Advanced Course Information

Instructor: Gabriel Duckels

Course Description: This course introduces students to major critical methods and practices used in rhetorical and literary analysis across English Studies. Students examine how scholars formulate interpretive approaches, apply analytical tools, and engage in research-based inquiry. Emphasis is placed on developing reading, writing, and information literacy skills that support effective academic work in upper-division courses. The course provides structured opportunities to practice analyzing texts, evaluating arguments, and producing evidence-based interpretations within a variety of methodological frameworks. It also introduces students to key vocabulary and terminology within the field.

Satisfies: ENG 3301

Instructor: Octavio Pimentel

Course Description: This course introduces students to major critical methods and practices used in rhetorical and literary analysis across English Studies. Students examine how scholars formulate interpretive approaches, apply analytical tools, and engage in research-based inquiry. Emphasis is placed on developing reading, writing, and information literacy skills that support effective academic work in upper-division courses. The course provides structured opportunities to practice analyzing texts, evaluating arguments, and producing evidence-based interpretations within a variety of methodological frameworks. It also introduces students to key vocabulary and terminology within the field.

Satisfies: ENG 3301

Instructor: Simon Lee

Course Description: This course introduces students to major critical methods and practices used in rhetorical and literary analysis across English Studies. Students examine how scholars formulate interpretive approaches, apply analytical tools, and engage in research-based inquiry. Emphasis is placed on developing reading, writing, and information literacy skills that support effective academic work in upper-division courses. The course provides structured opportunities to practice analyzing texts, evaluating arguments, and producing evidence-based interpretations within a variety of methodological frameworks. It also introduces students to key vocabulary and terminology within the field.

Satisfies: ENG 3301

Instructor: Whitney May

Course Description: This course introduces students to major critical methods and practices used in rhetorical and literary analysis across English Studies. Students examine how scholars formulate interpretive approaches, apply analytical tools, and engage in research-based inquiry. Emphasis is placed on developing reading, writing, and information literacy skills that support effective academic work in upper-division courses. The course provides structured opportunities to practice analyzing texts, evaluating arguments, and producing evidence-based interpretations within a variety of methodological frameworks. It also introduces students to key vocabulary and terminology within the field.

Satisfies: ENG 3301

Instructor: Kate McClancy

Course Description: This course introduces students to major approaches in film and narrative theory alongside introductory production practices. Students examine key concepts such as framing, composition, sequencing, sound design, and narrative structure to understand how meaning is constructed in moving-image media. Through hands-on exercises, students apply theoretical concepts and foundational production techniques. The course treats both theory and production as objects of academic study, emphasizing analytical reasoning and technical competence. It highlights the interplay between conceptual frameworks and production choices, preparing students for further work in film studies.

Section Description: This course explores how movies work, from the physical level of 24 frames-per-second to the semiological level of indexical signs to the conceptual level of the camera-eye. As we learn the formal elements of the medium of film, looking in particular at cinematography and editing, we will put our new knowledge into action, creating our own digital videos. This is a hands-on class, and students should expect to spend significant time with a camera and be prepared for group work both inside and outside of class.

Texts: Bowen, The Grammar of the Shot, 5^th ed.; short readings and films TBD.

Contact: kmcclancy@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor

Topic: The Personal Essay

Instructor: Eric Leake

Course Description: This course examines theories and/or practices of life writing as understood in rhetoric and writing studies. Students study methods such as autoethnography, narrative inquiry, scholarly personal writing, and literacy narratives to understand how lived experience can function as a source of inquiry. The course emphasizes critical reading, methodological reflection, and the application of research techniques to personal narrative, and it foregrounds methodological reasoning and emphasizes student agency in forming interpretations. Readings and activities explore how writers document experience, make meaning from personal and cultural contexts, and apply systematic inquiry to lived events. Specific content and focus vary by section, and the course may be repeated once for credit when its topic varies.

Section Description: The personal essay is among the most vibrant genres in literature. In this course we will read and write personal essays as we investigate the roles identities and experiences play in our reading, writing, and understanding of ourselves and others. We will explore the history and range of the personal essay, and we will practice writing essays that may be artful as well as challenging. We will focus on the essay itself as a site of negotiation between the personal and the social. Our readings will include essayists of diverse backgrounds with distinct perspectives. The work of the course will culminate in the composition of a class anthology. 

A significant portion of the course will be spent in writing workshops as we work to make the class a writing community. Our reading, writing, and class discussions will address questions such as: the role of the personal in writing, how writing leads to greater understanding as well as deeper questioning, the idea of “voice” and “presence” in writing, the possibilities of connecting with and trough texts, and how identities are written and read. Through this course we will explore new ways to relate to texts as readers and writers and to reimagine what an essay can do.

Texts: Lopate, Phillip, The Art of the Personal Essay; supplementary readings to be posted to Canvas

Contact: eleake@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Jon Marc Smith

Course Description: This course introduces students to the principles and practices of writing for film, integrating analysis of published cinematic texts with hands on exercises in screenwriting. Students learn key elements of cinematic storytelling, including structure, characterization, theme, tone, and the interplay between image and dialogue. Script readings introduce a range of styles, narrative strategies, and industry conventions. Writing workshops support students in generating original material and applying the formal techniques observed in professional scripts. The course offers a grounding in screenwriting as a professional and creative discipline while maintaining a focus on analytical and practical skill development.

Satisfies: Group E; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Writing Minor

Instructor: Ben Fong

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to key basic film terms and concepts, to various theoretical approaches to the study of film, and to important debates within film theory. Its focus includes theories of spectatorship, the debate between formalism and realism, psychoanalytic and feminist theories, and cultural approaches to film. Emphasis is placed on understanding the interaction among film form, narrative, and viewer experience. By engaging with representative texts and theories, students develop foundational vocabulary and analytical skills necessary for advanced coursework in film and media studies.

Satisfies: Group D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Instructor: Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to key basic film terms and concepts, to various theoretical approaches to the study of film, and to important debates within film theory. Its focus includes theories of spectatorship, the debate between formalism and realism, psychoanalytic and feminist theories, and cultural approaches to film. Emphasis is placed on understanding the interaction among film form, narrative, and viewer experience. By engaging with representative texts and theories, students develop foundational vocabulary and analytical skills necessary for advanced coursework in film and media studies.

Satisfies: Group D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Instructor: Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to key basic film terms and concepts, to various theoretical approaches to the study of film, and to important debates within film theory. Its focus includes theories of spectatorship, the debate between formalism and realism, psychoanalytic and feminist theories, and cultural approaches to film. Emphasis is placed on understanding the interaction among film form, narrative, and viewer experience. By engaging with representative texts and theories, students develop foundational vocabulary and analytical skills necessary for advanced coursework in film and media studies.

Satisfies: Group D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Topic: Women on/in Film

Instructor: Vicki Smith

Course Description: This course provides an in depth examination of film as a textual, cultural, and aesthetic medium. Students analyze cinematic works using critical, theoretical, historical, and stylistic approaches. Specific content and focus vary by section and may include areas such as classical Hollywood cinema, silent film, world cinemas, national film traditions, documentary modes, or genre based studies. Students engage with primary films and secondary scholarship to develop skills in close visual analysis and contextual interpretation. The course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

Satisfies: Group D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture; Minor in Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Instructor: Jon Marc Smith

Course Description: This course examines films set in and concerned with the Southwestern United States, considering questions of genre, form, and medium as well as how the region’s history and culture are represented on screen. Assigned films may include westerns, border narratives, and other cinematic genres. Course content engages with and considers how the Southwest has figured in the development of moving pictures and the creation of a national mythos.

Satisfies: Group B or D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor; Southwestern Studies Minor; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture; Diversity Studies Minor

Topic: Literacy and Culture

Instructor: Octavio Pimentel

Course Description: This course examines and applies advanced expository writing techniques with an emphasis on rhetorical dexterity, clarity, and effective communication. Students study a range of rhetorical situations and practice adapting style and structure to meet the demands of various contexts and audiences. Specific content and focus vary by section and may include topics such as Nature Writing, Travel Writing, Music Writing, or Writing in Online Environments. Through guided analysis and regular writing practice, students develop the ability to assess rhetorical situations and produce effective prose across genres. The course may be repeated once for credit when its emphasis varies. 

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Concentration; Writing Minor; Minor in International Aid and Development; Pre-Law Minor

Topic: Technocultural Change and Digital Culture

Instructor: Deb Balzhiser

Course Description: This course examines and applies advanced expository writing techniques with an emphasis on rhetorical dexterity, clarity, and effective communication. Students study a range of rhetorical situations and practice adapting style and structure to meet the demands of various contexts and audiences. Specific content and focus vary by section and may include topics such as Nature Writing, Travel Writing, Music Writing, or Writing in Online Environments. Through guided analysis and regular writing practice, students develop the ability to assess rhetorical situations and produce effective prose across genres. The course may be repeated once for credit when its emphasis varies.

Section Description: The primary goal in this class is to learn ways to think and write about and in “technoculture.” We’ll ask questions such as “how do textuality, thinking, relationships, and culture, manifest differently through digital spaces and writing”? We’ll look at dynamics, effects, and changes in digital culture where communication technologies, communication, and culture meet. We’ll start by establishing shared foundations, vocabularies, and tools. Then we’ll use readings, discussions, and assignments to apply investigate your specific interests and questions. Maybe you are interested in memes, deep fakes, misinformation, politics? What is your rabbit hole? It doesn’t matter, you can (in most cases) work from there.

What You’ll Do: Play with texts. Observe effects. Identify and craft messages that mean beyond their content. Dig into your niche passions, meaningful causes, and communities—are you a gamer? radio gardener? true crime enthusiast? virtual volunteer? troll? white hat hacker? Dig deeper. Read, discuss, investigate, and analyze. Write. Mediate, remediate, remix, re/map, assemble, curate, or otherwise adjust your communications (record a podcast? curate an AI exhibit?).

 Coursework: We’ll strengthen creative and analytical thinking and apply those to close examinations of digital communications, media selection, and crafting messages using seminar discussions, writing, and feedback. You’ll read and write for and during every class. You’ll also craft 5 compositions, at least two of which will be mediated. Together these will be equivalent in thought, effort, and time to 25-30 pages of scholarly analytical papers.

Texts: Work by you and your peers • Material available through Alkek • Vincent Miller Understanding Digital Culture • Victoria Kannen & Aaron Langille Eds Virtual Identities and Digital Culture • Jones & Trice, Platforms, Pedagogies, and the Challenges of a Networked Democracy • Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s The Laws of Media.

Contact: dm45@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Concentration; Writing Minor; Minor in International Aid and Development; Pre-Law Minor

Instructor: Lauren Brentnell

Course Description: This course introduces students to strategies for effective written communication in scientific and social scientific contexts. Students learn techniques for planning, organizing, drafting, and revising documents for a range of professional and academic audiences. Students examine models of scientific communication and practice crafting documents such as abstracts, brief reports, and analytic summaries. Attention is given to clarity, concision, coherence, and ethical presentation of information. The course emphasizes adaptable writing skills that support students’ future work in research, laboratory, applied, or interdisciplinary environments. Students practice identifying audience needs, using evidence appropriately, and applying editing strategies that strengthen readability and accuracy.

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Concentration; Writing Minor; Minor in Pre-Dental Studies; Minor in Pre-Medical Studies; Minor in Pre-Pharmacy Studies; Minor in Pre-Veterinarian Studies; Minor in Social Impact through Applied Research

Instructor: Jason Coates

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Christopher Margrave

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Sandra Sidi Welch

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Mark Hernandez

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Cameron Busby

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Ben Reed

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Instructor: Julia Hubbard

Course Description: This course introduces students to foundational practices in creative writing across genres such as fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students examine craft elements including structure, imagery, voice, narrative development, and language choice while learning approaches to generating, revising, and refining original work. Workshops and guided discussions emphasize the ability to analyze texts, respond constructively to peer writing, and apply feedback to their own drafts. By exploring a range of techniques and models, students build adaptable writing skills that support continued study in creative composition and related fields.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration; Writing Minor

Topic: Who Watches the Watchmen

Instructor: Kathleen McClancy

Course Description: This course introduces students to the comparative study of film adaptations derived from a range of other media, including literature, drama, comics and graphic narratives, and more. Students explore how creators interpret, modify, and reimagine source material for the screen and analyze how narrative, style, genre, and audience expectations influence adaptation decisions and outcomes. In addition, students investigate how media strengths and limitations transform stories, characters, and concepts. Content and focus vary by section, allowing examination of different historical periods, media forms, or adaptation strategies. Emphasis is placed on analytical skills, film terminology, and comparative methodologies. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

Section Description: Who watches the Watchmen? We do—on the page, in the theater, on the television screen. This course follows the Watchmen franchise from its origins in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic, through Zack Snyder’s film adaptation, to HBO’s television series, considering not just these stories but also their inspirations from page and screen. In the process, we will consider the relationship between narrative and form, the impact of media constraints on narrative, and the nature of transmedia storytelling.

Texts: Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen; Watchmen (2009); Watchmen (2019). Other texts may include: Action Comics (1938); Detective Comics (1937); Justice League of America Vol. 1 (1960); Miracleman (1982); Batman (1989); Within Our Gates (1920); In the Heat of the Night (1967); The Matrix (1999); “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” The Adventures of Superman (1946)

Contact: kmcclancy@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group B or D; Film Concentration; Media Studies Minor

Instructor: Bond West

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the historical development of the English language from its earliest forms to the present. Students examine phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic changes that have shaped English over time. The course explores the evolution of dialects, the history of spelling and dictionaries, and the diverse sources that contribute to English vocabulary. Through readings and analytical activities, students gain an understanding of the processes and social contexts that influence language development.

Satisfies: Group E; Secondary Education Concentration; Medieval and Renaissance Minor; Minor in International Aid and Development

Instructor: Julie Weng

Course Description: This course introduces students to major developments in modern and contemporary poetry written in English and in English translation. Emphasis is placed on close reading, analysis of poetic technique, and understanding the historical and cultural contexts in and from which modern poetry emerged. Students examine a range of poets and movements to explore how form, voice, imagery, and thematic concerns evolved during the modern and contemporary period. Readings vary by instructor but will reflect the range and innovation characteristic of modern poetic expression.

Section Description: This course introduces students to modern and contemporary poetry from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will examine the evolution of poetic form and analyze how poets used creative expression to respond to transformations in culture and society.

Contact: julie.weng@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group D

Instructor: Suparno Banerjee

Course Description: This course examines significant works of literature from non-Anglophone regions of the world, read in English translation. Focusing on texts from the eighteenth century to the present, students analyze narrative structure, theme, characterization, and stylistic features while considering relevant cultural and historical contexts. The course may center one national tradition or compare several different literary genealogies and emphasizes interpretative and analytical skills. Students explore a range of genres and styles while examining how historical context, literary movements, and translation choices shape interpretation.

Section Description: This section will focus on Russian fiction in English translation. Starting from the 19th century, Russia produced some of modern western literature’s most important and influential writers whose thematic and stylistic impacts can be seen in future generations all over the world. This course will cover works by such masters of world literature as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Teffi, and Bulgakov and modern greats as Solzhenitsyn, Petrushevskaya, and the Strugatsky brothers along with contemporary writers like Alisa Ganieva. We will focus on the selected works’ historical, socio-cultural, and literary implications inside and outside Russia. The types of texts we cover will include works of classic Realism and Modernism, as well as science fiction, fantasy, and folklore.

Texts: Possible texts include Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Petrushevskaya’s There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic and Robert Chandler ed. Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida

Contact: sb67@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group C; Diversity Studies Minor; Minor in International Studies

Topic: Gods, Goddesses, and Icons

Instructor: Katie Kapurch

Course Description: This course examines mythological narratives from a range of cultures and time periods, including ancient traditions, contemporary retellings, and myths expressed through modern literature and popular culture. Students analyze how myths function within societies, how they evolve across history, and how they shape and reflect cultural values. Specific content and focus vary by section and may include mythic archetypes, heroic narratives, creation stories, and modern reinterpretations of traditional myths. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture; Religious Studies Minor

Topic: World Mythology

Instructor: Graeme Wend-Walker

Course Description: This course examines mythological narratives from a range of cultures and time periods, including ancient traditions, contemporary retellings, and myths expressed through modern literature and popular culture. Students analyze how myths function within societies, how they evolve across history, and how they shape and reflect cultural values. Specific content and focus vary by section and may include mythic archetypes, heroic narratives, creation stories, and modern reinterpretations of traditional myths. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic varies.

Section Description: So far as we can tell, myths have been a part of every culture throughout history. They resonate through our own, both as stories informing our sense of reality and as rich sources of inspiration for literature, the arts, and popular culture.

This is a literature class, so the emphasis here is on mythology as literature and on literature’s use of mythology. Having said that, the study of literature can encompass many other fields, such as history, sociology, psychology, and archaeology. There are many ways of approaching myths. They can tell us about real historical events, the values of a given society, what it means to be human, how the universe came into being, how cultural customs and rituals came into being, rules of social behavior, or the path to self-knowledge. Students will learn to consider myths from all of these perspectives.

This course will focus on four regions/time periods: The Classical mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome; Old Norse mythology; the mythology of East and Southeast Asia (primarily China and Vietnam); and African myths (primarily from West Africa—Uganda and Nigeria, specifically—but also the Congo and the African diaspora). Significant time will also be allowed for the discussion of myths from other times and places.

Texts: Thury, Eva M. and Margaret K. Devinney. Introduction to Mythology.

Contact: graeme@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture; Religious Studies Minor

Instructor: Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth

Course Description: This course introduces students to the development of narrative film from the medium’s inception to contemporary digital filmmaking. Students examine early cinematic experiments, the transition from an emphasis on spectacle to one on storytelling, and how cinematic elements such as editing, mise-en-scène, sound, and cinematography create and transform narrative traditions and conventions. Finally, it investigates how the ongoing impact of emergent technologies influences storytelling practices and cinematic form. Films and readings vary by section but focus on major developments in narrative cinema.

Satisfies: Group D; Media Studies Minor

Instructor: Whitney May

Course Description: This course examines selected works of US literature from the end of the Civil War through World War II. Students explore a range of genres, including fiction, poetry, drama, and essays, and analyze how authors responded to the cultural, social, and artistic changes of the period. Through close reading, contextual analysis, and discussion, students learn to evaluate how literary movements such as realism, naturalism, modernism, and regionalism shaped US literary expression. Text selections vary by instructor and may include authors from a variety of regions and traditions.

Satisfies: Group B

Instructor: Geneva Gano

Course Description: This course examines selected works of US literature from World War II to the present. Students explore a range of genres and movements, including postwar realism, postmodernism, and contemporary narrative experimentation, and analyze how authors use form, language, and narrative strategies to explore shifting historical and cultural contexts. The course emphasizes analytical reading, historical context, and interpretation of literary texts. Through close reading, discussion, and written analysis, students evaluate how authors respond to cultural, artistic, and technological developments that shape late twentieth and twenty first century literature. Text selections vary by instructor and may include authors from a variety of regions and traditions.

Satisfies: Group B

Instructor: Rob Tally

Course Description: This course examines selected major American novels alongside pertinent literary criticism that addresses their form, themes, and cultural contexts. Students analyze how authors use narrative structure, character, and theme to address artistic and historical concerns and trace how novelistic traditions emerge, change, and influence later American writing. Text selections vary by instructor and may include representative works from different regions, movements, and cultural contexts. Coursework emphasizes close reading, contextual interpretation, and engagement with major critical debates.

Satisfies: Group B

Topic: Great Detectives

Instructor: Suparno Banerjee

Course Description: This course examines selected works of global literature from ancient, classical, and/or modern periods. Students analyze how texts from different regions and eras engage with narrative form, language, and cultural context and explore how authors across cultures use language and narrative to convey meaning and shape literary forms. Through close reading, comparative analysis, and discussion, students explore how literary traditions reflect and respond to their historical moments. Specific content and focus vary by section and may be organized around regional literatures, thematic groupings, or genre-focused approaches. The course may be repeated once for credit when its content varies. 

Section Description: Detective fiction is one of the most popular genres of literature around the world. Whether the story involves a private detective, an amateur, or the police, untangling mysteries have fascinated and engaged the modern reader. This course will examine detective literature and film as a global genre and cover works from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. We will examine the rise of detective fiction in the 19th century and explore it in various manifestations from different parts of the world in the 20th and 21st century. We will not only cover stories featuring such great detectives as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Byomkesh Bakshi, but also cross-generic and standalone works.

Texts: Possible readings include Edgar Alan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Adventures of Byomkesh Bakshi, Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plough over the Bones of the Dead, Mario Vargas Llosa' Who Killed Palomino Molero?, Kwei Quartey's Wife of the Gods, Qiu Xiaolong's Red Mandarin Dress among others. Possible viewings include Fritz Lang's M, Alfred Hitcock's Vertigo, Niels Arden Oplev's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Alejandro Montiel's Perdida.

Contact: sb67@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in International Aid and Development; Minor in International Studies

Instructor: Chris Dayley

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to professional editing practices used in print and digital publication environments. Students learn to make editorial changes, prepare manuscripts for typesetting, and mark galley and page proofs accurately. The course covers fundamentals of layout and design, including typefaces, paper choices, headlines, and other elements that contribute to clear communication. Students also examine challenges and opportunities in desktop publishing and consider the current landscape of electronic publication. Instruction emphasizes accuracy, clarity, and professional standards while encouraging students to apply editing principles across a variety of texts.

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Emphasis; Writing Minor

Instructor: Laura Ellis-Lai

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to professional editing practices used in print and digital publication environments. Students learn to make editorial changes, prepare manuscripts for typesetting, and mark galley and page proofs accurately. The course covers fundamentals of layout and design, including typefaces, paper choices, headlines, and other elements that contribute to clear communication. Students also examine challenges and opportunities in desktop publishing and consider the current landscape of electronic publication. Instruction emphasizes accuracy, clarity, and professional standards while encouraging students to apply editing principles across a variety of texts.

Satisfies: Group E; Writing and Rhetoric Emphasis; Writing Minor

Instructor: Sara Ramirez

Course Description: This course examines narratives created by people of Mexican descent living in the United States, focusing on how writers represent social, historical, and cultural experiences. Students analyze texts as literary and historical artifacts, considering the ways narrative form, genre, and context shape meaning, and study how writers use narrative techniques to depict community histories, social environments, and cultural identities. Instruction emphasizes close reading and evidence based interpretation. Works may span multiple genres and periods, reflecting the range of storytelling traditions and lived experiences of US communities of Mexican descent.

Satisfies: Group B; Latina/o Studies Minor; Southwestern Studies Minor; Diversity Studies Minor

Instructor: Sara Ramirez

Course Description: This course examines narratives created by people of Mexican descent living in the United States, focusing on how writers represent social, historical, and cultural experiences. Students analyze texts as literary and historical artifacts, considering the ways narrative form, genre, and context shape meaning, and study how writers use narrative techniques to depict community histories, social environments, and cultural identities. Instruction emphasizes close reading and evidence based interpretation. Works may span multiple genres and periods, reflecting the range of storytelling traditions and lived experiences of US communities of Mexican descent.

Satisfies: Group B; Latina/o Minor; Southwestern Studies Minor; Diversity Studies Minor

Instructor: William Jensen

Course Description: This course is the second of a two-course sequence in a broad interdisciplinary survey of the geophysical, cultural, social, literary, and political history of the Southwestern United States. It explores the impact on the continuing representation of the region of regional and ethnic expressions of culture in architecture, art, economics, law, literature, philosophy, politics, popular culture, religion, social science, and technology. As the second course in a two-course sequence, it builds on foundational concepts while expanding the scope and complexity of interdisciplinary inquiry and evaluating how regional factors influence cultural and historical developments.

Satisfies: Group B; Southwestern Studies Minor; Diversity Studies Minor; Minor in Nature and Heritage Tourism

Instructor: Christopher Margrave

Course Description: This course provides an intermediate-level seminar for writers of fiction. Students explore narrative techniques such as characterization, plot, setting, point of view, and dialogue while practicing strategies for generating ideas and developing creative work. Workshops and peer feedback support the development of critical reading and writing skills. The course emphasizes revision as an essential part of the writing process and encourages students to experiment with literary techniques. Instruction centers on skill development and analytic engagement with fiction, allowing students to refine their own writing practices. Prerequisite: ENG 3315 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Fiction Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Ben Reed

Course Description: This course provides an intermediate-level seminar for writers of fiction. Students explore narrative techniques such as characterization, plot, setting, point of view, and dialogue while practicing strategies for generating ideas and developing creative work. Workshops and peer feedback support the development of critical reading and writing skills. The course emphasizes revision as an essential part of the writing process and encourages students to experiment with literary techniques. Instruction centers on skill development and analytic engagement with fiction, allowing students to refine their own writing practices. Prerequisite: ENG 3315 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Fiction Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Lindsay Stern

Course Description: This course provides an intermediate-level seminar for writers of fiction. Students explore narrative techniques such as characterization, plot, setting, point of view, and dialogue while practicing strategies for generating ideas and developing creative work. Workshops and peer feedback support the development of critical reading and writing skills. The course emphasizes revision as an essential part of the writing process and encourages students to experiment with literary techniques. Instruction centers on skill development and analytic engagement with fiction, allowing students to refine their own writing practices. Prerequisite: ENG 3315 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Fiction Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Bianca Perez

Course Description: This course provides an intermediate-level seminar for writers of poetry. Students explore poetic techniques such as imagery, lineation, rhythm, sound, and figurative language while practicing strategies for generating ideas and developing creative work. Workshops and peer feedback support the development of critical reading and writing skills. The course emphasizes revision as an essential part of the writing process and encourages students to experiment with poetic techniques. Instruction centers on skill development and analytic engagement with poetry, allowing students to refine their own writing practices. Prerequisite: ENG 3315 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Poetry Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Suparno Banerjee

Course Description: This course explores British prose fiction in the specific literary genre of the novel. Students analyze how authors use narrative structure, characterization, voice, and theme to shape their fictions, the course explores how historical, cultural, and artistic contexts have informed the evolution of the genre. Through close reading, contextual inquiry, and analytical writing, students develop foundational tools for understanding narrative traditions in a British context. Readings vary depending on instructor emphasis and may be organized by narrative technique, thematic development, and/or genre evolution.

Section Description: This course will examine the British novelistic tradition from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. We will trace the development of the genre in a socio-historical context and examine the major trends. Although this will not be an exhausting exploration, by focusing on some of the major authors and established works, the students will achieve a good understanding of the genre’s importance within the field of English literary studies, as well as within Western culture in general. We will also read each individual work closely to form a detailed critical opinion.

Texts: Possible readings include Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Dickens’ David Copperfield, Orwell’s 1984, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

Contact: sb67@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group A

Topic: Queer and Trans Memoirs

Instructor: Geneva Gano

Course Description: This course examines themes of gender and sexuality across various genres and media in the context of narrative technique, formal structure, and character development. The course utilizes a variety of interpretative models to examine representations of gender and sexuality. Assignments include close reading and analytical writing that encourage the practice of interpretation and argumentation. Emphasis varies by section and may include studies in prose, poetry, film, or digital media. This course may be repeated once for credit when its topic varies.

Section Description: This course is focused on the queer and trans memoir. The memoir is a literary mode that foregrounds the writer’s acts of honest reflection and self-expression about their own life experiences. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the memoir is one of the most prominent and compelling vehicles for queer and trans storytelling. In this course, we will try to discover why the imperative to tell one’s own story may be seen as an especially queer gesture. This course attempts to answer that question by reading, reflecting about, and analyzing queer and trans memoirs that have been published since the 1969 Stonewall uprising: that is, the era of LGBTQIA+ struggle for civil and social equality.

Texts: Memoirs by Leslie Feinberg, Audre Lorde, Janet Mock, Phoebe Kobabe, and others.

Contact: gmgano@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group B or D; Minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Diversity Studies Minor

Instructor: Nithya Sivashankar

Course Description: This course introduces students to literature written for children, from traditional tales to modern publications, examining a range of genres including picture books, poetry, novels, and folklore. It considers literary history, narrative strategies, aesthetic features, and the development of children’s literary traditions. Students examine narrative techniques, thematic concerns, and aesthetic features while learning how to analyze and interpret texts intended for young readers, considering how authors use structure, style, and illustration to communicate ideas specifically to children. Readings vary by instructor.

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Instructor: Katie Kapurch

Course Description: This course examines a selection of classic and contemporary literature written for adolescent readers across a range of genres, including the bildungsroman, young adult/YA, graphic narratives, and/or memoirs and other nonfiction, and considers how authors modify literary forms and traditions to address themes relevant to adolescent audiences. Students examine narrative techniques, thematic elements, and historical and cultural contexts that shape adolescent literature and consider how texts intended for adolescent and young adult audiences engage with cultural, social, and literary traditions. Readings vary by instructor.

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Instructor: Nithya Sivashankar

Course Description: This course examines a selection of classic and contemporary literature written for adolescent readers across a range of genres, including the bildungsroman, young adult/YA, graphic narratives, and/or memoirs and other nonfiction, and considers how authors modify literary forms and traditions to address themes relevant to adolescent audiences. Students examine narrative techniques, thematic elements, and historical and cultural contexts that shape adolescent literature and consider how texts intended for adolescent and young adult audiences engage with cultural, social, and literary traditions. Readings vary by instructor.

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture

Instructor: Sara Ramirez

Course Description: This course examines selected writing by women from a range of historical periods and genres. Students analyze how women authors use language, form, and narrative strategies to address artistic, social, and intellectual concerns in their particular contexts and how they contribute to and interact with broader literary traditions. Simultaneously, they consider how women writers have created literary traditions of their own. Readings vary by instructor and may include poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and other forms, organized by historical period, theme, or genre.

Satisfies: Group C; Diversity Studies Minor; Minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Instructor: Cory DeBoest

Course Description: This course familiarizes future secondary teachers with the discipline of English as a formal academic field and the practice of teaching English Language Arts. It covers curriculum design, instructional planning, assessment strategies, and approaches to teaching reading, writing, language, and literature. Through analysis, practice, and reflection, students develop foundational competencies necessary for effective and ethically grounded secondary ELA instruction. The course is a required part of the student teaching sequence and prepares students for the English TExES (Texas Examination of Educator Standards).

Satisfies: Group E; Secondary Education Concentration

Instructor: Mark Hernandez

Course Description: This course examines English syntax as described by traditional, structural, and transformational grammarians. Students learn how different grammatical models describe the structure of English phrases, clauses, and sentences and how models of syntactic structures can be applied to analyze authentic language data. The course treats grammatical theories as tools for linguistic inquiry rather than prescriptive models of correct usage. Students practice identifying syntactic patterns, constructing analyses, and evaluating theoretical explanations. Assignments include problem sets, analytic exercises, and written explanations of syntactic phenomena.

Satisfies: Group E; Secondary Education Concentration

Instructor: Steve Wilson

Course Description: This course examines selected works associated with the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century in the United States, focusing on how writers engaged with literary, philosophical, and cultural questions of the era. Students analyze prose, poetry, and related texts to understand how Romantic ideas developed within the US and the literary relationships by which authors influenced one another. Coursework explores how authors use language, imagery, and narrative structures to engage with Romantic concerns such as imagination, nature, and individual experience.

Section Description: Synergy. It is a concept well-known among literary scholars. There are many instances throughout literary history of genius springing up among a small group of friends who fuel one another's creativity: the Bloomsbury Group, the Beat Generation, the English Romantic Poets. One such American group whose synergy led to one of the great periods in the literature of the U.S. were the Transcendentalists of Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Known also as "the American Renaissance," this era composed what would be considered by many as the first truly “American” voice in literature. During this semester, we will explore the ideas that inspired these writers, the social environment that shaped them, the reforms they advocated, the literature that came to be representative of an "American vision,” and some of the writers they influenced beyond their own circle. Among them are, indeed, those very writers who came to be derided in the 1970s and 80s as "dead white guys" by critics and writers calling for a more diverse literary landscape. In all fairness, though, the ideas of the Transcendentalists spoke for a diverse America; for instance, gay poet Walt Whitman, whose work is still radically inclusive in its views on race and sexuality, created in Leaves of Grass a practical application of Emerson's philosophies. Thus, by the end of this term, we should discover the ways in which Transcendentalism underlies and/or shapes much of American thought even today.

Texts: Emerson, The Portable Emerson (Penguin); Thoreau, The Portable Thoreau (Penguin); Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (Penguin); Alcott, Transcendental Wild Oats (Applewood); Melville, Bartleby and Benito Cereno (Dover); Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Dover); Douglass, excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Contact: sw13@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Early Literature; Group B

Topic: James Joyce

Instructor: Julie Weng

Course Description: This course studies the works of a single global author, such as Dante Alighieri, Anita Desai, Paolo Friere, or Chinua Achebe, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Coursework offers the opportunity for detailed study of the author’s literary output in its historical and cultural context. Students analyze how the author’s literary techniques, stylistic features, and thematic concerns shape selected works and how those works interact with larger literary movements and historical environments. Specific content and focus vary by section, and the course may be repeated once for credit when its emphasis varies.

Section Description: Perhaps no modern writer has been more influential than James Joyce. His works have been praised, parodied, translated, and banned. They have been taught in university classrooms, read aloud in pubs, and adapted into films. In academic criticism, scholars point to Joyce’s texts to delineate the boundaries of modernism and postmodernism, to consider the power of literary form to capture individual human consciousness, and to demonstrate the flexibility and playfulness of the English language itself. Regarding his genre-bending “novel” Ulysses alone, TS Eliot called it “the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.” Ford Madox Ford affirmed the cataclysmic shift caused by the novel, saying that “Certain books change the world. This, success or failure, Ulysses does.” Virginia Woolf offered the text more critical words, writing, “Never did any book so bore me.” And yet her most celebrated novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is often read as an homage to Ulysses.

This course will study the major writings of James Joyce. We will grapple with his artistic development over the course of his writing career, including his increasingly explosive experiments with literary form. We will also position Joyce’s works within an Irish historical context, considering their commentary on Ireland’s status as a colony of Great Britain. Pervading all of our class discussions will be a focus on the individual human and the sympathy Joyce elicits for his flawed protagonists. Indeed, Joyce challenges us to forge a new concept of what it means to be the hero(ine) of a story.

Contact: julie.weng@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Single Author; Group C; International Studies Minor

Topic: Dante

Instructor: Leah Schwebel

Course Description: This course studies the works of a single global author, such as Dante Alighieri, Anita Desai, Paolo Friere, or Chinua Achebe, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Coursework offers the opportunity for detailed study of the author’s literary output in its historical and cultural context. Students analyze how the author’s literary techniques, stylistic features, and thematic concerns shape selected works and how those works interact with larger literary movements and historical environments. Specific content and focus vary by section, and the course may be repeated once for credit when its emphasis varies.

Section Description: This course will provide you with an opportunity to read one of the greatest works ever written: Dante’s Divine Comedy. There will be neither quizzes nor exams; I will not ask you to memorize dates or names. Rather, we will spend our time thinking, talking, and writing about a text that remains as relevant today as it was in the late Middle Ages. Special attention will be given to Dante’s classical and contemporary sources, and to the historical, political, and literary context of the figures that populate Dante’s poetic world.

Texts: The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso (Oxford) trans. Durling/Martinez

Contact: las235@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Early Literature; Single Author; Group C; International Studies Minor; Medieval and Renaissance Studies Minor

Instructor: Doug Dorst

Course Description: This course provides an advanced and intensive workshop in fiction writing, emphasizing craft, analytical reading, and revision practices appropriate to a senior level seminar. Students study narrative techniques such as characterization, point of view, structure, style, and pacing while offering and receiving evidence based feedback on works in progress. Coursework includes structured workshops designed to promote constructive, evidence based critique of peer writing. Through these workshops, independent drafting, and sustained revision, students develop a final portfolio of creative work demonstrating growth in fiction writing skills. Prerequisite: ENG 3348 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Fiction Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Chad Hammett

Course Description: This course provides an advanced and intensive workshop in fiction writing, emphasizing craft, analytical reading, and revision practices appropriate to a senior level seminar. Students study narrative techniques such as characterization, point of view, structure, style, and pacing while offering and receiving evidence based feedback on works in progress. Coursework includes structured workshops designed to promote constructive, evidence based critique of peer writing. Through these workshops, independent drafting, and sustained revision, students develop a final portfolio of creative work demonstrating growth in fiction writing skills. Prerequisite: ENG 3348 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Fiction Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Steve Wilson

Course Description: This course provides an advanced and intensive workshop in poetry writing, emphasizing craft, analytical reading, and revision practices appropriate to a senior level seminar. Students study poetic techniques such as imagery, lineation, rhythm, sound, and figurative language while offering and receiving evidence based feedback on works in progress. Coursework includes structured workshops designed to promote constructive, evidence based critique of peer writing. Through these workshops, independent drafting, and sustained revision, students develop a final portfolio of creative work demonstrating growth in poetry writing skills. Prerequisite: ENG 3349 with a grade of "D" or better.

Satisfies: Group E; Creative Writing Concentration (Poetry Track); Writing Minor

Instructor: Leah Schwebel

Course Description: This course examines the works of Geoffrey Chaucer within the historical, cultural, linguistic, and literary contexts of late medieval England. Students analyze selections from The Canterbury Tales and other Chaucerian texts using close reading, genre analysis, and contextual interpretation to analyze narrative technique, language, and historical influences. Coursework explores how Chaucer engages with social, religious, and political conditions of his time while considering texts as historical and literary artifacts. Readings, topics, and analytical emphases vary by instructor.

Satisfies: Early Literature; Single Author; Group A; Medieval and Renaissance Minor

Instructor: Joe Falocco

Course Description: This course explores Shakespeare’s later works including the problem comedies, the tragedies, and the plays of his final years. It emphasizes reading in depth, and course texts include the plays, significant critical materials, and selected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Coursework explores characterization, language, dramatic structure, and theatrical context. Students study the historical, literary, and cultural context for the plays while engaging critically with major scholarly interpretations. Specific texts, emphases, and critical materials vary by instructor.

Satisfies: Early Literature; Single Author; Group A; Medieval and Renaissance Minor

Topic: Teenage Rebels

Instructor: Gabriel Duckels

Course Description: This course offers an advanced study in children’s or adolescent literature. Specific content and focus vary by section, and the course may be organized around a historical period, geographic region, genre, theme, single author, or theoretical approach. Coursework emphasizes the development of critical and research skills appropriate to upper-level literary study and scholarly questions particular to the fields of children’s and adolescent literature. Students practice advanced literary analysis, research methods, and evidence based interpretation. The course may be repeated once for credit when emphasis varies.

Section Description: This class will focus on the "teenage rebel" as a classic figure in adolescent literature and culture. Images of the teenage rebel are central to images of the United States as a nation, future and past. This class will introduce students to the study of adolescent literature as a field of literary studies, and provide a critical framework to understand and interpret the quintessential presence of the "teenage rebel" in media, literature, and culture.

Contact: xjs21@txstate.edu

Satisfies: Group C; Minor in Studies in Popular Culture