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2025-2026 Academic Year

Fall 2025

ENGL 222 Dogs: Intro to Animal Studies
What is it like to be a non-human animal? Why do animals behave the way they do? How do animal species evolve and what can humans learn from their genetic histories? How has human society depended upon the management of non-human animals? What do humans owe-morally and ethically-to non-human animals? Questions like these are at the core of Animal Studies, a rapidly growing field that takes an interdisciplinary approach to examining both human-animal relationships and non-human animals themselves. In this course, students will be introduced to the foundational concepts, methods, and research goals of Animal Studies through a focus on Canis familiaris-that is, the dog. We will pay special attention to the way dogs get represented in different kinds of discourse: literature (including memoirs and novels), ethology, sociology, and philosophy.

FMST 310 The Essay Film
Cross-listed with ENGL 331-02. In this course, students will examine the essay film, a genre of documentary that eschews traditional rhetorical and narrative cinematic approaches in favor of an exploratory, digressive, and often self-reflective approach to filmmaking. Readings will include a number of literary essays, as well as theoretical works on the essay as a genre of writing and filmmaking. Films may include works by Werner Herzog, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Derek Jarman, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Agnès Varda.

ENGL 331 The Essay Film
Cross-listed with FMST 310-01. In this course, students will examine the essay film, a genre of documentary that eschews traditional rhetorical and narrative cinematic approaches in favor of an exploratory, digressive, and often self-reflective approach to filmmaking. Readings will include a number of literary essays, as well as theoretical works on the essay as a genre of writing and filmmaking. Films may include works by Werner Herzog, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Derek Jarman, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Agnès Varda.

Spring 2026

ENGL 101 American Television
Cross-listed with FMST 220-02. For most of the twentieth century-and arguably still today-American television has functioned as a form of "public sphere," in which contemporary debates about race, class, gender, and sexuality were represented through visual and narrative forms. In this course we will examine television from institutional, aesthetic, social, and historical perspectives so as to understand its role in the negotiation of cultural change and identity. Attention will be given to traditional broadcast television and cable as well as more recent streaming television platforms, such as Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+.

FMST 220 American Television
Cross-listed with ENGL 101-01. For most of the twentieth century-and arguably still today-American television has functioned as a form of "public sphere," in which contemporary debates about race, class, gender, and sexuality were represented through visual and narrative forms. In this course we will examine television from institutional, aesthetic, social, and historical perspectives so as to understand its role in the negotiation of cultural change and identity. Attention will be given to traditional broadcast television and cable as well as more recent streaming television platforms, such as Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+.

ENGL 221 Narratology
As human beings, we encounter narrative everywhere: not only in literature, comic books, and film; but also in our myths and religions, our personal and national histories, our career plans, and our politics-even our everyday conversations. Almost all aspects of social life, in fact, depend upon narrative, a fact that has led some theorists to suggest that the ability to create and understand narrative is one of the defining features of human beings as a species. But how does narration work? What are its underlying rules and structures? This course will introduce students to the study of narration-called narratology-through the examination of stories in multiple media, including literature, film, and television.

FMST 310 The American Auteur
Cross-listed with ENGL 311-02.Auteurs are usually defined as filmmakers whose individual styles and extraordinary control over the elements of production allow them to create unique films that reflect their own personalities and artistic preoccupations. In this class we will examine the work of four contemporary American directors who are usually identified as auteurs: David Lynch, Spike Lee, Sofia Coppola, and Gregg Araki. Through examinations of their films and through discussions of film authorship and culture in the United States, we will interrogate the concept of auteurism as it functions in America today.

ENGL 311 The American Auteur
Cross-listed with FMST 310-03. Auteurs are usually defined as filmmakers whose individual styles and extraordinary control over the elements of production allow them to create unique films that reflect their own personalities and artistic preoccupations. In this class we will examine the work of four contemporary American directors who are usually identified as auteurs: David Lynch, Spike Lee, Sofia Coppola, and Gregg Araki. Through examinations of their films and through discussions of film authorship and culture in the United States, we will interrogate the concept of auteurism as it functions in America today.