Course Descriptions Spring 2023
1110: Composition I
Many days, times, and online sections available
In this course, students will read, write, and think about a variety of issues and texts. They will develop reading and writing skills that will help with the writing required in their fields of study and other personal and professional contexts. Students will learn to analyze rhetorical situations in terms of audience, contexts, purpose, mediums, and technologies and apply this knowledge to their reading and writing. They will also gain an understanding of how writing and other modes of communication work together for rhetorical purposes. Students will learn to analyze the rhetorical context of any writing task and compose with purpose, audience, and genre in mind. Students will reflect on their own writing processes, learn to workshop drafts with other writers, and practice techniques for writing, revising, and editing. (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.
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, students must proceed to take and pass ENGL 1110Y in the semester following the semester after taking ENGL 1110X.
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 <430 or ACCUPLACER Sentence Skills <109 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
In this course, students will explore argument in multiple genres. Research and writing practices emphasize summary, analysis, evaluation, and integration of secondary sources. Students will analyze rhetorical situations in terms of audience, contexts, purpose, mediums, and technologies and apply this knowledge to their reading, writing, and research. Students will sharpen their understanding of how writing and other modes of communication work together for rhetorical purposes. The emphasis of this course will be on research methods. (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.
1410.001: Introduction to Literature
Face to Face, TF 0930-1045
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu
The primary objective of this course is to develop a greater understanding of and increased enjoyment from literature. To this end, our class will use contemporary Caribbean literature to learn how to read literature—moving from general interpretation to complex analysis. Since this class is designed for non-English majors, we will be introduced to different literary genres and themes; different strategies for reading literature; and effective practices for writing about literature that are appropriate for an introductory level course.
1410.002: Introduction to Literature
Online
Emily Reiff, ereiff01@unm.edu
The goal of this course is for you to get more comfortable reading and analyzing literature through the genre of speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is often minimized, overlooked, or mischaracterized as a genre of fiction which is less deserving of academic inquiry than other types of literature. Fortunately, there has been a trend in recent years to look more closely at speculative fiction as a literary genre. The books and short stories we will examine ask “what if” questions which address alternate histories, sociopolitical developments, technological advancement, and ecological destruction. We’ll examine the real-world circumstances which both influence and are influenced by these texts in various forms. By the end of this course, you will be able to identify major themes and literary devices of our chosen texts, utilize primary and secondary sources, and properly apply contextual information to enhance your analysis and understanding of literature.
2110.001: Traditional Grammar
Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
Carl 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 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.
2120.002: Intermediate Composition: Your Dream Class: Exploring Reality, Surreality, and Unreality in Texts
Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Ford Peay, fpeay95@unm.edu
Why enfold a fiction within a fiction? How can episodes of altered reality structure the larger works that surround them? A dream, a vision, an altered reality, a fantasy: these concepts will anchor us. We will begin by delving into the hypnotic allegories of the medieval dream vision. From here, we will explore related episodes of waking vision, prophecy, surreality and unreality, across a variety of authors and contexts. We will pay particular attention to the conditions of desire, history, and philosophy that create the difference between dreams and portents, visions and hallucinations, real fictional events and unreal ones.
2120.003: Intermediate Composition: Foundations of Greek Mythology
Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Averie Basch, abasch@unm.edu
This English 2120 course will cover the basics of Greek mythology, starting with the pantheon of Greek gods and continuing into classical stories of gods, heroes, "monsters," and mortals. Students will learn the characteristics of each of the Olympians (including their Roman counterparts) and be able to identify the natural and social powers that these immortals represent. Alongside classical sources, we will read versions of the myths that take on nontraditional perspectives. We will cover the origin stories and how themes presented there compare and contrast to other mythologies, and additionally, how those themes still resonate in today’s society.
2120.004: Intermediate Composition: The Future is Now: Indigenous Futurisms Literature and Pop Culture
Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Madeline Mendoza, mmendoza13@unm.edu
This course looks at various short stories from three foundational anthologies of Indigenous Futurisms Literature. The genre Indigenous Futurisms are stories that imagine present Indigenous futures using science fiction extending to speculative and fantasy sub-genres. We will examine how Indigenous Futurisms Literature, as a powerful act of storytelling, paired with Art, Pop Culture, Music, Short Films, Video Games, and Fashion contributes to the existence of Indigenous social alterities, and pathways forward that consider the past, present and future for Indigenous cultures. Topics to be discussed include the relationships between Indigenous futurisms and visual, artistic, and digital storytelling; Indigenous futurisms and decolonization; Indigenous science; and Indigenous understandings of time.
2120.005: Intermediate Composition: Sketching Out the Narrative: Exploring Exposition in Graphic Novels
Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Ashley Bernardo, abernardo@unm.edu
Comic books, manga, and graphic novels have long captured the imagination of young and old readers alike. But what does it take to make a cohesive story out of drawn images? What imaginative leaps must occur between the “gutters” of the panels, and what tools must authors rely upon? What choices go into the art style of the piece? Why chose the medium of a graphic novel over a “traditional” novel? In this course, we will investigate the composition of graphic novels, discover the tools used in these pieces, and trace the evolution of graphic novels from pulp fiction to Pulitzer Prize winners.
2120.006: Intermediate Composition: Creating the Land of Enchantment: Nature Writing in New Mexico
Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Kimberly Blake, kimblake1@unm.edu
This course will offer an exploration of the significance of nature writing and environmental issues of New Mexico. We will question if this place is “The Land of Enchantment” and what writing lead to this notion. We will explore New Mexican authors in an interdisciplinary and historical lens that will conclude in contemporary environmental issues we are facing today. We will apply research of ecological issues as it is centered around rhetorical approaches and understanding of environmental issues reflected in our writings and readings. This course will consist of a book analysis, a pamphlet collection, and end with a research report and an oral presentation.
2120.007: Intermediate Composition: The Heroic and the Monstrous
Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Ian Martin, martini@unm.edu
From Beowulf to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this course will utilize historic and literary heroes and monsters to create academic as well as real-world compositions. You will read rhetorical works from antiquity to twenty-first century while learn how to incorporate primary and secondary source into you writing. You will learn how to analyze rhetorical situation, find and evaluate information, compose and present documents, and continuously reflect on your creations using the theme heroes and monsters to guide your writing. You will walk away with skills that will help you compose academic quality expository compositions in traditional and multimodal media.
2120.008: Intermediate Composition: Zombies in Literature, Film, and Society
Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Alex Henkle, ahenkle1@unm.edu
What is it about the flesh-eating undead that fascinates us so much? Why do we like to watch and read about them? This class will investigate these issues, diving into the historical and cultural implications of the zombie genre’s emergence. Anticipate the classics along with modern examples (from literature as well as visual media) as we investigate how these zombies have been revived time and time again, offering insight into necropolitics, colonialism, race, gender, the body, spiritualism, capitalism, and more. Over the course of the class, you will learn to analyze and write academically on both the popular and scholastic reception of the genre.
2120.015: Intermediate Composition: What Does Genre Reveal?: Genre, Identity, and (Metaphorical) Place in Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House
Online
Rae Stringfield, stringfield@unm.edu
This course looks at genre through Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House and other media (essays, short stories, music, etc.) that bends genre in unique ways. Dream House tells the story of a queer relationship, which begins as a romance but turns abusive, through multiple genres—Romance, American Gothic, Choose Your Own Adventure, Sci-Fi Thriller, Murder Mystery, and more. Together we will investigate questions like: Who is present and who is absent in various genres? Who decides the boundaries of a genre? What does genre hide or reveal? How does genre influence our perceptions of the world and expectations of real-life situations?
2210.001: 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.
2240.001: Introduction to Studies in English
Face to Face, T 1230-1345
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 class visits with faculty members, attendance at departmental events, and a variety of 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: Introduction to Studies in English
Face to Face, W 1300-1350
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 class visits with faculty members, attendance at departmental events, and a variety of 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.
2310.002: Introduction to Creative Writing
Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Leo Williams, llwilliams@unm.edu
This course introduces students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, with an added emphasis on interrogating craft and craft expectations in the western world. Literary craft as we know it is as Mathew Salesses suggests, “the history of which kind of stories have typically held power — and for whom” and therefore, “it is also the history of which stories have typically been omitted.” Ultimately, there are different ways the world is felt and therefore different ways to write a story. We will read essays on craft and short stories that will show you what the standard conventions of writing have been and where, depending on cultural identities, they are headed. The goal is to learn to write like you, which means there will be times you need to break the rules of conventional expectations. You will read published works as models to emulate, but the focus of this "workshop" is on generating work, revising it, and then reflecting on your own writing qualities. We’ll read closely poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and stories that blur these boundaries, and analyze the craft features employed in these works. Find the craft features you like and try them out. You will be expected to write frequently in each of these genres and you’ll be expected to share what you write with the class through a writing workshop model. This means regular writing submissions are due a week before we meet as a class and peer feedback is due the day of a student's writing workshop.
Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z.
2310.003: Introduction to Creative Writing
Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Echo Jardini, echojardini@unm.edu
This course will introduce students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. The focus of this workshop course is on students writing, revising, and reflecting on their own work. Throughout this course, students will be expected to read poetry, fiction, and non-fiction closely, and analyze the craft features employed as models for their own work.
2310.004: Introduction to Creative Writing
Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Emily Graves, emgraves111@unm.edu
This course introduces students to the basic elements of creative writing, including short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study published works of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction as models, but this is first and foremost a writing workshop, with the focus of the course on students writing, revising, reflecting and productively critiquing their own and others pieces in all three of these genres.
Prerequisite: 1110, 1110Y, or 1110Z, or ACT English score of 26-28 or SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score of 660-690.
2310.015: Introduction to Creative Writing
Online
Kyndall Benning, kbenning3@unm.edu
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.
2510.001: Analysis of Literature
Face to Face MWF, 1000-1050
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.
2510.002: Analysis of Literature
Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Kalila Bohsali, kbohsali@unm.edu
English 2510 is the gateway course to the English major. While you learn disciplinary knowledge and disciplinary skills, you will also reflect on your reading practices and what it means to read for the profession AND the self. We will be facilitating all of this important learning through contemporary works; fiction, short-stories, poetry, and drama from the last twenty years. Specifically, the work of a new literary phenomena which I am terming Filthy Femininity, the writing of grotesque women by women. In this class we ask why narratives about women are turning to the filthy and bodily. Is it a natural evolution of the feminine in contemporary society? Is it an attempt to truly find the edges of the acceptable in contemporary fiction? And why is it so compelling to us, the reader?
This course will be rigorous. You will read around one novel of material a week, and although it will be “pleasure” reading, it will be a lot of reading. You will also spend significant time investigating your own reading practice and begin to answer the question, what is it that literary critics do? And how can we use those skill in a lot of different applications. While this course does not assume that you will go on to become a literary academic, it will give you the skills needed to do so while also preparing you for lifelong learning, reading, and writing.
Possible authors include Ottessa Moshfegh, Miranda July, Carmen Marie Machado, Lauren Groff, Rachel Yoder, Chris Kraus, Toni Morrison, Julie May Jones, Maggie Nelson, and Sheila Heti.
2610.001: American Literature I
Face to Face, MWF 1400-1450
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” before delving into the writings of Puritan settlement and Spanish colonization and the impact of both on Native American communities. In addition to focusing on the early writings of contact and colonization, including major English and Spanish writers, the class will also consider Native American creation stories, oral narratives, and other folk narratives, before moving into captivity narratives, religious poetry, and the slave narrative. The course covers writing from the Enlightenment and Revolutionary era, and it 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. Assignments include in-class and on-line discussion forums; three analysis essays; and three exams. Required text includes Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: A Norton Critical Edition, 2nd edition, ed. Frances Smith Foster and Richard Yarborough. Additional readings available on UNM Canvas.
2630.001: British Literature I
Face to Face, MWF 1200-1250
Jessie Bonafede, jkbonafede@unm.edu
Get ready to embark on a journey through a survey of British literature from the early Middle Ages to the close of the 18th century! In this course, we will explore intersections of literary expression, authorship, and audience by focusing on the thematic trends of sex, gender, and the body. From dragon-swallowed saints to ghost-infested castles, the Round Table, werewolves, and mystical erotic visions, the readings for this class are packed with intrigue concerning bodily experience and identity. In addition to analyzing key textual features, this class will also examine the importance of the historical and cultural milieus from which these texts originate and influence. Furthermore, this class will provide you with important skills to hone your literary analysis and arguments, as well as your comfortability engaging with the earliest parts of British literary history. Together we will delve into a rich trove of fantastic tales.
2640.001: British Literature II
Face to Face, TF 1100-1215
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu
2650.001: World Literature I: Community Building and Restorative Justice
Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
Nahir Otaño Gracia, nahir@unm.edu
A general overview of early world literature and culture with a focus on the themes of community building and restorative justice. Readings will include all or parts of such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh; selections from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Bhagavad Gita, and Qur’an; plays by Aeschylus and Kalidasa; poetry by Sappho, Li Bai, Ono no Komachi, and Farid ud-dun Attar, among others. Our ambitious goal is to investigate texts from China, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Japan, Persia, Arabia, India, and the Americas by exploring how we can read texts through a restorative justice model. Through this mode of study, we will gain a sense of the differences and similarities that shape the varieties of human experience across time and cultures. We will also explore how the globalization of colonization affects our understanding of early world literature and how to decenter a Western gaze in the study of the past.
2660.001: World Literature II
Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu
If shady political deals are a sign of our time, they are also a well-traveled phenomenon. English 2660 will explore narratives about “deals with the devil” in world literature from the 17th century to the present. Why do devils, demons, goblins, and trickster figures appear so often in literature as emblems of modern compromise and corruption? What kinds of deals with the devil do characters strike in order to survive, and which kinds of deals destroy them in the end? Our readings will traverse the world: we will encounter fiction, drama, poetry, and nonfiction from Africa, Asia, the Arab world, Europe, and the Americas. Throughout the course we will ask the following questions: Why do the same kinds of stories appear in many different literary traditions across time and space? Do narratives travel from one site to another, or do similar forms and plots emerge independently in societies that find themselves on the brink of modernity?
Class assignments will invite students to think about how literature is produced, funded, sold, circulated, and adapted. We will read about early editions of books, and we will explore digital archives for historical items that will offer us a sense of the time and place in which our literary works were created. We will also try our hand at theatrical set design, publicity, and community reading projects. The course will culminate in a final adaptation project that will invite groups to adapt any course text into a play staged and set in contemporary New Mexico. By adopting roles including director, publicist, set designer, research historian, and business manager, students will consider the artistic, financial, and institutional forces that bring literature into the world.
304.001: 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 literature. There are weekly quizzes and class discussions, two exams, and one short presentation.
305.001: Mythology
Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
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.
320.001: T: The Rhetoric of Sports
Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu
Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, is everywhere in sports. When you turn your TV to ESPN or watch the pre-game discussions before a sports broadcast or read the sports page of a newspaper, you don’t find only reporting on who won or lost. You find debate and argument—i.e., rhetoric. Commentators debate what player should be drafted first, what team will win the next matchup, who is the GOAT in a particular sport. Columnists argue about whether college athletes should be paid, what substances or equipment should be banned from certain sports, and how much taxpayers should contribute to the construction of new stadiums. Fans wear jerseys of their favorite players and argue with their friends about whether a referee made a bad call. Coaches give speeches to inspire their teams to victory. The public debates new rule changes in a sport or the appropriate punishments for athletes accused of wrongdoing. Players talk trash or post apologies on Twitter or kneel during the National Anthem. All of these are rhetorical acts, which make sports the perfect lens through which to learn about rhetoric.
During the course of the semester, students will learn rhetorical concepts—how to make arguments, how to see through fallacious arguments, and how to empathize with arguments they don’t necessarily agree with—by looking at various examples from sports. Although students with strong interests in sports are encouraged to enroll, students need not be die-hard sports fans to succeed in the course.
321.002: Intermediate Creative Writing Fiction
Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu
English 321 emphasizes the analysis, production, and revision of literary short stories. Our class will read and analyze published stories by a diverse selection of authors and do exercises designed to hone the use of craft elements, such as scene and summary, plot, character development, POV, and setting. Ideally, these exercises will inspire ideas for your stories. You will write and significantly revise two short stories during the semester.
We’ll explore how to create complex characters and realistic situations through carefully selected details that strip away the mask of the mundane. The craft techniques we study and writing we do should ideally serve you in all areas of your creative work, and though the focus of our writing and readings will be literary fiction, we’ll touch on how our what we're learning may also be incorporated if you write speculative and genre fiction.
322.001: Intermediate Creative Writing Poetry
Face to Face, TF 1230-1345
Stephen Benz, sbenz@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 workshop 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: The Art of the Memoir
Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Gregory Martin, gmartin@unm.edu
In this course, we will focus on one of the many forms of creative nonfiction – the Memoir. We will read and study memoir both in its essay-length form and in its book-length form. In doing so, we will ask the questions: How is the memoir different from, and similar to, the novel? The short story? What makes the author of the memoir credible? What are the boundaries between truth and invention? What ethical obligations does the memoirist have to the real people who populate their stories, who in one sense will never become “characters.” Are these obligations different from the author’s obligations to the audience? All the while, we will be writing our own personal narratives—memoirs of our own, experimenting each week with low-stakes freewrites, exercises, and improvisations, and later choosing two of these pieces to expand upon and workshop together. The class will help you to build upon your understanding of prose 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. In the beginning weeks of class, we will focus on generating material, experimenting with different craft techniques, creating the messy “stuff” out of which all good writing comes. Throughout the semester, we will focus on the ways that good writing is collaborative and that responding constructively to another’s work is an equally important skill, and as much an act of the imagination. One primary goal is to encourage you to write what is urgent and essential to who you are—to help you develop your writing persona, the character who is you, telling a story. Finally, I hope to debunk the myth of the artist. We all can participate in the making of art.
343.001: Chinese Women Writers
Face to Face, MW 1700-1815
Ying Xu, yingxu@unm.edu
This course will consist of two parts, with part one surveying Chinese women writers and the representations of women and virtue in traditional Chinese literature and part two examining the changing roles and consciousness of women in modern and contemporary China through the lens of feminism and the “New Woman.” The course will start with a perusal of Chinese mythology and classics in terms of women’s place in the creation of the universe and in the Chinese systems of structure and society. By examining various modes of representation, including poetry, essay, art, fiction, and drama, by women writers both in traditional and modern Chinese literature, the course aims at exploring new perspectives on issues such as gender studies, feminine, women’s liberation, and family and work.
We will explore the following questions in the course. What do Chinese women wish to liberate themselves from? In what ways does the problem of gender complicate the ideological advent of modernity in China? And how do the paradigms of traditional Chinese culture and the contemporary situation of globalization impact Chinese women and their writings today? Throughout the course, we examine how several generations of intellectuals reconciled themselves to – and resisted – the expectations of women under Confucianism, communism and capitalism in the late nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Authors examined include Can Yan, Li Qingzhao, Qiu Jin, Ding Ling, Xiao Hong, Zhang Ailing, and Wang Anyi and more. Knowledge of Chinese is not required.
347.001: Viking Mythology
Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Nicholas Schwartz, nschwar@unm.edu
This course is designed to comprehensively introduce students to Viking Mythology. It will cover Norse ideas about the creation of the world, the end of the world, and pretty much everything in between. Students should expect to read about Odin, Thor, Loki, and a host of other characters not so well-known today in addition to accounts of important events like the conversion to Christianity. Texts include, but are not limited to, The Elder/Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, and The Saga of the Volsungs. Moreover, students will learn about the culture(s) that produced these wonderful stories and their literary conventions. This course will foster a valuable familiarity with this important mythological tradition and expose students to a variety of methods of reading them. Assignments include a midterm, final, written assignments, and discussion board posts.
349.001: Beowulf to Arthur
Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Nahir Ontaño Gracia, nahir@unm.edu
This course is designed as an introduction to British Medieval literature from a Global perspective, c. 700-1500. While most texts will be read in Modern English translations, class lectures will provide some background on the languages of Britain, including English, French, Norse, Irish, and Welsh. The class will pay close attention to the ways that community and community-building—in its cultural, social, political and Global environments—influenced the development of British literature. Readings will introduce students to a wide variety of medieval genres such as epic, poetry, romance, mystical revelation, and outlaw tales.
352.001: Early Shakespeare
Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu
This course covers the Elizabethan-era works of William Shakespeare. In examining his drama and poetry, the course will focus on the various conventions of the sub-genres of comedy, histroy and tragedy. Students will gain familiarity with the early works of Shakespeare and an understanding of the Early Modern theater as well as the importance of Shakespeare’s dramatic innovations. Texts include: Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar and Hamlet.
353.002: Sensing Later Shakespeare
Online
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu
Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, even tasting—Shakespeare’s plays engage all our senses. In this class, you will learn to identify how Shakespeare’s later plays, such as Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest, created multisensorial experiences for their original audiences in seventeenth-century England. You will also undertake embodied research to reflect on these experiences today. At the same time, you will develop tools to examine still-relevant issues in these “old” plays, like racism, misogyny, settler colonialism, and sexual harassment. This class is held asynchronously, so you will need to manage your time in order to accomplish course activities. In addition to weekly readings, course activities will include review of instructor-made content, submission of check-ins, participation in group discussions, completion of experiential journaling, and design and completion of an independent or collaborative project. Students who have experienced trauma should be aware that course materials include potentially triggering content.
364.001: T: Native Representations in Film
Face to Face, T 1600-1830
Sarah Hernandez, hernands@unm.edu
This course examines the portrayal of Native Americans in film, and the effects those representations have had on our knowledge of and interaction with tribes and tribal people. Native representations in film, television, and literature tend to vacillate from one extreme to the other. Native American men are often either portrayed as noble warriors or ignoble savages, while Native females are stereotyped as beautiful princesses or downtrodden squaws. Although some of these stereotypes are positive and seemingly innocuous, many of these misrepresentations have had a detrimental effect on tribes, as these anti-Indianisms tend to dehumanize Native people, and contribute to their invisibility in mainstream society. Research indicates that this type of marginalization and exclusion is also problematic, because it tends to erode the public’s perception of tribes and support for tribal issues. In this course, we will investigate the origins of these myths and stereotypes; consider how film, literature, and the media has been used to oppress Native people and communities; and explore how contemporary filmmakers, scholars, and grassroots practitioners are challenging these representations, and changing the narrative about tribes and tribal people.
388.003: T: Contemporary American Cinema
Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
Jesús Costantino, jcostantino@unm.edu
This course examines contemporaryAmerican films produced across the US and Latin America by way of their shared social, economic, and political histories. We will pay careful attention to the cinematic genres, traditions, venues, and formats that appear in contemporary American cinema while also learning fundamental skills in film studies, film-focused library research, and comparative cultural analysis.
Over the past decade, new sources of funding have created a new global market for Latin American cinema, while at the same timeHollywood films from the US have grown increasingly global in their content and production. Through regular film viewings, course readings, and frequent discussions, students will confront these recent transformations in the US and Latin American film industries. Because this course is also interested in the current conditions of filmmaking, students will also be asked to consider the continued relevance of feature-length filmmaking in the digital era, in which binge-watching, fan edits, amateur criticism, and streaming platforms have come to dominate the contemporary cinematic landscape.
417.001: Editing
Online
Cristyn Elder, celder@unm.edu
This course places an emphasis on professional editing for the workplace and may also help students improve the editing of their own writing. Along with practicing advanced copyediting skills, you will learn how to perform comprehensive editing that results in documents that are complete, accurate, comprehensible, usable, and reader focused. Assignments include regular readings, homework, an editing project, and a reflection on your progress toward the student learning outcomes. This course does not include a midterm or final exam.
418.001: Proposal and Grant Writing
Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Charles Paine, cpaine@unm.edu
In this course, you will learn how to write persuasive grant proposals. Drawing off 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 organization powerfully. We will explore how to locate appropriate funding opportunities and how to evaluate requests for proposals. We will also discuss methods of writing persuasively that are both ethical and effective, and study how to use document design to create a professional proposal package.
Proposals are written for specific sets of readers who participate within different discourse communities and communities of practice. In roughly the second half of the course, each of you will explore the communities of practice that you hope to join in your years beyond college, whether that’s an academic, professional, or civic community. That is, in the second half each of you will “choose your own adventure” and learn the discourse conventions for proposals of the communities you hope to become active participants in.
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.
419.001: Visual Rhetoric
Face to Face, MW 1400-1515
Bethany Davila, bdavila@unm.edu
This course covers the fundamentals of visual argumentation, specifically focusing on the analysis of how visuals persuade audiences as well as the development of our own visual persuasion. Within this broader topic, we will focus on the ways visual rhetoric is used to advocate for or “speak or write in favor of” others. You will choose an advocacy issue related to a historically vulnerable or underrepresented group and use that issue to guide your completion of three major assignments: analysis of visual rhetoric of a real-world text, the revision of the visual rhetoric of a real-world text, and the final creation of a visually-persuasive advocacy document.
420.001: T: Blue Mesa Review II
Face to Face, MWF 1400-1450
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu
This class 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 is to assess these submissions for possible publication in BMR. In addition, you will keep a journal 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.
In order to enroll in this class, you should have first completed introductory creative writing. Email me at clarkmp@unm.edu to get you set up to enroll in the class. Tell me a little about what courses you've taken, what your literary interests are, and be sure to add your Banner ID number.
421.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction
Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu
“The Muse visits while you’re writing, not before.” --Roger Ebert
People often think that to be a writer you have to have an idea and then write it down—that writing is thinking transcribed. So they wait for an idea to come and end up never writing. In this class, we won’t wait for inspiration. We’ll learn that writing is not thinking reported—writing is a form of thinking.
We’ll cover a wide variety of genres, forms, and styles of fiction, while paying particular attention to flash fiction as a way of pulling stories from our unconscious. Students will write weekly flash stories (1,000 words or fewer) while also working on and workshopping longer pieces of fiction. Additionally, students will read, analyze, and discuss published examples of fiction and craft essays. It’s my philosophy that students develop as writers by writing and reading a variety of fiction, and doing so in an environment conducive to experimentation. I hope to make our class such an environment.
Please note: If you don’t meet the prerequisites for this course but feel you have the writing background and experience to succeed in the class, email me (abourelle@unm.edu) and we can talk about a possible override.
422.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry
Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Michelle Brooks, mbrooks7@unm.edu
Students will be expected to read, write, and discuss their own work, as well as that of other contemporary poets and their peers. We will discuss poetry in workshop, as well as in other formats. We will also discuss issues related to publication, readings, and the writing life.
442.001: Major Text in Rhetoric
Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Charles Paine, cpaine@unm.edu
The word “rhetoric” is a term of derision these days. Mere rhetoric is what people often blame for the current state of our democracy and our world. But there’s much more to rhetoric than “mere” rhetoric. These are some of the questions that rhetoric has grappled with for millennia. What persuades people to believe what they believe? Can we persuade others without manipulating them? Can we ethically change other people’s minds? What is the relationship between logic (or reasoning) and rhetoric? What good is rhetorical training? Does it make us better communicators, better thinkers, more savvy consumers of rhetoric? Can rhetoric help us induce the truth or only belief? Other questions might be more relevant for addressing today’s most pressing issues. Does the health of a democratic state and society depend on the health of rhetorical practice? Is there a clear distinction between democratic rhetoric and mere demagoguery, between ethical rhetoric and manipulation? How have new technologies—the alphabet, printing press, or Internet—resulted in new forms of rhetoric?
To address these and other questions, we’ll read texts from a wide swathe of history, from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Enlightenment and 19th- century philosophers, 20th-century rhetorical theorists, and writing scholars, neuroscientists, and social scientists from the past few decades.
For a typical class session, you’ll watch an online performance (sometimes an online lecture from me, sometimes a political speech, sometimes maybe a TikTok video) before class. That will free up our in-class time for discussion, problem posing, and exploring your ideas and projects. We’ll be reading mostly primary texts, but we’ll also learn to do some rhetorical analyses on a variety of texts. These will be works that include only words on pages and other kinds of performative works that consist of aural and visual elements. For assignments, you’ll also complete several shorter assignments and a semester project that explores a question that is especially important to you.
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 communications with greater sophistication, and to persuade others (i.e., pretty much everyone nowadays).
444.001: Practicum: Tutoring Writing
Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Rachael Reynolds, reynoldsr@unm.edu
You'll learn how to discuss, analyze, and apply theories in composition, tutoring, and writing center pedagogy. You'll develop your own broad theoretical basis for helping others develop their writing skills, purpose, and voice. You'll also have the chance to work with these theories and pedagogical practices in real-life situations (e.g. working as a peer tutor with current Core Writing English students; assisting graduate instructors with supplemental informational workshops).
458.001: Modern British Literature
Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu
This course will approach the subject of British and Irish modernism by exploring authors’ experiments with time. The modernists were fascinated with the phenomenon of time, especially its two extremes: the plodding minute-by-minute progression of modern-day living, and the vast expanse of the mythical past. Our readings will focus on two of their signature temporal (time-related) experiments, the single-day narrative and the two-day narrative. Texts will include poetry, plays, film, and novels—including James Joyce’s masterpiece, the novel Ulysses, which we will read (almost) in its entirety. The works we will encounter are experimental, often funny or downright irreverent, and openly ambitious. The class invites students to approach the material with curiosity, good humor, and a willingness to get lost and sometimes confused! No previous experience with the topic or material is needed. Our course will conclude with a unit on the global “turn” in modernist studies, where we will trace modernism’s far and long-lasting legacies in contemporary world literature and film. Assignments will include presentations, critical essays, and a research blog that will invite students to investigate the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and manifold ideas of the modernist era.
465.001: Chicanx Literary Studies
Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Jesús Constantino, jcostantino@unm.edu
468.001: Early American Contact and Crisis
Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu
In this course we will read key texts tracing ideas about individual and community belonging in the Americas during the period 1500 - 1830. Beginning with accounts of the crisis to European ideas presented by encounters with indigenous societies, we will focus on the many divergent beliefs about land, nation, authority, sovereignty, and voice encapsulated in documents of this period. From there we'll move to Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1542) and Jean de Léry (1578), who demonstrate that a series of contingencies helped forge a history that was far from inevitable. Mary Rowlandson’s 1682 narrative of her captivity by the Narragansett, and the contradictions between Mattaponi oral tradition and Anglo-American revisionist accounts of the life of Pocahontas, remind us of the ideological violence that founds the early United States. Simón Bolívar, Julien Raimond, and other Caribbean and Latin American writers resist European and rising U.S. imperialism well before the development of the Monroe Doctrine. Mary Prince’s and Olaudah Equiano’s stories of enslavement and escape reflect the wide range of cultural influences that shape emerging concepts of race. Thomas Paine's influential Revolutionary-era tract Common Sense and Hannah Foster’s best-selling 1797 novel The Coquette appeal to concepts of universal humanism while reflecting assumptions about gender and class. An emphasis on historical and political context will help us understand how this tumultuous time inaugurates the struggles of later eras.
487.001: T: Tragedy
Online
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu
What is tragedy? Who counts as a tragic hero? How do tragic stories relate to real-world events like disasters, genocide, and personal loss? Where do our answers to these questions come from? And how have they changed (or not) in an increasingly secular world? As a member of this class, you will take on these questions through a study of tragedy across time, space, and genre. You will analyze theories of tragedy alongside plays, short stories, images, and film to develop a fuller understanding of tragedy and the tragic as critical concepts and creative modes. This class is held asynchronously, so you will need to manage your time in order to accomplish course activities. In addition to weekly readings, course activities will likely include reviewing instructor-made content, submissing check-ins, participating in group discussions, and designing a research project. Students who have experienced trauma should be aware that course materials include potentially triggering content.
499.001: Internship
Online
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu
ENGL 499 is designed to allow students to earn course credit while gaining real-world experience. Students can work in a wide variety of internships, including technical communication, editing and publishing, public relations and marketing, news reporting, and more. The primary requirement is that the internship consists primarily of writing and/or editing.
English 499 is offered on a case-by-case basis (similar to an independent study). There is no regularly scheduled class.
Students who obtain professional writing or editing internships and would like to receive course credit should contact Associate Professor Andrew Bourelle (abourelle@unm.edu). Instructor permission is required to enroll.
