see their stories, essays, or poems published in our journal. Your primary responsibility will be to work alongside graduate students in our MFA program to assess these submissions for possible publication in BMR. In addition, you will keep a log about your participation reading submissions, write a couple of short papers (maybe a blog post or book review for BMR's website), and engage in discussions that arise from the submissions we receive. Understanding how literary magazines work can be of great value for writers; not only can it help you improve your own writing, but it can focus your editorial sensibilities as well as help you learn more about the submission and publication process.

Ideally, to enroll, you will have completed at least the introductory creative writing course; however, exceptions can be made, depending on experience. Send an email to Dr. Clark detailing your literary interests and courses you've taken, and be sure to include your Banner ID number.

This is a class you can take multiple times for full credit. We thrive when there are experienced readers, so please join our team!

421.002: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop - Fiction

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Daniel Mueller, dmueller@unm.edu

Students will draft and distribute to the members of the workshop original works of fiction that will then be discussed by the class as a whole. Integrated into the course will be assigned readings of fiction and craft essays written by prominent contemporary writers and writers from the past as well as writing prompts designed to impart a variety of narrative strategies.  Participation in class discussions will be heavily emphasized.  This is an opportunity for serious fiction writers to have their fiction read and discussed by an equally serious panel of peers. In other words, to have fun!

423.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop - Nonfiction

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Gregory Martin, gmartin@unm.edu 

This is a creative nonfiction writing workshop exploring creative nonfiction in many forms, from the memoir to the lyric essay and from flash nonfiction to the prose poem. At the beginning of the course, we will write low-stakes exercises, which you might choose to expand into one or both of your essay drafts. Over the course of the semester, you’ll learn to revise your drafts into more complex, resonant work.  The class will help you to build upon your understanding of craft and technique, and we will focus on the development of the "habit" of art, emphasizing process more than product, emphasizing exploration, risk taking, and pushing yourself to write in ways that you could not write before. 

442.001: Major Texts in Rhetoric

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Charles Paine, cpaine@unm.edu 

If we want to understand rhetoric in theory and practice, we need to go back to its historical sources. However, before we move back to these ancient sources, we’ll start with a very American take on rhetoric and persuasion, the 1957 movie Twelve Angry Men, a story of twelve white men on jury who deliberate about the fate of a non-white teenager charged with murder.

Then we’ll move back to those ancient sources, to the traditions of Ancient India, China, and Hellenistic Greece, specifically the theories of language of Ptahhotep, Yāska, Confucius, and the Greek Sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias). From here we move to Plato’s attack on rhetoric and on the Sophists, Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric as a true technē (or “art”), twelfth-century Muslim scholar Averroes. We’ll finish the semester examining the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Kenneth Burke, and contemporary feminist rhetoricians. Throughout the course, we’ll discover and forge connections between these diverse rhetorical traditions and contemporary writing and speaking, often exploring contemporary and ancient texts as a way to ground our theories and do some rhetorical inquiry. These texts will come in a variety of mediums (visual, electronic, mixed modes, etc.)

This course would be of interest to those who are fascinated by the nature of human communication. It will be of practical use for those whose futures will require them to communicate effectively, to interpret communication with greater sophistication, and to work with and influence others (i.e., pretty much everyone nowadays). Some key theoretical questions include: Can rhetoric help us induce the truth or only belief? What’s at the heart of influence—power over vs. power with, asymmetric bullying vs. careful listening. How do language and other symbolic systems (images, sounds, spaces, etc.) function? What good is rhetorical training and why teach or study rhetoric, writing, literature, or communication generally—does it make us better speakers, better thinkers, better colleagues and advocates, more savvy consumers of rhetoric?

457.001: Victorian Studies

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Aeron Haynie, ahaynie@unm.edu 

In an age before HULU and Netflix, the novel (often serialized) was the main form of entertainment for an increasingly literate population. People devoured them, savored them, wept and laughed over them. Yet many novels exposed social problems, such as child labor, political corruption, the mistreatment of women, and the horrible living conditions of the urban poor. In this course will examine the social problem novel in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. We will study how novelists such as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot responded to industrialization, class conflict, gender inequality, and reform movements. And we will allow ourselves to experience the pleasure and joy of immersing ourselves in these rich texts. 

462.001: American Realism and Naturalism

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu 

Literary and cultural expression of the post-Civil War U.S. reflects a society marked by crisis. Writing in a period of monopoly capitalism, demographic transformation, new technologies, unprecedented income inequality, and U.S. economic and military imperialism in North America and throughout the Western Hemisphere, the authors we’ll read together call for an end to literary romanticism, arguing that art has a responsibility towards realism. Each examines the influences of environment, race, heredity, class, and gender on individual development. Mark Twain, Henry James, and Edith Wharton reflect critically on their own communities. Rebecca Harding Davis, Louisa May Alcott, W.E.B. DuBois, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, and Jacob Riis form new approaches to writing as activism. Gertrude Bonnin/ Zitkala-Ša, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sarah Winnemucca, and Abraham Cahan dismantle the notion of a cohesive national identity by emphasizing foundational differences of region, race, culture, and ethnicity. The conflicts evident in literary and cultural production during this dynamic era reveal contradictions inherent to the emerging concept of an American national consciousness—variously understood by the authors we examine as a bad joke, a hard-won social good, a naive fantasy, or as form of colonialist whitewashing. Course evaluation will be based on student participation, a midterm essay examination, and a final research paper.

474.001: Contemporary Southwest Literature

Face to Face, W 1600-1830
Melina Vizcaino-Alemna, mviz@unm.edu 

This course is a study of contemporary Southwestern literature and focuses on Native and Chicanx narratives about the region. We pay close attention to the ways Native and Chicanx artists and writers reconceive the region in written and visual narratives that include poetry, fiction, murals, music, and installation art. Students will learn about the major Native and Chicanx artists and writers of the region and visit local museums and other public sites to consider the literature alongside the murals, paintings, photography, and other forms of visual culture that constellate the class. Course readings include twentieth-century poetry and fiction, as well as critical readings in Southwest, Indigenous and Chicanx studies that rethink the Southwest and its settler colonial pasts. The course also includes both feature and short films by mainstream and independent filmmakers, as well as painting, pottery, mixed media, and other experimental visual art forms. Students will learn about key writers, artists, and filmmakers whose work is tied to the region, and they will become familiar with critical research methods and tools in Indigenous and Chicanx studies.

486.001: British Fiction

Face to Face, R 1600-1830
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu 

Do discontent and survival have a distinct literary style? In this course, we’ll attempt to answer that question by delving into fiction published since 2000 by British and Irish writers who challenge traditional structures of literary prestige and gatekeeping. The readings will center on upstarts—women, immigrant, minority, queer, and working-class writers—whose novels and short fiction chafe against the worlds they and their characters have inherited. Part of our investigations will be formal and thematic, as we track through discussion and written assignments how authors respond to the pervasive threats of our day, whether cosmic or local. The worlds depicted in the novels and shorter fiction we will read are shaped by phenomena like climate change, geopolitical violence, broken institutions, intergenerational trauma, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and mental health crises—but they are not defined by them. This course invites you to read these works as survival manuals of sorts: beautiful reminders of how to be human and find joy in spite of the wreckage.

Another aspect of our course will consider how fiction is produced, circulated, and judged in the twenty-first century. We will examine topics like the elevated status of genre fiction, the critical reception of non-“traditional” authors, and the people and institutions that are changing the consumption patterns of today’s readers, from indie presses to social media, fan fiction, review sites like Goodreads, celebrity book clubs, and more. We will also turn the spotlight on ourselves through regular reading logs that track our reading technologies and habits, allowing us to reflect thoughtfully on how we and our contemporaries read today—and what that forecasts about the future of reading. Finally, we will spend a lot of time this semester looking at how authors use ordinary structures and units of language to create a voice and affect that is uniquely theirs. Together, we will develop a vocabulary for describing how authors construct worlds and how they make readers feel, trying to identify what it is about their writing that cannot be reproduced by an algorithm.

487.001: T: Speculative Fiction

Face to Face, MWF 1400-1450
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu 

What do murderbots, vampires, and heroic quests have in common? They fall into the category of contemporary speculative fiction, a term for a variety of fictional genres, including fantasy, science fiction, and horror.  From dystopian worlds to alternate history to ghost stories, writing in this genre focuses on worldbuilding and  "what if?" and lets readers and writers engage their imaginations in the broadest sense.  We'll read a variety of award-winning short fiction, focusing on work by writers working in the genre today. This course is appropriate for both readers and writers of speculative fiction, and writing assignments will have creative options.

487.002: T: Serious Science Fiction

Face to Face, MW 1400-1515
Matthew Hofer, mrh@unm.edu 

M/W 2:00-3:15

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive of the present.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

This upper-division literature seminar tracks the radical transformation of science fiction after the so-called Golden Age ended in the 1940s and the pulp magazines shut down in the 1950s. Our focus together will be on the rise of the more literary, inward-focused New Wave to the beginning of the high-tech, low-life Cyberpunk.

Over three decades, the serious side of science fiction drew attention away from the strangeness of the “gizmo” or incommensurability of the “alien” toward the shifting complexities of language and thought that shape what it means to be “human.”

By analyzing some of the most ambitious science fiction published between 1953 and 1984, we will have an opportunity to consider how the speculative novel became a crucial vehicle for both mid-century countercultural critique and philosophical inquiry.

For each session we will read (approximately) 40-80 pages, with the conceptual complexity and stylistic density of the prose in inverse proportion to the number of pages assigned. This is just to say that when things get challenging, we go slower. Given the shorter amount of time to prepare for the discussion, I also made a conscious effort to make our Wednesdays slightly less reading intensive than our Mondays.

Our texts include, in this order:

Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human (1953; Vintage, 1999)

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (1956; Vintage, 1996)

Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972, Tor, 2022)

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968; Random House, 1996)

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974; Harper Perennial, 2024)

Samuel R. Delany, Trouble on Triton (1976; Wesleyan UP, 1996)

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984; Ace, 2000)

*If you wish to purchase books from sellers other than the UNM Bookstore, please be sure to track down the editions I list here. That way we will all be working with the same pagination.