Summer School - UNC English & Comparative Literature

Summer School Coordinator:

Mike Gutierrez – mgutie@email.unc.edu

Summer 2022 Courses

MAYMESTER (May 11-May 27, 2022)

ENGL 128 Major American Authors (3).

ONLINE. A study of approximately six major American authors drawn from Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Whitman, Clemens, Dickinson, Chesnutt, James, Eliot, Stein, Hemingway, O’Neill, Faulkner, Hurston, or others.

The United States was founded through dissent, and the tradition of collective action has shaped the country and its literature ever since. This course will focus on major American authors who engaged in forms of literary protest from approximately 1850 to 1950 including Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Jacobs, Stephen Crane, James Weldon Johnson, Kate Chopin, John Steinbeck, and Mine Okubo.

We will think of literature and protest as broadly as possible to make connections across time to consider the rich literary history that continues to inform our contemporary moment. The historical period covered in this class, from the dawn of the Civil War until World War II, established may political and cultural trends that continue to shape forms of protest in the 21st century. Accordingly, we will study the past with an eye to how it informs our present.

Through our study of major American authors, we will attempt to answer some of the following questions: How has literature been mobilized as a form of protest? What impact has dissent had on American literature? What cultural narratives shape our understanding of protest and dissent?

ENGL 265 Literature and Race, Literature and Ethnicity (3).

ONLINE. Considers texts in a comparative ethnic/race studies framework and examines how these texts explore historical and contemporary connections between groups of people in the United States and the Americas.

ENGL 268 Medicine, Literature, and Culture (3).

ONLINE. An introduction to key topics that focus on questions of representation at the intersections of medicine, literature, and culture

ENGL 283 Life Writing (3).

ONLINE. Students will analyze and compose different forms of life writing such as autobiography, biography, and autoethnography. Readings will include theories of autobiography and selected literature.

FIRST SESSION (May 11-June 16, 2022)

ENGL 105 English Composition and Rhetoric (3).

ONLINE. This college-level course focuses on written and oral argumentation, composition, research, information literacy, and rhetorical analysis. The course introduces students to the specific disciplinary contexts for written work and oral presentations required in college courses. Students may not receive credit for both ENGL 102 and ENGL 102I, 105, or 105I.

ENGL 123 Introduction to Fiction (3)

Novels and shorter fiction by Defoe, Austen, Dickens, Faulkner, Wolfe, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and others.

ENGL 140 Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Culture and Literature (WGST 140) (3).

ONLINE. Introduces students to concepts in queer theory and recent sexuality studies. Topics include queer lit, AIDS, race and sexuality, representations of gays and lesbians in the media, political activism/literature.

ENGL 143 Film and Culture (3).

ONLINE. Examines the ways culture shapes and is shaped by film. This course uses comparative methods to contrast films as historic or contemporary, mainstream or cutting-edge, in English or a foreign language, etc.

ENGL 144 Popular Genres (3).

ONLINE. Introductory course on popular literary genres. Students will read and discuss works in the area of mystery, romance, westerns, science fiction, children’s literature, and horror fiction.

In this course, students will critically analyze five popular genres dystopian literature, science fiction, detective fiction, fantasy, and one additional genre.

The media through which the class will study popular genres include novels, movies, television shows, blogs, and websites. Whereas up to this point most of us have enjoyed popular genres as entertainment without thinking critically about them, this class will be a departure. Students in this class will examine the assigned texts from an analytical perspective. We will look at formulaic analysis, historical context, cultural context, and ideological approaches, among others. What does popular literature tell us about the world in which we live? What kinds of influences are we making ourselves susceptible to when we read this literature?

ENGL 146 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Utopia (3).

ONLINE. Readings in and theories of science fiction, utopian and dystopian literatures, and fantasy fiction.

This course examines the birth and development of science fiction in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially as science fiction intersects with the tradition of utopian and dystopian speculation. Texts will include Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888), H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Olaf Stapledon’s Starmaker (1937), and Ayn Rand’s Anthem (1938). Films will include 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Ex Machina (2015), and Don Hertzfeldt’s animated short The World of Tomorrow (2015), as well as episodes of Black Mirror.

ENGL 149 Digital Composition (3)

In this class students will practice composing in contemporary digital writing spaces. Students will study theories of electronic networks and mediation, and their connections to literacy, creativity, and collaboration. Students will also develop their own multimedia projects using images, audio, video, and words. Topics include the rhetoric of the Internet, online communities, and digital composition.

ENGL 164 Introduction to Latina/o Studies (3)

Introduction to major questions of Latina/o Studies through an examination of literature, culture, the visual arts, and music. Topics include imperialism, colonialism, labor, decolonization, nationalism, ethnicity and other aspects of identity and identification, and new rubrics. Previously offered as ENGL 364.

ENGL 235 Studies in Jane Austen (3)

Fulfills a major core requirement. This course focuses on both the novels of Jane Austen and their fate since publication in the early 19th century. They have inspired countless imitations, over 150 sequels and continuations, and more than 30 full-length films. We will trace the transmission and transformation of the original texts across time and cultures. Previously offered as ENGL 340.

ENGL 278 Irish Writing, 1800-2000 (3)

This course introduces major texts and current themes, from Joyce to the postcolonial, in Irish writing from 1800 to 2000.

ENGL 284 Reading Children’s Literature (3)

An overview of the tradition of children’s literature, considering the ways those books point to our basic assumptions about meaning, culture, self, society, gender, economics.

SECOND SESSION (June 20-July 26, 2022)

ENGL 100 Basic Writing (3).

ONLINE. Required for incoming students with SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing or ACT scores below a threshold set by the department. Please visit the department Web site for the most updated scores. The courses focuses on academic writing in a variety of contexts. Workshop format involves frequent writing and revision.

ENGL 105 English Composition and Rhetoric (3).

ENGL 123 Introduction to Fiction (3).

ONLINE. Novels and shorter fiction by Defoe, Austen, Dickens, Faulkner, Wolfe, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and others.

Fiction after the Apocalypse: We will be reading and discussing works of fiction that explore life during and after irrevocable transformative events, including pandemics. Apocalypse will here be considered in its original Greek meaning: to uncover, or disclose. Despite present-day connotations, the apocalypse is not the end, but rather a transition, a peeling back to reveal what was hidden. We will examine how writers depict apocalypse on the macrocosmic level (large, socio-historical metamorphoses) and on the microcosmic level (personal revelations and life-changing experiences). And in turn, we will keep in mind that it is the special power of literature to initiate an apocalypse in us as readers.

ENGL 130 Introduction to Fiction Writing (3)

Intended for sophomores and first-year students. A writing-intensive introductory workshop in fiction. Close study of a wide range of short stories; emphasis on technical problems. Composition, discussion, and revision of original student stories. Students may not receive credit for both ENGL 130 and ENGL 132H. This course (or ENGL 132H) serves as a prerequisite for other courses in the fiction sequence of the creative writing program.

ENGL 140 Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Culture and Literature (WGST 140.01W) (3).

ENGL 141 World Literatures in English (3).

ONLINE. This course will be a basic introduction to literatures in English from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Anglophone literary traditions.

ENGL 143 Film and Culture (3).

ENGL 146 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Utopia (3).

ONLINE. Readings in and theories of science fiction, utopian and dystopian literatures, and fantasy fiction.

ENGL 147 Mystery Fiction (3).

ONLINE. Studies in classic and contemporary mystery and detective fiction.

Crime, Sex, & the Social Underbelly: In mystery fiction, we’re going to examine the genre from the point of view of the writer and critic. We’re going to look at how mysteries and crime fiction are written (setting, plotting, voice, point-of-view, characterization, etc…), while analyzing their social relevance and larger thematic concerns (crime, paranoia, sexuality, gender, race, class). We’re going to treat mystery fiction like we would any kind of literature in an English class, but we’re also going to examine how it works as a “genre” and its connection to film (For example: There have been over 20 film and TV versions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles.) By the end of the class, you should have a strong background on how mysteries function, what sort of literary tropes re-occur, and why it persists as such a popular genre.

ENGL 148 Horror (3)

ONLINE. This course examines the complexities and pleasures of horror, from its origins in Gothic and pre-Gothic literatures and arts. Topics include psychology, aesthetics, politics, allegory, ideology, and ethics.

“Terror and Horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them.” – Ann Radcliffe, “On the Supernatural in Poetry”

This course will explore how the visceral interplay between terror and horror lies at the heart of a genre that confronts its readers with the darker side of human nature. We will explore horror fiction from its origins in the Gothic novel to the contemporary work of Stephen King alongside film examples that range from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Readings will include Frankenstein, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House and shorter works by Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Matheson. To enrich our discussion of the literature, we will also watch classic horror films such as Psycho, Alien and The Exorcist.

ENGL 149 Digital and Multimedia Composition (3).

ONLINE. In this class students will practice composing in contemporary digital writing spaces. Students will study theories of electronic networks and mediation, and their connections to literacy, creativity, and collaboration. Students will also develop their own multimedia projects using images, audio, video, and words. Topics include the rhetoric of the Internet, online communities, and digital composition.

ENGL 155 The Visual and Graphic Narrative (3)

This course examines various visual texts, including graphic novels and emerging narrative forms, and explores how meaning is conveyed through composition, the juxtaposition and framing of images, and the relationship between words and images. Students create their own visual narratives.

ENGL 269 Introduction to Disability Studies (3).

ONLINE. This course will introduce students to the key critical concepts, debates, and questions of practice in the emerging scholarly field of disability studies.