Winter 2025 Courses

Winter 2025: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 205 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT II

Instructor: Susan Reese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 254 001 SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT II

Instructor: Elizabeth Duquette
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 300 001 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

As the title for English 300 should suggest, our course of study will concentrate on the major forms that English literature takes, including lyric poetry, drama, the short story, and the novel. Although we will not discuss other prominent forms such as the epic and the essay, we will screen and discuss a film adaptation of a piece of drama. We will also analyze both premodern and modern literature originating from England and the United States, ranging from William Shakespeare to Jeanette Winterson.

Without thinking much about it, most of us could differentiate a poem from a short story and a play from a novel, but when we examine literary “form,” what is it exactly that we’re looking at? One way of thinking about form is essentially the physical or material shape that a piece of literature takes. By “shape” I mean, at the most basic of levels, the disposition of the text upon the page and the mode or process by which a piece of literature creates its imaginative world for a reader or listener. Another word for “form” is “structure,” which involves both the various parts that make up the whole as well as the relationship between those parts. Our job during this class will be to learn the formal characteristics of the literature we read and to analyze it in order to produce and formulate coherent literary meanings.

You will be expected to have read each day’s material carefully, to have ideas and questions prepared when you come to class, and to participate actively in class discussions.

ENG 300 002 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Primary texts are Isak Dinesen’s “The Blank Page” and Ehrengard; Vladimir Nabokov’s “That in Aleppo Once,” “Spring in Fialta,” and Lolita; an excerpt from James Joyce’s Ulysses; Franz Kafka’s “A Country Doctor” and “In the Penal Colony,” and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman.

Secondary texts will include the section on Nabokov in Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Richard Rorty’s “The Barber of Kasbeam: Nabokov on Cruelty,” as well as feminist articles on Isak Dinesen by Susan Guber and Marianne Stecher-Hansen. (Please note that the well-known subject matter of Lolita may be disturbing to some, although past students have always more or less unanimously recommended that I continue to include it, as much for its literary form and virtuosic technique as for its important themes.)

Primary requirements are a midterm and a final essay, and two 100-150 word contributions to Canvas discussion each week. The first contribution will be your own thread; the second will reply to someone else’s.

This class will be conducted entirely in writing without class meetings or zoom lectures. Guides to thinking about our texts will be provided each week by the Professor’s Notes, and biweekly dialogue between students will occur as just described. If email is not sufficient for communication with me, I will schedule at least one zoom meeting with any students who request this.

ENG 301U 001 TOP: SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 305U 001 TOP: DAVID LYNCH & FILM NOIR

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 305U 002 TOP: THE NEW HOLLYWOOD

Instructor: Dan DeWeese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

From sometime in the mid-1960s (many critics cite Bonnie & Clyde) until some point in the mid-to-late 1970s (we can trade theories about when), a new generation of American filmmakers, working for the most part within the Hollywood system, cultivated an aesthetic of seductive malaise and beautiful defeat that came to be called “The New Hollywood.” Many of these actors, directors, and producers were inspired by European art films of the 1960s, but those films were often produced through very different methods from the Hollywood studio model. How did this new generation of American filmmakers approach the challenges of getting films produced, distributed, and exhibited? What kind of audience existed (or was created) for these “personal films"? Did the New Hollywood era create an identifiable legacy in American movies, or was it just a brief interlude before the return of blockbusters? An examination of work by a cross-section of writers, directors, and actors from the time will help us attempt to answer these questions and others.

ENG 307U 001 SCIENCE FICTION

Instructor: Tom Fisher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 313U 001 AMERICAN SHORT STORY

Instructor: Joel Bettridge
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

This course will survey of the history of the American short story, from its beginnings in the 19th century to the early 21st century. It will also develop students’ critical reading and writing skills through weekly critical responses. 

ENG 320U 001 THE ENGLISH NOVEL I

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Main Texts:

• Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt
• Henry Fielding, Shamela and Joseph Andrews
• Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
• Jane Austen, Emma
• John Locke, Second Treatise of Government and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections)
• Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist 
• Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose”
• Paul de Man, “The Epistemology of Metaphor”

Films/TV Series:

• Peter Greenaway, The Draughtsman’s Contract
• Amy Heckerling, Clueless
• Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon 
• Diarmuid Lawrence, Emma 
• Jim O’Hanlon, Emma (4-part BBC TV series)
• Michael Winterbottom, A Cock and Bull Story

Primary Requirements: Two essays plus 2 weekly Canvas posts.

This course will be conducted entirely in writing, without zoom lectures or meetings. When email communication is not sufficient, I will video-meet with any individual students who request this.

ENG 326 001 LIT COMM DIFF

Instructor: Elizabeth Brown
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In her famous essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” the Black feminist scholar and poet Audre Lorde argued, “Difference must not merely be tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” For Lorde, race, gender, sexuality, and class, among others, did not merely name differences of identity to be overcome but possibilities for “raw and powerful connection” that could lead to personal and political transformation. Following Lorde, our class will consider how literature has participated in racial meaning-making in the 20th and 21st centuries. How has literature been a site of contestation over how readers imagine racial and other social identities? What formal strategies have authors used to represent differences of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability? What about “humans,” “citizens,” and other apparently unmarked or universal identities? How do readers come to know themselves and others within literary texts? As we consider questions such as these, we will attend, as Lorde does, to unexpected possibilities for envisioning the political and social power of difference.

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Though there have been many attempts to identify the start of modern globalization, most agree that its origins lie in the experience of imperial conquest and expansion that began in the fifteenth century. Even now, pundits continue to debate whether to describe today’s world in terms of “globalization” or “neo-imperialism,” whether what defines our planet today is a utopian model of connection, mobility, and opportunity, or a dystopian structure of domination, infection, and exploitation. Partially, this depends on your position within these structures, but our attitudes and opinions are also naturally shaped by the cultural texts that seek to represent this era: the films, novels, tv shows, and other efforts to make sense of the experiences, structures, and modes of thinking that are shaped by, and help shape, our material relations.

In this class, we will work to consider the intersections of globalization and imperialism, and the continued relevance of “postcolonial” perspectives to our current era. Reading novels, films, and theoretical works from Africa, India, the Caribbean and beyond, we will grapple with topics like: economic dependence and domination; education, language, and culture; the environment, climate change, and slow violence; political conflict and the legacies of violence and war; migration and mobility; and the work of art in our time.

Required Books:

• Conrad, Heart of Darkness (9780393264869)
• Adiga, The White Tiger (9781416562603)
• Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (9781583670255)
• Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (9781644450710)

ENG 335U 001 TOP: ADAPTING LIT TO FILM

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

ENG 335U 002 TOP: CONSPIRACY THEORY

Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

From the mundane to the dangerous, conspiracy theories continue to exert an outsized influence on our culture. But what would it mean to think of the conspiracy theory less as a product of "fake news" or "media diets," and more as a narrative form that began to take shape in the latter decades of the twentieth century, carrying through to the present? In this course we will analyze a series of novels and films that take the conspiracy theory as their object, asking why and how the conspiracy emerges as a form for making sense of the world at certain historical moments. Attention will be paid to the difference (and congruities) between literary form and film language, as well as discrete periods of conspiracy in film and literature (post-Watergate New Hollywood thrillers, 1960s/70s postmodern literature, 90s alternate history narratives, etc).

ENG 352U 001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT II

Instructor: Maude Hines
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

ENG/BST 352U is an introduction to African American literature from the late nineteenth century to the beginnings of the "Black Arts" movement. It is the second in a three-part survey of African American literature. In addition to short stories, poetry, and novels, we will look at essays, journals, autobiographies, audio-recordings, fine art, photography, and performance. Students will have an active role in the class. The class will focus on gothic themes, temporality, childhood, gender, and sexuality in African American literature. The anthology we use (because it is inexpensive, and also because it was published in the late 1960s, and so presents a useful "look back" for a course that ends at its publication date) must be supplemented (on Canvas) by works by women authors and others. Such questions of unequal access, canonization, and memory will be foregrounded as we approach the materials.

This course fills the American Identities, Global Perspectives, and Gender and Sexualities cluster requirements for non-majors, as well as the domestic RESR requirement. It is a low-cost course.

Required Materials:

• Chapman, (Ed.), Black Voices: An Anthology of African-American Literature
• Petry, The Street

ENG 367U 001 TOP: LITERATURE OF THE ROAD

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 372U 001 TOP: GENDER/EXPERIMENTL GOTHIC

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

The Gothic reflects what haunts the cultures in which we find ourselves and reveals that which is hidden, forbidden, denied. In this course we’ll study writings and films, primarily by women and others expressing varied gender identities, who have experimented with the Gothic genre and found a space from which to speak. What haunts these writers varies from one story to another, but we’ll find new twists on Gothic tropes such as ghosts, ghostliness, and spectrality; the power of houses and places in the domestic Gothic; witches and witchcraft; Gothic romances; monstrosities, vampires, and grotesques; ancestral or generational curses or memories; and queer sexualities that seek expression. We’ll focus on snapshots of late 19th/early 20th century and mid-late 20th/contemporary Gothic, including such figures as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sheridan Le Fanu, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Jean Rhys, Octavia Butler, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and films such as Crimson Peak, and The Company of Wolves.

Required Texts:

Available at PSU Bookstore, Amazon, and elsewhere:

• Octavia Butler. Fledgling. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005
• Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. Mexican Gothic. NY: Del Ray, 2020
• Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea. NY: Norton, 1966/1982

Other shorter texts are available in online form.

ENG 383U 001 TOP: WITCHES AND FEMINISTS

Instructor: Moshe Rachmuth
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 414 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

Okay, what is rhetoric and composition studies anyway? This course attempts to help you answer that question by providing a broad overview of theories and issues that started the discipline about 125 years ago and that have informed it over the last 40 years. We’ll try to construct a disciplinary narrative by surveying key pieces of research and theory. And we’ll consider a range of contemporary movements and topics such as writing processes, nineteenth century historical studies, genre and diverse discourses, ethos/audience; race, class, LGBTQI+, disability, the field’s response to current sociopolitical issues, and more. Although its focus isn’t on actual teaching methods, we’ll see how, like it or not, every instructional approach makes certain theoretical assumptions about learning and writing. If the course goes as promised, you won’t see rhetoric and composition, your own writing, or the teaching of writing in quite the same way again.

We will frame our discussion through these and other questions that you bring to our discussion:

• What do all these diverse facets of composition theories suggest that the discipline is? Are they to do with the self or selves, the audience/reader, the socio-cultural context, or the text itself?
• What are the implications for writing and teaching? What might writing assignments or classroom activities from this perspective look like?
• How is what we are learning and discussing different from your preconceptions? What are the theories and perspectives that most fit you as a writer and teacher of writing?

Texts:

All texts are available on the course website. No Cost.

ENG 450 001 ADV TOP: JANE AUSTEN

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

What happens when we read Jane Austen? One thing is sure: so much does! In this course we'll focus on matters of literary form and the way, when we encounter Austen's works, form connects us with questions of gender, power, desire, morality, and the nature and limits of subjectivity. Who do we become when we read Austen? What does Austen ask of us? Who do Austen's novels imagine we are and will be? What possibilities and potentials do Austen's language and plots enable or enliven? Our focus will be on the novels, but we will also engage the rich tradition of critics and criticism that testify about what happens when we read Austen. D.A. Miller, in one such effusive critical moment, exclaims of Austen's prose that "altogether, such thrillingly inhuman utterance was not stylish; it was Style itself." We will test critical exclamations like Miller's alongside our own effusive reactions. What's happening with Austen? What's happening with us? And what happens when we read Austen? These will be our guiding questions, methodological framework, and destinations.

Novels: 

• Northanger Abbey (1803)
• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Emma (1816)
• Persuasion (1818)

We'll read secondary works and theory and there will be presentations and two papers (a midterm and final). Graduate students may opt for a seminar paper in lieu of the midterm.

ENG 469 001 ADV TOP: ASIAN AMER LIT/CULTR

Instructor: Marie Lo
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 496 001 COMICS THEORY

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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Winter 2025: Graduate English Courses

ENG 507 001 SEM: POSTCOLONIAL ECOLOGY

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 514 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

Okay, what is rhetoric and composition studies anyway? This course attempts to help you answer that question by providing a broad overview of theories and issues that started the discipline about 125 years ago and that have informed it over the last 40 years. We’ll try to construct a disciplinary narrative by surveying key pieces of research and theory. And we’ll consider a range of contemporary movements and topics such as writing processes, nineteenth century historical studies, genre and diverse discourses, ethos/audience; race, class, LGBTQI+, disability, the field’s response to current sociopolitical issues, and more. Although its focus isn’t on actual teaching methods, we’ll see how, like it or not, every instructional approach makes certain theoretical assumptions about learning and writing. If the course goes as promised, you won’t see rhetoric and composition, your own writing, or the teaching of writing in quite the same way again.

We will frame our discussion through these and other questions that you bring to our discussion:

• What do all these diverse facets of composition theories suggest that the discipline is? Are they to do with the self or selves, the audience/reader, the socio-cultural context, or the text itself?
• What are the implications for writing and teaching? What might writing assignments or classroom activities from this perspective look like?
• How is what we are learning and discussing different from your preconceptions? What are the theories and perspectives that most fit you as a writer and teacher of writing?

Texts:

All texts are available on the course website. No Cost.

ENG 518 001 COLLEGE COMP TEACHING

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 531 001 TOP: COLLOQUIUM

Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 550 001 ADV TOP: JANE AUSTEN

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

What happens when we read Jane Austen? One thing is sure: so much does! In this course we'll focus on matters of literary form and the way, when we encounter Austen's works, form connects us with questions of gender, power, desire, morality, and the nature and limits of subjectivity. Who do we become when we read Austen? What does Austen ask of us? Who do Austen's novels imagine we are and will be? What possibilities and potentials do Austen's language and plots enable or enliven? Our focus will be on the novels, but we will also engage the rich tradition of critics and criticism that testify about what happens when we read Austen. D.A. Miller, in one such effusive critical moment, exclaims of Austen's prose that "altogether, such thrillingly inhuman utterance was not stylish; it was Style itself." We will test critical exclamations like Miller's alongside our own effusive reactions. What's happening with Austen? What's happening with us? And what happens when we read Austen? These will be our guiding questions, methodological framework, and destinations.

Novels: 

• Northanger Abbey (1803)
• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Emma (1816)
• Persuasion (1818)

We'll read secondary works and theory and there will be presentations and two papers (a midterm and final). Graduate students may opt for a seminar paper in lieu of the midterm.

ENG 567 002 ADV TOP: AESTHETICS/THE NOVEL

Instructor: Anoop Mirpuri
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

What is fiction? Why did the novel become the dominant form of literary production in the modern era? How have novelists themselves understood the aesthetic capacities of fiction? We will address these questions by exploring: a) the modern idea of fiction as a type of artifice, b) historical accounts of the rise of the novel, and c) a simultaneously critical and aesthetic tradition animated by a concern with the vexed relation between art, value, and the instrumentalist ethos of modernity. In addition to offering a strategic foray into a broad field of inquiry, the goal of this course will be to expand the capacities of the aesthetic objects we encounter by developing our capacities as readers.

This course fulfills the critical theory requirement for the MA in English.

Required Texts:

• Henry James, The Spoils of Poynton
• Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
• Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

ENG 569 001 ADV TOP: ASIAN AMER LIT/CULTR

Instructor: Marie Lo
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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Winter 2025: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121Z 001 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Madeline Mendiola
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 121Z 002 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Richard Afriyie
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 121Z 003 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Margaret Muthee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Derrick Galloway
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Craft essentials. Character, dialogue, setting, form, plot, point of view, structure, narrative framing, etc. Learn through writing exercises, extensive discussion and consistent practice.

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Rachel Blair
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Fiction can be anything—even real life! In this class, writers from various levels and backgrounds will learn the basic techniques of developing their craft via story elements such as character, point of view, setting, sound and more. This will include discussion and revision of student work where you will be encouraged to experiment, explore and investigate not only yourself but the world around you.

WR 212 003 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Gabriel Urza
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class is an introduction to the practice of fiction writing. We will be reading and discussing several short stories that illustrate basic conventions of fiction such as Point of View, Psychic Distance, Forms, Setting and Place, Characterization, Voice, Structure, and Dialogue. These are tools that give any writer, in any genre, more possibilities to create rich and complex stories, worlds, an characters.

We will also be completing several writing exercises intended to engage with these conventions and to inspire new approaches to your writing. As an introduction to the creative writing workshop, these writing exercises will be read and discussed in small groups.

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Kelly McLysaght
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 213 002 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

Instructor: Kayla Vokolek
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Madison Willis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Marielle LeFave
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227Z 001 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Meg Hudson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227Z 002 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Julie Kares
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

WR 227Z 003 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Jacob Tootalian
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

WR 300 001 TOP: PODCASTING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRITING ENGLISH

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

What is English Studies? What do we do? How do we do it? Why?

WR 301 engages these foundational questions while providing opportunities to practice core skills of textual analysis, critical inquiry, and rhetorical delivery.

As a class, we will work through the process of generating ideas, developing interpretations, exploring scholarly conversations, and articulating your contributions. Individually, you will apply those lessons to a primary text (e.g., short story, documentary, video game, play, etc.) of your own choosing and develop a research agenda suited to your goals. Throughout, you will be intellectually challenged and supportively coached toward healthy writing practices that transfer across contexts.

Note: Tuesday class sessions will be in-person discussions in the classroom; Thursdays will be "attend anywhere" writing/research sessions that you can join in person or via Zoom.

WR 312 001 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Gabriel Urza
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class is designed around the idea of creating and developing a themed anthology of short fiction. We’ll begin by discussing and selecting a theme for our class anthology. We’ll create a call for submissions and select sample published works, and then we will write a new short story around this theme to submit to our workshop.

After we have completed our drafts (due at the end of Week 3), we will be discussing your stories in a workshop setting (Weeks 4-9). Every week, we will consider three manuscripts, for which we will also provide written critique letters. We will also be reading and discussing several short stories and/or craft essays.

Our last week will be focused on revision, with an eye towards honing our anthology of stories. We’ll work together to create an introduction to the anthology, to select cover art and graphics, and to create contributors notes. It’s my hope that we’ll leave the quarter with a completed document of your work that commemorates—even if indirectly—this strange yet creative time we’re all living through.

WR 312 002 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Mark Cunningham
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Charity Yoro
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The scale of the life of the poet is the scale of the universe.

–Alexis Pauline Gumbs

In this course, writers will cultivate an enduring practice of interrogation, inquiry, noticing through reading, writing, and providing critical feedback of poetry. They will engage in close readings by a diverse range of contemporary poets, examining devices such as syntax, rhythm, imagery, form, and more; participate in weekly writing exercises to encourage experimentation and play; and workshop their poems in a supportive environment, where they will practice giving and receiving constructive feedback. Writers will leave the course with a portfolio of poems, an established creative practice, and most importantly, a honed sense of discovery.

WR 314 001 INTERMEDIATE NONFICTION WRITIN

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Nonfiction is unusual in being ostensibly defined by what it is not: Not Fiction, apparently. But this course focuses on what creative nonfiction writing *is*: an approach that shares profound commonalities with the narrative possibilities of fiction and the aesthetic intensity and richness of poetry, while also making use of field observation and research. Students will draft, workshop, and revise their own creative nonfiction; classroom discussion will explore flash nonfiction, Esmé Weijun Wang's personal essays on mental illness, David Foster Wallace's field reporting on a lobster festival, and Wayétu Moore's memoir of retracing her family's journey from the Liberian civil war.

WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Travis Willmore
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Jarrod Dunham
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Amy Harper Russell
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Course Objective: In this class we will learn what it is to be a writer. We will explore genres of writing including research, personal narrative, and career writing. We will draft work, reflect upon work, and have the opportunity to peer-review work. Please save all notes, discussion posts, journaling, drafts, source materials, peer reviews, and papers to include in a portfolio. The end result should be a complete portfolio of work to share.

WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Elle Wilder
Instructional Method: Hybrid
This course is no-cost.²

WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Caroline Hayes
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

This course practices critical inquiry through personal, academic, and professional writing. Readings will consist of a combination of instructive resources, examples of the genres in which we are writing, and texts intended for analysis and reflection. Each week, you will read sources and practice informal writing both through journaling and written discussion with the class. You will also complete 4 formal assignments over the course of the term: a personal essay, an annotated bibliography, a set of professional documents (a resume plus accompanying document of your choice), and a reflective memo. All assignments will allow you the flexibility to find your own purpose and focus and to develop your writing in a way that is most useful to your own interests and goals.

WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Mackenzie Streissguth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 008 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Perrin Kerns
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 009 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Amy Harper Russell
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

Course Objective: In this class we will learn what it is to be a writer. We will explore genres of writing including research, personal narrative, and career writing. We will draft work, reflect upon work, and have the opportunity to peer-review work. Please save all notes, discussion posts, journaling, drafts, source materials, peer reviews, and papers to include in a portfolio. The end result should be a complete portfolio of work to share.

WR 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Tracy Dillon
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

WR 394 001 CAREERS FOR ENGLISH MAJORS

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course gives students an opportunity to explore and write on the career paths open to English majors. This includes areas commonly associated with English—teaching, writing, editing—but also some you might not expect. English is the 4th most common major among law school students, for instance, and the 8th most common among medical school students. We'll engage in critical reflection on what each student is considering for their own path, and on the meaning of the English major and of labor itself. What is the English major, and how did it come about? What are the demographics of English majors? What's the research on the various career routes that they take? What are the technological, financial, and ethical challenges and changes in these fields?

This course counts towards the University Writing Requirement. It can be used as upper-division elective in the English BA/BS, the Creative Writing BFA, or the English or Writing minors. There are no text purchases: readings will be drawn from articles available online.

WR 398 001 TOP: WRITING COMICS

Instructor: Brian Bendis
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 412 001 ADVANCED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

In this class, students will engage with topics related to craft (point of view, character, narrative, setting, etc.), look more closely at their own relationship with language, and aim to produce one complete draft of original fiction. Students will also participate in workshops and provide generative feedback for the works of their peers. Our work will be guided by various writing & revision exercises, as well as readings by diverse contemporary authors. This term, we’ll focus on rethinking the cultural values of craft alongside the core text for the class this term: Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses.

WR 413 001 ADVANCED POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 416 001 SCREENWRITING

Instructor: Thom Bray
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

Today's screenwriter's need to be fluent in these screenwriting forms: Hour Broadcast Four Act Television, Situation Comedy, and Traditional Three Act Film. In this class students explore these forms and create a project around one of them.

WR 420 001 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

In this asynchronous online course, students will be invited to participate in weekly writing prompts and generative experiments via Canvas. Students will also propose an Advanced Writing Project and then pursue self-directed drafting and refinement of this work for the duration of the quarter, with the opportunity to discuss ongoing progress, process, and revision strategies during individual conferences with the instructor. A short story, novel excerpt, personal essay, memoir excerpt, short cycle of poems, hybrid work, or BFA portfolio excerpt are all acceptable options for the Advanced Writing Project. This is a no-cost course; the purchase of any outside texts is not required.

WR 424 001 GRANT WRITING FOR PROF WRITERS

Instructor: Tracy Dillon
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

This course introduces students training for careers as professional writers to the best practices in writing grants and managing the grant writing process across multiple sectors of the nonprofit world and in academia. Students will apply their knowledge and skill by working with community-partner nonprofits that are seeking funds to solve social problems. Students will work collaboratively and individually to develop business plans, identify potential funding sources, and begin preparing grants. No previous experience with professional or technical writing required.

WR 431 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: Bryan Schnabel
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, writers play a critical role in communicating complex information to diverse audiences. This course offers an in-depth exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the capabilities and efficiency of writers, with eyes wide open about the risks. No previous experience with professional and technical writing required.

Topics covered in the course include:

• Understanding AI Fundamentals
• AI Tools and Software
• Automated Documentation Generation
• Content Optimization
• Language and Style Enhancement
• Ethical Considerations
• Practical Applications and Case Studies
• Future Trends and Innovations

WR 432 001 FRAMEWORKS FOR TECH WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course introduces students to the many frameworks for understanding the fundamental questions that shape technical communication as a practice in industry and as a field of academic study. Frameworks introduced may include rhetoric, design, ethics, social justice, network and ethics. Students will choose a framework to analyze and respond to a technical communication problem or situation of their choice and produce a portfolio piece to report and disseminate findings. No previous courses in technical writing is required.

WR 456 001 FORMS OF NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course will explore various forms of nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, graphic narrative/comics, literary journalism, and oral history, with practice writing in each. We will also investigate the permeable boundaries between these and other literary forms, with a focus on the braiding of the personal and the political, the creative and the critical. Individual classes will contain discourse and writing experiments designed to deepen your critical understanding of various nonfiction forms, and to enhance your creative repertoires with a wide variety of nonfiction techniques and craft elements.

Reading List:

• In Waves: A Graphic Memoir by A.J. Dungo
• Expecting Something Else by A.M. O'Malley
• In The Dreamhouse: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
• Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption by Walidah Imarisha
• Tell It Slant: Crafting, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction (Third Edition)

WR 460 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 462 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: Jessica Reed
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 463 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

The objective of this course is to understand the role of marketing and publicity in book publishing, both traditional and self-publishing, and to obtain the necessary skills to position a title, create sales materials, and develop a marketing and publicity plan. Your goal is to end the course able to demonstrate skills in target audience analysis, copywriting, metadata management, author platform building, media and reviewer outreach, budgeting and scheduling, email and social media marketing, and metrics and analytics that are directly applicable to a career in book publishing.

WR 466 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 471 001 TYPOGRAPHY, LAYOUT, PRODUCTION

Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Learn the art and craft of book design in the digital age. This comprehensive course in professional book design and production is designed to give you a solid base in typography, interior, and cover design, as well as teach you the physical process that goes into making a book a real, three-dimensional object. The course will cover Issues specific to the design of fiction and nonfiction books in a variety of genres and markets.

WR 473 001 DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

Instructor: Elizabeth Duquette
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 474 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• explain and understand the book production cycle;
• competently use industry-standard terminology;
• analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
• track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
• communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
• complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
• perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently and enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.

WR 475 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• explain and understand the book production cycle;
• competently use industry-standard terminology;
• analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
• track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
• communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
• complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
• perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently and enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.

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Winter 2025: Graduate Writing Courses

WR 507 001 SEM: MFA FICTION

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Form is about listening.

–Teresa Carmody

To attempt to understand the world is to simultaneously re-world the world; it is to change it. There is no place to stand from where we might gain a privileged view of things. Looking is intervening.

–Bayo Akomolafe

What is the language with which you move through the world, through which you think, experience, and “are”? Where does that language come from and what does it say about who you are, how you have come to be, how you continue to become, your environment, your privileges, your contextual entanglement with the world around you? When you look closely at just one sentence you have written, how does the sentence enact the performance of your existence and relationship to the world? What method of reading does your writing invite?

In this class, we will explore how the structure of the sentence can represent and enact particular ways of seeing the world, being in the world, and relating to the world. We’ll investigate how the sentence might reveal an entire worldview through the shape it assumes, through the relationships it maps, which ideological systems it upholds, what power structures it validates simply through its grammar, syntax, and contextual placement. This class is an invitation to listen to form and to ourselves. We will delve into the multi-sensory modes of language, ecological, spiritual, & relational storytelling, and grammatical sense-making via craft discussions, guided meditations, generative writing prompts, and inquiry/investigation of our own writing. We’ll be reading contemporary texts from all genres, including texts by Renee Gladman, Sophie Strand, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Jjjjjerome Ellis, M. NourbeSe Philip, Lee Sumyeong, and Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

WR 520 001 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 522 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP POETRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 523 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

Though this course will unfold much like a standard workshop (and is appropriate for any level MFA student), we will place significant emphasis on the process of generating, compiling, organizing, and polishing work for your final graduate thesis project. We’ll discuss the global choices writers make for sequencing essays in a collection, and/or the chapters of a memoir. In advance of guest visits from PSU MFA alumni, we’ll read excerpts from their now-archived thesis projects and published works. In turn, we will workshop excerpts from each other’s thesis projects-in-progress, with an eye toward recurring thematics and cohesiveness across various pieces. Students will begin to compile a simple bibliography of outside texts that inspire their creative work or contribute to the research process. As the course culminates, we’ll also explore the process of eventually transforming your thesis project into a book-length work, as well as tips and best practices for navigating small-press and commercial publishing landscapes.

WR 524 001 GRANT WRITING FOR PROF WRITERS

Instructor: Tracy Dillon
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is no-cost.²

This course introduces students training for careers as professional writers to the best practices in writing grants and managing the grant writing process across multiple sectors of the nonprofit world and in academia. Students will apply their knowledge and skill by working with community-partner nonprofits that are seeking funds to solve social problems. Students will work collaboratively and individually to develop business plans, identify potential funding sources, and begin preparing grants.

WR 531 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: Bryan Schnabel
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, writers play a critical role in communicating complex information to diverse audiences. This course offers an in-depth exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the capabilities and efficiency of writers, with eyes wide open about the risks.

Topics covered in the course include:

• Understanding AI Fundamentals
• AI Tools and Software
• Automated Documentation Generation
• Content Optimization
• Language and Style Enhancement
• Ethical Considerations
• Practical Applications and Case Studies
• Future Trends and Innovations

WR 531 is a core requirement for the MPTW.

WR 532 001 FRAMEWORKS FOR TECH WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course introduces students to the many frameworks for understanding the fundamental questions that shape technical communication as a practice in industry and as a field of academic study. Frameworks introduced may include rhetoric, design, ethics, social justice, network and ethics. Students will choose a framework to analyze and respond to a technical communication problem or situation of their choice and produce a portfolio piece to report and disseminate findings. This is a required core course in the MA/MS in Technical and Professional Writing.

WR 550 001 PORTLAND REVIEW

Instructor: Michael Seidlinger
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 560 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 562 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: Jessica Reed
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 563 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

The objective of this course is to understand the role of marketing and publicity in book publishing, both traditional and self-publishing, and to obtain the necessary skills to position a title, create sales materials, and develop a marketing and publicity plan. Your goal is to end the course able to demonstrate skills in target audience analysis, copywriting, metadata management, author platform building, media and reviewer outreach, budgeting and scheduling, email and social media marketing, and metrics and analytics that are directly applicable to a career in book publishing.

WR 566 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 571 001 TYPOGRAPHY, LAYOUT, PRODUCTION

Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Learn the art and craft of book design in the digital age. This comprehensive course in professional book design and production is designed to give you a solid base in typography, interior, and cover design, as well as teach you the physical process that goes into making a book a real, three-dimensional object. The course will cover Issues specific to the design of fiction and nonfiction books in a variety of genres and markets.

WR 573 001 DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

Instructor: Elizabeth Duquette
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 574 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• explain and understand the book production cycle;
• competently use industry-standard terminology;
• analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
• track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
• communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
• complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
• perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently and enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.

WR 575 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• explain and understand the book production cycle;
• competently use industry-standard terminology;
• analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
• track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
• communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
• complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
• perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently and enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.

WR 579 001 RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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