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Announcement of Classes: Summer 2020

There are no special instructions for Summer 2020 English Department courses, other than to note in which session each course is offered.

The following courses are offered in Session A (May 26 - July 2):  English R1B section 1, R1B section 3, 117S, and 133T.

The following courses are offered in Session C (June 22 - August 13):  English R1B section 2, R1B section 4, 125E, 143A section 1, 143A section 2, 166 section 1, 166 section 2, and 166 section 3.

The following courses are offered in Session D (July 7 - August 13):  English R1A section 1, R1A section 2, 166AC, 180Z, and 198BC.

Course #
 Instructor
 Course Area

R1A /1

Reading & Composition:
The Making of Americans

TWTh 12-2:30
Session: D

 Americans are not born but made, and who they become is bound up with what they make. This course explores the long and varied history of these linked assumptions, with a particular focus on the nineteenth century. It was in this period that a broad f...(read more) de Stefano, Jason

R1A /2

Reading & Composition:
Psychedelic Experience in the Literature and Culture of the 1960s and '70s

TWTh 2:30-5
Session: D

 This course surveys the experimental literature of the late 1960s and early 1970s, situating it in relation to both the psychedelic discourses of the period and the wave of countercultural demands for a new kind of society. We’ll read texts that engag...(read more) D'Silva, Eliot

R1B/1

Reading and Composition:
Girls, Misunderstood?: "Deviant" Women in Literature

TWTh 10-12:30
Session: A

 Recent psychological thrillers such as The Woman in the Window and The Girl on the Train have made the figure of the unreliable female narrator-cum-protagonist very popular, and the plots of these stories are driven by the seeming mental instability o...(read more) Ghosh, Srijani

R1B/2

Reading and Composition:
The Literature of Aotearoa/New Zealand

TWTh 4-6
Session: C

 This course will focus first and foremost on the practice of academic writing and the skills needed to research, plan, draft and revise writing at a college level. More specifically, it stages the problem of scholarly research through an encounter wit...(read more) Sutton, Emily

R1B/3

Reading and Composition:
The Marriage Plot and Its Afterlife

TWTh 10-12:30
Session: A

 The marriage plot novel is seen as a thing of the past, but its influence very much lives on today in our movies, our music, and our notions of romance. This course will examine a series of genre-defining marriage plot novels from the 19th century, as...(read more) Mittnacht, Veronica Vizuet

R1B/4

Reading and Composition:
Love and Race in American Film

TWTh 4-6
Session: C

 This class examines the history of popular American cinema through its representations of love and race. We will consider the often entangled—and frequently troubling—portrayals of race and romantic love as it appears across a range of popular film ge...(read more) Hu, Jane
Course #
 Instructor
 Course Area

117S/1

Shakespeare

TWTh 5-7:30
Session: A

 This course focuses on a selection of Shakespeare’s works that includes some of the best-known plays (Midsummer, Lear) as well as some of the less known but fascinating works (Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline). We’ll consider various performances of th...(read more) Marno, David

125E/1

The Contemporary Novel:
Character and Collectivity

TWTh 12-2
Session: C

 What options are there for novelists who want to tell the story of the many rather than the story of the one? If history represents the actions of millions of people, how does literature represent these collective histories?  Contemporary society forc...(read more) Bernes, Jasper

133T/1

Topics in African American Literature and Culture:
Humor and the Neo-Slave Narrative

TWTh 1-3:30
Session: A

 A course exploring how the 19th-century slave narrative was reworked in the 20th century by novelists Ishmael Reed, Charles Johnson, and Paul Beatty into a humorous (or at least tragicomic) critique of American race relations after the 1960s. ...(read more) Catchings, Alex

143A/1

Short Fiction

TTh 2-5
Session: C

 This course is a laboratory for student writers to work on short stories or, if appropriate, chapters from longer fictional projects. Over the eight weeks, we will help you discover your own methods for building worlds, developing characters, structur...(read more) Walter, David

143A/2

Short Fiction

TTh 9-12
Session:

This course is a laboratory for student writers to work on short stories or, if appropriate, chapters from longer fictional projects. Over the eight weeks, we will help you discover your own methods for building worlds, developing characters, structur...(read more) Walter, David

166/1

Special Topics:
Medieval Fantasy from Tolkien to Game of Thrones

MW 2-5
Session: C

 Writers in the 20th and 21st centuries have continually looked to the Middle Ages — or, more to the point, to their idea of the Middle Ages — when constructing epic narratives in fantastic worlds. In this course we’ll ask what it is about the medieval...(read more) Stevenson, Max

166/2

Special Topics:
Global Catastrophe and Modern Literature

TTh 2-5
Session: C

 Global crisis defined the first part of the twentieth century. Pandemic illness and catastrophic economic collapse, along with World War after World War, meant it was a time rife with ethnic, racial, imperial, and political tensions, and a time also o...(read more) Nathan, Jesse

166/3

Special Topics:
The Broadway Musical

MW 2-5
Session: C

 A survey of the Broadway musical from Ira Gershwin to Lin Manuel-Miranda, this course will investigate the musical's claim to being the quintessential American art form. Organized around texts and institutions which are explicitly engaged with questio...(read more) Drawdy, Miles

166AC/1

Special Topics in American Cultures:
Race and Ethnicity in Classical Hollywood Cinema

TWTh 3-5:30
Session: D

 An introduction to critical thinking about race and ethnicity, focused on films produced in Hollywood between the 1920s and 1960s. Themes include law and violence, kinship and miscegenation, captivity and rescue, passing and racial impersonation. Week...(read more) Wagner, Bryan

180Z/1

Science Fiction:
A Survey of Science Fiction from E.T.A. Hoffman to N.K. Jemisin

TWTh 9:30-12
Session: D

 This course will examine in depth the history of speculative fiction and its engagement with the themes and topics of the new life sciences, representation of cloning, ecological dystopias, hybrid life-forms, genetic engineering dystopias. While scien...(read more) Jones, Donna V.

198BC/1

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 5-7:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine

198BC/2

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 5-7:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine

198BC/3

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 5-7:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine

198BC/4

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 6-8:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine

198BC/5

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 6-8:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine

198BC/6

Berkeley Connect:
Transfer Connect

Wed. 6-8:30 PM
Session: D

 Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. During the summer, Berkeley Connect focuses on familiarizing newly-arrived students with the research university e...(read more) Flynn, Catherine
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general phone: 510-642-3467
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