yale creative writing syllabus

Yale Creative Writing

• English Department

In fiction classes at Yale, we teach creative reading, as well as creative writing: we hone not only our own writing but also our ability to read the work of others with a delicate but crucial balance of discernment and generosity. We ask ourselves, what does this story want to be? How could it be made more vivid, more startling, and less like anything else we’ve read before? We’re looking not to “reform” stories, but to help our students produce the most engaging, evocative, and compelling work of which they are capable. 

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Yale College Programs of Study 2024–2025

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English Language and Literature (ENGL)

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* ENGL 006a / AFAM 017a, Black Nature: African American Nature Writing   Jonathan Howard

What stories do we tell about nature? How are the stories we are able to tell about nature informed by race? And how do these stories shape our understanding of what it means to be human? In contrast to a largely white tradition of nature writing that assumes a superior position outside of Nature, this course undertakes a broad survey of African American nature writing. Over the course of the semester, we read broadly across several genres of African American literature, including: slave narrative, fiction, poetry, drama and memoir. In this way, we center the unique environmental perspectives of those, who, once considered no more than livestock,  were  the nature over which their white masters ruled. Indeed, as those who were drowned in the ocean during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, forced to cultivate the soil on slave plantations, and hung from trees across the Jim Crow South, black Americans are bound up and entangled in nature in incredibly complex and precarious ways. Perhaps for this very reason, however, we may ultimately come to find in these black nature stories the resources for reclaiming a proper relationship to the Earth, and for imagining a sustainable human life in nature, rather than apart from it. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 015a / AFAM 016a / AFST 015a, South African Writing after Apartheid   Stephanie Newell

An introduction to creative writing published in South Africa from the end of Apartheid in 1994 to the present. Close readings of contemporary fiction with additional material drawn from popular culture, including films, magazines, and music. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 029b / AMST 029b / HUMS 032b, Henry Thoreau   Michael Warner

Henry Thoreau played a critical role in the development of environmentalism, American prose, civil rights, and the politics of protest. We read his writing in depth, and with care, understanding it both in its historical context and in its relation to present concerns of democracy and climate change. We read his published writing and parts of the journal, as well as biographical and contextual material. The class makes a field trip to Walden Pond and Concord, learning about climate change at Walden as revealed by Thoreau’s unparalleled documentation of his biotic surroundings. Student's consider Thoreau’s place in current debates about the environment and politics, and are encouraged to make connection with those debates in a final paper.  Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 033a / LING 033a, Words, Words, Words: The Structure and History of English Words   Peter Grund

Meggings. Perpendicular. Up. Ain’t. Eerily. Bae. The. These are all words in the English language, but, like all words, they have different meanings, functions, and social purposes; indeed, the meaning and function may be different for the same word depending on the context in which we use it (whether spoken or written). In this course, we explore the wonderful world of words. We look at how we create new words (and why), how we change the meaning of words, and how words have been lost (and revived) over time. As we do so, we look at debates over words and their meanings now (such as the feeling by some that ain’t is not a word at all) and historically (such as the distaste for subpeditals for ‘shoes’ in the sixteenth century), and how words can be manipulated to insult, hurt, and discriminate against others. We look at a wide range of texts by well-known authors (such as Shakespeare) as well as anonymous online bloggers, and we make use of online tools like the Google Ngram viewer and the Corpus of Historical American English to see how words change over time. At the end of the course, I hope you see how we make sophisticated use of words and how studying them opens up new ways for you to understand why other people use words the way they do and how you can use words for various purposes in your own speech and writing. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU MW 9am-10:15am

* ENGL 039a / AMST 039a / ER&M 039a, Latinx Literature Aside the Law   Joseph Miranda

How has Latinx identity emerged through and against the law? From the suspension of Puerto Rican sovereignty to the contemporary proliferation of ethnic studies bans, the state has used the law to delimit Latinx to transparent or static categories of irregular “citizen,” “refugee,” and “migrant.”  If conventional thinking assumes that art only responds to the law in protest or affirmation of the status quo, this seminar introduces students to the ways Latinx literature engages, resists, and disidentifies with the law as it delineates national belonging. We ask how do Latinx creative expressions expand the notions of citizenship, nation, and family beyond their raced, classed, and gendered origins to imagine new futures. Through attention to contemporary tv, film, novels, and poetry, we examine how Latinx artists build alternative forms of thriving collective life in forms of mutual aid, queer kinship, party, and protest. Works up for discussion include those by Justin Torres, Raquel Salas Rivera, and the television show  Vida.  Drawing inspiration from these texts, students collaborate on podcasts, write analytical essays, and complete other critical and creative projects. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   WR , HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 041b / ART 040b, Writer as Designer, Designer as Writer   Rachel Kauder Nalebuff and Andrew Walsh-Lister

This seminar invites us to explore the boundaries between written and visual expression. Students with a background or interest in visual art learn to harness their voices as writers, and writers learn tools for how words take on new meaning through visual compositions. The course investigates the relationship between form and content through the creation of three projects—an interview, a manual, and an essay—each of which is written, designed, and physically produced using a variety of tools at our disposal. Through readings, in-class discussion and exercises, as well as workshops, we consider the ways language and ideas can be communicated to others through different media, and how that media in itself also carries meaning. The aim of the course is to playfully blur the categories of “writer” and “designer” so that we can be both at once: messengers. Enrollment limited to first-year students. This course does not count toward the Creative Writing Concentration for English majors.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 050b / AMST 050b, Reading Poetry for Life   Jim Berger

This is a course about reading poetry–about how to read poetry. It is also a course about how reading poetry helps us live, and especially in a world of multiple zones of crisis, violence, injustice, and environmental degradation. Thus, the course’s goals are intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, and ethical. True engagement with poetry is an engagement of the whole person. The course is organized thematically: There are units on poetic responses to war and social injustice; on personal pain and transformation; on poetry of happiness; and on poems that just enjoy their own formal processes. Poetry can say powerfully–sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely–what may be difficult to express in other forms. And yet, we must ask also, what good does it do? It helps us feel? It helps us think? It helps us feel and think with others? Poetry is a very old form of linguistic expression, perhaps the oldest. Here we are, still writing and reading it. And the sufferings, crimes, and hopes it has always imagined still are happening. Here we are. Maybe poetry is our best attempt at honesty, as simple and complex as that is. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 063b, Vampires, Castles, and Werewolves   Heather Klemann

What happens when a mirror held up to our world reflects back something ominously and unreasonably distorted? How do the sublime, the uncanny, and the supernatural fashion and fracture our sense of self? Examining gothic novels from the 18th and 19th centuries—the stuff of craggy cliffs, mysterious dungeons, and their paranormal inhabitants—alongside 20th and 21st-century films, this course explores the historical origins and deep cultural legacy of literary responses to the so-called Age of Reason. As we tour medieval monasteries, shadowy back alleys of London, and abysmal realms of the subconscious, we consider how literary representations of unreason affirm and unsettle our understanding of lived experience and our faith in laws of science and logic. Gothic fiction has long provided fertile ground for cultivating ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and colonialism—special attention is given to these topics throughout the course. Readings include Frankenstein , Mexican Gothic , The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , and Dracula . Films include Peele’s Get Out , Bong’s Parasite , and Hitchcock’s Rebecca . Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 076b / CLCV 076b, Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire   Staff

This course, a discussion-oriented first-year seminar, explores through close readings the 18th-century British historian Edward Gibbon's magnum opus,  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , with two main sets of questions in mind: Firstly, what is Gibbon's picture of the world of the Roman Empire and the processes of historical change, how do account for it, and how accurate is it?  And secondly, what is interesting and important about Gibbon's methodology, language, and rhetoric, how do we understand these elements of his work in his own intellectual and historical context, and what is the influence of his work upon the course of historical writing? Enrollment limited to first-year students. No knowledge of Roman history is required.     WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 114a or b, Writing Seminars   Staff

Instruction in writing well-reasoned analyses and academic arguments, with emphasis on the importance of reading, research, and revision. Using examples of nonfiction prose from a variety of academic disciplines, individual sections focus on topics such as the city, childhood, globalization, inequality, food culture, sports, and war.   WR HTBA

* ENGL 115a or b, Literature Seminars   Staff

Exploration of major themes in selected works of literature. Individual sections focus on topics such as war, justice, childhood, sex and gender, the supernatural, and the natural world. Emphasis on the development of writing skills and the analysis of fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction prose.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 120a or b, Reading and Writing the Modern Essay   Staff

Close reading of great nonfiction prepares students to develop mastery of the craft of powerful writing in the humanities and in all fields of human endeavor, within the university and beyond. Study of some of the finest essayists in the English language, including James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Leslie Jamison, Jhumpa Lahiri, George Orwell, David Foster Wallace, and Virginia Woolf. Assignments challenge students to craft persuasive arguments from personal experience, to portray people and places, and to interpret fundamental aspects of modern culture.   WR HTBA

* ENGL 121b, Styles of Professional Prose   Staff

A seminar and workshop in the conventions of good writing in a specific field. Each section focuses on one professional kind of writing and explores its distinctive features through a variety of written and oral assignments, in which students both analyze and practice writing in the field. Section topics, which change yearly, are listed at the beginning of each term on the English department website. This course may be repeated for credit in a section that treats a different genre or style of writing; may not be repeated for credit toward the major. ENGL 121 and ENGL 421 may not be taken for credit on the same topic. Prerequisite: ENGL 114 , 115 , 120 , or another writing-intensive course at Yale.   WR HTBA

* ENGL 123a or b, Introduction to Creative Writing   Staff

Introduction to the writing of fiction, poetry, and drama. Development of the basic skills used to create imaginative literature. Fundamentals of craft and composition; the distinct but related techniques used in the three genres. Story, scene, and character in fiction; sound, line, image, and voice in poetry; monologue, dialogue, and action in drama.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 125a or b, Readings in English Poetry I   Staff

Introduction to the English literary tradition through close reading of select poems from the seventh through the seventeenth centuries. Emphasis on developing skills of literary interpretation and critical writing; diverse linguistic and social histories; and the many varieties of identity and authority in early literary cultures. Readings may include Beowulf , The Canterbury Tales , Middle English lyrics, The Faerie Queene , Paradise Lost , and poems by Isabella Whitney, Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, Amelia Lanyer, John Donne, and George Herbert, among others. Preregistration required; see under English Department.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 126a or b, Readings in English Poetry II   Staff

Introduction to the English literary tradition through close reading of select poems from the eighteenth century through the present. Emphasis on developing skills of literary interpretation and critical writing; diverse genres and social histories; and modernity’s multiple canons and traditions. Authors may include Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop, and Derek Walcott, among others. Preregistration required; see under English Department.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 127a or b, Readings in American Literature   Staff

Introduction to the American literary tradition in a variety of poetic and narrative forms and in diverse historical contexts. Emphasis on developing skills of literary interpretation and critical writing; diverse linguistic and social histories; and the place of race, class, gender, and sexuality in American literary culture. Authors may include Phillis Wheatley, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O’Connor, Allen Ginsberg, Chang-Rae Lee, and Toni Morrison, among others.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 128a or b, Readings in Comparative World English Literatures   Staff

An introduction to the literary traditions of the Anglophone world in a variety of poetic and narrative forms and historical contexts. Emphasis on developing skills of literary interpretation and critical writing; diverse linguistic, cultural and racial histories; and on the politics of empire and liberation struggles. Authors may include Daniel Defoe, Mary Prince, J. M. Synge, James Joyce, C. L. R. James, Claude McKay, Jean Rhys, Yvonne Vera, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o , J. M. Coetzee, Brian Friel, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Alice Munro, Derek Walcott, and Patrick White, among others. Preregistration required; see under English Department.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 129a or b / HUMS 127a or b / LITR 168a or b / THST 129a or b, Tragedy in the European Literary Tradition   Staff

The genre of tragedy from its origins in ancient Greece and Rome through the European Renaissance to the present day. Themes of justice, religion, free will, family, gender, race, and dramaturgy. Works might include Aristotle's Poetics or Homer's Iliad and plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Hrotsvitha, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Racine, Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Wedekind, Synge, Lorca, Brecht, Beckett, Soyinka, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Lynn Nottage. Focus on textual analysis and on developing the craft of persuasive argument through writing.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 130a or b / HUMS 132a or b / LITR 169a or b, Epic in the European Literary Tradition   Staff

The epic tradition traced from its foundations in ancient Greece and Rome to the modern novel. The creation of cultural values and identities; exile and homecoming; the heroic in times of war and of peace; the role of the individual within society; memory and history; politics of gender, race, and religion. Works include Homer's Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and Joyce's Ulysses. Focus on textual analysis and on developing the craft of persuasive argument through writing.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 145a / FILM 170a, Introduction to Television   Staff

This course traces the theory and history of television, the technology that ushered in the age of “new media.” We examine the infrastructure, institutions, audiences, and genres that TV has generated and sustained from its earliest days as an extension of radio broadcasting, to its more contemporary manifestations on streaming platforms and devices. We focus primarily on American TV history—from the Big Three of the 1940s-1970s (CBS, NBC, ABC), through cable’s reign in the 1980s and 90s (CNN, MTV, BET), and the mega-mergers that have transformed the media environment of the new millennium (AOL-Time Warner, Disney-Fox). We conclude the course by looking at transnational TV franchises ( Idol, Next Top Model, Love Island ), state-operated TV (Britain’s BBC and Russia’s VGTRK), and by considering what local television means in an era of global media conglomerates. Looking back at the innovations in demography, programming, and franchising that television facilitated, we discover the technical and conceptual lineage of today's “new media” landscape: streaming, social networking, and the proliferation of web “content.”   HU W 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 149b / LING 109b, History of the English Language   Peter Grund

The story of the English language is a remarkable one. During its 1,500-year history, English has gone through striking changes. For example, in the early Middle Ages, the word take did not exist in English; it was later borrowed from the language of the Vikings. When a person in the 16th century claimed that someone was nice , they meant that the person was foolish. In the 17th century, her could be spelled har , her , hor , hur , and hyr by people living in the same community. And more recently we see how like has taken on new functions, especially in quotations. We will explore how and why these, and other developments took place. We look at how major historical events have spurred changes in the English language, and how people from all walks of life (from well-known authors like Shakespeare and Austen to anonymous scribes and letter writers) influence the path of change. Exploring these questions will also force us to consider whether we should more appropriately be talking about “histories of Englishes” rather than “the history of English.” By the end of the course, you see how the English you use has been shaped by people and forces over several centuries, and how you yourself contribute to the continuing change of the English language.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 150a / LING 150a, Old English   Emily Thornbury

An introduction to the language, literature, and culture of earliest England. A selection of prose and verse, including riddles, heroic poetry, meditations on loss, a dream vision, and excerpts from Beowulf, which are read in the original Old English.   HU TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* ENGL 153b, The Earliest English Literature   Emily Thornbury

An introduction to the rich literary tradition of early medieval England (c. 650 - c. 1100). Emphasis on the diversity of ways the early English people approached, preserved, and appreciated the written word. Readings include poems, histories, travel narratives, and riddles; all readings in Modern English.   WR , HU HTBA

ENGL 160a, Milton   Staff

A study of John Milton’s poetry, his engagement with the cultural, social, political, and philosophical struggles of the seventeenth century, and the surprising influence of Paradise Lost  on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American letters and religion. Formerly ENGL 220 .   WR , HU   0 Course cr TTh 1:30pm-2:20pm

* ENGL 182a / AFAM 182a / AMST 286a / HUMS 241a, James Baldwin's American Scene   Staff

In-depth examination of James Baldwin's canon, tracking his work as an American artist, citizen, and witness to United States society, politics, and culture during the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the Black Arts Movement.   HU   0 Course cr TTh 2:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 183b, Poetry since 1950   Staff

An introduction to poetry in English from the mid-twentieth century to the age of Trump and Black Lives Matter, including major figures and movements in the United States, England, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Caribbean. Special attention to poetic form and meaning and to themes of personal identity, home and homelessness, gender, sexuality, and race, in the context of consumerism, the Cold War, second wave feminism, decolonization, and the AIDS epidemic. Poets include Bishop, Lowell, Ginsberg, O'Hara, Plath, Baraka, Rich, Brooks, Gunn, Larkin, Heaney, Walcott, Brathwaite, and Rankine.   WR , HU   0 Course cr TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

ENGL 187a / AMST 239a, Love and Hate in the American South   Staff

An introduction to the literature and culture of the American South, a region of the mind identified with the former Confederate States of America and fabricated from a mix of beautiful dreams and violent nightmares, including: histories of slavery and settler colonialism, gothic fiction, the Delta blues, Hollywood movies, evangelical sermons, The Confessions of Nat Turner , love poems, protest poems, prison songs, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , country music, photographs, “Strange Fruit,” folk tales, memoirs, cookbook recipes, and other fantasies. Close reading, cultural analysis, and historical context. Literary works by Capote, Faulkner, Hurston, Jacobs, O’Connor, Poe, Twain, Toomer, Walker, Welty, Wright. Music, film, and other media.   HU   0 Course cr TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

ENGL 191a / HUMS 206a / LITR 318a / MMES 215a / NELC 201a, The Arabian Nights, Then and Now   Robyn Creswell

The medieval cycle of tales known as  The Arabian Nights  or  The Thousand and One Nights  is among the most beloved and influential story collections of world literature. It is an “ocean” of tales that has much to teach us about how stories work, whether they must come to an end, and our apparently bottomless desire to hear them. We will spend the semester in the company of genies and princes, thieves and slaves, mass murderers, detectives, and orientalists. We will also explore the ways in which the stories of the  Nights  have been adapted by later writers, such as Djebbar, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, and Mahfouz, as well as by filmmakers such Pasolini and—of course—Walt Disney. The course is intended to introduce students to the major tales of the  Nights  and to the classical Arabic literary tradition more broadly. It also seeks to develop their skills of close reading and analysis, particularly through a consideration of literary and filmic adaptations.   HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

ENGL 196b / FILM 160b, Introduction to Media   Staff

Introduction to the long history of media.  Focus on taken-for-granted infrastructures as the deep background for the digital age.  History will be our major resource for understanding the present.  We move through strategically selected case studies including technologies for controlling space and time, writing in its many forms, visual and auditory media, and digital media.  Media theory will be taught alongside case studies.    WR , HU   0 Course cr MW 10:30am-11:20am

* ENGL 202b / LITR 176b / WGSS 171b, Medieval Women Writers and Readers   Jessica Brantley

This course explores writings by and for women in medieval Britain, with attention to questions of authorship, authority, and audience. Readings include the Lais of Marie de France, Ancrene Wisse , The Life of Christina of Markyate , the Showings of Julian of Norwich, The Book of Margery Kempe , the Digby Mary Magdalene play, and the Paston letters.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 205a / HUMS 200a / LITR 195a / MUSI 462a, Medieval Songlines   Ardis Butterfield

Introduction to medieval song in England via modern poetic theory, material culture, affect theory, and sound studies. Song is studied through foregrounding music as well as words, words as well as music.   WR , HU MW 1pm-2:15pm

* ENGL 211a / THST 315a, Acting Shakespeare   James Bundy

This practical studio class aims to build the actor’s comprehension and confidence in Shakespeare’s language, while developing each artist’s emotional, intellectual, and imaginative responsiveness to the demands and joys of acting Shakespeare. At the same time, we will explore how, as theater artists, we each bring our own history and psyche to Shakespeare’s stories and characters, so they may still speak to us and to our audiences today. The course will include work on sonnets, monologues, and scenes. Admission by audition. Preference to seniors and juniors; open to nonmajors. See Canvas for application.   HU   RP F 1:30pm-5:20pm

ENGL 216a, Shakespeare and Popular Culture   Nicole Sheriko

How and why did Shakespeare become “popular”? Why is he still part of popular culture today? In this transhistorical and interdisciplinary course, we chart the history of Shakespeare’s celebrity, from the first publication of his works to their first adaptations in the Restoration, from Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee to the preservation of the Shakespeare Birthplace that he put on the map, from the recreation of the Globe Theatre to the role of Shakespeare in our contemporary cultural imagination. We read  Romeo and Juliet ,  Hamlet , and  Macbeth  alongside a wide range of adaptations and cultural objects they inspire, using television, film, graphic novels, short stories, advertising, toys and souvenirs, and even tumblr poetry to consider how Shakespeare’s legacy evolves to meet the needs of changing eras. By the end of the course, we curate a collection of contemporary Shakespeariana to consider what Shakespeare means to our popular imagination. Not open to students who took ENGL 012 .   WR , HU MW 4pm-5:15pm

* ENGL 229a, What Was Reading?   Catherine Nicholson

This course takes a long and curious view of the history of reading, using primary sources, material objects, historical records, and contemporary debates to unsettle our assumptions about what reading is and does. How have ideas about the meaning and purpose of reading changed over time? What methods or goals have fallen out of favor, and which continue to shape our ideologies of reading today? What relation is there between the reading we do in a Yale English class, and the reading we do on the beach, or at synagogue, or online―and where do those different sorts of reading come from? The syllabus focuses on early modern English literature, but it also engages ongoing debates about reading in the present, seeking both to link them to and distinguish them from earlier controversies. For instance, a unit on reading as religion raises questions about the morally improving (or morally destabilizing) effects of scriptural interpretation that then haunt later debates about the merits and limitations of anti-racist reading, as James Baldwin argues; similarly, early arguments about the effeminating influence of certain books--especially those aimed at women or young readers--give rise to assumptions about gender and genre that still shape our ambivalence toward reading for pleasure. As we explore these older efforts to shape, inform, regulate, or liberate reading, we’ll also experiment with our own readerly practices, using forgotten or neglected forms like the commonplace book, the moral commentary, or the meditation as foils to the more usual modes of academic writing.   WR , HU MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 239a / AFAM 342a / THST 239a, African American Drama through 1959   Shane Vogel

This course surveys the formal development and major themes of African American drama from the antebellum period through 1959. We examine how dramatists and performers reimagined the various meanings of Blackness in the U.S. public sphere, as well as individual and collective acts of self-fashioning on and off the stage. Special attention is given to aesthetic experimentation and its relationship to political theater; transformations of genre and form; Black dramatic theory; historical drama; diasporic connections and disconnections; the relationship between music, dance, spectacle, and drama; anti-lynching drama and folk drama; representations of class, gender, and sexuality; inter- and intra-racial conflict; Black radical theatre in the New Deal; and institutional histories of key Black theatre companies.   HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 240a, Queen Victoria and Victorian Literature   Margaret Homans

What made the Victorian era “Victorian”? How did Queen Victoria shape the period of British history and culture named for her; how was the monarchy of this long-lived and strong-willed queen in turn shaped by the era over which she reigned? To what extent was the queen’s image created by the popular figures of her that proliferated as new media arose across the period, and to what extent did she actively forge her own image? What were the queen’s powers as a female monarch–and, later, empress–who was a wife, a widow, and a mother, and how did she influence the roles of women in her day and after? This course addresses these questions by reading the queen’s own published literary works, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands and More Leaves ; by viewing works of visual art created under her patronage; and by reading biographical and fictional works about the queen and about Victorian queenship, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, George Eliot’s Felix Holt , Margaret Oliphant’s Miss Marjoribanks , and Rider Haggard’s She . We also study recent reconsiderations of her reign in contemporary media.   WR , HU TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 244a / HUMS 340a / LITR 344a, The Detective Story: Solving Mysteries from Oedipus to Sherlock   Paul Grimstad

The course looks closely at detective stories, novels and films, with attention to the narrative structure of criminal enigma, logical investigation and denouement (whodunit, howdunit), and considers “genre” more broadly. Starting with the proto-detective story Oedipus Rex— in which tragic drama takes the form of a murder mystery—we move on to Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the genre proper in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter.” From there we go to Poe’s “golden age” inheritors Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers, as well as the adaptation of Doyle’s tales for the BBC series Sherlock. We also spend time on American “hard boiled” writers (Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon and John Huston’s 1941 film adaptation of the novel; Chester Himes'  The Real Cool Killers ); fiction which draws upon the conventions of detective stories without being genre fiction (Nabokov, Borges), non-fiction works which have the structure of a detective story (Freud’s “Wolf Man” case study); neo-noir film ( Chinatown); works that fuse detective fiction and science-fiction ( Minority Report) and recent film homage to “golden age” whodunnits ( Knives Out). Students write essays making interpretive claims and using evidence from works on the syllabus, with emphasis on writing clear prose in support of an original argument.   HU TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 246a / AMST 245a / PLSC 247a, The Media and Democracy   Joanne Lipman

In an era of "fake news," when trust in mainstream media is declining, social platforms are enabling the spread of misinformation, and new technologies are transforming the way we consume news, how do journalists hold power to account? What is the media’s role in promoting and protecting democracy? Students explore topics including objectivity versus advocacy and hate speech versus First Amendment speech protections. Case studies will span from 19th century yellow journalism to the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the advent of AI journalism.    SO T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 250a, Romanticism and Anti-Romanticism   Leslie Brisman

Romanticism is traditionally conceived as the “great turn inward,” where interest in exploring the complexities and depths of the human mind replaces a focus on heroic action and social interaction. But the great Romantic poets were equally concerned with interpersonal relations and political problems and reform. Some of the great recent criticism of Romantic Poets emphasize the anti-Romantic elements within the great Romantic poems. This course attempts to focus on both. Readings are mostly in the work of Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, with some attention to Byron, Charlotte Smith, Scott, and the minor poets.    WR , HU   RP TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 253a / HUMS 265a, Reading Ulysses: Modernist Classic and Postcolonial Epic   Joe Cleary and Christopher McGowan

An extended reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) as modernist and postcolonial epic. Beginning with considerations of the relationship of modern epic and novel, the class will study Joyce’s re-working of Homeric epic in modern Irish, “World Literature,” Western and postcolonial literary contexts. The seminar will engage with the style, narrative form, and symbolic meaning of Joyce’s work and survey some of the critical controversies and interpretative challenges that Ulysses has provoked over the last century.   HU T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 258a / AFAM 305a, African American Autobiography   Sarah Mahurin

Examination of African American autobiography, from slave narratives to contemporary memoirs, and how the genre approaches the project (and problem) of knowing, through reading, the relationships of fellow humans. Chronological consideration of a range of narratives and their representations of race, of space, of migration, of violence, of self, and of other, as well as the historical circumstances that inform these representations. Prerequisite: one college-level literature course.   HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 273a / AFAM 382a / AMST 482a / FREN 382a / LITR 424a, Zombies, Witches, Gods, and Spirits in Caribbean Literature   Marlene Daut

This course delves into the rich tapestry of Caribbean literature through the lens of the seemingly supernatural, such as zombies, witches, gods, and spirits. Throughout the semester, students critically analyze a diverse range of texts by authors as varied as Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Derek Walcott, Alejo Carpentier, Jean Rhys, and Aimé Césaire, and others, to explore how Caribbean authors have employed other worldly elements as powerful metaphors for colonialism and resistance, trauma and cultural memory. W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 275b, Emerson, Dickinson, and Melville   Richard Deming

Study of central works by three foundational writers of the nineteenth century. Cultural and historical context; questions concerning American identity, ethics, and culture, as well as the function of literature; the authors' views on the intersections of philosophy and religious belief, culture, race, gender, and aesthetics. Readings include novels, poems, short fiction, and essays.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 276b, Jane Austen and Walter Scott: History and Manners in the Romantic Novel   Anastasia Eccles

Reading of selected works by Jane Austen and Walter Scott—the preeminent novelists of the Romantic period—with special attention to reception and the formation of the related concepts of “history” and “manners.”  Readings include: Sense and Sensibility , Mansfield Park , Persuasion , Waverley , and Ivanhoe .   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 277a / AFAM 364a, Blackness and the Problem   Jonathan Howard

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois famously theorizes blackness as a serial confrontation with a fundamental question: “How does it feel to be a problem?” This question is in many ways the organizing query of black studies and the devoted preoccupation of this class. Over the course of the semester, we undertake a sustained interrogation of the “problem” of being black, from the advent of racial slavery through to its manifold afterlives. Reading widely across a black literary and intellectual tradition spanning multiple centuries, genres, and disciplines, we explore how black writers not only bear witness to the evolution of the problem of being black over time, but also imagine its redress. Furthermore, we explore how blackness has been conceived as a problem not merely in the conventional sense of an unwelcome condition to be solved or overcome, but also a full and ethical way of dwelling in the world.   HU MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 289a / HUMS 388a / LITR 389a / PHIL 385a / RLST 380a, The Force of Life   Nancy Levene

The point of departure for this course is a line from James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time : “To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” We study four authors–Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Baldwin, and Jacques Derrida–in light of the values Baldwin expresses and their challenges. Our work between philosophy and fiction involves striving to read each text according to the ideas it itself advances, as well as reading for connections and cross-pollinations.   WR , HU T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 302a, Chaucer   Ardis Butterfield

An exploration of the extraordinary breadth of Chaucer's writings in their original Middle English. Includes dream visions, lyrics, and the great love epic Troilus and Criseyde , as well as the comic, satiric, and religious narratives of his brilliant Canterbury Tales . Attention to the way his writings on love, hatred, on race, gender and sexuality, psychology, death, war, art, beauty, finance, corruption, laughter, and religion speak to our current moment. Training will be given in Middle English; Modern English translations available.   WR , HU M 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 311b, Milton's Paradise Lost   Feisal Mohamed

An intensive reading of Milton's Paradise Lost , along with some of the relevant prose, focusing on the ways in which the poem responds at the level of form to the various literary, political, and theological pressures that bear upon it. Formerly ENGL 415 . Prerequisite: ENGL 160 or permission of instructor.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 312a / HUMS 172a, Interpretations: George Eliot's Middlemarch   Ruth Yeazell

An intensive study of George Eliot’s   Middlemarch (1871-72)—a work she called a “home epic” and Virginia Woolf  declared “one of the few English novels for grown-up people.”   Our close reading of Middlemarch itself is framed by a brief selection from George Eliot’s essays and short fiction, as well as by a more extended study of some critical responses, both Victorian and modern.   HU M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 317a, The Gawain Poet   Jessica Brantley

The course offers a contextual study of four of the greatest (and most enigmatic) Middle English poems— Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . At its center is British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x, the single medieval book that contains them all. In addition to reading the poems closely in their manuscript context, we examine associated artworks, from the twelve illustrations in the Cotton MS, to St. Erkenwald, a poem preserved elsewhere that some argue was written by the same author. Finally, we think about the modern reception of the poems through a serious engagement with scholarly debate surrounding them, and also through comparative work with translations.   HU T 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 320a, Novel Feelings   Anastasia Eccles

This course studies the emergence of the modern novel as an event in the history of emotions. The long eighteenth-century saw the rise of the novel as we know it as well as a major intellectual shift in how the passions and emotions were conceptualized. We investigate the relationship between these developments, particularly as they converged in the cultural movement of sentimentalism. With our focus on this historical nexus, we take up broader questions about the ways that aesthetic form mediates the emotions, and the ways that emotion responds to social realities like capitalism, imperialism, secularization and patriarchy. Our focus is on those feelings that might be considered distinctively novelistic—feelings that have influentially served to theorize the novel as a genre (interest for the German romantics; desire for psychoanalytic accounts of narrative), and that novels of the period helped codify and theorize (embarrassment, sympathy, wonder, happiness, complicity). Authors include Eliza Haywood, Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne, Henry Mackenzie, Frances Burney, William Beckford, William Godwin, and Jane Austen.    WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 321a, Austen and Brontë and the New Woman Novel   Katie Trumpener

Examination of ways that twentieth-century Anglo-American writers rewrite, revise, and reconcile key novels by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë as prototypes of a women’s novel tradition. Particular attention to narrative voice, reader identification, and the novel’s function as a record of social norms and as an agent of historical change. Formerly ENGL 421 . Advanced courses are open to students normally after two terms of English or the equivalent, or with the permission of the instructor. Starred courses may be used to fulfill the two-seminar requirement for English majors.   WR , HU M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 323b, Spenser   Catherine Nicholson

A reading of all of The Faerie Queene,  placed in context with Spenser's prose and shorter poems. Emphasis on Spenser's poetic and sociopolitical concerns within the milieu of Elizabethan religion, empire, and humanism.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 325a / AMST 257a, Modern Apocalyptic Narratives   Jim Berger

The persistent impulse in Western culture to imagine the end of the world and what might follow. Social and psychological factors that motivate apocalyptic representations. Differences and constant features in apocalyptic representations from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary science fiction. Attitudes toward history, politics, sexuality, social class, and the process of representation in apocalyptic texts.   HU T 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 326a / AMST 406a, The Spectacle of Disability   Jim Berger

Examination of how people with disabilities are represented in U.S. literature and culture. Ways in which these representations, along with the material realities of disabled people, frame society's understanding of disability; the consequences of such formulations. Various media, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and memoirs, viewed through a wide range of analytical lenses.   WR , HU   RP Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 331b / ER&M 268b, What was Latinx Literature   Joseph Miranda

With the arrival of “Latinx,” the last decade was defined as a moment of rupture and break with traditional notions of latinidad. Artists and activists asserted refusal and historical reckoning as the mode of doing politics and aesthetics. Now, pessimistic about Latinx as a signifier of a unified political project, the generational tides have shifted to “Latine.” This seminar asks what is “Latinx literature” and why are the methods of “Latinx studies” considered revolutionary or disruptive? What ideas were rooted in prior generations of feminist and queer collectives that sustained life when the arrival of a decolonial future seemed forever deferred and withheld from reach? We examine contemporary artists alongside historical antecedents to reevaluate what literary and social forms can help us challenge a racialized, heteronormative conception of citizenship. One possibility is that Gloria Anzaldúa—rightly critiqued for her relation to mestizaje —might be helpful in this moment of growing nationalism and hostility towards migrants to think about other ways of organizing life aside borders and the nation. We read across a long and varied arc of creative expression to consider forms that endure amidst colonial duress. For example: the serial, montage, anthology, performance collective, and inter-linked storytelling. Artists up for discussion may include Natalie Diaz, John Rechy, and Jesús Colón. Students will engage these works alongside theorists like José Esteban Muñoz and Juana María Rodríguez.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 332a / AMST 428a / ER&M 448a / WGSS 328a, “I Don’t Like to Argue”: The Styles and Politics of Humility   Sunny Xiang and Minh Vu

What can academic writing do besides argue? Why does critical thinking so often compel an idiom of claiming, exploring, discovering, and mastering? What might writers strive for, if not newness, rigor, excellence, or even one’s own voice? In this class, we defamiliarize and repair the habits of mind and body that have been normalized by the university. Some of our time goes toward identifying the racial and colonial logics as well as presumptions about gender and ability that inform the conventions, genres, and styles of scholarly prose. For example, we contemplate the power relations and tonal effects embedded in the familiar maneuvers of advancing and defending arguments. Most of the class’s energy, however, is devoted to testing out less combative modes of inhabiting the page. We pursue these experiments not in the name of novelty but with the hope that our compositional practices can move us toward different values and different futures for writing, conversing, and living as subjects of the university. To guide us in this endeavor, we look to scholars who have critiqued the politics of knowledge by mobilizing alternative styles of knowing. Some, for example, have turned footnotes into an occasion for giving thanks instead of exhibiting mastery. Others have repurposed quotations and images in ways that challenge traditional regimes of evidence.    HU T 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 334a, Postcolonial World Literatures, 1945 to the Present   Stephanie Newell

Introduction to key debates about postwar world literatures in English, to the politics of English as a language of postcolonial literature, and to debates about globalization and culture. Themes include colonial history, postcolonial migration, translation, national identity, cosmopolitanism, and global literary prizes.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 341a / EVST 409a / HUMS 377a / LITR 404a, Nature Poetry, from the Classics to Climate Change   Jonathan Kramnick

Poetry of the natural world, beginning with classical pastoral and ending with lyric responses to climate change. We consider how poetry attempts to make sense of our interaction with the earth at important moments of change, from pre-industrial agriculture to global capitalism and the Anthropocene.   WR , HU MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 343a / FILM 422a / HUMS 445a, Modernities: The Aesthetics of Adaptation   Katja Lindskog

Adaptations of literary texts are the bread and butter of visual narrative media like TV and film. Adaptations of certain authors and texts have given rise to entire sub-genres and cottage industries. We consider what adaptations of literary texts, particularly very famous and beloved texts, might help us understand better about the texts themselves, and about the needs and expectations of the audiences of their adaptations. To that purpose, this course explores the purposes and effects of adaptation through a study of a variety of screen versions of adapted texts by authors including Jane Austen, Emily St. John Mandel, and Geoffrey Chaucer. Assigned readings include both literary texts and screen adaptations.   HU MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 344b / WGSS 426b, Virginia Woolf   Margaret Homans

A study of the major novels and other writings by Virginia Woolf, with additional readings in historical contexts and in Woolf biography and criticism. Focus on Woolf's modernist formal experimentation and on her responses and contributions to political movements of her day, principally feminism and pacifism; attention also to the critical reception of her work, with emphasis on feminist and queer literary criticism and theory.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 346a / HUMS 253a / RLST 233a, Poetry and Faith   Christian Wiman

Issues of faith examined through poetry, with a focus on modern poems from 1850 to the present. Poems from various faith traditions studied, as well as to secular and antireligious poetry.   HU Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 351a / AFAM 354a / HUMS 370a, Fictions of the Harlem Vogue: Novels, Short Stories, and Novellas of the “Harlem Renaissance”   Ernest Mitchell

In this seminar, we examine the major novels, short stories, and novellas of the Harlem Vogue (1923-1934), the first decade of the Negro Renaissance. Key texts by Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond are central, along with lesser-known works by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. We consider critical debates about these texts and their standard designation as part of the “Harlem Renaissance.” Careful close reading is emphasized throughout; students are guided through a process of archival research and sustained formal analysis to produce a polished critical essay.   WR , HU Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 353a, Poetry and AI   Benjamin Glaser

This course asks what literary study and especially poetics teaches us about the ongoing training, implementation, and dissemination of large language models. What can the history of poetry teach us about the form of AI text? Generative AI continues to transform writing across contexts and genres. What can its linguistic algorithms teach us about human-authored writing? What AI tools serve literary analysis? No knowledge of machine learning, programming, or familiarity with AI tools is required. Student work will include traditional critical essays, creative projects, and/or the supported development of digital tools and projects.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 360b / AFAM 322b, Coming of Age in Black Literature   Sarah Mahurin

Phillip Atiba Goff’s 2014 study “The Essence of Innocence” confirmed that Black children are widely perceived as older than they actually are, and are presumed to be less innocent than their white classmates–often with devastating consequences. This course aims to challenge the “systematic adultification” so prevalent in American (mis)understandings of Black youth by centering narratives of Black childhood across literary genres. How do these texts disrupt conventional approaches to the  bildungsroman , and what can these writers teach us about coming of age in America?   HU W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 368a / HIST 341Ja / SAST 474a, The Novel and the Nation: Reading India in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy   Priyasha Mukhopadhyay and Rohit De

This course pairs two interconnected phenomena: the rise of the Indian Republic and the birth of the postcolonial novel. Over the course of the semester, we read a single primary text: Vikram Seth’s  A Suitable Boy  (1993). Set in the 1950s in the aftermath of India’s Independence and Partition, Seth’s encyclopaedic novel is the story of four families brought together by a mother’s search for a “suitable boy” for her daughter to marry. In the process, it builds a microcosm of an Indian society coming to terms with postcolonial statehood and weighing the aftereffects of British colonialism. Entwined in its plot about marriage, love, and relationships are some of the most urgent cultural and political concerns facing the new nation: legislative changes and land reforms, the violent aftermath of the Partition, secularism tainted by communal tensions, the disintegration of courtly forms of sociality, the reconstruction of city life, and the fate of the English novel in the postcolonial classroom. We read  A Suitable Boy  as literary critics and historians, pairing close readings of language and literary form with historical scholarship. Over the course of our discussions, we address the following questions: what is the relationship between the nation, the novel, and identity in the postcolonial world? How do we read narratives of “nation building” as literary and cultural constructions? What do we make of “literature” and “history” as disciplinary categories and formations? The seminar introduces students to methods of literary criticism and textual studies, and teaches them how to read a range of primary sources, from legislative debates, bureaucratic reports, newspapers, poetry, cinema, and radio.   HU M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 376b, Theories and Histories of the Western Novel   Joe Cleary

Widely considered the ‘youngest,’ most protean, and major literary form of the modern era, the novel has been associated variously with the disenchantment of premodern sacred orders, the rise of the European middle classes, the cultural articulation of the nation-state and other imagined communities, the criticism or reproduction of society, and many other purposes. This seminar offers an advanced introduction to twentieth-century theories and histories of the Western novel and considerations of the genres, techniques, and sociocultural functions associated with the novel form as it has evolved in Europe and the Americas between the eighteenth century and the present. Students taking this seminar for senior credit will write a substantial essay (20-25 pages) with a basis in research.  This project should demonstrate an ability to assemble an appropriately specific reading list and engage thoughtfully with wider scholarship.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 377a, Contemporary British Fiction   Caryl Phillips

A study of literature that responds to a changing post–World War II Britain, with attention to the problem of who "belongs" and who is an "outsider." Authors include William Trevor, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jean Rhys, Samuel Selvon, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and John Osborne. Formerly ENGL 416 .   WR , HU   RP M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 384a / FILM 461a / LITR 364a / THST 416a, British Cinema   Katie Trumpener

Survey of the British film tradition, emphasizing overlap with literature, drama, and art; visual modernism; documentary's role in defining national identity; "heritage" filmmaking and alternative approaches to tradition; and auteur and actors' cinema.   HU   RP T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 385b / WGSS 339b, Fiction and Sexual Politics   Margaret Homans

Historical survey of works of fiction that have shaped and responded to feminist, queer, and transgender thought from the late eighteenth century to the present. Authors include Wollstonecraft, C. Bronte, H. Jacobs, C. P. Gilman, R. Hall, Woolf, Wittig, Walker, Anzaldua, Morrison, Kingston, Winterson, and Bechdel.   WR , HU HTBA

* ENGL 396a / AMST 416a / ER&M 339a, Region, Indigeneity, and American Literary Realism   Lloyd Kevin Sy

A study of American literature between roughly 1865 and 1930, with a focus on the themes of place and race, especially how authors handle the theme of being authentically American. An outsized focus is placed on the often neglected works of Indigenous American writers. Potential readings: Zitkala-Sa, Sarah Winnemucca, Susette La Flesche, Mourning Dove, Twain, James, Charles Chesnutt, Hurston, Cather, Dunbar, Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Jewett, Sui Sin Far. May satisfy the 18th/19th century or 20th/21st century literature requirement for English majors with permission from the instructor and the DUS.   HU Th 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 397a, Poetry and the City: The New York School   Langdon Hammer and Daniel Swain

This seminar explores the works, lives, and legacy of the 'New York School’ of poets including Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, James Schuyler, LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Bernadette Mayer, and Barbara Guest, among others. Topics include queer intimacy and sexuality, the relationship between popular and commercial art, the tensions between aesthetic and economic value, the imbrications of class, gender and race, and the ethical implications of loss and grief, tracked from the Cold War to the era of the AIDS epidemic. The course is a senior seminar in the English Major, but it will be open to students in other majors with the expectation that students will have taken one or more courses previously in English and/or in modern and contemporary literature.   HU   Tr T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 398b, The Sensuous Life of Empire   Sunny Xiang and Rasheed Tazudeen

This course examines the cross-sections of material culture, imperial consumption, and racial fetishism. In thinking the material traces of empire—its histories, archives, and counter-archives—we adopt a multi-sensory approach that emphasizes the tactile, the sonic, and the olfactory as modes of both enacting and resisting imperial desires. A decolonial sensorium, this course wagers, attunes us to empire’s failures to inscribe matter, flesh, pixels, ripples, beats, cries, and scars into systems of meaning, and thus opens new, insurgent spaces for feeling, hearing, thinking, and being. The role of vision and visuality in the sensuous life of race and empire has been well-examined. In shifting the focus to imperial and counter-imperial textures, surfaces, sounds, and scents, this course explores a wider array of sensory regimes and subject-object relations. How do the textures of objects such as mammy figurines, silks, and cake mixes materialize imperial fantasies? What happens to our idea of the human subject when we encounter it at the level of skin, hair, flesh, musculature, and other of its seemingly inalienable or eminently disposable components? How might we hear the sounds of Creole and Black vernacular speech and music against the grain of colonial inscriptive practices and technologies? In terms of method, the thinkers whom we engage throughout the term cut across a range of disciplines, genres, and media. Although many of our readings are “about” materiality, we also attend to how each text evokes and enacts materiality and the labors of the senses.    HU T 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 404a or b, The Craft of Fiction   Staff

Fundamentals of the craft of fiction writing explored through readings from classic and contemporary short stories and novels. Focus on how each author has used the fundamentals of craft. Writing exercises emphasize elements such as voice, structure, point of view, character, and tone. Formerly ENGL 134 .   HU HTBA

* ENGL 406b, The Craft of Poetry   Maggie Millner

An introduction to reading and writing poetry. Classic examples from Shakespeare and Milton, the modernist poetics of Stein, Pound, Moore, and Stevens, and recent work in a variety of forms and traditions. Students develop a portfolio of poems and write an essay on the poetic craft of poets who have influenced their work. Formerly ENGL 135.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 407a or b, Fiction Writing   Marie-Helene Bertino

An intensive study of the craft of fiction, designed for aspiring creative writers. Focus on the fundamentals of narrative technique and peer review. Formerly ENGL 245 . HTBA

* ENGL 411a, American Horror Stories   Brian Price

From its earliest days, the horror genre, although often denigrated, has remained a persistent presence in our culture. This course investigates the reasons for this hold on the imagination and the social function it has provided, helping navigate questions of identity, gender, sexuality, violence, grief, loss, and otherness. Texts include films, short fiction, and critical essays. An exciting blend of creative and critical writing, this course tracks the genre's evolution and explores various subgenres and thematic points of interest through both scholarly engagement and weekly creative writing responses that culminate in a longer creative project that explores the ideas arising from the semester’s discussions.    HU TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 412a, Literary Production: Poetry   Maggie Millner

This course provides students an in-depth look into contemporary literary production from all sides of the publishing process: that of the writer, the reader, and the editor. Under the instruction of current editors of the  Yale Review , and housed at the  Review ’s offices, this course offers students invaluable hands-on experience at a state-of-the-art literary and cultural magazine, from which they emerge with a deep understanding of how poetry is composed, read, edited, and circulated today. Reading as a magazine editor teaches students about the contemporary literary landscape and leaves them with a deeper understanding of style, form, aesthetics, and genre—as well as the hands-on practical skills involved in 21st-century publishing. Students read submissions from our queue, as well as published work by some of the submitting writers; they then discuss which pieces may merit eventual publication and why. Students also follow drafts of pieces as they go through the process of acceptance, editing, promotion, and publication. Alongside the editorial process, students compose and revise their own original poems, becoming sharper poets by learning to read—and think—as discerning editors. T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 413a or b, Literary Production: Prose   Staff

This course provides students with an in-depth look into contemporary literary production from all sides of the publishing process: writing, reading, and editing. Taught by current editors of  The Yale Review , and housed at the Review ’s offices, this course offers students invaluable hands-on experience at a state-of-the-art literary and cultural magazine. They’ll emerge from it equipped with a new set of skills, making them sharper readers, bolder creative writers, and better editors. Reading as an editor offers students a unique perspective on today’s literary landscape, deepens their understanding of style, form, and genre—and gives them practical skills involved in 21st-century publishing. Students are introduced to the concept of assigning pieces and thinking about what kind of magazine stories can add value to an ever-more fast-paced and reactive media landscape. They read fiction and nonfiction submissions from our queue and discuss which pieces might be worth publishing, and why. And they follow and work on drafts of pieces as they go through the process of editing, promotion, and publication. Along the way, they may also write and revise a creative piece of their own, becoming better writers by learning to read and think as editors. HTBA

* ENGL 418b / EVST 224b, Writing About The Environment   Staff

Exploration of ways in which the environment and the natural world can be channeled for literary expression. Reading and discussion of essays, reportage, and book-length works, by scientists and non-scientists alike. Students learn how to create narrative tension while also conveying complex—sometimes highly technical—information; the role of the first person in this type of writing; and where the human environment ends and the non-human one begins. Formerly ENGL 241 . Admission by permission of the instructor only. Students interested in the course should email the instructor at [email protected] with the following information: 1.) A few paragraphs describing your interest in taking the class. 2.) A non-academic writing sample that best represents you.   WR T 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 419a / HSAR 460a / HUMS 185a, Writing about Contemporary Figurative Art   Margaret Spillane

A workshop on journalistic strategies for looking at and writing about contemporary paintings of the human figure. Practitioners and theorists of figurative painting; controversies, partisans, and opponents. Includes field trips to museums and galleries in New York City. Formerly ENGL 247 .   WR , HU TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 421a or b, Nonfiction Writing   Staff

A seminar and workshop in the craft of nonfiction writing as pertains to a given subcategory or genre. Each section focuses on a different form of nonfiction writing and explores its distinctive features through a variety of written and oral assignments. Students read key texts as models and analyze their compositional strategies. They then practice the fundamentals of nonfiction in writing and revising their own essays. Section topics, which change yearly, are listed at the beginning of each term on the English department website. This course may be repeated for credit in a section that treats a different genre or style of writing; ENGL 121 and ENGL 421 may not be taken for credit on the same topic.   HU HTBA

* ENGL 425a, Writing the Television Drama   Aaron Tracy

Crafting the television drama with a strong emphasis on creating and developing an original concept from premise to pilot; with consideration that the finest television dramas being created today aspire to literary quality. Students read original scripts of current and recent critically acclaimed series and create a series document which will include formal story and world descriptions, orchestrated character biographies, a detailed pilot outline, and two or more acts of an original series pilot. Formerly ENGL 248 . W 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 434a / THST 215a, Writing Dance   Brian Seibert

The esteemed choreographer Merce Cunningham once compared writing about dance to trying to nail Jello-O to the wall. This seminar and workshop takes on the challenge. Taught by a dance critic for the New York Times, the course uses a close reading of exemplary dance writing to introduce approaches that students then try themselves, in response to filmed dance and live performances in New York City, in the widest possible variety of genres. No previous knowledge of dance is required.   WR , HU M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 447a, Shakespeare and the Craft of Writing Poetry   Danielle Chapman

Shakespeare’s Craft brings students into conversation with Shakespeare's plays and his sonnets; and teaches students how to draw from his many modes when writing their own poems—without attempting to sound "Shakespearean." Over the course of the semester, we read three plays and a selection of the sonnets, pairing close readings with contemporary poems that use similar techniques. We also watch performances and learn how actors and directors find personal ways into Shakespeare's protean language and meanings. Weekly assignments include both critical responses and creative assignments, focusing on specific craft elements, such as: "The Outlandish List: How to Keep Anaphora Interesting," "Verbs: How to Hurtle a Poem Forward," "Concrete Nouns and Death-defying Descriptions," "The Poet as Culture Vulture: Collecting Contemporary Details," "Exciting Enjambments and Measured Meter" and "Finis: How to Make a Poem End." This hybrid course is an exciting blend of creative and critical writing. Students decide before midterm whether they want to take the course as a Renaissance Literature or Creative Writing Credit, and this determines whether their final project is a creative portfolio or critical paper.    TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* ENGL 453a / THST 320a, Playwriting   Donald Margulies

A seminar and workshop on reading for craft and writing for the stage. In addition to weekly prompts and exercises, readings include modern American and British plays by Pinter, Mamet, Churchill, Kushner, Nottage, Williams, Hansberry, Hwang, Vogel, and Wilder. Emphasis on play structure, character, and conflict.   RP T 1:30pm-4:30pm

* ENGL 456a / HUMS 427a / JDST 316a / LITR 348a, The Practice of Literary Translation   Robyn Creswell

This course combines a seminar on the history and theory of translation (Tuesdays) with a hands-on workshop (Thursdays). The readings lead us through a series of case studies comparing, on the one hand, multiple translations of given literary works and, on the other, classic statements about translation—by translators themselves and prominent theorists. We consider both poetry and prose from the Bible, selections from Chinese, Greek, and Latin verse, classical Arabic and Persian literature, prose by Cervantes, Borges, and others, and modern European poetry (including Pushkin, Baudelaire, and Rilke). Students are expected to prepare short class presentations, participate in a weekly workshop, try their hand at a series of translation exercises, and undertake an intensive, semester-long translation project. Proficiency in a foreign language is required.   HU MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* ENGL 460a, Advanced Poetry Writing   Cynthia Zarin

A seminar and workshop in the writing of verse. May be repeated for credit with a different instructor.   RP T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 461a, The Art and Craft of Television Drama   Derek Green

This is an advanced seminar on the craft of dramatic television writing. Each week we’ll conduct an intensive review of one or two elements of craft, using scripts from the contemporary era of prestige drama. We’ll read full and partial scripts to demonstrate the element of craft being studied, and employ weekly writing exercises (both in-class and by assignment) to hone our skills on the particular elements under consideration.  Students learn how to develop character backstories, series bibles, story areas, and outlines. The final assignment for the class is the completion of a working draft of a full-length script for an original series pilot.  No previous study required, but ENGL 425 and at least one other intro-level creative writing course are highly recommended. Permission of instructor or an application is required for enrollment. T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 463a, Writing Outsiderness and Interiority   Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah

The essayist, the writer of non-fiction, has historically been an oracle of opinions that most often go unsaid. They do not traditionally reinforce a sense of insular collectivity, instead they often steer us towards a radical understanding of the moment that they write from. The best essayists unearth and organize messages from those most at the margins: the ignored, the exiled, the criminal, and the destitute. So, by writing about these people, the essayist is fated, most nobly or just as ignobly, to write about the ills and aftermaths of their nation’s worse actions. It is an obligation and also a very heavy burden. In this class we examine how the essay and many essayists have functioned as geographers of spaces that have long been forgotten. And we read a series of non-fiction pieces that trouble the question of interiority, belonging, the other, and outsiderness. And we attempt to do a brief but comprehensive review of the essay as it functions as a barometer of the author’s times. This is accomplished by reading the work of such writers as: Herodotus, William Hazlitt, Doris Lessing, Audre Lorde, Gay Talese, Binyavanga Wainaina, Jennifer Clement, V.S. Naipaul, Sei Shonagon, George Orwell, Margo Jefferson, Tobi Haslett, and Joan Didion.    HU   RP Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 465a, Advanced Fiction Writing   Staff

An advanced workshop in the craft of writing fiction. May be repeated for credit with a different instructor. HTBA

* ENGL 467a, Journalism   Steven Brill

Examination of the practices, methods, and impact of journalism, with focus on reporting and writing; consideration of how others have done it, what works, and what doesn’t. Students learn how to improve story drafts, follow best practices in journalism, improve methods for obtaining, skeptically evaluating, and assessing information, as well as writing a story for others to read. The core course for Yale Journalism Scholars. No prerequisites.   WR M 9am-10:50am

* ENGL 469a, Advanced Nonfiction Writing   Anne Fadiman

A seminar and workshop with the theme "At Home in America." Students consider the varied ways in which modern American literary journalists write about people and places, and address the theme themselves in both reportorial and first-person work. Application required in advance; see the English website for deadline and instructions.   WR , HU Th 2:30pm-5:30pm

* ENGL 474a, The Genre of the Sentence   Verlyn Klinkenborg

A workshop that explores the sentence as the basic unit of writing and the smallest unit of perception. The importance of the sentence itself versus that of form or genre. Writing as an act of discovery. Includes weekly writing assignments. Not open to first-years.   HU W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* ENGL 477a / THST 321a, Production Seminar: Playwriting   Deborah Margolin

A seminar and workshop in playwriting with an emphasis on exploring language and image as a vehicle for “theatricality.” Together we will use assigned readings, our own creative work, and group discussions to interrogate concepts such as “liveness,” what is “dramatic” versus “undramatic,” representation, and the uses and abuses of discomfort. MW 3:30pm-5:20pm

* ENGL 481a / THST 322a, Advanced Playwriting   Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

A seminar and workshop in advanced playwriting that furthers the development of an individual voice. Study of contemporary and classical plays to understand new and traditional forms. Students write two drafts of an original one-act play or adaptation for critique in workshop sessions. Familiarity with basic playwriting tools is assumed. Open to juniors and seniors, nonmajors as well as majors, on the basis of their work; priority to Theater Studies majors. Writing samples should be submitted to the instructor before the first class meeting. Prerequisite: THST 320 or 321 , or a college seminar in playwriting, or equivalent experience.   RP HTBA

* ENGL 483b / HUMS 428b / JDST 343b / LITR 305b, Advanced Literary Translation   Robyn Creswell

A sequel to LITR 348 or its equivalent, this course brings together advanced and seriously committed students of literary translation, especially (but not only) those who are doing translation-related senior theses. Students must apply to the class with a specific project in mind, that they have been developing or considering, and that they will present on a regular basis throughout the semester. Discussion of translations-in-progress are supplemented by short readings that include model works from the world of literary translation, among them introductions and pieces of criticism, as well as reflections by practitioners treating all phases of their art. The class is open to undergraduates and graduate students who have taken at least one translation workshop. By permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: LITR 348 . HTBA

* ENGL 484a, Writing Across Literary Genres   Cynthia Zarin

Students in this writing workshop explore three out of four literary genres over the semester: creative nonfiction (including personal essays and reporting), poetry, playwriting, and fiction. The first half of the semester is devoted to experimentation in three different genres; the second half is spent developing an experimental piece into a longer final project: a one act play, a long poem or set of poems, a short story, or a longer essay. We discuss the work of writers—including Shakespeare, John Donne, Jonathan Swift, Chekhov, Virginia Woolf, W.H. Auden, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Bishop, Derek Walcott, Zadie Smith, Maggie Nelson, and Leanne Shapton—who addressed an idea from two or more perspectives.   HU W 9:25am-11:15am

* ENGL 487a, Tutorial in Writing   Stefanie Markovits

A writing tutorial in fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, or nonfiction for students who have already taken writing courses at the intermediate and advanced levels. Conducted with a faculty member after approval by the director of undergraduate studies. Proposals must be submitted to the DUS in the previous term; deadlines and instructions are posted at https://english.yale.edu/undergraduate/courses/independent-study-courses . Prerequisites: two courses in writing. HTBA

* ENGL 488a, Special Projects for Juniors or Seniors   Stefanie Markovits

Special projects set up by the student in an area of particular interest with the help of a faculty adviser and the director of undergraduate studies, intended to enable the student to cover material not otherwise offered by the department. The course may be used for research or for directed reading, but in either case a term paper or its equivalent is normally required. The student meets regularly with the faculty adviser. Proposals must be signed by the faculty adviser and submitted to the DUS in the previous term; deadlines and instructions are posted at https://english.yale.edu/undergraduate/courses/independent-study-courses . HTBA

* ENGL 489a, The Creative Writing Concentration Senior Project   Stefanie Markovits and Cynthia Zarin

A term-long project in writing, under tutorial supervision, aimed at producing a single longer work (or a collection of related shorter works). The creative writing concentration accepts students with demonstrated commitment to creative writing at the end of the junior year or, occasionally, in the first term of senior year. Proposals for the writing concentration should be submitted during the designated sign-up period in the term before enrollment is intended. The project is due by the end of the last week of classes (fall term), or the end of the next-to-last week of classes (spring term). Proposal instructions and deadlines are posted at  https://english.yale.edu/undergraduate/courses/independent-study-courses . HTBA

* ENGL 490a, The Senior Essay I   Stefanie Markovits and Marcel Elias

Students wishing to undertake an independent senior essay in English must submit a proposal to the DUS in the previous term; deadlines and instructions are posted at https://english.yale.edu/undergraduate/courses/independent-study-courses . For one-term senior essays, the essay itself is due in the office of the director of undergraduate studies according to the following schedule: (1) end of the fourth week of classes: five to ten pages of writing and/or an annotated bibliography; (2) end of the ninth week of classes: a rough draft of the complete essay; (3) end of the last week of classes (fall term) or end of the next-to-last week of classes (spring term): the completed essay. Consult the director of undergraduate studies regarding the schedule for submission of the yearlong senior essay. HTBA

* ENGL 491a, The Senior Essay II   Stefanie Markovits and Marcel Elias

Second term of the optional yearlong senior essay. Students may begin the yearlong essay in the spring term of the junior year, allowing for significant summer research, with permission of the instructor. Students must submit a proposal to the DUS in the previous term; deadlines and instructions are posted at https://english.yale.edu/undergraduate/courses/independent-study-courses. After ENGL 490 . HTBA

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Graduate education.

The Yale English Department offers a broad-ranging program of graduate education, with courses that engage all periods of British literature, American literature since its inception, and many of the contemporary interdisciplines (feminism, media studies, post-colonialism, Black studies, LGBTQIA+ studies, and the environmental humanities).

The Department aims to train future scholars, writers, and teachers of many kinds: our primary focus is on the development of college and university professors, but our alumni also go on to careers as curators, librarians, secondary school teachers, university administrators, journalists, editors, and professional writers. Our faculty believe in the values of pluralism (in what is studied and how it is studied), and they are committed to preparing students to succeed in competitive and demanding professions. To that end, we make the teaching of undergraduates an important part of graduate training, as well as offering a wide array of professional development opportunities at  The Yale Review , university libraries and museums, the Digital Humanities Lab, and elsewhere on campus.

Pluralism within the Department is enhanced by relations with other graduate programs. The English Department offers combined PhD programs with African-American Studies, Film and Media Studies, History of Art, Early Modern Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and has strong affiliations with graduate programs in American Studies, Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and other humanistic disciplines. Faculty members are often joint appointees in English and another of these programs, and many courses are cross-listed. The Department encourages its students to design programs of study that combine specialization with wise generalization.

Yale Writers' Workshop

You are here, welcome from the yale writers' workshop director, jotham burrello.

Director's welcome to the Yale Writers' Workshop!

From First to Final Draft, Find Your Voice at Yale

The Yale Writers’ Workshop brings together the experience and expertise of leading teachers, authors, editors, agents and publishers in a series of panels and workshops for the benefit of writers the world over. We are offering three sessions (one on campus and two remote) that will enhance the writing skills of any serious writer. Our faculty provides unique, tailored, and transformative experiences to all participants.

The Yale Writers' Workshop experience offers:

• An immersive creative environment
• An experienced faculty of writers and editors
• Small workshops limited to 10-12 participants
• Access to industry professionals

"Sometimes I feel that writing is exactly like breathing to me, but it’s like I’ve been going through life scared to breathe. I never really gave myself a chance, but this week allowed me to do that. I used to get so panicked when people asked me what my book was about and now I’m genuinely excited to talk about it."

"I had a wonderful time and learned so much! This was a fantastic opportunity and I'm so glad to have been a part of it."

Courses & Programs

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• About the Yale Writers' Workshop
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• Creative Writing

The vital presence of creative writing in the English Department is reflected by our many distinguished authors who teach our workshops. We offer courses each term in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, screenwriting, playwriting, and television writing. Our workshops are small, usually no more than twelve students, and offer writers an opportunity to focus intensively on one genre. 

Apply to Creative Writing Workshops

Workshops are open by application to Harvard College undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and students from other institutions eligible for cross registration. Submission guidelines for workshops can be found under individual course listings; please do not query instructors.  Review all departmental rules and application instructions before applying.  

Fall 2024 Application Deadline: 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Spring 2025 Application Deadline: TBD

Please visit our course listings for all the Fall 2024 workshops.

Our online submission manager (link below) will open for Fall 2024 applications on Friday, March 22 , 2024.

Students who have questions about the creative writing workshop application process should contact Case Q. Kerns at [email protected] .

Featured Faculty

Teju Cole  is a novelist, critic, and essayist, and is the first Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice. "Among other works, the boundary-crossing author is known for his debut novel “Open City” (2011), whose early admirers included Harvard professor and New Yorker critic James Wood." 

Faculty Bookshelf

Once the shore by paul yoon (2009).

No Planets Strike by Josh Bell (2008)

Cooked by Michael Pollan (2013)

Sea Change by Jorie Graham

Creative Writing Workshops

• Spring 2024

English CACD. The Art of Criticism

Instructor: Maggie Doherty Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

This course will consider critical writing about art–literary, visual, cinematic, musical, etc.—as an art in its own right. We will read and discuss criticism from a wide variety of publications, paying attention to the ways outlets and audience shape critical work. The majority of our readings will be from the last few years and will include pieces by Joan Acocella, Andrea Long Chu, Jason Farago, and Carina del Valle Schorske. Students will write several short writing assignments (500-1000 words), including a straight review, during the first half of the semester and share them with peers. During the second half of the semester, each student will write and workshop a longer piece of criticism about a work of art or an artist of their choosing. Students will be expected to read and provide detailed feedback on the work of their peers. Students will revise their longer pieces based on workshop feedback and submit them for the final assignment of the class. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a letter of introduction (1-2 pages) giving a sense of who you are, your writing experience, and your current goals for your writing. Please also describe your relationship to the art forms and/or genres you're interested in engaging in the course. You may also list any writers or publications whose criticism you enjoy reading. Please also include a 3-5-page writing sample of any kind of prose writing. This could be an academic paper or it could be creative fiction or nonfiction.

English CACW. Advanced Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Paul Yoon TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Advanced fiction workshop for students who have already taken a workshop at Harvard or elsewhere. The goal of the class is to continue your journey as a writer. You will be responsible for participating in discussions on the assigned texts, the workshop, engaging with the work of your colleagues, and revising your work. Supplemental Application Information:   * Please note: previous creative writing workshop experience required. * Please submit ONLY a cover letter telling me your previous creative writing workshop experience, either at Harvard or elsewhere; then tell me something you are passionate about and something you want to be better at; and, lastly, tell me why of all classes you want to take this one this semester. Again, please no writing samples.

English CBBR. Intermediate Poetry: Workshop

Instructor:  Josh Bell   Monday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: Barker 018 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

Initially, students can expect to read, discuss, and imitate the strategies of a wide range of poets writing in English; to investigate and reproduce prescribed forms and poetic structures; and to engage in writing exercises meant to expand the conception of what a poem is and can be. As the course progresses, reading assignments will be tailored on an individual basis, and an increasing amount of time will be spent in discussion of student work. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a portfolio including a letter of interest, ten poems, and a list of classes (taken at Harvard or elsewhere) that seem to have bearing on your enterprise.

English CCEP. Ekphrastic Poetry: Workshop

Instructor: Tracy K. Smith Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: Lamont 401 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site What can a poem achieve when it contemplates or even emulates a work of art in another medium? In this workshop, we'll read and write poems that engage with other art forms--and we'll test out what a foray into another artistic practice allows us to carry back over into the formal methods and behaviors of poetry. With poems by Keats, Rilke, Auden, Hughes, and Brooks, as well as Kevin Young, Evie Shockley, Ama Codjoe and other contemporary voices. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a writing sample of 5-10 poems and an application letter explaining your interest in this course.

English CCFC. Poetry Workshop: Form & Content

Instructor: Tracy K. Smith Tuesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: Sever 112 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this workshop, we’ll look closely at the craft-based choices poets make, and track the effects they have upon what we as readers are made to think and feel. How can implementing similar strategies better prepare us to engage the questions making up our own poetic material? We’ll also talk about content. What can poetry reveal about the ways our interior selves are shaped by public realities like race, class, sexuality, injustice and more? Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26)   

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a writing sample of 5-10 poems and an application letter explaining your interest in this course.

English CCIJ. Intermediate Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Jesse McCarthy Thursday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: Barker 269 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This is an intermediate course in the art of writing literary fiction. Previous experience with workshopping writing is encouraged but not required. The emphasis of the course will be learning how to read literature as a writer, with special attention given to the short story, novella, or short novel. We will read these works from the perspective of the writer as craftsperson and of the critic seeking in good faith to understand and describe a new aesthetic experience. We will be concerned foremost with how literary language works, with describing the effects of different kinds of sentences, different uses of genre, tone, and other rhetorical strategies. Together, we will explore our responses to examples of literature from around the world and from all periods, as well as to the writing you will produce and share with the class. As a member of a writing community, you should be prepared to respectfully read and respond to the work of others—both the work of your peers and that of the published writers that we will explore together. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  This course is by application only but there are no prerequisites for this course and previous experience in a writing workshop is not required . In your application please submit a short letter explaining why you are interested in this class. You might tell me a bit about your relationship to literature, your encounter with a specific author, book, or even a scene or character from a story or novel. Please also include a writing sample of 2-5 pages (5 pages max!) of narrative prose fiction.

English CCFS. Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Teju Cole Spring 2024: Tuesday, 6:00-8:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD This reading and writing intensive workshop is for students who want to learn to write literary fiction. The goal of the course would be for each student to produce two polished short stories. Authors on the syllabus will probably include James Joyce, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Diane Williams.

Supplemental Application Information:   Please submit a cover letter saying what you hope to get out of the workshop. In the cover letter, mention three works of fiction that matter to you and why. In addition, submit a 400–500 word sample of your fiction; the sample can be self-contained or a section of a longer work.

English CLPG. Art of Sportswriting

Instructor: Louisa Thomas Spring 2024: Tuesday, 9:00-11:45am | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

In newsrooms, the sports section is sometimes referred to as the “toy department” -- frivolous and unserious, unlike the stuff of politics, business, and war. In this course, we will take the toys seriously. After all, for millions of people, sports and other so-called trivial pursuits (video games, chess, children’s games, and so on) are a source of endless fascination. For us, they will be a source of stories about human achievements and frustrations. These stories can involve economic, social, and political issues. They can draw upon history, statistics, psychology, and philosophy. They can be reported or ruminative, formally experimental or straightforward, richly descriptive or tense and spare. They can be fun. Over the course of the semester, students will read and discuss exemplary profiles, essays, articles, and blog posts, while also writing and discussing their own. While much (but not all) of the reading will come from the world of sports, no interest in or knowledge about sports is required; our focus will be on writing for a broad audience.  Supplemental Application Information:  To apply, please write a letter describing why you want to take the course and what you hope to get out of it. Include a few examples of websites or magazines you like to read, and tell me briefly about one pursuit -- football, chess, basketball, ballet, Othello, crosswords, soccer, whatever -- that interests you and why.

English CALR. Advanced Screenwriting: Workshop

Instructor: Musa Syeed Spring 2024: Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBA Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

The feature-length script is an opportunity to tell a story on a larger scale, and, therefore, requires additional preparation. In this class, we will move from writing a pitch, to a synopsis, to a treatment/outline, to the first 10 pages, to the first act of a feature screenplay. We will analyze produced scripts and discuss various elements of craft, including research, writing layered dialogue, world-building, creating an engaging cast of characters. As an advanced class, we will also look at ways both mainstream and independent films attempt to subvert genre and structure. Students will end the semester with a first act (20-30 pages) of their feature, an outline, and strategy to complete the full script.

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a 3-5 page writing sample. Screenplays are preferred, but fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and plays are acceptable as well. Also, please write a short note to introduce yourself. Include a couple films/filmmakers that have inspired you, your goals for the class, as well as any themes/subject matter/ideas you might be interested in exploring in your writing for film.

English CNFR. Creative Nonfiction: Workshop

Instructor: Darcy Frey Fall 2024: Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students. Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

Whether it takes the form of literary journalism, essay, memoir, or environmental writing, creative nonfiction is a powerful genre that allows writers to break free from the constraints commonly associated with nonfiction prose and reach for the breadth of thought and feeling usually accomplished only in fiction: the narration of a vivid story, the probing of a complex character, the argument of an idea, or the evocation of a place. Students will work on several short assignments to hone their mastery of the craft, then write a longer piece that will be workshopped in class and revised at the end of the term. We will take instruction and inspiration from published authors such as Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Ariel Levy, Alexander Chee, and Virginia Woolf. This is a workshop-style class intended for undergraduate and graduate students at all levels of experience. No previous experience in English Department courses is required. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:   Please write a substantive letter of introduction describing who you are as writer at the moment and where you hope to take your writing; what experience you may have had with creative/literary nonfiction; what excites you about nonfiction in particular; and what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Additionally, please submit 3-5 pages of creative/literary nonfiction (essay, memoir, narrative journalism, etc, but NOT academic writing) or, if you have not yet written much nonfiction, an equal number of pages of narrative fiction.

English CKR. Introduction to Playwriting: Workshop

Instructor: Sam Marks TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students This workshop is an introduction to writing for the stage through intensive reading and in-depth written exercises. Each student will explore the fundamentals and possibilities of playwriting by generating short scripts and completing a one act play with an eye towards both experimental and traditional narrative styles. Readings will examine various ways of creating dramatic art and include work from contemporary playwrights such as Ayad Aktar, Clare Barron, Aleshea Harris, Young Jean Lee, and Taylor Mac, as well established work from Edward Albbe, Caryl Churchill, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Harold Pinter. Supplemental Application Information:  No experience in writing the dramatic form is necessary. Please submit a 5-10 page writing sample (preferably a play or screenplay, but all genres are acceptable and encouraged). Also, please write a few sentences about a significant theatrical experience (a play read or seen) and how it affected you.

English CACF. Get Real: The Art of Community-Based Film

Instructor: Musa Syeed Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 student Course Site

“I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us,” the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami said, “unless it’s inside a frame.” For our communities confronting invisibility and erasure, there’s an urgent need for new frames. In this workshop, we’ll explore a community-engaged approach to documentary and fiction filmmaking, as we seek to see our world more deeply. We’ll begin with screenings, craft exercises, and discussions around authorship and social impact. Then we each will write, develop, and shoot a short film over the rest of the semester, building off of intentional community engagement. Students will end the class with written and recorded materials for a rough cut. Basic equipment and technical training will be provided.

Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a brief letter explaining why you're interested to take this class. Please also discuss what participants/communities you might be interested in engaging with for your filmmaking projects. For your writing sample, please submit 3-5 pages of your creative work from any genre (screenwriting, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc.)

English CAFR. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing this Present Life

Instructor: Claire Messud Thursday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Intended for students with prior fiction-writing and workshop experience, this course will concentrate on structure, execution and revision. Exploring various strands of contemporary and recent literary fiction – writers such as Karl Ove Knausgaard, Rachel Cusk, Chimamanda Adichie, Douglas Stuart, Ocean Vuong, etc – we will consider how fiction works in our present moment, with emphasis on a craft perspective. Each student will present to the class a published fiction that has influenced them. The course is primarily focused on the discussion of original student work, with the aim of improving both writerly skills and critical analysis. Revision is an important component of this class: students will workshop two stories and a revision of one of these. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit 3-5 pages of prose fiction, along with a substantive letter of introduction. I’d like to know why you’re interested in the course; what experience you’ve had writing, both in previous workshops and independently; what your literary goals and ambitions are. Please tell me about some of your favorite narratives – fiction, non-fiction, film, etc: why they move you, and what you learn from them.

English CAKV. Fiction Workshop: Writing from the First-Person Point of View

Instructor:  Andrew Krivak Tuesday, 9:00-11:45 1m | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This course is a workshop intended for students who are interested in writing longer form narratives from the first-person point of view. The “I” at the center of any novel poses a perspective that is all at once imaginatively powerful and narratively problematic, uniquely insightful and necessarily unreliable. We will read from roughly twelve novels written in the first-person, from Marilynne Robinson and W.G. Sebald, to Valeria Luiselli and Teju Cole, and ask questions (among others) of why this form, why this style? And, as a result, what is lost and what is realized in the telling? Primarily, however, students will write. Our goal will be to have a student’s work read and discussed twice in class during the semester. I am hoping to see at least 35-40 pages of a project —at any level of completion—at the end of term.  Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a substantive letter telling me why you’re interested in taking this class, what writers (classical and contemporary) you admire and why, and if there’s a book you have read more than once, a movie you have seen more than once, a piece of music you listen to over and over, not because you have to but because you want to. Students of creative nonfiction are also welcome to apply.

English CCSS. Fiction Workshop: The Art of the Short Story

Instructor: Laura van den Berg Tuesday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This course will serve as an introduction to the fundamentals of writing fiction, with an emphasis on the contemporary short story. How can we set about creating “big” worlds in compact spaces? What unique doors can the form of the short story open? The initial weeks will focus on exploratory exercises and the study of published short stories and craft essays. Later, student work will become the primary text as the focus shifts to workshop discussion. Authors on the syllabus will likely include Ted Chiang, Lauren Groff, Carmen Maria Machado, and Octavia Butler. This workshop welcomes writers of all levels of experience. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a letter of introduction. I’d like to know a little about why you are drawn to studying fiction; what you hope to get out of the workshop and what you hope to contribute; and one thing you are passionate about outside writing / school. Please also include a very brief writing sample (2-3 pages). The sample can be in any genre (it does not have to be from a work of fiction). 

Write an Honors Creative Thesis

Students may apply to write a senior thesis or senior project in creative writing, although only English concentrators can be considered. Students submit applications in early March of their junior year, including first-term juniors who are out of phase. The creative writing faculty considers the proposal, along with the student's overall performance in creative writing and other English courses, and notifies students about its decision in early mid-late March. Those applications are due, this coming year, on TBA . 

Students applying for a creative writing thesis or project must have completed at least one course in creative writing at Harvard before they apply. No student is guaranteed acceptance. It is strongly suggested that students acquaint themselves with the requirements and guidelines well before the thesis application is due. The creative writing director must approve any exceptions to the requirements, which must be made in writing by Monday, February 7, 2022. Since the creative writing thesis and project are part of the English honors program, acceptance to write a creative thesis is conditional upon the student continuing to maintain a 3.40 concentration GPA. If a student’s concentration GPA drops below 3.40 after the spring of the junior year, the student may not be permitted to continue in the honors program.

Joint concentrators may apply to write creative theses, but we suggest students discuss the feasibility of the project well before applications are due. Not all departments are open to joint creative theses.

Students who have questions about the creative writing thesis should contact the program’s Director, Sam Marks .

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