Spring 2026: Undergraduate English Courses
ENG 204 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I
Instructor: Rodney Koeneke
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 300 001 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS
Instructor: Jonathan Walker; Rebecca Nelson (TA)
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
As the title for English 300 suggests, our course of study will concentrate on analyzing the major forms that English literature takes, including lyric poetry, drama, the short story, and the novel. Although we will not discuss other prominent forms such as the epic and the essay, we will screen and discuss a film adaptation of a piece of drama. We will also analyze both premodern and modern literature originating from England and the United States, ranging from William Shakespeare to Jeanette Winterson.
Without thinking much about it, most of us could differentiate a poem from a short story and a play from a novel, but when we examine literary “form,” what is it exactly that we’re looking at? One way of thinking about form is first of all the physical or material shape that a piece of literature takes. By “shape” I mean, at the most basic of levels, the disposition of the text upon the page and the mode or process by which a piece of literature creates its imaginative world for a reader or listener. Another word for “form” is “structure,” which involves both the various parts that make up the whole as well as the relationship between those parts. Other ways of thinking about “form” include who speaks in a literary text, who listens or spectates, and what and how the literary representation creates and then fulfills and/or frustrates the audience’s expectations. Our job during this class will be to learn the formal characteristics of the literature we read and to analyze it in order to produce and formulate coherent literary meanings.
You will be expected to have read each day’s material carefully, to have ideas and questions prepared when you come to class, and to participate actively in class discussions.
ENG 300 002 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS
Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
Many people suspect that English majors do little more than engage in idle chatter about their favorite characters in novels. ENG 300, one of the core courses required of all English majors at PSU, will teach you the truth. English majors critically read works of literature and culture for insights about the world we live in and the world we might live in. Our focus will be the methodologies for critically reading literature. We will cover three knowledge-and-skill areas: 1. literary form (genre, figurative language, narrative technique, vocabulary, prosody, and so on), 2. close reading, and 3. writing critical (interpretative and analytical) arguments. Beginning at a nuts-and-bolts level, we will build up your abilities as a critical reader of poems, fiction, drama, and film. We might even find time to enjoy what poet John Keats called “diligent idleness.” By the end of the course, students will have earned the right to call themselves English majors. In our dark times, this is no mean feat.
Course Texts:
- Murfin, Ross C. and Supriya M. Ray. Bedford Glossary of Critical & Literary Terms. 4th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017. (ISBN: 9781319035396)
- Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. 5th ed., W. W. Norton & Co., 2019. (ISBN: 9780393538700)
- Brian Friel. Translations. Faber and Faber, 1981. (ISBN: 9780571117420)
- Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook. 9th ed. Modern Language Association of America, 2021. ISBN: 9781603293518. (recommended)
ENG 304 001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA
Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
ENG 305U 001 TOP IN FLM: THE HORROR FILM
Instructor: Karen Grossweiner
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 305U 002 TOP IN FLM: MOVIE MUSICALS
Instructor: Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Musicals are one of America’s chief contributions to the world of culture, and movies are one of the forms in which musicals have reached the widest audiences. This course will discuss fifteen important movie musicals over the last eighty years, from The Wizard of Oz to Wicked, to explore shifting ideas of American identity and community, along with changing musical and cinematic forms for representing those ideas. Students will analyze elements of movie musicals, research their cultural contexts, and even propose new musicals of their own.
ENG 306U 001 TOP: VIDEOGAMES AND E-LIT
Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 306U “Videogames and E-Literature” is a lecture/discussion seminar and hands-on lab and discussion. Students learn core principles of videogame design and history. They play games during lab sessions and learn "close playing" observational skills. They study and build interactive literature with no-code software. Gaming experience not required.
ENG 306U 002 TOP IN LIT AND POP CULTURE
Instructor: Susan Reese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 306U 003 TOP: ADAPTING SHAKESPEARE
Instructor: Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
How have Shakespeare's plays been adapted into different media to speak to the concerns of changing eras and communities? We'll explore a range of adaptations across the page, stage, and screen—including a class trip to Portland Center Stage to see James Ijames's recent Pulitzer-winning Fat Ham, a Black queer remix of Hamlet set at a Southern family barbecue—and try creating our own adaptations as well.
ENG 306U 004 TOP: X-MEN AND THE UNCANNY
Instructor: Douglas Wolk
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
For more than 60 years, X-Men has been a pillar of American comic books—a superhero soap opera that has a lot to say about identity, sexuality and nation-building, written and drawn by several generations of extraordinary creators. We will read and discuss a substantial cross-section of X-Men and related comics from multiple decades, as well as texts by (among others) Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin and Stephanie Burt that will illuminate them. (Be prepared to do a lot of reading.) We'll pay particular attention to "the mutant metaphor"—the way X-Men stories allegorize pretty much every kind of real-world struggle against oppression into an imaginary kind. And we will consider those stories through the lenses of visual art, comics history, and creative collaboration.
ENG 307U 001 SCIENCE FICTION
Instructor: Tom Fisher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 318U 001 THE BIBLE AS LIT
Instructor: Joel Bettridge
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
In his essay on Genesis in The Literary Guide to the Bible J.P. Fokkelman points out that “historians are apt to regard the [Bible] as a source for something beyond itself because their proper interest or attention is directed to contextual realities. And theologians tend to read the text as message, and to that end separate form from content without realizing that in doing so they violate the literary integrity of the text” (36). Taking Fokkelman’s warning to heart, we will in this class take the Bible on its own terms, neither making it say more or less than it does. To do so—to take the Bible seriously as a work of literature—this class will revolve around one central question: how is the Bible asking us to read it as a literary work? Rather than focus on our own assumptions about what the Bible might be saying, or the assumptions of religious and cultural authorities, we will look to see what the Bible might have to say about itself. With this textual focus in mind, we will consider how literary form affects the way we read the text; for example, we will ask how does the narrative structure of the Bible develop God as a character? In the end, this manner of attention will provide us with a better grasp of the Bible’s content and character, as well as allow us to negotiate the Bible’s complexity with more skill and attention.
ENG 325U 001 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE
Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill or betray it.
–Frantz Fanon
Postcolonial literature encompasses writing from global sites once and still impacted by the experience of colonization. Though “postcolonial” first described nations emerging from the shadow of colonial domination, it is more than a simple historical marker: “postcolonialism” is most fundamentally a project, an ongoing struggle for freedom whose battleground is every sphere of human life, from the individual psyche to national political life and the environment – and the university as an institution. Beginning with student protest movements in South Africa, and here at PSU, this class will ask how anticolonial and decolonial struggles, theories, and perspectives can help us make sense of our own experiences today, in the university and beyond.
Close readings of novels, films, and poetry from Africa, the Caribbean, and India will help us stay grounded as we work through a few of the field's important theoretical texts and the issues they address: violence and its aftermaths; knowledge and power; psychology; gender; language & representation; ethics and justice; and the environment, among many others.
Required Texts:
- Baxter Theater Company, The Fall
- Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
- Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions
- Sinha, Animal’s People
Films:
- Everything Must Fall
- Paradise Now
ENG 326 001 LIT COMM DIFF
Instructor: Elizabeth C. Brown
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
In her 1979 essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” the Black feminist scholar and poet Audre Lorde argued, “Difference must not merely be tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” For Lorde, race, gender, sexuality, and class, among others, did not merely name differences of identity to be overcome but possibilities for “raw and powerful connection” that could lead to personal and social transformation. To investigate the possibilities of difference, our class will consider how literature has participated in racial meaning-making in the 20th and 21st centuries. How has literature been a site of contestation over how readers imagine racial and other social identities? What formal strategies have authors used to represent differences of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability over time? How might literature offer unexpected possibilities for envisioning the political and cultural power of difference? We will consider these questions across novels, short stories, essays, and films by authors that will likely include W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Boots Riley, and others. The major course assignment will be portfolio of short critical and creative responses to assigned texts.
This course fulfills the Culture, Difference, and Representation requirement for the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
ENG 335U 001 TOP: REPRESENTING TIME
Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
During the nineteenth century, one of the most significant revolutions in the history of humanity took place. But unlike the revolutions that bookended that century of profound global change, this was no struggle between opposing armies or rival political factions. It was instead a revolution in human perception and memory, one with profound consequences for our ancient tendency to create abstract representations of the world through language and signs: humanity developed the ability to mechanically capture and re-present time itself through the new technologies of photography, sound recording, and cinema. This course will ask how this revolution transformed the way artists and philosophers went about their work, studying the effects of this event across multiple forms. We will also ask if this revolution even took place at all, as this period also brought with it new concepts of the nature of time and temporality through developments in science, industry, and philosophy.
With an initial focus on the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, we will trace the effects of this ongoing revolution as it passed through literature, art, and science, catching up to our own transforming subjectivity in the era of social media timelines and app updates. Readings will include theory and philosophy as well as literary criticism. We will also be screening films in addition to consuming other forms of media. Even Zoom itself will be an object of focus in this asynchronous but interactive course.
ENG 340U 001 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
Early English literature echoes all around us. In this course, we will undertake a close study of literary works by medieval writers, paying close attention to both genre and historical context. Our text will be The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages, 11th Edition. Course work will include class participation, reading responses, two open exams, and multiple drafts of a final interpretive essay. This course is a good fit for anyone who needs or wants to understand more about English literature in the Middle Ages; no prior background in the subject matter or language is required.
This class may count toward the Historical Literacy requirement of the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
ENG 341U 001 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
The Life of Love in Renaissance Poetry and Drama:
Love is, of course, a many splendored thing. But it is also a very complicated, irrational, and often painful affair. As the cultural critic Laura Kipnis has put it:
Saying no to love isn’t simply heresy; it is tragedy—the failure to achieve what is most essentially human. So deeply internalized is our obedience to this most capricious despot [of love] that artists create passionate odes to its cruelty, and audiences seem never to tire of the most deeply unoriginal mass spectacles devoted to rehearsing the litany of its torments, fixating their very beings on the narrowest glimmer of its fleeting satisfactions.
It was no less so during the English Renaissance.
In this course, we will read primarily English Renaissance poetry along with one dramatic text, all of which centers on the subject of love. Yet because love encompasses so many other dimensions—attraction, rejection, desire, loss, beauty, sex, gender, eroticism, social roles, social expectations, marriage, and so forth—our readings will touch upon a wide range of overlapping themes. The course will not be comprehensive in its coverage, but we will address questions of desire, the body, eroticism, clothing, seduction, and leavetaking within four broad units. In addition, we will occasionally read non-literary texts, such as songs, emblems, essays, and even parliamentary legislation, which will serve to orient us within the English Renaissance culture from which the literature comes. Doing so will help us to understand the similarities and differences between Renaissance English and contemporary American notions of that crazy little thing called love.
Finally, this class will be discussion-based. There will be very few lectures. Participation is key, so I will expect you to have read the poetry several times for each day, to have ideas and questions about the readings, and to be prepared to discuss the material during our class time.
This class may count toward the Historical Literacy requirement of the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
ENG 343U 001 ROMANTICISM
Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course introduces students to some of the greatest hits, one-hit wonders, and lost treasures of the literature written in Britain in the decades between the 1780s and the 1830s. The Romantic period is traditionally understood to contain poetry by six white men that exhibits a powerful imagination and a preoccupation with nature and the self. But over the last few decades scholars have demonstrated Romanticism to be a much more diverse, complex, and interesting phenomenon. Romantic literature, we now know, encompasses not just the “big six,” but also works by women, working-class people, and individuals of African descent. Besides all those poems, these Romantic-period writers composed novels, essays, and plays. And rather than being an expression of imagination alone, this literature reflects, and reflects critically on, a range of real-world phenomena: the emergence of industrial capitalism, political revolutions in France and Haiti, the rise of radical politics in Britain, the abolition of slavery in the British empire, the role of the artist in society, feminism, environmentalism, and the start of the Anthropocene. This course, then, offers students a chance not just to read some pretty cool poems, nonfiction, and one novel, but also to experience Romanticism as a cultural treasury that, when read closely, provides resources for thinking critically about how we, individually and together, live and how we might yet live.
Course Texts:
- Eisner, Eric and Deidre Shauna Lynch, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 11th ed., W.W. Norton, 2024. Vol. D of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6 vols. (ISBN: 978-1-324-06267-7)
- Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: The Original 1818 Text. Edited by D. L. MacDonald and Kathleen Scherf, 3rd ed., Broadview, 2012. (ISBN: 9781554811038)
This class may count toward the Historical Literacy requirement of the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
ENG 353U 001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT III
Instructor: Anoop Mirpuri
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
For over a century, critics and authors have debated whether the literature written by black people should be classified as a distinct genre. Many have argued that such literature should be grouped together on the grounds that it represents the shared experience of a “race.” Others, however, argued that the development of black art was arrested by the burden of having to represent the so-called “black experience.” They asked: Could black poets and novelists reach their full potential as long as they were expected to be sociologists of blackness? Once black people achieved formal legal equality, would black authors finally be free to simply be authors?
While many contemporary authors have embraced the designation of their work as “Black,” many have pushed back against the practice of viewing literature in racial terms. This course will examine how black novelists in the post-civil rights era (i.e., after 1965) have tried to carve out a space for themselves as artists in a world that insists on reducing their writing to the realms of sociology or testimony. In particular, we will identify and discuss the artistic strategies they’ve developed to challenge readers’ expectations and solicit more complex and nuanced responses to their work.
ENG 369U 001 ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Instructor: Kai Hang Cheang
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 380 001 READING THE WORLD
Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 383U 001 TOP: SUPERHEROES GAME & ETHICS
Instructor: Moshe Rachmuth
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 383U 002 TOPICS IN COMP LIT FILM COMICS
Instructor: Steven Fuller
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 414 001 COMPOSITION THEORY
Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Would you like to be a more confident writer? A more creative thinker? A more generous reader? A more effective educator?
This course will introduce you to the field of Composition (and Rhetoric) and its fascinating conversations about writing, learning, and teaching. Through shared readings and discussion, we’ll explore topics as varied as rhetorical analysis, cognitive processes, genre studies, linguistic diversity, multimodal literacies, inclusive pedagogy, and learning transfer. You will get an overview of the discipline’s deep historical traditions, complex ethical tensions, and practical teaching strategies–and then delve into an area of particular (personal or professional) interest.
Along the way, you’ll gain new insights on writing in theory and practice, develop your reading and research skills, and foster a healthier relationship with your own literacy learning.
ENG 420 001 CARIBBEAN LIT
Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 428 001 CANONS AND CANONICITY
Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course fulfills the Culture, Difference, and Representation requirement for the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
ENG 460 001 ADV TOP: AM LIT TO 1800
Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course examines historical and contemporary narratives that construct the early American past, focusing on stories of conquest, captivity, slavery, witchcraft, and the Revolution. We will read 16th-18th century nonfiction accounts that dramatized these events and experiences in their time, and which serve as source material for the scholarship and contemporary fiction and film that shapes what they mean in ours. We will take a comparative approach, examining different modes of narrating history and imagining past worlds practiced by literary critics, historians, fiction writers and filmmakers. This approach will allow us to explore questions about the methods, forms, ethics and politics of representing the early American past and its relevance to understanding US culture today.
Required Books (available at PSU Bookstore):
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Relación (Arte Público)
- Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account
- Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
- Maryse Condé, I, Tituba
- Toni Morrison, A Mercy
This course may count toward the Historical Literacy requirement of the English and Creative Writing majors (and may also be taken as an English elective).
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Spring 2026: Graduate English Courses
ENG 507 001 SEM: FRANGLOPHONE MODERNISM
Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Franglophone Modernism: Naturalism, Decadence, and Narrative Form:
English professors—bless our hearts—often talk about English-language modernism exclusively as a response to its Romantic and Victorian forebears, without any mention of the impact of European realism and naturalism. This influence entirely changes the texture of how we understand the emergence and the theoretical legacies of modernism. The Marxist critic Georg Lukács, for example, championed the humanism of realists like Balzac and Tolstoy, but attacked naturalism as historically inert, and in turn, read modernism as a dead-end—a decadent formalism (derogatory) that reified the individual as a solitary, antisocial creature. Lukács did not invent these claims out of thin air—nineteenth-century writers were saying the same things, approvingly and critically—and even now, readers of modernism are compelled to wrestle with Lukács’s questions. What is the purchase of a text that privileges individual subjectivity over the broad scope of history? Might those “decadent” formal experiments prove more dialectical than Lukács imagined, if we know how to read them?
Guided by these and other questions, we will read a few texts as examples of the French realist, naturalist, and Decadent movements: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856), Émile Zola’s Nana (1880), and J.-K. Huysmans’s À rebours (Against Nature; 1884). We will then study two very different canonical English modernist novels—D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913) and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (1931)—that redeploy and challenge the conventions of realism, naturalism, and decadence in surprising ways. We’re leaving out tons—tons, I tell you!—but students will find many of their own research areas and OFE lists enriched by these discussions; there is hardly any field of 19th- or 20th-century literature or cultural theory that doesn’t touch on these issues in one way or another.
Texts (please get these editions):
- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Norton Critical Ed.; trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling; ed. Margaret Cohen; ISBN 978-0393979176).
- Émile Zola, Nana (Penguin; trans. George Holden; ISBN 978-0140442632)
- J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature (Oxford; trans. Margaret Mauldon; ISBN 978-0199555116)
- D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (Penguin; ed. Baron and Baron; ISBN 978-0141441443)
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves (Harvest/HarperCollins; ed. Mark Hussey; 978-0156949606)
- Other readings will be distributed in class or posted on Canvas.
If your French is considerably better than mine, you are welcome to study the originals, but you will need the English versions for class discussions and written work.
This course satisfies the seminar requirement for the MA in English.
ENG 514 001 COMPOSITION THEORY
Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Would you like to be a more confident writer? A more creative thinker? A more generous reader? A more effective educator?
This course will introduce you to the field of Composition (and Rhetoric) and its fascinating conversations about writing, learning, and teaching. Through shared readings and discussion, we’ll explore topics as varied as rhetorical analysis, cognitive processes, genre studies, linguistic diversity, multimodal literacies, inclusive pedagogy, and learning transfer. You will get an overview of the discipline’s deep historical traditions, complex ethical tensions, and practical teaching strategies–and then delve into an area of particular (personal or professional) interest.
Along the way, you’ll gain new insights on writing in theory and practice, develop your reading and research skills, and foster a healthier relationship with your own literacy learning.
This course satisfies the theory requirement for the MA in English.
ENG 518 001 COLLEGE COMP TEACHING
Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
ENG 560 001 ADV TOP: AMERICAN LIT TO 1800
Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course examines historical and contemporary narratives that construct the early American past, focusing on stories of conquest, captivity, slavery, witchcraft, and the Revolution. We will read 16th-18th century nonfiction accounts that dramatized these events and experiences in their time, and which serve as source material for the scholarship and contemporary fiction and film that shapes what they mean in ours. We will take a comparative approach, examining different modes of narrating history and imagining past worlds practiced by literary critics, historians, fiction writers and filmmakers. This approach will allow us to explore questions about the methods, forms, ethics and politics of representing the early American past and its relevance to understanding US culture today.
Required Books (available at PSU Bookstore):
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Relación (Arte Público)
- Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account
- Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
- Maryse Condé, I, Tituba
- Toni Morrison, A Mercy
This course may count toward one of the following requirements of the MA in English: (a) pre-1800 British or American literature; or (b) pre-1900 literature/rhetoric.
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Spring 2026: Undergraduate Writing Courses
WR 121Z 001 COMPOSITION I
Instructor: Anastasia Mertz
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 121Z 002 COMPOSITION I
Instructor: Stephanie Gresham
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 121Z 003 COMPOSITION I
Instructor: Guzide Erturk Guzeldere
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 210 001 GRAMMAR REFRESHER
Instructor: Caroline Hayes
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING
Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
In this class we will explore the practice of writing fiction as an experience that not only includes putting words to page and telling stories, but also listening, observing, giving attention, feeling, moving, walking, meditating, and sensing. The course will work as a creative laboratory, giving the students the opportunity to experiment and investigate within the realm of fiction. Our work will be guided by writing exercises, readings by diverse contemporary authors, and discussions of core craft elements such as point of view, character, plot, and setting. There will also be some discussion of student work. Throughout, we will explore what it means to articulate via language, to be challenged by language, to recreate intimacy with language, and to see differently because of and via language.
WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING
Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING
Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 213 002 INTRO POETRY WRITING
Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING
Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
An introduction to writing literary nonfiction, including essays, oral history, and field writing. Beginning with the raw material of exercises in description, setting, and dialogue, students will write and discuss short works of creative nonfiction. This course may be applied to the Minor in English, the Minor in Writing, or the Required Writing Course requirement of the BFA in Creative Writing. It also serves as a prerequisite for WR 456, 457, 458, and 459.
WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS
Instructor: Kyle Nunes
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS
Instructor: Madeline Mendiola
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 227Z 001 TECHNICAL WRITING
Instructor: Jacob Tootalian
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 227Z 002 TECHNICAL WRITING
Instructor: Julie Kares
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 227Z 003 TECHNICAL WRITING
Instructor: Elle Wilder
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 300 001 TOP: CROSS-CULTURAL COMM
Instructor: Sidouane Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH
Instructor: Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH
Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 312 001 INTERMED FICTION WR
Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Building off of fiction writing techniques introduced in WR 212, students will engage with topics related to craft (point of view, character, narrative, setting, etc.), look more closely at their own relationship with language and narrative structure, and aim to produce two completed works of original fiction. Students will also participate in workshops and provide written critical engagements of the works of their peers. Our work will be guided by various writing & revision exercises, as well as readings by diverse contemporary authors.
WR 312 002 INTERMED FICTION WR
Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: Hybrid
This course is no-cost.2
What new and vibrant species of narrative emerges when writers cross-pollinate a short story with a poem or an essay, or realistic fiction with a fairy tale? What happens when we dress up “high literature” in clothing usually reserved for horror or speculative fiction? Or accessorize flash fiction with visual art? What connections might we draw between the terms genre and gender, and what part does genre-crossing play in queering the literary canon? While exploring the freedoms that exist beyond genre, how might we also rethink conventional notions about plot, character, point of view and setting? This intermediate course will examine these and other questions, along with generative writing exercises, weekly student workshops, and a strong emphasis on writing as a process rather than a product.
(Important Caveat: Though our reading list focuses on cross-genre and hybrid forms, students' workshop submissions do not necessarily need to have any cross-genre or hybrid elements.)
WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING
Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Brett Bolstad
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Brett Bolstad
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Caroline Hayes
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 323 005 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Amy Harper Russell
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
Course Objective: In this class we will learn what it is to be a writer. We will explore different types of writing, draft work, reflect upon work, and have the opportunity to peer-review work. Please save all notes, discussion posts, journaling, drafts, source materials, peer reviews, and papers to include in a portfolio. The end result should be a complete portfolio of work to share.
Projects by Category:
- Research Paper
- This genre will examine the process of writing research papers. We will discover how to find a worthy topic for research, how to formulate a working thesis, how to write a research proposal, how to find and evaluate sources, and how to synthesize these sources into cohesive and informative research papers. This course will also cover correct citation for MLA and APA citation.
- Creative Writing
- This genre shall include personal narrative and/or memoir
- Career Planning
- This genre includes Resumés and Job Letters
WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Travis Willmore
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Perrin Kerns
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Ian Jensen
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Julie Kares
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Sidouane Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 410 001 TOP: COMICS EDITING
Instructor: Shelly Bond
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
Comic book editing is an exciting, all-consuming, and messy business! Find out what it takes to be at the center of this fast-growing field where the editor must master the art of collaboration, above and beyond the necessary deadline crunching and grammar pedantry. This course will demystify the role of the comic book editor, that all-important person at the heart of each comic or original graphic novel, by immersing students in every stage of the process of comics creation. Through deconstructing the comic book—from concept through story, script, pencils, inks, lettering, coloring, proofreading, production, and marketing—students will gain a deep knowledge of the inner mechanics of making comics. Students will write and illustrate a one page comic as part of a class anthology to be edited and assembled and printed by the end of the semester. Guest speakers and recorded interviews with industry all-stars will punctuate class lectures and exercises. A greater appreciation of this illuminating art form is guaranteed!
WR 410 002 TOP: ENTREPRNEURSHP IN PBLSHNG
Instructor: Ali Shaw
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 412 001 ADV FICTION WRITING
Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 420 001 WRITING STUDIO
Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 427 001 TECHNICAL EDITING
Instructor: Victoria Raible
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course challenges students to look at written and visual communication holistically, understanding the editing process as the intermediary between the writer and the reader—and importantly, leveraging the editor's comprehension of each perspective to make information concise and accessible. Although we will review common copyediting considerations, this course is focused on elevating these foundational skills to technical professional applications. Students will learn about professional editing practices, various audiences needs, and industry standard and organizational style guides. Navigating the nuances of the technical editor’s role in document development, we will discuss how to prioritize, edit effectively across “levels of edit,” and communicate the “why” behind our edits.
WR 431 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY
Instructor: Bryan Schnabel
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
(No previous experience is necessary). Building upon foundational writing and communication skills, students will learn the principles and best practices for effective content management. Students will learn to plan, organize, store, and deliver content across various web-based platforms. The course will examine various content management systems (CMS) and their role in streamlining content workflows, facilitating collaboration, and ensuring content consistency. Finally, this course will examine the evolving landscape of content management, including how artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies are impacting content creation, organization, and delivery, aligning with the course's focus on modern content management strategies. Through practical exercises and case studies, students will cultivate a strategic understanding of content management principles and acquire the skills necessary to manage complex documentation projects effectively.
WR 434 001 SCIENCE WRITING
Instructor: Jacob Tootalian
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course prepares students to be effective writers and communicators about science for both scientific and public audiences. Students will study a variety of genres of scientific writing, including scientific research reports, research posters, research proposals, science journalism, science non-fiction and various digital genres (e.g., blogs and websites). Students will learn rhetorical and stylistic strategies for writing across multiple audience types about science. This course is appropriate for science students learning to write like a scientist and English or other students learning how to write about science.
WR 459 001 MEMOIR WRITING
Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Memoir Writing is a workshop course focused on the writing and revision of memoir, as well as exploring authors and issues in the genre. Students will have the option to use either small-group or full-class workshopping of their writing. Prior writing workshop experience is helpful, but not required.
WR 461 001 BOOK EDITING
Instructor: Katie Van Heest
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 463 001 BOOK MARKETING
Instructor: Tara Lehmann
Instructional Method: Hybrid
WR 472 001 COPYEDITING
Instructor: Tanner Croom
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 474 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO
Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently. Enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.
Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade book publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.
Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.
Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- explain and understand the book production cycle;
- competently use industry-standard terminology;
- analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
- track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
- communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
- complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
- perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.
WR 475 001 PUBLISHING LAB
Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently. Enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.
Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade book publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.
Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.
Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- explain and understand the book production cycle;
- competently use industry-standard terminology;
- analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
- track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
- communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
- complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
- perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.
WR 480 001 ADVANCED BOOK DESIGN
Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
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Spring 2026: Graduate Writing Courses
WR 507 001 SEM: MFA POETRY
Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 507 002 SEM: MEMOIR WRITING
Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
How might hybridization infuse wild energy into familiar literary forms? What happens when we abandon linearity in favor of associative logic and digressive leaps in time and space? How and when might fragmentation, the use of white space, and other poetic techniques enhance the meaning and readerly experience of our prose? What part might genre-crossing play in queering the literary canon? What possibilities exist for collaging visual art and/or music with memoir and personal essays? And, as writers of creative nonfiction, how might we dive deep into personal and emotionally charged material, while also expanding outward, well beyond the self, to weave in news from the wider world? This seminar course will examine these and other questions, along with generative writing exercises, weekly discussions of works from the reading list, and a strong emphasis on writing as a process rather than a product. Students from all genre strands are welcome.
Tentative Reading List:
- Singer, Margot & Walker, Nicole (Editors). Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction (2nd Edition). New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. ISBN: 9781501386060
- O’Malley, A.M. Expecting Something Else. Portland: University of Hell Press, 2016. ISBN: 9781938753183.
- Strom, Dao. Instrument. Portland: Fonograf Editions, 2020. ISBN: 9781734456622.
- Machado, Carmen Maria. In the Dream House: A Memoir. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781644450383.
WR 510 001 TOP: COMICS EDITING
Instructor: Shelly Bond
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
Comic book editing is an exciting, all-consuming, and messy business! Find out what it takes to be at the center of this fast-growing field where the editor must master the art of collaboration, above and beyond the necessary deadline crunching and grammar pedantry. This course will demystify the role of the comic book editor, that all-important person at the heart of each comic or original graphic novel, by immersing students in every stage of the process of comics creation. Through deconstructing the comic book—from concept through story, script, pencils, inks, lettering, coloring, proofreading, production, and marketing—students will gain a deep knowledge of the inner mechanics of making comics. Students will write and illustrate a one page comic as part of a class anthology to be edited and assembled and printed by the end of the semester. Guest speakers and recorded interviews with industry all-stars will punctuate class lectures and exercises. A greater appreciation of this illuminating art form is guaranteed!
WR 510 002 TOP: ENTREPRNEURSHP IN PBLSHNG
Instructor: Alicia Shaw
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 521 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION
Instructor: Gabriel Urza
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 527 001 TECHNICAL EDITING
Instructor: Victoria Raible
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course challenges students to look at written and visual communication holistically, understanding the editing process as the intermediary between the writer and the reader—and importantly, leveraging the editor's comprehension of each perspective to make information concise and accessible. Although we will review common copyediting considerations, this course is focused on elevating these foundational skills to technical professional applications. Students will learn about professional editing practices, various audiences needs, and industry standard and organizational style guides. Navigating the nuances of the technical editor’s role in document development, we will discuss how to prioritize, edit effectively across “levels of edit,” and communicate the “why” behind our edits.
WR 531 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY
Instructor: Bryan Schnabel
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
(No previous experience is necessary). Building upon foundational writing and communication skills, students will learn the principles and best practices for effective content management. Students will learn to plan, organize, store, and deliver content across various web-based platforms. The course will examine various content management systems (CMS) and their role in streamlining content workflows, facilitating collaboration, and ensuring content consistency. Finally, this course will examine the evolving landscape of content management, including how artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies are impacting content creation, organization, and delivery, aligning with the course's focus on modern content management strategies. Through practical exercises and case studies, students will cultivate a strategic understanding of content management principles and acquire the skills necessary to manage complex documentation projects effectively.
WR 534 001 SCIENCE WRITING
Instructor: Jacob Tootalian
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course prepares students to be effective writers and communicators about science for both scientific and public audiences. Students will study a variety of genres of scientific writing, including scientific research reports, research posters, research proposals, science journalism, science non-fiction and various digital genres (e.g., blogs and websites). Students will learn rhetorical and stylistic strategies for writing across multiple audience types about science. This course is appropriate for science students learning to write like a scientist and English or other students learning how to write about science.
WR 550 001 PORTLAND REVIEW
Instructor: Michael Seidlinger
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
WR 561 001 BOOK EDITING
Instructor: Katie Van Heest
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 563 001 BOOK MARKETING
Instructor: Tara Lehmann
Instructional Method: Hybrid
WR 564 001 BUSINESS OF BOOK PUBLISHING
Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
Comprehensive course in the business of book publishing. Topics covered include publications management, accounting, book production, distribution, subsidiary rights, and bookselling. Students learn how a variety of agents, including publishers, publishing services companies, distributors, wholesalers, bookstores, etc., are organized and function in the marketplace.
Textbooks:
- Woll, Thomas. Publishing for Profit: Successful Bottom-Line Management for Book Publishers. Revised and Updated fifth edition, Chicago Review Press, 2014.
- Berman, Karen, et al. Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean. 2nd ed, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
WR 572 001 COPYEDITING
Instructor: Tanner Croom
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
WR 574 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO
Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.1
Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently. Enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.
Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade book publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.
Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.
Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- explain and understand the book production cycle;
- competently use industry-standard terminology;
- analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
- track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
- communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
- complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
- perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.
WR 575 001 PUBLISHING LAB
Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.1
Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently. Enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.
Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade book publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.
Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.
Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- explain and understand the book production cycle;
- competently use industry-standard terminology;
- analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
- track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
- communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
- complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
- perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.
WR 580 001 ADVANCED BOOK DESIGN
Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
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