ENG - English

For two hours each week, individually and in small groups, students work with a writing specialist on assignments in ENG 15525 College Writing and other writing-intensive courses. The hands-on approach of a lab course is designed for close assessment and tangible improvement of writing skills and habits. Students taking this course should be enrolled in its corequisite, ENG 15525 College Writing; as a supplementary lab for ENG 15525, this course does not count toward graduation.

Consists of analytical and reflective reading of contemporary (since 1945) American fiction, poetry and drama. Attention to developing techniques for critical reading and writing. Basic course for literature majors and study in the humanities and liberal arts.

Observes interactions between literature and film. Through writings, projects, and discussions, students analyze film versions of classical literature, prose and poetry through borrow filmic techniques and experimental films with literary features.

As one of the elective courses for the college-wide distribution requirements, this class aspires to provide students with an introduction to a variety of literary works from several genres of sports literature.  These works represent an array of sports traditions and literary genres, from basketball poetry to baseball novels to non-fictional works about football, raising questions about the cultural values expressed and critiqued by sports.  In the course of the semester, we will gain an understanding of selected literary texts, as well as an appreciation for the social and cultural forces that produced them.

This course includes critical readings of, and analytical writing in response to, representative texts from across the disciplines (e.g., humanities, social science, natural sciences).  Required of all students either fall or spring of their freshman year.  Fulfills OU writing competency requirement. 

An examination of selected Shakespeare plays with an eye towards performance, as students will be mining the works of Shakespeare in preparation for performing soliloquies at the end of the semester in front of a live audience. We will pay attention to the historical and cultural context of the plays, learning about Shakespeare's unique - and at times precarious - position as a leading playwright in Elizabethan England. 

Survey of the major genres of literature (short story, poetry, drama) with emphasis on the organizational principles that give artistic structure or integrity. Intensive studies of such elements as characterization, plot, setting, tone, symbolism, etc., conducted.

Development of basic writing skills. Practice of written language in argument, persuasion and critical analysis. Course objectives designed to meet individual students' needs.

Study of writing with technical and scientific purposes.  Focuses on understanding scientific and technical discourse communities.  Topics include writing effectively in appropriate genres and styles, developing a personal writing-to-learn practice (e.g. STEM notebooks), presenting information in oral and online formats, corresponding with professionals, appealing to varying audiences, integrating graphics and data, reviewing and assessing scientific literature, editing, and collaborating.

Examines steps of the writing process from sight to insight: perceive, identify, analyze, discover, write, re-write and edit. Critical thinking, library research, peer conferencing, and the art of argument integral to the course.

Engages in primary analysis and response to significant literature from antiquity through the Renaissance.

The second of the three English Department survey courses, this class aspires to provide students with an introduction to some of the major literary works and ideological movements of the Western world during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the course of the semester, we will gain an understanding of a variety of texts as well as an appreciation for the social, historical, political, religious, and ideological currents of each era.

Engages the student in primary analysis and response to significant literature from late nineteenth century Modernism through post-colonial and post-modern configurations.

Engages the student in primary analysis and response to significant literature from the late 20^th century postmodernists to the present-day.

A study of texts in diverse genres that portray the impacts of illness and medical treatment on the lives of patients, caregivers, and health-care professionals. This course will examine how authors depict the social, political and cultural dynamics that shape our interactions with medical science and health care. Readings may include works by Albert Camus, Margaret Edson, Audre Lorde, Ian McEwan, Sigrid Nunez, Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, Tracy K. Smith, Susan Sontag, Jonny Steinberg, and noncanonical writers of narrative medicine.

This course explores narrative elements extant within popular eSports titles-such as League of Legends, Overwatch, and Halo-considering their valence in popular culture from the mythologies of antiquity to the modern counterparts presented in interactive media. 

This course unpacks the theme of human relationships -- romantic, filial, obsessive, and otherwise -- through the reading of such works as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, and Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name, viewed through the lens of history and shifting cultural values.  Cross-listed with LAS 30223 IDS: Reading Relationships.

Examines a wide range of literary works appropriate to readers of middle school and high school age.  Study of types and themes of adolescent literature and issues related to its use in school programs.  Designed for teachers, librarians and parents.  Cross-listed with EDU 30932 Adolescent Literature.

Refinement of expository writing skills through analysis of models and writing practice.

An examination of a variety of literary works written about baseball from its inception to the present, focusing on the ways they represent or call into question the social, historical, and political currents that produced them.  Readings may include Malamud's The Natural, Greenberg's The Celebrant, and the poetry of former Kansas City Royals pitcher Dan Quisenberry.  Cross-listed with LAS 31100 IDS: Baseball Literature.

A study of literary works from around the world, representing a comprehensive and global body of literature from a variety of places.  This course will address such issues as self-development in the context of societal values and mores. Prerequisite: 20000-level English course or consent of instructor.

Treats history and development of the English language with special attention to grammar, syntax and phonetics. Applies various linguistic approaches to the task of understanding evolution and system of the language. Not designed to treat special problems in speaking or writing English.

Course development skills in writing drama, poetry and fiction. Develops critical skills and encourages students to develop tools to refine expression.

Explores how image and text work together to make meaning in contexts such as illustrated literature, film, advertising, visual poetry, performance art, and graphic novels. Readings from fields such as visual cultural studies, semiotics, art history, film criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalytic theory will illuminate the relationships between image and text, language and representation.

An examination of a variety of literary works from several genres, focusing on the portrayal of physical environments and the connections between these environments and human spheres of influence. This course will explore how human beings relate to the natural world, and how that relation influences the way we read texts and the world around us, Authors to be studied might include Leopold, Thoreau, Defoe, the Brontes, Wordsworth, Merwin, Snyder and Kingsolver. Cross-listed with LAS 33523 IDS: Environmental Literature.

Course reviews the written and material record of continuous settlement in the Orkney Islands, dating back 5000 years. Topics include a select review of archaeological evidence for Neolithic and Bronze Age sites as well as the contemporary socio-cultural structure of the Islands from a literary and anthropological perspective. Cross-listed with LAS 34000 IDS: Tombs/Tales Ancient Scotland and SOC 34000 Tombs/Tales Ancient Scotland.

A study of the literature of social protest, emphasizing the relationship between aesthetics and politics, or the political purposes of literature. This course will examine how various authors assault the status quo of an often inhumane, brutal, and repressive society. Readings might include works by Richard Wright, Upton Sinclair and Nelson Algren.  Cross-listed with LAS 34023 IDS: Protest Literature.

Explores some of the ways spiritual experiences and understandings are expressed in a variety of literary forms. Students will discover how authors embrace or struggle with essential religious questions and issues, how they challenge and communicate themes from the major world religions and how religious identities can be shaped through these texts.

Literature, from ancient to modern times, has taken up themes of peace and sought to examine the fragile dynamics of the human community. This course will explore the literature that offers reflections, sorrowful and hopeful, pragmatic and prophetic, on peace.

A philosophical examination of the arts and aesthetic experience. This course explores theories of beauty and drama from ancient and contemporary theorists. Students apply aesthetic theories to analyze works of art in multiple domains from different perspectives. Cross-listed with LAS 37223 IDS: Aesthetics.

An examination of key existentialist thinkers.  Readings include Kierkegaard, Nietzsch, Sartre, and others.  After a survey of existentialist philosophers, students explore works of art from an existentialist perspective.  Cross-listed with LAS 38223 IDS: Existentialism in Philosophy and Arts and PHL 38223 IDS: Existentialism in Philosophy and Arts.

Identifies major trends in the history of critical thought from Plato to Derrida. Seeks to discover the position of literary criticism and to apply various critical theories. Library research and writing. Prerequisite: 30000-level English course.

Teaches essential writing skills at both elementary and secondary levels. Evaluation techniques also emphasized.

Examines major dramas to discover questions and themes central to individual plays and to the work as a whole. Attention is given to the historical and cultural context of the plays, but the course is primarily concerned with assisting students in reading and exploring the texts.

Analyzes major American literature with emphasis on genre, period or author, to gain understanding of the critical approaches necessary for a thorough investigation of literature.

Analyzes major British literature with emphasis on genre, period or author, to gain understanding of the critical approaches necessary for a thorough investigation of literature.

Examination or project designed to assess the student's achievement of the goals of his/her major program.

Capstone course that guides student in development of an integrative project that demonstrates achievement of the learning outcomes in the English major. Course is organized around the major trends in critical thought and application of literary criticism theories within and across periods and genres.

Students apply critical thinking and appropriate research skills to demonstrate ability to confront an integrated problem, issue, or circumstance in the liberal arts.  Research will reflect learning acquired through the business or liberal arts track.

Interdisciplinary seminar which interrogates the literary, artistic, and cultural representations of madness across culture and time. Cross-listed with LAS 49901 IDS: Madness, Multifaceted Approach.

As one of the LAS capstone courses, this class aspires to provide students with an introduction to a variety of written manifestos and documentary films that espouse particular diets. In the course of the semester, we will gain an understanding of dietary plans, both personal and collective, as well as an appreciation for the social and cultural forces that produce them. Texts may include 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', 'Food, Inc.', 'In Defense of Food', 'Forks over Knives', and a volume of essays entitled 'Know That What You Eat, You Are'.  Cross-listed with LAS 49920 IDS: The American Diet.

Questions of identity and self-definition, from agonizing to liberating, in the work of such writers as Dante, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Kate Chopin, Simone de Beauvoir, Ralph Ellison and Anne Sexton.