Upcoming Semester Courses - Spring 2027

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, TR 1400-1515
Aeron Haynie, ahaynie@unm.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION

1410.002: Introduction to Literature

Online
Finnie Coleman, coleman@unm.edu 

You don't have to be an English major to get into literature. This course will provide students to a basic introduction to four of the major genres of literature-theater, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction-as well as some examples of how scholars go about studying and discussing them. During this online class, students will read, discuss, and write about texts from authors as varied as William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Toni Morrison. 

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: 

Face to Face, MWF 0900-0950
INSTRUCTOR 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2120.002: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, TR 0930-1045
INSTRUCTOR

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2120.003: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
INSTRUCTOR

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2120.004: Intermediate Composition:

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
INSTRUCTOR

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2120.005: Intermediate Composition:

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
INSTRUCTOR

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2120.006: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
INSTRUCTOR

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2120.007: Intermediate Composition: 

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350

INSTRUCTOR

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2120.015: Intermediate Composition: 

Online 
INSTRUCTOR

COURSE DESCRIPTION

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

Online
Rachael Reynolds, reynoldsr@unm.edu 

This is an online introduction to Professional Writing course that will introduce you to methods of effectively communicating technical, professional, and business information to multiple audiences, in multiple modes. You will develop an understanding of theories of technical communication and will practice technical communication in many forms. With an eye constantly focused on audience needs and expectations, we will plan, organize, draft, revise, and edit documents and multimedia texts. We will learn that the content and appearance of each written document must be appropriate to the intended audience. This course introduces strategies of expository writing style, persuasive communication, and multimodal document design. You will also learn about ethical considerations in the workplace that impact technical and business communicators and the public. Assignments in this course will represent the most common genres of workplace writing, including resumes, informational graphics and data visualization, usability studies, memoranda, business letters, emails, presentations, and white paper reports. In addition, this class will serve as an introduction to the field of professional communication, and will educate you about the history of Technical and Professional Communication (TPC), about career options in TPC and related fields, and about workplace issues in these fields (including analysis of audience, significance of user-centered design and usability, expectations for collaborative work, and the standards of web writing). All projects in this course are designed to help you create some initial materials for a portfolio you can use when looking for an internship or employment in the field. A key component of this online course will be engagement with and observation of professionals working as technical communicators in workplace settings.

2240.001: Introduction to Studies in English

Face to Face, T 1230-1345 and 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 and 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.

2310.001: Introduction to Creative Writing    

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
INSTRUCTOR

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.

2310.002: Introduction to Creative Writing        

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
INSTRUCTOR

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. 

2310.003: Introduction to Creative Writing        

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515
INSTRUCTOR

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
INSTRUCTOR

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 0930-1045 
Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán, mviz@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2510.002: Analysis of Literature 

Online
Bernadine Hernández, berna18@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2540.001: Introduction to Native American Literature

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Sarah Hernandez, hernands@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2640.001: British Literature II

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Aeron Haynie, ahaynie@unm.edu 

2650.001: World Literature I

Face to Face, MWF 1200-1250
Averie Basch, abasch@unm.edu 

Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts as well as the Critical Analyses of US and Global Cultures Requirement.

304.001: Bible as Literature 

Online
Kelly Van Andel, kvanande@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

305.001: Mythology  

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345       
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.

321.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction 

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

COURSE DESCRIPTION

322.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Poetry  

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Jake Skeets, mskeets@unm.edu 

This intermediate-level poetry writing workshop aims to help you discover ways to shape your most meaningful content into well-crafted poems. Our writing assignments will promote creative discovery and output and will lead you to revise for originality, clarity, and precision. Close readings of published poems will teach you to recognize basic craft techniques and poetic forms and, I hope, will inspire fresh, inventive work from you. Our discussions will stem from our reading of Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius (or a similar text), a diverse selection of contemporary poems, and your insights and questions. This class will also introduce you to workshopping, in which each student shares an original poem in progress and classmates offer constructive evaluations to help improve the work. From the outset, you will be viewed as poets and readers who are here to learn through both work and play. You’ll do a lot of writing in this class, as well as a lot of reading. At semester’s end, you will put together a portfolio showcasing a thoughtfully revised body of original work that demonstrates your understanding of the content and craft of successful poems. An equally important goal is that you end the semester with a strong desire to continue writing and reading poetry.

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.

349.001: Beowulf to Arthur

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

352.001: Early Shakespeare

Face to Face, TR 1400-1515 
Carmen Nocentelli, nocent@unm.edu 

Over 400 years after his death, Shakespeare remains the most often quoted poet and most regularly produced playwright of the English-speaking world—and has now become one of its most popular screenwriters as well. Why is that? What’s so great about Shakespeare’s writing? What meanings did Shakespeare’s works have in his own time, and what meanings can they have for us? What should we pay attention to when we read Shakespeare’s plays or watch them in performance? And whose plays are we reading or watching, anyway? We’ll tackle these and other questions as we examine and discuss several major plays penned during the early part of Shakespeare's career, including The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, and The Merchant of Venice.

353.001: Later Shakespeare 

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Andrea Borunda, apborunda@unm.edu 

This course covers the Jacobean-era works of William Shakespeare, focusing on the various conventions of the genres of comedy, tragedy and romance. Students will gain familiarity with the later works of Shakespeare and an understanding of the Early Modern theater as well as the importance of Shakespeare’s dramatic innovations. Texts include: Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale and selected sonnets.

363.001: Nineteenth Century America

Face to Face, MWF 1300-1350
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu 

This course focuses on the long nineteenth-century period, roughly 1790 – 1910. We will examine a series of canonical and under-read works, towards the goal of situating authors in cultural and historical context via focus on a few concepts that were widely influential throughout this period. The nineteenth century was a tumultuous, vibrant era of American cultural history. It was marked by rapid industrialization and urbanization; unprecedented income inequality; increases in non-white and non-Protestant migration to the U.S.; various forms of American economic and political expansionism; a series of brutal wars, including the Civil War, the Mexican-American War, and the Spanish-American War; shifts away from traditional forms of religion and spiritual practice; transformations in ideas about gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship; and profound developments in both technology and science. What we now see as basic truths about the relationship of literature and politics, science and meaning, social movements and art were all being created by the authors we’re going to discuss. Required materials will include novels, short fiction, essays, and poetry, with occasional incursions into journalism and advertising as well as photography and other forms of visual art. Students will be evaluated on participation, an in-class presentation, one midterm essay exam, and a final paper.

397.001: Regional Literature

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Sarah Hernandez, hernands@unm.edu 

The Great Plains is a vast region of grasslands stretching from Canada through the central United States, encompassing Indigenous homelands, rural settlements, and farming communities. This course examines the region’s literature and the stories it tells about land, place, and belonging. In this course, students will compare settler and Indigenous narratives of land and analyze how these narratives shape ideas about place, culture, gender, regional identity and belonging.

410.001: Criticism and Theory

Face to Face, MWF 1000-1050
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu 

In this course, we will engage in an intensive overview of significant movements in literary theory and criticism, with a focus on twentieth-century and contemporary thought. We begin with a review of texts from earlier eras, representing keystones in the intellectual foundations that ground later developments. Specifically, we will trace the ongoing influences of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, and W.E.B. Du Bois. These discursive origins remain central to contemporary examinations of language; race and racialization; sex, gender, and sexuality; and the ways that literature both produces and reflects cultural meaning. We then will explore together the ways that these first examinations develop and change over the course of the twentieth century. A whirlwind mid-semester tour through clusters of ideas representative of Marxist literary analysis, psychoanalytic criticism, feminist theory, postcolonial and decolonial studies, queer theory, and critical theories of race will enable us to begin mapping the conflicts of our own period. These inquiries shape conversations on every level, in our daily lives as well as our scholarship. Seemingly new ideas gain dimension and clarity when we understand their long histories.

411.001: T: Ecocriticism

Face to Face, W 1600-1830 
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu 

This course introduces students to the major theories and practices of environmental criticism, or ecocriticism. The course focuses on the interaction between literature and the environment, and we will examine the ways in which a variety of texts and authors approach the natural world. We will read key theoretical texts and consider some of the themes and debates that have helped shape the field, but the main focus of the class will be on the application of these theories to an analysis of literature. This class seeks to break free from the standard approach of ecocritical studies that centers American and British Romantic texts and will examine literature from a variety of traditions and time periods. Texts include: The Recognition of Śakuntalā, Beowulf, The Life of Guthlac, selected Robin Hood ballads, selected poems of John Clare, Silas Marner, Ceremony, Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Engineering Eden, and selected episodes of Reservation Dogs. We will also visit the UNM Art Museum to view important landscape artwork.

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. Along with practicing advanced copyediting and proofreading skills, you will learn how to perform comprehensive editing that results in documents that are complete, accurate, organized, usable, and reader focused. Assignments include regular homework, three major projects (editing professional writing, academic writing, and creative writing), and a final course 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, MWF 0900-0950
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.

420.001: T: Blue Mesa Review II

Face to Face, MWF 1400-1450       
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu

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

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

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

420.002: T: Influence and How It Works

Face to Face, MWF 1100-1150
Charles Paine, cpaine@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

421.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction 

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Daniel Mueller, dmueller@unm.edu 

In this course designed for writers serious about improving their understanding of narrative craft, we'll discover strategies for writing compelling fiction by reading, and responding critically to, one another's original short stories and novel excerpts, generating new work by responding to assigned writing prompts, and discussing published works of fiction written by a diverse array of new and established authors.  Prerequisite: ENGL 321/Intermediate Fiction Workshop.

422.001: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry

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

This is an advanced creative writing workshop in poetry.  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.  While the main focus of the course is on workshopping student poems, we will also read several collections of poetry written by writers with a UNM connection, including a novel in verse.

449.001: T: Middle English Dialects

Face to Face, R 1600-1830
Anita Obermeier, aobermei@unm.edu 

This course provides an introduction to the principal dialects of Middle English, demonstrated by selected readings, in the context of the development of the language from Old English to Early Modern English (c. 1150-1500). We will be looking at the language both diachronically (the historical development) and synchronically (the differentiation of dialect features at a given time). The primary goal of the course is to familiarize students with the range of texts available in different dialects during the period. At the end of the course, students should, for example, be able to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the original North-West Midlands dialect with a full appreciation of the contribution of the language to the artistry of the poem, and to recognize its difference from the London dialect of Chaucer. Assignments will include take-home exercises, a midterm, a final, and a group translation project.

460.001: American Romanticism

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

COURSE DESCRIPTION

465.001: Chicanx Literary Studies

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán, mviz@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

473.001: Postmodernism: The Postmodern Mystery

Face to Face, MWF 1400-1450
Scarlett Higgins, shiggins@unm.edu

This undergraduate seminar will focus on texts that combine elements of what is typically thought of as the postmodern (self-reflexivity, intertextuality, questioning of subjectivity, the self-aware character, information overload and/or misinformation, lack of closure) with those of the mystery (the (unlikely) detective, the femme fatale, murders and bodies, tropes of missing information, clues, and puzzles to be solved). Though the mystery, and particularly the detective story, is largely thought to have evolved from nineteenth century roots, this genre had an explosion in the later half of the twentieth century that has continued well into the twenty-first. We will look at a few examples of hard-boiled detective fiction/film noir from mid-twentieth century and then move forward into the postmodern mystery proper, those postmodern texts, mostly prose fiction and film, that deal with these recursive tropes of mystery and detection. We will end the semester with an extended consideration of a remarkable twenty-first century postmodern mystery, the video game Disco Elysium.

487.001: T: Epistolary Writing

Face to Face, TR 1230-1345
Matthew Hofer, mrh@unm.edu

By adopting the concept of epistolarity as a hermeneutical model, this class is meant to provide an opportunity for a new, analytical consideration of the messages that the letter form—in both prose and poetry—extends to the readers of our post-letter world. Although communication technologies and conventions invariably, and inevitably, change, the form of epistolarity represents an urgent scene of textual encounter. It is unusual in literature precisely because it requires distance, in both space and time, between addresser and addressee, or writer and reader (each of whom variously shares both positions). As a consequence of this unusual situation, it was a productive site of inquiry and provocative form of exchange from its seventeenth century rise in English-language literature through its decline in the nineteenth century, a status it regained with fresh perspective in its (surprising) renewal in the middle of the twentieth century. We will employ it to examine ideas of literary address and contact in particular, but also issues relevant to archives and ethics from a broader critical perspective.

487.002: T: True Crime for Writers

Face to Face, TR 1100-1215
Michelle Brooks, mbrooks7@unm.edu 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

499.001: Internship

Online
Tiffany Bourelle, tbourell@unm.edu

This course is designed to prepare students in the professional writing concentration for careers after college. The scope of student interest is as broad as the scope of technical and professional writing. This course will prepare you for a career in technical and professional writing outside the academy through two approaches:

First, you will develop skills, knowledge, and strategies, and organize materials that will make you an attractive candidate in your post-college career. This will include developing electronic and/or print portfolios, résumés, application documents, and other related materials. These materials may be used in a job search or in applying to graduate education. Even if you have a job now, preparing application materials in this course will help you systematize an approach to applying for a new job in the future.

Second, you will learn about professional writing as a discipline and come to recognize the variety of experiences a professional writer could encounter, as well as the common issues that arise in the practice of professional writing. You will write about your professional experiences and those of others in activities designed to explore the complexities of writing in the workplace.

Instructor permission is required to enroll, so please send an email to Professor Tiffany Bourelle using the email address listed above.