Class Schedules

This course will focus on some of Asian American Literature’s salient texts and recurring themes. Through readings and class discussion, we will explore issues of ethnicity, race, gender, and community in the work of authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Maxine Hong Kingston, Celeste Ng, Chang-Rae Lee, and Ocean Vuong, among others. We will also examine the political formation of the term “Asian American;” question narratives like the “model minority;” and consider how news media, pop culture, and the publishing industry have played a role in shaping the production and reception of Asian American writing. Class events will include guest lectures from Asian American authors with recently published books.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present. We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance, The Black Arts Movement, and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of national critique, solidarity, and futurism will focus our study. Authors will include: David Walker, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, and Janelle Monáe, among others. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, one medium length essay and a revision of it, and a final project that will include a written component. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present. We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of prophesy, literary experimentation, and beauty will focus our study. Authors will include: David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, and Ross Gay. Requirements include: a presentation, brief written responses to the readings, one medium length essay and a revision of it, and a final project that will include a written component. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The texts for this course investigate something that directly or indirectly connects everyone: what it means to leave a place, or one's home, or one's land, and to return to it, willingly or unwillingly. This idea is inherently open-ended because physical spaces are, of course, not our only means of departure and/or return--but also our politics, our genders, our relationships with power, and our very bodies. Revolution, too, surrounds us, on both larger and private scales, as does looking back on what once was, what caused that initial departure. We will read such novels as On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Vietnamese-born, diasporic poet and writer Ocean Vuong, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Korean-born adoptee by American parents and trans novelist Patrick Cottrell, Ceremony by Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, among others.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course we will dive right into the study of creative writing by reading and writing poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and personal essays. We will study how published authors craft their pieces, how they convey sensation and emotion, and how they artfully tell a story. Along the way, you’ll try your hand at each literary form we study. This is the basic template you can expect on a day-to-day basis. But, beyond this relatively simple pattern, what I hope will happen this term is that you’ll lose yourself to the daring act of creating literature. I hope you’ll disappear into what John Gardener calls the “vivid and continuous dream.” I hope you’ll use your growing knowledge of writing technique and literary history to say something fearless and artful about the world around you. And I hope you will see that what you write matters. Great creative writing aspires to more than just a pleasant diversion from life. At its best, it directly engages with life and even tries to change it. We look to stories, poems, and essays to give us an experience in language that we’ve never had before, to deepen our knowledge of the world, and to allow us into the hearts and minds of others. I hope this semester will be a window into that experience for you.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course will focus on the basic elements of creative writing. Students will be asked to read and discuss published work by writers across a wide range of cultures, to support one another through peer workshops, and to write multiple drafts of short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Throughout the semester our focus will be on creating an artistic community that encourages everyone to discover and nurture their own individual creative voice, and then to express that voice with force and conviction.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This workshop-based course focuses on reading and writing poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction to hone your skills with all forms of writing and increase the power of your creativity. In-class workshops will help you to discover and nurture your creative voice, and connect to others with passion and persuasion. Please note that this course must be completed as a PREREQUISITE for the further study of creative writing at Macalester.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Writing can be a terrifying, vulnerable act. Whether we’re investigating our own lives or digging into the depths of a character, writing well requires risk. In this course, we will create and explore through poetry, fiction, and personal essays. We will learn to get lost, to ask the hardest questions. The first half of the semester will focus on generative experiments. We’ll play with different ways of approaching the page and the writing process. We might write one line a day or try to write an entire story in an hour. The second half of the semester, we’ll learn to revise and offer feedback. Editing and redrafting can lead to unexpected awakenings. Often in revising work, we also revise how we see ourselves and our world. We will begin workshopping with the aim of pushing each other to ask deeper questions and to honor and strengthen the heart of a piece. You will leave this class with a stack of drafts and hopefully a better sense of yourself as a person and as a writer.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

How do our favorite stories compel us to read on? Why do some poems make us feel as if “the tops of our heads have been taken off,” as Dickinson once described? In this course, students will explore and articulate the specifics of what moves and excites them in fiction and poetry and develop their unique voice by writing their own stories and poems. We’ll read work by a diverse list of published authors and consider how to reimagine, repurpose, or even subvert the elements of craft that most intrigue us in their writing through responses and creative exercises. For class workshop, students will honor and encourage one another’s creative visions through attentive reading and discussion of peer writing in a supportive environment. At the conclusion of the semester, students will leave the class with a revised portfolio of the work they’re most proud of.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

What is Old, Middle, and early modern English? Why do these differentiations matter to the craft of writing in Britain? How were premodern authors shaped by their own societies, and how have influential writers created social change? This course explores how major writers in Britain have used literary language to conceptualize the self against larger social and political phenomena. Starting with the career of Abbess Hilda, the mother of English literature, and ending with the career of Queen Elizabeth, the patron of Shakespeare, we will trace major developments in British literature. Along the way, we will focus on how women affected the arc of British literary history. Authors may include Bede, the Beowulf-poet, Marie de France, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Shakespeare, and Mary Sidney Herbert.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this survey course, we will trace an African American literary tradition from 1900 to the present. We will read a range of genres, including drama, poetry, nonfiction and fiction. Our study of this rich tradition will be organized by three themes: second sight, jazz, and joy, including the aesthetics, power, and political potentiality of joy. Our study will also be informed by activisms past and present. Among the authors we will study are: W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, and Ross Gay. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, one expanded response paper, a medium-length essay and a revision of it, and a final reflection essay. This course fulfills the English major requirement of a course focused on literature by U.S. writers of color.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What does it mean to re-envision a draft? To birth three new poems out of one? In this course, we’ll focus on making and remaking. (As in: this is a class about revision but not the kind of revision where we tear things apart and “fix” what’s broken. Rather, we’ll be treating each draft as a portal, something that might guide us somewhere altogether new.) We’ll model our drafting and re-drafting processes off of unexpected sources such as collage and ecosystems. We’ll read texts that inspire our remaking. And we’ll craft a portfolio of poems in the process!

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

As memoirist and author Melissa Febos puts it: The narrator is never you, and the sooner we can start thinking of ourselves on the page that way, the better for our work. That character on the page is just this shaving off of the person that was within a very particular context, intermingled with bits of perspective from all the time since — it’s a very specific little cocktail of pieces of the self and memory and art … it’s a very weird thing. And then it’s frozen in the pages. With each essay and work of nonfiction we produce in this largely-workshop based class, the character we portray, the narrator we locate, is never stagnant, instead we are developing a persona, wrought from the experience of our vast selves and our vast experience. To that end, in this course, you will use the tools and stylistic elements of creative nonfiction, namely fragmentation, narrative, scene, point of view, speculation, and research to remix and retell all aspects of your experience and selfhood in a multiplicity of ways. I will ask that you focus on a particular time period or connected events, and through the course of the semester, you will reimagine and reify these events using different modes and techniques as modeled in the published works we read. Meanwhile, we will read Melissa Febos's Body Work: The Radical Work of Personal Narrative, which will aid our discussions and help us to better understand the difference between persona and the self.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In many ways, we are living in a golden age of fantasy fiction. Not only is the notoriously white, Western Europe-centric genre growing rapidly more diverse than ever before, but it’s also being incorporated into the mainstream literary conversation in unprecedented ways. It’s truly a magical time to be reading and writing fantasy! In this class, we’ll situate the modern concept of fantasy fiction in a historical and cultural context, and we’ll explore and practice on a craft level all the things that make fantasy unique: magic systems, worldbuilding, supernatural creatures, etc. We’ll look at sub-genres including epic fantasy, young adult, magic realism, and fairy tale retellings, and read authors such as NK Jemisin, Susanna Clarke, and Charlie Jane Anders. We’ll also welcome several established fantasy writers into the classroom to learn from them, and we may even play a little D&D… so come prepared to take fun seriously!

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In her article “If Fiction Changes the World, It’s Going to Be YA,” journalist Emily Temple states that young adult books are primed to do work for the social good because of their timeliness, their willingness to take on big political issues, and their wide readership. In the last few decades, the young adult genre has been growing in scope and in ambition, and much of it is being written by exciting new authors, closer to the age of their protagonists. In this class we will study some new and foundational texts of the genre, discussing subjects like depiction of mental illness, the political implications of fantasy novels, and the “We Need Diverse Books” campaign. Meanwhile, you will be working on your own YA projects, learning for yourself what makes these books tick. This course serves as a creative writing elective for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this creative writing crafts course, students will read, discuss, and write their very own fanfic, which for the purposes of this class we’ll be defining as “stories set in a preexisting fictional universe.” Topics may include Sherlock Holmes retellings, Kirk/Spock romance zines, and Virgil’s extension of the Homeric epics. Like the world of fanfic at its best, this course is designed to create an inclusive and mutually supportive community of artistic expression. Prerequisite: ENGL 150 (Intro to Creative Writing).

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This class, more than anything, is one that demands curiosity. We will start with an 1860s sensation novel, read some Victorian race theory, dip into some cookbooks. We will talk about the developing technology of photography, why little boys had to climb chimneys to sweep them, and whether corsets were really torturous for women. This course will not give you a neatly framed picture of the “most important” things to know about the British empire in the nineteenth century. Instead, it will give you a taste of some key issues (technology, labor, gender- and race-based hierarchies, colonial power) and invite you to find questions about which you want to learn more. Through discussion, you will choose a topic focused on 19th-century British culture for your own sustained research. We will spend the bulk of the semester on deep research, working with databases, archives, and the internet to learn to search smarter. We will focus on how to ask good questions, follow leads in multiple directions, balance primary and secondary materials, and, ultimately, find the arc of a narrative through all that material. This is not just a class about research skills; it’s a class about ways of thinking that can help you uncover information that turns a historical "oddity" into a story. Writing in the course will include a scholarly paper based on your findings, a short feature article aimed at a mainstream audience that draws on some of the best public humanities models, and a five-minute episode to contribute to the class podcast which will be aired at the end of the term. As we work in these modes, guest speakers from the worlds of publishing and radio will share their craft. By the end of the semester, you will have developed archival research skills, the ability to synthesize material in very different ways for different audiences, and a clearer sense of how to get from “look at all this cool stuff I found” to a compelling narrative with a clear point that will keep an audience riveted. This course satisfies the 18th/19th century British literature requirement on the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Word for word, Emily Dickinson is the most powerful writer in the history of the English language. She is the King of All Media, the feature star in movies, television, radio, lawsuits and criminal investigations, novels, AI language models, cookbooks, museums, a video game, and just about every other possible platform of public fascination. Barring Shakespeare, no other English or American poet has been the focus of such fervid public devotion. What’s behind this cult of Dickinson? In our class you will find out. You will study Dickinson’s poems, which are teasingly fun, hair-raisingly creepy, romantically uplifting, existentially wrenching, philosophically staggering, and aesthetically gorgeous. You will also study Dickinson herself. Transformed into a mythical figure since her death in 1886, she has been used as a symbol to embody a range of bitterly conflicting cultural fantasies. To understand the history of Emily Dickinson is to understand some of the most painful—and liberating—ideological revolutions in modern US history. This course fulfills the c19th-American literature requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Centuries before the advent of industrialized travel, the Silk Roads connected creators and consumers between China, West Africa, and Iceland. Travelers recorded their experiences and encounters in a range of literary forms and left their legacies imprinted in archaeological records. This course invites students to read along the Silk Roads, tracing medieval encounters made possible by these remarkable networks. Texts may include the Ibn Fadlan’s account of his encounter with the Rus, the Ibn Battuta’s account of his travels in Africa, Wu Cheng’en’s novel Journey to the West, Du Fu’s lyric poetry, Basho’s haiku, Marco Polo’s Description of the World, William of Rubruck’s Itinerary, John de Mandeville’s Travels, and the Saga of the Greenlanders. In addition, the class will incorporate studies of material culture, include local collections and artifacts of the exhibits Hidden Stories: Books Along the Silk Roads (Aga Khan Museum), Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, (Aga Khan Museum), and Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shoes of the Sahara (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Calling all weirdos! Artists, dancers, musicians, actors — writers. This is a class for anyone who wants to learn to transmute artistic experiences into words. We will look at visual art, listen to music, and watch theatrical and dance performances, and in response, we’ll practice different modes of incorporating our reactions into our creative and critical writing. We’ll read fiction, poetry, personal essays, reviews, etc. and we’ll try our hands at each form, gaining a sense of what is involved in describing the color of a cello’s sound, the gestures of a dancing body, or the intangible emotions we feel when we stand in front of a painting. In a final project, students will choose an artistic form and a mode of response and develop a larger-scale piece of writing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

A seminar bringing together questions in philosophy of literature and philosophy of race. In the first third of the class, we'll discuss the relationship between literary form and philosophy, and whether literature "tells the truth"; in the second third, we'll focus on the philosophy of race, looking at contemporary work on the metaphysics and phenomenology of race, and in the last third, we'll bring literature and race together by examining works such as Citizen, Interior Chinatown, and There, there.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the nineteenth-century British novel through questions of gender, race, and nationality--specifically considering what constitutes a "lady" by various cultural/historical standards and how the construction of ideal femininity worked with and against ideals of masculinity in the period. None of the books we will read suggest all women are (or can be) ladies; nor are all of the men who populate them monsters. Seeking nuance in these terms, the course asks: How were nineteenth-century gender norms complicated by class and race, and what is the space between the ideal and the monstrous? How is a monstrous woman constructed differently than a monstrous man? What makes monstrosity redeemable or irredeemable? What if the world's monstrosities are not humans but made by them? Obviously, we could not have a course like this without a vampire novel (Carmilla), but we will also read a range of genres that enable us to talk about labor rights, domestic ideals, love, inheritance politics, colonial monstrosities, and even scifi feminst utopia ("Sultana's Dream"). We will tackle the problem of genre: what does it mean to have a course focused on "the novel," when nonwhite writers in the period worked predominantly in every other genre but long-form fiction? And we will consider those voices by including other short forms (a short story, a novella, and some non-fiction), plus some work by Nobel-winning Bengali author, Rabindranath Tagore. To simulate the Victorian reading experience, we will also consume one novel in small weekly installments all semester, following the sensational exploits of petite, blonde Lady Audley to the point where we ultimately discover her Secrets. Along the way, you'll get a taste of the Gothic (Wuthering Heights), the Condition-of-England novel (North and South), and colonial fantasy (She), among other things, exploring fictions weird, monstrous, funny, and fearless. This course satisfies the 18th/19th c British literature requirement on the English major. Prerequisite: one 100- or 200- level literature course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course-a mixture of lecture, discussion, study of dramatic texts, writing exercises and in-class analysis of student writing-is intended to reinforce and build upon the skills developed in Playwriting. Topics will include dramatic structure, conflict, characterization, language/dialogue, as well as how to analyze your own work, give and receive feedback and techniques for rewriting. Students will engage in a rigorous development process which will culminate in the writing of a full-length play. Prerequisite(s): THDA 242 or ENGL 150, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This capstone course for the Literature Path is the culminating academic experience of the major. The course consists of three interlocking objectives. The first goal is to provide students with the opportunity to develop an original research project that reflects their deepest aesthetic interests and ethical commitments. Working closely with a faculty member and a small group of peers, students will develop projects that display rigorous literary scholarship and methodological inventiveness. The second goal is to provide instruction in advanced methods of research by studying influential critical approaches from the early twentieth century to the present. Specific theories and methods will be determined in consultation with the instructor. Past courses have emphasized psychoanalysis, post-Marxist criticism, gender, queer, and feminist theory, phenomenology, critical race theory, black feminist theory, post-colonial criticism, poetics, law and human rights, and aesthetics. The final goal is to train students to become advocates of their research agenda. Students will learn to lecture and lead discussion on relevant readings and to share their research with the wider intellectual community in a form that reflects the spirit of the project. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s (excluding 101 or 150), plus one literature course at the 200- or 300- level. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the major. Students without Senior status will need instructor permission to enroll.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This seminar will provide a workshop environment for advanced students with clearly defined projects in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or a combination of genres. The seminar will center initially on a group of shared readings that elucidate elements of the creative process and craft and then turn to the work produced by class members. Through the presentation of new and revised work, and the critiquing of work-in-progress, each student will develop a significant body of writing as well as the critical skills necessary to analyze the work of others. Students will be required to meet with the instructor via Zoom two weeks before the official start of the course to discuss the course’s format and their creative projects. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the major.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This introductory English course covers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two Spirit literature in America. We will examine how American culture and politics have shaped and been shaped by LGBTQ2S+ writing and art. We will look at historical texts that helped to create queer and trans identities in America and appreciate intersections of race, ethnicity, and class as we move into current work. And we'll explore what it means to queer a text, a life and a culture. Requirements include written responses to reading, a journal, a creative project, and a 5-7 page essay. Authors we’ll read include: Charles Brockden Brown, Jewelle Gomez, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Qwo-Li Driskill, Gloria Anzaldúa, Allison Bechdel, Charlie Jane Anders, Malinda Lo, Kai Cheng Thom, Tommy Pico, and Junauda Petrus.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present. We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of solidarity, love, and joy will focus our study. Authors will include: Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Ross Gay, and Janelle Monáe, among others. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, a presentation, an essay and a revision, and a final project. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Today, Shakespeare is venerated as the “Bard” and “wonder of the stage.” His peers were more divided. Early in his career, he was accused of plagiarism (“there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers,” fumed Robert Greene) and, after achieving star-status, he was said to be lazy in his editing (“I would he had blotted a thousand [lines],” mused Ben Jonson). How did the imagination and language of this upstart crow shock and delight audiences then—and why do his plays continue to offer entertainment, consolation, and debate today? In this course, we will study some of Shakespeare’s most enduring works, such as Twelfth Night, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. Coursework comprises scene readings, discussions, formal essays, partner or small group presentations, improv, and field trips. This course counts as a Foundation Course for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course we will read some of the most popular novels ever written in the United States.They will be heart-wrenchingly beautiful, tear-jerkingly sad, philosophically bold, and seriously weird. We will discuss love, death, the meaning of life, cruelty, beauty, loneliness, artificial intelligence, and mystery.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the writing of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.  We will use avariety of exercises, assignments, and readings to help students become comfortable as writers of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and memoir. We will workshop each other’s writing in a supportive, constructively critical manner.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course will focus on the basic elements of creative writing. Students will be asked to read and discuss published work by writers across a wide range of cultures, to support one another through peer workshops, and to write multiple drafts of short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Throughout the semester our focus will be on creating an artistic community that encourages everyone to discover and nurture their own individual creative voice, and then to express that voice with force and conviction.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Writing, whether in the form of a story, a poem, or a late-night email begging your professor for an extension, is always a creative act. Words arranged on a page create meaning, and in this class we will examine and practice certain authorial choices that go into creative meaning- making. We will do this through the lenses of poetry and fiction, reading widely and carefully with an eye to explore what choices the authors make, and to what end. Essentially, we will be asking over and over what makes a reader feel, experience, and understand. By the end of the semester I hope you'll feel confident with your new toolbox of tricks n skills, and empowered in your creative work to a) Say what you mean to say, b) How you mean to say it, c) With the desired emotional impact.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

How do some stories compel us to find out what happens next? Why do certain poems cause us to feel as if “the tops of our heads have been taken off,” as Dickinson once described? In this course, students will explore the specifics of what makes a piece of writing engaging,convincing, and intentional, and hone their unique voice by writing their own stories and poems. They’ll be asked to read work by a diverse list of published authors writing in a variety of genres and forms; to reimagine, repurpose, or subvert some elements of craft that appeal to them through a series of creative exercises and assignments; to try out different approaches to the page; and to engage in workshops of peer writing in a supportive environment that we’ll cultivate together as a class community.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This workshop-based course focuses on the development of skills for writing poetry, short fiction, and/or creative nonfiction through a close study of the techniques involved in these forms, analysis of model literary works, and frequent writing exercises that will be workshopped. This course must be completed at Macalester as a PREREQUISITE for the further study of creative writing at Macalester.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this course, we will explore and develop the foundational skills of creative writing. We will hone our craft and build a respectful, collaborative writing community through a series of creative exercises, close reading assignments, and workshops (where we will have the opportunity to share and receive feedback on our own drafts). Over the semester, we will read and discuss poems and stories from a diverse group of published authors, focusing on what we might learn from their approaches to the page, while asking how, among so many unique voices, we might cultivate our own. This course requires us to devote a significant amount of time outside of class to reading the course texts and composing our own work: creative writing is a way to discover more about ourselves and the world, but such discovery requires attention, contemplation, and practice. Readings will include writing by Jhumpa Lahiri, Ocean Vuong, Jamaica Kincaid, Neil Gaiman, Joy Harjo, Haruki Murakami, Yanyi, and others.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Since the invention of film, audiences have been fascinated by fantastic depictions of the Middle Ages on screen. Audiences love escaping into mysterious worlds of adventure with kings, warriors, and princesses. But how much do these movies really have to do with the historical Middle Ages? Do they illuminate truths or manufacture lies? Was this time period really as exciting, romantic, and dangerous as we imagine? In this class, we will dive into medieval movies and use actual historical sources to see how accurate the movies are. In the end, we will find out what the movies say not just about medieval societies, but how they are actually a mirror for modern-day viewers. As a First-Year Course, this class will familiarize you with college-level materials and methods, including seminar discussions and written analysis. The class will also introduce you to various resources on campus, from health services to tech rentals. Assignments include response papers, a presentation, and creative project.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Medieval mysteries and magic abound in historical British literature. What creature really kidnapped the infant son of Queen Rhiannon? What was Margery Kempe’s greatest, shameful secret? Did Shakespeare really write his plays? We will investigate these questions and more as we read poetry, stories, and plays from British history. One of our main tools will be etymology—the study of words and how they developed over time. By investigating the history of words like “man” and “wife”, we will trace meaning and change in both literature and society. Can we really separate the Self from its Society? Along the way, we will pay special attention to tracing the footsteps of individuals who were prohibited from participating in mainstream literary society: low-income workers, women, transgender individuals, LGBTQ* folk, and BIPOC groups. Literary investigation and etymology will help us learn from people who occupied the edge of their societies in a time long past.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A great detective story is arguably one of the most interactive of genres, as it urges a reader to step into the world of the mystery and solve it alongside the investigators who people the pages. This course traces evolutions in the genre, from 19th-century icons like Sherlock Holmes through early-20th-century hardboiled detectives and into very contemporary fiction. We'll consider professional and amateur detectives in short fiction and novels, watch several films, and read one story in serial installments. We will explore how detective stories are rooted in the cultural moments of their creation and read short pieces about the genre by some of its greatest writers. The course emphasizes the pleasures of reading (Cliffhangers! Clues! Misdirection!) and what we can learn from thinking hard about what is so satisfying about a great mystery, adeptly solved. Texts vary from one semester to the next; authors may include Dorothy Sayers, Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Tana French, Wilkie Collins, Gladys Mitchell, Dashiell Hammett, Rudolph Fisher, Anthony Horowitz. Coursework will be wide-ranging and playful, and will include creative as well as critical assignments.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A great detective story is arguably one of the most interactive of genres, as it urges a reader to step into the world of the mystery and solve it alongside the investigators who people the pages. This course traces evolutions in the genre, from 19th-century icons like Sherlock Holmes through early-20th-century hardboiled detectives and into very contemporary fiction. We'll consider professional and amateur detectives in short fiction and novels, watch several films, and read one story in serial installments. We will explore how detective stories are rooted in the cultural moments of their creation and read short pieces about the genre by some of its greatest writers. The course emphasizes the pleasures of reading (Cliffhangers! Clues! Misdirection!) and what we can learn from thinking hard about what is so satisfying about a great mystery, adeptly solved. Texts vary from one semester to the next; authors may include Dorothy Sayers, Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Tana French, Wilkie Collins, Gladys Mitchell, Dashiell Hammett, Rudolph Fisher, Anthony Horowitz. Coursework will be wide-ranging and playful, and will include creative as well as critical assignments.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

To the average reader, the field of publishing can seem somewhat opaque. How does a novel go from scribbled notes to finished paperback? What goes into editing, printing, and marketing a short story collection? This course will shed light on this exciting field through a combination of readings, talks with publishing professionals, in-class discussion, and hands-on work. We will learn about publishing by tracing the literary work through the processes of acquisition, editing, production, marketing, and publicity, and into the hands of the reader. Additional topics will include recent trends in technology, book editing, book reviewing, and the roles of the literary agent, and the independent publisher. We will take advantage of the extraordinary publishing resources in the Twin Cities and beyond through guest speakers. Assignments will include writing query letters and catalog copy, presenting publisher profiles, editing a short story, and writing a final paper on publishing issues. This course is designed for readers who want to know how the book they’re holding got into their hands, for writers who want to know what happens when they send their manuscripts to publishers, and for those interested in publishing as a future career.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From E. M. Forster's Lucy Honeychurch, who "entered into a more solid world when she opened the piano," to James Baldwin's Sonny, who "moved in an atmosphere which wasn't like theirs at all," fictional musicians encounter trouble when negotiating the conflicting realms of art and society. Experts in one kind of expression, they fail in others. What draws these characters to music? What does it offer them? What is its value to us? In the musical novel and short story, we encounter music as an agent of violence, of consolation, of transcendence and redemption as well as damnation. We witness empathy through music, but we also learn that shared feeling can be both beautiful and dangerous, that music unites and divides. This course combines the close reading of literary texts (as well as works of literary theory and musicology) with the examination of the musical contexts that inform and inspire them. We will explore, for example, the relationship between Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Unconsoled and Richard Wagner's music drama Parsifal. We will talk about syncopation in "jazz" by Charles Mingus and Toni Morrison. We will watch Marguerite Duras and Katherine Mansfield turn innocuous music lessons into spaces of wretchedness. We will try to understand what David Mitchell's young composer Robert Frobisher means when he says, "One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner."

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In Victorian England, there were few regulations about food safety—so your flour could be part chalk, for example—but there was much anxiety about the sickening influence on young ladies of consuming inappropriate literature. This course explores the relationship between food and print culture as means of creating shared experiences. Considering consumption in a wide range of ways—from dinner-party etiquette to commercial efforts to create desires for conspicuous consumption—we will discuss ideas of taste and the problems of trying to regulate eating/reading bodies. We will read a social problem novel from the “hungry forties,” indulge in famous literary feasts that display the excesses of the booming 1860s, and consider the relationships between food, gendered ideals, and sexuality. Non-fiction from the period provides background on working conditions, literary circulation, and consumer cultures. To balance the fact that literature may play an outsized role in shaping our consumption of the past, we will also eat our way through this course, experimenting with 19th century recipes and foods.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What does it mean to be an outcast? And why do outcasts often retreat to nature as a place of solace? In studying these out-of-the-way places, we will read books by writers who investigate the politics of place and cross-cultural experiences of our changing planet. Taking an intersectional approach to gender, race, class dynamics, and neurodiversity, this course combines study of modernist and contemporary British writing with considerations of the environment—an approach known as ecocriticism in literary studies. While you’ll be introduced to ecocriticism and its intersecting theories of the environment, you will be encouraged to draw on your own interests and experiences with the natural world, in addition to trans-disciplinary approaches from natural history, biology, environmental studies, medicine, environmental psychology, and anthropology. We will also examine how nature takes metaphorical shape in literature, working as a group to understand how writers draw on the environment to express complex human emotions and interconnections with the non-human world.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, we will study African American literature from the end of the 18th century to the turn of the 20th century, from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells. Themes of the course include: Black solidarity, U.S. citizenship, and literature as a means of self-creation and resistance. In the words of Toni Morrison, “this is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread.” Thus, we will also foreground early African American literature as art, as an at once aestheticand political project, reading it closely and appreciatively. Requirements include: briefwritten responses to the readings, a presentation, a medium-length essay and a revision ofit, and a final reflection. This course fulfills the English major requirement either of acourse focused on literature by U.S. writers of color or a course on 19th -century Americanliterature.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class takes as its starting point the idea that a lyric poem is an act of attention. In this sense, poetry is a profound way to pay tribute to what we love and to what we value; in another, it is a powerful means by which to resist the forces that would fragment and economize our focus. Throughout this semester, we will practice a variety of poetic forms, ranging from sonnets, to sestinas, to composition by field, so that we might find new ways of attending to language, and thus to ourselves, to each other, and to the world. In order to reimagine the shapes our attention might take, we will consider the words of poets past and present, including work by Natalie Diaz, Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Bishop, Ross Gay, Valzhyna Mort, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Gwendolyn Brooks. We will also collaboratively construct a respectful writing community, where we will discuss, produce, and revise creative work with feedback from our peers. Furthermore, we will go on fieldtrips, and have the opportunity to interact with several poets who have recently published critically-acclaimed collections. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 150 taken at Macalester.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

When we watch movies and TV shows, it’s hard sometimes to remember how these works are actually born. Before the actors say a word, or the post-production team adds that perfect shade of pink to the sunset, a film or television show lives solely on the page. It lives as a piece of writing created in the mind of a storyteller. No matter what happens later, it always begins as a reading experience. In this course, we will concentrate on every aspect of that initial and vital stage of creating visual stories. We will study produced scripts to see how they master visual storytelling, pitch perfect dialogue, and satisfying structure. While there is no paint-by-numbers formula for a perfect screenplay or teleplay, there is a constantly evolving form full of principles the greatest writers have relied on since the birth of these mediums. Throughout the semester we will study this form in depth then we will workshop your developing scripts with an eye toward making them ideal stories for the screen, both large and small.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

The quote, “plays are meant to be seen, not read” means that playwrights must write to create an experience for their audience. This class is focused on the fundamentals of developing a play, while also learning how to take full advantage of theatrical elements that can help enhance their story on stage. Students will read a variety of new and contemporary plays with different storytelling techniques that embrace the unlimited possibilities of theatricality, and exemplify why we write for the stage. In this course students will develop a “playwriting toolkit” while exploring their artistic interests through a series of time- bound conventions: the 1-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute, and ultimately one-act form. In class exercises and prompts, and small-group workshopping and reading will challenge writers' development. A mid-term and final playreading series will allow students to hear their work read in a supportive public setting.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this course, students engage in a series of playwriting exercises and read a wide variety of plays. They will read new and contemporary plays that employ different storytelling techniques (i.e., structure, character arcs, staging elements, etc.), embrace the unlimited possibilities of theatricality, and exemplify why we write for the stage. Students will develop a "playwriting toolkit" as they explore their artistic interests following the conventions of time-bound pieces: the 1-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute, and ultimately one-act form. In-class exercises and prompts, and small-group workshopping and reading will challenge each writer's individual development. A midterm and final play reading series of one-acts will allow students to hear their work in a supportive public setting.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this team-taught, creative writing/studio art hybrid course, students will contribute to the rich medium of graphic novels by writing, drawing, and inking their own original comic book story. The stories will then be mass-produced into individual zines, and collected into a class-wide graphic novel anthology and ebook. This course has two fundamental goals: To help students work individually on a graphic storytelling project of their own devising: from the cultivation of an initial idea, to the further exploration of that idea through multiple drafts and storyboards, and then finally to sending it out into the world as a “completed” project, which is to say a project that is “good enough for now.” Our second, equally important goal, is to work collectively to build a mutually supportive artistic community dedicated to helping everyone achieve their best work. Along the way, students will also strengthen their technical drawing and design skills, view and analyze examples of visual storytelling from diverse artists, investigate storytelling structures across a wide range of cultures, learn how to communicate more effectively through images, and gain hands-on experience in a variety of publishing modalities. Prerequisites: ENGL 150 (Intro to Creative Writing) or ART 130 (Drawing).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Where are you from? Where are you now? Where are you going? In this class we will engage in the practice of close attention to our surroundings (especially the Twin Cities), turning our place- based experiences into words. Through field trips both physical (to the Ordway, to art museums) and figurative (through memory, history and imagination), we’ll learn how to fine-tune our visual, auditory, gustatory, and overall sensory description skills. We’ll also look into the history of “sketchbooks” and “sketches” in general, as well as keeping our own written sketchbooks throughout the semester, and we’ll examine how literary trends in description vary across time and place. We’ll read work from writers such as Sofia Samatar, Annie Dillard, and Richard Hugo, and required texts may include novels like Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and the nonfiction anthology A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars. This is a multi-genre class with opportunities for self-direction.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

‘U-topia’ means ‘a place (topos) that doesn’t exist’ and ‘Eu-topia’ means ‘a good place.’ So, a good place that doesn’t exist? How do people of various gender identities envision a better state yet-to-be (utopia) as well as a fear of catastrophe or nightmare (dystopia)? This course investigates how women's literary writing from different parts of the world (Bangladeshi, British, African-American, Canadian, to name a few) produce visions of the present and the future, of the real and the imagined, beliefs about masculinity and femininity, socialist and capitalist philosophies, modernity, the environment (ecotopia), and various technologies including cybergenetics. Texts by Thomas More, Frantz Fanon, Silvia Federici, and Noam Chomsky, and music by The Eagles and A Tribe Called Red are included. We will explore how these texts provide some ways to think about our gendered, racialized, and classed roles, and how we can think about MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Charlottesville, and neoliberal nation-states, along with our own fantasies and realities of sociopolitical change.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

In this course, we will study the longstanding tradition of African American women’s thought—that is, theory that analyzes and challenges systemic U.S. oppressions, both past and present, while centering and appreciating a wide range of Black women’s perspectives and experiences. We will begin with 19th century contestations of “ideal” womanhood and will extend our study into the 20th and 21st centuries, including intersectionality theory, queer-of-color and Black transgender theory, and digital Black feminisms. Authors will include: Harriet Jacobs, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Audre Lorde,and Patricia Hill Collins, among others. We will also consider art and music as Black FeministThought, studying figures such as Wangechi Mutu and Janelle Monáe. Course requirements include discussion questions on our readings, a presentation, a short essay, and a final project. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores representations of dis/ability, race, and ablenationalism in late medieval and early modern England (c. 1500-1700). How did writers conceptualize bodymind normativity, dis/ability, race and disability? Why did people turn to storytelling, poetry, drama, and other literary arts to write about illness and disability? And where might we discover evidence of disability gain in the early modern archive? We’ll learn to read a variety of genres: medical literature, herbals (self-help remedy books written for lay people), law books, joke books, ballads, poetry, maps, parish records, and drama. We will also read widely in recent disability theory, disability and race scholarship, and disability aesthetics. No prior knowledge of the topic or of Renaissance literature is expected. This course counts for the Renaissance period requirement. Prerequisite: a 100- or 200-level course in English.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The story goes like this. While performing Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus—a play featuring spell-casting, necromancy, and other devilish arts—the actors noticed that “there was one devil too many amongst them.” They stopped the play; the audience panicked. Whether a true story or not (the anecdote comes down to us through a seventeenth-century source), it captures one of the “certainties” of the period: that demons, devils, witches, and other things of darkness are a part of the here and now. In this course, we explore sixteenth- and seventeenth-century tales of the demonic. At the same time, we examine how authors used the public’s fascination with the supernatural to voice religious controversies regarding freewill and election, political nightmares of state tyranny and oppression, and social crises surrounding the vanishing culture of hospitality and charity. Hence, just as characters strive to see beyond appearances and outward show, so we shall investigate the religious, political, and legal debates out of which the texts arise. Central to our study are the major works of early modern English literature such as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Milton’s Paradise Lost, and lesser known texts such as The Witch of Edmonton, The Discovery of Witchcraft, and King James VI and I’s Daemonologie. No prior knowledge of conjuring is presumed or required. This course counts for the Renaissance period requirement for the English major. Prerequisite: a 100- or 200-level course in English.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Writing with light: Photography originates from the Greek words phos, (genitive: phōtós) meaning “light,” and graphê meaning “drawing or writing.” In this capstone course, students will pursue three interlocking objectives: first, we will read deeply, studying a range of primary texts that combine photography and literature. Poets, theorists, novelists, and filmmakers draw on the history and processes of photography to create complex visions of emotional life. From theories of memory to radical reimaginings of embodiment and place, these writers bridge technology/art and the written word to challenge popular conceptions of culture. Second, students will strengthen their critical analysis and academic writing skills, developing an original research project (note: you should plan to read Helen Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing over the summer or in the first week). Your topic will be up to you, but it will be developed in consultation with the instructor and your peers. Third, as a form of research-creation, we will undertake various photographic experiments in visual culture and analysis, and students will create a visual essay to accompany their final thesis project. We will share these hybrid research projects in a presentation at the end of the semester with the Macalester community. No artistic or photographic experience necessary. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the English major. Only those with current JR or SR status will be allowed to register; all others need permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This seminar is for senior creative writers who are ready for an ambitious semester-long project. The genre is up to you. It might be a novella, a chapbook of poems, a collection of stories or personal essays, or a feature screenplay. Throughout the semester, you will put up sections of your project for workshop, while evaluating the work of your peers. We will also read published works and craft essays to help guide our efforts along the way. After you register for the class, I will ask you to tell me a little about your project via email. Then I will assign texts tailored to your work and the work of others. The class will culminate in a presentation and a revised and finished project.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials