Upcoming Semester Courses - Spring 2025

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: The Way We Read Now

Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
Jesus Costantino, jcostantino@unm.edu

This course takes a unique approach to contemporary literature. While the ultimate goal for the course is to read and understand the concerns and styles of present-day writers, the course also recognizes that “reading” happens in many varied forms beyond printed books, and even beyond digital e-books. The frequent opposition between print and digital reading disguises the important ways that each format has grown increasingly heterogeneous and blended. In fact, despite what many doomsayers claim, we very likely read more now than ever before.

There is no overt "theme" that unites the texts we will read in this class: instead, you will learn to be attentive to the ways in which new literary forms better suit today's readers. By the end of the course, you will have developed an informed understanding of the many different guises that literature adopts in contemporary life.

1410.002: Introduction to Literature

Online
TBD, email@unm.edu

This course aims to help students become more comfortable reading and analyzing 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 intuitively use grammar all day and every day, regardless of whether you realize it. As a speaker of English, you employ 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: A Study of Work, Class, and Fulfillment in Media

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Paris Baldante, pbaldante@unm.edu  

In this course, we’ll look at media that addresses the intersection of and conflict between our dreams and our jobs. Many of us have been told to readjust our career expectations and aim for more practical and realistic goals. But where do work and happiness converge? Class conflict and the role of labor in our lives will be a major topic of discussion. Other inquiries we will delve into include: Is consumerism inescapable? How does industrialization and automation impact us? What is the role of bureaucracy? Are labor movements any match for corporations? Is “do what you love” even good advice?

2120.002: Intermediate Composition: Ravenous Appetites: An Exploration of the Presence of Food in Literature

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Allie Pensabene, apensabene@unm.edu

From medieval mead hall feasts to home-cooked meals, food is a central part of culture. Just as physically eating food causes euphoria or nausea, food is used in literature and media to evoke visceral responses. The selected texts showcase perspectives from authors of various genders, time periods, and cultures in order to identify the way that food is used to communicate the human condition. Themes that will be analyzed include ritual, death, memory, religion, sexuality, and status. Come, partake of this delicious exploration into humanity’s ravenous appetites.

2120.003: Intermediate Composition: Brewing Her Rebellion: Witchcraft from 500 to 1600

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Asa Holcombe, aholcombe@unm.edu

From the early Middle Ages to the early modern the understanding of magic developed from a force of nature to a conceptualization of the demonic which lends itself to the persecution of minority groups, many of which were labeled as witches. This course explores the literary history and rhetoric used to persecute people labeled as a witch and the rhetoric of those who resisted the witch hunters. Students will explore folklore, brewing, alchemy, hagiography, esoteric philosophy

and the impact of religiosity on perceptions of the world and how those perceptions shaped narratives of persecution and resistance.

2120.004: Intermediate Composition: Writing for Social Justice

Face to Face, MWF 900-950
Kani Aniegboka, kani@unm.edu

How do we write about social justice, and why? To what extent do we address social justice in our writing? These questions probably bring to mind activism, which employs direct rhetoric, but that is just one approach. Writing for social justice includes writing with an awareness of how social issues are intertwined with your subject by identifying the power dynamics, biases, and systemic inequalities that play a role in it. In this class, you will engage in classroom activities to explore, critique, and apply the fundamental concepts of justice, conflict, and social change. We will explore and discuss the importance of word choices and representation in writing.

2120.005: Intermediate Composition: A Study of (Non) Romantic Relationships in Media

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Jeslyn Pool, pooljm23@unm.edu

Are romantic relationships the highest form of relationship? With some 2023 polls indicating that Gen Z wants less sex & less hyper-fixation on romantic relationships in media, a study of relationship representation in popular culture is primed. What relationships might be more intimate than romantic ones? Parent-child? Siblings? Bromance? Best friends? Found family? Have all cultures been as romantically focused as dominant/Hollywood US culture historically? In this class, we will research a range of material (film, music, graphic novels, short stories, etc.) from the past and present to forecast what the next era of relationship narration and representation might look like in popular culture.

2120.006: Intermediate Composition: Riverine Crossings: Geographical and Spiritual Journeys

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215

Doaa Omran, domran@unm.edu

Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” This course introduces students to literary works that depict how writers and fictional characters embark on riverine journeys to lose themselves, to find themselves, and sometimes, maybe, to be transformed into someone else somewhere else for a while. A river forms a calmer, less stormy frontier than a sea, where one can speculate and reflect on oneself even when stepping out of one’s comfort zone. The physical and psychological liminalities experienced along rivers have inspired authors to cover journeys along multiple watercourses, such as the Mississippi, the Paraná, the Thames, the Nile, and the Congo. Mythological Journeys across sacred rivers, such as in The Epic of Gilgamesh, are also scrutinized in this class.

2120.007: Intermediate Composition: Clear and Present Dangers: A Critical Look at Technology in Literature

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515

Joseph Byrne, jbyrne@unm.edu

Technology is an ever-present force in our lives. From the clothing we wear to the media that attempts to influence us, technology has the ability to shape the way we perceive and engage with the world. Going all the way back to ancient Greece, it has captured the attention of writers’ imaginations and affected their work. This class provides a lens with which to view this work, to understand the ways in which technology has shaped literary production in the past (and continues to shape it today), and posits relevant, important questions for students to consider in the context of their own lives.

2120.015: Intermediate Composition: Talking Trash: Researching the Rhetoric of Garbage

Online
Cyrus Stuvland, cstuvland@unm.edu

Who and what do we consider trash(y) and why? Where does our trash go when we throw it “away”? In this class, we’ll apply rhetorical theory to everything from trash cans and recycling campaigns to the ways waste management contributes to the construction of race, class, and gender. We’ll explore what it means to be living in a throw-away society and what systems, beliefs, and interests shape cultural understandings of garbage. Through readings, films, field trips, and a semester-long research project, we’ll get our hands dirty as we critically analyze the many worlds of waste.

2210.001: Professional & Technical Communication 

Many days, times, and online sections available

Course description video

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.

2220.001: Introduction to Professional Writing

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Stephen Benz, sbenz@unm.edu

The main purpose of this course is to give students a basic understanding of what professional writers and editors do. Toward this end, the course introduces students to the practices and procedures of professional writing and editing. It also covers career opportunities available in professional writing. Students will learn about expository writing style, persuasion, and document design. Students will also learn how to deal with ethical situations that often arise in corporate, professional, private, and public workplaces.
Projects in this course will guide students through the process of document development and introduce students to the most common genres of workplace writing. These projects are designed to help students create some initial materials for a portfolio to use when looking for an internship or employment in the field.

2240.001: Introduction to Studies in English

Face to Face, T 1230-1345 & Remote Scheduled, R 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: Introduction to Studies in English

Face to Face, W 1300-1350 & Remote Scheduled R 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.

2310.002: Introduction to Creative Writing    

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Lucas Garcia, lgarcia20@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. 

Prerequisite: 1110 or 1110Y or 1110Z.

2310.003: Introduction to Creative Writing        

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Bianca Lucero, blucero18@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. 

2310.004: Introduction to Creative Writing        

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
John Hardberger, jhardberger@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
Julianne Peterman, jpeterman1@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. 

2510.001: Analysis of Literature 

Face to Face MWF, 1100-1150 
TBD, email@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
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu

The work of reading literature involves a particular set of processes and tools. In this course we will practice close reading and critical analysis, as well as examining how select works of fiction, poetry, drama, and rhetoric 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, 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 different methodologies and begin using them in collaboration with focused research and comparative interpretation. On midterm and final essay examinations as well as weekly short responses, students will be expected to demonstrate their ability to present informed arguments about literary works, supported by specific textual evidence.

2560.001: Introduction to Native American Literature

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Sarah Hernandez, hernands@unm.edu

This course is designed to introduce students to early and contemporary Native American literatures.  In the United States, there are currently 574 federally-recognized tribes (plus 63 state-recognized tribal nations), each with their own unique cultures, languages, histories, and literary traditions.  Obviously, we cannot cover the creative works of all of these different tribal groups and Indigenous communities in one class. Special emphasis will be placed on Diné authors and poets. This semester, we will use the newly published textbook, The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature, to guide us toward a broader understanding of Navajo oral stories, writing, culture, racism, prejudice, intergenerational trauma, and resilience.  We will analyze Diné poetry, short stories, memoirs, and other writings in their specific cultural/historical contexts, and start to examine some of the shared thematic concerns and literary strategies expressed by each of these writers.

2610.001: American Literature I

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
TBD, email@unm.edu

This course description will be updated when the information is available. 

2630.001: British Literature I

Face to Face, MWF 1200-1250
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu

This course is a survey of literary works produced in Britain from the early Middle Ages to the close of the 18^th century. Readings include the epic Beowulf, the romance Sir Orfeo, medieval and Renaissance drama, the poetry of John Donne, Eliza Haywood’s novella Fantomina and the memoir of Olaudah Equiano. The course is organized into the following thematic sections: Medieval Heroes, Religion, Love and Gender, Politics and Society, The Clash of Cultures. The goal of the course is both to gain an understanding of the development of literary forms and traditions as well as to put texts into conversation with each other in order to gain a sense of both the history and the variety of human experience.

2640.001: British Literature II

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu

2650.001: World Literature I: Community Building and Restorative Justice

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Nahir Otaño Gracia, nahir@unm.edu

In this course, students will read representative world masterpieces from ancient, medieval, and renaissance literature. Students will broaden their understanding of literature and their knowledge of other cultures through exploration of how literature represents individuals, ideas and customs of world cultures. The course focuses strongly on examining the ways literature and culture intersect and define each other. Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts.

A general overview of early world literature and culture with a focus on the themes of hate and restorative justice. Readings will include all or parts of such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh; selections from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and Qur’an; a play by Euripides; 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 and sound design, book publicity, and community reading projects. Throughout, 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: Rhetorics of Indigenous Futurisms 

Face to Face, MW 1100-1215 
Madeline Mendoza, mmendoza13@unm.edu

This course explores a wide range of multimedia texts within the genre of Indigenous Futurisms. Indigenous Futurisms encompass narratives that envision Indigenous futures through science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy. We will delve into how Indigenous Futurisms, as powerful forms of storytelling, intersect with literature, art, music, films, video games, fashion, activism, and other academic disciplines. By analyzing these intersections alongside rhetorics of survivance and meaning-making, students will grasp how Indigenous Futurisms foster and sustain Indigenous social alterities, paving innovative pathways rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems that span past, present, and future generations.

Topics include the intersections of Indigenous Futurisms with literary, artistic, visual, and digital storytelling; their pivotal role in decolonization efforts; Indigenous perspectives on science; critiques of technology, advancement, sustainability, and justice; and Indigenous concepts of time. Throughout the course, students will engage in futurist praxis, actively demonstrating and sharing their approaches to worldmaking while recognizing and participating in decolonization as a collective endeavor open to all.

321.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction 

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
Daniel Mueller, dmueller@unm.edu

This course 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, MWF 1300-1350
Sara Rivera, english@unm.edu

This intermediate workshop course will begin with the concept of a poem’s “unsayable center” (Marie Howe) and go on to explore poetic techniques–such as sound, visuality, perspective, and form–that can be used to craft a poem while supporting that emotional core. We’ll read and discuss sample work from a culturally diverse pool of poets, including poems in translation and multilingual poems. Students will generate writing weekly through prompted, in-class exercises, and will develop a journaling practice over the course of the class. Weekly assignments will give students the opportunity to apply techniques and workshop several poems. 

323.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Nonfiction

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Gregory Martin, gmartin@unm.edu

In this course, we will explore creative nonfiction in the highly flexible form of the personal narrative, a personal essay that tells a story, and so has much in common with short fiction in its shape and plot.  We will read and discuss published work, and we will also write our own personal narratives, experimenting in the opening weeks of class with low-stakes exercises, and later expanding, drafting and revising these into more complex, resonant essays.  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.

347.001: Viking Mythology

Face to Face, TR 930-1045
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.

348.001: T: Radical Women: Medieval and Now 

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Nahir Otano Gracia, nahir@unm.edu

This course explores the connections between gender and literary expression with a focus on medieval women writers from late antiquity to the fifteenth century. We will examine the social, cultural, and literary patterns linking the lives of medieval women writers with their works. Medieval women writers tend to express different attitudes and concerns than those associated with medieval European literature and culture, nevertheless, their attitudes and concerns parallel ideologies expressed by modern women writers. Some of these themes are: art and freedom, importance of community building, and body politics. We will discuss the ways these themes have changed from medieval times to the present and the ways in which women continue to face similar struggles. The course aims to introduce medieval women writers by juxtaposing their medieval texts with modern texts written by women of color that express paralleled themes in a more contemporary setting. The medieval women writers include Hildegard of Bingen and Marie de France, Christine of Markyate and the modern writers include Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent), Leslie Malmon Silko, and Ana Castillo. Ana Castillo in particular uses the stories of medieval women writers and rewrites them for a contemporary US Latin(e)x audience.

352.001: Early Shakespeare

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215  
Carmen Nocentelli, nocent@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: Later Shakespeare 

Online
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu

Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, even tasting—Shakespeare’s plays engage all our senses. In this class, we will examine a selection of plays that Shakespeare wrote in the latter half of his career, both well-known plays like Macbeth, Othello, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night, and lesser-known ones, including Cymbeline, Pericles, and The Winter's Tale. We will examine the plays' evocation of multisensorial experiences for playgoers and for readers and will feature embodied research, like cooking early modern recipes and viewing public art in our region. At the same time, we will consider pressing social and political issues in Shakespeare's plays, like racism, misogyny, abuse of power, and settler colonialism. Students with learning needs that may impact their embodied research and students who have experienced trauma should reach out to the professor as soon as possible.

This class is held fully asynchronously. What this means is that students need reliable internet connections and effective time management. In addition to preparation of Shakespeare's plays and instructional content, course activities include regular check-ins, group discussions, and scholarly and embodied research.  

363.001: 19th Century America

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

Our course focuses on the long nineteenth-century period, roughly 1790 – 1910. We will examine both canonical and under-read works, towards the goal of situating authors in cultural and historical context via focus on a few key concepts that were widely influential throughout this period. The nineteenth century was an extraordinarily tumultuous, culturally vibrant era of American literary history, during which much of what we now understand as basic truths about the relationship of literature and politics, science and reality, social movements and art were debated by the authors we’re going to discuss. Required materials will include novels, short fiction, essays, and poetry, with incursions into photography, journalism, advertising, and film. Students will be evaluated on a series of short response papers, one midterm essay exam, and a final paper.

366.001: African American Literature II: Tony Morrison

Face to Face, MW 1530-1645
Finnie Coleman, coleman@unm.edu

In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison urges us to “Stop picking around the edges of the world. Take advantage, and if you can’t take advantage, take disadvantage. We live here. On this planet, in this nation, in this country right here. Nowhere else! We got a home in this rock, don’t you see! Nobody starving in my home; nobody crying in my home, and if I got a home you got one too! Grab it. Grab this land!” In this course we will study Toni Morrison’s novels with an eye toward examining Morrison’s deployment of Afrofuturism and Critical Race Theory as her characters navigate the pantheon of “contracts” that have governed life and living in the Americas since the age of conquest.  We will begin with a primer in historical context, political philosophy, and ethnic identity development before taking a deep dive into novels like Sula, Tar Baby, Song of Solomon and of course, Beloved. Students should understand that Morrison’s novels contain graphic material that will be discussed regularly and openly in class. 

374.001: Southwest Literature and Culture: Borderlands Narratives and Culture

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu

In this course we will utilize a historical framework to investigate the production of the US-Mexico border and the culture that surrounds this arbitrary construct.  We will start our investigation in the nineteenth-century and move to our global age to examine how the process of racialization and technologies such as gender and sexuality inform the constantly shifting ideologies of the border.  Starting in the nineteenth century, we will look at political and legal documents of US Expansion and Manifest Destiny in the wake of empire to not only examine the production of the border, but also examine how the logics of settler colonialism and the construction of blackness are a haunting presence in the invention of “Mexican America”. 

We will be focusing on “invention” and “construction” as a historical process and will look at letters, travel narratives, and visuals to think through the logics of shifting borders within US Empire and how the many wars going on within this historical time period further shaped its existence.  In conjunction with the historical specificity, we will be looking at borderland theories that consider how border histories reflect different subjectivities and positionalities, beginning with the canonical Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands: La Frontera (1987). 

Some questions we will be asking are: How do the legacies of racial, gender, sexual, and class differentiation inform or (re) produce the geopolitical space of the border within U.S. Empire and Imperialism?  How do the fiction, short stories, letters, films, art, and theories undermine and challenge conventional histories of citizenship, US history, and shifting borders?  In constructing a historical and structural framework of the border, we will move to contemporary discussions of how the border becomes an abject and fungible space in our current global age.  Focusing on gender, sexuality, and the border, we will look at films by Lourdes Portillo Senorita Extraviada, Funari and De La Torres Maquiapolis, Alex Rivera Sleep Dealer, Dan DeVivo Crossing Arizona, Tin Dirdamal De Nadie.

378.001: T: Jane Austen

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Aeron Haynie, ahaynie@unm.edu

What explains the enduring popularity of Jane Austen's novels? With countless film adaptations, fan fiction, memoirs, and spins offs, Austen's fiction continues to be an important part of both pop culture and the traditional canon. Jane Austen's novels have come to represent Britishness, chick-lit, and (in some cases) whiteness. But do Austen's novels offer an uncritical representation of heterosexual romance, the landed gentry, and marriage?

In this course we will look at how Austen's novels (and a selection of retellings and criticism) grapple with changing ideas of marriage and class, colonialism and race.

Classwork will consist of discussions, short papers, and an individual project of your choosing (which can be a traditional research paper, an analysis of an aspect of Austen-inspired pop culture, a lesson plan for teaching Austen in high school, creative responses to Austen, or other approved projects).

All majors welcome! 

411.001: T: Social Justice in the Arts        

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Scarlett Higgins, shiggins@unm.edu

Social Justice through the Arts is a course for students who wish to learn about the strategies and tactics that writers and other artists have used to address and intervene in the political problems of their times, with the goal of moving toward a more just and equitable world for all. The course will spend approximately eight weeks examining the work of past and present practitioners in the arts who have directed their work toward the causes of social justice; in the second half of the semester, students will work on their own projects involving social justice and the arts, which may be creative, critical, or in the public humanities (or a combination of these). No particular previous experience or course work is necessary to take this course, only a willingness to learn and share one's work. If you have any questions regarding this course, please email Professor Scarlett Higgins at shiggins@unm.edu.

416.001: Indigenous Biography and Autobiography        

Face to Face, T 1600-1830
Sarah Hernandez, hernands@unm.edu

Life writing (a generic term to describe a vast range of texts: from biography and autobiography to memoirs, letters, journals, etc.) has been richly practiced by a number of Indigenous authors from the boarding school era until present. This semester, students will focus upon select works by Oceti Sakowin (Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota) writers from the Northern Great Plains. We will analyze key terms to discuss this literature (life, writing, self, identity, fiction, history) as well as consider the unique cultural approaches specifically taken by Indigenous authors (nationhood, sovereignty, self-determination, and community-building). In this course, we will use the tools of literary and cultural studies to analyze the works of Oceti Sakowin writers and scholars such as: Charles Eastman (Santee Dakota), Luther Standing Bear (Oglala Lakota), Zitkala Sa (Yankton Nakota), Ella Cara Deloria (Yankton Nakota), and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Crow Creek Dakota) to name a few. 

417.002: Editing

Face to Face, MW 1400-1515
Bethany Davila, bdavila@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 homework, three projects, and a reflection on your progress toward student learning outcomes. This course does not include a midterm or a final exam.

418.001: Proposal and Grant Writing        

Face to Face, TR 1530-1800

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

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 include but also go beyond so-called clarity. We’ll discuss writing and design strategies that are both ethical and effective, and study how to use document design to create a professional proposal package.

Because proposal writing is rarely a solitary task, but rather a process of working with others to identify needs, locate opportunities, and develop persuasive solutions, it is helpful to understand how the process works in the real world. Therefore, although it is not essential, I urge you to find a real cause, project, organization, or company that you can work with in a collaborative manner.

419.001: Visual Rhetoric

Online       
Cristyn Elder, celder@unm.edu

This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of visual argumentation and will cover various aspects of document design, including layout, use of headings, typography, photos, illustrations, charts, tables, and graphs for both personal and professional contexts. You will complete weekly readings on the above aspects of visual rhetoric and analyze real-world examples. Assignments will include the revision of a real-world text and your creation of an advocacy document related to your chosen topic.

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 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. 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!

421.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction 

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu

In this course, 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 mind. 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. 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.

422.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu

In this advanced creative writing workshop, we will focus on your poetry! While this class presupposes a certain understanding of the genre: ie. at least a basic understanding of the use of image, line, and form, our goals in this course will be to hone craft skills, try new styles and forms of poetry, and practice revision skills. We will read the work of published authors, including some who may visit class, and focus on workshopping student poems. We'll also do a variety of writing exercises to help inspire new poems.

450.001: T: Middle English Heroes, Saints, and Lovers  

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
Anita Obermeier, aobermei@unm.edu

This course is an introductory sampling of medieval literature (and some art) produced in England and the immediate Continent between 1066 and 1500. We start this historical, linguistic, and literary enterprise with the Bayeux Tapestry—art with text—fighting alongside Anglo-Saxon warriors. Then we will pray with English saints, sleuth with historians, learn the art of courtly love from medieval knights and ladies, look at the nature of God with mystics, and watch biblical drama unfold. The original texts are in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and various dialects of Middle English, which we will study in modern English, in bilingual facing-page translations, and the easier ones in Middle English. The texts cover various secular and religious genres, including epic, debate, saints’ lives, fabliau, lais, romance, drama, allegory, and lyrics. The goal of the course is to highlight the variety and range of texts of the Middle English period, and to place those writings in their cultural, linguistic, and historical contexts. When appropriate and available, visual and aural material will be presented both to complement the written text and to deepen the overall experience of medieval culture.

452.001: The Renaissance: Not Shakespeare

Online
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu

In 1592 the poet Robert Greene described William Shakespeare as “an upstart crow” and accused him of stealing his best stuff from other dramatists. This course will focus on plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries that enjoyed incredible popularity. Plays like Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, the first blockbuster in Renaissance England; John Lyly’s Galatea, a play written for performance by boy actors; Arden of Faversham, a true crime play by an unknown playwright; and Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam, a so-called closet drama not intended for the stage. Students in this course will examine these and more Renaissance English plays in terms of dramatic literature and theater history. Prior experience with premodern literature or with performance cultures is not required, and students will have varied opportunities to direct their engagements with course content.

This class is held fully asynchronously. What this means is that students need reliable internet connections and effective time management. In addition to preparation of the plays and instructional materials, course activities include regular check-ins, group discussions, and collaborative and independent research and writing. 

461.001: American Romanticism

Face to Face, MW 1400-1515
Jesse Aleman, jman@unm.edu

This course situates American Romanticism as one of many literary and social movements that took place during the American renaissance, a period spanning the 1830s to the end of the US Civil War. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville tend to dominate our understanding of this period, but we’ll situate their romanticism alongside concurrent movements, such as abolitionism, expansionism, feminism, and capitalism, to understand the era as a true burgeoning of competing literary and cultural shifts that gave rise to different genres and alternative visions of the nation’s development. We’ll approach American Romanticism, in other words, through the problems of slavery and race, contact and coloniality, gender and separate spheres, and the uneven industrial economies that form the backdrop of canonical writings of the time. Students will gain a general understanding of the most foundational moment of American literary production, and students will also encounter a diversity of readings that include canonical and non-canonical writers, selected for specialists and generalists interested in the emergence of essays, short stories, and novel as genres of American literary culture. 

487.001: T: Mystery and Thriller Writing

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu

Ever wanted to get away with murder (in your writing, that is)?

Mystery and thriller fiction encompasses detective stories, police procedurals, noir, heist stories, other types of action and suspense, and literary stories wherein crime is the central focus. Students in English 487 will read contemporary mystery novels and short stories, and they will write and workshop their own crime fiction. Students will study crime fiction through the lens of creative writing. In other words, you’ll be reading mystery and thriller fiction with the intention of learning how to write it.

Even if students don’t aspire to be mystery/thriller writers, the class can still be valuable, as our discussions on plot, structure, point of view, character, and narrative voice should help writers develop their craft. A mystery/thriller story is designed to build and maintain suspense—to keep readers turning pages, wanting to know what happens next. It’s my hope that closely studying page-turning stories will help expand the writer’s toolbox of all students in the class regardless of their genre focus.

488.001: American Literature, Film, and Culture: Contemporary American Cinema

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Jesus Costantino, jcostantino@unm.edu

This course examines contemporary (hemispherically) American 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 time Hollywood 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.

499.001: Internship

Online
Tiffany Bourelle, tbourell@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 Tiffany Bourelle (tbourell@unm.edu). Instructor permission is required to enroll.