Graduate Courses Taught

ENG 506 History of the English Language

ENG 506, History of the English Language, is fully online and asynchronous—there will be no required full-class synchronous meetings, though office hours and individual or small-group meetings will be available to help students succeed in the course.

In ENG 506, we trace the history of the English language from its prehistoric Indo-European roots, through sound changes of the Middle Ages, standardization in the era of print, and diversification as a global language in the modern world. Students learn the basics of linguistics; the pronunciation and basic grammar of Old English (spoken ca. 450–1150 CE) and Middle English (spoken ca. 1150–1500); how to fully utilize dictionaries and editions of English texts; and how dialects develop through isolation, imperialism, and human interactions.

Graduate students choose between two “tracks” for their projects: the linguistics/TESOL track and the literary history track. In the linguistics/TESOL track, students complete a 15–20-page lit review on a relevant topic in “socio-linguistics and contemporary language instruction” of their choice as well as an accompanying TESOL/HEL topical lesson informed by current scholarship and debates within the field. Students choosing the literary history track produce a “mini-edition” of a pre-1700 English text of their choice as well as a 15–20-page seminar paper analyzing the text of their mini-edition utilizing both literary and linguistic methodologies.

Last taught: Spring 2024

ENG 644 Literary Theory

Topic - Disability Studies

Disability is the only minoritized identity category that anyone can join at any time; indeed, the longer one lives, the more likely—more inevitable—it is that they will. And yet, our world is constructed in ways that often disadvantage, isolate, and oppress bodies that do not conform to normative expectations of what bodies should be, do, or how they should feel. By critically analyzing the representation and production of disability in literature and culture, we have opportunities not only to better understand art, language, and the human condition in all historical periods, but also to influence new ways of understanding the human body in the humanities, sciences, and public policy today.

This course surveys methodologies for analyzing both the representation of disability in literature and the use of literature to shape cultural phenomena around disability. Our reading is light on primary texts, instead digging deeply in critical theory. We read foundational and cutting-edge scholarship, including (but not limited to) work by Lennard Davis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Alison Kafer, Robert McRuer, David T. Mitchell, Ato Quayson, Sami Schalk, Tobin Siebers, Sharon L. Snyder, and M. Remi Yergeau. Students build upon this theoretical foundation by writing essays about literature in their own geographical/temporal area of specialty through the lens of disability studies.

Last taught: Spring 2023

ENG 650 Studies in Medieval Literature

Topic - Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

In this seminar, we read—in full!—one of the most influential works in the history of English literature: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. We trace through the Tales questions of genre and poetic form, truth and fiction, disability and embodied difference, sex and marriage, sin and salvation. Seminar participants will receive extensive training in reading Middle English, learn about the late medieval context in which Chaucer wrote, and develop a deep understanding of one of the most widely read works in the British literary canon.

Last taught: Fall 2022

ENG 754 Seminar in Medieval Literature

Topic - Middle English Poetry: Lovers, Fighters, and Dreamers

In this seminar, we explore the poetic forms of Middle English from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, including Arthurian romance, dream visions, debate poems, and frame narratives. We intentionally practice reading and pronouncing Middle English, so that participants have the confidence to both research and teach literature from this period of English literary history. The goal of the course is not only to practice creating compelling literary analysis of Middle English verse forms—many of which, like blank verse in iambic pentameter, have been immensely influential for centuries—but also to prepare graduate students to teach Middle English literature, whether as an area of specialty or as part of broader survey courses.

Last taught: Spring 2024

Topic - Medieval Disability Studies

In this seminar, graduate students will (1) grapple with methods and models in critical disability studies, and (2) explore medieval literature, spanning the 5th–15th centuries and ranging across Western European literary traditions. Students will read Middle English texts in the original language (with guidance!) and read translations of Latin, Old English, Old Norse, German, and French. The goal of the course is not only to practice creating compelling analyses of medieval literature—addressing both historical contexts and matters of translation—but also to prepare graduate students to engage in the critical work of disability studies, whether as an area of specialty or as part of a broader research agenda.

Last taught: Fall 2021

Topic - Heroes, Monsters, and Other Boundary Haunters in Early Medieval Literature

Medieval boundaries—whether between peoples, places, genres, genders, the lawful and unlawful, human and non-human, heroes and monsters—were not the same as modern boundaries. They differed in ways both subtle and substantial. This course explores such boundaries through the literature of early medieval England and the Germanic North. We ask questions including: How do Beowulf and other texts in the same manuscript define monstrosity with and against gender norms, marvelous creatures, distant lands, and the thin border between life and death? How do warriors, saints, powerful young women, and figures of history, myth, and legend come to be seen as heroes? What new ways of radically reimagining boundaries and transformation—even in our modern world—are made possible through sustained analysis of the oldest English and Germanic literature?

Last taught: Fall 2019