Literary Studies

LIT 2331 Masterpieces of World Literature (3 semester credit hours) A study of selected themes in world literature. (3-0) Y

LIT 2341 Literary Analysis (3 semester credit hours) A close reading of fiction, poetry, and drama. Emphasis will be placed on the development of critical skills through the writing of interpretive essays. This course is required of all Literary Studies majors. (3-0) S

LIT 2V71 Independent Study in Literary Studies (1-3 semester credit hours) Independent study under a faculty member's direction. Signature of instructor and Associate Dean on proposed project outline required. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (9 semester credit hours maximum). Instructor consent required. ([1-3]-0) R

LIT 3300 Western Literary Tradition (3 semester credit hours) Study of major themes of the classical tradition in Western literature and their subsequent transformation. Readings will include works by both classical authors and their literary heirs. This course is required of all Literary Studies majors. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) S

LIT 3304 Advanced Composition (3 semester credit hours) Rhetorical strategies for analytical, descriptive, and research writing, with emphasis on grammar and style. Prerequisite: RHET 1302. (3-0) Y

LIT 3309 Studies in the Short Story (3 semester credit hours) Studies of the short story in terms of authorial strategies and reader responses. May examine such topics as how authors' strategies in shaping narratives manipulate perceptions and how modes of fiction influence reader responses. Consideration of styles in the story's historical development and how they shape and reshape expectations. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3310 Studies in Epic and Romance (3 semester credit hours) A comparative study of the two related genres, or a study of one of them, with emphasis on their approaches to themes such as heroism, love, or virtue. Readings may be drawn from classical, medieval, and modern literature, and works may include The Iliad, Song of Roland, and Don Quixote. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3312 Studies in Prose Narrative (3 semester credit hours) Studies in fiction, biography and autobiography, essays, and travelogues. May examine such topics as the history of the novel, spiritual autobiography, scientific biography, literary movements, and the new journalism. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3313 Studies in Dramatic Literature (3 semester credit hours) Studies in drama as a literary form. May include such topics as Jacobean and Restoration drama, modern or contemporary European drama, and twentieth century American drama. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3314 Studies in Poetry (3 semester credit hours) Examines representative selections of poetry with particular reference to techniques of diction, syntax, sound, and organization. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3315 Children's Literature (3 semester credit hours) Examining literature that is age appropriate for elementary students. Literature from many cultures and writers will be included. Students will explore ways to incorporate a variety of literature in their classes and the national and state standards will be incorporated into the class. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (Same as ED 3315) (3-0) S

LIT 3316 The Literature of Science Fiction (3 semester credit hours) Science Fiction as a genre of imaginative narrative that explores the implications of developments in science and technology. Topics may include space travel, time travel, artificial life forms, encounter with alien beings, alternate worlds/history, future societies, and the evolution of the human race. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3317 The Literature of Fantasy (3 semester credit hours) Fantasy as the genre of narrative in which events considered impossible in the real world can and do occur. Course may focus on the tradition of fantasy narrative from classical through modern literature or on topics. Works may include The Golden Ass, The Lord of the Rings, Dracula, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3318 British Romanticism (3 semester credit hours) A study of selected works of major authors and poets during the era of English Romanticism. Readings of lyric poetry and writings by Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Lord Byron, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 3319 Periods in English Literature (3 semester credit hours) Examines representative selections of literature written during such periods as the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century, or the early nineteenth century, or topics such as the literature of the scientific revolution. May be repeated for credit when literary periods vary (9 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3320 Shakespeare (3 semester credit hours) A study of selected works of Shakespeare including his sonnets, comedies, poems, tragedies, and historical plays. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3321 Modern British Literature (3 semester credit hours) A study of major British authors since the mid-nineteenth century. Authors may include Browning, Tennyson, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Yeats, and Eliot. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3322 Early American Literature (3 semester credit hours) A consideration of the beginnings of American literature from Native American myths of origin and writings of Spanish, French and English explorers through Washington Irving. We will read authors such as Cabeza de Vaca, William Bradford, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, Phillis Wheatley, Mary Rowlandson, Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, Paine, Jefferson, Madison, and Charles Brockden Brown. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3323 The American Renaissance 1820-1865 (3 semester credit hours) A consideration of the development of American literature particularly in New England. We will read authors such as Cooper, Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, William Apess, Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Longfellow, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Stowe, and works such as the Cherokee Memorials and the political writings of figures such as Lincoln. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3324 American Realism and Naturalism (3 semester credit hours) Considers the development of late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers in a society increasingly urban, cosmopolitan, and pluralistic. Writers may include Cooper, Neihardt, Steinbeck, Proulx, Twain, Howells, James, Crane, Dreiser, and Anderson. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3325 American Modernism (3 semester credit hours) Surveys the turbulent swings in American literature about 1910 to 1945. Considers such literary styles as imagism and social realism and samples a diverse array of writers which may include Pound, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, Dos Passos, and Wright. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3326 The Literature of the American South (3 semester credit hours) An examination of the major writers of this region. Authors may include Warren, Welty, O'Connor, McCullers, Williams, Faulkner, and Dickey. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3327 Mid-Twentieth Century American Literature (3 semester credit hours) Surveys American literature from about 1945 to about 1980. Samples such writers as the confessional poets, the Beats, Updike, Oates, Pynchon, Bellow, Mailer, and Morrison, and considers such topics as black humor, feminism, the new journalism, and the self-reflexive novel. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3328 Ethics in Literature (3 semester credit hours) Considers the perspective offered by literature on various ethical questions, and the relation between literature and moral philosophy. Topics may include existentialism, the environment, and religion and literature. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3329 Ethnic American Literature (3 semester credit hours) Surveys the literature of American ethnic or minority cultures, considering both their specific cultural features and their relation to the wider American canon. Traditions to be considered may include African-American literature (slave narratives, Harlem Renaissance, contemporary fiction), Chicano literature, or Jewish-American literature. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3330 Linguistics (3 semester credit hours) The nature of language; general survey of the contributions of linguistics to the fields of phonetics, phonemics, morphology, lexicology, syntax, and semantics. Other topics of general interest in the field will be covered, such as language change, dialects, writing systems and their history, use and misuse of language, and the language of media, advertising, and politics. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3331 Contemporary American Literature (3 semester credit hours) Surveys American writers, styles, and movements from the past few decades. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 3332 English Syntax and Mechanical Structure (3 semester credit hours) Study of the set of rules for combining words into phrases and phrases into clauses and sentences. (3-0) R

LIT 3334 Literature of Science (3 semester credit hours) Explores the interrelations between authors such as Donne, Swift, Mary Shelly, Hardy, and Pynchon, and science, such as astronomy, evolution, medicine, and chaos theory. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3335 Media and Pop Culture (3 semester credit hours) Study of how media and popular culture reflect the world and how they influence the way Americans perceive the world. Examination of theories and frameworks which influence the interpretation of pop culture. Topics may include punk rock, anime, music videos, and digital gaming. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3339 Writing in Literary Studies (3 semester credit hours) This writing-intensive course focuses on the writing styles and conventions associated with writing about literature. Students will perform original research and will learn to develop clear, convincing and elegant arguments in a series of written assignments. This course fulfills the advanced writing requirement for Literary Studies majors. Prerequisites: (RHET 1302 or equivalent) and (LIT 2341 or equivalent). (3-0) S

LIT 3340 The Victorian Novel (3 semester credit hours) This course focuses on various genres of the Victorian novel, including the crime novel, Gothic, realism, the detective novel, the novel of personal development, and the sensation novel. Themes include aesthetic theories about the novel in the period, how the novel reflected the vast social and political changes taking place in the era, debates about how reading novels affected readers, and the significant stylistic shifts from the early Victorian novel to the end of the era and the beginnings of Modernism. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) Y

LIT 3343 European Romanticism (3 semester credit hours) Readings in literary theory, fiction, drama, and lyric poetry by the mid-eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth century romantic writers of Italy, Germany, France, England, or Spain. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3344 European Realism and Naturalism (3 semester credit hours) A study of the naturalist movement of the late nineteenth century in Europe. Consideration will be given to the philosophical, social, and scientific backgrounds. Readings will include dramas and novels. Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3380 Studies in Women's Literature (3 semester credit hours) An introduction to literature by women. Examines selections of literature written from antiquity through the contemporary period. Considers such literary forms as autobiography, journals, letters, fiction, poetry, and drama. Samples a diverse array of women writers and their relation to the wider Western canon. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) T

LIT 3381 Topics in Western Literature (3 semester credit hours) May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 3382 Topics in Non-Western Literature (3 semester credit hours) May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 3383 Topics in British Literature (3 semester credit hours) May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 3385 Topics in Latin American Literature (3 semester credit hours) May be repeated for credit as topics vary (9 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: HUMA 1301 or equivalent. (3-0) R

LIT 4329 Major Authors (3 semester credit hours) Study of one or more major literary figures such as Faulkner, Cervantes, Chaucer, Milton, Goethe, Blake, Balzac, Borges, Mann, Eliot, Austen, Dostoevsky, Paz, and Tolstoy. May be repeated for credit as subjects vary (9 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or instructor consent required. (3-0) T

LIT 4330 Dante (3 semester credit hours) A close reading of The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) in its historical, philosophical, religious, and poetic contexts, along with related works by Dante and his contemporaries. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or instructor consent required. (3-0) T

LIT 4344 The Modern Novel (3 semester credit hours) A study of several landmarks, late nineteenth and twentieth century novels, with attention to their literary, intellectual, and historical qualities. Authors may include Borges, Joyce, Proust, Mann, Garcia Marquez, or others. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (6 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or instructor consent required. (3-0) T

LIT 4346 Contemporary Literature (3 semester credit hours) Major trends in contemporary world literature with particular emphasis on the last ten years. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or instructor consent required. (3-0) T

LIT 4348 Topics in Literary Studies (3 semester credit hours) May be repeated for credit (9 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or instructor consent required. (3-0) R

LIT 4V71 Independent Study in Literary Studies (1-3 semester credit hours) Independent study under a faculty member's direction. Signature of instructor and Associate Dean on proposed project outline required. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (9 semester credit hours maximum). Prerequisites: Upper-division standing and instructor consent required. ([1-3]-0) R

LIT 4V99 Senior Honors in Literary Studies (1-3 semester credit hours) Intended for students conducting independent research for honors theses or projects. Signature of instructor and secondary reader on the proposed project outline required. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and instructor consent required. ([1-3]-0) R