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2026-2027 Academic Year

Fall 2026

FYSM 100 First-Year Seminar
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces students to Dickinson as a "community of inquiry" by developing habits of mind essential to liberal learning. Through the study of a compelling issue or broad topic chosen by their faculty member, students will: - Critically analyze information and ideas - Examine issues from multiple perspectives - Discuss, debate and defend ideas, including one's own views, with clarity and reason - Develop discernment, facility and ethical responsibility in using information, and - Create clear academic writing The small group seminar format of this course promotes discussion and interaction among students and their professor. In addition, the professor serves as students' initial academic advisor. This course does not duplicate in content any other course in the curriculum and may not be used to fulfill any other graduation requirement.

ENGL 220 Intro to Literary Studies
In literary studies, we explore the work texts do in the world. This course examines several texts of different kinds (e.g., novel, poetry, film, comic book, play, etc.) to investigate how literary forms create meanings. It also puts texts in conversation with several of the critical theories and methodologies that shape the discipline of literary study today (e.g., Marxist theory, new historicism, formalism, gender theory, postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, etc.). This course helps students frame interpretive questions and develop their own critical practice. Prerequisite: 101. This course is the prerequisite for 300-level work in English.

ENGL 321 American Renaissance
In this survey of the American Renaissance we will consider dominant aesthetic, political, and intellectual trends of the period. The American Renaissance saw an explosion of creativity and national optimism that paralleled the US's economic and political expansion. But the American Renaissance also engendered poetic, literary, and philosophical critique, as writers explored the shadow side of America’s domestic growing pains and global ascendency. Theoretical topics will include racial and gendered antagonisms and contradictions in 19th century American culture and literature; additionally, we will pay attention to the ways in which national politics and economy influenced the rise of a uniquely American literary voice. Course readings will draw from canonical heavyweights such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

ENGL 331 Shakespeare and Tragedy
An exploration of tragedy through primary texts (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Racine, Cary, above all Shakespeare), canonical theories (Aristotle, Hegel, Frye) and recent critical discussions (Martha Nussbaum, Rowan Williams.)

Spring 2027

ENGL 101 The Epic: God/Dev/Monster/Men
An introduction to the epic as a genre and to the mythic stories that have shaped Western culture. We will read works by Enheduana, Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Alexander Pope.

ENGL 341 The Fairy Way of Writing
In this course we will read texts that imagine fantastical worlds, focusing primarily on England between 1590 and 1800. Authors may include Spenser, Shakespeare, Cavendish, Wortley Montagu, Dryden, Swift, as well as popular and children's texts. We will also encounter early modern readers and critics who explore the power of fantasy, such as Dryden and Addison, as well as modern scholars of myth and fantasy such as C.S. Lewis, Tzetevan Todorov, Rosemary Jackson, and Maria Tatar.