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CAS EN 101: Encounters: Reading across Time and Space
Encounters in literature from Britain, the Americas and around the globe: early literature in English and contemporary adaptations and remediation. Explores canonical and non-canonical texts, in various genres and media, including poetry, drama, travel narrative, autobiography, novel, film, performance. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 120: Freshman Seminar
Limited enrollment. Variable topics. Through discussions and frequent writing assignments, students develop skills in the close reading of literary texts and learn to express their interpretive ideas in correct and persuasive prose. Satisfies CAS WR 120 requirement. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: First-Year Writing Seminar. -
CAS EN 121: Reading World Literature
Study of literature in English or English translation -- poetry, drama, and prose narrative -- outside of British and American traditions. Attention to such topics as cultural self-construction, relationships of historical context to artistic expression, and development of literary forms. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS EN 122: Medieval Worlds
Why does the deep medieval past continue to haunt our dreams? In novels, games, and on TV? Medieval literature and its afterlives. Topics may include Arthurian romance, otherworld visions, monsters and heroes, women's lives and writing, modern medievalism. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 125: Reading Modern Literature
Introduces key concepts for understanding major developments in modern literature. Readings in poetry, drama and fiction from varying traditions, designed to motivate an interest in some of the most engaging, and challenging, works of our time. Topics vary by instructor. In the 2018-19 Academic year, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing- Intensive Course. In the 19-20 academic year, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Exploration. -
CAS EN 126: Jewish Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - How do changing notions of ethnicity and race, religion, and gender, as well as geographical place define Jewish family and community? Topics include immigration, diaspora, and national culture; patriotism, antisemitism, and multiculturalism; Jewish identities and gender; conversion, assimilation, and acculturation. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing-intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CAS EN 127: Reading American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Readings may include works of fiction, poetry, or drama composed in America from the colonial period to the present. Attention to a wide range of literary works and historical and cultural contexts. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing- intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community. -
CAS EN 128: Representing Boston
Literary and cultural geography of Boston, from Puritan sermons to modern crime fiction. Readings by Winthrop, Wheatley, Emerson, Hopkins, Antin, Lowell, Lehane and others; required fieldwork, including four Saturday excursions: Freedom Trail, Black Heritage Trail, MFA, and Fenway Park. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS EN 129: Introduction to African American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent) - What is the African American literary tradition? In this course, we will read poetry, slave narratives, essays, speeches, tales, short stories, and novels and consider how culture, politics, and history shape African American literature. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 130: Science/Fiction
Undergraduate Prerequisites: None - Through readings in British and/or American literature, an exploration of some of the following topics: science and technology as literary themes; historical construction of science and art; similarities and differences between literary and scientific methods; the development of science fiction. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning, Writing-Intensive Course. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 132: Write Back Soon: Blackness and the Prison
This course interrogates the theme of black containment from slavery and Jim Crow to, principally, mass incarceration. The topic is explored in tandem with the development of open letter writing skills. This epistolary form allows both for the intimate engagement of individual, familiar contact and the deft inclusion of targeted eavesdroppers in order to raise the consciousness of listeners and affirm the value of personal relationships. Course texts include letters to and from prison, poetry, short stories, memoir, social science, documentaries, and critical theory. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 141: Introduction to Fiction
Introduces critical concepts for analyzing works of fiction. Readings in different periods, genres, and traditions, ranging from canonical masterpieces to unheralded literary gems, aimed to cultivate an appetite for the pleasures, and rigors, of narrative art. Topics vary by instructor. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 142: Introduction to Poetry
Introduction to the understanding, interpretation, and appreciation of a wide range of poetry. Focus on poetic form, genre, and style, with explorations of cultural and aesthetic contexts. Particular emphasis on close, careful reading and discussion. Topics vary by instructor. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Oral and/or Signed Communication. -
CAS EN 145: Introduction to Performance
Investigates the many forms performance might take, from live art in a visual art context, experimental theatre, poetry readings, video, or audio work in 20th and 21st century creative practice. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings (PLM), Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS EN 150: Children's Literature: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Imaginary Spaces
What stories do we tell about children? What guidance do we imagine them needing? Examines fairy tales; the Golden Age of Children's Literature (1860- -1920); fantasy; genre and adaptation. Authors include Grimms, Bronte, Lewis Carroll, Tolkien, Le Guin, Pullman, Sendak. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS EN 155: The Myth of the Family in Classical American Literature, Film, and Television
Blood bonds, criminality, violence, and language as they emerge across American cultural forms. Works include novels by Twain, Faulkner, Morrison, and Junot Diaz; films such as The Godfather and Boys Don't Cry; serial television such as Breaking Bad and The Wire. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS EN 160: Big Novels, Big Ideas
How do big famous novels explore philosophical ideas about knowledge, selfhood, nature, community? Are fiction and philosophy partners or rivals? Novels may include Moby Dick, Middlemarch, Invisible Man, Infinite Jest, read alongside Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Du Bois, Sartre, and others. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 162: The Ethics of Art
Does art make you good? How does it shape our values and sense of justice? Ancient thinkers (Plato, Horace) and modern theorists (Wollstonecraft, Wilde), followed by contemporary case studies. Topics may include propaganda, body aesthetics, animals, disability, pornography, graffiti, censorship. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS EN 163: Reading Shakespeare
A critical introduction to Shakespeare through intensive analyses of six or seven plays. Possible attention to such topics as literary sources, early modern stagecraft, performance history, and contemporary film adaptation. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking. -
CAS EN 170: The Graphic Novel
Examination of the rise, nature, and status of the contemporary book-length graphic novel. Topics include graphic vs. traditional novel, word and image, style and space, representations of subjectivity, trauma, and history. Authors may include Spiegelman, Bechdel, Nakazawa, Sacco, Satrapi, Backderf. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
